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Posts Tagged ‘seo’

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The Do’s and Don’ts of a Social Media Strategy

December 11th, 2012 ::

yes and noTo make sure you’re avoiding common mistakes when using social media for marketing, follow these simple rules:

Do: Have goals

Before you get started, decide how social media marketing fits into your overall marketing strategy. Do you want to find better quality leads, engage with and retain current customers, generate word of mouth?  How do your goals complement the other pieces of your marketing strategy, like your blog, SEO, content creation and online advertising?

Don’t: Dive in without a plan

An editorial calendar will keep you organized. Decide what you are going to post when and on what network.  Take timing into consideration, as well: What times are your fans and followers more likely to see your activity?

Do: Use social media consistently

Randomly using Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+ and any other social network is a waste of time. Inconsistent use of social media sends a signal that you don’t care about and are probably not that interested in your customers.

Don’t: Ignore SEO

Search engine optimization is important for any online activity, whether it’s your blog or a how-to guide on your website. Sharing content on social media is great, but to snag a wider audience, make sure all that content on your website is optimized with keywords so search engines redirect people to you.

Do: Use visual content wisely

People engage with images, so when you use them, think about how to make your brand fun and accessible. You can showcase products and services, fans and customers, user-generated photos, your logo, employees, events – get creative!

Don’t: Make it all about you

Social media is not a one-way bullhorn. People love to talk about themselves, so be sure to focus your social media activity on your fans and followers. What do they like? What do they care about? How can you help them?

Do: Engage

This is a corollary to the above: social media is a conversation. Respond to direct messages and mentions on Twitter, comments on Facebook, messages on LinkedIn, etc. Ignoring people is no way to build a community.

Don’t: Assume anything

Don’t assume you know what social networks your customers and potential customers use or what sort of information they find most valuable. You have to do your research first, or you will be wasting your time (hint: ask them).

Do: Measure the right metrics

Likes and retweets are not marketing metrics – they’re popularity metrics – and the two are not the same thing. Instead, measure how much traffic Twitter and Facebook are sending to your website, how many downloads your content and shares your blog posts are getting, and how many leads from social media are converting into customers.

Did I miss any do’s or don’ts?

Image courtesy of wellhappypeaceful.com

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

5 Steps to Keep Your Sales Funnel Full

December 10th, 2012 ::

Sales funnelNo matter how long they’ve been in business, a lot of small business owners are not very good at keeping the sales funnel full. You’ll do a marketing blitz, get super busy and focus on work. Because you’re so slammed, you will then ignore marketing and sales. Then your projects wrap up, and you’re back to square one – you need to do another marketing blitz.

The better, less frantic approach is to always be marketing – it’s the best way to keep your sales funnel full, especially if you tend to have a long sales cycle. Here’s a 5-step process to ensure those marketing blitzes become a thing of the past:

Step One: Create valuable information

Your goal is to first get people onto your website. Devote time each week to creating valuable content, like blog posts, white papers, eBooks, infographics and videos, that are full of keywords.  Potential customers will find your site when they go searching for information on a specific topic.

Step Two: Pump up the SEO

Your goal remains the same: get people onto your website.  Make sure your website is fully optimized for all the keywords you want to be found for, including location if that’s relevant. Even though it’s not technically SEO, use hashtags on Twitter to make it easy for people to find you.

Step Three: Convert Web visitors

Now that they’re on your site, your goal is to convert visitors into leads. There are two ways to do this: 1) If you’re offering an eBook or free demo, direct them to a landing page and ask for basic information before they can access the item. 2) Use compelling calls-to-action that direct visitors to do something – contact you, sign up for your e-newsletter, like you on Facebook, etc.

Step Four: Nurture and qualify leads

At this stage, your goals is to stay n touch with potential customers and build the relationship through social media and email marketing. Because you’ll stay top-of-mind, when they’re ready to buy, they’ll think of you first. You can also offer specials or coupons, to speed up the decision-making (on a personal level, this always works for me).

