Onetomarket

Social media can be a powerful tool to improve customer loyalty and create brand ambassadors. Words like ‘involve’ and ‘engagement’ are inextricably linked to social media. As a company, you of course want other to mention your product, service or brand in a positive way. People attach a lot of value to opinions of other. This means that it is important for your company to know what is being said about you. But how do you deal with this? How can you check what is being said about you on the various social media sites? The answer to that question: monitoring.

Social Media Monitoring tools are mushrooming. This often makes it difficult to know which one to use. We have listed a few of them below:

Radian6

Radian6 is a very advance social media monitoring tool and is seen as a leading international player in the field of social media monitoring and engagement. This tool has been developed with the idea that companies should listen to the signals from the social web. It allows companies to enter into a dialog with their target group. Radian6 covers more than 100 million sources, including news websites and social networks such as Hyves and Facebook. Based on a list of keywords, all mentions of these keywords can be monitored. An important advantage of using Radian6 is the ease with which customized dashboards can be created.

Messages measured via Radian6 are automatically sorted based on their source. This makes it easy to see the size of the impact regarding a certain topic and what is being said about it. In addition, it is possible to receive realtime pop-ups so that you could, if necessary, take action immediately.

Raventools

Originally, Raven is an SEO tool. Raventools can be used to monitor keywords and rankings for SEO purposes. Meanwhile, Raventools is being used extensively for social media monitoring. Raven’s social media tools offer wide-ranging possibilities for measuring communications about a brand via the internet, for instance on blogs, Twitter and Facebook. As soon as selected keywords are mentioned on a blog or social media platform, Raven will notify you about the source and what is being said. It is possible to link sentiments (positive, neutral, negative) to these messages. This is especially useful for being alerted on any negative news.

Hootsuite

To a certain extend, Hootsuite looks a lot like well known Tweetdeck. Hootsuite is a social media management tool to manage multiple social media profiles simultaneously. The basic version of Hootsuite is free and allows you to manage a maximum of 5 profiles. Their dashboards are clear and can be fully customized based on your own wishes. This social management tool allows you to send messages to all channels at the same time or to separate channels, all from within the same interface. In addition, Hootsuite allows for sending automated updates on preselected times.

Hootsuite also enables you to analyze the performance of several accounts through reports. You can link these reports to Google Analytics which could result in some very interesting insights.

The ‘Klout’

But what do you do once you find out that negative news about your product, service or brand is being spread via social media? When should you respond in order to prevent further negative word of mouth from spreading? People say a lot on Twitter. An opinion or remark of an influential person can be a lot more valuable than the same opinion or remark coming from a person that no one follows or someone that is considered totally irrelevant. The reach and importance of a person can be measured by the number of followers. However, this is not the only important component. What is at least as important is the value of the opinion of the person. How often has this tweet been read, retweeted, answered, and how influential is this person’s network? In order to determine the true value of a person on Twitter, a score called ‘Klout‘ has been created. This score can be interesting for customer relationship management. It allows you to determine which of your customers are the most influential. Knowing this allows you to involve them in the development of you website, or use them to attract new customers by using special offers.

As you can see, it is not just important what is being said, but also by whom. For this reason you should monitor what is being said about your company, brand, product or service and respond when needed. Surely there are many more social media monitoring tools that you can use. Would you like to know more about such tools? Please contact Onetomarket.

Martijn Beijk and Theo Lentjes represented Onetomarket at the Search Marketing Expo 2010 in Stockholm. Last year Martijn Beijk en Jaap Dijkstra gave acte de presénce during this event. In 2009 they gave a presentatie about the relationship between Onetomarket and Rederij Lovers. They mainly discussed the subject Local.

This year, on the first day of the event Martijn Beijk gave a presentation about the relationship with another client of Onetomarket; Conrad Electronic. He explained the successful implementation  of conversion optimization for shop.conrad.nl

There were several interesting speakers who spoke that day, but in this blog I will only post about the presentation of Mike Moran (Chief Strategist, Converseon), Simon Sundén (Digital Director, Honesty) and Martijn Beijk (SEO & Web-analystics consultant, Onetomarket).

On the second day of the event Theo Lentjes (Marketing Manager, Onetomarket) gave a presentation about Conversion optimization,  important matters like ‘what are the bottlenecks’ and ‘how can you convince visitors and convert them into taking action’ were discussed during this presentation. At the end of this post you can read more about this presentation.

Why white hat SEO is ‘the way’ for you

Mike Moran spoke during his presentation about why white hat SEO is ‘the way to go’.

