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Social Media Marketing Miami

Posted on: October 1st, 2010 by EJ

Ej Garcia at Social Media Miami
I was recently given the opportunity to speak at the Social Media Miami conference hosted by InfluencePeople. After reviewing several topics with the conference’s organizers I chose to speak about of leveraging search engine marketing with your social media campaign. The focus of the presentation was to educate the audience on how to efficiently drive traffic to your social campaign by sponsoring keywords related to the theme of your campaign through Google Adwords.

Facebook advertisements were the hot topic of the day, and at the end of the session we engaged the audience in a Q&A session about how to target your audience on Facebook.

Craig Agranoff, of gripd.com, gave a great presentation on the current state of mobile and geo-targeted ads and the list of speakers was awesome. I was honored to share the stage with the likes of John Chow, Jay Berkowitz, Murray Newlands, Greg Rollett, Pierre Zarokian and Jeff Sass.

The conference ended with all of the speakers engaging in panel discussion on the future of social media. The one un-deniable fact we all agreed on was that: Social media is media, and as another form of communication with your audience, it cannot be ignored.

Keyword Research 1 Oh 1

Posted on: September 8th, 2010 by EJ

Only using automated tools to generate keyword lists? If so, you are missing a lot.

Don’t trust the tools. The fact is: searchers are human, keyword tools (and search engines) are computer programs.

Good keyword research combines the logic and vocabulary of the human mind, with the semantic structure and order of a computer program.

Unfortunately keyword research tools, including Google Adwords KW tool, only report high volume “broad match” keywords and ignore punctuation, plurals, and grammar. The keywords returned by these tools are high volume and are usually obvious suggestions related to your search topic. But do they directly related to your product? service offering? or place of business? (most likely not)

If you only copy and paste what comes out of any one single keyword research tool your search strategy will be filled with holes.

Humans search as they think, and Geo-targeted, action based, and proximity modifiers are all a part of the common searcher’s vocabulary. Pin-point your audience by optimizing your search campaign for the variations of your core-keyword, which are most directly related to your business, not just the most searched variation of the keyword.

Build comprehensive keyword list(s) by combining your list of broad core-keyword list(s) with modifier tokens such as

Examples:
Proximity modifiers
“near the”
“around the”
“by the”
“near a”

Action Modifiers
“make a”
“build a”
“get a”
“buy a”
“find a”

Location Modifiers
in Orlando
in Florida
in Tampa

How do you find out which modifiers are used more often than others? Stayed tuned to keyword research 1 oh 1 to learn more.

This post is part of a series related to keyword research and advanced keyword research.

E-Commerce Trends for the last 150 days

Posted on: August 12th, 2009 by EJ

In preparation for the Digital Dumbo event hosted by Space150, Aaron, our COO, asked me about some trends that we’ve seen emerge in the last 150 days.  I wanted to highlight some of the changes I’ve seen on the E-Commerce side and how that has impacted our clients.

1. Consumer are not as trigger happy as they once were.  We’ve noticed slight falls in conversion rates, and a significant increase in average time on site, return visits, and average visits to purchase in our converting customers.  Simply: users are spending an increasing amount of time researching to make sure they get the best deal.

2. Comparison Shopping Engines and Affiliate sites are starting to drive an increase share of traffic.  Comparison Shopping Engines, such as Google Product Search, Shopping.com, Shopzilla, to name a few, allow consumer to compare prices and make sure you are getting the best deal possible. Coupon/Discount Affiliates, such as Ebates, Coupon Cabin, and Bing’s Cashback are starting to have a huge impact on traffic patterns and our clients bottom lines.

3. Reinforcements such as Free Shipping, Easy Returns, and Product Reviews are key to increasing conversions. These reinforcements "hold more influence over purchasing decisions than they did in 2008" according to a recent CA survey.

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4. Most product research begins with Google and Yahoo, while Bing is catching up.  SEO should still be top of mind for all clients as they evaluate their marketing mix.  Search continues to dominate in the beginning of the research cycle and again towards the end as a buyer makes sure they are getting the best deal possible.  It is now more important then ever to reevaluate your entry level/generic keywords and make sure you are providing your visitors the content they crave as they begin their research.

Content is King

Posted on: June 3rd, 2009 by EJ

Good SEO relies on content.  Fresh, accessible, natural, content.  Without it no matter how much time or money you spend on SEO, your rankings will not improve.  Good content is what drives users to your site, and gets people to link to you.  It’s that simple.

Here are 5 tips for keyword integration in your copy:

1. Titles

The most important place your keywords should appear is in the title meta tag of your page. If you are a PRPL client with an SEO retainer, chances are we did this research for you.  If you are using blogging software like wordpress your post or page title will be automatically transformed into both title tags and either an H1 or H2 heading tag as well. Remember, your headline should wrap your keywords.

2. Opening

I have always found it useful to repeat the targeted keywords in the opening sentence, as long as it can be done in a way that is appealing to a reader and reinforces relevancy. Since many search engines use this initial copy as the description of the content, you may want to make sure you are accurately selling the searcher on clicking through as well.  If you are using a meta description this is what the search engine will display in lieu of that copy.

3. Subheadings

Another important place that keywords can appear is in subheading that aid the reader in navigating down the page. A subheading that matches up with the targeted keyword phrase should work as an introduction to the next topical section of the page. Subheading are typically created using the H3 tag.  The term ‘subheadings’ in this subheading, for example, is in an H3 tag.

4. Related Words and Synonyms

Good copy should naturally result in words that are related to, as well as synonyms for, the keyword phrases you are optimizng for. Rather than mindlessly repeating the same words ad nauseam, also known as keyword stuffing, assume that search algorithms are advanced enough to look for proper contextually-related words that support your targeted keywords.

5. Specificity

One of the hallmarks of great copy is specific, descriptive words in lieu of bland general terminology. Specificity aids the reader by clearly demonstrating relevancy, allows for more dynamic copy, and provides opportunities to increase the general on-page keyword frequency. Make sure to employ your specific keywords when feasible within the context of the copy, rather than relying on generic wording.

Business and Pleasure

Posted on: April 9th, 2009 by EJ

My one true passion in life is travel, as cliche as that sounds.  Travel being such an important part of my life I always look for an opportunity. And if it’s work related, all the more better.  I am grateful that my job is incredibly flexible…all I need is a laptop and hi-speed Internet connection. Luckily this is not an issue anywhere…from the jungles of Costa Rica to a desolate village in Ukraine, you will always find a hostel with a hi-speed Internet connection.

My last journey took me to the land of milk and honey, Israel, or as the locals call it Eretz Israel.  This is my third trip to this country and I can’t stop.  Political tensions aside once you spend some time there you understand why this land is post-modern holy.  The entire country is one giant museum coupled with amazing beaches, beautiful women, amazing food…heaven on earth.   But aside from all the fun, touristy stuff I was here on a business mission…our new client was near Tel Aviv.  Time for a trip!

Over the next few days I spent time with our new client having Breakfast and Beers doing discovery, alignment and contract signing.  I love my job!

Tel Aviv/Yaffo

Contract Signing

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