Radius Global Official Blog

Google has jolted the phenomenon of online marketing by introducing Google panda

2011-04-10T10:21:00.000-07:00

Google has made another change in its algorithm known as “Panda” and surprised many of website owners & Internet marketers with significant drop and raise in website traffic.

Unlike “Caffeine”, “Panda” is more intelligent and a big threat to websites with low quality & duplicate content to be penalized by Google, resulting in a drop in search engine ranking, thus reducing organic and targeted traffic, and eventually losing business opportunities and revenue.

Google Panda is

GOOD FOR:

• Websites with quality & unique content.
• Content writers
• Visitors

BAD FOR:

• Immature and new comer online marketers
• Agents / Companies try to fool their clients and google with duplicate content and keyword stuffing.
• Short term money making online ventures

Gear up & benefit from Google Panda

Let me give you some tips to get benefit from this new update.

1. Create quality, unique content
You need to create great & unique content that is beneficial to your site visitors. But still don’t ever lose your focus from your keywords.

2. Human first, search engine second
As many SEO specialists were suggesting a long time ago before Google Panda exist, the suggestion is in creating your website content, focus on your real audience first, then search engine second. This means: No keyword stuffing or duplicate content.

3. Rewrite your website content
This is probably resource intensive, but you might want to consider rewriting or removing your sites’ low quality and/or duplicate content.

Final Words:
To me Google Panda is a good development and it will help in developing good content and making the internet a better place.
Dear content writers this is a gift for you, get ready for work loads.

Happy Reading

For more about online marketing, keep visiting.

Author: Faheem ul afaq, CEO, Radius Global

Hijab Store

Convert your thankyou page into another Opportunity

2010-10-06T14:52:00.000-07:00

You’ve gotten the hard part done, getting your website visitor to convert into a lead.

Now what? Don’t just treat your thank you page, the page that a new lead is presented with once they have submitted a form, as an afterthought. Use it as another opportunity to provide further value to potential customers. Here’s 10 ways to take advantage of those thank you pages that are normally your visitors exit point.

1. Bring Back the Navigation - A good landing page should only give one option to the visitor, which means removing the site's navigation from that page. However, once you’ve gotten that visitor to convert you’ll want to give them every opportunity to continue digging through your site by placing the navigation on the thank you page.

2. Subscribe to Your Blog - Give your new leads the chance to subscribe to your blog by email or through RSS from your thank you page. Don’t just say “Subscribe to our blog!”, but tell them why they should subscribe and what type of valuable information they’ll gain on a regular basis.

3. Connect in Social Media - Just like giving people the option to subscribe to your blog, give them insight and reason into why they should connect with you on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn. What are you going provide that is worth paying attention to?

4. Encourage Sharing of the Offer - The visitor clearly found your offer worthwhile and they most likely have friends who will feel the same way. Make it easy for them to tweet, post, and email the landing page to their network by adding share buttons.

5. Direct Visitors to Other Relevant Content - Based on the offer the lead converted on, you should have a good idea of what content is right for them. Provide links and explanations to blog articles and other web pages that relate to the offer.

6. Promote Your Webinar or Event - The thank you page is a great place to get more people to sign up for your live events. Once again, explain the value of the webinar or event and how it will help them and their business.

7. Get Feedback - Provide your new leads with a place where they can give feedback on the offer they received. This feedback will be valuable in planning future offers and builds credibility with your new leads.

8. Set Expectations - If you haven’t already on the landing page, a thank you page is a great place where you can set expectations as to how and when they’ll receive your offer. Give the visitor a clear message of their next step or what you’ll be doing shortly.

9. Reconvert - Depending on the initial conversion, you can use the thank you page as a place to bring them further down your funnel and become more sales ready. Talk to them about your free trial, demos, or even how they can connect with a sales rep.

10. Really Thank Them! - Saying “thank you” just isn’t enough. Explain why you’re so grateful that they found your offer and took action. Even though they’re not a customer yet you can begin treating them like one. There’s nothing like a great first impression.

For more about online marketing follow Radius Global 's official blog.

Special thanks to HubSpot

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Secret of Caffeine in Google for Search engine optmizers

2010-09-20T11:02:00.000-07:00

Google has recently changed its indexing system to "Google Caffeine" from its former one, whats the name of the former one? That I don't know. But one thing is certain, that this will change they way websites rank on a keyword in which SEOs optimizes. But first, what is Caffeine?