SEO should be about the long term influence and the long term benefits for the client. By terms as pagerank sculpting and the upcoming social media he explained his assumption.

Google has changed his algorithm several times the past years, and the will not stop changing.

Every technical update will eventually get old and be replaced by the newest update, a process that goes on and on and on.

That is why he explained the term pagerank sculpting. In the early days of Google Pagerank sculpting was a common used technic to create excellent page rankings.  Today Pagerank sculpting doesn’t work anymore, because Google changed the page rank values. One of the things that are becoming more and more important is social media. Moran showed an example in the US were he created a query which generated only Universal and paid search results on the whole page. In other terms; there was no ‘normal’ website indicated on the first page of the Google results. What means a major change for SEO. Eventually this will lead to a triangular relationship between search, Google and you.

Moran thinks you should follow a strategy based on SEO tactics which will have benefits for everyone within the triangular relationship.

Social Media Marketing – Killer Tactics

Simon Sundén gave many tips and tricks for Social Media Marketing during his presentation. He presented the most important ones in a top 10 list:

10 Things you should do in Social Media Marketing.

1. Start a blog!
2. Optimize and ping it.
3. Link out like madness.
4. Set up a Facebook page.
5. Monitor Search words
6. Make sure you get a Facebook like button.
7. Twingly blog links. You will love it.
8. Let your ‘Social Media Naturals’ do the job.
9. React and discuss with others.
10. Change your blog in a natural social blog.

It was an interesting presentation with a lot of Swedish social media elements, though useful in many countries.

Conversion optimization: Conrad Electronic

The relationship between client and consultancy firm and how to accomplish goals was the main subject of the presentation. The use of SEO and Conversion optimization were explained. You can find the presentation via the link below.

PPC Blackhat and how to protect your campaigns against them

The subject of this presentation is Blackhat PPC. The presentation was not about showing how to trick Google, but to think as a so called ‘blackhat’ and be able to detect them. For instance; it is difficult to understand ‘ad hijackers’ without knowing how they work, or without understanding how to eliminate them. Affiliates who are generating traffic via Adwords, will cost you your traffic. The merchant pays a compensation for every sale of the affiliate. If an advertising of a brand leads to a sale for the affilate because of the name and reputation of the brand, the merchant pays for traffic that already saw the advertisement.

Sometimes the law approves certain matters, but Google doesn’t and vice versa. Mikkel deMib, a former blackhat explains that a couple of years ago he recognized that his actions caused serious problems for the ‘SEM world’ and for the people acting in this world. Mikkel deMib didn’t want to be the reason for these problems.

Conversion Optimization – Visitors, barriers & persuasion

Conversion Optimization is not about doing some tricks, but more about analyzing your costumers. Who are they, what moves them, and how can I help them to easily make a conversion on my website? How can you convince them and what is the best location to start testing. During the presentation all of these aspects were discussed.

Onetomarket has launched the first print of their SEO book earlier. Now since this May you can order the second revisioned print of the Onetomarket book on Search Engine Optimization (SEO). The book on SEO, written in dutch, by SEO consultants Erik-Jan Bulthuis, Martijn Beijk, Martin Joosse, Jordy Noll and Sander Tamaela.

Chapters
The book contains the following chapters:

• What is Search Engine Optimization?
• Defining Keywords and Search Phrases.
• Sitestructure
• Content
• HTML, CSS and JavaScript
• Server Side
• Linkbuilding
• Linkbuilding Techniques
• Webanalytics
• Blended search (Universal Search)
• SEO in the (online) marketingmix

Ordering the book

You can order the book, also internationally, via Amazon.co.uk or Bol.com (dutch)

Onetomarket will be speaking at the upcoming SMX in Stockholm, Sweden. This two day conference will be all about search marketing, campaign strategies and measuring those results.

Martijn Beijk and Jaap Dijkstra, Business Developer with Boat Company Lovers, will present their business case on Local Search. They will explain how to set up a successful local search campaign.

Martijn Beijk is an SEO consultant at Onetomarket and advices about Search Engine Optimisation. Martijn advises international clients like Royal Dutch Airlines, Conrad Electronic, Deutsche Telekom and FC Barcelona. He is one of the 27 participants in the Local Search Ranking Factors.

The second Dutch Search Marketing Thursday organised by the IAB was this time in the very center of the Netherlands, Utrecht. The Search Marketing Thursday – organised quarterly – would bring us a Local Search Business Case and a SEO site clinic.

