You’d be surprised that you have been looking at your search queries in Google Webmaster Tools and not been aware that many of the queries were for image search instead of the web.

In the past, I’ve gone to Webmaster Tools to check out the recent search queries. Often, I wondered where Google Webmaster Tools was getting its information because most search queries I saw listed were not the same ones I saw in the Google search rankings.

At first glance, it appears that the queries are generating a lot of impressions and hence traffic.

Not until Google integrated Webmaster Tools into Google Analytics did the smoke clear.

To get a better picture of the queries leading visitors to your site in Google Analytics, you will need to take an extra step in Queries under Search Engine Optimization.

Underneath the Secondary dimension, click on Visitors and then click on Google Property.

Look! In this example, most of the top queries are for Image search and not Web!

Unless you are checking out the secondary dimension Google Property underneath Visitors, your Search Engine Optimization Queries within Google Analytics may not be as clean as they should be.

I was fortunate enough to attend the 2012 Bronto Summit in Chapel Hill with Rick Boccard, one of Beacon’s Account Executives. Bronto is an innovative email service provider that I have worked with since 2008. Although I am familiar with the company, there are so many amazing new features and capabilities added each year that my time at the summit was well worth it. In addition to their cutting edge product, Bronto is full of wonderfully friendly and fun-loving people. I had a blast!

Bronto stampede at Bronto headquarters

I attended a handful of seminars on email marketing and wish I could have gone to every last one. I’d like to share just a little of the great information I took back with me and plan to utilize. If you’d like more details, here is a link to all the wonderful Bronto Presentations.

10 Ways to Boost Revenue Through Email Marketing
• Season Specific Sales
• One Day/Flash Sales
• Friends & Family Discounts
• Lapsed Purchaser Messages
• Post Purchase Bounceback
• Birthday Coupons
• Shopping Cart Abandonment
• Transactional Messages
• Welcome Message/Series

Testing – Keynote Speech given by Anne Holland from Which Test Won?
• A/B Test your opt-in form for email
• Test overlays (light boxes) or try using them if you haven’t
• Take advatage of short attention spans by testing shorter content in emails, one focus per email, and timing.
• Reoptimize your email templates
• Try social proof for products
• Always test landing pages
• Start using mobile and start testing what works with your customers
• iPad Optimization
• Always track beyond the click in your emails (sales, order value, leads, email captures, revenue, etc.)

The summit was full of inflatable brontosauruses, some twice as large as myself!

Bronto Love!

Now that we have been practicing for some time, we are aware of good (and, bad) ways to employ social media. Opinions will vary about the “best of the best”. That is the beauty of the web, it always changes. From a book summary I read on social media, here are some of the best practices according to the author at this point in time. This is not an exhaustive, all inclusive list. The basics are covered and should align with your current techniques for using social media effectively.

There are multiple platforms* available for your content and they should be used relative to the target audience. Having likeable content is a fundamental criteria for success. Get your customer to listen to you and then….

1. Listen first, and never stop listening - You want to know what customers think. Ask and they will tell you. Next, the most important thing to do is listen. Closing the loop by acting on what your customers tell you will prove that you not only listened, but that you understand and can do something about it.
2. Define your target audience better than ever – There are many tools that allow you to focus on your true demographics for your product/service(s). Define them and determine what will make them “like” your content.
3. Think – and act – like your consumer - Remember, it’s about them, not you. Don’t sell them; instead, provide content that is of interest to them. Get them talking about topics of interest and find ways to integrate your wares into their lifestyle.
4. Invite your customers to be your first fans - Word of mouth (WOM) is key here. The more likes you get, the better your credibility. Be clear about your value proposition and define what is in it for them. Remember, there is no value-add if only your employees are interacting with your content.
5. Create true dialogue with, and between, your customers - Related to listening and being genuine. Get them talking about you to leverage the WOM effect. When your customers share tips and tricks with others, it proves they are engaged. It also saves you from providing customer support directly. Help guide the discussion by acknowledging comments – and, correct where needed.
6. Be Authentic - Get connected by demonstrating an interest in your customers. Personalize it by including your name.
7. Be honest and transparent - You can spot a phony a mile away. Your customers can too.
8. Integrate social media into the entire customer experience - Another fundamental for success and cannot be stressed enough. Make sure everyone who interacts with your customers has the same message and is aware of promotions and specials. Regardless of how they find you, it should be a consistent message. The last thing you want is a disconnect among channels and mismanaged expectations from your customers. If they are online, they can tell their network about you – the good and the bad.
9. Don’t sell! Just make it easy and compelling for customers to buy - They already found your content and are engaged. Don’t insult them with a bland sales pitch. State the (relative) value proposition clearly and make it easy to “Add to Cart”.

