The ELEMENTS ‘top 8’ takeaways from the 51st IFA Convention… Findability, Usability, Profitability

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Jeremy LaDuque

The 51st IFA Annual Convention was a success… from the Technology Summit, the new mobile app, Roundtable discussions, to Ford Saeks.

The buzz this year was about how franchises can leverage social media, local search and mobile apps. However, it was very promising to see that no one lost sight of the primary goal behind these tools: bring in local leads for franchisees. Saeks said it best when he said “your website is your social proof.”

Franchises clearly see that a comprehensive approach, from website to social, is needed to take advantage of online marketing.

Below are ELEMENTS, Inc’s top 8 takeaways from the 51st annual IFA convention.

While at the previous year’s IFA Convention franchises were most interested in how to drive traffic, in 2011 those same franchises are now more interested in how to convert that traffic into leads or sales thereby creating a positive impact with their already existing traffic. This is a direct reflection of how franchises are tightening their belts in these tough economic times by making the most of what they have already have. Rather than spending time and money generating new traffic that will effectively be thrown at a wall to see what sticks, spending time on conversion optimization through variant testing and data driven improvements can lead to a significant increase in overall leads both in the present & future.
Franchises are generally interested in a three step process for online success which begins with find-ability (how easy it is to find their brand online), usability (how easy it is for consumers to engage your brand) and profitability (how easy it is to convert leads into customers). If any of the links in this chain are broken the franchise risks never being found by potential customers, never converting those potential customers into paying customers and not being able to retain existing customers nor create brand loyal fans.
Another thing ELEMENTS noticed is that by and large franchises are becoming savvier in the realm of online marketing. Instead of franchise decision makers questioning whether they should have online marketing campaigns consisting of social media, pay per click advertising and search engine optimization, they are now asking how they can best utilize those campaigns for maximum profitability.
When it comes to social media, franchise companies are beginning to consider ROE (return on engagement) more appropriate measure than a typical ROI. This is a new way to look at social media where the end result isn’t merely net sales or leads but can be measured instead by other factors including reach after reposts, number of subscribers and positive or negative sentiment. Social media campaigns judged merely on their conversion numbers look bleak, but by engaging customers in an open environment franchise companies can improve customer service which leads to improved customer sentiment and the creation of brand loyal fans.
Another point of interest with franchises that was noticed at the 2011 IFA Annual Convention was how effective your store locator is. Franchises have realized that not only can their locators help a potential customer find a local franchisee place of business but they can be much more than that today. Locators can be integrated into a franchise website, have maps and directions and also work seamlessly across both websites and mobile devices. We also saw conversations around exterior locators like a Facebook app or Google Places.
While at the previous year’s IFA Convention franchises were mostly overwhelmed with local search and search engine optimization, there seemed to be a better understanding that local search is not a store locator nor is it searches done solely on Google Maps. There was a general understanding of local search and the importance of it in Google’s new merged ‘Everything’ results that often place local results above national search results.
Mobile apps and mobile optimized websites were another big topic of discussion at the recent convention. Most franchise companies want a way to direct mobile users to their local franchisees which is exactly what the ElementsLocal™ mobile locator app does. Other franchises want their websites to be optimized to fit on a mobile device should one be detected. As mobile traffic continues to increase franchise companies want to make sure they are positioned to take advantage of this fluid demographic.
Perhaps the most important thing ELEMENTS took away from the 51st IFA Annual Conference was the testimony of corporations and noted speakers alike who claimed that success in all areas, including social media stems from a good & valuable web property… “your website is your social proof,” as Ford Saeks said. Without having a useful, easy to navigate, attractive website at both the local and corporate level none of your mobile apps, pay per click marketing or social media campaigns are going to be as effective as they could be.

ELEMENTS met a lot of great people at this year’s IFA Annual Convention and we got a feel for how much their companies are currently embracing online marketing and what needs they have in order to make their franchise’s online presence more of a success. We are going to take that knowledge and continue to improve our ElementsLocal™ platform so that it continues to be the best solution for franchises looking to market online at both the local and corporate level.

2010 Internet Statistics

Posted on January 14, 2011 by Russ Lubin

I have been sent this article about 5 times from different sources so I guess I better share it on our blog on the off chance you might have missed it. The below article has estimated statistics of Internet usage for the entire 2010 calender year.

Some notable statistics are:

107 trillion – The number of emails sent on the Internet in 2010.
88.8 million – .COM domain names at the end of 2010.
14% – Increase in Internet users since the previous year.
600 million – People on Facebook at the end of 2010.
175 million – People on Twitter as of September 2010.
2 billion – The number of videos watched per day on YouTube.

