Carson and Company

If you haven’t already heard, there is another new search engine, called “Cuil“. It is an Irish word meaning, Knowledge. PR Clients, as well as all publicity professionals, public relations agencies, even local orange county publicity professionals should keep an eye on this new SEO. Why? Because this could be a publicity opportunity for pr clients to gain recognition as this new SEO gets more attention.

Ok, let’s look at this new search engine to get a better understanding. The company was started by former Google engineers. Top notch people, not the sub-level engineers. eWeek article tells more about this.

Cuil feels they have listened to the users of search and decided to provide a better indexing of pages. Here is the catch. There are over 120 billion web pages. That’s a lot of pages to try and create a better search platform. Anyway, these engineers have the support of investors who poured over $33 million into the development. Already, since launch day on July 28, the site has had unexpected traffic causing it to lock up for a time.

What makes this search engine different…Cuil provides tabs to better clarify subjects, they organize the features better so that images are identified by topics with a search refining suggestion area. Is this a better mouse trap? Possibly, but it takes some time learning how to get the most use of this new search. TechCrunch states it is an overrated site and may not live up to what the former Google staffers think it really is.

In any case, publicity professionals should include this search engine as part of their pr clients marketing and publicity program. If you are unable to keep up with all the new search engine changes and need to get noticed, or ranked in the top, then give George Carson a call at 949-477-9400. Carson Marketing, Inc is a solid web marketing company that knows how to get your company noticed. Call today for a free consultation, and just maybe you will learn the secrets to being a top ranked web site.

The “social media” network is neither a trend nor a fad. It is real and it is changing how businesses think their pr marketing strategies.

Businesses have changed their approach on marketing as new technologies emerge. Look at radio and television. It made marketers, pr clients; all change how to reach their audience from traditional print media. Then came direct mail, telemarketers, and catalogs. This again forced marketers to re-think their approach. If you do not change your pr marketing strategy or your overall advertising plan, then you will be left in the dust as your competitors move forward.

I have written several articles on this web 2.0 subject for the past 8 months. Warning pr clients, ad agencies, and publicity firms to “open their marketing eyes” and look what the Internet is doing. For example, no longer is the marketer in charge of telling the consumer about their great product or service. This doesn’t make the cut anymore. It is the consumer who is in control. They tell you what they want, when they want it, and how they will buy it. If your pr marketing strategies are not including this process of the consumer, then you need to re-think about changing to another marketing company that is sensitive to the Web 2.0 and how it affects pr clients.

I read a great article in Brandweek that made me realize marketers, and pr clients alike are not addressing this new social media correctly. It’s called “The 12 Steps to the Interactive Future”. It mainly highlights the 12 steps written by Larry Weber who is an expert on social media. His book titled: “How Digital Customer Communities Build Your Business”. I will give you a few of the steps now, then a few more in another blog.

1- Change your marketing mindset. Marketers still define target markets by communicating with prospective customers, building loyalty. These old techniques are not going to work today. Your pr marketing strategy, or ad plan needs to re-think, get out of that old box mindset. You need to be more transparent to the customer. Don’t try to brag about whom you are and your product. It is about nurturing relationships and dialog with customers, prospects and all those active in the community.

2- Make your brand come alive. To make a branding program successful today you need to recognize that brand equity is shifting away from brand essence and brand recall. Mr. Weber points out that branding is a living thing. Something that marketers cannot accept, at least not yet. A good example of this new dialogue is GoogleTalk, Google Groups and Blogger. Oh, did you notice these are blog type-sites. Something I have been pushing for two years! Google keeps asking customers what they want and then responds. That’s making your brand come alive!

3- Out with the old Segmentation. It doesn’t surprise me that marketers for the most part, still segment their pr marketing strategy by demographics such as age or gender. Ok, some products and services need to do this. If you are promoting an assisted living complex, yes, then some of the traditional methods work. But today, you need to segment by behavior, attitudes and interests. Forget the age and gender. These groups are what are important, not age, or gender.

These three points of the 12 should make you realize that the Web 2.0, or social media, or Business Web (all are the same, just different tags) shows how you, as a pr client, or marketing professional needs to re-think your mindset. If not, then read my next three steps. Happy marketing!

Optimizing a web site is not for amateurs. If you are not versed in how SEO’s view keywords in a web site, then it is time to call a professional web marketing company, like Carson Marketing, Inc.

Web site optimization is an art. It requires careful research and placement as well as modification to a web site in order to accomplish your goal…get a #1 ranking on Google, or Yahoo. For over the past 8 years, many web-marketing companies have emerged because optimization has become big business. It is not a hobby that you can do on the side. If you treat this form of business as a part-time activity with your company’s web site, or you pr clients web site, then expect little return.

I’ll explain a few inside tricks to getting a top ranking.

If you do nothing else, at least implement these simple tips.

First, you need to select the best keywords that describe your company and your web site. For example, if you are in the weight loss industry, you need to search for keywords that will generate traffic to your web site. Most commonly used term would be “weight loss”. Although this is the most popular term, you should not use it. Why? Because you will be competing with over 66 million other web sites (web pages). That means it may take a couple of years before you even get to be on page 20.

It is important to analyze terms that people will type, but select terms that are not the highest searched. Such as “weight loss story” is a good example. This still has the words weight loss, but now you narrowed the field and it will give you a better opportunity to build ranking.

There are several search tools that will help you find keywords and their popularity. You need to know how to interpret the data in order to make it work for you. A few good resources for keywords are: www.goodkeywords.com, www.overture.com, www.wordtracker.com. Remember, these are only one of the many tools you need, so use them wisely. Having other web marketing knowledge to make your site increase traffic and ranking would be helpful.

Second, research the competition that has the highest ranking/position. View their source code to see what keywords are used. Then look at how and if they use the correct header tags as well as title tags. If this is all sounding confusing, that’s because web marketing isn’t a part-time job.

Third, check to see if they underlined any keywords, or made them bold. The text in your web site is very important and needs to reflect what is in your source codes.

Last (at least for this part of the topic), check for images. How are they positioned, how are they titled, and if correctly tagged and placed in the keyword.

It would take a hundred pages to explain this subject in more detailed. What I am trying to do here is give you a better understanding of what web marketing is all about. Now the challenge is up to you. If you are ready for a web-marketing program and cannot do this yourself, call Carson Marketing Inc. We’ll make things happen!