Step Five: Analyze your efforts

Your final goal is to simply look at your process and see if people are getting caught up somewhere in the process. Is a piece of content not attracting website visitors? Are people leaving your site when they reach a certain page? What offers are converting more leads into customers? Adjust, and continue.

What do you do to keep your sales funnel full?

Image courtesy of outsideinview.com

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing | No Comments »

Content Marketing 101: The What, Why and How of Using Content to Generate Leads

October 26th, 2012 ::

Content marketingContent marketing has become quite the trend this year. If you’re not familiar with the term, it refers to creating digital and print marketing pieces specifically to market your business to your customers.

The benefits of content marketing include:

  • Creating trust
  • Building thought leadership and expertise
  • Building and solidifing relationships
  • Improving search results
  • Increasing Web traffic and leads

There are many pieces of content you can create, repurpose and share via social media and on your website. In my opinion, the top 7 by popularity and effectiveness (but in no particular order) are:

1. Articles

Seek out opportunities to write for trade or general interest publications, both digital and print, on your area of expertise.  Reach out to editors and propose topics that would be of interest to their readers.

2. Blog posts

Writing blog posts for your company’s own blog is great for search results – search engines reward websites that are frequently updated with new content. You can also seek out opportunities to guest blog for a partner company’s blog or an industry blog.

3. Case studies

Turn your projects into stories that explain a client’s challenge, your solution and the results. Case studies need not be long and technical – 3 paragraphs of 2-3 sentences each should suffice.

4. Enewsletters

A short, monthly newsletter is a great way to not only stay top-of-mind with your audience of potential, current and past customers, but also share your expertise and industry news.

5. Ebooks

Repurpose content from articles, blog posts, case studies, and presentations by creating an ebook in which you share tips, tricks and how-to’s.

6. Presentations and Webinars

If you hold or participate in events like seminars, workshops or webinars, consider your presentation part of your content marketing strategy, either by repurposing it whole or in parts.

7. Videos

Marketing videos can be entertaining, educational or a hybrid of both.  When done well, a video will not only engage your audience, but also drive leads to your website.

What kind of content marketing has worked well for you? What would you like to try if time and money were no option?

Image courtesy of adrants.com

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Posted in Marketing | 1 Comment »

6 Tips for Creating a Successful Blog

October 10th, 2012 ::

BloggingSo, you’ve decided to finally start a blog – awesome! And congratulations! Blogging is fun, but it’s also a lot of work.  To make sure your hard work actually pays off, follow these 6 tips to ensure your blog is set up properly and ready to hit the big time:

1. Choose a niche subject

Do your research first to choose a subject that you are not only comfortable writing about on a regular basis, but that also has little or no competition online from other blogs.  A Google search will help with this. I recently did it for one of my own clients (a CPA), and confirmed that no one else is writing about her area of expertise.

2. Use a Web designer and developer

Unless you are one of the above or highly technical by nature, don’t try to put together your own blog or it could look unprofessional – or not function properly.  The investment in a professional will be worthwhile.  I have learned this the hard way.

3. Optimize your site

Turn to an SEO expert to ensure your site is thoroughly optimized for search.  In the meantime, do keyword research on Google to find the keywords and phrases most often searched for – and use them in the title and body of your posts.

4. Write engaging posts

Easier said than done, yes, but in general, an engaging post is:

  • short – 300 words
  • visual – include an image or video to emphasize your point
  • easy to read – write the way you talk
  • actionable – give your readers a specific tip on how to do something better
  • humorous – people like to be entertained

5. Publish several posts before launching

Once you launch and publicize your blog, people will skim your posts and scroll through several of them to get a good idea of what you write about.  Be sure you publish at least five, preferably more, posts to give potential readers a really good idea of what they can expect from your blog.