You can read the full article at Pingdom here.

Looking Forward to Online Marketing in 2011

Posted on November 30, 2010 by Jeremy LaDuque

2010 was quite a busy year in regards to internet marketing. We saw local search become the top focus of SEO experts at the beginning of the year and we watched those same experts scramble back to basics when Google blended the local and organic results. We witnessed social marketing become the bees knees to online marketers only for them to learn that creating a Facebook and a Twitter account was not a panacea for an already weak marketing campaign. We saw Bing power Yahoo results and the emergence of Google Instant which caused a mild panic when certain naysayers prematurely declared it to be the “death of SEO”. And those are just the highlights, but as we pause to look back at 2010 it’s prudent to look to the future as well. So what can we expect from 2011?

Social Marketing

According to Hitwise in March Facebook surpassed Google as the most popular web destination in the US and as of November Facebook accounted for 1 out of every four page views. That’s an insane amount of eyes on the Facebook network which means a ton of views on their advertising platform. Facebook is now pushing out their new email platform with the intent of blending their user’s mail with IM and SMS messages; to borrow a phrase from Tolkien 1 inbox to rule them all. I remember thinking something very similar when Gmail first launched.

Borrowing from Google’s playbook Facebook is trying to become the solution to everything, to become so useful that we can’t imagine doing without it. In 2011 I expect Facebook to add more new features and perhaps even take a run at Google with search. I know that sounds kind of crazy, but Facebook is already dominating in page views so if Facebook can even take a small percentage of Google’s existing searches away from them they would become the undisputed king of the internet hill.

Some PPC (Pay Per Click) pundits already claim better success with their Facebook Ad campaigns than they have had with AdWords, mostly because through Facebook Ads they have a better ability to narrow the target demographics. Now if Facebook makes the move to search and adds purchase intent alongside that demographic targeting Facebook Ads could easily dominate the PPC landscape.

Mobile Marketing

For years we have been claiming that mobile will be the next big thing, but as the number of smart phones increase exponentially each year we still are not seeing mobile web traffic driving revenue as we have expected. According to Cisco’s estimates mobile traffic will increase 39-fold by 2014, so the traffic is there or soon will be but the real question is where are the sales?

Many experts in the mobile market predict that mobile driven revenue will be derived from location based services like Foursquare, Gowalla or Facebook Places, but while the number of competitors in this realm increases (e.g. Google Places, Yelp, Twitter) the usage by mobile users is still quite low. Pew Research Center found that only 4% of online adults use location based services and it only accounts for 1% of daily internet traffic.

I think in 2011 we will see companies better integrate location based services by driving users to local check-ins with deep discounts & incentives and then somehow integrate these location based services with social media platforms. While it is useful to know that someone has checked into one of their business locations, it is even more useful if you can track those check-ins alongside their social demographics. Understanding the age, sex & interests of those customers that are visiting a location, what times they are visiting these locations and how often they are visiting these locations will allow marketers to drive more sales through time-specific incentives advertised specifically to the captured demographic audience.

Now, what company is in the best position to leverage the mix of check-ins and demographics tracking? Facebook is, because not only are they the largest social network on the planet, but they already have the Facebook Places location-based check-in service in place. While Facebook Places is not currently very popular – mostly because of growing pains and a rush to market – I predict that in 2011 more users & businesses will begin to use the service. Based on what I’ve already seen of Facebook’s tactics in other segments I believe that Facebook Places will allow for integration with Foursquare and maybe even Yelp’s new check-in service allowing marketers to track check-ins across the multiple networks and appropriately target the demographic sweet spot through Facebook Ads delivered to these mobile devices.

SEO

Just recently Google’s “everything” search blended together their original organic style of results with their somewhat new Google Places’ results and placed those blends on the very top of their search results. These results replaced what SEO experts had previously termed the 1-box, the 3-pack & the 7-pack which used to display a group of relevant local results with a map of those locations above the original organic results based on the searchers location. While I believe the blended format of search results will stay throughout 2011 what I do believe will change is the way those results are laid out.

When Google first launched the blended results there was much talk about the new layout as they pushed the map of the blended results into the right-hand sidebar which forced the sidebar placed AdWords advertisements down below the map. Not only does the map now dominate the searchers attention rather than our AdWords advertisements, but it also seems out of place in its’ current location. The blended results are generally bigger than purely organic results which means that with several AdWords listings above the blended results only a few of the blended results will be seen above the fold of the page which means less clicks for everything below the 3rd ranked website (see above image).

