Although Yahoo and Microsoft experienced small gains of just under a quarter of a percent, Google appears to be the horse too far out in front to catch. Performing well in each of the top three search engines’ sites is definitely your all round best approach. Depending on your specific target audience groups and where you find they are conducting their searches – Google, Yahoo or Bing – you may find that one engine performs better for you than the others.

Market research is the only way to determine which engine provides you with the greatest returns. This is an important consideration particularly if you are investing in pay per click search engine marketing. These campaigns can quickly eat up your budget if they are not reaching the right people and getting them to respond. If you elect to run a single campaign in a single engine, your best bet is probably Google, considering its market share of 11.6 billion searches. But you may find that the initial investment to conduct the market research so you know for sure where your greatest opportunities lie saves you money in the long run.

Search engine use is still a big part of the user experience. Optimizing for effectiveness in both organic search and paid search engine marketing programs ensures you manage your investment properly as you set the stage for achieving your branding, lead generating, or sales goals. Even if your target audience represents less than 0.01% of the total 18 billion monthly searches, you still have the opportunity to get the attention and response from a healthy portion of those potential 180 million targets. The challenge is to do your homework and optimize so the numbers work in your favor. Follow the example of the search market leader. Google continues to do its homework and month over month it comes out way ahead of the competition.

Chances are you are not the only company out there that sells the types of products and services you offer. And you may not be the only company that sells products from a specific manufacturer. Or you may be competing with companies who sell comparable products and solutions from other manufacturers. In short, you have competitors. And the only collateral you have to convince your targeted online audience groups to choose you and your solution over your competitors is your online web content, particularly that which appears on your website.

So the first step is to add content development to your website design/re-design budget. How much you need to add to your budget depends on a few factors:

• Do you have existing content that can be cost effectively re-worked? I say ‘cost-effectively’ because sometimes existing content is so poor that it would be faster to start from scratch than to try to fix badly written copy or digital images and document attachments of poor quality.
• Are you completely lacking in content and in need of everything including compelling, search engine optimized sales and marketing copy, case studies or white papers, digital images, and/or digital attachments?
• Does our branding need to be updated to a 21^st century look and feel?
• How much research will be required to develop your content? Is it easy for you to assemble the source materials and present them in a usable format to your content development team? Can the content writer get what she needs from you during a conference call with you and your team?
• Do you need to purchase digital images or have digital images taken by a professional photographer?
• Would you benefit from video development? Or do you have videos that require editing or accompanying text?
• Are you willing to invest in the long term benefits of search engine optimization? Content that is easily and accurately indexed and delivered in organic search results by the search engines, particularly Google, opens up all kinds of opportunities for business development like expanding your brand reach and recognition, lead generation, and sales.

There is a lot to consider because web content includes:

• Copy (sales and marketing text, all informational text, strategic calls to action, online forms)
• Images (photos, illustrations, graphical designs, CAD drawings, etc.)
• Branding (logos, graphical design)
• Document Attachments (case studies, white papers, downloadable brochures, sell sheets, pricing, MSDS, etc.)
• Videos
• Audio
• Hyperlinks (clickable links that provide access to your web content)

The important thing to remember is that your targeted site visitors are there to interact with your web content because they have an expectation to fulfill: to find and generally acquire what they are looking for. The relevance and quality of your web content impacts what they will do next – click away or engage further. If you fear or loath the thought of web content development speak with a professional – not your shrink but a web content development specialist!

I invite you to read a great blog post by Ron Jones for ClickZ on Web Content Development 101 for some ideas to get you thinking accurately about your web content.

If you’re ready to speak with a professional, give Industrial Web Solutions a call at (800) 399-9859.

Although 14 manufacturing industries reported growth in February, including Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Petroleum & Coal Products; Transportation Equipment; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Machinery; Chemical Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Computer & Electronic Products; Textile Mills; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Paper Products; Wood Products; and Miscellaneous Manufacturing, the continued weak dollar is being blamed for the high cost of components and raw materials, particularly those obtained overseas. Representatives from Transportation Equipment stated “It is going to force us to increase our selling prices to our customers.” A similar statement was made by representatives from Chemical Products: “We continue to see significant inflation across nearly every type of chemical raw material we purchase.”  Nonmetallic Mineral Products, which is one of the 4 industries to experience contraction last month, along with Plastics & Rubber Products; Primary Metals; and Furniture & Related Products, stated, “Prices continue to rise, while business limps along at last year’s pace.” Plastics and Rubber reported, “Overall demand is off 10 percent.”

While the weak dollar has adversely affected the purchase of components and raw materials overseas it has had a positive impact on exports, which experienced a growth percentage point change of +0.5% with a PMI of 62.5%. Right alongside that of the overall economy, exports have experienced continued month-over-month growth at a faster rate of change for the past twenty months. Both Production and New Orders are up as well. Production experienced an increase of 2.8 percentage points from the January reading of 63.5%, registering a Production Index of 66.3% and continued growth for the 21^st consecutive month. Demonstrating a 20 month growth trend at a faster rate of change, New Orders were up 0.2 percentage points from January.  Thirteen industries reported growth in New Orders, including Apparel, Leather & Allied Products; Petroleum & Coal Products; Electrical Equipment, Appliances & Components; Wood Products; Printing & Related Support Activities; Machinery; Transportation Equipment; Chemical Products; Paper Products; Fabricated Metal Products; Food, Beverage & Tobacco Products; Computer & Electronic Products; and Miscellaneous Manufacturing, while Primary Metals; Nonmetallic Mineral Products; Furniture & Related Products; and Plastics & Rubber Products reported decreases.

