Impact Media's SEO Blog

Blogging is now a vital part of any online marketing strategy. But blogs are not just about making an impact with what you write there, it’s very important to accompany the text with a powerful visual style and interactive functions for the reader.

A blog theme demonstrates your authority and reveals your personality. A professional-looking theme gives the visitor a great first impression and helps your words to carry the authority that you intended. A weak, untidy looking blog tends to make the reader feel that the material might not be accurate or authentic. When you choose a good theme, people can see that you care and value their opinion of your blog. If you’ve taken the time to make the site look good for visitors, they know you’re investing time in them.

Visual Impact
There are some awful, ugly themes available for free and some scary looking premium themes ones too. You need to match the theme to the style of your blog. There’s no point having a theme that doesn’t suit the type of blog you write, or the product or service that you are promoting. If you’re unsure, ask other people, most people have a good opinion about what they don’t like!

Widgets
WordPress uses widgets to help you control what appears on the sidebar without having to edit the code of your theme. The trouble is that not all WordPress themes support widgets, so make sure you check before you select your theme.

Newsletter
The best WordPress themes have built-in Newsletter functionality. This means that there is an involvement device on the main page of the blog that allows visitors to join up and receive your regular newsletter. If it’s a good theme, it will support the entire process from sign up to newsletter delivery.

Browsers
Not all WordPress themes work with all browsers. If you’re blog visitors are using Safari or Opera, they may be prevented from reading your words by poorly constructed themes. Don’t pick a theme that limits the type of visitors your blog receives.

Search
You’d presume that a search tool was standard on all blogs, but there are still plenty without one. Make sure your theme has a search tool so people can find the content they came to your blog looking for.

Video
Of course, there are people that need video function built into the blog. It’s possible to post embedded YouTube clips directly into a blog, but it doesn’t make the same impression as built-in video. Until recently, there were very few free themes that incorporated video. We set out to change that with our free WordPress Video Theme. This provides professional looking video functionality in a free theme.

When you’re deciding on a WordPress Theme for your blog, remember the impact you make on your visitors is important to the success of your blog. Some themes are free, some you need to buy, but ensure that they tick all the boxes before you choose either.

On the Internet, the written word has always dominated.  Whilst a picture may be worth a thousand words, the word holds pride of place in online marketing and advertising.  However, since the development of fully proliferated wireless access and high performance video technology integrated within the World Wide Web, the power of Video has really come into its own and it’s already becoming a multi-billion pound phenomenon across the globe.

The obvious example of the explosion of video on the Internet is from YouTube.   The most popular video site on the Internet is owned and run by Google, the most powerful search engine company on the planet.  If you want to advertise with a video on the front page of YouTube for a day, it will currently cost you a minimum of £25,000.  Cheap enough if you’ve got that kind of budget.  But what if you haven’t?

Internet analyst David Hallerman suggests that while Paid Search is very effective for direct marketing, nothing grabs the surfer’s ‘heart and mind’ like video advertisements.

Video Advertising is now considered an excellent choice if you want to drive brand awareness and sales.  Research has shown that web users have higher levels of interaction with video than they do with traditional online image ads.  The average surfer will click ‘Play’ on a video far more easily than committing to the click on a Paid Search ad.

Google have recently brought together the idea of PPC (Pay per Click) with Video Advertising in attempt to make the most of these rapid changes in the online advertising market.   Like their PPC campaigns, marketers bid the maximum that they would pay per CPM (Cost per 1000 impressions).  Google claim to offer a guarantee against overpaying by reducing the cost you actually pay to one cent more than the nearest next bid.

There are alternatives to the YouTube/Google monopoly, if you want to use Video Advertising as part of your marketing campaign.  Many video advertisers charge via CPM.  This type of advertising has exploded in the US, where sites such as MySpace offer a short 5 second video display at a cost of $25 per CPM.  At the other end scale, the Wall Street Journal charges $90 per CPM.

In the UK, local search site SCOOT already offers video advertising deals.  By building on their relationship with media group ITV, they offer localised video ads around online television programming.  With SCOOT, 25,000 plays is just £500.  Other companies offer more bespoke services and are therefore reticent to publish prices.

Recently, the Guardian predicted that by 2009, Internet Video advertising would outspend traditional television advertising for the first time.  By 2012, it’s considered that £361 million will be spent on Internet Video advertising in the UK alone.

By 2009, to actively compete in the global marketplace, Video Advertising is an area of your online marketing campaign that you simply must factor into your budget.  Whilst the costs are currently high with the most obvious main providers like YouTube, more cost effective video advertising services are being made available from smaller sources all the time.

If you can see video forming part of your marketing stratagy, take a look at our Video Marketing Services to evaluate whether we can help you.