Sometimes, online marketing campaigns are dazzling, magnificent in scope and incredibly complicated. Thankfully, there are also great gains to be made by getting back to basics and ensuring best practices are followed across your site and web presence.

A company website is a living, breathing representation of the brand on the web. Over a site’s lifetime, content is added and taken away. Copy changes. Pages may be redirected. Landing pages come and go. Menus and navigation change.

Each of these changes over the site’s life (hopefully) served its purpose and helped the site become more productive for the company and helpful for customers. However, it can also leave the site disjointed, riddled with errors, and underperforming.

Ongoing Site Audits Point to Opportunities

Brands need to step back often and perform a full site audit, either in-house or with the help of an agency. Optimization is an ongoing process and it’s critical to understand where your opportunities lie at any given time. Sometimes, seemingly insignificant changes to bring your site in line with best practices can produce surprising results.

Recently, the TopRank Online Marketing team had an opportunity to increase traffic to a consultation-booking page and improve conversion on a client website. This particular client operates a large service-oriented business in the healthcare industry; increased discovery and conversion by prospective patients was a major lead generation goal for their website.

It is a fact that sites will lose a percentage of converting visitors with each additional field in a form. This is increasingly relevant as consumers search and browse on mobile devices, where filling in forms may be more cumbersome than it was with a QWERTY keyboard. Though companies may be tempted to gather as much information as possible, only that which is necessary to contact the customer or otherwise take action on the lead should be included in the form.

In this case, our client’s goal was to increase targeted, qualified leads. Their existing page offered prospects a free consultation and contained seven form fields.

In the new version, the number of form fields are reduced by just one, to six. This is accomplished by combining the first and last name fields to one for “Name.” This one small change shortens the length of the form, while still allowing the client to collect the same amount of pertinent information.

In addition, the client implemented on-site optimization best practices, including a more descriptive title tag and rewritten meta description, to attract and engage the right type of traffic in search engine results pages.

Page and Form Optimization = 101% Increase in Pageviews, Conversion Improves by 8%

The TopRank team ran the optimized version of this lead generation page against the existing version for a period of one month in an A/B test and observed:

• An increase in pageviews by 101%
• Conversion increased 8%

The combined effect of additional targeted traffic and uptick in the percent of those visitors who opted in to the program resulted in a substantial improvement in qualified leads for the client.

Often, it is these small improvements, founded in a great understanding of the customer journey, that yield the most significant results.

If you’d like to improve the quantity and quality of traffic to your site, while improving your lead generation program, contact TopRank Online Marketing today to get started.

Top image courtesy of Shutterstock.

This month, we answer a question we hear often: How do I create great content for boring products?

Great question, content creation is a struggle for many businesses. If you aren’t convinced your business is interesting to write about, you’re not alone! For this very reason, the first key element in the planning and creation of interesting, relevant content is a change in your mindset.

We often think about our key selling points and unique product features as the things we want consumers to know about our product. Are you listening to your audience to discover what it is they want to know?

Your product might very well be boring. As long as it sells and you’re operating a sustainable business, people must be finding it useful in some way. It’s easy to fall into believing your brand must be fascinating, entertaining, and humorous to capture and keep the attention of social fans and online searchers. However, many people are simply looking for utility. They want information. They are looking for ways to make their lives easier.

Change your mindset and don’t try to compete as an entertainer. Instead, be a useful resource.

Content curation is a great strategy that will help your brand share a steady stream of interesting social content, without the burden of creating all of it in-house. Position your company’s social presence as a hub of information in your industry by sharing relevant, engaging content from non-competitors with your audience.

Repurpose existing content for more play across social channels. This is a tactic to improve efficiency, but can also improve the performance of each piece of content, as well. Say you’ve written a whitepaper to be downloaded from your website. The charts in that whitepaper can be used as standalone graphics on Pinterest, Facebook and Google+. A blog post can be written to summarize the paper and share highlights. An executive can create a video summarizing the paper’s content. In this way, each piece of content becomes an opportunity to create more around it, to promote it and to reach out to consumers across a variety of channels.

For more inspiration on content creation and a list of 30 content tactics, see Lee Odden’s Content Marketing – Tactics and Best Practices resource at Online Marketing Blog. If you’re looking for assistance with your digital content strategy, contact us to get started.

Tuesday May 7th, TopRank Online Marketing CEO and Optimize author Lee Odden shares a marketing model to help organizations optimize the performance of their online marketing and PR programs. Odden will point to trends marketers and PR pros must be cognizant of in order to capitalize on the content marketing opportunity and present a new model for social content: attract, engage and convert.

