Tough economic times call for small businesses to get creative. Here is why you should consider implementing a multi-domain strategy for your business.
COST. A memorable, highly targeted and keyword-rich domain name, garners free organic search engine traffic. By acquiring a domain name from the secondary domain market, you are spending less money in traffic than by engaging in often costly keyword search buys or print advertising.
BRANDING. Acquiring domains related to your products and or services sends a strong and consistent message to your customers and builds brand equity while avoiding customer confusion and lost traffic. For example, a photographer's website would benefit from camera, weddings and portrait themed domains.
GLOBAL REACH. Although the "dot com" is the most common extension, you should cast your net wider by getting as many extensions possible, including country code specific extensions. Act locally, think globally!
CAPITAL INVESTMENT. Like fine wines, domain names appreciate in value as they get older, thanks to the navigation traffic they acquire from prominent search engine positioning. By acquiring multiple premium domain names you are building a valuable portfolio of assets.
Are you ready plan a multiple domain strategy for your business? BuyDomains has the largest inventory of premium domain names — let us help you find one that matches your business needs. Contact domains@buydomains.com.
Friday, June 27, 2008
Gasta News:Search Strategy is Critical
When the going gets tough, the tough get searching.
As the shadow of a recession looms large, the knock-on effect has seen ad budgets if not slashed then certainly tightened.
This week's NMA highlighted concerns raised by key figures within the online industry that brands are rethinking their online ad strategies in light of the current economic misery.
However, one area that looks like it will benefit is search - an accountable, proven marketing channel that shows no sign of slowing down.
Almost everyone from the numerous agencies NMA spoke to for this week's front-page story said that search, and indeed affiliate, will see more money pumped in to it as brands look to areas they can pretty much guarantee will work.
But as brands demand results, does that mean that creativity is sucked out of search?
We've seen plenty of moves this year that have given search specialists the chance to show how creative they can be with campaigns.
Reaction to Google's trademarking decision is probably the most high-profile example, with agencies saying that launching brand protection campaigns was now almost as high on the agenda as brand building and acquisition campaigns for some clients.
But will creativity now be put on hold in favour of results? Will clients solely demand ROI, rather than creative thinking?
Similarly, if search becomes the commodity that it's threatening to be and so simply Just Another Media Buy, will that take the excitement out of it?
I doubt it, but I'm sure that there'll be plenty of meetings between marketing directors and search agencies in months to come where the question of creativity versus results will be top of the agenda.
As the shadow of a recession looms large, the knock-on effect has seen ad budgets if not slashed then certainly tightened.
This week's NMA highlighted concerns raised by key figures within the online industry that brands are rethinking their online ad strategies in light of the current economic misery.
However, one area that looks like it will benefit is search - an accountable, proven marketing channel that shows no sign of slowing down.
Almost everyone from the numerous agencies NMA spoke to for this week's front-page story said that search, and indeed affiliate, will see more money pumped in to it as brands look to areas they can pretty much guarantee will work.
But as brands demand results, does that mean that creativity is sucked out of search?
We've seen plenty of moves this year that have given search specialists the chance to show how creative they can be with campaigns.
Reaction to Google's trademarking decision is probably the most high-profile example, with agencies saying that launching brand protection campaigns was now almost as high on the agenda as brand building and acquisition campaigns for some clients.
But will creativity now be put on hold in favour of results? Will clients solely demand ROI, rather than creative thinking?
Similarly, if search becomes the commodity that it's threatening to be and so simply Just Another Media Buy, will that take the excitement out of it?
I doubt it, but I'm sure that there'll be plenty of meetings between marketing directors and search agencies in months to come where the question of creativity versus results will be top of the agenda.
Gasta Seo: Reputation Management
If your website or products suffer from bad reviews or negative feedback, Sometimes disguised as “constructive criticism” do not sit and hope that it will go away; this is a set of circumstances that you can and must change and influence. Everyone would much rather receive a pat on the back, but how do you stop this negativity from getting in the way of your clients? It’s called reputation management, sometimes clients marketing can conflict with the reputation of an area or a ‘ghettoisation’ as happened with West Belfast during the prolonged troubles, However when local communities started to respond to this negative portrayal in a positive way by starting community festivals instead of traditional ‘bonfires’ and demonstrating and discussing all the positive aspects of the West Belfast community such as low crime, lively social networks, strong community support groups, and neighbourliness. What happened was a complete turnaround of the perception of West Belfast as a ‘ghetto’ into one of a vibrant community that has become a Mecca for conflict resolution.
