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“Companies should focus the majority of their marketing budget on inbound, not outbound initiatives,” said Jeremy LaDuque, CEO of Elements Inc., creator of ElementsLocal™, a new software solution for companies that increasescompany leads through maximized search engine results. “When you push your message out far and wide with little discretion, you’re essentially crossing your fingers that it will resonate with a few individuals. Inbound marketing generates leads that are more abundant and credible, as potential customers seeking your services have been attracted organically through search engines, blogs and social media.”

Website Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is complex and requires a systemic approach when working to enhance your natural search results strategy. “Natural” or “organic” searches that drive traffic to your websites are just that: the natural choices a user would make in entering search words (or sometimes, a singlular word…resulting in the user finding a new universe on the internet rather than more directed results).

A natural search assumes that you may not yet have other strategies in place, or if you do, you are still trying to optimize this type of search. Other strategies you can pay for include SEO/Search Engine Marketing (SEM) analysis services, pay-per-click (PPC) campaigns, linkbuilding services and trend analysis.

It Happens Overnight?

Not exactly, it takes a few months, maybe as many as 4-6 or 7 after you’ve put these strategies in place for you to see good results. One source sites “over 200 SEO factors that Google uses to rank pages in the Google search results.” So a working understanding of how search engines (SE) do their magic will help increase the chances of your site appearing high in a list of thousands or more search results.

Certain keywords and/or keyword phrases are highly competitive – meaning they describe and are used for a wide array of businesses with websites offering those products or services. “Cooking” and “appliances” describe a huge variety of products and services and keywords like these are competitive. So, logically, there are hundreds and hundreds of websites using these as keywords; it would be an uphill battle to achieve a Top 10 search result with natural searches.

Most internet users know what they want and often know specific details about what they want. One of the keys through this Labyrinth is to understand what specific goal or target users have when they search. For example, after a home fire, a user may know they want to find a “residential restoration” service or they may know they want to find a “residential restoration fire water damage” service or even more specifically “paul davis residential fire water damage restoration theirtown.”

The last two sets are much more specific and competition for these is probably lower – they are applicable to fewer companies offering those products or services. Using more specific keywords and phrases can help better optimization and search rankings, providing there are enough numbers of people searching on those terms. Choosing keywords that are specific but not popular with users won’t necessarily deliver better results.

A Good Foundation

Doing some keyword research will help you build a good foundation for choosing keywords for your website. Doing some marketing research for your geographic area or your own target audience will give you even more ammunition. And trust yourself. You are the expert in your industry and your local area…how would your target audience search for you? There are several free keyword search tools online. They give you an indication of how popular certain words or phrases are based on current databases from companies such as Google and Nielsen. Keep in mind, the results provide good indicator – not the end all of keyword results. Your industry, vertical market, product and geographic location are among the things that affect the outcome, not to mention results from automated traffic (you guess it, another Labyrinth path).

Cross check your word search with various free tools. We found a few:

• ~ http://www.keyworddiscovery.com
• ~ http://freekeywords.wordtracker.com
• ~ http://www.seocompany.ca/tool/keyword-research-tools.html

Improving Your Search Results Ranking

When a user enters words into a search field, the search engines go to work and in seconds, have wound their way through countless number of websites and web pages looking for the combination of keywords the user entered. By using some smart content strategies you can help increase your search results ranking. The following are some factors that affect page ranking and most are things you can put into place yourself.

So there are a few important “on-page” items and “off-page” factors that we look at:

Things to do On-Page:

• ~ Include one or more keywords in your site domain name.
• ~ Use keywords in your directory paths or folders on your site.
• ~ Include keywords in your Title Tag.
• ~ Use the keywords in your Title Tag in several variations that mirror your product or service and get a lot of searches as well:

  Home Fire Water Damage Repair – Fire Water Damage Mitigation – Residential Reconstruction and Restoration

• ~ Include keywords in your H1 Tag (first header tag).
• ~ Make your content keyword-rich; include your keywords often in the body content.
• ~ You need to incorporate your keywords and phrases logically in your content; you cannot merely repeat these words over and over. Use your keywords in your content in a logical and relevant way.
• ~ Create a customized keyword set for each section of your site, or better, each page.

