'Net Features : inbound marketing

Inbound Marketing is NOT the New SEO

Administrator — Wed, 12 Jun 2013 14:00:00 GMT

:: Travis Bliffen, SEO Proz ::

Once upon a time in a Web before Google Panda, Penguin and Knowledge Graph SEO, companies only had to worry about choosing the right keywords and getting them to rank well, but not anymore. These changes have led the SEO experts of the Web to scream, “Inbound marketing is the new SEO,” but the fact is, SEO is a form of inbound marketing. Those same experts have been using inbound marketing all along, they just didn’t know it.

What exactly is inbound marketing?

The definition of inbound marketing is a tricky subject in itself as the answer is often dependent on the person answering and the context of the word use. Generally, in-bound marketing can be described as marketing designed to lead customers or readers in. It’s an intentional effort to create traffic and keep it. The primary focus of inbound marketing is bringing in people and making them happy, so they, in turn, bring in more people. SEO, being the optimization of content via keywords to rank well for search terms on Google, is just one form of inbound marketing. If you really think about it, SEO is just a predecessor to inbound marketing in terms of popularity. It was the first popular form of the technique. To say that inbound marketing is the “new” SEO is only figuratively true in that the whole kit-and-caboodle now encompasses the SEO industry that online advertising created for search engines which was previously limited to just SEO, but on a literal level, SEO always was inbound marketing.

How you can embrace inbound marketing:

The continued trend in search engine algorithm changes is for user enjoyment. It’s about quality interesting content that makes for longer dwell times, lower bounce rates, and higher click-through rates that encourage users to create backlinks and social media signals which in turn raise search engine ranking. So those who want to evolve beyond simple keyword SEO and embrace inbound marketing need to also progress towards a marketing scheme that is about people and not search engines.

This means making changes that don’t necessarily do anything at all for a pages search engine rank—at least not directly. It means making small changes that make people happy that fall under the blanket term inbound marketing.

Social media marketing:

If you’ve ever seen content go viral with millions of Facebook “likes” and “shares” you understand the importance of social media marketing. Social media marketing cuts out the search-engine middle man feeding your content directly to your target audience. The trick is locating that target audience and then reaching them. The best way to do that is to pay attention first to those who like your content and second, what those within that niche are sharing and liking.

Content marketing such as blogs, podcasts, newsfeeds, and Web copy:

Next, SEO has always just been within content, but previously the focus was more on compiling keywords in a readable manner at the right density, in today’s search engine world content does matter. Take the information gleaned from your social media research and create quality content that appeals to your audience. In addition, create it regularly—remember the goal is to not only bring people in, but keep them.

Natural backlink campaigning:

Aim to create backlinks that real people will find useful. In the old Google world backlinks may have simple served to create a link for Google to crawl, today Google wants to see people visit that link and stick around. Besides, if people click your link and enjoy, they may just create more backlinks for you.

Page quality improvements for users:

Optimizing your page load speed, offering an easily navigable website, providing superior customer service, and an overall voice that you care about your customers are all wonderful ways to keep people coming back as well as get them to recommend your company to others. Those recommendations will in-turn raise your search ranking.

It’s unquestionable that online search engine ranking matters to businesses, so businesses looking to continue to cash in on online marketing have to learn the rest of inbound marketing and rise above SEO if they want to rank well on search engines, but in bound marketing certain isn’t new—even if nobody realizes that’s what SEO has always been a part of.

Travis Bliffen is the founder of The SEO Proz, a search marketing company located near Marion, IL. After working in the industry under the guidance of other search-marketing professionals, he launched The SEO Proz in early 2012. Since then he has worked with numerous local, national and international clients to improve their search rankings.

Are You an All-Star Marketing Athlete?

Allison Howen — Thu, 13 Sep 2012 17:47:00 GMT

You may not be able to beat Tom Brady on the football field, but with a little investment in planning and inbound marketing strategies, you have the ability to be an all-star athlete within the marketing industry – according to a recent study from Optify.

The inbound marketing software provider announced the findings of its first annual survey on the B2B marketing athlete, which are individuals who have mastered multiple channels, tactics and techniques to become successful within the marketing industry. The survey found that 47 percent of marketers were labeled as “Star Performers,” because these marketers consistently met their lead-generation goals by investing more time per week on planning, as well as exhibited the highest scores for attitude and focus.

