You can't ignore your web presence if you want to get noticed by potential customers, but simply being active online isn't enough.

According to research compiled by Reach Local, an online marketing firm, 97 percent of consumers conduct online research before making a local purchase, and 90 percent say online reviews influence their buying decisions.


So how do you make the best impression with your target audience? For three simple ways to build a killer online reputation, take a look at the infographic below.

With the opening ceremony just minutes away, the 2012 Summer Olympics won’t just broadcast on television, they’ll also appear online.

The Olympics has become a more digital — and more global — experience. And this year, every event will be streamed online. The only caveat is that, depending on where you live, how you can access the Games might vary.

We’ve rounded up all of the official (read: legal) ways to watch the games live online or on your phone or tablet.


No Cable? That’s a Problem



Much of online content — at least in the U.S. — is accessible only to those who subscribe to cable or satellite. NBC has made the decision to require cable provider authentication in order to access this year’s Games.

The good news is that NBC has managed to work with nearly all cable and satellite providers in the U.S. As long as you subscribe to cable and are able to get MSNBC and CNBC, you’re set. The bad news, of course, is that if you’ve cut the cord, live coverage (at least legally) is going to be difficult.

In New York City, cord-cutters can access NBC’s live television broadcast using the Aereo service.
Highlights will also be available on the NBC Olympics YouTube page.

In the U.S.



If you’re in the U.S., NBC is the official broadcast partner of the Olympic Games. Not only will the network air the Games on NBC and NBC-owned cable stations, it will also stream more content online in real-time than ever before.

Of course, there is a catch. To get access to all of this content, you need to be a cable subscriber. More than that, you need to get MSNBC and CNBC.

Assuming you fit these requirements, just head to NBCOlympics.com/LiveExtra and click the “Click Here to Get Ready” button. Then, select your cable provider, either from an icon or the list — and login with your cable user name and password. Once you login with you credentials, you’ll have access to the Games. You only have to do this once — then you’re set.

You can also watch the livestreams from your iOS or Android device with the
mobile versions of NBC Live Extra app for iOS [iTunes link] and Android [Google Play link].

The great thing about the mobile apps are that they give each user a four-hour “guest pass” to the Games, in case you don’t know your user name or password. After four hours, users will need to login with provider information.

In London



The BBC is providing comprehensive livestreams of the Games via its BBC Sport website and mobile apps.
If you’re in the UK (or a territory with access to BBC content), you can access live coverage of every sport from up to 24 live HD streams.

Go to the special BBC Sport Olympics portal to get started.

The BBC also has apps for iOS and Android to watch livestreams. In addition to the streams, the BBC Sport apps also show results, news stories and daily highlights.

Other Parts of the World



Freecast.com has a streaming and television guide for Olympic coverage in more than 150 countries.

Moreover, the IOC’s official Olympic Channel on YouTube will broadcast the Games live in 64 territories in Asia and Africa that lack official broadcast partners. The IOC’s YouTube channel will also offer clips, replays and highlights of the events.

For Canadians, the CBC has an Olympic hub on its website.

How Will You Watch the Games?

Will you take advantage of the live streaming options to catch up on the Games? Let us know how you plan to tune in in the comments.











































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Winning in sport or business is imagined by almost everyone. What child hasn’t dreamed of being a star athlete or a millionaire.

Imagination is a powerful force that can motivate us to succeed in life.

Imagination is also one of the keys to enjoying a book as our mind takes us on journeys that suspend us from reality. Children are fabulous to watch as they save damsels in distress, leap tall buildings in a single bound or fly to faraway galaxies. All done while wearing pyjamas and from the safety and comfort of  the family home.

As a child I constantly imagined my self as having super powers that bent and warped my world the way I wanted. Cartoon books helped maintain that illusion which provided constant entertainment for me without the iPad or Xbox to be seen. Flying was one of my favourites.

Magical and marvellous powers are something the comic series “Fantastic Four” had in abundance and were a dysfunctional yet loving family who possessed super powers that saved the world day in and day out.

The Fantastic Four received their powers after being exposed to cosmic rays during a scientific mission to outer space.

“Mister Fantastic” who is the leader of the “Fantastic Four”, is a scientific genius who can stretch his body to incredible lengths and shapes. The “Invisible Woman” can render herself invisible and project force fields. The “Human Torch” can generate flames and can fly. Monstrous “Thing” possesses superhuman strength and endurance.

Now as a marketer, who wouldn’t want magical powers that make your brand and ideas spread magically and strongly at lightning speed?

Maybe being invisible though, is not something that business owner would want to invoke.

Building the Online Assets

Before we summon the super powers of the “Fantastic Four” of  digital marketing you need to have established the businesses online assets.

