The Forge

Google just announced the inclusion of real time search results that include Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and a number of blogs on their results pages.  This news isn’t shocking, as Google was a step behind Bing to tap the real time web and pretty much obligated to take a stab at it.

This is some big news, given that Google is by far the most utilized search engine.  One affected eco-system will be the realm of Search Engine Optimization.  While the old method of SEO primarily targets the ’static web,’ a new brand of Real Time SEO needs to evolve to address the ‘real time web’.

Real Time SEO

SEO is essentially maximizing the potential of a website to be indexed by Google based on a number of factors the algorithm takes into account when ranking sites, including the number of incoming links, title tags, keywords,  updated content, etc.

The Mountain View crew claims that real time search will utilize factors such as “author quality,” “probability of relevance” and “query hotness,” in order to determine which results pop.   These new factors, among others, will be the guiding principles of real time SEO, a process that is sure to be exacted from this point forward.

Sure, the social web – including twitter, facebook, myspace, and blog articles – have been an integral piece of SEO work for some time now. Utilizing social media pathways to provide extended exposure to a website has been important.  However, these efforts have always been somewhat ephemeral in comparison to the bulk of a search engine optimization campaign.  With the advent of Google’s real time web, this is about to change.

Real time search results could bring as much, if not more, traffic to a website than standard indexing on any given day.  This means making a website relevant and fresh through updates will become even more important.  There are sure to be other tactics and strategies that emerge as real time search evolves.  I’ll  be sure to keep an eye out for these results and post the findings.  In the meantime, feel free to let me know your thoughts on the subject!

Photo by Esther Lin/STRIKEFORCE

The guys here at Insight Forge are all pretty big fans of mixed martial arts (UFC, Strikeforce, Pride, Dream etc.) and in particular of heavyweight champ Fedor Emelianenko.  I’m not sure who caught the recent Strikeforce broadcast on CBS, but it was pretty great to see “the Last Emperor” prove himself yet again with a 2nd round knockout of Brett Rogers.

Which brings me to the subject of MMA Marketing.  Because mixed martial arts is still a burgeoning sport many of the larger advertising agencies and web marketing firms haven’t yet caught onto how big MMA is going to be.  The sport has international appeal, is  immensely popular on all ends of the globe and has the potential to dominate the 18-35 age bracket (mostly male).  This same age bracket spends a huge amount of time online and can be targeted accurately through online marketing mediums.  I’d like to go over a few of these specific mediums:

Web Design & SEO:  There are still quite a few high profile fighters out there whose websites look like they are from 1993. Fedor’s current official  homepage is fairly outdated, is a hybrid between English and Russian and was last updated in 2007.

Mind you, when someone Googles ‘Fedor’, this official homepage pops on the 1st page of results.   The keyword ‘Fedor’ gets nearly 2 million Google searches per month.   Given Fedor’s popularity within the targeted MMA Marketing age bracket, you’d think that someone would have fixed his site up.   Fedor, if you’re reading this, we’d be glad to help out.

Twitter: Twitter is fast becoming a great way for fighters to keep their fans updated with daily training regimens, upcoming fights, appearances, sponsors etc. Although there are already quite a few MMA fighters that are taking advantage of Twitter, there are many that haven’t yet picked up this good marketing habit.

One notably absent fighter, again, is Fedor.  Someone recently created a fake Fedor Twitter account and tweeted before his Nov. 7th fight that he may have the flu (which must have caused quite a few gamblers to freak out).  Which goes to show:  a fighter with Fedor’s clout should be in control of his own marketing destiny with an official twitter account.  As far as translating his tweets between Russian to English and keeping them up to date – Fedor, once again we’d be glad to be of service.

Forums: MMA forums on sites like Sherdog.com are amazingly active with fans and fighters alike. Forum users will post anything from their opinions on the latest MMA events to their opinions on health care reform. This is a great place for MMA marketers to reach out to potential customers, whether they are promoting a fighter’s newly designed homepage, an upcoming local MMA event, a fight gear site, or anything else related.

Promoters must beware that  simply blasting out spammy posts about your site will certainly cause you to be banned from these forums.   Your posts need to fit in with the topic of conversation and do so in a subtle way.

In conclusion:

I’d like to leave everyone with Fedor’s recent work of art:

Insight Forge has an MMA marketing and SEO skill set. If any fighters, brands or event promoters are in need of services, feel free to contact us for a free site review and campaign estimate.

Another hot trend in search engine optimization is social media marketing.  Approaching social media work from a beginner’s standpoint can be a daunting task.  There are a ton of tools, sites and ‘expert’ opinions which you will find shoved in your face as the ‘new best way’ to get your website on the map.

