Web Marketing with Bill Fukui

Welcome to Bill's Blog. I am a website marketing consultant for Page 1 Solutions and have been marketing professional services (medical, dental and legal services) since 1994. Let me know if you have thoughts or questions on any marketing topics. Sharing information is the key to growth and success.

Monday, June 29, 2009

Back To The Basics

I attended the ASMBS (American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery) 26th Annual Meeting in Dallas at Gaylord Texan Resort and Convention Center Grapevine last week.

As an industry, the bariatric surgery marketplace is an emerging market for medical advertising and marketing firms and is not as a competitively mature as the LASIK, cosmetic surgery or cosmetic dentistry industries.

Interesting though, many surgeons we talked to were familiar with more sophisticated search engine optimization strategies, like link-building, social media, and pay-per-click advertising. Yet when we looked at their website, they lacked some of the most fundemental elements, which undermined any of their more sophisticated strategies. So this entry is about some of fundamental elements when developing your website.

1- Start with organizing your website and all of its pages with your target keyword phrases in mind, first! Don't try to cram too many topics and target keyword phrases on one page. The more pages; the better. The more focused your content on every page, the better.

2- Make sure your copy is original, not duplicated text found on other websites. Many inexpensive website design firms sell templated website designs with cookie-cutter opy that can be found on many other providers who are "leasing" the same website and copy. Bottom line, search engines don't want to waste space on its servers indexing the same information over, and over, and over again.

3- Don't stop adding to your website. Whether you add new pages, change existing information, or program a blog and make regular entries, search engines will reward you for updating your website with more current and accurate information.

So before you throw all of your efforts and energy into more sophisticated optimization strategies, don't forget to do the basics first. All of your other search engine positioning efforts will make a bigger impact if given the right opportunity.

posted by page1bill at 5:58 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 22, 2009

Bariatric Surgery Meeting


Just landed today in Dallas and will be attending the 26th Annual American Society for Metabolic and Bariatric Surgery Meeting (ASMBS), to see if this medical industry can be very synergistic with our current clients, particularly our plastic surgery website marketing clients.

For years (I think I originally started looking into bariatric surgery in 2000), I believed that this industry could be a mutually beneficial relationship for patients, our clients and our business. The type of impact successful weightloss surgery can have on a patient is something I believe everyone in our agency could get behind and feel like we make a difference in the world. It is that altruistic purpose I talked about with Norton.

We have already started to work with a Los Angeles bariatric surgery practice and a Denver bariatric surgery practice. We'll see if this meeting can help accelerate our penetration in this industry and bring its providers a much needed service. Stay tuned.

posted by page1bill at 2:57 PM 0 comments

Hashtags Add to the Twitter Frenzy

Hashtags are the latest craze on Twitter. Users are including key search phrases preceded by a hash symbol (#), which helps their tweets show up on relevant searches.

For example, if I am tweeting about my new iphone, I would include the hashtag #iphone at the end of my tweet. Twitter then groups all of the Tweets that include #iphone together, so they can be easily found in a search.

It’s always a good idea to include a hashtag in your tweets, just be careful to make sure that your tags are relevant and appropriate to your topic (otherwise they will be regarded as spammy, hurting your brand more than helping).

Happy Tweeting!

posted by SaraS at 1:58 PM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

More Google Local

My apologies for leaving those interested in Google Maps/Local hanging. Today's your day.

As mentioned earlier, the optimization strategies that may get you top listings in the "natural" or "organic" listings on Google, may not always get you top Google Local listings.

In addition to utilizing the Google Local Business Center, there are other things you can do to build more local credibility in the eyes of the search engines.

In fact, only a small percentage of business actually claim and validate listings through GLBC. It is believed that much of the local search results are more influenced by trusted sources such as the Better Business Bureau, directories such as InfoUSA, Acxiom, and Localeze.

It also makes good sense to find other "local" sources to get your business information listed. There a lots of local websites, directories, blogs, etc. that can help improve your "local" presence and your credibility in the eyes of the search engines.

posted by page1bill at 2:18 PM 0 comments

Getting more traffic . . . Bing!

Breaking News - ComScor, Inc. recently announced that in the second week of June, Microsoft's share of the Internet search market increase by more than 50 percent from it's share prior to releasing Bing.

Bing's search share rose from 8 percent in May to 12.1 percent in by the end of last week.

The search traffic increase is in large to the $100 million marketing campaign by Microsoft to promote it's new search.

This information is credited to www.Marketwatch.com and comments about Bing are also posted

posted by page1bill at 1:48 PM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 16, 2009

A Lasting Message

I am deviating somewhat today in my entry, as I was notified yesterday of the passing of the patriarch of Network Affiliates, Norton Frickey.

Network Affiliates was my first exposure to a career in legal and medical advertising, and I, as well as much of Page 1 Solutions, am a result of what Norton built there about 30 years ago.

Although Norton never really grasped my last name, referring to me as "Foo-too-lie," I always saw it as our little connection.

I will share one conversation I had with NF early in my history with the agency that stuck with me ever since.

I once asked him what drove him to step out of the shadows of the legal establishment and blaze the trail of legal television advertising, knowing he would be somewhat shunned by his colleagues. Did he really forsee the financial success it would bring?

He responded by saying he had no idea. But what he did know was that his message "fighting for the rights of the little guy," was something he really believed in. At the time, there were so many people with no access to the legal system, because you had to be either a company, or very well to do.

