If you can think of a relevant way to utilise video as part of your marketing then there’s every reason you should.

Research shows that audiences are extremely comfortable with the medium (YouTube alone makes up almost a quarter of Google search queries), it’s cheap to distribute, needn’t be expensive to produce and ranks highly in the SEO stakes.

If you run things properly, then video can drive a huge volume of traffic to your site.

Here are a few key practices to get you started…

Part of viral marketing may be pure luck, but that doesn’t mean you can’t optimise your existing and upcoming video for maximum links and viral spread.

There are any number of reasons that certain video content catches the wider public’s imagination and experiences rocketing traffic, but by and large successful viral videos conform to a few set criteria.

Be relevant

If you want to grab a few extra hits, then you need to be fast on your feet. If you have the capability to produce video quickly, then you can certainly hop on board with current trends or relevant news.

Just remember that this option needs to be quick-in, quick-out. Nothing dates faster than pop culture, so while it’s fine to reference and riff on what’s going on, remember that timing is of the essence.

Don’t leap on a bandwagon too late or overstay your welcome.

Be entertaining

Just because online video is a relatively new medium, that doesn’t mean you should disregard the rules of cinema. As with any other marketing stream, people want engaging and relevant content.

If you’re making a video, that means you need to add drama, tension or big laughs. It’s easy to create a video about your product, but if you go for the straight sell you’ll end up with the online equivalent of a 1950?s TV commercial.

Instead, take the reality TV route. Create a story and utilise product placement throughout.

Sell the situation and the characters, not just the product.

Be concise

YouTube recently announced plans to increase video length to fifteen minutes, but that doesn’t mean you have to fill that time. A 90 second video can be more effective than a ten minute epic so make sure you start editing even before you start rolling.

Put together a concise script and really think about the visual medium. A picture paints a thousand words, so you have an opportunity to convey your ideas quickly.

Generally speaking a viewer will start to lose interest around the three minute mark, so ditch any filler.

Be progressive

Something else to think about early on is the possibility of a sequel. Just because you won’t be vying with Spielberg come Oscar season, there’s no reason you can’t have a successful franchise.

If you plan things properly and work with a decent director then there’s no reason you can’t film several short episodes in a single sitting, maximising cost efficiency and giving you the chance to progress and develop your ideas and your brand identity, creating anticipation rather than trying an audience’s patience.

A successful series will add up to more views and a longer lasting return on your investment, so plan ahead.

Be searchable

Whenever you right copy or put together a campaign, you’ll be thinking about key words and compelling headlines and you should keep that in mind with video as well. A good title should be catchy and concise.

Video is often ranked highly by search engines as well, so make sure you frontload those key-words and offer value, consider using a question as a title. Overall, make sure you keep one eye on your customer research and target video accordingly.

Be clear

Finally, remember your CTAs.

Whatever you’re selling, make sure you emphasise it in the final frame, otherwise you could be left with a clever, shareable video that fails when it comes to sales.

You should brand your videos throughout with an on-screen bug, add calls to action whenever possible and make sure you optimise SEO in descriptions and tags when you upload your content.

Remember to make it easy for customers to click through to your site.

Above all, video is a creative medium.

Whatever your product, it’s usually best to keep a friendly tone of voice that isn’t too formal, and don’t be afraid to experiment or change your branding to suit the medium.

If you can present your product in a unique or amusing way then it will have a far greater chance of going viral.

Twitter’s attempts at developing a viable business selling ads are in full swing. Twitter’s latest experiment in this area: paid trending topics.

As I write this, Twitter users will find ‘Toy Story 3‘ in the list of Twitter’s worldwide trending topics. But unlike the other trending topics, it has a prominent ‘Promoted‘ image next to it.

According to TechCrunch, Twitter has confirmed that Disney/Pixar are paying for the Toy Story 3 trending topic:

As we have always said, we plan to test different advertising and promotional models in these early stages of our monetization efforts for both user and brand value. As part of this effort, we are testing trends clearly marked as “promoted” for an undefined period of time.