Participants will be able to identify three major problems with most content marketing and social strategies, allowing them to move forward using proven best practices and a logical framework for success.

Optimize 360: An Integrated Approach to Digital Marketing and PR will teach marketers to grow visibility and increase sales through an integrated, content-focused digital strategy. Hosted by the Public Relations Society of America, the webinar airs live on May 7th and is also available on-demand beginning May 14th.

Reserve your place today through PRSA and stay tuned to the @toprank Twitter channel for live tweets throughout the event!

Image from Shutterstock.

Did you know, TopRank Online Marketing started out as a public relations firm in 2001 called Misukanis & Rodgers? That’s right, we’ve evolved in many ways since then, but we’ve also been involved in many ways with the worlds of marketing and public relations – for a very long time.

It may have seemed an anomaly in 2001 to combine marketing tactics with media relations engagements, but today it is that convergence that is helping to define the future of modern digital communications roles.  We live in an age where brands and consumers are both publishers and participants in the always on and ever evolving web of information that drives business.

News travels at the speed of Twitter from  the people on the ground to the people on the web, bypassing traditional media and communications completely. At the same time savvy publications are increasing online readership and finding new ways to monetize content.   Many companies have realized that, “To get in the media, you need to become the media”.  Those investments in news and content create direct connections to publics, communities, customers, investors, employees and the media.

Communications channels are converging and so should we. The very same channels that spread unfiltered news and information to the insatiable social web are also the platforms brands are using to connect with consumers.  There’s a convergence of disciplines occurring with Marketing and Public Relations and as our agency began to evolve over 10 years ago into an integrated and converged model, so too must communicators that wish to capitalize on the emerging consumer trend and innovations in social technology. 

How do we do that? How do we get marketing and PR in the same room and working together?  Well, that’s the topic I’ll be discussing during a luncheon keynote at the Communicators Conference in Portland Oregon next week.  This event is a joint venture between the IABC and the PRSA and boasts being the largest communications event in the Pacific Northwest.

Here are the details of my presentation:

May 8, 2013 – 12:15 pm

Digital Convergence – The Integration of Marketing & PR
The trend towards convergence of marketing and public relations is upon us. With combined strategies, marketers can deliver more meaningful marketing performance in a social and content centric world. PR and communications professionals can embrace the measurable impact delivered by marketing best practices for achieving influence and brand visibility. This presentation will offer attendees a peek into the converged world of marketing and PR, who’s doing it right and a model for making the transition to deliver more powerful business results.

If you’re in the area, be sure to check out the event (unless it’s sold out).

At TopRank Online Marketing, we enjoy longstanding relationships with clients and a better-than-average retention rate. We asked members of the TopRank team, some of whom have been with our agency since its earliest days, what advice they have for companies seeking a more productive, lucrative relationship with their agency. Working alongside our clients on a daily basis, they’ve learned that a number of factors contribute to the success of an online marketing campaign and that companies can influence their program’s success a great deal.

Finding the Right Online Marketing Agency for Your Business Needs

Evan Prokop, Associate Account Manager, recommends an in-depth interview process to determine which of the marketing agencies your company is considering is the best fit for your program. “Ask about their history of working with clients in your industry. It shouldn’t be a deal breaker if they don’t have extensive experience, as a good agency is adaptable, but it’s always nice to have some knowledge of your business environment at the beginning,” he said.

In addition, Prokop advises companies to ask potential agencies where they think online marketing is going. “Online marketing is one of the fastest evolving industries there is; a good agency will be constantly seeking to innovate and stay cutting edge,” he noted. Finally, be sure to ask what makes them different and better than the competition. They will be asking you this question as well, and should have a good answer themselves, said Prokop.

Relationships are key, according to Executive Director of Operations, Jolina Pettice. “When interviewing agencies, it’s important to consider philosophy, approach and working style. Each company (and agency) is different, but where there’s common ground there’s efficiency, results and ultimately fun to be had,” she pointed out.

Set Your Company Up for a Successful Agency Experience

There are a number of benefits to partnering with an agency to improve your company’s online marketing strategy, not the least of which is the experience and knowledge they can bring to the table. “Everybody has unique strengths and skill sets, and can’t do or be everything, which is where a relationship with a good agency is invaluable. A good agency will provide a service that your business either don’t currently have, or needs to improve in,” said Prokop.