6. Categorize and tag your posts

You want your readers to easily find previous posts, and the best way to do so is to categorize them based on topic and tag them based on subjects covered.  So a post on the topic of “Facebook “could include the tags of “photos, videos, engagement, contests,” etc.  You get the idea!

Good luck!

Any other tips you’d like to share around setting up a blog?

Image courtesy of blog.hubspot.com

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Posted in Marketing | 2 Comments »

3 Easy Ways to Improve Your Search Rankings

July 19th, 2012 ::

SEO

SEOMoz is a company that provides SEO and social monitoring software, and they publish a lot of interesting information based on their own research.  Use the following tips – all based on their research – to easily improve your search rankings:

1. Add fresh content.

Google rewards new content on your site.  If you publish a really useful blog post on a subject that is valuable to your readers, it will get shared via social media and receive some ranking love from Google.

Along those same lines, frequently updating your website is also viewed favorably – that could mean adding new case studies, media mentions, or a video to your homepage.

2. Focus on content titles.

Instead of focusing on clever titles for your blog posts, white papers, ebooks, and other content, focus on including all relevant keywords. By relevant, I mean keywords that people actually use in search, not what you think they use.

To find those keywords, simply use a keyword discovery tool like Wordtracker.  You will learn which keywords and phrases are competitive, meaning popular but not so popular everyone uses them.

3. Get social.

Google judges your content on more than 200 signals, all of which affect ranking.  Four of them are link-related: quantity, diversity, quality, and relevance. Quantity is lowered by quality, meaning relevant links are extremely important to your rankings.

To get relevant links, it is important for thought leaders to share your content and link back to it.  Start by following influential people on Twitter.  If you are engaged, retweet others’ tweets, mention people and companies, and publish interesting content, they will likely follow you back – and see and share your content.

***

Have you used any of the above tips to improve your own rankings?  What other tips have worked for you?  Share your ideas in the comments below!

Image courtesy of bradfordbarker.com

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, Social Media | No Comments »

Chartbeat: Analytics Dashboard for Your Website: Small Business Resource

May 2nd, 2012 ::

Chartbeat

If you’re looking for an alternative to Google Analytics, you might try Chartbeat, a simple-to-use but feature-rich real-time analytics dashboard. Log in and get a view of every user on your site, including what page they’re on and where they came from. Track key traffic flow and know which users are actively participating and which are doing nothing. Chartbeat can also help you determine which of your SEO efforts are working and which are not. Try the free 30-day trial and then pick a pay plan that suits your needs. Plans start at $9.95 per month.

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Posted in Marketing, Resources, Search Marketing, Small Business, small business, Web Design | No Comments »

Marketing on Google+ Part 1: 8 Ways to Drive Traffic to Your Site

April 17th, 2012 ::
This entry is part 2 of 3 in the series Marketing With Google+

Since its launch last year, Google+ has rocketed to social media stardom among marketing pros, but not everyone has closely examined what it can do for their own business’s bottom line. In this three-part series, I will show you how to leverage Google+ to boost your company’s online marketing performance.

This first article focuses on how to drive traffic to your website using Google+. Recently Google changed the SEO game by introducing “Search, plus Your World.” This new search concept revolves around Google’s idea that people want to see search results that are related to their personal history and their social profile. So, the +1 and Google+ posts are heavily integrated into the search results Google returns because it is factoring in your social profile in its search strategy.

What this means is that marketers have a world of new opportunities to leverage Google+ to build their SEO strategy and drive traffic to their site. Here are eight ways to do just that.

1.  Use Web links.

Web links help Google know how to categorize you, so try including links between your business’s website or blog and your brand page. These links help Google recognize authorship and remind it of what you’re all about. Google has its own badge creator to easily create links between your content.

2.  Grow your following.

In social media, usually quality trumps quantity, but it pays to have a larger following on Google+ because more followers means a higher search rank on Google. To grow your following, try getting the word out about your Google+ page. Use a badge, and mention it in print and online communications – even on Facebook and Twitter. Also, try leveraging your personal profile (and the personal profiles of your employees) to push out your brand page’s content. Since brand pages are only allowed to follow users who have already followed them, using your personal profile can help you attract more followers for your brand.