It is not hard to place value on our bricks and mortar assets whether it is your shop or office and all that is contained within those walls. A business has real physical objects and value that accountants love to count and stack. Things that you can see and touch are easier to place a value against. What is not often valued properly are the intangible online assets that are now vital to  every business.

• How do you value a website that receives 300,000 page views a month and 170,000 unique visitors?
• What is the financial value of  a Facebook page with 100,000 fans that provides customer feedback and crowd sourced  research worth to a business?
• What is a Twitter tribe of 100,000 worth that allows you to spread an idea or a promotion in an instant?

These are assets that are hard to value but their importance is usually and “vastly underrated” because your accountant doesn’t know how to.

1. The Website Assets

Websites fall into three broad categories. The corporate content website, the online store and a blog.  A well designed website that makes it easy for customers to navigate and use is worth gold.

2. Social Network Assets

Building a tribe and network of loyal customers on multiple social that you can engage and communicate with is now mandatory. These assets give your brand reach and leverage and should continually be built and invested in. How to do that efficiently and well is the challenge.

3. The Mobile Assets

Mobile “Apps”. Building mobile apps that make your content and products easy to view are starting to become an essential part of  a businesses online presence. Also “optimizing for mobile viewing” requires building websites that are easy to read on  a Tablet or smart phone and can now make a big difference to obtaining that lead or inquiry or sale for your online store. Last year nearly half a billion smart phones were purchased and their users are buying and sharing information in their billions every day with these little devices that are adictive and portable. There is now nothing to stop people buying on the bus or on the beach..and they do!

There are two addictive trends in digital. One is social media the other is smart mobile devices. Don’t ignore them. Build mobile assets.

The myth of “build it and they will come”

There is a myth about building your online brand circulating which spreads the fable that if you design and build a great website then traffic will just “turn up”. The reality is much starker. Once the online assets are built then the hard work begins. Marketing and promoting with email and social media marketing, writing contagious content and optimizing your online assets for search engines are all essential activities that need to be resourced.

This activity needs to be relentless and persistent. It is not “set and forget”

How to Win in a Digital Economy?

The Fantastic Four of Digital Marketing

The digital marketing landscape can seem like a morass of noise and confusion. Essentially though there are 4 core types of digital marketing that will provide your business with digital marketing super powers if you are prepared to focus and apply the right resources.

1. Paid digital marketing

If you want to fast track being found online then paying for Google ads that appear when potential prospects perform a Google search is a great catalyst to accelerate your brand awareness when first establishing or launching an online store or website. If budget allows it can produce a ROI that pays for itself as part of the continual marketing of your business.

Also a Facebook ad that targets a city and audience demographic that suits your business can also work well.

These tactics can help you from achieving a super power that no business wants which is “invisibility”

2. Optimising your websites for search engines

Two things are important here. Firstly designing and building websites that make it easy for Google’s spiders to crawl and find, especially for the key words and phrases that customers will use to search for you online.  These key words and phrases need to embedded in your website. This is called “Onsite SEO” (Search Engine Optimisation). There are also other important elements that a good web designer developer will implement to achieve this.

Secondly, the other important strategy to invest in that requires active SEO investment and resources usually by an SEO consultant and expert is “Offsite SEO” this includes researching and building inbound links and other tactics that makes your  website appear on page one of a Google search.

3. Email marketing

Despite the shiny new toy of social media blinding everyone, email marketing is an absolutely vital part of a digital marketing strategy that should be invested in from day one by every savvy business. This includes B2B and B2C companies.

Do this well and you will build up a valuable “Optin” database of subscribers that are an asset that you own and control. This is a list you can email whenever you like and are usually looking forward to receiving your educational and inspiring content.

4. Social media marketing

Social Media marketing done well can provide your marketing with leverage and marketing velocity. Nothing like the many to many multiplying effect of social media where your brand receives exponential sharing as people share your businesses ideas and content with friends,family and colleagues on social networks. I like to call it “World of Mouth”

The real power of social media is that people can create more stories and share them online than you can ever hope to achieve on your own whether paid or not. Allow the crowd  and tribes online to share your storys. This is crowd sourced marketing and it is free. To do that you have to have a presence on social media and do it well.

What About You?

How many of these four are you implementing in your business? Have you tried paid digital advertising. Is SEO in your marketing mix. Could you do email better?
What has been your experience with social media for your business?































