A long time ago, we wrote about SEO fast food (I’ll Take #1 Ranking with That, but Hold the Fries).  The idea of SEO fast food is that everyone wants fast online marketing; they want fast results.  They want to attract and retain customers, they want to change and enhance behaviors.  They want miracles to happen with their content marketing.

Beyond the Buzz

But content marketing is more than words.  It’s more than creating copy and posting it online.  It’s more than blog posts, articles, videos, press releases and traffic generating buzz.

Beyond the Buzz

Your business is a living entity.  Like any living entity, it feeds and grows.  It can be nourished or starve.  If your business lives and breathes, why should your marketing be any different?

Now, people assume that content is content is content, and that words are what does the selling.  But it’s not the words.  It’s the story; it’s the conscience; it’s the emotions.  Superman wouldn’t have been quite so super if he hadn’t had Clark Kent’s alter ego and loved Lois Lane.  That’s part of the story – part of the emotions.

Beyond the buzz of “Superman saves the day” is the story of Clark Kent, a normal guy who’s love didn’t know he existed.

What’s your story?  Are you telling it?  And, are you telling it in a way that makes sense?

Consistent Marketing

Part of any strong marketing campaign is consistency.  Not only is a consistent tone important, but also a consistent brand message.  As we wrote in Dear, Sweet Internet Marketer – Connect the Stinkin’ Dots Already that consistency is important across the board from point, to point, to point.

This means your logo needs to be the same across all social networks.  It means if Bob is your content creator on ABC site then Bob needs to be your content person on XYZ site.  It also means that in every piece of writing in which your company is mentioned, the spelling, capitalization, and spacing needs to be the same.

Why is this important?

Understanding brand development

A company brand is developed from several points of interest.  For example, the positive aspects of a brand can develop through personal interaction with products, brand perception based on media ads, and brand perception based on the word of mouth activity from advocates (among others).  As the brand develops so does positive or negative emotion toward that brand.

Valuable Marketing

How Valuable Are You?

With everything that you market, with every point where you meet the customer, you have to be consistent.  But consistent with what?  The answer is value.

When your potential customers meet you, when they come across your company, the very first question they’re going to want to answer is “What’s in it for me?” You’d better have that answer ready.

Focus on customer pain. “This is your problem.  We understand your problem.  We can help you with your problem.” In other words, the world may be dealing with serious issues, but there’s a new way to do things -and that’s your way.

You see, beyond the buzz there has to be answers.  Who.  What.  When.  Where.  Why.  How.

• Who are you?
• What are you offering me?
• How will it help me?
• Why should I buy from you?
• Where can I use this?
• When will I see returns?

How you choose to answer these questions, whether you do it with individual articles or a 5-second video, is up to you.  However, the answers have to be there.  Show your value.

Compelling Marketing

You see examples of compelling marketing everywhere you go.  You see them on billboard ads, television ads, print ads…  Everywhere you see various examples of marketing meant to extol the virtues of products. –Or, more correctly, your own virtues if you simply own this product.

This dress will make you look smaller.  This car will make you more successful.  This hair will make you beautiful.  No matter what the ad is selling, it’s created specifically to compel the target market into buying.  The way you do that is to understand customers need, what they want – their points of pain.  Then you create offers that directly address those pain points.

6 Steps to Compelling Content

1. Define your target audience: Who are they? What problems will you solve for them? What type of information will they be interested in? Compelling content solves (or promises to solve) problems, shares information, or provides them with updates.
2. Identify social networks:  Where is your target market found? Some of the more popular are Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, SlideShare and LinkedIn. However, your market may be more active on the less popular. Don’t just assume they’re found on the above; do your research.
3. Establish preferred media:  How does your target market prefer to ingest information? They have multiple options: video, podcasts, presentations, infographics, images, and e books are just a few. Publishing through the various forms of media gives them more options.
4. Brainstorm content ideas: Have you ever seen the Never-ending Story? Well, you’re writing the never-ending story for your company. As you brainstorm, break the huge, overwhelming story into bite-sized pieces. The whole story is told, but in bits small enough for a person to consume and understand in one sitting.
5. Create the content: Write, record, create!
6. Optimize your content: Make sure your content, no matter where you upload it, has strong headlines. Double check that you’ve put it in a bite-sized structure (headings and bullet points, for example). Make sure it’s on topic, and – last but not least – that it’s social friendly!

