Archive for the ‘Sweet Spot Marketing’ Category

Sweet Spot Marketing Press Release: 2011 Year In Review

December 29th, 2011

Sweet Spot Marketing, a Kansas City Search Engine Marketing Agency specializing in Search Engine Optimization and Paid Search Advertising, is pleased to present this review of its progress during 2011.

Founded in 2007, Sweet Spot Marketing has served both small businesses and advertising agencies alike, as providers of a variety of Search Engine Marketing programs, including Search Engine Optimization (SEO), Paid Search Advertising (also known as PPC or Pay-Per-Click programs), Web Design services and more. In 2011, Sweet Spot Marketing celebrated its 4th year in business with record revenues, added staff and service expansions.

“As a company, we went into 2011 knowing that the economy was still feeling a significant amount of pressure,” said David Barnes, Founder and President of Sweet Spot Marketing. “But at the same time, we saw a number of opportunities to grow our business and service offerings. There was a need for new marketing strategies designed to reach end-customers through mobile, social and emerging media platforms. It was a great effort by the team, and we demonstrated our eagerness and drive by doubling our staff and growing our core competencies.

“From an employee perspective, I can’t speak highly enough of our team at Sweet Spot. Each of our team members is a student of the game. They understand the importance of learning, innovating and evolving. We’re a great team, stronger than we’ve ever been, and I’m pleased to report that revenues were up in every one of our service areas and we’ve maintained an 87% customer retention rate in 2011. Though it’s great to say that Sweet Spot has doubled its revenues over the last twelve months, I’m happiest to report on our high customer retention percentage.”

Over the 2011 year, Sweet Spot Marketing has accomplished the following:

  • Total revenues doubled from the same period last year, with an 800% total growth in revenues from 2008
  • Revenues from agency partners grown by 50%
  • Staff members doubled, with key additions in development, sales, paid search (PPC), search engine optimization (SEO), and content development
  • SEO and PPC Team attended Search Marketing Expo (SMX East)
  • Development team attended Google’s API conference in New York
  • David Barnes completed the 2010 PIPELINE Entrepreneurial Fellowship Program as one of only ten selected business leaders chosen to participate in the year-long project
  • Office space grown by 40%, with a likelihood that the company will outgrow current space by mid 2012
  • Became one of the fastest growing Search Marketing companies in U.S., based on year-to-year revenues

“Going into 2012, we have some great stuff to announce, including more services and new partnerships,” said Barnes. “From the ten-thousand foot level, we can tell that the industry is going to experience a number of changes in traditional search engine marketing. Sweet Spot is ready to meet the challenge.”

To close the year, Sweet Spot Marketing would like to thank its employees, clients and business partners for their support and wish everyone a happy holiday season.

About Sweet Spot Marketing:
The service offerings at Sweet Spot Marketing allow their clients and agency partners to customize a variety of web marketing solutions to any specific need. The marketing team and paid search account managers at Sweet Spot Marketing know the intricacies of the search marketing business and how to maximize client budgets and returns.

The Sweet Spot Marketing offices are located near 67th and Antioch Road in the heart of Merriam, Kansas. Visit SweetSpotMarketing.com for more information or call (800) 323-5441 to reach Sweet Spot Marketing directly.

Posted in Sweet Spot Marketing | No Comments

Sweet Spot Marketing Launches Mobile Site Just in Time for New Googlebot-Mobile

December 26th, 2011

On December 15th Google made it official: It’s time to get a mobile version of your site built. There’s a new version of the Google crawler in town and its name is “Smartphone Googlebot-Mobile.”

Note: To clear up any confusion, it should be stated that Google has employed a feature phone user-agent in its mobile crawler for years. The new version of the Smartphone Googlebot-Mobile includes a user agent that’s specific to smartphones (rather than lower-end feature phones) and its primary function is to search out smartphone-related content.

The reason? There has been a huge spike in smartphone-based content since smartphones began to really take off after Apple introduced the first generation iPhone in 2007 (yes, smartphones in the U.S. had been around for years before the iPhone, but let’s face it – users and developers alike went smartphone crazy after the iPhone hit the streets).

As part of the release statement, Google said that the new development was meant “to increase our coverage of smartphone content and to provide a better search experience for smartphone users. The content crawled by smartphone Googlebot-Mobile will be used primarily to improve the user experience on mobile search. For example, the new crawler may discover content specifically optimized to be browsed on smartphones as well as smartphone-specific redirects.”

So why does this mean you need a mobile version of your website? Simple math: At present, there are over 300 million mobile phones in active service in the U.S. and in the last handful of months a whopping 55% percent of those who purchased mobile phones bought a smartphone. And what do all these people do with their smartphones? Well, results from research have shown that people spend about half their time communicating through calls, text messages and e-mail (no surprise there). But the other most-common smartphone activity was browsing the internet. And if you’ve ever seen a non-scalable webpage on a mobile device (especially one that makes use of the Flash platform), it’s not a great experience.