According to the study, marketing athletes tend to be very productive – with 82 percent reporting that they spend the majority of their time on activities important to their business. The most time-consuming task is content creation and management, with 30 percent of respondents claiming to spend more than 15 hours per week on these tasks and 40 percent spending between 5-15 hours. To break down tasks even further, the areas that occupy the most of marketers’ time include content (30 percent), lead generation (17 percent) and website management (16 percent).

The study also found that star performers tend to invest more time and effort into inbound marketing tactics such as content creation, PR, SEO and social media. However, when it comes to tactics, social media is undoubtedly the most popular choice – with 91 percent of respondents claiming that they are social media experts. In fact, more marketers spend at least 15 hours per week on social media than any other tactic, and only 16 percent report spending no time on social media. On the other hand, paid search is the least popular tactic with 57 percent of marketers not spending any time in this area.

It is also important to note that even though 73 percent of respondents claim to spend less than five hours per week on planning, it seems as though this is a very important task that shouldn’t be overlooked. This is because 42 percent of star performers report spending more than five hours per week on planning, while 14 percent report spending more than 15 hours per week on this task.

“Marketing athletes are the unsung heroes of B2B marketing, and this survey puts into perspective the amount of work and knowledge they possess,” said Rob Eleveld, CEO of Optify. “The study confirms our many discussions with customers and prospects; marketing athletes work across multiple channels to achieve their aggressive goals. We are building Optify to help them manage and track all their marketing campaigns in one single place.”

Other findings from the study reveal that most marketing athletes handle key marketing activities in house. However, a large percentage of respondents also outsource expertise-heavy and labor-intensive tasks to contractors and digital marketing agencies, such as Web design and maintenance (45 percent), SEO (35 percent) and PR (33 percent).

To sum up the study, key factors that set star performers apart from their peers included more time spent on planning and execution in areas directly related to generating revenue, and less time spent in non-productive areas like administrative work. Additionally, star performers tend to have a more positive attitude and focus more time in vital areas like lead generation and content development.

Optify Adds Closed-Loop Email Marketing

Linc Wonham — Fri, 15 Jun 2012 14:30:00 GMT

Business-to-business software vendor Optify is expanding its inbound marketing solution by adding closed-loop email marketing to its suite.

Optify’s closed-loop system expands the sales pipeline from every email drop and measures more than just click-throughs and leads. The new solution provides sales teams with a list of the contacts that showed the most research activity on their company’s website after receiving the email, rather than just those who filled out a form.

“The new email marketing application is a valuable addition to Optify’s Inbound Marketing Suite because it allows us to execute campaigns to a very targeted subset of our house list,” says Benjamin Christie of GourmetAds. “And when they respond, Optify automatically appends their previously anonymous visitor history from our website to their contact record. The ability to track all of our online marketing efforts in one integrated solution is another huge plus we’ve seen.”

The new addition includes the following key features:

•    Closed-Loop Visitor & Response Tracking: Online marketers can track all of their visitors’ online research activity, driven by all of their marketing programs, including email campaigns.

•    Contact Manager & Activity History: Automatically ties a contact’s anonymous visitor history to their record the first time they click your email.

•    List Segmentation: Segment campaigns to target specific subsets of a master list. Optify makes it simple to create and manage various lists within one account.

•    HTML Email Builder: Create personalized emails through a simplified process of customized templates, or cut and paste existing HTML directly into Optify.

•    ExactTarget Embedded Technology: Seamlessly built on top of the ExactTarget Embedded email delivery platform giving Optify customers an enterprise-class email platform with industry-leading deliverability rates.

Optify’s email marketing solution is available immediately with the Professional Edition.

Prioritizing SEO with Pardot’s Keyword & Competitor Monitoring

Pete Prestipino — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 15:40:00 GMT

Marketing automation software Pardot is offering up some new search engine optimization focused tools (modules) that are worth a look.

Pardot’s now includes a feature for monitoring keywords and competitors within the cloud-based system. Marketers can track site rankings in Google and Bing, see the ranking difficulty, the average cost per click and the approximate search volume for an exact query. Marketers can perform side-by-side comparisons of keywords (filtering by tag or by rank) and even have access to an audit of historical data to track performance over time.

The marketing automation solution is also offering up a competitor monitoring tool, to see how their SEO campaign performance measures up to that of competitors. Users can track a competitors PageRank, inbound links and indexed pages as well as view historical data to view trends over time.

"We're excited to provide our customers with this advanced technology," said Zach Bailey, vice president of products at Pardot."As inbound marketing becomes more competitive, the search marketing module will give Pardot clients the insight they need to gain an advantage."