Gasta SEO Services explains that reputation management and SEO go hand-in-hand because it’s all about getting the positive results above the negative ones. They also suggest participating in and leveraging social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and building up the positive picture of your website to downgrade and diminish the negative comments and to help gain positive momentum.
Gasta SEO Services explains that reputation management and SEO go hand-in-hand because it’s all about getting the positive results above the negative ones. They also suggest participating in and leveraging social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc. and building up the positive picture of your website to downgrade and diminish the negative comments and to help gain positive momentum.
Gasta News:Internet feels the bite of Crunch!
Mixed News as internet feels the bite of Crunch!
A straw poll of media agencies from the NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies 2007 guide found budgets are under pressure as marketers alter their media plans ahead of the potential economic downturn. The findings are in conflict with market predictions. A report by analyst firm Enders Analysis this week said UK online ad spends was set to grow...
Meanwhile automotive brands plan to stop using dedicated campaign sites as budgets tighten and consumer’s tire of fragmented content. Car brands including Mercedes and Land Rover plan to pull back from campaign sites for car launches, switching to a central online hub. Mercedes has launched a global online hub, built by Digital Annexe that will house all its brand activity. It has been built to incorporate video streaming, an easily updateable back-end system and increased promotional space....
Online Video's Short Shelf Life
On average, video viewer ship peaks early in a video's life-cycle.
Thursday 19th of June 2008 12:00:00 AM
We set out with a simple question: throughout the life of a video, do most views occur in the first few days and weeks or are they distributed randomly over time? Since Tube Mogul tracks millions of videos, we turned to the data and were surprised to find such a robust trend: viewer ship peaks early.
Methodology
Our sample includes data for views by day for 10,916 videos over a 90 day time period. In order to exclude casual creators of online video (i.e. "Mickey’s Birthday"), each video in the sample achieved a minimum of 1,000 cumulative views over the 90 day time period.
On average, videos are time-sensitive. Trends pointed out elsewhere, such as "evergreen" (non-time sensitive) content always fetching views or videos randomly "going viral," seem more of a rarity than an underlying trend in the data.
A straw poll of media agencies from the NMA Top 100 Interactive Agencies 2007 guide found budgets are under pressure as marketers alter their media plans ahead of the potential economic downturn. The findings are in conflict with market predictions. A report by analyst firm Enders Analysis this week said UK online ad spends was set to grow...
Meanwhile automotive brands plan to stop using dedicated campaign sites as budgets tighten and consumer’s tire of fragmented content. Car brands including Mercedes and Land Rover plan to pull back from campaign sites for car launches, switching to a central online hub. Mercedes has launched a global online hub, built by Digital Annexe that will house all its brand activity. It has been built to incorporate video streaming, an easily updateable back-end system and increased promotional space....
Online Video's Short Shelf Life
On average, video viewer ship peaks early in a video's life-cycle.
Thursday 19th of June 2008 12:00:00 AM
We set out with a simple question: throughout the life of a video, do most views occur in the first few days and weeks or are they distributed randomly over time? Since Tube Mogul tracks millions of videos, we turned to the data and were surprised to find such a robust trend: viewer ship peaks early.
Methodology
Our sample includes data for views by day for 10,916 videos over a 90 day time period. In order to exclude casual creators of online video (i.e. "Mickey’s Birthday"), each video in the sample achieved a minimum of 1,000 cumulative views over the 90 day time period.
On average, videos are time-sensitive. Trends pointed out elsewhere, such as "evergreen" (non-time sensitive) content always fetching views or videos randomly "going viral," seem more of a rarity than an underlying trend in the data.
Gasta SEO: Oganic Search
If your company's organic search results aren't what you wish they were, check out these key tricks to know and implement. By Noah Elkin
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), there is no magic bullet. Effective SEO boils down to doing a lot of little things well. Imagine building a house -- each brick that goes into the foundation plays a vital role in creating a solid structure. A website is similarly comprised of a large number of building blocks, each of which needs to be given a proper level of attention to maximize your site's visibility. Following are 11 steps marketers can take to get more out of organic search.