So, go mobile with your web, right? Right? Given that smartphone use will continue to increase in the U.S. until the next great leap in technology, yes, go mobile. The new smartphone user agent shows that Google has already taken measures to ensure that smartphone web content is captured, cataloged and delivered.

The point here is that your next client prospect may very well find you via a smartphone. You can easily compare the advent of mobile-specific search to the dawn of web search itself. We, the Internet Generation, live in a technological age where businesses that cannot be found on the web are not going to be in business for very long. As technology has placed computing power in the palm of our hands (rather than across the entirety of our desktops), it’s a natural step for us to take our search for information off the desktop.

As stated before, many existing websites don’t display well on smartphones unless they have been developed or optimized for mobile platforms. And it’s easy to see that there is a huge potential for lost business and revenues as customer prospects performing mobile search queries become dissatisfied with trying to find the product or service information they need on a non-optimized site. Poor user experience won’t generate new customers – in fact, it may also alienate existing customers.

Two takeaway items to remember:

  1. Mobile users have unique needs.
  2. Businesses need mobile in order to be successful in their marketplace.

Fortunately, Sweet Spot Marketing has just launched a mobile marketing page to assist businesses with a range of mobile marketing services – including text messaging, multimedia messaging, social networking, e-mail messaging, mobile app development and more.

Contact Sweet Spot Marketing today and ask about Mobile Design, Mobile Search Engine Optimization, Text Message Marketing, Mobile Advertising, and Mobile App Development to keep your business headed in the right direction.

Posted in Google, Mobile Marketing, Sweet Spot Marketing, Web Design | No Comments

Outsourcing SEM – What to Know About Search Engine Marketing

October 19th, 2011

The “if you build it…” approach doesn’t translate well to the internet. 

Anyone who has seen the film Field of Dreams  has heard a variation of the phrase “if you build it, they will come.” Many of you are already nodding your heads, remembering the scene where novice farmer Ray Kinsella first hears the voice whispering to him on a walk across his Iowa farmland. It’s one of the most memorable scenes in film history. Given that baseball is one of the great American pastimes, one can easily expect that a freshly-built baseball field in rural Iowa would indeed drawn fans and players of the game from all over the county. But as with most fantasy conceptions, the “if you build it…” approach doesn’t translate well to our reality. This is never truer than with websites. Merely building it doesn’t quite do the job. Successful websites – as well as web-based or web-driven businesses – require marketing. In this capacity, we are talking specifically about search marketing.

Search engine marketing (SEM) is a field of service that traditionally includes search engine optimization (SEO), paid search advertising (PPC), and search-engine-friendly web development. These services help businesses  (and in many cases, web designers and agency partners) leverage the power of search engines to generate exposure, visibility, and brand awareness for their websites and their business.

Developing a comprehensive and highly-effective SEM program is no small task. A truly effective SEM program requires the coordinated, unified effort of search marketing experts with numerous competencies. Many business owners and agencies therefore feel more comfortable hiring an experienced, qualified agency to manage the little details.

What you need to know about outsourcing your SEM:

1. It’s cost effective: By outsourcing your SEM program, your company or agency does not need to employ specialized staff or budget for those associated “internal” costs. Big win for you or your agency.

2. It’s detail-oriented: A professional SEM agency should provide a direct contact that operates as your SEM and web advertising consultant. This individual is ready to help you at all times. They advise you on SEM strategies that are tailor-fit to your needs and business goals. They manage your campaigns, as well as prepare and distribute your monthly reports.

3. It’s a mission-critical decision: Whether you’re a business owner trying to grow your business and your brand or an advertising agency looking for SEM vendor support, selecting an outside SEM provider is an extremely important decision. Search ranking equals revenues. When you look at the worldwide search queries (from comScore qSearch 2009, below), you can easily see that the search market is so large and so fluid that it’s no effort at all to understand that there is a level of complexity to any effective SEM program. The search market demands competence. The right SEM program (and SEM vendor) affects your ability to compete in the market. Search is therefore mission-critical.

  • Google: 88 billion search queries per month
  • Twitter: 19 billion search queries per month
  • Yahoo: 9.4 billion search queries per month
  • Bing: 4.1 billion search queries per month

4. Search affects your bottom line: Executed correctly, search marketing pays for itself and adds dollars to your bottom line. Effective search marketing yields high conversion rates and a return on investment – if you get it right. The argument for outsourcing your SEM program is supported by the knowledge that the continual changes to the search engine algorithms are incredibly complex. As such, SEM tactics become more sophisticated and detailed every quarter.

In the end, the best in the business bring the right mix of analytics and interpretation to the job. Top SEM providers – like those at Sweet Spot Marketing – provide a nose-to-the-grindstone service that is tailored for maximum effectiveness. They help stakeholders cut through the jargon and the buzzwords and develop a customized strategy that meets business goals. Lastly, your SEM provider should always provide the information your business or client needs to make informed decisions and minimize operational costs.

Tags: search marketing, SEM
Posted in PPC, SEO, Sweet Spot Marketing | No Comments

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