Beyond the Buzz

You’ll read a lot about creating copy that builds buzz. However, “buzz” is just another “buzz word”. What all the content marketers are saying is, “Create copy that compels.” We say, “Create,” because it very seldom just happens. Ask any copywriter out there.

You can use link bait (we have); you can use info graphics (we have). You can use videos and other forms of moving, inviting content. However, if your content isn’t consistent, if it doesn’t show value, if it doesn’t compel, it’s still just…. Content.

-And content alone is just words on a page with no meaning.

I have yet to see Meryl Streep’s movie The Iron Lady, but I noticed a poster as I was walking Lucy (Level343′s official mascot!) this morning. “Never Compromise” jumped out of the poster at me. Isn’t that the truth; it’s something I’ve been struggling with for the past year as I continue to run and grow my business.

I can honestly say I enjoy working with people who stand by their convictions. I enjoy working with people who never compromise their business or personal ethics – no, not even for money. Some may find it hard to believe there are still people like that, but there are.

How can you run a business without walking a fine line of compromise? Especially when that business is online in B2B services and you’re aiming for long term clients?

Case in point: look at what’s happening with search. In April alone, there were 52 highlights to Google’s latest algorithm changes. That in itself has given way to a plethora of news feeds regarding all the compromises businesses have made in order to rank for their keywords.

We have warnings to tighten the reins on questionable SEO methods going out in light of the latest updates, such as this one from Search Engine Land, written by Kerry Dean of PMG:

“If you are managing SEO and link building for a big brand, I recommend ceasing all paid link building campaigns. I’m sure I’ll take some heat for that recommendation, but I just can’t recommend paid link building to big brands right now. It’s just too risky at this point in time.”

Businesses have to be warned to pull it in? Maybe it’s not exactly “bad business practices” so much as it is “bad ranking practices”, but why does there need to be a warning at all?

How Much Are You Willing to Bend for Success?

Level343 is kind of a strange cat when it comes to our industry peers. Our new headquarters are in San Francisco. We have a satellite office in Kansas City. We have less than ten full time employees, one full time doggy mascot and have yet to find an actual office in San Fran. Though small, we’re an international marketing company; I speak five languages fluently, and have partners in every corner of the world.

We could be bigger.

We could have more people on staff.

We could have satellite offices in other parts of the world instead of business partners.

We could be a lot of things we’re not.

But –

I’m not willing to bend. I’m not willing to cut corners. Although I’ve sometimes walked the line, I don’t believe I’ve ever crossed it. My team feels the same way.

No Comment

It’s cost us some potential clients. We’ve had potentials come to us who wanted us to do (choose your questionable technique here). We turned them down with a “We’re sorry. We don’t do that, here. We can (insert other technique), however, and here’s why.” Sometimes, offering a viable replacement keeps them with us. Sometimes it doesn’t.

It’s cost us some potentially excellent team members. We’ve been accused of “doing too much” or “giving too much” by previous partners on jobs. We’ve been accused of being too fussy with the work we provide our clients. We’ve been laughed at for tweaking our reporting because 1) Jahnelle’s a data freak and loves Excel sheets and 2) we want to give actionable reports. We want the client to see, in one report (and preferably one page), what’s happening with their web presence.

These things are important to us, because our clients’ online successes often depend on them.

Square Peg in a Round Hole? Maybe…

Sometimes I feel like a square peg in a round hole. It’s not like staying on the “up and up” comes natural. CYA is born into everyone. But see, that’s what makes us different from the animals – the fact that we have a choice to do, or not.

It’s hard sticking to our guns sometimes, especially when money is tight and a potential walks up with a questionable 10k/month project. On the rare occasion that we aren’t quite as meticulous with our accounts receivables as we should be and a client decides they don’t have to pay for delivered work  – well, it’s hard not to go hacker ninja on them and drop their site into the shredders. Maybe 301 some porn wheels their way and other not-quite-proper actions to “help” them rank for triple X terms.

Point is, even though our actions may not be the gut reaction variety – even though the ethical thought is the second thought -, we haven’t compromised.

Pandas, Penguins… Poodles…?