1. Optimize your title tags: The title tag is the most important tag on a page. It's like the title of a book in that it should tell the search engine spiders exactly what the page is about. Also, bear in mind that the title tag forms the link in the search engine results page (SERP), so think about giving it a keyword-rich call to action to help it stand out from the crowd.
2. Add a robots.txt file: This is a simple file that sits in the root of the website. It's one of the first files a search spider will look for as it begins a site crawl, so make sure you have one -- it helps to control where the spider can and cannot go and hence what it can and cannot see.
3. Include sitemaps (HTML and XML): Google doesn't share much in the way of how to optimize for its algorithms, but the search giant does recommend that you add an HTML sitemap, and when Google talks, you should listen. Make sure you include the entire site, break it into multiple pages (no more than 100 links per page) and update it regularly so it accurately reflects the structure of the site. Add an XML sitemap designed specifically for search engines. This is particularly important for large sites that spiders are having trouble indexing. Verify the sitemap with the Google webmaster console and receive useful data back about your site.
4. Write high-quality, unique content: After all these years, content still rules. Good quality content will help attract links to your site as people refer to it and that same content will work to keep them on your site after they arrive. From a search engine perspective, spiders love content, so the more you can provide them, the better. And don't limit yourself to text -- images and video can help to showcase additional brand messages and attributes. But whatever content you do serve up, just make sure it is in an accessible format.
5. Insert meta-tags for top-level pages: While not nearly as important as they used to be, optimized meta-descriptions are still worth adding to your key landing and top-level pages. Well-wrought meta-tags will help entice users to your site from a SERP.
6. Conduct keyword research: There's no point in ranking for keywords that your target audience is not using, so make sure you know what your customers are searching for and the terms they're using to find you. To improve your chances of connecting with interested users, structure your site around keywords and themes that reflect their vernacular, not your internal marketing-speak. Remember that you want to help both visitors and search engines build a complete picture of your site.
7. Don't neglect your internal link structure: There's more to SEO and boosting your search rankings than getting links from other sites. Devote some attention to your internal link structure. Embed your target keywords into the internal links and help reinforce the key landing pages to the spiders; don't just use "click here," "next" and "more."
8. Think about pages you want to rank and those you don't: This is something that's closely tied to the internal link structure. For brand searches (typically the most significant source of traffic for any site), the home page often ranks first, followed by privacy policies, contact us and terms and conditions pages. The home page is a good destination to steer interested visitors, but the privacy policy and T&C pages generally are not the places you want your users to hit first, so try to sculpt the flow of page rank to the key site landing pages instead.
9. Get more from analytics: Make sure you set up your analytics package correctly so it separates the sources of your traffic. There's no point spending a lot of time and effort on search engine marketing only to find that your analytics software was not configured to separate the paid search traffic from the organic traffic.
10. Submit to the main directories: Make sure your site is listed in all of the main directories, such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Business.com, JoeAnt, etc.
11. Emphasize internal education: Everyone within your company can make a difference, particularly when it comes to a natural search campaign. Make sure all departments, from marketing to IT to PR to product development, know why the company is undertaking an SEO program and how they can contribute. Run regular sessions to update staff and inform them about how the campaign is progressing.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget process, but rather, one of ongoing improvement. Anytime you make changes to the structure of or content on your site, review the relevant steps in the optimization process to make sure you get the maximum benefit from these changes. Search can help you connect with your customers, but you have to make sure you're supplying the search engines with the right connective tissue.
When it comes to search engine optimization (SEO), there is no magic bullet. Effective SEO boils down to doing a lot of little things well. Imagine building a house -- each brick that goes into the foundation plays a vital role in creating a solid structure. A website is similarly comprised of a large number of building blocks, each of which needs to be given a proper level of attention to maximize your site's visibility. Following are 11 steps marketers can take to get more out of organic search.
1. Optimize your title tags: The title tag is the most important tag on a page. It's like the title of a book in that it should tell the search engine spiders exactly what the page is about. Also, bear in mind that the title tag forms the link in the search engine results page (SERP), so think about giving it a keyword-rich call to action to help it stand out from the crowd.
2. Add a robots.txt file: This is a simple file that sits in the root of the website. It's one of the first files a search spider will look for as it begins a site crawl, so make sure you have one -- it helps to control where the spider can and cannot go and hence what it can and cannot see.
