You can relax, we won’t be peppering this blog entry with Clint Eastwood and cowboy puns! Earlier this year we introduced you to QR Codes as a means to link your offline and online marketing efforts. In case you didn’t see that or need a quick catch up then check it out here. Since then QR code use has mushroomed. A recent report showed that QR code use has increased by over 4000% since 2010.

That increased use has meant that we have seen QR codes out and about a lot more recently. Here’s what we’ve seen around over the last few weeks…

Caribou Coffee – Caribou are using QR codes as part of their “Stay Awake For Summer” ad campaign.

Firstly the good – QR codes are still relatively new to most of the general public. Therefore it’s vital that, for now, we explain to consumers what they are and how to scan them in a simple and concise way. Caribou have done a great job of this. They explained what was needed and where to get a free reader.

They also incentivized the marketing message giving the consumer a reason to use the QR code – “Sign up for more weekly summer savings”. Most consumers won’t scan the QR code just because it’s a cool new tool.

Now for the bad – This can’t be seen from our photo but the signs were placed in awful locations. The codes need to be easily accessible and in obvious places. Caribou started well by placing the signs on a few tables. However there were also signs behind the counter and on the wall behind tables (blocked by other customers). And they were the 2 most obvious in the store.

The Hilton, Hilton Head Island – Unfortunately this was ugly pretty much all round. The only positive we can give is that the QR Code was very obvious and stood out. Everything else was poor – No explanation of what it was, no incentive to scan, it didn’t offer a free reader and it was in a pretty odd location (down a hallway in the middle of the resort). The sign didn’t even look professional; it was pretty much just a print out stuck to the wall. All in all a very odd piece of marketing.

Old Navy – Hazaa! By far the best use of QR codes we have seen. The codes were used as part of a competition to win tickets to the MLB World Series. The execution was superb. Signage was in all the best locations – Front door, by checkout and by the changing rooms. Everywhere customers were likely to stop for a few moments there was a sign.

They explained the code well, they incentivized it and their mobile landing page was simple and easy to use. As a campaign for generating customer email addresses it was seamless from beginning to end.

Have you seen any good or bad uses of QR codes out and about recently? Comment below and let us know. And if you’re thinking about implementing them in your upcoming marketing efforts then get in touch. We’d love to have a chat about what can be done.

So, the most recent data on who’s winning between Apple and Google on the operating system front is brought to surface by recent Nielson research. To summarize – 37 percent of mobile consumers in the U.S. now have a smartphone. Google’s Android operating system (aOS) is proving to be the most popular.  According to Nielsen’s April survey of mobile consumers, 36 percent of smartphone consumers now have an Android device, compared to 26 percent for Apple iOS smartphones (iPhones) and 23 percent for RIM Blackberry.

It used to be the case that even though Android OS device owners were gaining market share, it was shown that they weren’t as engaged in web activities and app hunting/usage but this recent research shows the lines between those iPhone users, who were always heavy data and app users, blurring a lot more. In fact, it’s nearly balanced out and the Nielson data suggests the consumption levels of data by aOS and iOS are showing signs of aligning with each other and even similarities in the type of data usage (i.e. app downloads, online gaming usage etc etc).

What does this all mean?  Well, for those of you thinking that mobile only means Apple iPhone, it’s time to think again.  We’ve always looked at what to develop for by looking at the market the site and/or app is to serve and what makes sense for the product/service pitched against project budgets. But, in the age of the “web app”, this data definitely provides some strategic thinking shifts when talking about mobile plays and what to develop for. For us, it’s never ever just been about the iPhone. Having been in the mobile marketing space for over 10 years, development x-device / x-OS was always scope for any projects. But if you were in the court that thought mobile just meant iPhone, then gone are those days.

For higher market penetration levels, you need to factor in aOS devices also and if you have existing mobile propositions, how does this new data affect your thinking. If you think it doesn’t – it should. First question, if you’ve developed a web-app or mobile site only designed for an iPhone, then how does your site look/feel/interact on Android devices.  Hint: There are numerous different screen sizes on aOS devices versus one for the iPhone. How does your mobile proposition look on smart-phones other than the iPhone?

