April 23rd, 2010
SEATTLE — Search marketing expert Dennis Yu will share results from some of BlitzLocal’s integrated Facebook and PPC campaigns for major brands at SMX Advanced 2010, June 8-9 in Seattle.
Yu, CEO of BlitzLocal, part of the conference’s Facebook panel, will share insights and experience building Facebook Pages and generating traffic for entertainment and consumer brands. He’ll offer some best-practices advice and share information on sending PPC traffic to Facebook Pages and Page traffic to sites.
BlitzLocal (www.blitzlocal.com) provides cutting-edge local search solutions to local, regional, national and international enterprises. It is developing an ad-serving platform that integrates pay-per-click (PPC), search optimization, mail, and Facebook advertising campaigns to online and offline conversions via phone, lead generation, online ordering, and coupon redemption.
A veteran of web analytics and PPC, Yu has helped Yahoo!, American Airlines, J.C. Penney and others maximize online leads and revenue. BlitzLocal manages Facebook Pages and advertising campaigns for major national and international brands.
SMX Advanced (www.searchmarketingexpo.com/advanced) focuses on techniques, topics and strategies for advanced search marketers. According to the website, “The most accomplished search marketers in the world will present cutting edge tips for driving traffic and increasing conversions from paid search advertising, SEO, social media marketing, search analytics and more.”
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March 16th, 2010
Editor’s Note: This is a letter sent by BlitzLocal CEO Dennis Yu to the American Marketing Association’s Alli Libb, who invited members and friends to the AMA’s “Demystifying Social Media Measurement” webinar. To social media, add search engine optimization and web best practices to the list of things that need not be mysterious.
Hi Alli,
Hope you’re well.
Here is a screenshot of the Social Media Measurement email I got today– the register button or link is not visible, since images are off (see gray box circled in red at bottom).
Most consumers will see the same thing, as that’s the default setting for webmail applications such as Gmail and Yahoo mail. Images off is also the default setting for Google Apps (corporate gmail– such as what we use), which is powering the majority of Fortune 500 corporations and educational institutions.
We see this issue frequently. Good news is that there’s an easy fix. Just make sure to include alt tags on images. This is a great web practice, too, since people who have slow loading pages can still see what the images and links are labeled as.
Calls to action should also be links, not images.
If you implement this, you should definitely see increases to your open rates. Hope that helps!
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February 26th, 2010
There are no fundamental differences between the ranking algorithms of mainstream search engines (Google, Yahoo! & Live Search etc.) and other leading Asian-language search engines (Baidu etc). However, when you’re optimizing an Asian language website, there are certain rules you have to follow and some tactics and tools will help you to achieve the desired position on SERPs.
Search Engine Market in China
China’s Internet population stood at 210 million at the end of 2007, up 53% from the same time in 2006 when there were 137 million. This figure puts China just 5 million users away from having the world’s largest wired population.
Search engine market share in China of Q4, 2007:
- Baidu.com – 60.1%
- Google – 25.9%
- Yahoo! China – 9.6%
China’s search engine market reached US$131.3 million in the fourth quarter of 2007, almost double from a year earlier.
In China, 74.8% of Internet users use search engines, lower than the U.S.’ 91%. However, mobile search is growing strong in China. iResearch estimated that 127 million people in China were to use mobile search in 2008.
Top Search Terms in China (2007)
| Ranking |
Baidu.com |
Google.cn |
| 1 |
MP3 |
QQ (China’s most popular IM tool) |
| 2 |
QQ (China’s most popular IM tool) |
招商银行 (China Merchants Bank) |
| 3 |
十七大 (17th CPC Plenary Session) |
工商银行 (ICBC Bank) |
| 4 |
迅雷 (Xunlei – downloading software) |
股票 (stock) |
| 5 |
NBA |
小游戏 (small online game) |
| 6 |
跑跑卡丁车 (the name of an online game) |
建设银行 (China Construction Bank) |
| 7 |
基金 (fund) |
Google Earth |
| 8 |
视频 (video) |
迅雷 (Xunlei – downloading software) |
| 9 |
快乐男声 (a TV program similar to American Idol) |
卡巴斯基 (Kaspersky) |
| 10 |
和谐社会 (harmonious society) |
MSN |
Search Engine Market in Japan
- 87.5 million Internet users
- 68% penetration rate
- 50% + on broadband
- Japanese is the 4th most popular language on the Internet
About Baidu.com
Baidu was founded in January, 2000 by Robin Li and Eric Xu. It’s the leading Chinese search engine and the world’s third largest search engine with 3.3 billion searches per month, according to ComScore. Baidu is also the largest search engine in the Asian market, following by NHN which is largest search engine in Korea and fifth largest search engine in the world.