3. Include sitemaps (HTML and XML): Google doesn't share much in the way of how to optimize for its algorithms, but the search giant does recommend that you add an HTML sitemap, and when Google talks, you should listen. Make sure you include the entire site, break it into multiple pages (no more than 100 links per page) and update it regularly so it accurately reflects the structure of the site. Add an XML sitemap designed specifically for search engines. This is particularly important for large sites that spiders are having trouble indexing. Verify the sitemap with the Google webmaster console and receive useful data back about your site.
4. Write high-quality, unique content: After all these years, content still rules. Good quality content will help attract links to your site as people refer to it and that same content will work to keep them on your site after they arrive. From a search engine perspective, spiders love content, so the more you can provide them, the better. And don't limit yourself to text -- images and video can help to showcase additional brand messages and attributes. But whatever content you do serve up, just make sure it is in an accessible format.
5. Insert meta-tags for top-level pages: While not nearly as important as they used to be, optimized meta-descriptions are still worth adding to your key landing and top-level pages. Well-wrought meta-tags will help entice users to your site from a SERP.
6. Conduct keyword research: There's no point in ranking for keywords that your target audience is not using, so make sure you know what your customers are searching for and the terms they're using to find you. To improve your chances of connecting with interested users, structure your site around keywords and themes that reflect their vernacular, not your internal marketing-speak. Remember that you want to help both visitors and search engines build a complete picture of your site.
7. Don't neglect your internal link structure: There's more to SEO and boosting your search rankings than getting links from other sites. Devote some attention to your internal link structure. Embed your target keywords into the internal links and help reinforce the key landing pages to the spiders; don't just use "click here," "next" and "more."
8. Think about pages you want to rank and those you don't: This is something that's closely tied to the internal link structure. For brand searches (typically the most significant source of traffic for any site), the home page often ranks first, followed by privacy policies, contact us and terms and conditions pages. The home page is a good destination to steer interested visitors, but the privacy policy and T&C pages generally are not the places you want your users to hit first, so try to sculpt the flow of page rank to the key site landing pages instead.
9. Get more from analytics: Make sure you set up your analytics package correctly so it separates the sources of your traffic. There's no point spending a lot of time and effort on search engine marketing only to find that your analytics software was not configured to separate the paid search traffic from the organic traffic.
10. Submit to the main directories: Make sure your site is listed in all of the main directories, such as Yahoo!, DMOZ, Business.com, JoeAnt, etc.
11. Emphasize internal education: Everyone within your company can make a difference, particularly when it comes to a natural search campaign. Make sure all departments, from marketing to IT to PR to product development, know why the company is undertaking an SEO program and how they can contribute. Run regular sessions to update staff and inform them about how the campaign is progressing.
Last, but certainly not least, remember that SEO is not a set-and-forget process, but rather, one of ongoing improvement. Anytime you make changes to the structure of or content on your site, review the relevant steps in the optimization process to make sure you get the maximum benefit from these changes. Search can help you connect with your customers, but you have to make sure you're supplying the search engines with the right connective tissue.
Gasta SEO : Matt Cutts 5 SEO Tips
Matt Cutts top 5 seo Tips
1. Spotlight your search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be at the top as well as peppered throughout your copy.
2. Fill in your "tags." The two most important tags are Title and Description b/c that's what is displayed on the search results.
3. Get other sites to "link" back to you. This is one of the most important of the 100 factors Google considers when ranking sites
4. Create a blog and post often. This can help you get links.
5. Register for free tools. Cutts recommends using the tools at google.com/webmaster, as well as creating a text-based sitemap www.xml-sitemaps.com, and adding your business to Google's Local Business center (google.com/local/add)
1. Spotlight your search term on the page. If you want to be found for your keyword, make sure that term is on the page you want to rank. The term should be at the top as well as peppered throughout your copy.
2. Fill in your "tags." The two most important tags are Title and Description b/c that's what is displayed on the search results.
3. Get other sites to "link" back to you. This is one of the most important of the 100 factors Google considers when ranking sites
4. Create a blog and post often. This can help you get links.
5. Register for free tools. Cutts recommends using the tools at google.com/webmaster, as well as creating a text-based sitemap www.xml-sitemaps.com, and adding your business to Google's Local Business center (google.com/local/add)
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Gasta welcomes Byron Review Action Plan
The UK government has unveiled its action plan to protect children from the internet and video games.