Having a dialogue with your customers is easy using a social media platform. I would add that you keep in mind how you want to be treated. After all, we all are consumers in the end.

*Platforms range from Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, FourSquare, LinkedIn, Google+, Blogs, and specialized networks (e.g. flickr, yelp, etc.)

A short time ago, YouTube urged us to “Broadcast Yourself”. Well, they don’t have to tell us anymore. Consider that 4 Billion videos are viewed every day.* With all that content being uploaded and viewed, our video habits on YouTube provide interesting ways to get visible. More importantly, it also defines how to stay visible. I recently read an article that indicates we are at a transitional time for broadcast media. Part of that change, some argue, is that YouTube has become an online-studio system.

The five (5) maxims are:

1. Make a lot of content. A lot
2. Target a niche
3. Connect with your fans
4. Collaborate
5. Optimize for the algorithms

An example — Since 2007, just shy of 79K people have watched the Chocolate Rain video by Tay Zonday. He now has his own money-making YouTube Channel.

The complete article is available here on Wired.com.

*A complete list of YouTube statistics is posted on their site.

Now you know how to get viral and stay visible.

April was a busy month here at Beacon.  We came into the month off of a real strong first quarter with lots of exciting new projects kicking off with existing and new clients.  The momentum continued into April with over a dozen project kickoffs and the addition of seven new clients, including:

• eCommerce Development 
• Tufenkian Carpets
• Dale Pro Audio
• Managed Hosting
• Hanes Brands
• Web Marketing Services
• Boston College’s Center for Corporate Citizenship
• RenewLife
• Hunting Top Ten
• Custom Application Development
• MathMoose

In addition to forming new relationships and strengthening existing partnerships, we were out on the road at The Bronto Summit and North Carolina Technology Association’s State of Technology Conference.  It was awesome to participate in these fun yet informative conferences without having to spend anytime in an airport or hotel.

The Bronto Summit was a great event.  The conference had such a friendly vibe and was one of the realist conferences I had been to in awhile.  There was awesome camaraderie across the board and really unique opportunities for networking.  As a partner, my favorite was their game of CLUE (Marketing Style) which was an excellent way for clients to get to know Bronto’s network of partners.  The key notes were top notch, from Joe Colopy’s (Bronto’s CEO) spin off of Coach Brooks’ pregame pep talk in the ‘Miracle’ to Ken Magill’s (The Magill Report) blunt take on the importance of relevancy.  You can check out all the presentations, by clicking here.

Joe Colopy dressed in his Coach Brooks' digs for the opening keynote.

NCTA’s State of Technology event is a perennial favorite.  It is a short, high impact event that always excites me about what is going on with technology in North Carolina and beyond.  This year was no different.  ‘Big Data’ was the theme of the day and it was amazing to see how local organizations are utilizing big data or empowering others to leverage its power.  So many awesome use cases were discussed across a wide range of businesses, including: Public Safety, Healthcare, Finance, Non-Profits and many others.  It was amazing to hear about the awesome ways folks are using predictive analytics to increase revenues, decrease crime rates, lower mortality rates and increase revenues.

Looking ahead – we have a full calendar and pipeline so stay tuned.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be at NCTA’s ET&T Breakfast on Analytics, The Triad Showcase and the Internet Retailer Conference.  Any chance we’ll see you at these events?  Let us know in the comments section below.

Our Beacon Technology Web Marketing Consultants always recommend engaging in email marketing for both our online retailers and  our online content providers because it works to generate higher relevant traffic, sales and or conversions on their websites.  Email Marketing allows specific targeting, helps to push direct sales, builds relationships, supports sales through other channels, and it is data driven.  Let me repeat that, it is data driven.  The biggest advantage is that email marketing is inexpensive and will go to the users you have assigned.  Email Marketing is one of the best ways to increase brand visibility and customer loyalty, while not raising your budgets.  Mailchimp is a great example of an inexpensive email marketing management system because there is no cost involved if you are sending no more than 12,000 emails each month.  If you already have a list of more than 12,000 emails we recommend Bronto as the email marketing platform to you use.  There is a cost involved, but the extra features and automation is well worth the cost!