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Appearing on the first page of a Google search can be the difference between the success or the failure of your business
.
The smart business owners and the savvy operators of eCommerce stores know that the free traffic delivered by search engines is worth gold to a business.
Research shows that ranking first on Google produces over 40 percent of all clicks to websites. Listing on the first page of a search, results in over 90 percent of all clicks. Now that is important in a digital economy!
Also a Google search can produce a negative or positive impression about a brand depending on what content and links appear in the search results. So online reputation management is also an important activity.
For a long time, Search Engine Optimization and Online Reputation Management have been looked upon as two parallel services. Google recently has changed how it performs its search. These updates to the search engine algorithms were titled “Panda” and the most recent changes were called “Penguin“.
So with these changes where does the future of both these services lie?
Let’s breakdown each of the services.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

When SEO started, it was easy to do. There were guaranteed success methods and approaches such as the following produced great results.

• Keyword density
• Meta tags
• Content

There were sites which went up overnight by acquiring links from questionable sources. Spamming an important keyword on the page was a very likely affair. People posted articles on blog networks, with each topic as unrelated as chalk and cheese!
The creation of low-quality, thin content was an easy option for a lot of people who were trying to gain success overnight! This list can go on and on!
Anything that is abused over time is likely to burn out. And so did these practices!

Google Wants Quality Content

Google’s Panda update was aimed at providing more relevant and quality content to users. This update was rolled out in the USA in February 2011, with various refreshes and updates over the course of the next 16 months. Panda 3.8 was released in the end of June 2012. While webmasters were still trying to come to terms with the Panda update (about 11.8% of all searches were affected with the first update.)
Google recently rolled out the Penguin update (about 3.1% of all search queries were affected). This update was aimed at keeping a check on

• Link schemes
• Exact anchor text linking
• Blog networks
• Duplicate content etc

Here is a great infographic comparing Google’s Panda and Penguin updates and how they affect your Brand’s visibility to the Google search engine.

Infographic  by Reload Media – Difference between Google Penguin & Panda

Content Marketing is Vital to SEO

Post these two updates, the SEO world has started viewing the terms ‘content’ and ‘links’ differently. For an SEO guy, content started focusing more on pieces that were not only unique and engaging but also something that a user could associate with!
Content Marketing became a term that every SEO expert started relating with more closely!
SEO agencies have started rolling out extensive content marketing plans for their clients, focusing on the creation of detailed content plans including the following

• Blogs
• PDF documents
• Whitepapers,
• eBooks,
• Presentations,
• Image syndication

You name a medium, and they have targeted it! SEO started focusing strongly on content marketing, wherein content marketing has become the crux of any SEO campaign.

Online Reputation Management (ORM)

ORM is one of the most dynamic activities online and one of the most difficult too. It is the only activity where you have little or no control over different situations and/or circumstances which can completely turn around all the hard work invested into a campaign!
An outsider speaking about your brand, the brand’s offline activities, and the actions of an important entity associated with the brand, all these can completely change the statistics of your campaign overnight! Positive mentions, neutral mentions and negative mentions! These more or less rule the life of that person who is trying to protect your online reputation.
Let’s run through the aim of any ORM campaign:

• Ensure that the client get as much positive exposure as possible. Try and get as many positive mentions up in the top 10/20/30 results!
• If it isn’t positive, ensure that you have neutral content about your brand!
• Neutralize the NEGATIVE content pieces!!!!

The easiest way to go about doing this is to ensure that you have positive/neutral content online talking about your brand. (Not that it is easy to do that!)
Also, since you work closely with the brand, you become the official channel of sorts, responsible for creating content and syndication across mediums and platforms! The content creation involves having an exhaustive content plan in place and using various mediums including videos, blogs, articles, etc.

Does this Sound Similar to SEO?

The lines distinguishing both these services are becoming less distinct by each passing day. The objective of both SEO and ORM now align towards the creation of good, unique and engaging content. Content marketing remains the focus of both services. Reaching out to new people, gaining greater visibility and creating a stronger brand presence are extremely important. The principle of SEO is now to ensure that not only is your brand reaching out to more people but also focus on creating a strong brand presence online.

SEO is Now Part of Brand Building

Brand building is becoming a more integral part of SEO activity! ORM has by principle always concentrated on promoting the brand!
It seems that a new service package offering Branding + SEO + ORM is the call of the hour. Anyone who has an online store, not only wants to increase their presence and standing, but also wants to ensure that their brand is being recognized by their target audience. It is essentially the first step to become a major player and stand out in a many player market! I can guarantee that this will not only be used by the big fish who are well established and will rely more on the monitoring and the reputation side of things but also by the small startups looking for a strong branding campaign to promote themselves and garner greater visibility!
Is Branding + Search Engine Optimization + Online Brand Monitoring & Online Reputation Management the next big thing? Thoughts?
Author: This post is written by Anindita Debnath, who works with Convonix as a Project Manager – SEO. She manages a big team of SEO professionals handling a substantial number of campaigns collectively. Apart from this, she takes up the responsibility of training fresh recruits and ushering them into the ever-evolving world of SEO.



































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