The truth is, there are quite a few routes to go with social media marketing, and only several that will provide any real dividends.  When it comes down to it, as far as utilizing any social media method that requires gaining followers or building clout, honesty and repetition are the ways to go.  Many people will tell you that there are fast tracks to social media success, but there aren’t.  Like anything, it takes time, repetition, and trust to get ahead.

I’d like to take a moment to go over the basic points of social media marketing to get a beginner in the field on the ground and running.

Forums

Forums may be old school, but they are also a great place to reach a targeted group of users in your space.

Are you promoting the website of a bike shop  in San Francisco?  Post on local bike forums, but don’t just sign up for an account and blast your url out, that will probably only result in you getting kicked off the forum.  Try to participate in worthy discussions, and lend your input for at least a month before slipping your relevant site into the mix.  Be open with the forum community, tell them you work as a marketer in the field and are simply interesting in picking the brains of relevant users.

No forums on your specific topic of interst?  Create your own.  Our friends over at Lefora provide an easy to use Web 2.0 forum solution that will get you going in a jiffy.

Social Sharing Tools:  Twitter / Tumblr / Jaiku

Twitter is fast becoming spam central like MySpace, with legions of marketing bots attempting to gain as many followers as possible.

Don’t spam people on Twitter: what goes around comes around.  Sure, you may end up with thousands of followers using twitter bots, but they will be essentially worthless.   It’s pointless to have followers if most of them don’t care about the subject you are tweeting about.

Any real value you will gain from twitter will be sending out tweets to people in your space.  100 followers that are somewhat relevant to your San Francisco Bike site are far more valuable than 1000 irrelevant followers (most of which that are primarily spammers and robots).

If you are building a twitter following, send out relevant tweets with the topic’s # (hashtag) attached.

Ex.  I can’t wait for the #SanFrancisco Bikeathon in Golden Gate park this Weekend!  Anyone planning to attend? 

Building your following won’t happen overnight.  Keep a schedule of consistent tweets and be flexible.

Social Aggregation Sites:  Digg / StumbleUpon / Reddit

There are all fantastic tools for ‘blasting out’ your relevant blog post, site news, or site launch to the masses.  The key here is using the tools for what they are meant to be used for: allowing users to find and share interesting / entertaining information.

Of course ‘interest & entertainment’ value can be somewhat difficult to achieve depending on the subject of your site.  If you working on the SEO for Tom Brady’s new webpage, filled with updates about his latest date with Giselle, getting the word spread will be fairly easy. However, if you are trying to find an angle to make a used toilet brush site look entertaining, it may be an uphill climb.

The key here is picking the interesting content out of a haystack and ‘blasting’ it to the right audience.  Make sure to categorically classify your used toilet brush site update and get it to the right people.  Stay tuned for a post on the basics of SEO writing, and how to make a totally uninteresting subject somewhat palpable.

Social Networks:   Facebook / MySpace / Ning / LinkedIn

Just as in forums, the key to utilizing social networks for marketing purposes is reaching the right users.  Don’t go crazy and simply try to get as many friends as possible- find users that may actually be interesting in what you are promoting.  Join and create groups, fan pages, etc about your site or subject, but do so discreetly.  Build some trust by participating in discussions even if they don’t directly relate to you marketing your site.

The Associated Press reported that online advertising has felt the recent economic slump, falling 5% in the first half of 2009.  Although online advertising as a whole has felt the pressure, search advertising seems to be doing fine.  Google Inc., which controls 2/3 of the search advertising market, reported  a 4% gain during the first half of the year.

So what does this mean? Maybe nothing, and we are simply seeing fluctuations due to an unsteady market.  However, it could also be a sign that search marketing is continuing to eat away at other forms of online advertising.  Consumers continue to rely heavier on web search as a prominent source of educational, entertainment and business related information and media.   This supports the fact that getting basic SEO on a website now will provide enhanced dividends in the future.

During an economic downturn, if consumers are still attuned to peripheral  Pay-Per-Click ads (like Google Adwords), they must be even more familiar with getting what they want within the actual search results.   As far as spending money on marketing, getting a higher search ranking for a website would probably place among the highest cost / benefit ratios of any advertising budget.

Welcome to the Forge, the official blog of Insight Forge.

Our team will be broadcasting / writing from the dense fog of San Francisco’s Inner Sunset, so forgive us if our posts suddenly take a turn toward the dark side of Internet Marketing (not black-hat SEO, but rather geeks dressed as Sith Lords).

Anyways… we’ll try to keep our posts here  informal as well as  informative.  We may at times stray off our primary topics of internet marketing, SEO, and advertising to discuss one of our favorite San Francisco bars, a trending internet meme, or whatever else is on our minds.

Essentially, we hope to make this a blog a bit different from the norm in marketing.

So stay on your toes and get ready, cause here we come.