There’s really no easy answer to this question and, if you ask 10 different SEO professionals, you’re likely to get 11 different answers.
I’ll define it the easiest way and the way I always define it for our clients: SEM involves PPC and SEO doesn’t.

In a sense, SEM and SEO are one in the same. With SEM, you pull out all of the stops to get your site(s) ranking, including paying for instant results by using ads of somes ort, be it AdWords, banner advertisements or other PPC campaigns. With SEO, you’re not paying for placement for your keywords, therefore it takes some time to achieve the results you want.

Naturally, the next question is, “which is better?”. As with everything, there’s pros and cons to each. With SEM, you can get nearly instantaneous results which ofcourse means, instant traffic. You decide which spot you want to appear in foryour chosen keyword. And, with that decision comes a, sometimes, hefty price. The advantage is you get to choose to be first or second or third place (how often do youget THAT choice in life?) The downside is once your money runs out, you vanishfrom the search results.

Although SEO does take time along with an investment of resources (time, money,etc.), the results can, literally, last for years. While you don’t necessarily get tochoose your exact position within the search engines, there’s ways to make certain you get pretty close to your chosen spot (#1, presumably!). The only true downside to SEO, in my estimation, is the time it takes to see results (traffic to your website).
Some may think that SEM exists without SEO. In fact, SEO is a crucial portion of SEM; I consider SEO a subset of SEM.

Whether or not you choose SEO or SEM approaches for traffic generation yourwebsite, you must be mindful of your reader. Design a site for your reader and your visitors will stick. Design your site for the search engines and your visitors won’t stick. And, non-sticky visitors = loss of revenue. Choose wisely. And use lots of duct tape, err… design your site for your visitor for maximum stickiness!

You can talk to most SEO professionals and while their philosophies may differ on SEO, there’s few basic principles that most can agree on, but one is this: on-page SEO is important for your site.  Now, I’m not going to go as far as saying that I think it’s the most important thing for ranking your site, but it’s certainly important.

In basic terms proper on-page SEO is simply making sure the hierarchy of your site is clear, concise and directed at what you hope to accomplish.  For example, if you want to rank for the term web marketing, your site would consist of content and words that are relevant to web marketing, not kitchen utensils.  Sound pretty straightforward, right?  Well, it is.  Sort of.

One of the biggest challenges I’ve faced with companies is trying to convince them that when it comes to on-page SEO, more is not always better.  As a matter of fact, most of the time it makes things worse.  When I conduct an on-page SEO audit, the first thing I focus on is copy on the site.  Most of the time I find that companies have over-optimized for their keywords.  In other words, they’ve broken one of the cardinal rules of Google which is “do not keyword stuff”.   They’ve tried to fit every possible keyword that they’d like to rank for, in every single paragraph of every single page of their site.  Ok, that’s a bit exaggerative.  Perhaps not every paragraph, but certainly every page.  BIG NO-NO.

For most companies, optimizing one keyword per page is pretty impossible to do for a couple of reasons.  Firstly, they generally have a million keywords and only a four page website.  Ok, maybe not a four page website and a million keywords, but suffice it to say that the number of keywords that most would like to rank for far outweigh the number of pages of content on their site.  And, the second and perhaps the most frustrating thing from an SEO perspective is that their SEO is an after-thought.  They’ve spent thousands of dollars along with countless man hours on designing a site and, at the last minute, they’ve decided they’d like to throw in a bit of SEO, making it impossible to go back and optimize one keyword per page.

In those cases where it’s impossible to optimize one keyword per page, I advise to pick one main keyword, and two other related keywords that would naturally occur in the course of “conversation” and utilize those within the copy.  And, not as many times as you can, but rather in a natural way.  The general rule of thumb I like to follow for content on a page is that the main keyword should appear three times: once in the opening copy of the page, once in the middle and once in closing.  The other two “secondary keywords” should appear no more than two times each, positioning the keywords in the same manner.  In the SEO world, we call this “keyword density”.  If you’re writing average length paragraphs, the rule above should put you at 2-4% keyword density which, in my opinion, is ideal.

