As we wind down another year, we have much to be grateful for in the SEO world. More and more companies understand the importance of SEO and the search engines are capturing more content than ever before. The next year will undoubtedly bring more changes to the search engines. Here is a list of the top 5 things to watch for in 2012.

1. Convergence of SEO and Social – Ever increasingly, the search engines have shown you must marry both onsite optimization with socially distributed content. This works great if you manage both channels for your clients. However, if you do not, then you will need to work ever more closely with your client to ensure both your SEO and Social Media programs are working together.
2. Panda, Panda, Panda – Google stated this week there will not be any more updates in 2011 (Whew!). But they also said they would start back up in 2012. Most of us have been impacted by the multitude of Panda updates this year and will, of course, be impacted further.
3. Fresh content – In the middle of Q4 2011, Google updated their algorithm to give more weight to content, which was more relevant or ‘fresh’ – thus the ‘Freshness Update’. Companies will need to find ways to make their content more relevant, in regards to timeliness, in 2012.
4. Google+ Business Pages – Does your company have a Google+ business page? If not, take a few minutes and create a page. Then figure out what content you to distribute through Google+. Google+ pages become another asset to optimize and be found in search.
5. Search and Congress – The search engines are under extreme pressure to divulge their algorithms and make public how pages are found. I am not for sure what the outcome of this will be but, as search marketers, we need to be conscious of pending legislation.

Happy New Year!

The Creative staff is always pushing the envelope when it comes to creating PPC landing pages. I agree with them. You must continually make a landing page engaging and compelling for users to convert. At the same time, there are some basic truths that have been tested time and again, which should be adhered to when designing a landing page.

1. Headline – A clear, concise headline must quickly grab the users attention and compel them to read further.
2. CTA’s – These should be placed prominently on the page so users understand the desired action you want them to take.
3. Copy – Copy helps reinforce the message you want to get across. Also, it creates relevancy for the ad to help improve your Quality Score.
4. Main Points Above the Fold – All of the main points, headlines and CTA’s should be above the fold so users do not have to scroll to get the main objective of the ad.
5. Lead Form – Placing a lead form right on the landing page becomes a great way to collect information and pre-qualify leads.
6. Minimal Navigation – If a user has clicked on a page, you want them to quickly take an action. By reducing the number of navigation and links on a page, you minimize the opportunities for users to click off a page and not convert.
7. Fast Load Time – Landing pages should load quickly so a user will not have the tendency to click off the page before converting. Minimize any graphics and elements that are not necessary for the conversion and increase the load time of the page.
8. Keywords – Incorporate keywords throughout the copy to reinforce the product and service you are offering as well as appear relevant to AdWords and AdCenter for a lower cost on spend.

If you need an example, HubSpot has a great example of a PPC landing page in a wireframe format.

When great creative and PPC best practices come together, it makes for a winning landing page combination.

Engagement. Discussion. Branding. Three words many companies, and digital marketers alike, use to describe reasons they are using social media or recommend their clients join the social media conversation. As a digital agency, we are often asked why a company should create a social media presence and why it is important to stay engaged with consumers on social media platforms. There are many reasons we provide as to why a business should become engaged with consumers or other businesses online via social media channels. Three of those key reasons include (1) brand perception, (2) customer service, and (3) market/brand research.

Brand perception is the obvious big reason to engage in social media conversations and social media marketing. Presenting your business in the best light possible not only leads to increased brand awareness, but also to the possibility of changing a consumer’s perception of the brand. Brand perception and brand awareness is a key step in increasing sales, new leads and new customers.

Consumers love good customer service – on the phone, via email and on social media. Developing a solid social media plan that involves customer service will benefit the company and the consumer. The consumer sees that the company is paying attention to its customers, which then leads to an improved brand perception. Personally, there are brands and companies I am more likely to Tweet if I have a problem with their product or service than others given their likelihood to respond and solve the problem. Positive interaction with consumers, even those with negative comments or concerns, benefits your business to be seen as a “helpful brand” and that message has the potential to spread virally via your consumers’ social media channels. Take for example Twitter. You have a consumer who has a problem with a product and tweets to you. Rather than ignoring your consumer, your customer service team quickly tweets a reply and asks to help. The conversation continues resulting in the problem being resolved. Not only is you consumer happier, but also then tweets how great the customer service is and thus recommends your brand or product to all their followers – potentially creating many new customers.

Monitoring social properties not only to improve customer-company relations, but also to conduct social market research with fans and followers creates a more integrated experience. Where else can a business receive unbiased, real-time opinions of products services and marketing campaigns? Brand feedback, negative or positive, sets the stage for any business to improve products, services or processes and develop new products, services or marketing campaigns based on consumer feedback. This monitoring helps brands understand their consumer better and as a result produce better user-oriented products and services.