3.  Use their keywords, too.

Just like other SEO content strategies, you should think of what your customers will actually type into Google when they look for you. They many not type the industry-specific terms you optimize for, so think like your customer when creating keywords. Now, use those keywords in the About section of your page, and include them in posts so people can easily find your Google+ content when they search.

4.  Use images.

People tend to click on photos and videos more than links, so use them in your content for better engagement. Fill your page with interesting images, both across the top and throughout your posts. Also, many Google searches return images that are prominently displayed, so do your best to get your visual content in front of searchers.

5.  Condition Google to work for you.

In its quest to return better search results, Google has started including people and pages on Google+ that are related to the user’s search query. Although not all searches have this feature yet, being listed in search results is excellent exposure for your company. To train Google to categorize your content, making it more likely you will be featured in search results, be sure to keep your posts on topic and use consistent keywords. As you post on the same topic, you will be conditioning Google to include you in searches related to that topic.

6.  Consider authorship.

Google supports an authorship markup that lets you tag your work to show Google your writings all over the web. When people search for you, Google can pull together your tagged work and present it in a search results page. Setting up authorship is a bit more advanced, and would probably require its own post. For now, check out instructions on Google’s support blog.

7.  Use the +1 button.

According to Google, the +1 button is becoming a significant ranking factor for returning search results. You’ve probably noticed that search results now include the option to +1 a result. Use the +1 button wherever appropriate for your business so you can factor into Google results, too.

8.  Engage them.

As with all social media strategies, it’s important to engage your Google+ community with helpful information, exclusive content, and interesting photos. According to Google, one of the top things you can do to appear in search results is to post and to engage with other people’s posts on Google+. Be sure to +1 other people’s content, and experiment with your own to find out what is getting the best engagement. Later in this series, I’ll also introduce you to Ripples so you can see how Google+ is taking the art (and measure) of engagement to a whole new level.

So, there you have it – eight ways Google+ can drive traffic to your site that you can start using right now. Stay tuned for the rest of our three-part series on using Google+ to boost your business.

Image courtesy of frombogotawithlove.com

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Posted in Marketing, Social Media | 3 Comments »

Does Your Google Page Rank No Longer Matter?

April 13th, 2012 ::

Page Rank

When it comes to Internet marketing, the rules can change quickly – sometimes overnight. As marketers, most of us have been meticulously developing our SEO strategies to achieve the best possible Google Page Rank for a while now. According to SEO pros, your Google Page Rank may not even matter anymore. But before you completely wipe this metric off your marketing to-do list, let’s take a closer look at why Page Rank has become irrelevant.

Page Rank cannot be tracked

Metrics are only useful if they can be tracked, and Page Rank is not one of those metrics. Even if you still check your Page Rank, Google delays that information for up to nine months. So, tracking the metric in real-time is impossible, making it useless for assessing your current performance.

Page Rank does not affect SEO

The link between Page Rank and SEO is fragile at best. Plenty of websites have a Page Rank of zero, and yet they still manage to get organic rankings and traffic for competitive search terms. Why bother with a number that does not affect your Web traffic’s “bottom line?”

Page Rank is not relevant for social media or real-time results

Social media content and real-time news are becoming increasingly relevant for search results. Page Rank really has nothing to do with either of these.  A tweet may have a Page Rank of zero, but it still makes its way into search results. And, breaking news stories – which are only a few minutes old – also come out on top in search results, and yet they haven’t had time to build a Page Rank either.

Page Rank is not a results-driven metric

Marketing metrics are all about results. Businesses want to keep track of things that get real results, such as revenue and customers, or things that lead to those results, such as leads. Page Rank can’t tell you if your marketing efforts are yielding any of those results, so why should businesses worry about it?

