5 Steps to Effective Media Planning for SEM Programs

SEM programs are always the ones that keep you on a tight rope. The precariousness of program management often gets to the manager, resulting in haphazard decisions and unarranged reporting. And like every other type of management, the best way to avoid getting nipped at the last moment is by taking on a paid search program with a clearly defined media plan. A plan of action, which clearly states what needs to be done, how it needs to be done and by when it has to meet its completion, is the only respite that exists for paid search managers who are desperate to draw some ease into the process.

1. Assign clearly defined duties: This is an underscored aspect for achieving some sort of clarity and ease while handing a paid search program. Everybody working on an SEM project must be well aware of what they are responsible for, who are they supposed to report to, from whom are they required to gather inputs from and who has be to be updated about any developments; if not more. A clear understanding of one’s duty helps systematise the course of handling an SEM program, ironing out much of the discrepancies that result from unfocused work duties. 

2. Explicitly define program objectives: Every SEM program manager will agree that clearly defined program objectives are crucial to handling a program. Objectives that are explicitly stated, rather than subjectively cocooned are essential for understanding what you are working towards. Stating that ‘you are working towards increasing profits by 15% to $150,000 by next quarter’ is a well-defined objective; merely expressing you are working towards ‘maximizing profits’ is simply an expression of your program goals, not its objectives. 

3. Work with a budget: To have an unlimited budget is an aspiration for any paid search program manager. But the possibilities of it being under-optimized are very high. A better measure would be to understand how many conversions you can achieve with a certain budget, and then circle your way out around it.

4. Report with clarity: It is hard to not be a diplomat when reporting results, particularly when they have not been up to the mark. But take it with a bullet, and state results with clarity. It is better to make stakeholders understand a situation as it is than have them amount to any surreal expectations in future. 

5. Working with a timeline helps: Timeline helps optimize priorities better. Moreover, by working with a timeline, you can hope to get access to seasonal information which can be just the catalysing ingredient for your program.

So, in essence, work with media plan that seeks to collaborate and co-ordinate with dependencies and helps define a proper work-flow and responsibility for everyone involved.  

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Personal selling gets modern with Social Media

There was a time when personal selling through sales person and cold calls were the money-spinning tricks of the day. However, they lost their charm mid-way. People were annoyed with constant nagging and insistence on how we need a product or service and how they can get it to us at half price.

Fast forward to 21^st century! Enter Facebook, Twitter, Blogs and Forums, and marketing as we knew it changed for ever (and for good too!). No one first anticipated the power social media would hold as a business driver, but modern marketing is testament to the fact that social media is as indispensible to sales leads as water is to plants. It is inarguably the best way for a brand to reach out to a set of people and engage with them in way that a conversation develops between them. It is this conversation, the voluntarily inflicted affiliation to a brand, which causes prospects to turn into customers, without the brand coming across a pushy and annoying.

Opting for social media marketing is a four-step process: Getting attention, Igniting interest, creating desire and inflicting action. Benefits, however, are three fold. One, their capital investment in the channel is practically nil. The only investment social media marketing calls for is that of time. Two, the choice of platform makes them comes across as anything but annoying like a sales person. This is because social media, by some stroke genius, is home to more than 60% of world population.  This means that people love being on social media, particularly networking sites, and find interactions on the same as more meaningful and appealing. Lastly, social media facilitates brand advocacy. This is best explained by considering that you are a brand with an active fan base, and interact with your audiences on a regular basis through a Facebook page, Twitter account or Blog. When audiences are proactively interacting, it signals that they like the brand, enjoy talking about it, and are genuinely interested in what it has to offer. When audiences start filtering brand’s identity in candied overtones, they are more inclined to refer the brand to someone else, and these people, on having similar experiences, are likely to set off the cycle again. It’s like word of mouth; only digitized.

So, bottom line remains that social media marketing, perhaps coined with a little dose of search engine optimization and PPC advertising, is the best way to reach out to you audiences and convert them into customers. Cold calls are better left to the 90s. 

An Understanding of Social Bookmarking Websites

Social Bookmarking is a method used by internet users to organize, tag, share, store, manage and search for useful links. Social bookmarking is not like file sharing; it does not share resources but shares bookmarks that reference them. Social bookmarking compiles all your favorite bookmarks online on a website so that you can access it from any computer. Bookmarks which you store on your browser are computer specific and can only be accessed through your system but social bookmarking makes your favorites available on any computer system.

To ease searching on search engines, bookmarks can be tagged. For example, you can tag a travel website with ‘travel’. You can either save your bookmark publicly, privately or shared with a group of people. So, if your bookmark is shared publicly, any user who searches for travel websites can read and access your bookmark too. Readers can mark the usefulness of a bookmark by giving it thumbs up or thumbs down. Different websites have different voting criteria. Social bookmarking can also be used as an SEO tool. You can improve the ranking and visibility of the website where the article appeared.

Social tagging, also known as folksonomy, is a process by which users can add metadata in the form of keywords to describe the content of the resource. Social bookmarking websites are useful for increasing the visibility of the lesser known websites. It is a useful tool to increase website traffic, especially so when bookmarks are shared on social networking websites. You can choose the social bookmarking platform to bookmark articles, news, videos, images and other content based on the nature of the content. The most commonly used social bookmarking websites are Delicious, StumbleUpon, Digg, Reddit, Pinterest and many more. 

International SEO Aids Business Globalization

International search engine optimization is an essential if you want to spread the reach of your business globally. The process of international SEO is the same as domestic SEO and works towards improving a website’s rank on a SERP, which leads to an increase in conversion rates. 

