Marketing

It takes more than customer service to build a great relationship with your clients. A great product, solid support and the perfect price all help to make a product or service a success. For many companies, it is Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software that allows them to bring it all together.

In fact the full benefits from integrating CRM software with your business are not just limited to managing your clients more effectively. CRM software can help businesses manage costs, staff resources and compete against larger or more established businesses.

This week Google has released more options for managing your own personal account as well as new ways to promote your site in Adwords. Pinterest's business model has become a lot clearer and Google's official blog gives us some insight into what was happening in search this Valentine's Day.

Social media is the theme this week with the dominant company in this space finally entering the open market with a long anticipated IPO. Google has also announced new policies across most of their products and Microsoft has responded with an ad campaign promoting their own products. Even with all this activity from established online brands, the emerging social network Pinterest has started to get attention from the online marketing media.

What is in Google's $37.9 Billion in 2011 Revenues?

Google released a 'disappointing' earnings announcement with a revenue figure of $37.9 Billion. The biggest contributors to Google during 2011 can be found in the finance and insurance, retailers and general merchandise, travel and tourism and jobs and education industries. Even in the current economic climate, many businesses are still finding the money to advertise in paid search.

We all know that space at the top of the blended search results is massively at a premium.  Therefore as a result anything you can do to either improve your ranking or increase your listing's footprint in the search engine results has a benefit. Google's blended results has already given businesses another shot at a front page listing through Google Places, YouTube and image search results appearing with their standard ten blue links. Linking your fans and customers to your Google+ page is another chance to rank well in search.

The big news this week was Google's announcement of closer integration of Google+ with their main search. The search giant will incorporate more Google+ content in search based on who you are connected with, what they have shared and what you have uploaded yourself.

Google mixing search with their social network promises to change how businesses approach search optimisation. Building social connections through Google+ will now have a real benifit in organic search, and is an important part of any online marketing strategy.

The year is coming to an end and Christmas is just a few days away. Before all of us from Aspedia go on holidays, we would like to thank all of our excellent clients. We have had a great year working with them to produce innovative websites and comprehensive digital marketing strategies to meet and exceed their goals.

This year's last weekly round up post is almost all about social. Facebook have made more changes to their mobile apps and Timeline is now available for all. Google+ is bringing Business pages up to speed, and Google has improved their support for Places over 2011.

Local search is a vital channel for business with Google Places an important part of any local search strategy. This week's round has Google linking Google Place check-ins to offers, SEO the marketing channel of choice for small and medium businesses, engaging with customers with email and 10 million Australians now using smartphones.

Social media and search dominated this week's roundup, with Facebook launching the Timeline, starting in New Zealand, Twitter's recently announced business profiles and Google releasing their top search terms for 2011.