Things that affect your site ranking Off-Page:

• ~ Length of time your site has been live.
• ~ How popular your website links are.
• ~ Link popularity within the site’s internal link structure – whether others linking to your site are relevant to the topic of your site.
• ~ Topical relevance of inbound links to site -whether the inbound links to your site are well-worded and use your keywords.
• ~ Anchor text of inbound links
• ~ The quality of sites who link to your site – whether your site links are popular overall and draw users to your site.
• ~ Global link popularity of site

Several off-page items are dependent on other websites’ awareness of your website and content. There are strategies you can employ on your site that can influence this, especially when they involve other sites linking to your site. Since this is yet another path in the Labyrinth, we will save this topic for another discussion.

Search Engines Are Your Friends

These days there are so many metrics that add value to search rankings, but keywords still provide the foundation of attracting search traffic. Search engines, depending on how many (or few) words the user queries, return a list of relevant sites that is ordered by relevancy or importance to the keywords. Again – searching through what could be thousands of websites and thousands and thousands of webpages, almost in a blink of an eye. As the web designer and/or content author, you can help your search engines friends by making your sites and content more SE “compliant” – by getting with their program and using keywords in the same key positions on the webpage.

Page Construction to Optimize Keywords

Once you’ve determined your keywords and phrases that users most often use to find your company, product and/or service, you’ll need to incorporate them into your webpages. The days of hiding keywords with white text (stealthy invisible), or using them repetitively in every html tag are gone. Keywords must now be incorporated logically into your content and add to the usability of your page and content from a users’ standpoint. Using the stealth strategy will actually cost you SE ranking as the SEs will realize the tactic and penalize your site accordingly. Search engines and their algorithms don’t like when we webmortals think we can outsmart them.

On-Page Factors

Again, the goal is to place your keywords in positions on the page that SEs can find them easily. Search engines interpret how important the keywords are to the user by the keywords’ placement on the page. Roll up your sleeves and revamp your pages and content:

Title Tag. Place a keyword phrase in the title tag; the title tag is about the most important factor when SEs rank webpages. Including keywords in the title tag shows the SEs the page’s focus. It is important to have a title tag on pages such as special interest, product, and services pages.

Header – H1 Tag. In HTML-speak, your “H1 tag” is the “header” or “headline” – generally, the large one liner at the top of your page. Bigger is better in this case: SEs consider larger type to be more important because it is more visible and easily read. HTML header codes go from largest to smallest, H1 to H6. Your H1 Tag should contain your keywords for that page.

Other Header Tags – H2 to H6. The H-Tags specify a text hierarchy for headlines or subheads on your page. The higher the H-Tag number the smaller the text size. Generally, H1 is the only headline on the page, appearing at the top of the page. H2 tags are slightly smaller and can appear as subheads for the page. H3 tags are even smaller and may serve as a header for a bulleted list. H6 is the smallest text size and you may want to use this tag for image captions.

You don’t need to use all of the H-Tags, but their hierarchy should stay in tact. Again, part of the SE search involves keywords in the H1 tag, so remember to use a keyword or two in the headline of the page. In this way, you are optimizing the relevance of the keywords on the page as well as providing reinforcement to your users. They’ll see the Title Tag and the page headline (H1) with the same words they’ve searched for and know that they’ve come to the right website.

Keyword-rich Content. This may be “logical” but it is still worth mentioning. Your page content should contain your keywords and phrases several times. If you have target keywords per page, each page should mirror the unique set of key words. The content should be relevant and different for each page.

Creating extra pages on your site with duplicate content is another strategy that SEs don’t like; they will recognize the duplicate page content and give your site a lower rating. Also, if you mindlessly repeat your content, SE filters would catch it and not rank your site. Unique content using your keywords is critical when you are dependent on natural search results.

There are a few ways to increase unique keyword-rich content that make SEs happy:

• ~ Break up your content by using subheads containing keywords.
• ~ Include keywords in the first sentence of your content and tie it up nicely with a summary sentence containing keywords.
• ~ Depending on the page design, bold your keywords now and then for emphasis. Create visual interest by pulling out important aspects of content as a bulleted list – keywords should also appear in this list.
• ~ Attribute images with a caption containing keywords.
• ~ Give your images and links Alt-Tags (or a Title Tag) using keywords.
• ~ Also, provide a way for your users or solicit your users to send you testimonials about your product, service or company (for example, a blog that users may participate in by submitting comments)
  ~ Content from your users is highly coveted because it can provide relevant and unique content without you having to generate it.

