The importance of ongoing learning

People who are good at something make it look easy.  For instance, when Tiger Woods was at his peak, it sure looked like no big deal to shoot a 65 at the Masters.  But fast forward to 2010 and we see the same person but struggling with his game – clearly suffering from not putting in the time to be the best.

What we don’t see with people who make things look easy is the extraordinary time they put into their trade when no one is looking.  The extra time spent reading, studying, practicing and generally becoming better prepared for whatever they are doing.

WSI 2010 Annual Conference – Lessons Learned

This year, our WSI Annual Conference centered on the theme of “social media.”  Most speakers focused on some aspect of how all the digital and social technology is changing our lives and fostering new behavior both on an economic and personal level.

But to me, the real lesson was that the people who are committed to ongoing learning will never have a bigger advantage than they will in coming years.

Think about it – over the last few years the pace of technological change in our daily lives has been dizzying (to say the least).  7 year olds are now walking around with mobile phones and texting their friends while surfing the internet!

But for business people, this means that their customers are shopping, buying and doing business in a whole new process that involves digital media and social technology.  And the successful businesses will be the ones who learn, adapt and change the fastest.

What should you be doing?

At the conference, one of the speakers suggested spending at least 30 minutes daily taking in a “river of knowledge” using all of the digital and social technology available to us today.  As such, the only way to keep up is by taking part in changes as they happen, and spending the time daily to “work on our games.”

And that’s the power of WSI as an organization – constantly feeding that information out to our 1,200 consultants worldwide sharing best practices and success stories.  And in turn, sharing that information with our clients.  Working daily on “our games” is our plan to stay ahead of the curve!

Internet marketing 101

Businesspeople often say that they feel that they are wasting money on advertising but that they are not sure which money is being wasted and which is translating into profits. In fact, John C. Penny (JC Penny Founder) once said that half of his marketing money was wasted, he just wish he knew which half.

Now that much of the budget for marketing pursuits is devoted to online marketing rather than tangible, traditional advertisements, it can be nothing short of overwhelming, especially for time strapped business owners and managers.

The shift to online from traditional media

The popularity of Google has changed the way potential customers find companies and select products. For most people, the process starts online with a search. This has resulted in a complete change in the way marketers approach sales techniques to reach potential clients.

Here are some terms that will help you understand online advertising as it exists currently, in the world of social media and Google:

• SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. It refers to the way a website is built and positioned in order to be seen and ranked highly by popular search engines.
• PPC stands for pay per click and refers to a type of advertisement that can be placed on Google. Customers pay Google a set rate for each person that clicks on their ad.
• Social media and social networking refer to websites dedicated to connecting people for various purposes, whether it is for fun, business, or potential collaborations. Websites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn provide unique opportunities to connect with other businesses as well as your customers.

Where to start?

If the shift towards digital marketing has you stumped, you are not alone. The most effective online marketing approaches incorporate each of these three components into a comprehensive plan that reaches consumers where they are, in any and all of these places. This is something that is hard, if not impossible, to get “out of the box” so to speak and requires careful planning and work to get the results you want.

Does pushing the “search” button takes too long?

Google instant is a new feature from Google that you have probably already noticed, especially if you have been a little frustrated thinking Google was broken this past week.

The whole thing with Instant is that results are updated right before your eyes.  As you type the phrase suggestions appear or disappear.  So what may start as a single word gets more specific as you type longer phrases.

Question – how long does it take to push the button, and is going without it really an improvement?

What exactly is “Instant”?

Google Instant is based on the assumption (maybe study) that we read faster than we type.  So Google figured if they show you more results as you type, you can find what you want faster.

Time Savings

Google says it will save you 2.5 – 5 seconds per search.

Add it up…50 searches a day x 2.5 seconds is 125 seconds or 2 minutes.  X 360 days that’s 750 minutes or 12 hours a year!  Do you really think this search tool will save you 12 hours per year?

Predictive Search

Google is actually trying to predict what you want – and show it to you so you don’t have to go searching.

Suggestions from Google

Google is now giving you results without even typing in the whole search term.

Some things to note

1. Like all of Google’s newer features, You CAN turn it off in your preferences
2. Don’t worry about Google finishing your kid’s search with dirty phrases.  Safe search is enabled if you already have that done.
3. They say it doesn’t slow down your internet connection.

Is Social media causing the world to “devolve”?

I sat through an interesting presentation this week given by Michael Fredrick of Point 2 Point Central.  Michael is a web developer who has grown up in the online world and has a different perspective on things than those of us who grew up “offline” so to speak.

The presentation was designed to educate business owners about how social media has grown into an 800 pound gorilla; and what they should be tuned in to if they want to keep from falling behind.  He also talked about the evolution of social media and where it’s headed in the coming years.

Some interesting facts from Point2Point about the growing world of social media

• 20% of American’s consume fast food daily and 50% use social networking sites daily
• Wikipedia has more than 14 million articles and 85,000 contributors

Facebook:

• Facebook has more than 500 million active users
• 50% of them are on Facebook every day
• Zynga, the creators of Farmville, is currently worth $5 billion!

Twitter:

• Twitter has more than 100 million users
• Twitter is adding 300k new users per day!
• Twitter gets 180 million unique visitors to the site every day
• Twitter is handling more than 55 million tweets per day

You Tube:

• People are watching 2 billion videos per day
• Every minute, 24 hours of video is being uploaded to You Tube

Word Press

• Over 25 million WordPress publishers
• Over 260 million people visit a WordPress site or blog every month

What does all this mean?

We know from previous studies that the #1 reason people go online is to “pass time.”  But what does the growth of the social websites mean?

For business owners, it means more new things to learn – because they can no longer ignore what’s happening in the online world.

