Page rank changes for June 2009 left unchanged 58 percent of the 165 dofollow blogs that I follow. But 40 or 24 percent lost Page rank while another 29 or 18 percent gained Page rank.
6-09 Page Rank Changes: Overview
The greatest proportion of dofollow blogs for each Page rank represented maintained the same Page rank from March to June.
For blogs with Page ranks of 4 (74%) and 0 (72%) almost three quarters kept the same Page rank in June that they had in March. That’s good if your blog has Page rank of 4, but not so good if you’re blog ranks a zero and failed to improve over the three month period.
6-09 Page Rank Changes By Page Ranks
For blogs with Page ranks of 4 (74%) and 0 (72%) almost three quarters kept the same Page rank in June that they had in March. That’s good if your blog has Page rank of 4, but not so good if you’re blog ranks a zero and failed to improve over the three month period.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 0 Ranked Blogs
All of the blogs in this study with Page ranks of 0 either lost Page rank (10, 31%) or stayed the same. Of course, if a blog’s Page rank was anything other than a 0 in March, but a 0 in June, it had to loose Page rank.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 1 Ranked Blogs
But of those blogs with Page ranks of 1, (3, 38%) increased by 1 Page rank, meaning that they had 0 Page ranks in March. But the majority (5, 62%) of Page rank 1 blogs also had a 1 ranking in March.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 2 Ranked Blogs
Far more Page rank 2 blogs decreased than increased in Page rank. Just two (8%) gained one in Page rank while ten (40%) lost Page rank. The remaining 13 (52%) stayed the same.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 3 Ranked Blogs
Of the blogs with Page ranks of 3, slightly more decreased (13, 30%) than increased 10 (23%) in Page rank. Almost half (20, 47%) stayed the same.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 4 Ranked Blogs
Blogs with Page ranks of 4 also got there by an increase in Page rank. Almost 23 percent (8) increased in Page rank to earn a 4.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 5 Ranked Blogs
Blogs with Page ranks of 5 were as likely to increase in Page rank as to stay the same each = 44%). None of these blogs lost Page rank, but one apparently went out of business. That’s a substantial loss considering only nine blogs in this study presently rank a 5. Plus it’s hard to believe that a blogger, whose worked hard enough to get a Page rank of 5, would just quit.
6-09 Page Rank Changes For 6 Ranked Blogs
Only six blogs in this study have a Page rank of 6, and one of them used to be a 7. Still twice as many blogs (2) moved to Page ranks of 6 on the way down. Half (3) of the Page rank 6 blogs kept the same ranking from March to June.
6-09 Page Rank Changes: Conclusion
Five blogs were discontinued from this study because they didn’t come up, were parked, or showed 404 error messages. Page ranks for another 10 could not be determined by the information provided in the Google tool bar. They were kept in the study for now. So 165 dofollow blogs remain in the study.
I’m in the process of updating the blog list, but may not complete the job until Friday. To see the new Page rank tables for the blogs, click the link below:
In this final post on marketing to Arab consumers, I’ll show you how to incorporate characteristics from secondary research and my market segmentation process into a marketing plan. If you missed the first two posts you can link to them below:
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Listing Characteristics
My first step in building a marketing plan for Arab consumers would be to list the characteristics revealed through secondary research and market segmentation.
Secondary research revealed that Arab consumers:
value education,
are politically active,
have conservative views on social issues, and
support a different Middle East perspective from USA policy.
Market segmentation found four major characteristics that can serve as major appeals when marketing to Arab consumers. These are listed in order by importance below:
Work/jobs/career
Independence/autonomy
Relationships/interacting socially/communities
Home
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Choosing Characteristics For Your Marketing Strategy
Which of these characteristics that you choose to use in your marketing plan depends on the type of business or organization that you’re marketing.
For example, if you own a business that sells home improvement products, you’d best focus your marketing messages on improving home and family relationships. If you work for a political organization, you’d want to recognize Arab consumers’ political activity, conservative views on social issues, and non-establishment stances on the Middle east.
