Defining an Online Marketing Strategy and Roadmap

Paul Lima      digital marketing strategy, internet marketing strategy, online marketing strategy, web marketing strategy

Check out our latest video developed to assist Internet Marketers in developing an integrated and cohesive digital marketing strategy.

Please let us know you’re feedback, we’re launching a series of theses and would love to hear what you think.

Tips For Targeting Latinos Online: New at #SESNY

Paul Lima      digital strategies, hispanic marketing, internet marketing segmentation, marketing to latinos, online marketing consulting, online marketing strategy, Search Engine Optimization

Day 2 at #SESNY kicked off with a groundbreaking keynote. But wait. Let’s rewind. Earlier this month, I had the pleasure of interviewing Paul Lima of Lima Consulting on the topic of Digital Marketing To Latino Users. The Q&A was an eye-opening peek at the opportunity represented by the growing online Hispanic market, and a serious appeteaser to the inaugural launch of the Focus Latino track at Search Engine Strategies New York.

The keynote was introduced & moderated by Mike Grehan, Chair SES Advisory Board, Global VP Content, SES/Search Engine Watch/ClickZ, Carlos Vassallo, CEO, LatinVision Media Inc., Carlos Manzano, Executive Director, Latin Media & Entertainment Commission, City of NY, and Paul Lima himself. Mark López , Head of U.S. Hispanic Audience, Google, took the stage for the main event, which was jam-packed with awesome stats about Latino users. Oodles of them live below the fold, in addition to a hearty helping of takeaways from the follow-up session, Reaching Latinos through SEO, presented by Rafael E. Hernandez, Sales Manager, AudienceScience and Matias Perel, Founder and CEO, Latin3. aimClear live-tweeted both of these fascinating sessions. Read on for the goodies.

Mind-Blowing Stats, Brian-Nuggets  & Best Practices
Mike, Carlos V. & Carlos M, Paul, and Mark took turns sharing a slew of stats & targeting tips regarding the Hispanic Market. (Rad full write up in Bruce Clay Blog.) Here’s a sample platter of the main attractions:

• The U.S. Hispanic market is a $1 trillion market! That cannot be ignored.
• New York City has the most diverse Hispanic population than any other city in the U.S.
• By 2040, it’s predicted that 100% of the U.S. Hispanic market will be online. Searching, socializing, etc.
• There is no real divide between online & offline engagement. Online engagement, video & mobile usage is on par with the overall market.
• 53% of Hispanics use the Internet for shopping (searching to learn more about brands, find products,purchase products, etc.)
• Search prompts action, meaning search generates distinct offline action for U.S. Hispanic advertisers
• TV is an effective trigger for search – 78% of Hispanics have used search engine to find more info about something they saw on TV.
• U.S. Hispanics are Googlers! 93% of Hispanics use Google as their primary search engine.
• Mobile search drives store traffic. 1 in 3 mobile search queries have local intent.
• 15% of iPhone apps are local-based
• 24% iPhone users are Hispanic (they rely on mobile to stay connected with friends & family)
• Mobile is already an important component in the purchase funnel. 40% of Hispanics compare prices & find retailers via smartphones.
• Search dominates smartphone usage.70% of Hispanics use smartphones to search– in other words, search engines are most popular sites they visit.
• 8% of queries entered in Google today are in Spanish. This opens a huge pot of inventory that many companies haven’t tapped into yet.
• Regarding Spanish keywords vs. English keywords — there’s a substantial discount for Spanish KWs.
• 80% of Spanish KW queries are done in the English Interface of Google. This suggests bilingual users, who can be targeted by both Spanish & English KWs. #Winning

Mark Lopez, Head of US Hispanic Audience for Google presents with Mike Grehan, Head of Content Development for Incisive Media, the SES conference organizers, and Paul Lima, CEO of Lima Consulting Group and Carlos Vassallo, CEO of LatinVision Media

Best practices:

• Develop search capabilities for this market. You have to test your creative across languages. Keywords, images, copy– what you serve to English-speaking users may not resonate with Spanish-speaking users.
• Have an “Always On” strategy for search. Your target audience is searching 24/7.
• Make your offline marketing strategy a digital one. Ensure you are present as users search for their favorite offline content (such as TV shows).
• Extend to mobile search. It’s there, & it’s growing! Hispanics rely more heavily on their mobile devices.