Keyword-rich Links

Search engines also looks at your internal links (page containing a link and the page the link goes to within your website). By making some text a link, you create “anchor text.” When you use keywords in your “anchor text” search engines consider the page it links to important to that keyword.

Meta Description Tags

Meta Description Tags summarize the page “in 25 words or so” and are put into a “hidden” or background part of the webpage. When search engines display search results, they typically display the Meta Description Tag under the title of the page in the results. Again, include your keywords and keyword phrases. Use the most important keywords for that specific webpage.

If you feel as if the Tasmanian Devil has just whirled around your head a few times, you’re not alone. Search Engine Optimization is logical, but its logic contains many, many variables. These variables must be in place for the SEs to find your site among possibly thousands in a natural search query. Some of the variables are more difficult to control (mainly the age of your site). But by following these key strategies, you increase your search result rankings within the SEO Labyrinth.

Let’s review:

• ~ Update your site often – with photos and content. Activity on your site always verifies to SEs that your site is authentic.
• ~ Generate key words and phrases for each page of your site. You can do this just by sections of your site as well.
• ~ Include keywords in your Title Tag. Make sure your keywords are also in your Headline (H1) of the page; use the H1 to H6 tag hierarchy giving relative importance to text on your webpage.
• ~ Mirror your key words and key phrases in your content at least 3 or 4 times. Use the terms logically – you cannot just type your key word over and over and over.
• ~ Use bullet point lists containing keywords as a way to break up the page content and add key words w/out having to write longer sentences.
• ~ Bold at least one of your keywords within your content – it gives importance to that word. If you can do this to several keywords without making the content awkward, this is even better.
• ~ Use keywords in your text links to your own site pages.
• ~ Give your images captions and alternative text – this is an opportunity for you to get more key words on the page.
• ~ Acquire user-generated content.

Website Optimization and Marketing Consulting
ELEMENTS Inc. | 805-547-1160 x205

The primary objective of any focused marketing initiative is to drive qualified leads, which convert into users, customers and clients. ELEMENTS specializes in creating business results for franchise and mid-size companies using integrated website optimization and internet marketing strategies, with a firm belief that success can not be obtained with a singular focus on one small portion of “Search Engine Optimization”.

Successful website optimization requires holistic planning and management of all aspects of search engine marketing (SEM) including public relations, website content, keyword buys and search engine optimization, as well as most aspects of information architecture, user-interface and online community best practices. ELEMENTS applies both marketing sensibility and technical expertise for campaigns that focus on customer acquisition and retention.

While the President-elect Barack Obama readies an economic stimulus plan to revive our failed economy, franchises can turn the current recession into positive and successful sales and marketing opportunities. There are a myriad of ways to help you ride the storm, one of them is to revise your marketing strategy.

John Quelch, a professor at Harvard Business School and known worldwide for his expertise in global marketing, branding and communications, discusses this issue in the Harvard Business Review. His original blog was posted in February 2008 and outlines some excellent ways to address marketing revisions.

Quelch was one of ten marketing experts profiled in Conversations with Marketing Masters, (Laura Mazur and Louella Miles). He also co-authored Greater Good: How Good Marketing Makes for Better Democracy (Quelch and Katherine Jocz). Additionally is a non-executive director of WPP Group plc, the world’s second largest marketing services company, and of Pepsi Bottling Group. He served previously as a director of Reebok International.

Please read the full article at the HBR, John Quelch, Marketing KnowHow: How to Market in a Recession.

The ripples of our nation’s recession have gotten wider and more far-reaching, touching everyone. Effects from the subprime mortgage crisis have stretched consumer confidence and spending (on credit) to its limit, both of which have been keeping our economy afloat.

Your 2008 marketing strategies are probably already updated this late in the year. We’ve distilled Quelch’s eight factors here. Give yourself some flexibility and consider these principles for your 2009 plans.

1. Know your target customer.
The economy has left consumers with less diposable income and everyone is now more frugal and savvy at finding the good deal. We will spend more time searching for goods and services, drive a harder bargain at the counter, or will trade off: put off purchases until a better deal comes along, settle for less, or buy less. We weigh: want vs. need more heavily. Although brand loyalty is high and those brands can pull off a new product launch, think about limiting new product lines and new brands – they may not be so successful in this market.

