In This Issue Update from Brian Cleveland Get Found with Aha!Local Marketing in a Down Economy Your SEO Sucks If . . . Client Success Story Upcoming  Events Winning Media Strategies 2009 Washington, DC May 20-22 and.... Seattle June 2-3 more info   SMX Advanced June 2-3 more info   SES, Toronto June 8-10 more info Our Services Parallel Path Internet Marketing is proud to offer a full line of online marketing services to meet your company goals: Search Engine Optimization Pay-Per-Click/Paid Search Advertising Landing Page Optimization Affiliate Program Management Flash Animations Banner Ad Creation Campaign Management Online Media Buying, Negotiation, & Placement Blog Seeding & Management Social Media Management (Facebook, MySpace, Linkedin and others) A Message From Brian Cleveland, CEO In this tortuous economy, your marketing is more important than ever for finding new customers and keeping your brand fresh.  In this issue, we give you some great tips and ideas on how to get the most out of your efforts.  Enjoy! Brian Cleveland, CEO PP Get Found with Aha!Local Tracy Earles, VP of Marketing Does your business rely on local customers? Are you in retail, home services, medical, hospitality, or other local services? There are a variety of tools available to local businesses to reach out to potential customers, such as: · Yellow Pages advertising · Newspaper advertising · Website · Search engines, Internet Yellow Pages, and online local directories · Coupons · Direct mail · Local radio and TV · Billboards   Most of these tools are used to push your message out to prospects, but purchases are only made when the prospect is ready to buy. Only two of these are useful for providing information to prospects at the moment they're ready to buy: the Yellow Pages directory, and its modern replacements; online directories and search engines. Online tools are quickly replacing the printed Yellow Pages to help prospects find businesses. In fact, the printed Yellow and White Pages have only a 30% share of local searches, and that percentage is falling (source: Webpro News). It seems clear - to reach prospects when they're searching, all that local businesses need to do is deliver their information to these Internet sites, right? Well, it's not that simple. read more Marketing in a Down Economy with Google Website Optimizer Bryan Connally, Internet Marketing Specialist Most marketers and business leaders these days have a similar set of questions on their mind. The majority of these questions revolve around how to most successfully market their products and services in the current economic downturn.  For marketers that use online channels to accomplish anything from e-commerce sales to lead generation, there is a powerful tool that can help not only maximize results, but also minimize both cost and time.  This tool, called Website Optimizer, is Google's free website testing and optimization tool. Website Optimizer is a robust A/B and multivariate testing application that enables webmasters and marketers to increase the overall performance of their websites through the systematic testing of any element that exists in HTML code on a particular webpage. This can include calls to action, sales copy, testimonials, fonts, headlines, point of action assurances, product copy, product images, product reviews, forms, or anything else that your team thinks is worth testing. read more Your SEO Sucks If . . . Dan Kennedy, SEO Specialist While it's sometimes difficult to spot quality SEO work, sub-par efforts can alienate your visitors or even get your site banned from the engines.  We've seen our fair share of terrible attempts at SEO and wanted to share a list of signs your SEO just plain sucks.... If the only email inquiries your lead-form generates are from Nigerian Royalty. If your Google Analytics reports have more goose eggs than Metzer Farms. If the #1 keyword you're targeting is 'gifts' (a broad, 1-word phrase). If your keyword tag is 5,420 characters long. If your homepage has more Flash than last year's Mardi Gras parade. If the only back link you've secured is from your wife's Facebook entry. If your PageRank looks like this:         OR: If your Google PageRank bar has more grey than Barbara Bush. If your footer has more content stuffed into it than an Ambien warning label. If the last piece of fresh content you wrote was typed out on your brand new Apple IIe. If your URL's are as easy to read as Mandarin: http://www.diapers.com/Product/SubCategory.aspx?CategoryId=50&CategoryName=Moms+%26+Maternity&SubCategoryId=312&SubCategoryName=Maternity+Clothes&QueryFrom=SUBCATEGORY When the title tag on every page of your site reads "Your Company". If you're stuffing keywords into the Alt tag of your animated 'Under Construction' GIF. If you Google your company name and your direct competitors are ahead of you. If you Google your first and last name and direct competitors are ahead of you. If you Google your kids' names and your direct competitors are ahead of you. If you Google your dog's name...... you get the point. Client Success Story We welcome your feedback!  Please email wdevine@parallelpath.com with comments or suggestions.