As you probably noticed, these three reasons are intertwined and should be recognized together to produce a successful social media campaign. Development of a social media campaign should include many additional elements, but these three key reasons provide a solid ground for a business’ social media engagement to grow on.

With 2012 quickly approaching, we all promise ourselves “this will be the best year yet!” Somewhere mixed in with all the cliché resolutions, there is always one regarding a makeover of some sort. What about your brand? What type of branding makeover does your marketing strategy need to ensure “the best year yet”?

The first step to any good makeover is to analyze your current image. What are your strong points, what are your weaknesses? From there you must decide the new image you are going to portray and what perception you want to give. Many brands make the mistake of establishing an image that does not portray the perception they want their consumers to have. Some brands face the issue of having no image at all!

In the case of Paramount Farms, they decided to create an image for a ‘faceless’ product with their infamous ‘Get Crackin’ campaign for pistachio nuts. Paramount Farms decided to use a ‘nutty’ branding strategy by using Internet memes in their ads. These memes were a way to engage their consumers on a more personal level. They ran the risk of casting people, characters, etc. that not everyone would recognize or understand the reference. Regardless of the risk, it has become one the most successful and well known campaigns to date for the brand. Paramount Farms saw the need for a brand makeover, and they went for it.

Having the right brand position and strategy can make the difference between a Kardashian approved image and a Snooki bump fallen flat.

If you feel it’s time for a branding makeover, connect with a great digital marketing agency so your brand can have a fabulous 2012!

[Contributed by Kara DeLost, marketing coordinator]

As holiday cheer and celebration is in full swing at LeapFrog Interactive, I wanted to have a little fun with a classic Christmas song, The Twelve Days of Christmas with a digital marketing spin. And so I present…

LeapFrog Interactive’s The 12 Days of Digital Marketing

(Somewhat to the tune of The 12 Days of Christmas)

On the first day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

An integrated marketing strategy

On the second day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the third day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the fourth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the fifth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the sixth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the seventh day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the eighth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Eight fans a-liking

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the ninth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Nine websites launching

Eight fans a-liking

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the tenth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Ten blogs a-posting

Nine websites launching

Eight fans a-liking

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the eleventh day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Eleven coders coding

Ten blogs a-posting

Nine websites launching

Eight fans a-liking

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

On the twelfth day of Christmas my digital agency gave to me

Twelve keyword searches

Eleven coders coding

Ten blogs a-posting

Nine websites launching

Eight fans a-liking

Seven campaigns a-running

Six Tweeters tweeting

Five Facebook posts

Four clients calling

Three emails sending

Two mobile apps

And integrated marketing strategy

Happy Holidays from all of us to you!

At the end of September, we set-up our first digital out-of-home marketing campaign in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio. The project successfully wrapped-up last week. With the completion of any marketing campaign, it is important to review the measurements of interaction. In this case, we measured the number of daily user interactions and the number of quizzes completed weekly. An interaction was counted as a user standing in front of the screen for more than 1.5 seconds.

 On average, daily interactions ranged between 8,000 and 10,000.  Of those, 90-120 users a week took time out of their day to complete the 3-5 minute quiz. We noticed the majority of quiz interactions coincided with bus times. Most likely linked to those taking the quiz while waiting on the bus.

Our digital out-of-home project was a combination of unique creative and distinctive development to produce an entertaining and informative interactive experience.

Check out the video below to see the process of set-up, scenes from the interactive display and a few short interviews. 

Thanksgiving Day weekend has felt dramatically different the last few years, hasn’t it?

With the explosion of Black Friday, there is much more to celebrate than just family, food, and football. For many years I had grown accustomed, with the urging of my wife, to participate by doing a little shopping among the masses. Burning a few leftover calories to start the rush of shopping season was the routine as we wandered aimlessly looking for the best deals. But technology, especially mobile devices, has provided a powerful combination of access and convenience to informed consumers that are laser-focused on what they want. Knowing that Cyber Monday is now a part of the mix just confirms that holiday shopping has taken on a whole new dimension.

Although Black Friday through Cyber Monday produced fewer visits to actual web sites in 2011 compared to last year, mobile phone and tablet usage increased significantly. That increased usage resulted in 9.8% of total sales for Black Friday compared to 3.2% in 2010 (see graphic below) via mobile devices. This significant jump only confirms where things are headed for e-commerce (or in this case m-commerce) and the future focus of many digital marketing campaigns. Additionally, PayPal saw a four-fold (371%) increase in the number of customers shopping via mobile on Black Friday compared to last year. If you’re a business owner and have yet to embrace mobile marketing, now just might be the time to do so. Consumers continue to embrace their iPads and smartphones as a means not only to connect and interact with retailers, but more importantly, to share experiences and seek knowledge from others. The opportunity in the mobile space will only become exponentially more lucrative.

