If, like most Alberta business owners and marketing managers, you’re on the wiser side of 30 years old, you probably remember Bob from Sesame Street singing about the people in your neighborhood. From the policeman to the dentist, his songs introduced you to everyone you could expect to see in the real world around you, and the list was always growing.

I think back to those songs at times, especially when I’m explaining the Internet, social media, and online marketing. In fact, I like to bring up Bob in my speeches and presentations. I have two good reasons for doing this. For one thing, whether I’m speaking to authorities in the Alberta provincial government or a group of entrepreneurs in Edmonton, almost everyone seems to remember Bob and what it’s like to meet “a person in your neighborhood.” And on the other hand, it’s a great analogy for the way the Internet has grown.

In its earliest days, the World Wide Web was mostly populated with a handful of young geeks who understood the basics of HTML code. In a relatively short amount of time, however, programmers started to appear as well, and then web designers who made pages more visually appealing, followed by coders who came up with custom apps and languages. The Internet just kept growing and growing – more and more people moved into the neighborhood – until we reach the point where we have search engine optimization specialists, social media advisers, online marketing gurus, community managers, and a lot more.

As the neighborhood has gotten bigger it has become more important than ever for the owners and managers of Canadian companies to know how these different types of professionals can help them grow their organizations and compete online. Just as we have reached a point where we realize the value that comes with having the right accountant, lawyer, or IT professional, having the right online marketing team on your side isn’t a luxury… it’s just good business.

The Internet has grown in complexity to the point where it’s difficult for any business owner, manager, or executive to know everything they need to master the subject. Luckily, you don’t have to – you just have to know who the right people in your neighborhood are.

Want to learn more about Internet marketing professionals, or have David come speak to your group? Get in touch with us today to talk about your event or business situation.

If you read medical news, or happen to have high cholesterol, then you may have already seen that new tests show that the popular drug Lipitor doesn’t just improve heart health, but may also prevent other kinds of diseases, too. In other words, it doesn’t just do what it’s supposed to, but brings other positive side effects along for the ride.

Within the medical industry, these other good things that happen are called “legacy effects.” They are great if you or someone you know takes Lipitor… but what does it have to do with online marketing?

Probably more than you realize. That’s because anything you do online – from search engine optimization to social media marketing and online newsletters – tends to help everything else you do as well. In other words, if you do something that helps you attract visitors or convert customers well enough in one area, it’s likely to help you in another, too.

Here are a few quick examples, and how you can put them to use in your business:

A good SEO plan can make PPC advertising cheaper. That’s because the major search engines like Google place “quality scores” on your pages. So, the higher they rank naturally, the less you are likely to pay for sponsored traffic to your site.

Social media marketing helps SEO. With the return of real-time search results, Google and the other engines are factoring social content more heavily into their search results. So, the more you post to Facebook and Twitter, the more traffic you can receive from other sources.

Maintaining a high-quality online newsletter makes the rest of your site more profitable. That’s because you don’t just get traffic from people clicking through from your newsletter; you also get exposure from others who have been forwarded your articles, or search engines that have indexed some of your content.

The point is that a good online marketing plan is like a strong medicine. Even if you’ve instituted it to achieve one specific goal, if you handle things well enough, you’re likely to get other side benefits, as well. So, the sooner you get started, the sooner you can watch the rest of your website and company grow.

In one of its strongest anti-copying measures to date, Google is now letting users directly report websites that “scrape” content from other sources. In other words, if you catch someone copying from you, you can now raise your hand and tell the teacher.

Of course, duplicate content has been an issue for some time, but the world’s largest search engine has never had an automated system that allows business owners and webmasters to point out violators on their own. This is a great step forward for honest online marketers, and just one more reminder that it’s never, ever a good idea to copy content from a competitor.

Here are three quick implications from Google’s new scraper policy:

Don’t try to copy content. Yes, we said this already, but it’s worth mentioning again. Even if you copy content from someone else’s site and change it slightly, you are likely to be caught. And if you are, there is a better than decent chance that you will be banned from Google, which could do damage to your online business that can never be undone.

And besides, who wants to copy content anyway? Your company isn’t just like anyone else’s, so the text and images on your pages should show what’s unique about your business, and why customers want to do business with you.

Protect your own content. The crux of this issue, from Google’s standpoint, has been that certain marketing websites with “scraped” content were ranking higher than the sites that had originally created it. While that’s likely to decrease now, the fact of the matter remains that there are companies out there that would like to steal what you have, so make sure you are working with a business web designer who can protect what’s on your pages.

Keep fresh content coming on to your business site. In a larger sense, this policy reflects the growing importance that Google and the other major search engines are putting on fresh content and articles. They’ve always mattered, but going forward they will likely influence search engine rankings even more. So, if you can squeeze out one blog post a week, and regular social updates – or get social media done for you – the time to get started is now.