Like normal (read: unpaid) trending topics, clicking on the link generates a search result for the term. At the top of the list: a promoted tweet that Disney/Pixar is ostensibly also paying for. Below it: several ‘Top Tweets‘, which appear to be tweets that have been retweeted 100+ times.

On the surface, it looks like Twitter has come up with a fairly clever solution. The Toy Story 3 promoted trending topic is likely to expose far more Twitter users to Disney/Pixar’s promoted tweet, which has a link to Disney’s disneyticketstogether.com, a Facebook-based ticket sales application.

Of course, Twitter’s solution has to be more than just clever; it needs to deliver ROI. And when it comes to ROI, it’s not entirely clear that promoted trending topics, used in concert with promoted tweets, will ever be as effective as, say, AdWords when it comes to delivering intent and action. Two clicks are required (first on the trending topic, and then on the link in the promoted tweet). And since disneyticketstogether.com is on Facebook, Facebook members who aren’t logged in will have to log in. Non-Facebook members are, of course, out of luck.

Notwithstanding the structure of this campaign specifically, promoted trending topics also pose some risk for advertisers, as they can’t entirely control the tweets that appear in the search results. Not only could these tweets be negative, it seems like this may open the door for subversive guerilla marketing campaigns in some markets. Hypothetically, for instance, what would stop Reebok from engaging in a campaign to hijacking the search results for a Nike promoted trending topic?

Since promoted trending topics are an experiment, Twitter obviously has time to figure these sorts of things out. But one thing is clear: Twitter is serious about monetizing, and just about every part of the Twitter service is fair game.

Whatever your industry, there’s bound to be a blog out there that specialises in it, and these can be incredibly valuable sources of inbound links to your site.

For anyone reading this who’s new to search engine optimisation (SEO), natural inbound links to your website from authoritative blogs will do wonders for your position in the search engine results pages. Google and the rest look at these links to assess the importance of your pages for certain keywords and phrases.

So, that makes top bloggers hugely important to your optimisation efforts. Once you’ve worked out which are the most relevant and powerful online journals, how can you encourage them to link to your pages?

Here are my thoughts, please add your own.

Deal delicately

Successful bloggers tend to be extremely proud of their efforts so you may have to tread very carefully.

If you get in touch and offer the writer money to promote your product, you could well end up with a scathing attack on you for cynicism.

To be honest, a blog that will accept money to promote a product will probably not be that powerful or respected a resource anyway. Lots of blogs accept money to promote goods and services but only a few manage to retain their trusting audience once they do so.

When you’re dealing with a blogger, a negative discussion or debate could result in bad publicity on the very blog you’re trying to gain exposure and links through.

Meet people

If it’s possible, meet your target blogger in person. Whether it’s at a conference or networking event, or your company actually taking the writer out for a drink or meal, meeting someone in person is always a far better starting point than an unsolicited email.

Offer guest posts

Although many blogs won’t want to risk their integrity by promoting your product or service, that doesn’t mean they wouldn’t agree to host a guest blog post.

This could be anything from a regular column like mine in Econsultancy, or a one-off contribution. Of course, it’s important that such posts are interesting in their own right and not just sales pitches – when you’re trying to reach out via the blogosphere, you need value-adding articles and guides rather than brochures.

Send freebies

How much confidence do you have in what you sell? Although many bloggers will reject requests for positive coverage, many of them will happily accept products to review – especially if they can keep the gadget afterwards.

If you offer a service rather than a product, invite them along to experience it. As long as it’s relevant to their blogging topic, most writers will happily run a review – everyone likes a freebie.

The only danger is that you do open yourself up to criticism if the blogger doesn’t think you’re quite up to scratch.

Blog yourself

The blogosphere is based on conversations and the best way to get involved in these is to start your own.

If you want inbound links from other industry blogs, then posting your own thoughtful articles on your own website is perhaps the best way to get coverage.

Having said that, although it may be the best way, it is far from the easiest. Your posts will need to be articulate, informative and valuable – so be aware that a blog takes time. Done well, though, it will be invaluable to your SEO efforts.