Brian Larson, Account Manager and Strategic Lead, recommends that companies think of and treat their agency as part of their team. “It’s easy to get a ‘what can you do for us?’ attitude,” he cautions. “The truth is that better results are achieved through a ‘what can we do together?’ approach.”

Pettice advised that companies be ready to share information and collaborate. “The more you tell the agency and keep them in the loop, the better able they are to help you,” she said.

Companies can greatly improve their agency relationship and positively impact the success of their program by bringing two critical things to the table, said Pettice:

• A clear statement of objectives that will impact business outcomes, such as sales, conversions, inquiries, etc.
• A defined Unique Selling Proposition or a willingness to work together to determine what it is and how it translates to the brand story, messaging and online marketing mix.

Prokop echoes the importance of a defined vision: “Be totally upfront about what you want to get out of the program, even if you don’t know how to verbalize it in ‘marketing speak,’” he suggested. “A big part of the role of account managers is taking client’s big picture goals and devising a strategy to get there, but we can’t plan for what we don’t know. As your agency, we are your partners in success, so we need to know what success looks like to you.”

Tips for Effectively Working with Your Online Marketing Agency to Improve Program Performance

Once you’ve selected an agency whose skills, vision and direction coincide with your program goals and business needs, work alongside them as partners to achieve the best results. TopRank’s team offers the following tips for companies in an agency relationship:

• Be clear about what you want the agency to help you achieve.
• Share information early and often.
• Collaborate as much as possible. With the company’s knowledge of the business and the agencies knowledge of online marketing, there’s no limit to the ideas that can be generated.
• Communicate openly. As in any other relationship, communication is key. If your agency is doing something you really value, tell them. If they are doing something you don’t value, tell them that, too. Agencies are built on serving clients and want this information so that they can adjust accordingly.
• Be flexible to change. If everyone is clear on the goals, then all parties involved should also be willing to call ‘audibles’ during an engagement to update the marketing mix based on changing conditions. Blindly following a gameplan is not strategic, nor does it yield the best results.
• Be willing to take chances and test new ideas. This is where the magic happens!

Collaboration, communication and a true partnership approach to working with your online marketing agency lends to the success of your program. Enjoy a lasting and more productive, rewarding agency relationship with these tips from the TopRank Online Marketing trenches!

Image from Shutterstock.

Content is hot in any industry you look, so look no further for the best B2B content marketing advice than the Content2Conversion conference in New York.

Featuring an all-star lineup of B2B Marketing speakers including: Ardath Albee, Ann Handley, Joe Pulizzi, Michael Brenner, Rob Yoegel and senior marketing executives from Aberdeen Group, Adobe, Avaya, Compendium, Curata, Eloqua, Kapost and more means all bases will be covered.

TopRank CEO Lee Odden will be doing his part to contribute to the B2B content marketing brain trust by presenting on an integrated approach to search, social media and content. Essentially, how to optimize your inbound marketing to drive demand for products and services.

He’ll be sharing the Attract, Engage, Convert model for content marketing optimization that has been instrumental for numerous Fortune 1000 companies as clients of TopRank Online Marketing.

This is a 2 day event right on Times Square.  Here are the formal details of Lee’s presentation.  If you’re in the big Apple, you can miss this event.

April 23rd, 11:45am
Content Optimization: How to Integrate Search, Social and Inbound to Drive Demand

Join author and consultant Lee Odden as he explains how to optimize inbound marketing campaign investments for better performance. Through an Attract, Engage, and Convert framework Lee will share case studies that illustrate how leading marketers are reaping rewards from integrating content marketing, social media and SEO.

Here are the details on the entire conference agenda and registration information.

To answer the question of “What’s the Future of Content for Marketers“, TopRank CEO Lee Odden will give an hour long presentation in Minneapolis, hosted by the Minnesota Interactive Marketing Association at Solera on Wednesday April 17.

Lee will present on what content really means, how content teams are structured and what technology and consumer trends are emerging. 

With over 15 years of digital marketing consulting experience with companies including BT Syntegra, HP, McKesson, Randstad, Marketo, Radian6 and many others – Lee will provide his perspectives on the future of content for marketers.

By understanding the relationship between customers and how they discover, consume and act on information, attendees will gain a compelling understanding of what’s next, how companies are structuring their teams for a content rich future and ways to optimize content planning and performance.

Several TopRank team members will also be in attendance and we’d love to meet you.

Get more information about the presentation, location and other details on the MIMA website.