2. Home sweet home.
It’s human nature to retreat to the hearth-and-home in stressful times. Rethink and gear your advertising images from action-packed, extreme, and fear factors toward warm-and-fuzzy family images. We spend less by staying in, but still want to be connected, therefore, we will still spend on things that make our homes more comfortable (furnishing and entertainment), as well as greeting cards, telephone and internet use.

3. Maintain marketing spending.
As competitors cut their advertising budget, companies increasing their advertising during a recession experience a high level of success. They improve their market share and lower their return-on-investment. As more consumers stay in, television watching increases and lowers the rate of cost-per-thousand impressions. If you need to reduce your marketing, maintain your frequency of exposure by shifting to shorter advertisements; incorporate radio and direct marketing, possibly giving you more immediate impact on new sales.

4. Keep product line essentials.
Companies need to re-evaluate their product lines and trim the weaker products. Consumers look for good values now more than ever and opt for multi-purpose over specialized products; private label/store brands over more expensive national brands; goods and services a la carte rather than bundled. If you’re launching a new product that puts pressure on competitors by addressing current consumer needs, focus your advertising on a high level of price performance rather than trying to extend your corporate image.

5. Support distributors.
Give your distributors added incentive to stock your full product line by offering early-buy allowances, financing and flexible return policies. Acquiring some strong distribution channels that have been let go by other company and phasing out your own weaker ones may also be good way to beef up your sales force. Beware of damaging the strength of your existing distributors and brand image by expanding into lower-priced channels.

6. Make the price right.
Consumers are hungry for the best deal in tough times. Sweepstakes, mail-in rebates and other promotions requiring a customer’s time and effort are not very attractive. Offer temporary price reductions, lower quantities for bulk discounts, extended credit (trusted customers) and better pricing for smaller pack sizes.

7. Protect your market share.
In this present economy, market share can be a matter of survival, not just a battle for a share. Before implementing cuts or consolidations, make sure you know your cost structure to avoid adversely impacting your customers. Strong national companies with productive cost structures have the best chance at a possible gain in market share. Smaller, but still profitable companies can also vie for a bigger share by acquiring weaker competitors.

8. Put people first.
Companies have had to implement different cost saving strategies, including letting employees go, closing facilities and the like. Executives need to maintain employee and customer morale and confidence by focusing on quality products and services and continuing to provide these to their clients. In a recession when concerns are redirected toward profit and loss, it’s easy to concentrate on balance sheets and managing company capital instead of managing relationships with people – internal and external.

Our ElementsLocal™ online solution provides franchise systems an unmatched ability to give franchise leaders BrandSecure™ online marketing tools. ElementsLocal puts the power of online marketing in your franchisees’ hands, while consistently driving your brand across all web properties.
For more information, call us at 805-547-1160 x205 or visit us at http://www.elementslocal.com/cm/Home.html.

After Elements developed a model for creating and maximizing franchisees’ web presence, we’ve discovered one of the chief concerns is how to integrate franchisee and franchisor goals. The challenge from both perspectives is generating leads from local searches on Google and other search engines, and perhaps other untapped potential value of the broader network of franchisees.

As a franchisee, are you interested in evaluating these new marketplaces? Great! You’re still here! You’re in the right place.

You currently have a website, right? (Just nod.)…

And your website is a microsite of the franchisor’s website with a single page for each franchise? (Still nodding?)

As a franchisor, are franchisees dissatisfied with your corporate website solution that you’ve paid a lot of money to develop? From that dissatisfaction, franchisees violate brand agreements by creating their own websites to improve their local presence in their local market? (Nodding again?…)

****Because of this, your brand control is compromised because franchisee owners are impatient with what you’re offering them to print news in their local markets, capture local Google search results with local content. As a result they create their own website…accurate, so far?

What about marketing? Are you doing pay-per-click (PPC) or Adwords campaigns? If not, why not? You know your competitors are spending money to capture PPC results, right?

If you are spending on PPC, is the expense across all franchisees or just a limited number? If it’s across all franchisees, you’re probably spending thousands on AdWords campaigns; it’s a pricey solution.