The new algorithm Caffeine is the new indexing system of Google that provides fresher and faster results compared to the old indexing system. Which also means website rankings, blog posts, forum posts & published news changes rapidly over a short peroid of time. And this has been in the news since last year, that SEOs & internet marketers will have a new pain in the a.. coming their way. I remember Matt Cutts saying "create quality contents" but now I wonder if he will say "create latest quality contents". Caffeine does not only show us text results this time, it show also provide other types of contents like, videos (from youtube) and contents from social networks like twitter and facebook.

Caffeine is already in effect and many businesses are affected by it. Business websites who rely from search engines suffer from a fall in rankings which causes a decrease in traffic. New contents are pushed up while old contents ae pulled down. Now one question that may arise is "what if the no new content for the website? will its ranking continue to go down?".

We are still in the early phase of the implementation, we will see more changes in the upcoming days. Others may resort to creating a blog section for their websites in order to publish new and fresh contents so the the googlebot may pick it up.

By the way, its not the indexing system that they changed. Google also updated its algorithm.

For a free website analysis for search engine optimization contact Radius Global

Hijab Store

Internet Marketing – a way to the future for Entrepreneurs in Pakistan

2010-02-25T22:27:00.000-08:00

Internet Marketing has turned another page in the way of doing businesses in Pakistan. People spend more time on internet rather than with their families. There are million examples to quote here. We no more spend traditional lives. People use internet whether they are in office, on the road, on dinner table, or while shopping. No matter where they are, but they are connected to their friends, favorite things, stars etc. Its sort of addiction, but fortunately this addiction is good in purpose. Its sort of learning medium too. Nothing is hidden from the world of Internet.

To show the craze of Internet in Pakistan, i do have few facts to quote here:

+ Around 18.5 million internet users in Pakistan i.e. 11% of total population (source: PTA & www.internetworldstats.com)

+ Pakistan is ranked among top 5 countries in terms of internet & mobile usage & growth (source: Morgan Stanley)

+ Conventional media consumption (e.g. newspapers, TV, etc.) has reduced & ppl generally ignore ‘push’ advertising

+ New media consumption (e.g. internet, mobile, etc.) is increasing exponentially & ppl tend to ‘pull’ what they like e.g. video-on-demand (YouTube)

+ 81% of internet users enter websites via a search engine (source: Forrester Research)

+ 77% of internet users search daily & 38% search four or more times daily (source: Piper Jaffary Investment Research)

Importance Of Social Media:

I have been writing on social media from quite some time. So, i think, there is no need to explain what social media is, and what are the benefits of social media. Just scroll down this page, and you will find couple of blogs on social media there. But still, I would like to rephrase the defination of social media here, because this blog is dedicated to all the businessmen in Pakistan, and very few business people know the importance of social media.

Social media is a next generation e-marketing tool. Its sort of word of mouth marketing involving peer to peer recommendations. For more information, please read blog “Scope of Social Media Marketing in 2010″.

Just go through the following eye-opening stats about social media usage in Pakistan.

+ 1,332,760 active Facebook users in Pakistan. 57% male : 43% female (www.nickburcher.com/)

+ Peer recommendation is more effective than a push strategy

+ 160% growth on linked-in in last 1 year

To conclude this blog, internet had brought a revolution in advanced countries earlier. Now, is the time for Pakistan. And i believe, in near future, we are going to hit in internet usage. People no more search for information, information itself reaches to the People through Internet. So, doing a business in Pakistan, without Internet is not only a mistake but also an evil. I, not only being an Internet Marketer but also as a normal Pakistani, strong recommend all the businesses to go for internet marketing strategies. Its most cost effective marketing tool currently available to perform all the functions not only effectively but also efficiently.

For further details and free advice about your company product’s current scenario and future prospects, you can contact our Internet Marketing Specialist either at (+92-321-5556262) or e-mail him at (afaq@radiusglobal.org) with your query and contact information. He will reply back as soon as possible.

Good luck! keep smiling and reading. :)

"marketing triplets" (marketing in exactly three words)

2010-01-28T09:30:00.000-08:00

I dislike the old and traditional ways of participating in a conversation. Here I would like to start the "marketing triplets" (marketing in exactly three words). To help get you started, I would like to add few of my own:

Accelerating your business.
Analyze then deliver.
Optimized product value.

So, use your brain and come up with marketing triplets of your own. It will be fun, believe me! :)

How Big Companies Fail in Providing Customer Service?

2010-01-23T11:08:00.000-08:00

Customers are lifeblood for all the businesses throughout the world. From my point of view, a good customer service is all about bringing customers back. Most importantly, customer service is strongly inter-linked with word-of-mouth. A bad customer service experience with a product or service multiplies its after affects many times when an infected customer discusses that experience with his or her peers. And we all know that, in this era of globalization and social networking, people trust more on peer recommendations rather than traditional ways of marketing.