I spent much of my career marketing for higher education institutions. So if I were marketing an educational program or college to Arab consumers, I’d first note that secondary research reveals that Arab consumers value education. Then I’d pair that with how important market segmentation indicates work is to Arab consumers. I’d concentrate on these two related characteristics for my marketing.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Sample Marketing Plan Tactics
Using the higher education example above, I’d market my program or college as education that prepares young people to get better jobs, build careers, and/or develop profitable businesses. I’d condense this down to a key message, creating a slogan or adapting one already used by my program or college. Then I’d base all my marketing communications on that key message.
For direct marketing, I’d purchase a list of Arab consumers in my college’s service area and send them an over-sized post card with my marketing message.
For more general promotions and advertising, I’d select media that target Arab consumers’ views on social issues and the Middle East, including magazines, online Web sites and blogs.
For activities, I’d sponsor political events and those supporting conservative social issues. For example, a parenting conference may attract Arab consumers who value their family relationships and home, especially if the conference compared and contrasted traditional Arab views to modern USA views on parenting.
To build relationships with Arab community leaders, I’d invite them to speak and participate in relevant program or college events. If I built these relationships well, Arab leaders would influence other Arab consumers of my educational program’s or college’s value.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Other Marketing Plan Considerations
Of course a marketing plan consists of more than just tactics, You’ll also want to include the following in your marketing plan:
A goal for marketing: In the higher eduction example, I’d need to know the number of total Arab consumers in my college’s service area, the percent of those who are college-age, and the percent who may be want to go to college as adults. In fact, I could develop my marketing plan around one potential group of students or develop a different campaign for each student type.
Build-in evaluations: You should plan to evaluate each tactic’s success, and your marketing plan’s success at several points in your campaign. You should plan evaluations to be measurable and against benchmarks established before starting the campaign. For example, knowing the number of Arab students before starting to market my higher education program to Arab consumers will provide a benchmark to determine the effectiveness of the marketing plan.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Conclusion
Marketing to Arab consumers, or any target market, involves three major steps:
Gathering substantial secondary research,
Using demographics to discover more characteristics through market segmentation,
Incorporating this information into a marketing plan.
You can learn more about Arab Americans and get lots of secondary research on them through my profile of Arab Americans.
Or you can get my ebook on my matrix market segmentation process. It also contains profiles on African Americans, Asian Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans.
Posted 6-29-09: Marketing To Arab Consumers: Marketing Plan
Marketing to Arab consumers first requires that you learn all the characteristics you can find through secondary research. I provided characteristics in the first post of this series. If you haven’t yet read it, you can link to it below:
Second, marketing to Arab consumers requires that you learn additional characteristics. This is where I use, and recommend that you use, my matrix market segmentation process.
If you haven’t used it and don’t understand how it works, you can get my free report by completing the form below.
You’ll notice that in the report, I use tables or matrices to provide characteristics, but here I’m just listing the characteristics based on the segments that secondary research reveals for Arab consumers.
If you don’t want to read through the list, skip down to the discussion below:
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Age
Most Arab consumers are between 20 and 44 years of age, so most are in either Generation X or Generation Y and in the provisional young adulthood life stages.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Generations
These two generations differ for Americans, with the following characteristics for each:
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Generation X
Life Influences
debt crises,
disintegrating families.
Descriptive Adjectives
pragmatic,
action-oriented,
computer literate,
non-ideological,
entrepreneurial.
Spend Time
shopping in malls,
watching television,
education,
working.
Major Concerns
aids,
racial disharmony,
deteriorating environment.
Information needs
job, career
relationships.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Generation Y
Life Influences
social complexity,
violence.
Descriptive Adjectives
Independent,
savvy,
strong-willed,
moral,
serious,
optimistic.
Spend Time
watching television,
socializing with friends,
getting an education.
