Every exchange or transaction we make has some level of trust involved. The conversations we have with people is rooted in a trust of truth-telling. The transactions we make involve levels of trust with cash (In God We Trust) and credit (trust money is left to borrow!). The recommendations we make to each other are rooted in trust as well; the greater the depth of trust of the source, the more likely we’ll follow through on that recommendation.

Andy Beal, the Marketing Pilgrim, shared a couple of interesting studies about trust in advertising mediums. Here are two charts published:

90% of Consumers Trust Opinions of Friends; Brand Trust Shows Improvement Too!

Only 33% of Us Trust Our “Online” Friends; Barely More Than Trust in Banner Ads!

One thing to keep in mind is that you can make stats tell you anything you want depending on how you ask questions.  However, what seems to be a contradiction in these charts doesn’t need to be so.

Chart 1 tells us that in the last 2 years, in general, people’s trust in personal recommendations has increased to 90%. Also note that the next 2 greatest level of trust, according to Nielsen, are branded websites and online reviews of products. The takeaway from this is that the best trust levels involve online reviews and brand websites, but still pale compared to a personal recommendation from someone they know.  (And where are they getting these recommendations from people they know? Yes, many are online. See: Facebook)

Now Chart 2 tells us something a little different. Razorfish tells us that people trust their freiend’s recommendations when they are offline — way more than they trust anything online. One could say that it’s the offline conversations that are trustworthy, not online.

I won’t argue that offline is better than online. Most recommendations do happen offline than online. But remember how I said stats can tell you anything? What they didn’t tell us is how they define a friend. In the online world where Facebook rules, the definition of friend has been loosened up a lot. That’s why you have to look at these charts, find the relevancy, then back up and think about it a bit. When I did, here’s what I discovered:

The greater the relationship with another person, the deeper the trust. When that person makes a recommendation to me (regardless of the medium) I’m more likely to trust it over brands and commercials.

That could be the longest way to say, yes, Word of Mouth is still the most effective marketing strategy ever.

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The Thesis Theme is used here.

Last week I mentioned Search Engine Optimization (SEO) and said I would post more about it as it’s really been fresh on my mind lately.  Though SEO is a marketing discipline, there are some governing principles we can follow.  Below is meant to be more high-level and hopefully written in a way that you will have a better understanding of what SEO is all about.

OVERVIEW
When someone performs a search on Google.com, the visitor expects and receives great results. That is why Google has been the dominant search engine for many years. From Google’s perspective, they want to provide the most helpful and relevant search results so that visitors are happy and will return to use Google’s services again.

Google is aware of Billions of websites so how do you get Google to list your site on the first page of results when someone is searching for you?

The marketing strategy behind this is called Search Engine Optimization, or SEO. There are many variables, but Google has been clear about what will help you rank well and what will cause you to rank low — or even ban you from their listings! Therefore, it makes sense to know, at least a little, about what characteristics a relevant and good site needs to have for Google to rank it well.

PROCESS
Make each Web page for a human visitor so that they:

1. can easily find what they want, and
2. are able to accomplish what you intended.

Make each Web page’s code optimized according to what Google requests so that:

1. Google has an idea how to rank you, and
2. you don’t compromise the human visitor experience.

Present your Web site to Google via the ways it suggests. Think of it as the way they want you to “introduce yourself”.

Find ways to have other Web pages link to your page(s) in ethical ways that are considered “Google approved”.

Monitor the progress of your page’s rankings for desired keywords and of visitors completing your desired action.

DETAILS

1. Determine description and keywords to be used
2. Buy domain name with keyword if possible
3. Prepare content and navigation based on keywords
4. Create report of current rankings for domain and keywords
5. Optimize the title tag on each page with relevant keywords
6. Fill in metadata description and keywords
7. Block Google from indexing a page if necessary or beneficial
8. Use header tags for Website title, tagline, and content headers
9. Use alt tags for images using keyword description
10. Use the nofollow link tag for pages not necessary for Google but are useful to visitors
11. Submit homepage URL and sitemap to Google
12. Monitor progress through analytics

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The Thesis Theme is used here.