Wow! If the mobile shopping wave hasn’t hit us in the face already, then maybe we just aren’t paying attention.

aWall, a Brooklyn-based company dedicated to innovative product design for home audio and video systems, has created the next great digital speaker design.  

According to a blog post from Unique Design Obsession, the aFrame is (basically) a customizable frame and art piece laid on a canvas/fabric and speaker. It’s art… with a pulse!

Music can be played from an array devices (iPad, iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and computers) with Bluetooth technology.

[Contributed by Emily Carroll]

You don't have to be a garage rocker or a karaoke bar savant to appreciate music. We all love, listen to, talk about and share music.

Of course, in this day and age, people aren't hanging out at the town record store to hear about the next big act. They're logging on to Internet music services the likes of Spotify and Pandora.

If you've listened to Internet radio on iTunes, Pandora, or Spotify you've probably heard advertising, but a new competitor has changed the game. Turntable.fm is a user run DJ democracy that lets individuals interact directly with one another, and play songs based not only on themes and genres, but also on personal interaction. Turntable.fm is focusing on putting the user and love of music first, and leaves the experience completely devoid of advertising (for the time being).

Buzz is great, and the user base for Turntable is growing, but in the end someone's got to pay for all of this. Some big names in the business have started to take notice and the list of contributors thus far is quite impressive. The managers of Madonna and Gaga, Jimmy Fallon, members of The Roots, and others have pooled together a cool $7 million to keep the Turntable project going.

At this point the future is uncertain for Turntable. Some question the legality of social music sharing, and some labels are hesitant to jump on board. Other labels, such as major indie label Glassnote are more open to social promotion and will receive some special treatment from the Turntable crew as a result. Turntable's Seth Goldstein recently spoke at Billboard's FutureSound Conference, sharing that the site will press on through label restrictions to enrich its existing features (Twitter connectivity just launched!) and move out of beta status by 2012's South by Southwest Festival.

[Contributed by Alex Lockwood, Senior Designer]

M-commerce and mobile payments have started the holiday shopping season off with a bang. With Black Friday and Cyber Monday behind us, holiday shopping has only just begun and more shoppers than ever before are turning to their mobile devices – from Smartphones to tablets – for their holiday gifting ideas.

Data from eBay, PayPal and GSI Commerce paint the picture of the ever-increasing mobile shopping pattern. US shoppers purchased nearly 2.5 times as many items via eBay mobile this year on Black Friday compared to 2010. PayPal announced a 516% increase in global mobile payments this year compared to last and GSI Commerce announced a 254% increase in total US mobile sales on Black Friday. With the growing number of shoppers using mobile devices to look for online sales and make purchases, it is not surprising that the retail industry has become the fastest-growing mobile category, as noted in a recent eMarketer article.

Not only are consumers purchasing on their mobile devices, but 46% of Smartphone users visit retail mobile sites to research prices. This means, regardless of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday spending increases, consumers are still concerned with price and finding the best deal. Moreover, shoppers are turning to mobile shopping out of convenience to find the best deals and gifts and avoid the holiday crowds.

I’ll admit, I made a purchase on my mobile phone on Thanksgiving (trying to beat the Black Friday rush) for the same price it would have been at 12 AM. While I still ventured out on Black Friday, only because several of the deals I was looking at weren’t available online or were not free shipping eligible, my mobile devices are my life-lines this holiday season for deals, coupons and price comparisons. 

Are you using your Smartphone or tablet device for your holiday shopping? Share with us on Facebook or Twitter.

I have given several presentations on Search Marketing and invariably I get the same statement:

            “I don’t ever click on those ads.”

Meaning, they do not click on the paid search ads in the returned search result.

As a digital agency and search marketers, we must overcome the prejudice that exists over search marketing ads. In a November report from Borrell Associates titled “Budgeting for 2012: Local Online Advertising Forecasts and Key Growth Opportunities,” local paid search advertising is expected to grow 10% to $6.2 billion. In related research, Performics announced among their retail clients in October, paid search spend was up 46 – 73% and paid search clicks were up 38 – 47% year-over-year. As a search marketer, you know that the only way spend can grow in the paid search market is if a consumer is clicking on the ad.

The search engines have made great strides over the last 12-18 months to improve the quality of the ads. By tweaking relevancy algorithms and enhancing the features available in the ads, they have improved the overall experience of paid search ads.

So my response to those not clicking on ads - “Why not?” Share your thoughts with me on Facebook or Twitter.