Major Concerns
personal dilemmas like autonomy vs.conformity,
pragmatism,
intimacy.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Life Stages
Provisional adults and young adults differ by the following characteristics:
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Provisional Adulthood
Family Tasks
managing home,
separating from family dependence.
Career Tasks
choosing a career,
entering the workforce.
Personal Tasks
breaking psychological ties,
managing time,
adjusting to independent life.
Social Tasks
seeking independence,
handling peer relationships.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Early Adulthood
Family Tasks
Selecting a mate,
parenting,
purchasing and establishing a home.
Career Tasks
choosing a career,
progressing in career,
settling into work.
Personal Tasks
Being a responsible consumer,
achieving autonomy.
Social Tasks
becoming involved in communities,
interacting socially.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Education
Education is more than a demographic. Although it provides characteristics on its own, it’s also a major predictor of social class. I provide characteristics by education below and then use education to help predict social class.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Some College
Leisure/Recreation
reading,
watching TV,
eating out,
Spending Habits
spend money of baby sitting,
house cleaning,
gardening services,
buy what’s hot,
consider value over price,
had rather spend than save.
Work
lower-paying white-collar jobs,
technical and administrative support positions,
value jobs they enjoy.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Social Class
Knowing that most Arab Americans only completed high school, enables us to place them in the lower middle and upper lower social classes. Characteristics for both are provided below:
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Lower Middle
Source of Income
Skilled and creative jobs.
Education
college or technical training.
Spending
Price sensitive market.
Behavior
adhere to norms & standards
Values
homes and neighborhoods.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Upper Lower
Source of Income
uncreative manual jobs.
Education
moderate skills and education.
Spending
buy national brands impulsively.
Behavior
live routine lives.
Values
limited social interaction
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Discussion
You’ll notice in the list above that some phrases are colored. I usually use highlighters to indicate phrases relating to the same concept. Then I can quickly see and count the number of times a concept is mentioned and the number of segments containing the mentions.
I list my counts and color codes below:
Work/jobs/career 11 mentions across 6 segments
Independence/autonomy 6 mentions across 2 segments
Relationships/interacting socially/communities 3mentions across 2 segments
Home 2 mentions across 2 segments
The above list reveals the most shared characteristics across the most segments in our target market, Arab consumers. They comprise the best appeals for this target market.
When we add the characteristics from segmentation to those revealed through secondary research (in the first post on marketing to Arab consumers), we’ve developed a list specified to enhance marketing to Arab consumers.
In the last post in this series, I’ll pull the characteristics from the first two posts, into a marketing strategy. So don’t miss it if you’re interested in marketing to Arab consumers.
Posted 6-25-09: Marketing To Arab Consumers: Segmentation
Marketing to Arab consumers requires three major stesps:
learning about them through secondary research,
getting important characteristics that apply to them through market segmentation,
applying this information to a marketing campaign.
In this series of posts on Marketing to Arab Consumers, I’ll demonstrate each of the above steps in a post. This first post provides demographic, psychographic, and sociographic characteristics of Arab consumers revealed through secondary research.*
For the next post in this series, I’ll use my matrix market segmentation process to discover even more characteristics and determine the best ones to use in a marketing plan. Then in the third post on Marketing to Arab consumers, I’ll build a sample marketing plan.
So let’s get started with the Arab consumers demographic, psychographic, and sociographic characteristics revealed through secondary research.
You can get more characteristics for Arab consumers at the link in this sentence.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Demographics
Arab Americans are primarily in the 20-44 age group with 47 percent under the age of 25. Only six percent are 65 years or older. They are younger than other major ethnic groups as well as the US population in general.
Most (66%) are employed with 77 percent working in the private sector and 12 percent working in government. They are more likely to be self-employed and in managerial and professional occupations than Americans in general.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Education
Arab Americans value education:
82 percent have a high school diploma,
36 percent have a college degree, and
15 percent have graduate degrees.
Those born in the USA mostly have just high school diplomas while those born in Arab countries are more likely to have college degrees.