The main challenge that you will face for international website optimization is choosing right strategies for a large number of locales, cultural norms and languages. We have jotted down a few important pointers for those who plan to implement international SEO programs. 

The moment you decide to expand your business internationally, you should start strategizing international SEO. It should be pre-planned and never an afterthought. International SEO is instrumental to find new businesses across the globe. Firstly, make a list of keywords that customers are likely to use. Research and find out if there is any local slang or will the exact translation be productive. This information is needed to develop the optimization process of an international website. 

Avoid automated translation, and rely on human expertise for accurate translations. If you are trying to engage customers through the social media, errors can prove fatal. You can stain your reputation while you are still trying to gain foothold in the global market. Be cautious with the translations, identify and rectify faults in multilingual brand messaging. It is not only important to scrutinize words, but also the images. An image can signal your company’s knowledge or ignorance about the target market. An image can carry negative connotation locally, so it is advisable to approach local experts for help.

Globalization has led to mixed populations worldwide. There are many residents from different regions located in a single country. For example, in Switzerland, a consumer’s preferred language may be French, German or English. It is best to offer visitors a dropdown box on your website, to select the preferred language from a wide range of language choices.

Lastly, emphasize on regularly monitoring and updating your website content. Always resubmit your website for indexing every time you make changes. This will ensure that your changes are captured by the relevant search engines. 

International SEO is important because a large number of the world’s population accessing the web speak languages other than English. If you intend to expand your business, it is necessary to optimize your website to meet the needs of the target audience. Therefore, international SEO should be on the top of your globalization to-do list.

International search engine optimization is an essential if you want to spread the reach of your business globally. The process of international SEO is the same as domestic SEO and works towards improving a website’s rank on a SERP, which leads to an increase in conversion rates. The main challenge that you will face for international website optimization is choosing right strategies for a large number of locales, cultural norms and languages. We have jotted down a few important pointers for those who plan to implement international SEO programs. The moment you decide to expand your business internationally, you should start strategizing international SEO. It should be pre-planned and never an afterthought. International SEO is instrumental to find new businesses across the globe. Firstly, make a list of keywords that customers are likely to use. Research and find out if there is any local slang or will the exact translation be productive. This information is needed to develop the optimization process of an international website. Avoid automated translation, and rely on human expertise for accurate translations. If you are trying to engage customers through the social media, errors can prove fatal. You can stain your reputation while you are still trying to gain foothold in the global market. Be cautious with the translations, identify and rectify faults in multilingual brand messaging. It is not only important to scrutinize words, but also the images. An image can signal your company’s knowledge or ignorance about the target market. An image can carry negative connotation locally, so it is advisable to approach local experts for help.Globalization has led to mixed populations worldwide. There are many residents from different regions located in a single country. For example, in Switzerland, a consumer’s preferred language may be French, German or English. It is best to offer visitors a dropdown box on your website, to select the preferred language from a wide range of language choices.Lastly, emphasize on regularly monitoring and updating your website content. Always resubmit your website for indexing every time you make changes. This will ensure that your changes are captured by the relevant search engines. International SEO is important because a large number of the world’s population accessing the web speak languages other than English. If you intend to expand your business, it is necessary to optimize your website to meet the needs of the target audience. Therefore, international SEO should be on the top of your globalization to-do list.

How to Ensure Correct Cross-Domain URL Selection

URL’s from different domains can lead to the same content. When the same content is available on a number of URLs, the content is known as duplicate content. When Google identifies duplicate content on a group of pages, its algorithm selects one representative URL for that content. The group of pages exhibiting the same content may contain URLs from the same site or different sites. Google may select the representative URL from a group with different sites. This selection is termed as cross-domain URL selection.

For example, if the group of URLs is comprised of one URL from each of the following: a.com, b.com and c.com, and Google’s algorithm selects URL from b.com as the representative URL. The URLs from a.com and c.com will no longer be included in the search results, and they will witness a drop in search-referred traffic. Webmasters can influence Google’s URL selection algorithm, by indicating the preferred URL using different mechanisms.

Google plans to launch new Webmaster Tool messages, to notify webmasters when its algorithm chooses an external URL instead of a URL from their website. This move is being considered to add transparency to the process of cross-domain selection.

The common causes which lead to cross-domain selection are:

• Duplicate content, 
• Configuration mistakes 
• Malicious website attacks. 

Let us look at each one of these causes briefly. It is commonly observed that webmasters use the same content in the same language on multiple domains.

They post the same content on the websites such as a.com and a.net. In such cases, Google offers canonicalization techniques to signal its algorithm which URL you wish to select.

Certain configuration errors can misguide Google’s algorithm. Incorrect use of canonicalization techniques pointing to URLs on an external website can lead to incorrect URL selections. To mend this error, you should first try and figure out how your website is incorrectly indicating the canonical URL preference and then fix it.

Sometimes, malicious attacks on websites introduce codes which lead to undesired canonicalization. Malicious codes guide Google’s algorithm to external URLs hosting malicious content. In order to get rid of spam attacks, Google provides tips on cleaning your website. Once you have cleaned your website, you can submit a reconsideration request to Google for URL selection.

There are rare chances that Google’s algorithm will select a cross-domain from an external site which is using your website’s content violating the copyright law. However, if you find any such incorrect instances, you can request Google to remove that page from its search results. Google has a highly advanced algorithm to select cross-domain URLs so there are rare chances the decisions will be incorrect. All you need to do is, be precise with your canonical URL preference and pay heed to malicious attacks.

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