Archive: April, 2009

Public Relations and Search Marketing

Crisis management…something we generally don’t want to think of as a business. Most times it means bad news, but bad news can be worse if the situation is not handled properly. Generally speaking, most businesses who require strong public relations, already have a public relation strategy in place in case of crisis. But does your company’s PR plan include search engine marketing?

Think about it, more and more Americans turn to the Internet for their daily news source. Do you want them to get their information from a blog or a spun news story? You have little if no control how third parties will report the story. The optimal situation is for readers to get their information directly from the source.

It is unrealistic to think that an SEO strategy will get the information noticed fast enough. The communication with the public should be as quick as possible which simply will not happen with SEO…these efforts take time to be effective. There is no better way to handle a crisis situation than Pay-per-Click advertising (PPC). This is a perfect PR channel for a crisis if you wish to have an accurate message sent. The cost-per-click (CPC) would be very low because keywords would be targeted directly towards the situation, a custom landing page can be implemented that gives the facts of the event or situation and you are placing the information exactly where people are looking: Search Engines.

One important thing to remember is to make sure your search marketing provider works with the company and/or public relations firm to accurately portray the situation. If your business is leading people right to the source for information, things can turn ugly if it is incorrectly reported. Your search marketing provider should have a plan of exactly how things should be handled in the event of a crisis…prior to a crisis situation. This is the only way the strategy will be handled effectively and accurately.

For more information about PR and Search Engine Marketing contact us today.

Save Money on Ink Cartridges

Wondering why every time you buy new ink cartridges it costs almost as much as your printer? You’re not alone! Even if you buy your ink at Walmart, you’re likely to spend too much. We recommend using Data Bazaar. No, we’re not affiliated in any way with Data Bazaar, and No, we get nothing when you do business with them. At databazaar.com you can search for your printer’s ink cartridges and select a "generic" version of it. It will usually be under half of the price! They also have FREE shipping most of the time.

The process to find the best priced ink cartridges is as follows:

1. Open Internet Explorer or Firefox
2. In the Address Bar, enter http://www.databazaar.com
3. Hit Enter on your keyboard
4. When the website appears, look for the "Easy Supplies Finder" in the top-left of the site
5. Select the manufacturer of your ink, such as Hewlett-Packard
6. Select the type of printer, such as Inkjet printer (Inkjets are the most common home printer)
7. Select the model of your printer (which can be found on the outside of printer), such as Deskjet F4180
8. Click the Find Supplies button
9. In the results that show up, select the BRAND NAME cartridge, such as HP DeskJet F4180 Ink Cartridge, Black
10. You will likely notice that even the brand name cartridge is cheaper than Walmart.
11. If you scroll down the page a little, you will see a listing below the product description labeled ‘People who bought the (HP 21 Black) also bought:’
12. You will usually see a listing labeled ‘Compatible HP 21 Ink Cartridge’. This is the generic cartridge and substantially less money. We can vouch for the generics, as we use them exclusively.
13. Click on the generic, and then add it to your cart
14. Go through the checkout process on the site, and wait for your ink to arrive.

Let us know if we can help you out in any way!

Searchers are Becoming More Search Savvy

A great article at Andy Beal’s Marketing Pilgrim discusses the continuous growth of Google’s Market share…and also points out that searchers are still becoming more sophisticated. To me, these 2 things go hand in hand. I think many people agree that Google provides the most relevant search results, especially for longer search terms. The only reason searchers are able to use longer keywords, is because of the impressive intelligence of the search engines. If it were the days of old, search results would be very poor  for queries longer than 3 words. So it makes sense…more and more searchers are using longer search queries, so more and more searchers will use the most intelligent search engines will use their results. Check out these statistics from Hitwise:

Even over a one month span, multiple word keywords grew. Though, the change year over year is quite impressive. If you would have said last year that 8 or more word queries (and clicks) would increase by 20%, I would have certainly questioned that statistic. The data still shows that 1, 2, and 3 word queries consume 65% of the searches. How far will this grow? Just how sophisticated will searchers and engines become? How does the growing use of longer keyword searches effect SEO?

My opinions: The increase of longer search queries will continue to grow as long as the search engines continue to provide relevant results for the queries. Google market share will continue to grow…lets face it, there hasn’t even been an engine that has threatened it in the slightest bit. But, as I said before, as searchers continue to use longer queries and demand relevant results, the engine that produces these results will also grow; they go hand in hand. I think it is great for SEO. It will demand the use of extremely targeted keywords. This is something I preach to clients on a daily basis. Yes, maybe you can get more hits for 1 or 2 word searches, but you will still convert on the highly targeted, longer tail key phrases. These terms catch the user later in their buying decision.

That is enough of my rant. Check out the article at the Marketing Pilgrim as well as the Search Engine Land article, ‘Search Queries are Getting Longer: Hitwise Report’.

Are FREE Antivirus Programs Good Enough?

I can't tell you how many times we hear this question, or a variation of it, such as:

"If it's FREE, I'm going to end up paying at some point!"

"A product from a company like Symantec or McAfee has to be better than a free antivirus program."

If you ask the protocol 80 Home Computer Repair team, they will likely tell you to use Clamwin, a FREE program that we have been using for years!  While some of the pay programs come bundled with spyware protection, there are good, FREE solutions for that as well, such as SpyBot .  One of the best things about free antivirus and spyware applications is that they typically run much more efficiently than Norton and the other pay programs.  In other words, they don't slow your computer to a snail's pace.  Plus, they're FREE!  No annual fees.

If you'd like to discuss home antivirus software further, please check out our Home Computer Repair Services at http://www.p80ComputerRepair.com.