Search Engine Optimization. I’ve been looking at it with fresh eyes lately and plan to say more about it in a later post, but as I was doing some homework, I found something really interesting.

I was logged into Google and did a search for the word “the” in an attempt to determine about how many websites Google knows about. I was impressed with the results but for some reason I did it again when I wasn’t logged into Google – and the results were different! These screenshots prove it, but how did Google know to rank Colbert #2 for me?

Now you know why ranking high in Google is such a difficult thing to hit all the time. In this case, the people who do the SEO for TheColbertNation.com didn’t do anything different to rank #2. Google just gave it to them when I did the search.

I guess somehow Google felt like I was more interested in Stephen Colbert than Barack Obama? Or could it be that the #1 website is a clue (it’s satire!). Ha!

You may have seen services that will submit your website to hundreds of search engines. Some do it for free while others charge you.

Before you do that, stop and ask yourself a simple question: can you think of more than six?

I’m here to tell you that you don’t need to do that. Truth is, Google is the dominant search engine and if they know about you chances are everyone else will. But do you even need to tell Google you exist? Not really. If a site Google already knows about links to you, Google will find you.

However, it’s not a bad thing to jump-start the process a bit — and there are a few other places you can submit to just to get off to a quicker start. Not totally necessary, but it won’t hurt. Here’s my list of free places to consider:

• Add your site to Google
• Add your site to Yahoo
• Add your site to Bing
• Add your site to DMOZ

If you have a local business, submit it also to:

• Add to Google Local
• Add to YellowPages.com

If you submit your site to a directory or search engine, just do it once per service. But really if Google knows about you, so will everyone else soon enough.

Olivier Blanchard was invited by the folks of Brains On Fire to attend a unique ‘meeting of the minds’ called FIRE Sessions this week.  It looked like a fantasic time as Olivier wrote up some great recaps that are all worth reading. 

Just reading through Olivier’s posts and photos, I’m inspired.  In case you don’t have the time to read the posts (and you should make the time), let me share a few photos Olivier took that are my takeaways (all from Geno Church presentations):

I’ve been enjoying the video series “Whiteboard Friday” hosted by Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz. Recently two videos were posted about what good links are and how to get them. As you know, links are important to how Google works.

I thought they were quite helpful so I’m posting them here for you to check out. He’s got some good perspective on links and even how it relates to social media.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – Dude, Your Links Kinda Suck from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

SEOmoz Whiteboard Friday – How to Get Awesome Links from Scott Willoughby on Vimeo.

Nick Pitsch is working towards a Management degree and is taking “Marketing for Managers” as a required course for his degree.  He had an assignment to interview a marketing professional and was referred to me.  It was fun doing this interview with him.  His writeup was nice (I’m sure he’ll get an A+ for it!) and he agreed to allow me to share part of the interview with you.  I share it with you in hopes you might catch some of my vision for Internet strategy as it pertains to marketing.

Mr. Rob Williams is the owner of Orangejack.com.  He terms his position as “Internet Strategist”.  Rob states “To me it’s more important to have a plan to use the Internet well.  It comes from a marketing/communications perspective.”  With a management major in college (with a marketing emphasis), he saw a niche in the marketplace for providing business people with more than the usual “create a webpage” services.  Social media (blogs, FaceBook, etc.) and search engine marketing are relatively new concepts, and his aim is to help business owners harness these capabilities to further their business goals.  He counts among his experiences traditional marketing approaches including brochures, newsletters and the like.