Baidu now operates in both China and Japan (http://www.baidu.jp/).
Chinese Search Engines
| Search Engine |
Web Address |
Engine Technology |
| Baidu |
www.baidu.com |
Baidu |
| Google China |
www.google.cn |
Google |
| Yahoo! China |
www.yahoo.cn |
Yahoo! |
| Yisou |
www.yisou.com |
Yahoo! |
| Youdao |
www.youdao.com |
NetEase |
| SOSO |
www.soso.com |
Google |
| iAsk |
www.iask.com |
Google |
| Sogou |
www.sogou.com |
Sogou |
Location of paid and non-paid results on a Baidu page
SEO on Baidu.com
Baidu uses the similar ranking algorithm as Google and Yahoo!. However, because of the language differences and specialness of Chinese, it does need to take extra care on the following elements when optimizing websites for Baidu.
URLs – There is no need to use Chinese characters in URLs, because Baidu does not support Chinese character URLs. It transfers characters into UTF-8 code when use in URLs. But writing URLs in pinyin is recommended, unless it’s your English brand name or targeting the English word specifically. (Pinyin is the most common standard Mandarin Romanization system in use). Baidu does understand pinyin most times, and Chinese people enter pinyin in the search bar occasionally. For example, the pinyin for “student” is “xuesheng”. If your web page is talking about students in Chinese, then use “example.cn/xuesheng” as the URL rather than “example.cn/student”.
Domain – It would be better to use a Chinese domain, like .com.cn and .cn, or/and host the site in China.
Copyrighting – Write everything in Chinese, not only visible page elements (title, headings, page copy, link anchor text etc.), but also invisible elements, including Meta keywords, Meta description and ALT text.
Title – Within 30 characters will be the best.
Content – Baidu is very sensitive to some information, so totally avoid mentioning or writing adult content, pornography or Chinese government forbidden keywords.
Robots.txt – The robot name of Baidu is Baiduspider.
Sitemap – Adjust your XML sitemap to fit Baidu’s News Protocol and submit it to http://news.baidu.com/newsop.html
Asian Languages, Word Separation and Search
In English, the words in a phrase or sentence are separated by spaces. In most Asian languages, including Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, there are no spaces between words in a phrase. This difference means Asian search engines have the difficult task of understanding and separating words before interpreting the meaning of sentences and web pages. Google uses the word segmentation technology from Basis Technology (http://www.basistech.com/) and Baidu uses its own technology. The quality and speed of word segmentation affects the quality of search results and has implications for SEO. Currently Baidu is still better on word segmentation technology than Google.
Japanese Optimization Issues
- 4 different sets of letters and characters
- No spaces segmenting the words
- Spelling variation
- Must find the best (most popular) word/phrase combinations used in Japan for SEO, for example:
Indicating Language and Region
Use lang attribute in a meta tag, or inside an enclosing span or div tag in HTML, to provide additional geographical and language information to search engines. For example, use <meta lang=”ja”> in the header section of the page to indicate Japanese of the entire page.
Asian language codes:
| Language |
Dialects |
| Chinese |
zh-gan (China), zh-guoyu (China), zh-hakka (China), zh-Hans (China), zh-wuu (China), zh-xiang (China), zh-yue (China), zh-Hant (China, Hong Kong, Macao, Taiwan), zh-HK (Hong Kong), zh-MO (Macao), zh-TW (Taiwan) |
| Japanese |
jp (Japan) |
| Korean |
ko-KP (Korea) |
You can find a complete list at http://www.i18nguy.com/unicode/language-identifiers.html
Keyword Research
As for English sites, SEO keyword research is equally important when optimizing Asian language sites. Both Baidu and Google provide basic keyword research tools for free. Baidu’s Keyword Tool is for Chinese only. But Google’s Keyword Tool can be used on many languages, including Chinese, Japanese and Korean.