That’s why most of the leading companies in world do have separate customer service departments. But unfortunately not all of them have been able to provide what their customers perceive and want from them. We have seen lot of businesses failing just because of poor customer service.

Case in point:

There are too many examples to quote here but I would like to share my personal bad experience with one of the leading telecom companies of Pakistan “Wateen Telecom”. I will take this live example to show “how big companies fail in providing customer service?”

I have (infact had) a Wateen Wireless Broadband Connection. I had been using Wateen services since 2008 but I hadn’t used internet service of Wateen from three months. But recently, at the time of need, Wateen discontinued the service. So, I called their 111-365-111 UN number to inquire about this termination of service matter and to renew my account. But it was all against my expectations.

First of all, I went through the voice prompts and looked for appropriate option to select, but unexpectedly there was no option for “recharge your account”. Then I opted for “0” to talk with the customer service representative. As per newly launched promotion by Wateen, I asked him to waive off my dues for last three months. CSR asked me to hold for a moment but, after a long hold of almost 10 minutes, he resumed the call and said, “This offer is for our valued customers only, and you don’t fall in that category. You need to submit all the pending dues”. And I freaked out after hearing that I, being their customer since last year or so, still don’t fall in the valued customers’ category.

I asked him,” Am I not your valued customer?”, and he responded, “No sir it’s not that, you are our valued customer, but this offer is for those customers who purchased the new connection in 2009 only”. Within no time, I responded, “How long I have been using your services?”. CSR replied, “But sir you purchased the connection in 2008”. I furiously replied, “As I have been using your services since 2008, so I must be your more valuable customer than those who purchased in 2009?”. And he kept silent for a moment and replied, “No sir, there is nothing I can do for you”.

I responded, “What do you mean by that? In other words, you are asking me to stop using your services, and through your connection, rite?” and he finally committed, “Yes sir, you can stop using our services”.

Ending note:

Well, customer service is an art but it’s also the only area where all the companies can achieve the impossible and make a difference by influencing customer's choices. I request all the readers of my article to share this case with your peers and set an example for all the companies to learn from these types of scenarios.

The whole purpose of this article is to create awareness of customer service value among companies and professionals. In this competitive world, we must focus on customer service through professional development training. We must train our teams on regular basis and should equip them with latest methods for handling queries of customers.

Scope of Social Media Marketing in 2010

2010-01-10T04:31:00.000-08:00

A vision without a proper plan and action is nothing. Give your business a winning edge this year by figuring out certain areas for improvement. We must focus on new and most productive ways of marketing of our products and services to achieve our objectives and goals in a most efficient and effective manner.

We all know that online marketing is the most cost effective and result-oriented medium of marketing today. Considering this fact, social media marketing is the best of all. So, this blog is all about social media marketing. I would like to answer the question of most of my peers that, “Is social media a fad? Or is it the biggest shift since Industrial Revolution?”

It’s a fact that social media is the easiest to justify in terms of ROI as compared to other marketing strategies. Let me quote some figures here first:

• According to the experts, “Generation Y” will outnumber “Baby Boomers” in year 2010. Out of them, 96% have already joined social networks.
• Interesting thing to know that, 1 out of 8 couples married in USA last year met through social networks.
• Facebook added 100 million users in less than 9 months. It means if Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 4th largest right after United States.
• 80% of the companies are using LinkedIn as their primary tool to find employees.
• 80% of twitter usage is through mobile devices. It means people love to update anywhere, anytime.
• Wikipedia has over 13 million articles.
• There are over 200,000,000 blogs on internet today. And above 50% of the bloggers post content or tweet daily, like me.
• About 80% of consumers trust peer recommendations. Only 14% trust advertisements.
• Only 18% of the traditional TV ads generate positive ROI.
• More than 1.5 million pieces of content are shared on Facebook daily.
• 24 of the 25 largest newspapers are experiencing record declines in circulation.

People say social media is the word of mouth. It’s not the word of mouth; it’s the world of mouth in fact. I believe that today, people care more about how their social graph ranks products and services than how Google ranks them. In current era we no longer search for news, the news finds us no matter where we are. Similarly, in near future, we no longer search for new products and services. They will automatically find us via social media.

So, social media isn’t a fad, it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. It’s not an economy, it’s a people driven economy rather. So we must admit here that social media is not a fad. It’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate. It’s definitely a biggest shift since Industrial revolution.