Reaching Latinos through SEO
The following session focused more on SEO, and ways to optimize your site for Hispanic searchers. Rafael was up first, reiterating that Google has 72% of search traffic in Latin America. If Latinos are a part of your target audience, Google should factor into your SEO tactics.

Another significant tactic Rafael touched upon the importance of understanding how your audiences describes you; your business, brand, products, services, etc. What are the keywords they use to find you? Those are the keywords you should use to advise your SEO strategy. And, newsflash– they might not be the words you use to describe yourself.

Where to find keyword ideas:

• Your own content
• Your Analytics (high quality terms driving small traffic? low-hanging fruit!)
• Your competitors’ pages
• Your PPC data

Discover what’s working, and use it!

Matias took the stage next, set to dig deeper into Reaching Latinos through SEO.

Some stats:

• 30 mil U.S. Hispanics are online
• 89% search share in Latin America on Google
• 112 million Internet users in Latin America
• 6 million new web users in Brazil last year alone

Factors in SEO & Other Fascinating Takeaways

• Indexing - take note, is every page indexing?
• Contextualization (KEY in Latin America) – what’s the page about?
• Reputation is huge. Influences people to click, or… not.
• Think globally…. who owns your local domain? Use it!
• Sub-domains & sub-folders – separate your Spanish content from your English content. Avoid query string parameters /session variable.
• Language - how does your audience think & search online? How do they expect to find your content?
• Server - not the biggest deal, but having local IPs for your server can help add context to your site.
• Local links are more relevant, a better sign of trust & reputation to Hispanic users.
• The new social factor: social defined relevance. Sharing is the new linking! See how Google understands your social connections.
• As always, CONTENT IS KING. According to Matias, it’s also president & prime minister . The same rules apply. Create unique content worth sharing and linking.
• “Latinos love to share! Latinos love great content!” Leverage cool videos, infographics, thoughtful posts, incredible photos.

“Viva la diferencia!”
The biggest takeaway from this session (and perhaps the track in general)… Be mindful of the different ways Latinos say the same thing. Latinos have a lot in common – but every culture has some slight differences in how they express themselves. The same word (for example, “lightbulb”) can be expressed differently from Argentina, to Mexico, to Colombia. This is huge in terms of KW research and how you go about stemming. There are so many ways to say the same thing… within and between these cultures.

Thanks to all of the moderators & speakers for two terrific back-to-back sessions. These presentations certainly set the bar for future Focus Latino tracks to come. Stay tuned in aimClear Blog for more conference coverage– follow along with @beebow, @Matt_Peterson, @aimClear & @KJalivay for live-tweets straight from the floor.

Digital Marketing To Latino Users: Paul Lima Interviewed

Paul Lima      digital strategies, digital strategy consulting, emerging markets, hispanic marketing, hispanic online marketing, interview, marketing to hispanics, marketing to latinos, online marketing, online marketing consulting, paul lima

Search Engine Strategies has been part of the search marketing conference landscape for over a decade. With a powerhouse trifecta of outstanding speakers, crowds in the thousands, and a three-day agenda of sessions ranging from über techtastic to super social-chic, it’s clear to see why this summit is labeled must-attend for many industry pros.

This year, SES has added a brand new track to the conference agenda: Focus Latino. SES New York, the fourth stop on aimClear’s March Conference Road Trip, will host the debut of the LatinVision Media-sponsored track. Paul Lima, of Lima Consulting Group collaborated with Latin Vision to develop the agenda for the five unique sessions that will take place throughout the day, each with a keen focus on Internet marketing to the Latino/Hispanic community. The track will kick off with an Introduction & Opening Keynote that was coordinated by Paul, moving into morning and afternoon sessions Reaching Latinos Through SEO, Search & Social Marketing to Latinos: Roundtable, Analytics for the Latino Markets, and finally, Improved Conversions With Web Site Optimization.

