We don't generate traffic to our websites and landing pages just for the sake of it. We want conversion, whatever it is for any given campaign or purpose. Search engine marketers seek it, email marketers do and, despite all community and customer services aspects, a big chunk of our social media marketing efforts aims to attract visitors to pages that are valuable for them and for our business goals.

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The human psyche is a complex thing. What we do, when we do it and why we do it are not altogether clear or even logical. And while Pavlov may have been able to get a dog to drool at the sound of a bell, that hasn’t led to any sure fire way for you to make people convert on your website at your command. Consumers don’t buy at the sound of a bell or even the sound of a click either. They may see an ad online and then wait days or weeks before actually buying. Paid clicks and ads may have a lag time until actual conversion, but that doesn’t mean they didn’t get you a sale.... read more

For years, developers and service providers have worked to provide more and more ways for marketers to track their online marketing budgets. This has built a reputation for online marketing as being very measurable compared to more traditional channels. However, when it comes to integrating paid search and display campaigns, you might be surprised to hear that according to a report from Efficient Frontier and Forrester Consulting, 59% are using spreadsheets to track results. That doesn’t have a really “high tech” ring to it in this day and age, now does it?... read more

Lorie Weiman wrote a nice post recently for Search Engine Land where she offers some tips on using search for branding. As she points out in her post, branding is not something you think of when you consider search. Mostly it’s used to drive traffic and conversion. However, she makes some excellent points on how you can use search for product branding. This post is based on Lorie’s and I added some tips.... read more

Clement Grygier recently wrote an interesting post on the Influenceon website, a community built with Ning for specialists in the fields of online reputation, social media monitoring and community management.

Brygier sums up a whole list of reasons that show that Google could become a player in the field of online conversation monitoring.... read more