Search Engine Optimization and Internet Marketing Service

Archive for - November, 2008

Local Search Engine Optimization SEO

Local search engine optimization and search marketing services are designed to promote your local business to best spots on search engines such as Google, Yahoo and MSN. As a professional optimization company our SEO services can gain you online exposure and upper hand against competition in fastest growing online marketplace. SEO Expert drives targeted and motivated customers to your website, which in turn generate sales and leads. Search engine marketing can expand your market share on city by city basis and national markets. Since people search with intentions, our job as a firm is not drive traffic, but to drive traffic that has an intention of doing business with you. This is the difference of SEO Expert. Find out more about Local SEO.

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Toronto SEO Search Engine Optimization Services

Does Your Business Operate in Toronto? SEO Expert offers Toronto search engine optimization services targeted at Toronto market. Optimization includes natural first page placement for your industry and SEO for markets such as GTA, Toronto, Mississauga, North York, Scarborough, Milton and others. Toronto search engine marketing gives your business the flexibility to focus on growth, while customers come in naturally, prepared to buy. There are over 5 million residents living in Greater Toronto Area, with 80% having internet access. Around 91% of all users actively use search engines to research products and local businesses. SEO Toronto ensures that your business takes advantage of those numbers and turns them into revenues.

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Challenges in Running a Commercial Search Engine

This is a review of the presentation released by Google’s Amit Singhal who is according to the New York Times is “…the master of what Google calls its ranking algorithm”

In the first section of presentation Amit outlines basics structure of search engines and some history: Crawling, Indexing, Ranking, Displaying, Serving.

Spam Challenge

Here’s the spam map by one of Google’s brightest engineers:

users follow search results > money follows users

…spam follows, cluttering search results.

Some of the ways to monetize search results: rerouting traffic from SEs to Amazon/Ebay – make a few bucks. Reroute traffic from SEs to merchant sellers via affiliate links, take up to 50% cut. Redirect to adult site and make good $50 bucks from subscription. Get SE traffic and receive contextual links. Get enough traffic and contextual clicks add up.

Spam is Big Business

There’s HUGE money in spam. Here are Amit’s estimates from few years ago:

500 million searches per day on web (for all search engines).

5% are commercial (more with porn queries)

Assume that each click gets $0.50 (from $0.50 to $40) = $12.5 million per day or $4,5 billion per year.

Spam is not going away, there’s too much money to cash out. Search engines have to come in and police the spam. Once they police the spam and focus search results on information queries, they can serve commercial queries as pay per click ads, making money.

Informational vs Commercial Queries

Google was fueled by a desire for a useful search engine by 2 of it’s founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin. Early internet was not commercialized and consisted mainly of information, hence it was natural to give informational results. To this day, most queries are informational, so by placing heavy bias on information Google is killing two birds:

  • It gives users what they want – information
  • It can sell commercial ads alongside informational results, making money.

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Customer Personas Part 10

Alexei

Spontaneous: 36

Education: Alexei finished archaeology degree in UFT as a 3 year program, but then went into social science for another 4 years in Ryerson.

Work: Alexei works as a sales manager in Tyco Microsystems one of the manufactures he used to deal with during his business. Before that he jumped from job to job, until getting into business in the dot-com revolution.

Financial: $30,000 + commission.

Car: BMW 325i 2004.

Credit: busted big time

Alexei is relaxed and likes to be in the moment. His lack of planning probably served to the business disaster. He went into sales because it is more of in the moment job that requires contact with people, something he is strong with.

He trusts his wife with the refinance research, knowing her attention to details, but will have a look at the options that she found. To his perspective, receiving immediate returns and getting the task done fast and swift and is the key. Having served in business he has developed competitive part, so a good flow of benefits can help too. He is however focused on “people” and fun approach to the task, hoping to chat with some fun folks and bust jokes on the way. Lynda keeps him on the leash, asserting her dominance, but she will need his approval on the company of her choice. Very swift, personal and “fun” headlines and snippets should do a good job at persuading Alexei. Quotes from famous men in context of the company and brokers can also help. Short stories with something unexpected will get Alexei raving. Other details are left to his wife.

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Customer Personas Part 9

Lynda Methodical

Methodical: 34

Education: Lynda got a degree in marketing and business management in Redeemer University College as 5 year program.

Work: She works for Alcatel Networks as a marketer and reports to the manager. Her duties include project quality control, creative and some management.

Financial: $43,000

Car: Ford Focus

Credit: Bad

Debt: Car debt of $5000 and over $9000 in credit cards.

Family: From England and live in England.