Baidu Keyword Tool – http://d.baidu.com/rs.php
Google Keyword Tool – https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal
Keyword Density Tools
For calculating keyword density on Chinese websites:
http://tool.chinaz.com/SEO/Key_Density.asp
Chinese Search Engine Submission
You can submit your sites to Chinese search engines at the following addresses:
Baidu – http://www.baidu.com/search/url_submit.html
Google China – http://www.google.cn/intl/zh-CN/add_url.html
Yahoo! China – http://search.help.cn.yahoo.com/h4_4.html
Sogou – http://db.sohu.com/regurl/regform.asp?step=regform&class=
iAsk – http://www.iask.com/guest/add_url.php
Yodou – http://tellbot.yodao.com/report?keyFrom=help
Chinese Web Directories
Sogou Directory – http://www.sogou.com/dir/
NetEase Directory – http://dir.so.163.com/index.php
iAsk Directory – http://dir.iask.com/
Beijixiang Directory – http://www.beijixing.com.cn/
Hao123 Directory – http://www.hao123.com/login.htm
9991 Directory – http://bbs.9991.com/forumdisplay.php?fid=27
Chinese Social Media Sites
Video sharing – http://www.tudou.com/
Photo sharing – http://www.yupoo.com/
Market Research
Similar to Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) which also works for Asian languages, we can use the following services to do basic market research for Chinese sites:
Google’s popular searches – http://www.google.cn/rebang/home
Yahoo! Buzz – http://cn.buzz.yahoo.com/
Baidu Top Searches – http://top.baidu.com/
Baidu Index – http://index.baidu.com/ (similar to Google Trends)
Chinese Domain Info
Domain info – http://www.cnnic.cn/en/index/index.htm
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February 16th, 2010
NEW YORK — BlitzLocal co-founder and chief executive Dennis Yu is among the presenters at “SEO For New Websites,” a March 4 session by and for technology entrepreneurs hosted by Ultralight Startups of New York.
The session, part of the March 2010 Entrepreneurs Forum, includes an overview of search engine optimization (SEO) terms, tactics, myths and facts. It covers how strategies for new and established sites differ. It explores such topics as site-building strategies, off-the-shelf platforms vs. built-from-scratch solutions, real-time search, social media, voice, mobile and social search and more.
Moderator is Graham Lawlor, founder of Ultralight Startups and CEO of BrightMap. Other guests include Seth Dotterer, senior director of marketing at Conductor Inc. and Christopher Hart, director of Eastern region operations for Bruce Clay Inc.
Yu is co-founder and CEO of BlitzLocal.com, a technology startup that provides cutting-edge local search solutions to local, regional, national and international enterprises. He has guided development of an ad-serving platform that integrates pay-per-click (PPC), search optimization, mail, and Facebook advertising campaigns to online and offline conversions via phone, lead generation, online ordering, and coupon redemption.
Yu, a veteran of web analytics and PPC, has helped Yahoo!, American Airlines, J.C. Penney and others maximize online leads and revenue.
Ultralight Startups, with branches in New York, Boston and London, hosts events for and by technology entrepreneurs to pitch, network and discuss ways to exploit the latest cost-effective, capital efficient practices.
The event takes place from 6:30-9 p.m. on Thursday, March 4 at event partner Sun Microsystems, 101 Park Ave., 4th Floor, New York, N.Y. To register at this limited-space event see the http://ultralightstartups.eventbrite.com/.
Contact:
Dennis Yu
(888) 811-2448 ext. 1201
Email: dennis (at) blitzlocal.com
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November 28th, 2009
If you’re an affiliate, you’ve heard a lot about local. Drive down the street and look at all those businesses– 40% of them don’t have websites, and of the ones that do, only 8% are doing PPC. Of those that are doing PPC, it’s highly unlikely they’re as good as you. But while setting up a PPC campaign for a Denver liposuction surgeon might be easy– you just choose a few keywords, make a couple ads, and send them to a landing page– getting the clients is where most local marketing companies fail. We’ll get to the secret in a bit– keep reading…
So let’s talk about how to actually get these businesses to become your clients, starting first by what NOT to do:
- Cold calling– Going door-to-door and walking into someone’s business is NOT cool. You are a stranger, they’re busy running their office– and most of the time you won’t even be able to get to the decision maker. The receptionist will stop you. Might as well sell magazines and charity chocolate bars, since you’re just going to get rejected. Rejection sucks– you want THEM to come to you. That allows you to set the price and puts you in a great spot. More on that in a sec.