Persona development is a great first step. You may start with just three or four buyer personas and build out more as you gather additional data. These profiles help identify who the buyer is, what is important to them, why they are considering your product or service, which questions they need answered in order to influence their decision, and ultimately, what problem your company will solve for them.

We shared sample B2B buyer personas this month at Online Marketing Blog, including the Methodical, Spontaneous, and Humanistic customers. Building out these personas requires insights from your own company data, including site analytics, social sentiment analysis and analytics, purchase or shopping cart information, survey data and more. If you can get your hands on it, it can be used to shed light on your customers and how you can better suit their needs.

Buyer personas should be revisited every few months to make updates based on any new data or insights at your disposal. Once you understand what your buyers need and how they digest data, you are in a much better position to build your content to address those specific needs. Each content piece you add to your editorial plan already has a very specific audience in mind; you can stop trying to please everyone or win the popularity contest and connect with the people who truly matter to your business.

If you’re ready to improve your relationship with your customers through a holistic marketing strategy that better addresses their individual needs, contact us to get started.

Catch Lee Odden’s Creative Content Marketing webinar Friday April 12, 2013.

This Friday, TopRank CEO and Optimize author Lee Odden leads a SmartInsights webinar, Get Better Results with Creative Content Marketing.

Companies understand that content is important. Yet although they’re spending more time and budget on content development, many businesses are unclear on the “why” and “how” critical to an effective content strategy.

Longtime blogger and digital marketing influencer Lee Odden will share best practices for creating high quality content over a long period of time, in order to teach participants a sustainable content marketing model. His presentation will share a practical framework for creative and efficient content creation that leverages a mix of evergreen, repurposed, curated and co-created content that attracts, engages and converts new business.

Stop wasting time and money on ineffective content that highlights quantity over quality. Hone in on the most effective content types, topics and formats for your unique audience.  Register today to join us Friday April 12th at 8am ET (7am CT) for Lee Odden’s Get Better Results with Creative Content Marketing.

Lee Odden presents at Social Media Marketing World

On Tuesday April 9th, TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden will be presenting at the innaugural Social Media Marketing World conference with over 1,000 registered attendees.  On it’s first go, SMMW is already one of the largest social media conferences in the world.

As companies invest more marketing budgets into social media and blogging, many are still struggling to elevate their effectiveness. Social Media Marketing World has brought together some of the top social media thought leaders and brand practitioners in the world to help companies elevate their social media smarts.

Featured speakers include:

• Guy Kawasaki
• Mari Smith
• Chris Brogan
• Jay Baer
• Mitch Joel
• Sally Hogshead
• Amy Porterfield
• Dave Kerpen
• Michael Stelzner
• John Jantsch
• Viveka von Rosen
• Joe Pulizzi
• Mark Schaefer
• Marcus Sheridan
• Ekatarina Walter
• Michael Brito
• Lee Odden

For our part, TopRank will be helping attendees understand how to integrate brand blogging efforts with an overall content strategy that can best influence measurable results.

Fans, Friends, Followers, Comments and Page Views are not enough to prove ROI on corporate blogging.  With over 9 years and 1.2 million words of business blogging experience in combination with being a trusted advisor on corporate blogging to numerous Fortune 1000 brands, Lee will present best and worst business blogging practices, plus actionable advice that can be used immediately.

Here’s the full session description:

April 9th (Tuesday)
How to Integrate Blogging With Content Marketing that Inspires Action
Blogs provide an incredible content marketing platform for connecting directly with prospects, the media, customers, investors and the industry at large. During this presentation, Lee Odden (author of Optimize) will reveal a powerful yet simple 3-step process for developing blog content that attracts the right readers, engages them and inspires them to take action. You’ll walk away with ideas to help move readers to subscribe, interact, request more information or become customers.
11:45am – 12:30pm PT - Room A

Social Media Marketing World takes place in beautiful San Diego, California on April 7, 8 and 9, 2013 at the bayfront San Diego Marriott Marquis & Marina. We hope to see you there!

Be sure to find out more about Social Media Marketing World conference and register today.   If you’re already registered, make sure you add “How to Integrate Blogging With Content Marketing that Inspires Action” to your calendar and get there early!

Lee will be giving away copies of “Optimize” to the best livetweets during his presentation. Use the hashtag #blogaction when you tweet the session.

Thankfully, both assumptions are false. A research report out this month shows that many of the top brands in social media are, in fact, B2B companies, including Honeywell International, Oracle, and Microsoft. Business to business networking is not reserved for LinkedIn; companies are finding success on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and even Pinterest.