Online telephone company Skype has been making headlines today for its impressive growth over the last year. According to new research from TeleGeography, Skype now accounts for 12% of all long distance calls.

But is the company eating its competitors’ lunches or growing the telephony market? Signs point to the latter. But that doesn’t mean long distance carriers have less to worry about.

Skype’s business model seems easy enough. The company offers free phone calls (and video) over the internet between its users. If a Skype user calls a landline, he or she is charged for that call, but even that cost is much lower than traditional phone company billing.

It seems like a pretty easy way to undercut the competition. But Skype’s exponential growth over the last year hasn’t really come at the expense of other companies. The company has grew its phone calling rates over 60% last year.

Paul Brodsky, an analyst for TeleGeography, tells The Wall Street Journal that Skype grew its rates cutting into the business of traditional phone companies:

“Skype is taking away would-be market share of international traffic from conventional phone companies.”

But that does not account for the fact that international voice traffic is still expected to grow around 7 to 8% annually between 2009 and 2011 according to TeleGeography.

How is that possible? Because Skype has actually created business for itself. Consumers who have sworn off international calling because of high fees are more than willing to try out a service that allows them to videoconference for free. And the 2009 numbers from Skype show that they liked what they saw.

Skype’s registered user number is impressive — the company had over 500 million registered users towards the end of 2009, versus 405 million registered users at the end of 2008. But because it is a free service, that number has less to do with the company’s health than how often people use its services.

And those numbers are more than healthy. In addition to its more than 50% growth in Skype-to-Skype traffic last year, Skype users are expected to generate 54 billion minutes in international traffic in 2009 compared to only 33 billion minutes in 2008. Meanwhile, Skype is now the largest long distance phone company in the world.

Meanwhile, Skype charges for its SkypeOut service, which lets users to make calls to standard telephones. Those calls generated about 12 billion minutes of traffic in 2009. Skype relies on traditional wholesale carriers to connect these calls to the telephone network.

If Skype was really cutting into traditional telephony business, that business would not have grown 8% from 2008 to 2009.

That’s not to say that the company won’t also steal business from more expensive competitors. But so far, Skype is not integrated into the telephone habits of most consumers the way that traditional phone carriers are.

Most Skypers are still using their computers to make calls and they are not using the service as an alternative to more expensive options, but to make calls where previously they would have chosen another mode of communication.

While telephone carriers should be afraid of Skype, it’s not because the online company has underpriced them. It’s because the company has gotten people excited about something that they had made difficult and avoidable.

Now that gives Skype room to go after the rest of their business in 2010. Especially when the service starts getting onto mobile phones.

Thanks to a tweet tip, the aftermath of Scotland Yard’s crackdown can be seen with a Google UK search for ‘ugg boots’. As I write this, no less than seven of the top 10 results on the first page for this search are inaccessible. One of the websites that can’t be accessed includes the top-ranked site: okuggboots.co.uk.

The Scotland Yard crackdown, dubbed Operation Papworth, was designed to protect consumers from criminals hawking fake wares using websites set up on .co.uk domains. The body that handles domain registrations in the UK, Nominet, cooperated in the operation.

According to the BBC, Ugg brand boots were a popular target for fraudsters and complaints about fake Ugg boots had skyrocketed over the past year. More than 400 of the websites caught in the Operation Papworth dragnet were selling fake Ugg boots.

While designer knockoffs and the internet have had cozy relationship for years, Operation Papworth has exposed the fact that many online criminals are well-versed in blackhat SEO. Without top SERPs, the online storefronts being used to sell counterfeit goods to consumers would have been far less successful. But by controlling the first page of Google’s results for a popular search query like ‘ugg boots’, one can only imagine how much revenue the fraudsters pulled in before Operation Papworth put a dent in business.

The real story here is how criminals came to own the SERPs. As I’ve written before, Google’s ability to detect webspam and paid links appears at times to be non-existent. A quick look at the backlinks for okuggboots.co.uk provides perhaps the most shameful example of this. Out of the 400 or so backlink results displayed, most are on Chinese websites. And because link: only returns a subset of the full backlinks, this is probably only the tip of the iceberg.