- Spending money on PPC– Yeah, I know it’s hypocritical. You are selling PPC, but don’t do it to promote yourself. The reason you don’t is the same as cold calling– selling SUCKS. You spend money, waste your time, and have to deal with rejection. And that’s just more marketing cost you have to pass on to the clients.
- Building the most awesome, informative website about your services– Let me tell you something. You don’t even need to have a website! “But what if they want to see my website?”
you ask. Tell them that you’re so busy serving clients first that your site is still in progress. Clients first, see?
- Giving away services for cheap or free: Someone probably told you that if you’re just getting started and don’t have a client list, then you need to do the first few for cheap to build up a portfolio. That’s complete nonsense. Most prospects won’t ask you, for example, about other Italian restaurants or veterinarians that you’ve done. Discounting your services devalues you in the client’s eyes, plus will make you unmotivated to work hard for so little money.
- Talking about how well you know PPC, SEO, social media, etc: Seems counter-intuitive, right? They’re a business owner, not another affiliate. The more you sprinkle acronyms into your language, the more you’re losing them. You’re not speaking their language. I almost never mention the word PPC to clients. Instead, I say “I couldn’t find your name on Google. But we can get you to show up if you let us advertise on Google for you.”
So those are the 5 most common ways to fail at selling and getting new clients. There are a few companies in the local space– VC-funded monsters that have tens or hundreds of millions of funding to blow on these techniques. But if we’re talking about YOUR money, then focus on what actually works.
And now the secret to how to sell local clients….
You ready?
…
…
…
The secret is that you don’t sell– you let others sell for you because of your reputation. So you get clients by building up your reputation.
Put on a seminar at the local chamber of commerce or networking event– if you can charge $15 each, even better. Not because you need the money, but because it makes folks who attend take you seriously. Every one of the 5 mistakes mentioned above degrades and devalues your offering– it turns you into a panderer instead of a highly sought after expert.
In the course of every day life, you will run into people who are small business owners. There’s 20 million of them– how can you not? And when you’re talking to friends about how Google works– which we do all the time to folks who don’t understand what we do– you’re equipping others to sell your services.
And each friend of yours has perhaps 100 friends that they talk to and will mention that you’re an expert on getting people on Google. So you should almost never take on a project from a friend– but you should definitely consider taking on a project from a friend of a friend. A friend will expect a “good friend” discount, while a “weak tie” (friend of a friend) will not. Plus the number of people that you are connected to 2 steps away is 100 times larger than those just 1 step away.
And when those people come knocking, because a friend told them that you’re a Google expert, then you run them through this process:
- What do you want to show up on Google for?
- Let’s do a search and see who is there now.
- It’s going to cost between $1,000 and $5,000 a month to advertise on Google– depending on how much market share you want. Shall we start with $1,000 a month for a couple months to see how we do?
- We can track exactly how our ads are doing- how many visitors click on the ads and then how many calls result from that. That allows us to calculate the cost per call. You’ll probably be between $40 and $100 a call, depending on the competition. We’ll have to test.
- And from there, we can adjust the ads based on what kinds of clients you want (more laser hair removal, and less botox? Sure).
- We will place a phone number on the website that is only on the web, just for tracking, which bounces to your regular number.
- No website? We can make a minisite for you.
- Sign here and gimme your credit card.
If they don’t get that, whine about cost, or complain, then don’t push the issue. You have a number of other interested clients that you have to get back to. You don’t want bad clients. There are so many local businesses out there that you can have your pick– and that includes the competitors of the guys who aren’t really interested in your online advertising service.
So there you have it. No need to deal with rejection. Don’t have to spend a lot of money or build a site. Just have to casually talk about getting onto Google with your friends, who then spread the word for you. And then you walk those friends of friends via the process I’ve just laid out.
The hardest part is the first few weeks to build your reputation. You might feel like an imposter if you haven’t done it before. Take heart that local PPC is not the hard part, nor is listing clients with Google and BING Local Business Center. Just remember that you’re competing against the other local dentists and massage therapists- not thousands of affiliates worldwide.
And once you have a few of them down, then these clients tell their friends— and soon you have a thriving business of people who are seeking you out. You just have to sit back, take the calls, and decide which of them you want. Doesn’t sound like selling does it?
Now managing clients, building sites, setting up call tracking, billing credit cards automatically, and so forth is a whole different set of issues– I’ll write another post on that if people want to hear it. But as for selling, it’s easy when you let others sell for you.
Tags: affiliate, how to sell, local clients, PPC, sales, seo, Social media
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