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In performing keyword research for a number of SEO projects, I have found that one of the important factors is to quickly get beyond any preconceptions of what the targeted keywords should be for a particular client. It is all too easy to select the keyword phrases used by most of the client's competitors. If this happens, you find yourself spending a lot of time trying to rank against keywords where there are a huge number of competing pages in the search engine indices.

What are companies finding to be their most effective sales and lead generation activities? That was the objective of a recent survey conducted by Web-Marketing 123, a California based, nationally recognized online marketing company. They surveyed over 500 US companies. About two-thirds of respondents operated in the B2B space (marketing to other businesses) with the remainder marketing directly to the general public (B2C). The participating firms were of all sizes, from firms with fewer than 10 employees to those with more than 1,000, and the mix was pretty even, making the results representative of the business community.

Social media has “a new sheriff in town” called Google +. Google has gotten into the social media space in a huge way recently and in only 3 weeks has amassed about 20 million users. What is it? How is it different from Facebook, LinkedIn and some of the other social networks? Is there a business application for this? How will it affect online marketing activities? There are many questions about Google + and this post is only an intro to this exciting new online network.

I've read a good deal on the topic of "emotionomics" and it has continued to make an impression on me. Emotionomics in general is the confluence of the products and services with the customer's emotional experience using those products and services. For someone who operates an internet marketing agency, I think of emotionomics as the experience our customers have during a project...a web development project, an seo project, etc. In other words, if we produce great seo results but the process the customer experienced during the project is painful, then the customer thinks poorly of us even though we might achieve awesome results.

A recent survey by American Express and SEMPO revealed that small and mid-sized businesses (SMB’s) are investing more in social media than in search engine optimization. Considering the challenges in measuring social media ROI, I was ambivalent about this finding. I mean on one hand I am not surprised businesses are really interested in social media. After all, it is what everyone seems to be entranced by. On the other hand, search engine optimization is such a powerful tool to actually generating leads and it can be more easily measured.

GroupM Search and comScore, two reliable sources of research about online buying behavior, recently released findings of a new study that focused on the impact and search and social media, and the synergy of each channel. The results were quite interesting and may provide insights that could alter your current search and social media strategies. A meaningful excerpt from the study revealed the following:

2010 was an exciting year in the world of online marketing. The Bing and Yahoo search alliance, Google Instant, new mobile devices and even a major motion picture about the rise of a social network. While it's hard to tell what the next year holds, I don't think anything is slowing down - in fact, I see momentum building even more and more.

Over the past couple of months, Google has made it clear it's taking local search seriously. In essence, they have reconfigured the search result page and algorithm so organic and local listings become integrated. Studies suggest websites that implemented best practice SEO tactics weren't largely affected by this change, as local optimization was likely already a part of the overall optimization strategy. In fact, it's been shown that sites that already had strong organic and local optimization saw their overall positions increase. Conversely, sites without a local optimization campaign that implemented grey and black-hat techniques (in other words, simply gaming the Google algorithm based on the most recent exploits) have or will soon experience an overall decrease in visibility and ultimately traffic.

Studies have shown that those who write down their goals are more likely to achieve them. Maybe it's because something written down will nag at you more - keeping it top of mind. But also likely is how establishing a goal - or end objective - gives what you do a sense of purpose. Having something clearly defined and written out holds you accountable. "Are we achieving this?" Yes or No. "If we're not achieving this yet, are we doing something to get us closer to achieving it?" Yes or No. Answering "No" twice means we're failing. Failing to achieve and failing to do better.

UPDATE: we've expanded the ideas in this post! Check out our more recent article on whether or not newly released domain extensions can help your SEO. An article published yesterday on RichmondBizSense.com generated a stir among Richmond business owners and online marketers. The article, 'The domains were available' is about how a Goochland area firm purchased variations of their competitors web addresses (domains) with different extensions (e.g. .biz instead of .com). The main focus of the article was on the ethics of such a strategy. Ethics aside, I think it's important for everyone to understand why this is a fruitless and potentially costly strategy (a point the author unfortunately omitted).