"That's not what our forefathers envisioned for our judicial system."

Then it occurred to me: If you do things with passion, for the right reason, and with a bigger, underlying atruistic purpose, success, including financial, is simply an outgrowth.

Since that time, I have tried to take that approach to sales and other things, and not focus so much on the sale, the contract or money. Rather, I focused more on providing a worthy service and products to clients that can really benefit from them. It's worked for me.

Thanks, NF!

posted by page1bill at 12:14 PM 0 comments

Monday, June 15, 2009

Google Local

Many online marketers and consumers have not only started to see the "local" or "map" listings on search engines results, they are now starting to focus on them.

It is also important to note that the same results that get you the top traditional organic listing, may not be enough to get you on the local/map listings.

The most important thing to make sure your business is properly submitted to the Google Local Business Center.

The LBC is a free listing and allows for free updates and is one tool Google uses to identify and rank "local" businesses. Suprisingly, most businesses have not taken the time, or more likely are not aware of it so they remain unlisted.

There are some other things that you can do to improve your local/map listings, but I will need to share those in the next entry.

Stay tuned . . .

posted by page1bill at 7:21 AM 0 comments

Friday, June 12, 2009

More Focus


I am currently listening to a book on CD called The Breakthrough Company.

It is a book on how emerging entrepreneurial businesses "break through" the barriers that keep most businesses leashed to their current realities, and in a majority of cases, lead to their ultimate demise.

One of the numerous things they discuss is the ability to focus and follow through. This concept also applies to how we approach your Search Engine Optimization. For instance, we have New York rhinoplasty surgeon. Although he actually performs all cosmetic surgery procedures, including breast augmentation, liposuction facelifts, etc., his main focus and expertise is rhinoplasty.

We recently have started to shift all of his new updates and optimization to focus on rhinoplasty keyword phrases We will make continual updates and optimization to the website focusing in this area.

Check back to my blog for updates on his progress.

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posted by page1bill at 6:13 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, June 10, 2009

Super Service


Yesteday, one of our account managers interupted a meeting to ask about a Raleigh, North Carolina personal injury client that needed to get a Google sponsored pay per click campaign online immediately, as the media just announced news about a factory explosion.

Here was an internal email she sent this morning:

2:35 Client calls requesting a page written on an factory explosion and wants to set up PPC to direct people to his site
3:10 Lynn writes a page and sends it over
3:45: Client edits and approves content and asks if everything can be done today
4:00: Lori agrees to post the page, w/o even having a task assigned
4:15: Shannon starts PPC account for client

Bada Bing! That’s what I call exceeding client expectations.

Big thanks to Shannon, Lynn and Lori.. you guys rawk! 

Ashley Martin
Account Manager

posted by page1bill at 9:12 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 8, 2009

Page 1 Gives Back

For those of you who may not be aware, Page 1 Solutions, in partnership with the Arbor Day Foundation, has committed to make a donate for every website we build. In the month of May, Page 1 has donated enough to plant an additional 20 trees and saved 2,000 sq. ft. of rainforest land.

Our Design manager, Troy indicated that this roughly offsets the carbon foot print created by commuting to and from work, for five employees. He also got a local auto repair shop to offer our team discounts, including free tire rotation. To quote Troy, "So, planting trees/saving rainforest land + taking care of your car = small feet = happy planet."

This is one example of making a difference, but also a good way to also get incoming links from a highly credible website.

posted by page1bill at 7:17 AM 0 comments

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

MSN chasing Google - BING!

In the same week Google announced it's new software for managing Internet messaging (email), MSN unveiled it's new brainchild to compete with Google's search. It's new live search platform is called Bing.

This is like watching a prime time soap opera where everybody has an idea of what will likely happen, but twists and turns can change the outcome.

In one camp, the thought is: It's taken Microsoft nearly 10 years to arrive late to the forum for a prize fight where the battle has already been won, and the victor having already moved on to loftier goals.

Others, although much fewer, think that as Google extends its resources and energy into other areas (youtube, email, social media websites, etc.), it will create opportunity for more focused providers (Bing??) to make up ground in the search arena. (Remember other empires that were fighting too many fronts, like Rome, Napoleon, the Mongol Empire, England, Germany, etc.??)

Personally, I would like to see more competition in the search arena because in the end, the marketer and consumer win when there is more competition. Monopolies eliminate choices. So I am pushing for Bing, or any other worthy competitor, to gain some marketshare, but it will be a long uphill battle.

In the meantime, stay sharp and keep working the angles.

posted by page1bill at 7:16 AM 0 comments

Monday, June 1, 2009

"Wave" Good Bye To Email???

Recently, there has been a buzz around a developing new technology that can allow users to communicate in a new way through the Internet, without Microsoft Outlook or Explorer browser (or any browser for that matter).

Sounds like a monumental, if not impossible, task! The only thing that makes developers and the media serioius about the possibility is that it is being developed by Google.

The new technology is called Wave and in the words of project leader Lars Rasmussen, it's email, "if it were invented today."

Email, for the most part, has not really changed a tremendous amount over the years, which by Internet standards (where everything is in constant change). That may change later this year.

The bad news for marketers is that it may complicate how the the Internet universe communicates with each other. The good news for the proactive, opportunity-focused website/Internet marketing agency, is that it will likely create new opportunities for them and their clients.

Stay tuned for developments . . .

posted by page1bill at 5:37 AM 0 comments