In 2011, Google will address these issues by changing their results layout. How do I know this? Because Google is already experimenting with different result layouts. One of the experimental layouts drops the AdWords in the main results column from the top of the page to the very bottom of the page. While this is good news for those with blended results, this is bad news for advertisers as now both AdWords areas are pushed down below the fold. In another experiment Google has dropped a 1-box display of a local result that includes a map to that location below the blended & organic results. My feeling on this is that the Google team still sees value in the 1-box – and perhaps even the 3-pack – and they are looking for ways to integrate them back into the results page while still giving precedence to the blended results.

The problem is that Google has too much information to pass out in their search results and too many good ways to deliver it. So what do I think the results display will look like in the next 12 months? My guess is that by default blended results will be streamlined and made thinner, the map will disappear from the main search and there will be less advertising at the top of the page. That being said I also believe that Google will allow searchers to instantly switch between different styles of search result displays with the simple click of the button. Perhaps there will be three thumbnails of each result style at the top of the page. Hovering over each will produce a pop-up preview of the result’s format similar to what the magnifying glasses do to a result in the existing search. Clicking on the thumbnail will change the results display style without needing to refresh the page. This is all speculation of course, but it’s a pretty good option that would allow Google to maintain a quick & streamlined results display and yet give users the options to see more information that they have to display within the results like maps and Google Places information without having to leave the results page.

Conclusion

As far as online marketing goes, I expect 2011 to be a very interesting year with a lot of changes – many of which I will fail to predict – very similar to how 2010 played out. That being said there will still be things online marketing will entail in 2011: best practice SEO, local review harvesting & citation generation, engaging social media campaigns, progressive thinking in regards to mobile campaigns, and good old fashioned hard work. Some things never change.

Google’s New Places Search Results and How They Will Affect Your Rankings

Posted on November 8, 2010 by Russ Lubin

As mentioned in my previous post Google’s search results have changed. In order to better understand how these new search results will affect SEO strategies I think it’s best to take a look at Google’s original intent behind these changes.

As you are probably aware Google has a variety of search types available. One can search for information through Google Images, Google News, Google Maps and more. Towards the end of October Google rolled out a new type of search they titled Google Places. The goal behind Google Places was to provide the searcher with a group of local results relevant to their search phrase that conveniently displays information about the business gathered from various sources like Google’s main search, its’ map search and external websites as well. Google would then blend the information gathered and produce a results page bearing that information along with a map of all of the competing Places on that results page. This format allows the user to get various information about local competing businesses right from a single search.

The image to the right shows the results of a Google Places search I ran for local BBQ restaurants. As you can see the results provides us with external links to review sites like Yelp, contact information including telephone numbers and physical address, a map location relative to their competitors and a link to the local business’s official website. Previously, in order to get all of this information about a single business a person would have to run multiple searches and some on external websites as well to find the corresponding reviews, and that was just for a single business. Now all of that information is displayed for the top local business and its’ nine top competitors.

These new search results would appear to be very useful, so useful in fact that when someone searches in the Google “Everything” search the search engine will attempt to determine whether the surfer could possibly be looking for local results. If Google determines that searcher is looking for local results it will provide a Google Places summary result at the very top of the search results. The picture on the left shows the results of a search run in Google’s “Everything” search using the same key phrase that we used in the Google Places search above. As you can see, Google is still giving us a map with competing locations, contact information, a link to the business’ official website and a link to Google’s own Places page which lists offsite reviews, pictures and customer testimonials. The link at the top of the results that reads “Places for bbq near San Luis Obispo, CA” will take the surfer directly to a Google’s Places search result, as will the “More results near San Luis Obispo, CA” below the Places summary.

So what do these new blended or hybrid results mean for Google’s general search results and SEO? It means quite simply that if your business does not receive one of these top Google Places results on the first page of Google then your website’s results are going to slip below the fold of the page and not be seen by nearly as many searchers. It means that if you have a brick & mortar business the time when you could just focus your efforts on either organic listings in the general search or local search results has passed and you will now need to focus on both.

7 tips to help your website rank well in the new blended search results:

Claim your places page. While sites can rank well without this effort, it is rare and far easier to have your listings rise to the top when you have claimed your Places page and added content to that page like photos of the business, hours of operation or even your menu.
Place your contact information in a clear spot on every page of your website; somewhere like the header or footer.
Use micro-formatting on your contact information. Google has stated that they use hCard formatting on contact information to tie websites & places together in their blends.
If you have multiple locations, build a separate website or page for each location focusing your optimization efforts on service & location.
Encourage recent customers to submit reviews of your service to varyious review sites like Yelp or Trip Advisor.
Place customer testimonials on your website and label them in a micro format to clarify that they are a reviews of your business.
Verify that your correct contact information is in the various online yellow pages websites and if it is not make an effort to correct it.