Small businesses also have a fighting chance; one of the companies featured in a recent Facebook business success story was The English Cheesecake Company. This bakery used their Facebook Page as both a promotional tool and a customer service channel, increasing their fanbase from 2,000 to over 23,000 people.

They were able to accomplish this through a creative content strategy that included content curation, which is the act of gathering, refining and adding your own insight to industry or product-related news and activity across the web. The English Cheesecake Company also used Facebook Sponsored Stories and other types of social ads to help expose their brand to new audiences.

We’ve recently seen some great examples of integrated on and offline marketing, such as NASA’s recent social media event at their Washington headquarters. NASA invited their top social fans to an exclusive event where they had a behind-the-scenes look at their operations and even got to chat live with astronauts on the International Space Station. This is a prime example of a brand offering extra value to fans in order to convert them to brand advocates, who then help promote the company across social networks.

Third-party tools often offer additional functions and features to help brands better connect with and engage fans. Experiment with different types of content, including written, video, visual and audio. In addition, work on your storytelling skills in order to appeal to fans with entertainment, rather than just information.

All of these tactics help companies build a better and more engaging content mix. If you would like help taking your online marketing strategy to the next level with social, contact us to get started.

Image via Shutterstock.

From SEO to Content Marketing and Email Marketing to Analytics, this industry bellwether delivers the best in digital marketing year after year. Attendees will hear big brands discuss everything from enterprise level strategy to mobile marketing on a large scale. Outstanding marketing agencies will provide key tactics and takeaways you can implement on your own online marketing plan after you leave.

TopRank Online Marketing CEO, Lee Odden (@leeodden), will deliver a solo presentation entitled “Creative Content Marketing – Winning Hearts, Minds and Wallets” which will give attendees a framework for producing a creative content strategy in the most efficient way possible.

Lee’s presentation will feature recent research into content marketing as well as several creative content examples from favorite brands. He’ll also showcase clever content sourcing tactics that generated substantial results.

In addition, Miranda Miller, TopRank’s Content Marketing Manager, will moderate a session entitled, “Maximizing Twitter and Facebook Ads for Lead Gen, Engagement & ROI.”

See TopRank at SES New York

Lee Odden
Creative Content Marketing – Winning Hearts, Minds and Wallets
Solo Session

Date: March 28, 2013
Time: 9:30am-10:30am

Investments in content marketing are on the rise, but few companies have fully realized what the best practices are for creating high quality content over a long period of time. Developing ideas for effective marketing can be a challenge and this session will help delegates to:

• Develop a framework for creative and efficient content creation
• Find resources and ideas where others cannot
• Leverage a mix of evergreen, repurposed, curated and co-created content for better marketing results
• Apply SEO and social media optimization principles to amplify content reach and engagement

Miranda Miller
Maximizing Twitter and Facebook Ads for Lead Gen, Engagement & ROI
Moderator

Date: March 26, 2013
Time: 11:45am-12:45pm

With more than 1 billion users on Facebook alone, brands are constantly on the lookout for better ways to reach their customers via Facebook and Twitter. This deep dive session will show attendees how they can optimize their Twitter and Facebook Ads spend for lead generation and customer acquisition. In this session you will learn:

• Actionable tactics such as the planning process to ensure a successful output: defining goals and KPIs, content and offer alignment, seamless user flow that leads to the end goal and ensuring sales is attributed to the social media efforts.
• Practical information brands of all sizes and with all budgets can use immediately.
• How to align content, ad copy and targeting to achieve the best results.
• When, why, and how to use the four types of Twitter Ads products depending on the goal of the campaign.
• Best practices for brands running on FBX and how the exchange differs from other Facebook ads.

Lastly, you’ll see examples and results of high- and poor performing types of Twitter ad content, ad copy and targeting as well as Case study data from financial service and automotive brands currently running on the Facebook Exchange.

Conference Details

SES New York
March 25-28, 2013

Marriott Marquis
1535 Broadway
New York, NY 10036

More info and register

We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming SES Conference in New York. Be sure to follow the online buzz on Twitter. Just search #SESNY. Lee Odden (@LeeOdden) and Miranda Miller (@MirandaM_EComm) also will be interacting and tweeting at the event so keep an eye out for their tweets. Also, be sure to check out @TopRank for those of you who do not already follow us.

Image via Shutterstock.