For everyone else, does this mean the world is “devolving”?  Meaning that people are acting less like people and more like machines connecting through the digital world?  Only time will tell!

Rankings are all of a sudden all over the place

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve probably heard that Yahoo and Bing are merging.  Well sort of.

Yahoo is actually taking its search engine out behind the barn and putting it out of its misery.  They have decided to partner with Bing / Microsoft to provide all of their search results which started in the last few weeks.

What does this mean for you?

Keep an eye on your website leads and traffic in the coming months just in case you see any dips or rises due to these changes.

The results for Yahoo and Bing have been all over the board and changed drastically over the past month, a trend that we’ve observed in almost every campaign we monitor.  And if you normally get good traffic from Yahoo or Bing, there is a chance that could change immediately.

The process has already begun

Yahoo US has already taken the plunge, and you can actually see “Powered by Bing” under the search results.  You will also notice that search results for both Yahoo and MSN should largely be the same for all keywords for this same reason.

We are following this trend as it is still in the initial phases and is not totally completed.  It may lead to further changes.  And even though Yahoo and Bing make up a smaller amount of overall search volume compared to Google, it still has an impact your website rankings and internet marketing efforts.

Support the Saints and help grant a wish

Today is opening day for the 2010-2011 NFL season.  The Saints play the Vikings tonight and start their defense of their Super Bowl victory.

And true to form, New Orleanians have already begun making up Louisiana names for things.  Last year we had “Lombardi Gras” and now we have chants for the repeat Super Bowl trip starting.  Maybe you’ve heard of “Two-Dat” or, in Cajun “Deux-Dat”?

Help grant wishes for critically ill children

If you want to show your team support, checkout the new line of “Deux Dat” t-shirts from A Child’s Wish of Louisiana.  Shirts are just $25 each and all proceeds to toward funding wishes for critically ill Louisiana children.

Support A Child’s Wish – Buy Your “Deux Dat” T-Shirt Today

Texas AG considers taking Google to court

I saw an interesting story this week about a situation where someone who wasn’t happy with Google’s search rankings of certain sites is considering suing the world’s most popular search engine.  The Texas attorney general is looking into complaints that Google is tilting their search results to favor certain sites over others.  The AG apparently has filed an “antitrust inquiry” into the matter.

As frustrating as it can be trying to crack the “Google code,” I can’t see deferring to the conspiracy theorists and resorting to lawsuits.  And I can think of a bunch of reasons to find other things to do with my time besides threaten legal action against the world’s leading search engine.

3 Good reasons NOT to sue Google if you don’t like their results:

1.  Google is the “People’s Choice”

The reason Google is so popular is not because they spend money on marketing.  It’s because users think they give the best results when they search for things.  It’s that simple.

And they don’t just do a little better than everyone else.  It’s way better.  Most studies estimate that Google handles 2/3 of all search requests worldwide.

2.  Google isn’t just waiting for you to show up.

My good friend Ari Malek beat this into my head early on.  Just because you build a site and shoot for a certain phrase, search engines don’t just push everyone out of the way to make room for you.  You have to earn your spot in the rankings.

3.  Google has more money than you.

With annual revenue approaching $30 billion, my guess is Google is ready to stay in court longer than you are!

Here’s a great quote that sums it up:

“Given that not every website can be at the top of the results, or even appear on the first page of our results, it’s unsurprising that some less relevant, lower quality websites will be unhappy with their ranking,” Don Harrison, Google’s deputy general counsel, wrote in a Friday blog post.

Read the full story about the Texas AG looking into Google results

The Final Frontier?  Maybe…

While we have covered A/B split testing extensively in previous posts, there is still a great deal to be said about the many ways that this tool can be used and the advantages to be gained from its regular use.

There are three additional points that are highly relevant when  learning about this type of testing for online optimization:

1. When true A/B testing is not possible, there are other ways to create alternative A/B split tests. In a true A/B split test, two versions of a given page are displayed in an alternating pattern to visitors who come to your site. Sometimes, due to technological issues or other limitations, this cannot be done on your site. Consider setting up a sequential test in which you leave one page up for a certain period of time and then switch to the other version.
2. Testing may seem like unnecessary work, but in reality it is the only way you can understand what is working and what is not in your online marketing system. With regular, well-designed, and ongoing testing, you can identify and solve problems, correct false assumptions, and reach the highest possible conversion rates. Testing provides the data necessary to show those in charge which design works best.
3. Additionally, testing regularly will give you a large data set to draw upon when faced with any new challenges or major choices. The aggregated data will allow you to draw larger conclusions about overall trends, resulting in better overall design and a smarter, more effective marketing plan.

Advantages You Can’t Pass Up

The advantages to testing your design, copy, and other components of your online plan regularly are nearly limitless. As a business owner, it is only logical that you incorporate testing into your overall strategy as not only an immediate choice, but also as part of the ongoing maintenance.

Why business should care about social media

I love the whole discussion about what this new generation of “social media” websites is doing to the world.  There’s no doubt about it that by now everyone knows that Facebook has become mainstream.  I’ve even heard some people say that Facebook is “so 2008.”

But still, even with so much “adoption” of social sites, what does a business person need to do about it?

Get involved before it’s too late

Social media sites drain a business owners most precious resource – TIME.  But like having a website, it’s no longer something you can ignore and hope it goes away.

Some food for thought:

1.  You had better protect your social media profiles before someone else creates one that looks like you!

2. You don’t need to participate on all of these sites regularly – but you had better have a nice looking profile there.

3.  The internet does not “fact check” so you should pay close attention to what people are saying about you online.

4.  Customer reviews (real or otherwise) are factored into the equation when people check out your business.

Learn More

Read our new article called Social Media Explained for People with Real Jobs to learn more about this subject.  Or if you would like help, don’t hesitate to contact us with your questions.