Google Local Results Are Finally Changing

Posted on October 28, 2010 by Russ Lubin

We touched upon the upcoming changes to local Google results in our article here, and it looks like those changes are finally taking place. Currently local results are mostly moved over to the new format as you can see in the image to the right, but there are still some areas that haven’t received the new format roll-out yet. The major changes are the move of the map to the right sidebar, the merging of the Google Places info with the organic result and the preview text of a user review is no longer seen in the result but instead just the number of reviews.

If you would like to check out the new format but it is still showing the old style results in your area, you can check it out by clicking on this link.

Link Location Matters to Google

Posted on October 25, 2010 by Russ Lubin

In 2004 Google filed a patent that was just recently granted to them on what they dubbed their “Reasonable Surfer” model, which is really just a way for them to determine a link-importance hierarchy on any given web page. The idea behind their patent is that links that are reasonably more interesting to surfers should carry more weight and be of more value in regards to their website ranking system.

“This means that certain links, like footer and sidebar links in particular, are likely to be devalued. And it’s as they should, right? If a link is tucked away in the footer, the webmaster is stating that he doesn’t care much for it – or it has little value other than for extraneous pleas to the search engines.” Search Engine Journal

Well it makes sense as the sidebar and footer are often populated with paid or reciprocal links, neither of which Google views in a positive light. Sure there are instances when those sidebar links are more valuable or should carry more weight than inline links but no system is perfect. But is that the end of the implications of Google’s “Reasonable Surfer” model?

Link location is just one of the many factors that could influence the importance of a link on any given web page, at least in Google’s eyes. Font-size could certainly point to the importance of a link with smaller fonts being less important than larger ones. Do links above the fold carry more weight than those only a paragraph or two below? What about the number of words in the anchor text, could that effect link weight? In all honesty we don’t actually know, but we can conjecture and make best practice judgements based on the patent’s inferences.

This actually isn’t anything new, it was just something most folks didn’t really consider too much until the publishing of the patent brought it to the media’s attention. Of course, we also cannot say that Google’s determination of a link’s quality ends with a six year old link-heirarchy strategy. What this patent is however, is a patent reminder that inline links that we as a surfer might click on are far more important than throw-away links in a web page’s footer.

ELEMENTS Launches New Technology: Franchises Can Automatically Create and Control Facebook Fan Pages for Every Location

Posted on October 15, 2010 by Jeremy LaDuque

San Luis Obispo, CA, October 15, 2010 — ELEMENTS, Inc., an industry leader in franchise online marketing and developers of the ElementsLocal™ online marketing solution announced today the release of its latest technology enhancement that allows Franchise marketers to develop and control branded Facebook Fan pages for every one of their franchisee location.

“This is a breakthrough technology for Franchise marketers struggling to launch a successful Facebook marketing campaign. Today, Franchise marketers fear issues like protecting their brand and successfully providing franchisees Facebook Fan pages,” said Jeremy LaDuque, CEO of ELEMENTS.

If trends continue, early next year Facebook should reach over 600 million members and over 3 million businesses will be marketing through the Facebook platform. Nobody denies the benefits that a well-managed viral inducing Facebook campaign can have on any given product or brand, but what most miss is that Facebook can be leveraged to build awareness for your brand, drive traffic to your website and generate new sales for your business.

ELEMENTS, supports clients such as Maaco, Sport Clips, Glass Doctor, and franchisees of Jiffy Lube and Curves, and plans on releasing this technology to its current clients this month.

“Franchisors will be able to do things they’ve only dreamed of,” says LaDuque, as the new technology will support:

- Automatically creating a Facebook Fan page for every franchisee;
- Giving the Franchisor Administrative rights over all Fan pages;
- Allowing the Franchisor to take down or put up any Fan page at will;
- And allowing the Franchisor to post to all franchisee Fan pages at once.

Franchisors are searching for ways to use Social media to increase sales, Elements feels one of most valuable features of its new technology is the ability to redirect anyone searching for your franchise in Facebook to individual franchisee websites that contain their own Facebook Fan pages, where customers can engage with that franchisees website.

“As search engines, social media and mobile marketing converge to create more and more opportunities for businesses, franchises in particular are increasingly challenged to maintain their brand, monitor their reputation and leverage new opportunities to their advantage. This new technology is a great leap forward to allow franchises to control their brand and provide more marketing opportunity to their franchisees,” says LaDuque.