One of the challenges Rob related was that small companies just do not see the value of an internet strategy – many are satisfied to have a website and that’s it.  A web presence only might have been sufficient at one time, but there are more possibilities today.  There is value in knowing what options are out there and how to best target them – this takes a strategy.   One important distinguisher is newer internet media are not the one-way communications channels of the past, (e.g. newspapers, radio, TV, etc.) – having a only a website is a similar mindset.  Social media allows for word of mouth to emerge as a marketing approach on a scale never before possible. Just how to harness this possibility is his focus.

Rob went on to explain that the success of the president-elect proves the potential of social media.  Barack Obama used social media very effectively in raising funds – this was key in his election.  Rob contends he can provide that leadership in the social media directions as part of a full strategy.  His final comments were telling as to the future of this business: “The competition for this is growing, but right now it’s fairly young.  It’s only bound to grow.  The way the internet can be approached now is so wide and varied that there needs to be more attention paid to it as a full strategy.” 

I was reading today about The Disconnect in PPC vs. SEO Spending on the SEOmoz blog and found a very interesting conclusion:

Conclusions: SEO drives 75%+ of all search traffic, yet garners less than 15% of marketing budgets for SEM campaigns. PPC receives less than 25% of all search traffic, yet earns 80%+ of SEM campaign budgets.

If you’re unfamiliar with what SEO, PPC, and SEM are, let me quickly explain:

• SEO = Search Engine Optimization. It’s the marketing disciple of how to get websites to show up high in the search engines’ organic listings (that’s the normal search results you use after a search)
• PPC = Pay Per Click. It’s the marketing technique where you buy advertisements to show up on the side of a search engine’s sponsored links (that’s the ads sometimes at the top or on the right side of a search results page)
• SEM = Search Engine Marketing. It’s the Internet marketing strategy that is often a combo of SEO & PPC techniques.

Personally I believe that social media is it’s own discipline inside of an online marketing strategy.

Back to the conclusion that SEOmoz came to: Look at this heat map results from a study of where people typically look on a search results page:

You’ll probably notice that most people look at the first few results in the organic (SEO section) than look at the ads (PPC section).  I’m sure you didn’t need an image to prove it – you already know that from your own use of Google.

So why do companies like to spend the bulk of their budget on something less reliable? I think there is a perception that it’s easier to pay for ads.

It’s tough to show up in the search engines well.  It takes work but is obtainable.  It takes someone who knows what they are doing to optimize a website so that it ranks well.  When you rank well you show authority and relevancy without paying for it.  Most people assume that’s better than someone paying to rank well.  And our experience has taught us that the organic listings are reliable.  It’s just how Google works.

I believe there is a place to use Pay Per Click techniques.  It can work effectively if done well.  That’s why it takes a good overall strategy incorporating SEO, PPC, and Social Media (SM) when appropriate.  It all comes back to your goals and your audience.

If you are ready to be more effective with your website, let us know.  We take a full, overall approach and use what is best for the job.  Not all strategies are created equal so let us help you figure it out and get it done.

Within the last 6 months, Delta Airlines released a new in-flight safety video. Although it’s better than the previous one, it’s still the video they show to several millions of people and is ignored by most of those millions on the plane.

However, Delta did something interesting when their new video was ready: they put it on YouTube. Within half a year it’s been viewed over 1 Million times and has over 1200 comments.

They announced it on the Delta Blog then gave us a little behind the scenes for how they produced the film.

If you haven’t flown Delta lately you probably haven’t seen it so I placed it at the top of this post. Posting a video they already created on YouTube got 1 million extra views — and it took all of a couple of minutes to plant the viral seeds. Here’s the question for you: what can you do take something seemingly mundane, spice it up, and see if you can create some buzz? .

When coming up with an ad campaign for FedEx Kinko’s, the innovative minds at advertising agency BBDO were inspired by the streets of New York. The agency installed oversized bottles of correction fluid, highlighters, and, in one case, an office lamp, on the city’s busy thoroughfares for a couple of days earlier this year.

Plenty more from Toxel.com’s 24 Unforgettable Advertisements.