The Byron Review Action Plan includes the appointment of an executive board for the UK Council for Child Internet Safety.
The board will be chaired by the Department for Children, Schools and Families as well as Home Office Ministers and industry representatives.
Awareness of e-safety will also be raised as part of the government's £9m investment in child safety communications.
The action plan was published by children's minister Kevin Brennan, Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and culture minister Margaret Hodge.
The plan is based on recommendations given in the TV psychologist's report that was released earlier this year.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said of the move, "I am determined to do all I can to help ensure that there is an internet environment that is safe for children to use."
The Byron Review Action Plan includes the appointment of an executive board for the UK Council for Child Internet Safety.
The board will be chaired by the Department for Children, Schools and Families as well as Home Office Ministers and industry representatives.
Awareness of e-safety will also be raised as part of the government's £9m investment in child safety communications.
The action plan was published by children's minister Kevin Brennan, Home Office minister Vernon Coaker and culture minister Margaret Hodge.
The plan is based on recommendations given in the TV psychologist's report that was released earlier this year.
Home Office minister Vernon Coaker said of the move, "I am determined to do all I can to help ensure that there is an internet environment that is safe for children to use."
Gasta Press Release :Channel 4IP
Gasta Latest Channel 4 News
From 2nd July, potential suppliers will be given an opportunity to register their interest and ask questions about the 4IP fund at http://channel4.com/4ip. We will keep the site updated with information on how to submit ideas, the range of projects we are looking for, as well as how our partnership arrangements work. Throughout July & August, the Channel 4 team will be taking part in a number of activities and events - including sponsoring 2gether, a new festival taking place in London in July - in order to talk broadly about Channel 4's ambitions for digital media and engage informally with some of the people who may want to submit ideas and look for funding from 4IP when we launch in September.
The official 4IP launch will involve a range of events (currently planned for 17-25 September) at which we will outline our vision for the fund, introduce our partners and provide examples of the type of projects 4IP will be looking to invest in. We will also begin actively soliciting ideas and responding to proposals.
We will be in touch again soon with details of the September launch events, but if you would like any more information in the mean time then please do not hesitate to get in touch.
From 2nd July, potential suppliers will be given an opportunity to register their interest and ask questions about the 4IP fund at http://channel4.com/4ip. We will keep the site updated with information on how to submit ideas, the range of projects we are looking for, as well as how our partnership arrangements work. Throughout July & August, the Channel 4 team will be taking part in a number of activities and events - including sponsoring 2gether, a new festival taking place in London in July - in order to talk broadly about Channel 4's ambitions for digital media and engage informally with some of the people who may want to submit ideas and look for funding from 4IP when we launch in September.
The official 4IP launch will involve a range of events (currently planned for 17-25 September) at which we will outline our vision for the fund, introduce our partners and provide examples of the type of projects 4IP will be looking to invest in. We will also begin actively soliciting ideas and responding to proposals.
We will be in touch again soon with details of the September launch events, but if you would like any more information in the mean time then please do not hesitate to get in touch.
Gasta News:Brand Identity
Here at Gasta HQ we have noticed a pattern in our advertisers inluding the brand names of competitors in their advertising keywords, we have seen an upsurge of brand identity marketing of terms such as Louis Vuitton, 12th Sreet by Cynthia Vincent, Adidas, Alexander McQueen, Anya Hindmarch, Bottega Veneta, Chloé, Derek Lam, E-bags, Erva, Fendi, Gucci, Hoss, Intropia, Jimmy Choo, Kate Moss, Laccoste, Marc by Marc Jacobs, Miu Miu, Net-a -Porter, Nike, Orange, Oscar de la Renta, Puma, Ralph Lauren, Roberto Cavalli, Samsung, Sony, Stella McCartney, Toni&Guy, Valentino, VBH, Vivienne Westwood, Red, Zoe&Morgan.
This change is due to the new rules introduced by Google about brand keywords, and the savvy marketers are the ones using the Gasta search marketing keyword tools to capitalise, Big brands you have been warned. buy your brand keywords now!
This change is due to the new rules introduced by Google about brand keywords, and the savvy marketers are the ones using the Gasta search marketing keyword tools to capitalise, Big brands you have been warned. buy your brand keywords now!
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