The question, of course, is why Google would rank okuggboots.co.uk — a British site — so highly when so many of its backlinks appear to come from Chinese websites, the majority of which have .cn domains and minimal English text. An even bigger question is how Google missed the questionable nature of the backlinks themselves. The following HTML code from one of the Chinese websites was placed above the starting tag of the page:

<marquee height=1 width=5 SCROLLAMOUNT=3000 SCROLLDELAY=20000>
<a href=”http://www.supplyugg.com/”>ugg boots</a>
<a href=”http://www.bestuggboots.co.uk/”>uggs</a>
<a href=”http://www.uggforever.co.uk/”>uggs</a>
<a href=”http://www.supplyugg.co.uk/”>uggs</a>
<a href=”http://www.okuggboots.co.uk/”>uggs</a>
<a href=”http://www.okugg.co.uk/”>uggs</a>
<a href=”http://www.uggforever.co.uk/”>ugg</a>
<a href=”http://www.okuggboots.co.uk/”>ugg</a>
<a href=”http://www.saleugg.co.uk/”>ugg</a>
</MARQUEE>

Given the nature of the links, it seems pretty likely that many of these backlinks were placed on websites that had been compromised (the HTML above is from a Chinese government website). And while there’s obviously no way to tell how much weight, if any, was given to these links, it’s absolutely astonishing that such a blatant and unsophisticated hidden linking tactic could be used in such a widespread fashion, all while Google still gives the linked-to websites top SERPs as opposed to penalties or outright bans.

Adding insult to injury, it doesn’t take much to pick up traces of another tactic used by okuggboots.co.uk: comment spam, all over the place.

I don’t know how else to say it: Operation Papworth has completely exposed Google. I wouldn’t go so far as to ‘blame’ Google for all the consumers who were undoubtedly scammed after searching for ‘ugg boots’ and being led to a counterfeiter’s website, and to be fair to Google, policing the internet isn’t an easy task. But it’s really hard to imagine how Google’s webspam detection could be this flawed.

One can only hope that Google is paying attention to this situation and looking at all the obvious things it’s clearly not paying attention to right now. For the time being, most consumers certainly aren’t aware of just how much Google seems to be letting them down, but make no doubt about it: Google’s SERPs are golden because consumers trust them. After seeing this, I can’t help but think that maybe that trust is misplaced. If Google doesn’t recognize the value of that trust, it risks eventually losing it.

Most web design companies are one or two person operations, with little to no free time for items like after-sales service.

You are usually so busy with current projects that answering calls from past customers can seem like an unnecessary and non-profitable chore.

Here is how you can plug back in to your client base and turn customer service into the profit center that you never thought it would be.

1. Ditch the “Pump and Dump” Model

Many of us tell ourselves that web design isn’t like other businesses. Therefore, we don’t have to behave as other business people do. We can design websites, get our final payment from the customer once the job is done and move on to the next client. This is completely wrong thinking. Web design is a service just like landscaping, legal representation or car repair. You are providing a service for money. While you may be in demand now, in a downturn you will only keep your business profitable if you provide outstanding service. While you do need to devote a certain percentage of your time to finding new leads, you should devote the same amount of time each week to helping out your past clients.

2. Make Your Terms Clear

Most web design firms offer maintenance packages or charge for updates. While it is important to provide good customer service, you should spell out clearly what constitutes free customer service and what constitutes a paid request.

This is best handled in your initial contract with the customer. Many web designers don’t like to produce contracts as they are worried about scaring off the customer. On the contrary, the customer will often view such a move as a legitimate business transaction and a sign that you are a professional. Be very wary of any company that is not willing to sign a contract for whatever reason.

The contract should include a copy of your quote to your customer with a statement that anything over and above what is included in the quotation will be charged out separately. One-time charges for updates and maintenance packages should be on offer in the contract and on your website so that clients can refer back to these charges.