They also support educational political issues:
69 percent support vouchers,
59 percent oppose teaching of evolution, and
75 percent are against racial preferences in hiring and admissions.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Political Activity
Arab Americans are the most politically active of all American minorities for three important political activities: visiting a presidential candidate’s Web site (13%), donating money to a presidential candidate (16%), and watching a presidential debate (82%).
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Middle East Perspective
Marketing to Arab consumers successfully consider their views on the Middle East and doesn’t take public positions opposing their views.
Marketing To Arab Consumers: Social Issues
Arab Americans are conservative on most social issues. I provide a few examples of their conservativeness below:
Abortion
52 percent are pro-life as opposed to 45 percent who are pro-choice,
54 percent agree that all abortions should be banned, and
79 percent agree that parents should be notified when minors seek abortions.
Health Care
92 percent want to strengthen Social Security and Medicaid,
89 percent believe patients should be allowed to sue HMOs, and
86 percent agree that the government should use surpluses to provide health care for working poor families.
Crime
83 percent support prosecuting as adults 14 to 16 year olds who commit crimes with guns,
76 percent favor gun control, and
72 percent support the death penalty for heinous crimes.
Did you find this information interesting, but can’t imagine how it helps in marketing to Arab consumers? You’ll start to see what my matrix market segmentation process reveals about a target market in the next post on marketing to Arab consumers.
How well you can reach your target market provides an important comparison point between search engines and social sites. If one brings more target market members to your site, then it’s better for marketing your site or blog.
This is the third in a series comparing search engines and social sites. If this is the first one you’ve come to, and you prefer to start at the beginning of the series, you can link to the first post in this series below:
This post compares the ability to gather target market information from search engine and social site visitors.
Social Sites Make It Easy to Learn About Visitors
With just a little effort, you can learn about the type of people who comprise a social site, including their language, their concerns, and their hopes. They provide this information in their profiles and in forum threads. This information makes it easier to effectively speak to them and to cater effective marketing appeals for them.
It’s More Difficult To Learn About Search Engine Visitors
But when your visitors come from the search engines, it’s less likely that they are in ;your target market. In fact, you don’t know anything about search engine visitors, and it’s much more difficult to learn about them.
If searchers aren’t in your target market, it’s likely that they may be interested in your content, but not in purchasing anything. But if you are getting enough search visitors and can learn about them, you may be able to develop a product or select an affiliate product that my interest them.
I just learned that there is a WordPress plugin to help you address searchers directly and ask for information about them. As soon as I learn the name of the plug-in and can get a technical person to install it for me, I’ll let you know how it works.
You’ll need to get as much demographic information from your search visitors as possible to discover if your content is appropriate for them. But I believe search engine visitors are hesitant to provide information about themselves because they don’t know or trust you not to abuse their information.
You definitely don’t want to ask for their names and email addresses in the same form that you ask for their demographic information. That applies to any survey. Because if people believe you can match their responses to them, they won’t respond.
Getting Visitors In Your Target Market Enhances Conversion
If you don’t gather information about your visitors or if they’re not in your target market, converting them to buy from you is nearly impossible. So selecting traffic sources that make it easier for you to learn about your visitors enhances your marketing and your business profit.
As you consider the advantages and disadvantages of search engines and social sites for marketing your site. I’d appreciate you leaving a comment.
I know that I need to market more through social sites. Don’t get me wrong I’m pleased to be getting about 10,000 search visitors a month, but I need to complement search visitors with direct and referral visitors.
It’s not that I plan to stop doing SEO and rely totally on social sites, or any other means, for getting traffic. I believe both are important. But I also know it’s risky to depend too much on any one source of traffic. However, if I were starting a new blog, I’d concentrate more on social site visitors than search engine visitors. That’s because I believe it’s easier to reach your target market through the social sites than through the search engines. What do you think?
Posted 6-19-09: Are Search Engines Or Social Sites Better At Targeting Your Market?
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