The guys over at Subtle Network Design and Marketing have created a rather humorous, dungeons and dragons-esque card game focusing around the many forms of search engine optimization tactics.
Each card has its own unique character with their special abilities and a clever description about how they handle their services. We found the con-man to be particularly entertaining. In addition to their own special abilities, they have unique attributes such as diamonds, authority bombs, shield strength, and attack power which represent how effective an individual character is at SEO.
The diversity and descriptions are creative and entertaining to read, and we hope the guys at Subtle Network will include more cards and characters as time goes on, especially with all the diverse tactics in the SEO world. We wonder what Subtle Network will come up with next.
Enjoy the infographic.
SEO’s place in Internet marketing is firmly entrenched. No internet marketing campaign begins without a discussion about the SEO strategy. A few years back, SEO work comprised just a small percent of an Internet marketer’s job. Today, situation is much more different. This isn’t surprising considering the fact that there are more than 3 billion online searches every day[1] and that’s almost double comparing with 2011. People use search engines to find more about the products and services that they need and research shows that they more or less view only the first page of a search engine’s results. This has lead to a high page rank being the holy grail of Internet marketing.
Research has proved that most users review only the top 3-5 results returned by a search term. Search engine technology has advanced to the point that in most cases, the top 3 results offer exactly what the user is looking for. This means that good results that show up in the 2nd page of results are usually ignored and never get much web traffic. Research has also shown that people are now used to filtering out the paid search results[2] because of the distinctive colored box they appear in. Thus it is the challenge of every Internet marketer to reach the top of the rankings organically, preferably by using white hat optimization techniques.
In the early days of the widespread use of the Internet, it was easy for businesses to perform SEO for their websites on their own. Now SEO is a field all unto itself. The changes that happen in this industry are rapid and are directed by the search provider’s advances to combat spam in results. The work that is required is phenomenal and in most cases requires a team of people with specialized skill sets to achieve the targets set.
Further, these days SEO efforts are heavily affected by social signals. Social signals include retweets, Facebook likes and shares, reposts and other social networking site actions. Sending out the right image while online is often a full time task in itself. Businesses cannot afford to ignore this aspect as both positive and negative attention impact SEO efforts significantly. The prevalence of buttons on every site that lets you ‘Like’, ‘Share’, ‘Tweet’, ‘StumbleUpon’ or +1 the content lets search engines know what an actual human thinks about the content rather than taking only the opinion of a bot/crawler.
A few years back, search engine rankings did not take location into consideration. The first result for a keyword search would remain the same irrespective of the location the search originated from. Today, all search providers have in effect walled off the search results to pertain to a particular country by introducing country specific domains. Further, users who have location tracking services enabled get results that are localized and tailored to their needs. In this scenario, SEO efforts become a balancing act. Internet marketers need to optimize the websites after getting a clear understanding of the business local and international reach. This will have an impact on the relevant traffic the website receives. There are definitely more things on an Internet marketer’s plate to care of today but the SEO still constitute a lion share of his efforts.
Article written by Andrea Walters, a freelance writer for www.globalx.net – The Nation’s Lowest All-Digital Price Provider. Click here for more info about Globalx.
References:
1. The State of SEO and Internet Marketing in 2012 – Aug 20, 2012
http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/the-state-of-seo-and-internet-marketing-in-2012
2. Banner blindness – Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banner_blindness
B2b email marketing is arguably the most cost-effective platform to share news about your products with other companies in your industry. However, there are a number of guidelines which are essential to follow in order for a b2b email marketing campaign to succeed.
Here we lists some basic b2b email marketing guidelines.
Strong subject line
This is arguably one of the most important elements of any marketing email. Emails with the most engaging, fascinating content in the world are unlikely to be opened unless they have a subject line which encourages consumers to open it. A great subject line should be short, personalised and include a reason why the message should be opened.
Suitable frequency
One of the main reasons customers unsubscribe from b2b marketing emails is because they are contacted either too much or not enough by a brand. One good rule of thumb with regards to frequency is to only send emails if it has an objective. Emails without an objective is just noise to customers, meaning your time and effort would be best spent elsewhere.
Timing
Sending emails at an appropriate time is a key step to improving open, click-through and conversion rates. Marketers should take note of which day their subscribers tend to open and click through the most. Many experts in the field believe that Tuesday is the best day to send b2b marketing emails whilst Friday afternoons are thought to be particularly poor.
Formal Tone
B2B emails should adopt the same tone as face-to-face meeting with potential clients. Some b2c marketing emails may get away with a less formal tones but this is inappropriate in a b2b environment.
Analyse
Using your email marketing software to work out which tactics are working for you and where you need to improve. The definition of a fool is a person who completes the same action twice and expects different results.
Following these guidelines will stand you in good stead for a profitable email marketing campaign.