Local Search Business Case – Boatcompany Lovers Canal Cruises Amsterdam

For some time now has Onetomarket been supporting the online campaigns of Rederij Lovers Canal Cruises. There are numerous of ticket sales points and hop-on-hop-off locations in Amsterdam for Lovers Canal Cruise company. A local search campaign was started to add these locations to Google Maps. The results for these campaign are very promising and show a high return on investment.

Traditionally speaking there is a golden rule that 50% of your marketingbudget spending is immeasurable. You just don’t know what happens with your money. For boatcompany lovers – together with the launch of a new website – was an important step to take extended use of various online marketing channels. Using web analytics software it was now possible to measure the earnings from your marketingbudget spendings.

By using a Local Search campaign we were able to reach the following goals for boatcompany Lovers.

• increase visibility in the search engines
• sell more tickets via online booking system
• reduce costs (online system linked to backoffice, thus reducing paperwork)
• earn to spend

Step 1: Registering with the Local Business Center

The most important step is registering your business with the Google Local Business Center. With just a few storefronts this is not something that is very difficult to do. Its the first step towards a highly optimized Google Maps profile which will help you get better rankings in the Universal Search results.

Step 2 : Measuring campaigns and take actions

When creating your campaigns it is very important to think about results. Results will stay unclear when you are not able to measure your online campaigns. In case of a local search campaign it is wise to use URL tagging. I’ve written an extended tutorial on local search tracking

Step 3 : Choosing the right landing pages

After a while you will be able to see in your web analytics package what the behavior is of your website visitors. With a Local Search campaign it is often unclear what the user intent is. Is he searching for a way to buy something online, get in contact or in search of some driving directions? After a while you will be able to determine the way of your visitor and send them to the correct landingpages.

Step 4: Aim for conversion

Sending your visitors to the right landing pages can be done in a way that they will be more likely to reach the end of your conversion funnel. As long as the user experience is positive and the right landing pages are chosen it will increase the conversion rate, as it did in the example of this business case.

Step 4: Enjoy the results

Local Search campaigns, like a regular SEO campaign does not have running costs like cost per click. The results on your ROI are very positive. The investment costs are relatively low and on the long term when ranking factors are all good it will provide long-lasting profitable results.

Starting a Local Search campaign

Starting a local search campaign is very important when you have physical locations for your business. storefronts, shops, ticket offices, hotels, restaurants, service centers, etc.

The advantages:

• Quick start
• low costs (no cost per click)
• higher visibility
• high ROI

Important with every online campaign is to measure correctly. Especially with a local search campaign this is of great importance. Apart from online conversions there is also offline conversions that will probably see an increase due to local search optimization. But how do we know if these offline sales were brought by online efforts? You can use a unique phone number for example to communicate on your landing pages for your local search campaign so you have some better understanding where your traffic or sales are coming from.

Remember that 40% of all search queries are local. Enough reason to start directly with your Local Search campaign!

Last year, in April, the Onetomarket Crew was at SMX Munich where they met Jens and Andreas.

Both work at T-Online, one of the biggest webportals in Germany. Jens also runs the blog Inhouse-SEO.de.

T-Online uses the Google Custom Search for its own search engine on the webportal. The team from T-Online have developed a keyword tool that is linked to the search queries. This way they are able to analyze all the search queries and clickthroughs from these searches. By doing this they are able to discover and monitor evolving trends. This very useful data can be used to optimize websites or various campaigns

In 2008 the total market share of search for T-online was estimated at 2.1%. This is quite a piece of marketshare when you take a look at the search market in Germany.
But in the end, because the portal uses the Google Custom Search, the 2,1% will be accounted to Google.

Now we can bring you the full interview with Jens and Andreas about the keyword tool!

Full-length English version: Interview Keywordtool with T-Online

Full-length German version: Interview Keywordtool mit T-Online

The financial crisis is without any doubt one of the most hottest items at the moment. Google Insights for Search, a Google tool that recognizes trends in search engine traffic shows us some interesting insights. Noteworthy is that specific events like the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers on the 15th of September, but also governmental plans to influence the financial crisis have severe influence on search engine traffic for financial crisis in both the US as the Netherlands. And what do people do in times of financial insecurity? Right, they go back to putting their money on a savings account. At the moment that the first signs of a recession show up, consumers massively start searching for savings accounts in Google and the insecurity of investing in stocks is put aside and so less searches on those terms remain.

