eTip Turns Five

Campaign

Five years ago today, Starmark began posting eTips, our research and recommendations for today’s marketer. Three books and 153 eTips later, we wanted to look back at our original five posts and see how our ideas have held up over time.

eTip #1: Create a blog, it’s not for everyone, but it may be perfect for you

Still current: Search engines love blogs, with their fresh content and keyword-rich copy. Blogs are also great platforms to give your company a voice independent of media coverage and past reputation issues.

eTip #2: Keyword-rich press releases, and why they are important

Mostly current: Using the right keywords can help push your press release towards the top of search results. But don’t get carried away: Google is now penalizing optimized anchor text in press releases and is on the lookout for keyword stuffing.

eTip #3: Long tail keywords: a smart SEM strategy

Still current: Your URL is a key factor in Google rankings. Long tail keywords bring less traffic, but the visitors that find you have a very high conversion rate.

eTip #4: Anchor Text: Link building done right

Outdated: Google is working hard to stop people from gaming their system. Nowadays, it’s possible that Google not only ignores anchor text, but also actively penalizes their use. At a minimum, webmasters should vary the anchor text they use with brand names and naked URLs. In 2013, we posted eTip 124 to update our recommendations for SEO.

eTip #5: Track ROI across all channels (online and offline)

Still current: Regardless of the technology, it is important to track Return on Investment. Any serious and successful marketing campaign requires close study of analytics to determine which tactics are working and which aren’t. Starmark’s philosophy for any marketing plan is that it must be trackable, measurable, and actionable.