Here are five quick tips to help you along the way:

1. Just say no!  Don’t use your office’s desktop email system to send your Email. If you send email blasts from the same server that hosts your email interface that you email your current B2B or conversion customers for orders, your general emails could potentially be blocked altogether for spam.  This could cause big problems down the line.
2. Don’t reinvent the wheel!  Look into a good email management interface that has templates and reporting already created. As stated earlier, MailChimp is a great email marketing program that is free as long as you send no more than 12,000 emails in a month.  Using an email UI will allow you to manage and breakdown your marketing lists as well as quickly remove those that request their subscription be terminated.  Most also allow for split tests to occur to continuously improve your open and click thru rates for your emails.
3. Keep it fresh! Make sure you provide different types of emails within your rotation cycles.  Don’t only send out emails when you have a promotion running.  Instead, implement a monthly newsletter with industry, product, or company information.  Remember, you can still push your products and services,  you are just not doing it in such an obvious way. As a company, you have got to be able to provide users a reason to subscribe and to remain on your email lists.
4. Use your Noggin!  Before you send out an email, go back over the content and images, then say, “Would I read this email if I it landed in my inbox?”  Step one, always be the first person to review/critique the email you just created.  Would the people on your list want to receive this email?  What benefit will it serve them? If you don’t think it will give them a good deal, up to date industry news, a better understanding of your company or your industry, or serve another purpose that has slipped my mind, it should be back to the drawing board for you my friend!
5. Content is Still King!  Your email should not consist of only a subject line and one huge graphic.  Instead, it should be a mix of text and images to help users whose email systems aren’t quite up to par.  This will also help keep the email in the inbox if a user first views the email on a mobile phone with limited capabilities.  If they can read enough to know they need the email, they will keep it and check it out later on a desktop or full screen device.

Most of the time, when you are optimizing a site for SEO you are think about title tags, descriptions, keyword content and internal/external linking. Your mind is focused on how to improve the site so it shows up higher in search rankings and can sometimes forget about also optimizing you images for search. Considering that Google indexes images and has a search dedicated to just images, I would say this is pretty important and can be a great source of traffic. So let’s not miss out on that!

Here are some ways to optimize images for search engines:

1. The image file name shouldn’t be the letters/numbers given to the picture when it’s downloaded. Instead make sure your image/photo/graphic etc. has a file name using your keywords.  However, do not use any more than 4 words in your file name.

Let’s take this image for instance.

A good file name: InternetRetailerConference2012.jpg

Bad file name: DCS54789.jpg

2. Always, Always, Always include Alt Text with images. Make sure your alt text uses keywords and is different from your file name.

Example: Based on the image above. Alt txt=”eCommerce Exhibition in Chicago”

3. If possible add a caption for the image and bold the text. It’s not a proven fact that Google uses this for ranking factors but think of it from a Bounce Rate perspective. Your visitor is likely to see the image but will they stay after seeing the image or bounce off. They are more likely to stay a little longer if you include a caption under the image for them to read.

4. Smaller images take less time to load then larger images so try to keep all files small.

5. Page title, meta description, and the context of the page all play a factor in Images showing up in search and their position in the search so make sure the image you use is relevant to what is being talked about in the page.

6. Make sure images are crisp and not distorted. People like to see details in pictures and if the image isn’t clear people won’t want to look at it.

7. Include images in a separate folder that is accessible to Search engines.

 8. Include an Image sitemap with your site.

Now that you’ve read these tips, make sure to check that you’re images have been optimized for search engines.

Do you have other things you do to optimize your images that I didn’t mention?

Business continues to be hopping and exciting here at Beacon.  We now have 6 clients in the Boston, MA area after winning contracts with high profile clients like Harvard (Center for Education) and Boston College (School of Management).  We also re-signed the Massachusetts Library Information Network to a long-term hosting agreement (MLIN has been with Beacon since 2002)!  Couple this with new projects that includes Tufenkian Carpets (NY, ecommerce), Flirties Earrings (FL, ecommerce), MathMoose (GA, custom app dev), Spouse Got The House (FL, ecommerce), Shelba Johnson Trucking (Grensboro, web dev)  and all the ongoing work from existing clients and… well…(deep breath)… it’s busy!   There’s certainly been an uptick of development projects (ecommerce & content websites using CMS), which is why we are actively looking to hire experienced technology resources – especially experienced software engineers/consultants/project managers that have strong customer-facing consultative skills.