3. Deal With Emergencies

We’ve all gotten that strange call from a client declaring that something is an emergency and needs to be fixed RIGHT NOW, regardless of what that emergency is. While it may not be an emergency to you, your client perceives it as such and how quickly you deal with that emergency will reflect on your business. It may be helpful to explain to your client that something isn’t as bad as it seems after the fact, but don’t even go there unless you have fixed the issue at hand.

4. Treat Every Contact as an Opportunity

From simple questions about search engines to irate clients, each call is an opportunity for you to reach out and either educate or placate your client. One of the most common complaints about web design companies is their lack of responsiveness after the project is complete. All you need to do to combat this is answer your clients when they phone or e-mail you.

You can build on this by weaving sales techniques into your after-sales service. The key to doing this properly is to address the actual needs of your customer. When a customer calls you, ask them at the end of the call how everything is going and if there is anything more that you can do for them. This is when they’ll start telling you about a form they have been thinking of adding or a new technology that they want to try out. Leave it open-ended and let the customer talk. If they simply say “No.”, then thank them for their call and move on to your projects. At least one in ten of them will probably say “Yes” and give you more business.

E-mails are a tricky subject. One of the problems with e-mail is that we get so many of them in our business day that it is easy to let a customer request fall to the bottom of the pile. Flag customer requests or put them in their own folder for immediate answering so that this doesn’t happen to you. If an e-mail isn’t something that requires an e-mail reply, such as a customer asking for a link to something, pick up the phone and call them. You’ll have a much better chance of impressing the customer over the phone then you will over e-mail.

5. Identify and Cultivate “Angel” Customers

Develop an 80/20 list. It is a general rule that 20% of your clients are responsible for 80% of your income. Once you have identified them, treat these clients as “angel” customers. You need to retain their loyalty in order to keep your business viable. This may mean taking each of them out to lunch a couple of times a year or bringing them to a lecture on search engine marketing at a local trade show. Whatever you do, make sure that you don’t just know their names, but can actually come close to calling them friends after a while. While this concept may seem tacky, it is an old school way of doing business that most people still appreciate. Loyalty is earned by doing a good job first and forging a relationship second. If you don’t forge that relationship, your customer does not have the necessary loyalty to return to you for their website needs.

6. Turn The Rest of Your Customers Into “Angels”

Look at the remaining 80% on your list. Ideally, you would like to move them into the 20% column. You can do this by sending out educational e-mail newsletters, sending Christmas cards once a year and occasionally calling them to see if they need anything or have any questions for you. Treat these calls with the same importance as your sales calls – they will lead to just as much business. Consider having pens or other promotional items made with your logo and sending them to your customer, then following up with a phone call to make sure that they got them.

If you can find a way to incorporate at least a few of these customer service ideas into your everyday business, you’ll be making your clients happier and making a little more money in the process.

If you’re looking to work your way up the search engine rankings, and who isn’t? Then one way to get some good insights into what works and what doesn’t is to see what your competitors are up to. What does that top ranking site have that your site doesn’t? It is surprisingly easy to find out these things, or some of them at least. One of the great things about the web is that finding who your competitors are is easy, as is comparing services and products. It’s a given that customers usually return to sites that are easy to browse and that have generous amounts of information, even if the visitors don’t partake of all of it.

Analyze The Top Sites in Your Niche

Once you find out what the top ranking sites in your niche are, what should you do? Well, here are several things you can do.

You can find out some very interesting facts. For example, you might discover that a lot of the inbound links come from websites that the competitor owns. This isn’t always easy to find out, but it’s very informative if you can. The “whois” information may not give you much to go on, but if you do discover that this is the case, you may realize that owning some legitimate websites on the side can help attract more traffic to your site.

You might discover when browsing through your competitor’s site that even though the information on your site is similar, their site has a very different structure – a better optimized structure. It could make a big difference in their search engine ranking. You might discover that your competitor is using a bunch of keywords and key phrases that you never even thought of.

Start off simply enough. Get a pad of paper and a pen and make notes as you thoroughly do your own “crawl” of your competitor’s site. Look over the pages as they appear first, then go back and look at the source html. On most browsers you get this by pressing ctrl+U. If not, this command can often be found in the “Tools” menu of your browser. Don’t worry. You don’t have to be an html genius to learn from it.