No matter where you are on the social media spectrum, this webinar will help you decide which networks are most useful for your business, and so much more.  Do you want to know the best part?  This webinar is complimentary!

Join The Social Media Revolution with TopRank CEO Lee Odden

Social Media 2013: What Sites Are Most Important to Marketers This Year
Speaker: Lee Odden

Wednesday, February 13th, 2013
2:00pm-3:00pm (EST)

This educational webinar will take some of the mystery out of social media marketing for businesses of any size.  Not only will you receive guidance into which sites are best for your brand, but how social media fits into a larger integrated online marketing program.  Additionally attendees will learn:

• After the social media shakeout in 2012, which networks still matter? Where are marketers finding ROI and how?
• How social media can bridge the gap between what consumers want and what marketers can do to solve their problems—and make money doing it!
• How to integrate social media into the overall marketing mix.
• Tips on listening on social media, and how to apply insights in a creative, rather than creepy, way in your messaging.

Social media participation is no longer an option but a necessity.  Don’t miss your chance to gain insight from some of the industries leading social media professionals, so that you too can begin squashing the competition and improving social media engagement!

Attendees will hear applicable tips, tricks, and tactics from some of the region’s top digital marketers as well as several from abroad, that can be applied to their individual marketing strategies.

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden (@leeodden) will be giving a solo presentation titled “Creative Content Marketing – Winning Hearts, Minds and Wallets” which will provide attendees a framework for producing content efficiently and creatively.

Lee’s presentation will feature recent research into content marketing in the UK as well as several creative content examples from favourite UK brands.  Case studies of clever content sourcing tactics that generated substantial results will also be presented.

Along with the solo presentation, Lee will also moderate two sessions titled “Content-Driven SEO on a Shoestring” and “Integrated Marketing: What Does That Really Mean?”

See TopRank at SES London

Creative Content Marketing – Winning Hearts, Minds and Wallets
Speaker: Lee Odden

Tuesday, February 19th, 2013
11:45am – 12:45pm

Investments in content marketing are on the rise, but few companies have fully realized what the best practices are for creating high quality content over a long period of time.  Developing ideas for effective marketing can be a challenge and this session will help delegates to:

• Develop a framework for creative and efficient content creation
• Find resources and ideas where others cannot
• Leverage a mix of evergreen, repurposed, curated and co-created content for better marketing results
• Apply SEO and social media optimization principles to amplify content reach and engagement

Event Details

SES London
February 18-21, 2013

Queen Elizabeth II Conference Centre
Broad Sanctuary
London SW1P 3EE

Register

We look forward to seeing you at the upcoming SES London conference.  Be sure to follow the conference buzz on Twitter under the hashtag: #SESLON

London image provided by Shutterstock.

Company Background:
Leather Bound is an online and in store retailer of leather motorcycle apparel and accessories. Leather Bound Online has been engaged with TopRank since 2010, with the objective of increasing traffic and online sales via their website, leatherboundonline.com.

Current Situation:
Leather Bound Online retained TopRank Online Marketing to strategize and implement a Search Engine Optimization and Content Marketing program which tactics include:

• Content Marketing
• Content Optimization
• Link Building
• Conversion Optimization

With TopRank’s help, the site rapidly gained traction and traffic rose steadily.  In 2012 (the third year of Leather Bound’s SEO program) the site has averaged 30% year over year gains.

Online Marketing Program Results:
In addition to an increase in web traffic, Leather Bound also noted an increase in foot traffic due to TopRank’s SEO and content creation efforts.  Leather Bound reports many new, local customers are finding their store via search engines.  In fact:

• Customers are visiting the store from up to two hours away.
• Increased in-store traffic can be attributed to increased online visibility for local searches.
• Since the start of 2012, nearly 30% of visits to the site can be attributed to Northeast Region (New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Massachusetts and Maryland), close to Leather Bound store.

Recommendation to Increase Traffic to Online and Retail Location

In order to further capitalize on local visitors to the New Jersey location, TopRank made the following recommendations:

• Set up Google+ Local listing and ensure listing is complete and optimized for priority terms
• Incorporate blog and resource content which appeals to local audience such as local events and recommendations.
• Add geo-specific keywords to keyword glossary and create specific pages for specific geographic targets.
• Add incentives for online visitors to also visit in store through the use of couponing, etc.

The impact of a strategic and well executed online marketing program can extend beyond stated objectives. Although it is important for your online marketing team to remain focused on top objectives which are most important to your program, you should always be exploring new opportunities to grow your business.