We also have several new, very large digital marketing projects coming in this month, while our existing clients are steadily investing more and more to expand their online reach due to the success of their current web marketing programs.  We recently hired Gus Kroustalis (MBA, Elon) into our web marketing team and we are looking to hire 2 more web marketers in the next 2-6 weeks.

The addition of Michael Swink (BS, Western Carolina) to our sales team has also contributed to the uptick in new work.  He brings a solid, professional sales approach that will certainly produce significant sales and force further growth within our web development, web marketing and web hosting teams.

If you’ve looked at our events page then you know we’re attending the Internet Retailer Conference in June. Wahoo! This conference is HUGE and is jam packed with tons of great sessions and information. There will be 175 speakers, 570 exhibiting companies, 8,000 attendees, and multiple workshops! I’m excited, are you excited?

Since we don’t want you to miss out on this opportunity we are offering you a discount code good for $100 OFF the current registration rates (excluding Exhibit hall and Workshop only passes) if you register as an individual.  If you register with a group of three or more attendees you will receive 25% discount OFF of ALL (Yes you’re reading that right!) passes registered in lieu of the $100 discount. However, the discount only applies to new registrations and cannot be applied to existing registrations.

What do you think of that discount? Pretty good eh? So if you’re interested in attending and would like the discount code, shoot me an email letting me know. :)

Also, don’t forget to check us out on Twitter and Facebook to see what giveaways and contests we’re holding during each event!

Ever felt like that? You’d be hard pressed to find a small business that hasn’t experienced that at some point. This is especially true during a social media campaign’s early days.

Think about it like this… You start a new workout program at the gym, but don’t see early results. Pretty soon the program is over, and you’re eating pizza again. I’ve seen some Twitter profiles that resemble that experience.

One of the reasons that I believe this happens is because instant gratification can already be found with other forms of Internet marketing. Run a well-optimized PPC campaign, and convert clicks into sales. Place well-crafted banner ads on targeted websites, same thing. Maybe Twitter works the same way, some people assume. Tweet over and over, and… wait why is nothing happening?!

First let’s figure out why a platform like Twitter is different. PPC and SEO are largely dependent on search (SEO isn’t solely dependent on search, but it’s a big chunk). So, when someone is Googling a product, they are actively looking to buy, or at least learn more about the product, and websites like yours are ready to sell. Because of that active search component, the likelihood of a transaction increases. A person that finds your website through PPC or SEO is going to make a purchase decision sooner rather than later.

Twitter, however, is typically void of that active search component. Most smart businesses are on Twitter to interact first, and sell second. You already know that any time your company interacts with your target audience, you’re building, maintaining, or (Heaven forbid) defending your brand.

So, does that mean that Tweeting is a waste of time since you’re looking for more sales? No. But the expectations need to be realigned.

Use the following set of guidelines when Tweeting:

1)      Don’t turn your Tweets into sales pitches all the time. Actually, plan on doing this very seldom.

2)      Tweet content that provides value to your followers, not to you. This could include industry insight, like pitfalls to watch out for or how to choose between similar products.

3)      Don’t just share industry news. Leave that to the news outlets. Instead, give your opinion and ask for opinions from your followers when you share industry news.

4)      Instead of waiting for people to reply to your Tweets, try replying to others first sometimes. Maybe they could benefit from just a quick Tweet. They might even find value in a content page on your website.

5)      Mix in some promotions. Provide a link to a landing page about the promotion. Encourage Twitter followers to become your fans on Facebook because you have occasional promotions just for Facebook fans.

6)      Retweet posts that you think your followers would like to read.

7)      Search for your company name on Twitter every so often to see what consumers are saying about your company. Then you can interact with more targeted people, even if that means addressing a complaint.

The second and third guidelines might not be able to fit in a 140 character Tweet. These are great opportunities to write a new blog post and provide the link in a Tweet. Now all of a sudden, you’ve added new relevant content to your site, which is an SEO boost, and you’ve provided value to your Twitter followers, which increases your opportunity to engage consumers.

The bottom line for most of these guidelines is that you’re now engaging with your target audience. Maybe they’re not in the market for your product right now. But all this work is still good marketing so that when they are ready to buy, they won’t need to do a Google search. They can go to your Twitter profile, then to your website, instead. They might also be inclined to recommend your company to their Twitter followers.

So, use Twitter to build your brand, engage your audience, and supplement your website content. Have any suggestions to add to the guidelines that I listed? Feel free to share them in the comments section.