Consider this: research indicates most users will IGNORE the Adwords ad in the right sidebar when they can find RELEVANT search results organically in the regular top 10-20 searches. Do you really think your Ad Words campaign is working efficiently and effectively for you?

How sophisticated is your lead distribution and tracking mechanism? You collect an email and redirect it to the franchise. Is there any way to track what happens from there? What level of ROI on leads can you establish for each franchise? Would you like a better approach?

With the typical web marketing system, each of these problems has its own independent solution, costing you and your franchisees thousands to set-up, maintain, and – if lucky – control. Most likely, you’re company and brand is STILL FAILING to show up in Google and still failing to satisfy the problem of creating localized content for franchisees to display awards, portfolios, case studies, local club memberships, etc.

THE CHALLENGES FOR FRANCHISE WEB MARKETING

• ~The Franchisor:
  • ~Must control their most valuable asset – their brand
  • ~Must be able to track changes and performance
  • ~Must facilitate local marketing to and for franchisees

  ~The Franchisee:

  • ~Must have a highly professional and easy to update website
  • ~Must show up in search engines to compete with locally business
  • ~Must be able to easily choose to participate in Franchisor sponsored marketing or initiate their own local marketing campaigns

Can your existing website, SEO expert, AdWords campaign, or single-page website provide affordable and effective solutions to these challenges? Unless you’re passing the Google tests we run, we can tell you it’s likely you need some better strategies so you’re not FAILING in areas where you should be WINNING.

OUR SOLUTION:

• ~ElementsLocalTM
  • ~Provides family of fully autonomous, networked websites for all franchisees while providing Franchisor control
• ~Client Example
  • ~Manage brand look and feel of websites and local marketing campaigns
  • ~Manage brand messaging and content
  • ~Initiate national email campaigns with advanced tracking

REAL RESULTS:

We’re getting real-world results in record time.

Dig deeper into the ElementsLocal software platform and learn how to use the POWER of your FRANCHISE NETWORK to DOMINATE YOUR INDUSTRY.

We recently surveyed 100+ franchise companies about local marketing and how they supported their local franchisees with local online marketing programs.

Online Local Marketing Survey Results

01. What’s your greatest challenge in generating local leads for your Franchisees?
(Please rank, 1-4, 1 being most important.)

• ~ 1.3 (average rank) Franchisees have limited time and budget to produce local marketing campaigns
• ~ 1.9 (average rank) Local franchisees have little expertise to effectively implement marketing campaigns.
• ~ 2.9 (average rank) Local marketing solutions rely on the franchisee to implement with little time & few resources.
• ~ 3.9 (average rank) Independent competitors are dominating the local lead generation sources.

02. How do you control your brand at the local Franchisee level?

• ~ 87.5% of surveyed franchisors have implemented a strict process with brand standards and approvals required for any locally generated marketing materials.
• ~ 62.5% of surveyed franchisors said that branding is controlled tightly at the national level with no ability for the Franchisees to customize any aspect of marketing for their local level.
• ~ 37.5% of surveyed franchisors allow franchisees to use approved brand assets, campaign programs and online tools to create customized, online local marketing campaigns.
• ~ 12.5% of surveyed franchisors have not implemented brand standards; franchisees target their own local markets.

03. How would your Franchisees rate their local online presence: 4.88 (average rating between 1 & 10)

• ~ 50% of surveyed franchisors responded that their franchisees were not represented online. (1-4)
• ~ 37.5% of surveyed franchisors responded that their franchisees had some representation online. (5-7)
• ~ 12.5% of surveyed franchisors responded that their franchisees were well-represented online. (8-10)

04. How are your Franchisees represented online now:

• ~ 98.6% of surveyed franchisors give each franchisee a page on the corporate website for local clients to find.
• ~ 28.6% of surveyed franchisors give each franchisees a 2- to 5-page micro-site that we list in the ”sponsored links” section of the search engines and the Franchisees pay for each lead that comes from their micro-site.
• ~ 42.9% of surveyed franchisors said Franchisees have their own website(s), domain(s) and email marketing which complies to brand guidelines, so Google ranks them very high in their local communities.
• ~ 14.3% of surveyed franchisors responded “none of the above.”

Based on these results, franchise companies are not taking full advantage of their national market segment and corporate branding by messaging in their local communities with targeted local online marketing strategies.