I had the pleasure of sharing an interview with one of the marketers behind the much-anticipated Focus Latino track, Paul Lima (@Paul__Lima). Paul, founder of Lima Consulting Group, will take the stage on several panels throughout Day 2 of SES NY. Read on for the fruits of our Q&A.

| aimClear: Paul, thank you for your time today. When perusing your Search Engine Strategies bio, I was fascinated to learn you were a former commander of the Pentagon’s cyber-warfare unit. That seems quite the leap from interactive marketing—an industry in which you’ve been active for over a decade. Tell us a bit about how that career transition came about.

Paul Lima: Each side of my career has helped the other, like an upward spiral you could say. The opportunity to serve in such a specialized unit and with such talented soldiers afforded tactical and operational insights into the underpinnings of the telecommunications infrastructure that all Internet marketers rely on. My role there was no different than my role today as the owner of a digital strategy consulting firm; that is, to find appropriate clients and recruit the best people. But I have to admit, there was something very, very special about working with the institution that funded the Internet, and as one of the Generals I worked for said, innovating new ways to fight and win America’s wars.

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Click fraud on the rise in Q3

Paul Lima      click fraud, digital strategies, digital strategy consulting, emarketing, online marketing, online marketing consulting, online strategy, pay-per-click, ppc, tips

Click Forensics reported yesterday that the overall industry average click fraud rate rose to 22.3 percent, up from 18.6 percent in Q2 2010. The reported click fraud rate for Q3 2009 was 14.1 percent.

Outside of North America, the countries that produced the most fraudulent traffic were Japan, The Netherlands, The Philippines and China.

Why the rise?

“During the past quarter, we saw a growing volume of click fraud flow through a more diverse number of sources, including mobile proxies,” said Paul Pellman, CEO of Click Forensics. “As advertising in videos, social networks and mobile devices continues to grow, advertisers will need to pay close attention to the quality of traffic they receive.”

Source: http://blog.searchenginewatch.com/101021-070006

How to use Google Adwords to promote events

Paul Lima      digital strategies, digital strategy consulting, emarketing, event marketing, google adwords, ibm, omniture, online marketing, online marketing consulting, online strategy

As an online marketing consulting company, we often have an opportunity to eat our own dogfood.  As we are conducting more webinars and seminars, we are applying best-practices for online marketing ourselves.

Tip 1: Identify who you want to attend your event and use the features in Google adwords to reach them.

Tip 2: Within the segment, seek impression before clicks.

Tip 3: Go local.

Tip 4: Focus on the information that matters.

Tip 5: Find the passengers as well as the pilots. read more

5 Best Practices for Multi-lingual Search Engine Optimization

Paul Lima      digital strategies, digital strategy consulting, emarketing, online marketing, online marketing consulting, online strategy, Search Engine Optimization, seo, tips

I recently had several meetings with organizations interested in translating their website as they enter global markets.  Along with our partnership with The Magnum Group, a world-class translation agency based in Philadelphia’s international business district, we provided consulting for these organizations prepared to take on multi-lingual SEO projects.  We advised them with some of following best-practices for multi-lingual SEO projects:

1. Start with your analytics.  Do a deep dive to see what content is visited most often.  Look at complete paths.  It’s not enough to develop a list of the most visited pages.  Users don’t visit the website to just see those pages.  Look at click paths to see how they enter the site, and more importantly what they do once they consume the most popular content.  Pages that have your calls to action are obvious, but it’s pages in between the final call to action and the most frequently visited content that are frequently forgotten. read more

How should PPC influence SEO?

Paul Lima      digital strategies, digital strategy consulting, emarketing, online marketing, online marketing consulting, online strategy, pay-per-click, ppc, Search Engine Optimization, seo

Pay Per Click Scouts assessing keywords before conducting SEO

Pay Per Click advertising is like reconnaissance, especially for companies that are starting their online marketing strategy. read more