Following are some of my guidelines for successful social media marketing in 2010:

• Remember successful social media marketing programs involve listening and participation by audience.
• Beware of the fact that you are not the controller of the message. It’s always people driven communication.
• Always welcome participation, feedback and co-creation. Let people speak their own words and point of views.
• Don’t let people to change the road map. Focus should be on final objectives.
• Be patient and humble.
• Be optimistic and opportunistic.
• Be collaborative.
• Being fake is an evil.
• Don’t focus on just one social media network.
• Not listening to your audience is a crime.
• Never go against the rules of social networks.
• Excessive push strategy is a bad strategy.

SOCIAL MEDIA – LATEST TOOL TO MARKET OVER INTERNET

2010-01-08T06:57:00.000-08:00

Using Social Media Tools for Marketing is the best thing you can do for network marketing business. Social media marketing is about spending time getting to know others and letting them get to know you. Providing good quality relevant content to others around the web. Social media is not just about Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. There are endless ways to network online these days!

Here are my top ten social media tools for marketing :

1.Social Networks

Find people you know or with similar interests, join groups, fanpages, share pics and videos, let people know what you’re up to. This would be Myspace, Facebook, Bebo, etc. This is one of the best ways to let people get to know you.

2.Professional Networks

Such as LinkedIn. Don’t make the mistake of viewing this as a social network. There is a different tone to this type of network. Be sure to be respectful and professional, and provide relevant information.

3. Blogs

Blogs are a place where you can really establish yourself, stretch out, make it your own. The downside of blogs is you have to drive traffic to them. I use other social media tools for marketing my blog. I make connections on the sites and then when they get value from and want to learn more about me they go back to my blog to check it out.

4.Videos

Create informational videos. A lot of people hate reading or learn better from a video than from a post. This is great because people get to see and hear you, making you even more real and less anonymous.

5. Article Marketing

Great way to get your content out online. You can submit articles to directories, use social bookmarking sites, put them on your myspace or facebook page, submit them to other blog posters for content, etc.

6.Micro-blogging

The obvious example is Twitter. Connect with others who have similar interests, keep them updated on what you are up to, any new content you’ve produced that they might be interested in, etc.

7.Pod-casting

If you’re a talker, talk your content. Interview people in your industry. Create a series of pod-casts that relate to your area of interest and again provide good info. Distribute it to podcast directories.

8. Discussion Boards and Forums

Great place to find people who share common interests. Again the key here is to provide useful and relevant responses to the questions people are asking. Don’t blatantly market yourself, again be present, be consistent, and be relevant; provide your website details and let people come to you.

9. Social Bookmarking

Putting it all together. Connect people to your information online, get links to your content all over the net. Make sure you put a relevant blurb or excerpt so people can see what information to expect. This is helpful for search engine optimization as well because it creates high quality links to your site.

10. Events and Meet-up sites

Taking online networking offline. Find people in your area who share a common interest. Making connections and real friendships offline can be really beneficial for your business because the people know you. It can also be a great way to meet people to mastermind with.

Most importantly: Link it all together! Link your social networks to your blog and micro-blog, link your videos to your articles, let people know where you are and where your content is.

5 Online Marketing Resolutions for 2010

2010-01-08T06:52:00.000-08:00

Give your online marketing efforts a boost this year by recognizing areas for improvement and putting in place a plan to make positive changes.

To help you get started, Radius Global has come up with New Year’s resolutions for 5 different online marketing channels: Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Social Media, Email Marketing, Pay-Per-Click and Mobile Marketing.

1. SEO:

I resolve to focus more on maximizing visits and conversions from organic searches.
With SEO efforts, it’s easy to get caught up in one goal: getting found via the search engines. But ranking in the search results is only half the story. If potential customers aren’t clicking through to your web page – or other piece of digital content – the ranking doesn’t mean much. Plus, due to variances in what each of us sees in the search results for the same query, rankings as metric are no longer as useful. Personalized search results according to location and web history means your site might rank high for one person, but not another.

Maximize the success of your online marketing efforts by analyzing your metrics report to determine which pieces of digital content are highly visible but producing less than ideal traffic results. Then take some time to ask yourself these questions:

* What competitive search results are your potential customers seeing? Assess the title tags and meta descriptions of competitive search results. Are competitors offering customers a free case study or a complimentary product sample? Then consider ways to make your own title tags and meta descriptions out-entice the competition.
* Does your content live up to the promise put forth in your title tags and meta descriptions? Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: When you first visit your web page or other digital content from an organic search, is the content you find relevant? Potential customers don’t want surprises; they want a solution to the problem that caused them to search in the first place. And they want it as promised.