When you examine the facts, it really doesn’t make sense to worry about your Google Page Rank anymore. So, what should you do to improve your SEO performance? Your best bet for getting found online is to create useful and interesting content, optimizing it for search and promoting it through social media. In other words, although the rules may change, you can always count on the importance of great content for getting the online marketing results you want.

Image courtesy of creative design agency Arrae

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Panda 3.4, SEO and Link Building: Keeping It Natural

April 11th, 2012 ::

By Andreea Cojocariu

Google released a new Panda update this week. Its quest to make search as user friendly and relevant as possible is pushing forward. This update only affects about 1.6 percent of search. However, it reminds us that Google is determined to make the lives of everyday Internet users as easy as possible. This has quite an impact on SEO.

SEO 101

The idea is to have a website that is geared toward your target audience. That’s pretty obvious.  However, SEOs understand that you can make your website user friendly, but also search engine friendly. Certain aspects of a website’s design aren’t always search engine friendly (i.e., use of too many images, Flash). The problem now is that it’s become easy to play the “SEO game.” If you do x, y, z, you’ll rank number one in searches. Google is saying no to that. And it’s up to online marketers, specifically SEOs, to keep up with Google and change accordingly.

The basic premise: Keep it natural. Give your target market what they want. And what they want is quality content–facts, research, unbiased reasons why your product or service is by far better than your competitions. You can do this with articles, press releases, blogs and market research.

SEO Crossfire

Keeping that in mind, Google’s Panda updates are making it harder for black hat SEO to rank well…as it should. Caught in the crossfire, however, are what we would consider good quality websites. I recently noticed drastic drops in backlinks for several of my clients. One went from having over 1K links to 6. At first, I thought it was a fluke. But then I checked other sites I was working on, 6 seemed to be the magic number. Now, it’s not 6 for every website out there, but the decrease is noticeable. To check your site for backlinks, enter  link:www.yourwebsite.com.

Links and Affiliates

Google has been evaluating links.  If your backlink is coming from a spammy site, it’s not going to get counted. This can be quite the problem for companies utilizing affiliate marketing. One of my clients in particular has a rather successful affiliate program. And recently, their back links have dropped.

To combat this, I’ve become rather particular when I approve potential affiliates. Here’s what I do:

  • Check title and meta descriptions of the homepage. I’m looking for keywords, specifically ones that match my products. If they are there, I approve them.
  • Make note of where links are located on the page. Ideally, you want content on top and then ads and links below the fold of the webpage.
  • Make note of the types of products and services. Someone affiliates just want to make money and will advertise anything. Make sure that their site matches your business profile.
  • Make note of excessive images and use of Flash. Search bots have a harder time crawling Flash and images, which means that these sites won’t get crawled nearly as frequently as others.

By the way, you don’t want to overdo SEO either.  Google is going to penalize sites with too much optimization. You want to keep your site as natural as possible.  If you have a good keyword list, it should be pretty intuitive. Creating quality content with your keywords should be easy for your copywriters whether you have someone in house or through an agency.  That being said, many of you won’t see too much of a dip in traffic or sales. But you may notice small things like decreased backlinks or small drops in ranking. If it’s been a while since you touched your website for SEO, you really could see a big dip. Either way, prepare yourself. Stay connected and ask your online marketer for advice on how to make your website both user friendly and search engine friendly.

Andreea Cojocariu, also known as the Smiling Marketress, is an online marketer in St. Louis, Missouri, specializing in SEO and social media. She has a knack for developing successful online marketing programs resulting in increased sales and ROI for small businesses. By keeping her eye on clients’ target market, she helps companies create both user friendly and search engine friendly content. Cojocariu has a B.A. in English, an MBA and is currently pursuing her Doctorate in Business Administration. Connect with her on Twitter (andreeac_t) or LinkedIn.

 

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Posted in Marketing, Search Marketing, small business, Small Business Success Index, Technology, Uncategorized, Web Design | 1 Comment »

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