October Is All About Facebook

Posted on October 13, 2010 by Brandon

There’s some big Facebook news out there this month and it just so happens to coincide with Elements Inc focusing this entire month to Facebook. If you haven’t already read our blog post on Facebook as an SEO Tool you should take a look at it as it goes over some very simple steps that can be beneficial to your corporate website.

On October 27th Elements CEO Jeremy LaDuque will be presenting a webinar on the 7 Steps to Socializing Strategically which will focus primarliy on Facebook. Sign-up immediately because it is first come first serve and there are a limited number of spaces available.

As for the Facebook news: Earlier this month Facebook anounced a couple of changes that could have a big impact on how people use Facebook. The first was their addition of a new Groups feature which lets Facebook users segregate the dismination of their social news. This would allow discusssions of last night’s kegger to be shared with people in your ‘friends’ group, but not in your ‘work’ or ‘family’ group. The other feature Facebook announced that has received less visibility is the ability for users to export all of their Facebook information, including pictures and videos.

Just today Microsoft announced that Bing will integrate Facebook like data into their search engine results. Bing users will now see customized content based on their likes and the likes of their friends. Bing will now also be able to recommend Facebook friendship connections based on mutual friendships and similiar likes as well.

Again, don’t forget to check out our social media webinar at the end of October, details can be found here.

Should Your Facebook Presence Be Part of your SEO Strategy

Posted on October 11, 2010 by Russ Lubin

Should your Facebook presence be part of your SEO strategy? In short, yes!

Social media platforms are all the rage nowadays because they provide an easy and mobile solution for users looking to socially express their thoughts and statuses. If trends continue, early next year Facebook should reach over 600 million members and over 3 million businesses will be marketing through the Facebook platform. Nobody denies the benefits that a well managed viral inducing Facebook campaign can have on any given product or brand, but what most miss out on is that Facebook can be leveraged to drive traffic to your website and brands through search engines as well.

In fear of becoming antiquated Google is adding more social media content into their search results.

… we’re excited to share a few new innovations in the areas of real-time, mobile and social search that we feel are important steps in the evolution of information access.

.. Of course, none of this would be possible without the support of our new partners that we’re announcing today: Facebook, MySpace, FriendFeed, Jaiku and Identi.ca – along with Twitter, which we announced a few weeks ago. The Official Google Blog

That being said, a company planning to create a Facebook presence should put some best practice SEO methods into their social media efforts.

Currently, search relevant Facebook images can be found near the top rankings in Google Images and sometimes in the general results as well. It makes sense to upload images to your Facebook albums on a regular basis that have optimized image names with a splash of relevant keywords in the comments below the picture. That possibly means more views on your brand coming directly from ‘search’ which is known for its’ great goal conversion ratio. It’s also possible to get the company’s Facebook Wall or other informational Facebook page listed highly in the search engine results as well. The Facebook and Twitter accounts of well entrenched or unique brands often land on the first page results in Google.

Facebook is also a great example of leveraging offsite optimizations to increase the view-ability of your company’s websites. Facebook itself has a very high authority ranking and is a trusted source which means that links to your corporate or franchisee websites inside of a text rich status update or comment can inject a little bit of Facebook’s link juice into the destination website, and every little bit of link juice helps.

While applying best practice SEO methods into your Facebook campaign will not make you rich overnight, any planned Facebook marketing strategy should include optimizing your text, links and images for maximum benefit.

Our Elements Local platform allows a franchisor or their franchisee’s the ability to manage Facebook campaigns directly through the content management dashboard built into our software. Our built in Facebook tools maximize the benefits of the company’s Facebook campaign strategy with a minimal amount of training and effort.

Google Acknowledges Benefits of hCard Formatting

Posted on September 27, 2010 by Michael Boyer

hCard is a microformat that can be placed inside an existing web page to clarify the contact details of companies and organizations. When a search engine or other application indexes a website with hCard formatting it will increase the likelihood that the website’s contact details and physical location will be correctly listed in their index or mapping system.

SEO experts have been arguing about the benefits of the hCard format – especially in regards to local SEO – since their inception. Google recently made a statement on one of their corporate blogs that confirms the benefits of the hCard format in regards to Google Maps & Places, two current hot targets of SEO experts.

“By using structured HTML formats like hCard to markup the business or organization described on your page, you make it easier for search engines like Google to properly classify your site, recognize and understand that its content is about a particular place, and make it discoverable to users on Place pages” says Carter Maslan, Director of Product Management, Local Search here. He goes on to conclude, “…your precise markup helps associate your site with the search results for that particular place.”

While this is not shocking news, it does confirm that hCard formatting is a must have on any website that intends to drive local traffic to their places pages and physical storefronts.

The ElementsLocal Blog

Category Archives: Online Marketing