BroadBased Communications: Marketing, Public Relations, Graphic Design

In a blog announcement in January, Google announced some changes to the way “organic” search is referred to your website.

The big change is this: When individuals are logged into one of their Google accounts while performing a search query (Google accounts include Gmail, Google Docs, Reader, Calendar, Google+, or even YouTube), the keywords they use to get to your website are stripped out of your website analytics. This results in a keyword “not provided” line item (see above). This change only affects “organic” searches, not paid Google ad campaigns. Paid campaigns continue to receive all keyword data.

While the change is good news for individuals whose searches were increasingly personalized with identifying data that clearly isn’t anonymous, the impact for marketers and business owners is that Google campaigns could be less accurate.

Google’s blog posting on the subject asks us to “keep in mind that the change will affect only a minority of your traffic,” but in our recent findings we’ve seen up to a third of our clients’ referral data stripped. “These changes undoubtedly make it more difficult for business owners to identify keyword performance or do SEO. Without informed keyword data, it would be hard to figure out what content is driving traffic to your site,” wrote KISSmetrics in a recent blog post.

In general, we applaud Google’s commitment to provide additional security for its users, but this particular change may damage the search giant’s effectiveness for SEO analytics purposes. We hope Google returns us to business as usual in the near future.

For more information, please visit KISSmetrics’ “I Got 99 Problems But Google Ain’t One” blog post.

Posted in Web/Interactive Development

Although not all news releases will be picked up and covered by journalists, the content can be great for your company’s or organization’s website.

Much has been said about the dying art of the news release, including that it’s outdated and unnecessary. However, if content is king, then a more perfect news release can go a long way to support your SEO strategies and goals.

Although not all news releases will be picked up and covered by journalists, the content can be great for your company’s or organization’s website, thus giving you more content for social media sites. And if you’re creating content, shouldn’t it be perfect content that supports your SEO?

How does the perfect release support SEO?

The most powerful search engine-optimized news release should incorporate the keywords you’ve researched and rely on for search engines to find and rank your organization’s website. Including these keywords gives you another powerful piece of new content on the web. News releases often allow more space, longer forms of the keywords, and repetitive usage.

SEO releases should also include links to the most important content in your website. This requires your meta-tags and page URLs to fit with your keyword and SEO strategies. So instead of just sending readers to your website, we want to increase the clicks to certain pages. For example, if you’re launching a new product, you’ll want the release to include links to the specific product pages of the website.

Where does an SEO release help the most?

Hosting a regularly updated news section of your organization’s website is a great place for releases like this. Also, if you’re pushing out a release to a wire service like PR Newswire or BusinessWire, you will want your news release to be search engine optimized, as these types of releases tend to get posted online in various sites. If content is king, then inbound links are the prince.

Here’s a great article about how PR can help startups grow: 10 Essential PR Tips for Startups

Posted in Public/Media Relations, Web/Interactive Development

In August, Google reported that the average click-through rate (CTR) for banner ads dropped to .09% in 2010, down slightly from .1% in 2009.

This data tells us that most banner ads need 1,000 impressions to result in ONE click through to your website. One obvious lesson is how imperative it is for advertisers to take advantage of any performance edge they can find to increase their odds of success. The chart below presents click-through rates for different size banner ads, both static and flash-oriented.

View more results information on Google’s DoubleClick Advertiser Blog.

Posted in Marketing Planning, Web/Interactive Development

It was once thought search engine marketing (SEM) and search engine optimization (SEO) were strategies that should work independently of each other. But what marketers have come to realize is when combined, SEM + SEO make for one powerful tool.

Pay-per-click (PPC) strategies are an integral part of SEM. In addition to the “organic” search returns generated by your SEO strategy, “sponsored listings” are purchased via a Keyword bidding process. These are the ads at the top and side of organic search results. But why would you use a PPC ad? In addition to advertising a product or service, PPC ads can also be used:

• When organic SEO is not driving the desired amount of traffic to your website.
• When your top Keywords are too competitive for organic search to deliver satisfactory traffic to your website.
• To test the popularity of different keywords via click-through conversion. The resulting data can be used to help bolster your SEO efforts.
• To create immediate awareness of a new facility, product or service. You might try a PPC campaign when you need immediate visibility and don’t have the time for organic SEO to take its course.
• To generate campaign- or issue-based traffic. You might try a PPC strategy in the event that you want to create additional visibility for yourself as an expert resource on a timely topic such as a product recall.
• To boost employee recruiting efforts.

Posted in Marketing Planning, Web/Interactive Development

Although marketers continue to produce printed materials for promotion and internal communications, much of the conversation in our orbit continues to revolve around the digital realm. The question de jour concerns what type of smart phone people are using the most. Depending on the demographics you seek, the answer changes.

Companies targeting execs ask that mobile strategies and smart phone apps be compatible with Blackberry, long known as the executive workhorse device. More wide-reaching strategies targeting consumers usually pit iPhone against Android. Although Android owns the largest share of the market, it has interoperability issues across platforms from different manufacturers. If you can only develop your app on one platform, you should choose carefully based on the usage statistics of your target audience. Check out this April article from Business Insider titled Android is Destroying Everyone, Especially RIM (BlackBerry) – iPhone Dead in Water.