Despite a +0.5 percentage point rise in Prices, and increases for the past 20 months at a faster rate of change, manufacturing and the overall economy continue to expand. And that is good news. Companies are challenged to find cost saving ways to attract new business to offset any decreases in orders from existing customers that may occur as a result of rising Prices. To manage marketing budgets set aside for new business development, industrial marketers must consider the changing landscape of search, social media, and lead/sales generation that occurs online and offline. Content presented on blogs, websites, text ads, emails, industrial directories, map sites, search engines, relevant 3^rd party sites, Twitter, Facebook and other social media websites, as well as all direct mail letters and brochures, must be current and highly focused on the specific interests of your target audience groups. Market research may need to be done to understand those interests and to uncover the specific language used by your target audiences to search for what you offer. Through careful research, planning, and implementation budgets can be intelligently and carefully managed to nurture leads, sales, and overall business growth, particularly as you strategize to offset the impact of increased prices.

For help with your marketing research, planning, creation and implementation speak with an Industrial Web Solutions marketing expert. Call (800) 399-9859.

By regarding the tool much like the professional networking site LinkedIn, the idea is to establish an account that identifies you with your company. First of all, as always with Google products, you must have a Google Account (Gmail address) to open a Google Profiles account. If you have a personal Gmail account perhaps you would prefer to establish a new account that is used exclusively for this purpose.

At the top of the profile there is a space to add 10 words that describe you best. Here’s where you put good old fashioned search engine optimization (SEO) to work for you. Select keywords that will identify you and your role with your company. For example, “CNC Machining Expert.” Add some photos of you in your factory where you are using or at least standing near a CNC machine in operation. Keep your Introduction personal but make sure you use your keywords again: “Since 1985 I have been running my own CNC machining shop in Corning, NY, where I live with my family.” You can use Bragging Rights to identify your professional successes: manage 50 employees, ‘Supplier of the Year.’ Occupation, Employment and Education are pretty straight forward but try to include your keywords.

If you look over to the right you will see Links. If you use other Google services such as the online photo album Picasa Web, it will be associated automatically as long as you are using the same Gmail account. If you haven’t opened a Twitter account, now is a good time to do so. You will be able to add a link to your Twitter account here as well. You will also be able to add Custom Links such as a link to your profile page on your website, or to your business if it can be identified as ‘About You.’ If it is not about you it may be removed. Once you add the Custom Link you will have to check a box that says: This Page is Specifically About Me.

At the bottom of the page you will find Profile URL. Here you will be able to select the url that contains your Gmail account name instead of the long impersonal numerical identifier. Lastly, I would like to mention how you can use Buzz, which is another Google social networking tool like Twitter. You can establish your Buzz account within your Gmail account. Look to the left for a link and click on it. Once it is established, it will be automatically associated with your Google Profiles account. You may wish to encourage your customers to join Buzz as well and use it as a way for them to post questions about things for which you are the expert within your company. Begin to establish your authority online for the type of content offered by your company in the areas you can strongly and consistently represent.

Remember that Google Profiles is a social networking site not specifically designed for business. So absolutely do not “sell” or “market.” Instead you are going to use it to “identify” who you are and your area of expertise. Respect the way in which Google wants this service to be understood and you will be able to benefit from the publicity it affords.

• Attracting buyers interested in the products and services, or information and programs, you offer

• Establishing your online authority among users and the search engines for the content related to what you offer

• Helping to keep your online content focused and highly targeted

• Managing the effectiveness of your pay per click campaigns

• Building your online audiences on your social media sites

• Attracting media to your news stories

• Enhancing the effectiveness of your online directory listings such as Google Places and any industrial directories you list with

• Disseminating information related to the new products and services, or information and programs, you are promoting

• and more.

Conducting research to uncover the best keywords and phrases for your purposes is not an easy task. The first thing you need to do is establish whom you are targeting and how they think of what you offer. This may sound simple but I am always surprised at the steps that are often overlooked. Many businesses incorrectly assume they know the language used by their existing and potential customers to refer to what they offer and they use only these assumptions. For example, your firm may have a particular way of referring to your product or service that is not yet shared by those who would benefit from it. You may refer to your product by its brand name such as the ‘MachDuster;’ however, your targeted buyers may search for it by the result it achieves for them such as: remove dust from cnc machine. (Hopefully I have just made this up and am not infringing on anyone’s copyrighted brand!)

The point is you can use your assumptions as a starting point but your list should also include such things as:

• All possible applications

• Industries served

• Similar products/services it may be mistaken for

• Competing brand names

• Geo-targeted locations

If you’re building a keyword list for use in a pay per click campaign you will also want to include words that could negatively affect your results and your budget. Make a separate list of ‘negative’ keywords that includes such things as:

• Terms that are too broad such as ‘waterproof’ (could include waterproof mattress as well as waterproof foundation)

• Acronyms like DAS (which could mean Distributed Antenna System, Dependable Auto Shippers, and even Departmento Administrativo de Seguridad – you get the picture!)

• Locales not relevant to your business such as ‘sandblasting pa’ if you only serve Connecticut

• Products/services that are spelled similarly to yours but are not relevant

The point is to be aware of keywords that can adversely affect your lead or sales generating results while eating away at your campaign’s budget. Pay per click campaigns can get expensive very quickly if the keyword list is not managed properly. For more information about keyword building for search engine marketing campaigns read Julie Batten’s ClickZ article.

Rule of thumb for building your keyword lists: start with your assumptions but do the required research that uncovers the full range of keyword and phrase possibilities that accurately and effectively identify what you are offering and whom you are targeting. Know where and how you are going to use these lists – your website, ad copy for your search engine marketing pay per click campaigns, alt text for your images, anchor text for your hyperlinks, title tags, content you create for use off-site on social media, news sites, and relevant third-party websites, etc. – then use them to strategically develop your content for maximum results.