Not only will searchers respond more favorably to customer optimized titles and meta descriptions, but the increase in clickthroughs will, no doubt, be noticed by search engines and may influence subsequent rankings.
2. Social Media:

I resolve to set goals and track the results of my social media efforts.
There’s no denying that social media is more difficult to justify in terms of ROI compared to other online marketing strategies. But that’s not to say it’s impossible – or that tracking results should be placed on the back burner. And without goals, it’s pretty difficult to measure success. In 2010, put forth even more effort to set goals for social media participation and tie results back to specific tactics.

There are a host of free or near-free tools available to gauge brand mentions and traffic from social media channels. In December, we highlighted 5 of these social media monitoring tools.

Tracking results via social media monitoring tools is just a start. Those results must be tied back to business goals. Potential goals might be:

* Develop better customer relationships
* Reputation management
* Identify and energize brand evangelists
* Increase brand awareness
* Increase relevant visitor traffic
* Improve standard and social search engine visibility
* Build up a list for email marketing
* Increase leads or sales

Without setting specific goals upfront, social media efforts can’t be definitively quantified so be sure to implement a Social Media Roadmap and all or social bases will be covered.
3. Email Marketing:

I resolve to integrate my email marketing with other online marketing channels.
Regardless of what the naysayers may say, email marketing isn’t going to disappear as a result of social media in 2010. In fact, email will continue to play a significant role in most online marketing mixes this year. A study from Silverpop found nearly half of marketers surveyed plan to increase email marketing budgets in 2010.

That’s not to say email marketing efforts shouldn’t evolve with the times. Integrating email with social media is on par to be a popular resolution for 2010: A recent eMarketer report found 40% of executives surveyed will make integrating the two tactics their top marketing initiative this year. Another 25% of respondents have already implemented an integrated strategy.

Pledge to take email marketing to the next level by encouraging email subscribers to not only forward content via email, but also to get social with email and share it via Facebook, Twitter, Digg and other sites. Conversely, conduct a poll on Twitter or your blog, and encourage followers and readers to subscribe to your e-newsletter for the results.
4. PPC:

I resolve to maximize conversion rates by testing different versions of my ads and landing pages.
Most companies using self-serve pay per click programs fall victim to “set it and forget it” habits. They’re busy with numerous other marketing activities or don’t have the time to really get to know the native bid management platforms and test/refine campaigns. Even if PPC efforts are reaching set goals in terms of conversion rates, there’s always room for improvement. You’ll never know until you try.

Consider these three ideas for testing different elements of your PPC campaigns:

* Test multiple ad versions that highlight different benefits of your product, service or company. For example, one could tout cost-savings benefits, while another emphasizes a convenience aspect.
* Use A/B testing to try out two different headlines on your landing page. Again, each could speak to a different benefit (i.e., cost savings vs. convenience). Google Optimizer is a great tool for this.
* If you’re targeting a competitive search term with many competing ads, consider launching two different campaigns simultaneously. Each could offer a distinct piece of fulfillment – a free case study and a product coupon, for example.

A few tools for testing include:

* A/B Testing resources: (Google Website Optimizer, 7 Free Resources)
* Multivariate Testing service: (Omniture)
* Heatmap & User Testing tools: (CrazyEgg, Clickdensity, Clicktale, userfly andEyetools)

5. Mobile:

I resolve to rethink my website design for mobile users.
If your site isn’t already optimized for handheld devices such as cell phones, now is the perfect time to re-assess your site design and how users find your site through mobile search – particularly for B2C companies.

In October, ABI Research forecast that mobile sales of physical goods in North America would reach $750 million by the end of 2009, a 117% annual growth rate. Consumers are doing a lot more than purchasing downloadable cell phone ringtones and games from their mobile devices. These days, clothing, electronics, books and a host of other items are being purchased through mobile commerce. Additionally, social network participation through services like foursquare, Facebook and Twitter are growing dramatically, creating additional opportunities for promotion and traffic to the mobile version of your company web site.

When optimizing web pages for the mobile web, consider a few tips:

* Keep fonts in their most basic format
* Eliminate advertising to conserve screen space
* Take out images unless they are absolutely necessary
* Remove Flash, Java or any plug-in content unless absolutely necessary

Online Marketing Efforts in 2010
As you make your own personal New Year’s resolutions to drop a few pounds, start a savings account or join a gym, don’t forget your online marketing efforts. Each year provides a fresh start and endless possibilities, so take advantage.

What resolutions do you plan to make in 2010 to improve your online marketing efforts?