Posted in Marketing Planning, Web/Interactive Development

The digital learning seminars at BroadBased provide inside information and guidance on the latest digital media strategies. Current topics are listed on our website, and presentations can be hosted in our office or yours. These informal sessions are an efficient way to “ramp up” management on a particular topic they may not be familiar with (social media, apps, analytics, QR codes) or show a group how these tools are being used in a particular industry.

Posted in Social Media Planning, Web/Interactive Development

Our digital learning seminars are designed to answer questions on popular online and digital topics. These gatherings are limited to eight people per session, and you needn’t be a client to attend. Attendance is free for current clients and private presentations are also available. A full list of topics is available on our website at bbased.com.

Topics and dates for April include:

Social Media Immersion – Learn the basics of message planning and interaction for social media, measuring response and impact, as well as how social media impacts search.

• Date: Friday, April 8
• Time: 9:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.
• Fee: $50 with lunch provided

App Development – Learn if your company or organization would benefit from a custom-branded smart phone app, and the associated expenses.

• Date: Wednesday, April 20
• Time: 11:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.
• Fee: $30 with lunch provided

Please email Tonisha@bbased.com with any questions and to make a reservation.

Posted in Social Media Planning, Web/Interactive Development

If there was any question as to THE hot marketing trend for 2011, the answer is becoming fast apparent at BroadBased: It’s mobile tagging via two-dimensional (2D) barcodes. Say what? Here’s the 411:

Mobile tagging (very popular in Asia and just now making a significant splash in the U.S.) provides data in the form of two-dimensional “codes,” which are photographed or scanned using an appropriate app on a cell phone or other mobile device. The result of the scan is that the device can launch a linked URL containing a video or mobile landing page, or even a document available for download. They can also generate a text message or provide a phone number that can be auto-dialed.

Popular 2D formats include Quick Response (QR) Codes and Microsoft (MS) Tags. At this point, MS Tags appear to offer a few more features, and perhaps more advanced analytics. But like much of the digital realm, the possibilities change with the day of the week.

2D or not 2D?

“We’re creating strategies with a variety of clients that feature the use of QR Codes in print advertising, marketing materials and trade show applications,” says Jan Korb, BroadBased CEO. “It’s an easy way to take your audience from a print experience directly to an online experience. It’s also a great opportunity to integrate media and track exposure to the digital message. Working with strategy and user experience is a fun side of the industry right now.”

Although 2011 is starting to look like the year of the 2D Code, Mashable, a popular Internet news blog, presented an article way back in June 2010 titled How To Use QR Codes for Small Business Marketing.

Try our 2D Code

We created a couple of 2D codes to give you an idea of the possibilities with this technology.

Scan one of our codes for a unique experience and a chance to win a prize!

Or you can visit www.bbased.com/tivo for a sneak peek!

Posted in BroadBased, Web/Interactive Development

In 2010, BroadBased hosted a series of well-attended learning seminars designed to answer questions on popular online and digital topics. As technology evolves, so will our seminar topics. These gatherings are limited to eight people per session, and you don’t need to be a current client to attend. Additional dates will be added upon demand. Topics and dates for March include:

Social Search – Learn how social media can impact search results to your website, and ways to organically increase your rankings in this 1.5-hour morning session. $30 with continental breakfast provided. Wednesday, March 9, from 9-10:30 am.

App Development – Learn if your company or organization would benefit from a custom-branded smart phone app and the associated expenses in this two-hour lunch & learn. $50 with lunch provided. Wednesday, March 30, from 11:30 am – 1:30 pm.

Social Media Immersion Experience – Learn the basics of message planning and interaction for two popular social media sites, as well as how to measure response to see the impact on your business in this 1.5-hour morning session. $30 with continental breakfast provided. Wednesday, March 23, from 9-10:30 am.

Please email Tonisha@bbased.com with any questions or to make a reservation. All presentations are made at the BroadBased office, and seating is limited to eight attendees per session.

Posted in BroadBased, Social Media Planning, Web/Interactive Development

There wasn’t an empty seat in BroadBased’s December “What’s In an App?” Lunch and Learn presented by Tonisha Landry-Gaines, BroadBased’s digital media strategist. The presentation, designed to demystify mobile apps for business, was attended by marketers from the legal, financial, insurance, healthcare, transportation and sales & marketing industries. The presentation focused on creating an experience that will best benefit the user, and was followed by a Q&A period in which Tonisha, and our development partners, fielded questions on technology, strategy and budgeting.

In many cases, a B2B app provides mobile access to information that is useful to patients or clients (calculators, directories, locations) and can be used without internet connectivity. The selection of apps listed below are examples of how different industries are using this technology.

Legal: DLA Phillips Fox developed an iPhone-friendly web-based document portal that allows iPhone users to securely retrieve legal records and other documents directly from the firm’s document management system.

Tax & Accounting: Thomson Reuters’ app allows access of important firm, staff, and client data 24/7 from anywhere.

Insurance: Nationwide provides an accident toolkit.

Healthcare: Priority Healthcare provides account information on the go.

Sales & Marketing: Trek Bicycle Corporation communicates technical features of new products to sales and dealer networks around the world.

Education: Coastal Law provides news items, faculty and staff directory, calendar of events, nearby attractions and a video gallery.

Posted in Web/Interactive Development