In addition to properly crafted copy for on-page SEO, I also recommend utilizing available tags such as the title, h1, h2, and, particularly, those nifty little alt tags for images.  Many put a great deal of emphasis on meta keyword tags and, frankly, Google doesn’t even utilize that particular tag as a key ranking factor and the reason is this: keyword stuffing.  Companies and individuals alike were placing every possible keyword within that tag, helping their site rank for things it shouldn’t even rank for.  Google got wise and changed their algorithm and now that tag is virtually useless.  I do still include it, simply to complete the package, but I don’t put any value in it.

When it comes to on-page SEO, you can do it right and you can do it really wrong.  And, if you really want to do it right, I recommend consulting with a premier SEO company and knocking it out of the park.  As I like to say, go big or go home.

It’s the place to be.  The first page, that is.

Face it, not everyone can be on the first page for their chosen keyword, but since the creation of Google Places the Big G has made it a whole lot easier.

In case you’ve been hiding under a rock, Google Places is a FREE business listing provided by none other than the Big G.  Depending on the industry, Google Places positions can range from 1 to 10.  SEO professionals call the top 10 Google Places listings, the “10 pack” or, the “7 pack”, with the latter being the top 7 listings in a particular industry.

The beauty of Google Places is multi-fold.   One of the major advantages, however, is that a Google Places listing can give a business a presence on the internet even if they have never had one before.  Yup, that’s right.  You don’t even need a website to have a Google Place listing, in theory, that is.

While it’s true that you technically don’t need a website to have a Google Places listing, that doesn’t mean your Google Places listing will do anything for you.  After all, just like any other organic traffic component, the best man “wins”- for the most part.

Over the past 6 or so months, there’s been a major change in the way that Google handles ranking their places listings.  Personally, I refer to it as “the great divide” or “before and after”.  Before October 28, 2010, I could utilize Google Places and rank any business for any keyword of their choice within one week.  Since October 28,  that task has become increasingly more difficult, although still do-able IF you know what you’re doing.  And, that last portion is critical.  Mess up your Google Places listing and you could have it revoked- sometimes with little chance of manual review.   And I don’t have to tell you,  this would be a very bad thing.

There’s a few key components to top Google Places positions:

1. Consistency. The address that you cite within your Google Places listing needs to be consistent over all properties on the web.  This includes directory listings or any paid advertisements that you may be utilizing.  By having consistent addresses across the web, you make it easy for Google to say, “oh yeah, this business listing on Google Places is the same as the one found at xyz.com.  We like xyz.com, therefore we like this places listing.”  Ok, perhaps it’s not as simplistic as that, but you get the idea.
2. Great on-page SEO. Remember when I said that you technically don’t need a website to have a Google Places listing?  It’s true.  You can claim your free business listing without a website, but if you don’t one,  don’t expect great exposure for your keywords.  Since October 28, Google has been merging Google Places listings with organic listings.  What does this mean for you?  It means that the best optimized site overall wins a key position in Google Places.  That’s why it’s important to have very tight on-page SEO.
3. Citations. In simplest terms, a citation is a mention of your website on a third-party site, completely separate from your business.   Superpages.com or Yellowpages.com are common sites for citations.  And, the more citations, the better.
4. Reviews. This kind of goes hand-in-hand with citations as most citation sites have some sort of user review system in place.  And just like citations,  the more reviews, the better (provided they are good reviews!)
5. Off-page SEO. There’s some controversy as to whether or not off-page SEO such as link bait and link building are effective for getting a Google Places listing ranked.   I’m of the camp that you can never have too many links and, if you get left behind in the link building realm, it’s the most difficult part of the SEO component to play catch-up with.  So backlink, away!

The evolution of Google Places listings has caused countless debates, gross speculation and dare I say it: panic attacks!   But relax.  It doesn’t have to be that way.  By finding a reputable SEO firm you’ll be able to partner up and create a winning listing that’s sure to earn you a position firmly rooted in the 7 or 10 pack.

Just remember: SEO is a marathon.  Slow and steady wins the race.