How Did You Boost In-House Marketing This Year? (Part 2) 2011 Recap on Tactics

Audience: In-house marketers
Estimated reading time: 5 minutes 

Recently, I asked how you boosted your in-house Web marketing this year. It was a follow up question to the post I wrote in January 2011 on tactics to apply for the coming year. This week, we’ll cover the second part of the original January post, “3 Ways to Boost Your In House Marketing in 2011: Part 2.” First, we’ll do a recap of some of the tips I offered for 2011 in the areas of local, social and conversion optimization. Then, I’ll provide a compilation of some of the resources we’ve offered over the year to help you in those areas.

Focus on Local

Local search engine optimization was a hot topic this year. In January, some of the tips given were focused on businesses geotargeting their sites for the cities they serve, claiming and optimizing a Google Places page, and taking a more local approach to PPC. Since then, we’ve learned tons of tactics on how to make local SEO work for us. Check out some of these articles, blog posts and interviews we’ve done over 2011 for a recap on local search tactics:

• Local Search Rankings (September 2011): In this very informative session at PubCon Vegas 2011, Michael Dorausch gives insights into some of the local search tactics that have been successful for his local chiropractic office online.
• SEM Synergy at SMX Advanced (September 2011): In this episode of the SEM Synergy webcast, Virginia Nussey interviews Mike Ramsey of Nifty Marketing and speaker at SMX on local SEO tactics.
• Local Internet Marketing: Drive Traffic Online and Offline (August 2011): Explore why local search will only continue to grow and get tips on how to successfully launch a local business online for the first time in this SEO Newsletter article.
• 10 Image Optimization Tips for Local SEO (July 2011): This informative how-to post by guest author Chris “Silver” Smith of KeyRelevance teaches us tips for an often-ignored area of local SEO: images.
• Google Places Optimization Best Practices (July 2011): An in-depth SEO Newsletter article by Virginia Nussey on why Google Places is important for local search and how to optimize it.
• Quick Tips: Optimizing a Site for Local Search (May 2011): This post gives readers some high-level tactics they should implement when optimizing their sites for local search.
• Local SEO on a Budget: Power Marketing Without a Website (March 2011): In this SEO Newsletter article, we explore all the resources available to local businesses for Web marketing, even if they don’t have a site.
• Checking out Location Check-in Services: Why They’re Good for Business (February 2011): This post looks into why and how business should use check-in services like Foursquare to market to customers.

Dive into Social

Social media marketing continues to grow and evolve, as does our understanding of how to measure it. In the January post, I talked about how social was becoming more of an “authority” signal to the search engines than ever before (and this was pre-Google+ even). I highlighted Facebook and LinkedIn as two social networks worth spending time with for business marketing. Let’s dive into some of the information we’ve delivered over the year to help you with social media marketing.

• An Introduction to the Brand New Google+ Business Page (December 2011): This SEO Newsletter article from Sara Borghi of Bruce Clay Australia is packed full of information on optimization techniques for a Google+ business page.
• SEO + Social Media 4eva (September 2011): In this SEM Synergy webcast, Marty Weintraub of aimClear shares  practical tips for advertising on Facebook with interviewer Virginia Nussey.
• A World of Insights: Google Analytics and Facebook Tabs (September 2011): This how-to piece from Bruce Clay Australia dives into adding Google Analytics to Facebook tabs to further explore how people are interacting with your Facebook page.
• 5 Steps to Migrating Your Personal Facebook Profile to a Business Page (August 2011): When is the right time to turn a personal profile into a business endeavor? This post explores that, and gives step-by-step instruction on how to do so.
• A Guide to the Google +1 Button (July 2011): As we learn more about the Google +1 button, we discover new ways to use it in our Web marketing. This how-to article from Bruce Clay Australia gives tons of tips on Google +1.
• Spread the Word with Social Buttons (May 2011): Social share buttons help you spread that valuable content across the Web. Learn more about these helpful tools.
• The Value of a Facebook Fan: What’s it Worth? (May 2011): This post explores how fans translate to ROI for a business, what value different types of fans bring, and why a fan is just one important metric in a sea of many.
• Everything You Need to Know about Social Media ROI – a Chat with aimClear (May 2011): In this interview with aimClear staff Merry Morud and Lauren Litwinka, tons of advice on social media tools, metrics and implementation is revealed.
• Sorry, but Social Media is not Like an Old Friend (January 2011): Building a social media community takes engagement, personality and commitment. Here’s some tips on how to tackle all three.
• Picking Twitter Tools for Your Business (January 2011): Understand the different things Twitter tools can do, and pick the right tools for the job.

Begin Conversion Rate Optimization

You’ve got traffic and engagement, now what? The discipline of conversion rate optimization allows you to test and discover what users want to increase conversions. In the January 2011 post on ways to boost in-house marketing, I outlined some of the things you might want to include in a CRO program, including learning about personas, eye-tracking research, analytics and landing page optimization.

But, there’s so much more.

Conversion rate optimization can be woven into any step and any discipline in Internet marketing, from designing a site and the content written on it, to paid ads to social media and beyond. Let’s have a look at some of the conversion optimization topics we explored this year:

• How to Write a Call to Action (December 2011): Great calls to action take into account both best practices of copywriting and conversion optimization. This SEO Newsletter article explores the concepts behind calls to action and how to approach it.
• Emo CRO: Get the Conversion, Go for the Gut (October 2011): Emotional appeal is often an important part of conversion optimization. Here, Virginia Nussey shares tips on how to use emotion, images and storytelling to boost conversions.
• A Simple Process to Send Highly Converting Traffic to Your Website with YouTube (September 2011): YouTube is a huge opportunity to market and garner targeted traffic. Learn more about this in a post from Bruce Clay Australia.
• 3 User Feedback Tools to Help You Convert (August 2011): Scott Fowles of Bruce Clay Australia shares tips on the top three tools for purchase that offer great insights for conversion research.
• Conversion Tools of the Master Craftsman (August 2011): CRO gurus Tim Ash and Bryan Eisenberg talk tools in this liveblog post of an SES San Francisco 2011 presentation.
• How to Setup a Basic Conversion Testing Strategy (January 2011): Research, creative development, testing and reporting – these are all tactics in a healthy CRO strategy. Learn more about these areas and how to tackle them.

Jessica Lee is the founder and chief creative for bizbuzzcontent Inc., a marketing boutique that focuses on digital content strategy and professional writing services for businesses.

See Jessica's author page for links to connect on social media.