Linda took more credit cards as a way to help carry family through the crisis at the time Alexei went out of business. She blames him for his laid back attitude, while Alexei believes it wasn’t his thing anyway. She got in debt and was very late on payments. She talked to her husband and believes refinance will help them direct money towards more urgent debts and more importantly it help them get back to the lifestyle they had.

Lynda is a methodical person. On our website she will look at basics of refinance and ask questions such as:

  • What are the fees associated with refinancing? What are the legal fees?
  • How does it work? Step by step.
  • How long does it take to refinance?
  • Information about changing mortgage lenders?
  • Are there any penalties for refinancing?

And more. She will also need an in-depth look at our process and approach to refinancing. After she grasps the basics she will want to know how we do it, what are upsides and downs (downs must be there) and how it all works. She will want a detailed map of our process. Having provided that, she will be inclined to go with us, since no websites do it and vivid details help her buying process. Her focus is on thorough look at how we refinance, what to expect and anticipate. She wants to plan and know everything ahead, to the last grain.

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Customer Personas Part 8

Linda and Alexei


Methodical and Spontaneous

Refinance. Both have bad credit scores.

Linda and Alexei are looking to refinance their mortgage, but have bad credit due to the busted business. Alexei ran electronics components distribution business which went bankrupt and left couple to live on credit cards. As a result they both came late on payments, on mortgage, credit and car loans. Now they are looking to shave off their monthly payment by refinancing at a lower interest rate.

Though their kids helped them, they still ended up with bad credit which closed a lot of doors for them. They are working to rebuild their credit, ever since Alexei got a stable job, but it will take a while. Refinance sounds like a good solution since it can lower monthly payments and let them focus on other debts. They are also looking at no cost refinance, where the closing costs are added to the mortgage. It’s a good payoff for lower monthly payment which they need.

Linda is the methodical personality and she pulls all the strings in the budget, household and the relationship. Alexei is more held back and doesn’t care for details as much.

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Customer Personas Part 7

 

Samantha Humanistic

Methodical: 27

Education: Samantha went to Sanford Fleming College for 3,5 years and got a diploma in human resources.

Work: She works for SITEL as a human resources person and monitors newcomers to the company, which flood at an immense rate(call center). She is naturally the people person and focuses on relationships and can spot the right candidates. Being in charge she also developed her competitive part, which reflects in her relationship.

Financial: She makes $35,000 per year.

Car: no car.

Credit: Average

Debt: College debt $2000 left and $6000 grand on credit.

Family: Canadians live in Milton.

Nature: Samantha loves relationships and helping people. When selecting a mortgage she will be looking at people, their qualifications and story. Though a people’s person, good professional qualifications will tell her a lot about the company, together with various certificates. She will value person’s values, goals and mission. She will also take a look at professional side, to ensure the company has what the right competence.

Being the family decider, personal qualifications, strong values and above all strong testimonials will go a long way. A good tactic is to include a story of successful customer and mega-customer service we delivered. It will speak directly to her, in her language. Also let her know why we are a superior choice to other mortgage companies.

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Customer Personas Part 6

Sam – Methodical

Methodical: 28

Education: Sam went to Seneca college for accounting in a 3 year program. He finished with his accountant diploma.

Work: Sam works for Novin Accounting services, which is purely an accounting firm. He is a middle manager and works for the company for 3 years now. Before it, he worked as a junior accountant for Novatel Networks.

Financial: $41,000

Car: 2000 Chevy Blazer

Credit: Average

Debt: College debt $5000 left, $3000 car debt left, and $2000 grand on credit.

Family: From Slovakia and lives in Toronto.

Nature: Sam is a slow man. He’s got to know details before he makes the decision and got to know everything possible. His objective is to be prepared when the time comes and to plan ahead. He doesn’t want the banks nor the agent to control the conversation because of his lack of knowledge in this field. Being smart, it will hurt his ego, on top of possible “bad recommendations” by the mortgage officer. He’s got to know it all himself, in order to make sure they will get the best possible deal. Though the objective is to qualify, Sam is sure that with more knowledge he will get a better deal.

As a company, we can give Sam all the resources he needs about mortgages, step by step from A to Z. He will appreciate the information. Unconsciously Sam will develop the affinity for the website, as long as it answers his questions, since he will spend time on the site, studying and reading the material.

He will look for unbiased resources, that provide information flat and with no spin. He can tolerate company mentions and offers, as long as it’s objective, on point and with no hype. Sam sells to himself through information and facts. He will look for competence in the brokerage company. He will also appreciate negatives about the offer, since he is unconsciously looking for loopholes in the first place. He will switch modality, but methodical is dominant. Focus on useful information and mention competence where it fits. Feature lots of mortgage choices with vivid descriptions.

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