After using Google Insights for the search term ‘financial crisis’ some interesting insights show up. As of 15 September one can see that the search traffic for the term ‘financial crisis’ increases, which is a logical response to the bankruptcy of Lehman brothers on that specific day. This increase in traffic on ‘financial crisis’ remains until the 19th of September. On this day the US government announced that it was working on a rescue plan for the financial sector, which caused a higher closing of Wall Street and above that a certain amount of trust was spread that lead to a decrease in search on ‘financial crisis’. Also the Google news result at [B] refers to this event. What though has to be taken into caution is that less financial searches are being performed during the weekend. After the weekend the worries about the financial crisis rose again as some critical notes were made about the rescue plan. This trend continued until the 26th of September, when the weekend started and President Bush made a statement that something had to be done to cool down the crisis in the financial world (Google News Result A). Now that on Monday the rescue plan was turned down by the parliament, there is no doubt that the increase in searches on financial crisis will keep on rising.

Until the rescue plan is fully approved, it looks like there will be enough rumor and so searches concerning the financial crisis. Next to that one can say that although the fact that it is only an indication, there sure is a certain amount of commotion that lives around the topic financial crisis that can be seen with Google Insights.

Also the Netherlands was hit by the financial crisis in the US. The increase in searches on the term ‘kredietcrisis’ (financial crisis) appears to be the same as in the US. But what is the thing that Dutch people do in the event of a financial recession? They return to old Calvinistic values in which the secure savings account becomes more important compared to the insecurity of investing in stocks. Google insights show that at the moment that the Dutch Economy start showing signs of a recession, the consumer starts looking for security and so searches on savings accounts (*sparen) etc. started to take off compared to risky investments (*beleggen). Anyway this is the time for banks to go loose in the search engine with saving related products as the consumer is now looking for this.

Today the SearchWiki functionality from Google officially launched.

The SearchWiki enables people to vote a single search result up or down on the search result page, or actually remove it within your personalized results. It also gives you the possibility to add a personal, public note in which you say something about the result of website. Google states that this data won’t be used in the ranking algorithm. Since we all know Google is able to do very smart things with data, this eventually will be used in their ranking algorithm of course.

A lot of rumors are floating around, about this being an SEO killer, or this being the end of SEO as we know it. Internet is changing, Google is changing, and society in general is changing. This is happening rapidly and the result of it is a more social, a more semantic and better user experience. Shift happens! And this is a good thing. Since we like to keep you ahead of your competition we’ve changed the basics of our optimization advice a while ago.

Onetomarket walks the right path of the force since 2004. We’ve successfully transformed from a company with smart technical tricks to a company that helps you with you on line business and visibility with a solid foundation in SEO and SEA. Since we’ve seen this coming a long time ago we already chose to help our clients creating valuable and likeable content. This content advice always had the customers of our clients in mind at first. Ergo, good content and social media in general has been on our agenda a long time.

We, as Onetomarket see this as a great opportunity for Google to weed out even more ‘bad’ websites and improve the user experience with search. This will also enlarge our role which we have for our clients, by taking care of even better content and advising them how to think, work and actually do the job for best user experience. We know it’s not the easiest route to take, but by being critical and user focused you will be prepared for the future.

By only using technical tricks like ‘landing pages’ your website probably shouldn’t rank that high. On site optimization is still getting more important everyday. Al your pages should have a purpose and this purpose should be measured and even optimized. Therefore our services like Web analytics, on site SEO, Blended Search and conversion optimization.

The Searchwiki option from Google brings our clients, their customers and Onetomarket closer together and therefore we fully embrace the SearchWiki functionality Google officially launched as of today.

Yesterday was the big day. The SEO book of Onetomarket has been published! At the moment, it’s only available in Dutch but we are translating the book to English at the moment. The SEO book is written by me and 5 colleagues of Onetomarket.  Everyone wrote about his or her expertise. The book is meant to give a basic overview of all the essential fundamentals where SEO consists of.

The target group of the book are marketers with a basic knowledge of on line. Therefore, we also give information about the role of SEO within the on line marketing mix. A technical person also finds very interesting stuff within the book, especially in the chapters about client side and server side coding.

The content of the book is divided into twelve chapters:

1. What is SEO?
2. How do people use search engines?
3. Determining keywords
4. Sitestructures
5. Content
6. Client side
7. Server side
8. Link building
9. Link building techniques
10. Web analytics
11. Selecting an SEO partner
12. SEO within the (on line) marketing mix

The book is available under ISBN number 9789059403680 and consists of 224 pages. We’re very proud of it and we’ll keep you posted with info about the English version.

It took a while, but it’s finally there: Our new and improved website. Based on WordPress and completely revamped. Together with that a fresh structure, new content and, in our minds, a better way to conversate with our customers and prospects.

With better integration of our blog and knowledge base you’re now able to keep track of our news, ideas and tactics.

Enjoy!