Look at their title tag. Is it well written? Does it reflect a common syntax used throughout the site? On the home page, look for the H1, H2, and H3 tags. If you find them, your competitor uses heading tags within the page. Try to identify the actual text used in the headings. You will more than likely find some key phrases within these tags.

Look for nofollow tags. These are used to spread PageRank throughout the site. Doing this is what’s known as having a themed structure, and it can be very beneficial to your ranking. If you find this pattern, they either know their SEO or they’ve hired someone who does.

How do they do their navigation? Is it in a drop-down menu? Is it search engine friendly? In the footer is there a text menu?

Look at the anchor text: is there a pattern of keywords there? If certain words appear there often, they are almost certainly target phrases.

Check the Google PageRank of the pages you visit. If a page has a notably high PR, pay closer attention to that page. These are often pages that have the information that visitors choose to link to. It could give you some clues for adding similar content to your website.

Promoting a company’s products or services by email can be a powerful form of direct marketing. It is fast, time efficient and cheap. You can also tailor your message to specific types of clients more cost-effectively than using marketing channels.email marketing

However, it can also be seen as SPAM and can be annoying, disruptive and damaging for business. The days of buying a million UK email addresses for a mass broadcast are over. The return has dropped form 0.025% to 0.002%.

A cheaper and more effective use of email marketing is for clients to supply with a list of email addresses that are current (ie recent potential sales / enquiries). This list forms the beginning of an email broadcast that is carried out monthly.

The process is often even less client involved. As we receive a copy of all enquires, to assist in SEO and ROI reports, it is a simple matter of collecting the email addresses and then sending out an incentive email for enquirers to re contact.

As these email recipients have been in contact with the client recently, it is not deemed as intrusive. Response rates are approximately 8%.

How much profit can I expect?

All the links, search engine optimising, page ranks in the world, are wasted if the company cannot make profit from its internet marketing spend. Marketing speak of ‘brand promotion, market positioning, customer awareness’ are all excuses heard when it comes to a poor return on investment for every marketing pound spent. There are two simple considerations:

1. What is the break even point?
2. Can the ‘internet’ supply the necessary traffic?

ROI formula, current Website Promotion Strategies

A simple formula for working out if a client is seeing an attractive return on their website promotion budget is as follows:

400 unique visitors to the website = 1 Sale
(Source historic data collected over 5 years studying over 220 commercial websites both B2B and B2C)

The value of the sale is determined by a client’s retail price (RRP) minus cost of product (RRP / 2.5).

Example
Website Promotion Cost: Client is paying Adam Woozeer £750 per month
Product Profit: Client’s average sale value (RRP) is £400
Profit = RRP – cost (£400 / 2.5) = £240

Return on Marketing Spend
One sale is worth £240 gross profit to a client
Website Promotion Cost: £750 pcm
Break Even = £750 / (Y x £120)
Y = 3 sales per month

100% ROI
A 100% ROI is often set as a target for new clients, as it is a simple memorable figure for all involved to be aware of, and if it is not reached we would question the viability of our strategy continuing.. In this example case a 100% ROI = 6 sales

Web Traffic Target
We know that it takes 400 unique visitors to a website to generate one sale. We would set a target of 3500 visitors to a client’s website, for a client to see a return of 100%. How exactly do we determine the right online marketing mix to ensure this traffic, is what we are expert at.

Mobile Marketing Growth

The mobile phone continues to become better, faster and more widely used as a device for browsing the internet. Preparing a website for suitable viewing on a mobile is a simple process that we offer all of our clients.

We specialise in ‘Mobile’ web development, or in other words, developing websites, so that they will provide an acceptable user experience on mobile devices.

Mobile Marketing Results

We are able to help our clients rank their mobile sites highly in the search engines, through Keyword promotion, Optimised Mobile News Content generation, SEO Consulting for Mobile sites and Viral Marketing Campaigns with Mobile Messaging.