I may regret saying this, but – we’ve watched the Google updates pass, and rode them out with little difficulty. We’ve babysat our clients’ sites and patted their URLs as the traffic meandered in much like it did before the updates. Although the updates have brought us new clients looking for help to fix their crashing traffic, they’ve yet to lose us a client to someone else.

The Rise Of The Penguins

I think – and feel free to chime in on this – we’ve ridden these things out because we’ve never compromised. We’ve never compromised on our link building practices, choosing viral and organic above paid linking strategies. We’ve never compromised on content development, choosing high quality articles over spun or $1 per 2,000 word articles. We’ve never compromised where it comes to proudly displaying our clients’ brands, choosing to make sure everything we do in their name provides a positive example.

Have You Compromised?

Many business owners are staring at their analytics and traffic data right now. Many are watching their rank drop and wondering what to do. Some of the less informed may actually be wondering what happened. What may have happened is too much compromise.

Because, let’s face facts: when Google’s Penguin update creates mass unemployment in India because people have been paying for cheap labor and cheaper tactics rather than actually doing the work necessary for long lasting results….

Then a lot of businesses have compromised…

You’ve spent thousands of dollars on professional landing pages: professional design; professional copy; professional images. The pages drip professionalism and you’ve watched more dollar signs float out of your wallet than a bird has feathers. According to that fast talking sales person, people should be throwing money at you by now.

Landing Page ROI

You feverishly check your merchant account for the fiftieth time in the last week. It’s empty; the promised “landing page ROI” just isn’t happening. Either people have forgotten your site existed or your landing pages are bombing worse than Bouncing Betties ever did.

Welcome to Landing Page ROI 101. In this article:

• Landing Pages vs. Preferred Landing Pages (PLPs)
• Traffic Check 101
• Are Your Preferred Landing Pages Blocking Traffic?
• Your Preferred Landing Page Checklist
• Secrets of Strong Conversion
• Testing, Testing, Is This Thing Converting?

Read on, oh information seeker!

People often get confused by the term landing pages. They assume this means a special type of page. Instead, a landing page is just any page a visitor lands on. For example, if a visitor has landed on your contact page first, your contact page is a landing page.

A preferred landing page, however, really is a special type of page. Pages designated as PLPs are the ones you’d ultimately like your visitors to come to. You want them to see these pages first, before anything else. They’re generally set up as sales pages, with direct calls to action and so on. These distinctions are important, and we’re going to use them for the rest of the article, so don’t forget!

Traffic Check 101

It’s easy to think, “I’m not getting customers so my landing pages must be bad.” It’s easy to jump the gun and start changing everything in an attempt to get something – anything – to happen.

Well, we’re not “throw a noodle at the wall to see if it sticks” type professionals. We’re “systematic research and strategic approach” type professionals. The first thing is to look at what your traffic data has to say, because it does no good to change pages if visitors aren’t reaching your pages in the first place.

Server Stats

Server Stats

Most servers have some kind of traffic tracker available. Don’t worry; you don’t have to delve into the data. What you do need to do is see if something has changed in your reported traffic.

In the image to the left, for example, there’s a noticeable drop in traffic for February and March of this year. This probably means something happened with this site’s web presence rather than with its landing pages specifically.

Google Analytics

Google Analytics

Your server stats and GA stats aren’t ever going to measure up exactly. We aren’t looking at numbers at this point, however, so that’s okay. We’re looking at peaks and valleys.

When comparing stats from different programs, it’s important to pay attention. What appears an obvious drop in the site stats is barely a dip in Google Analytics. Having said that, GA is actually showing a peak of 1,000+ visitors in March before dropping back down in April (May has just started, so it makes it looks like a huge drop – don’t freak out if you see this in your stats).

What you’re looking for are noticeable drops in traffic, indicating an issue with your site’s online visibility (i.e. ranking, publicity, engagement, etc.). If your traffic is maintaining a steady flow, you can (somewhat safely) assume there’s something wrong with your pages. Let’s go look!

Are Your Preferred Landing Pages Blocking Traffic?

Now, if you performed some due diligence, you should have marked in your analytics when you made changes to your landing pages. You can do this in Google Analytics by adding annotations. Once you have at least a roundabout idea of when you installed those landing pages (or the updates), here are a few things you can do:

• Compare pre- and post-installation information. These are simple metrics, but they give you a good idea of trouble areas.
  • Are you getting more/less traffic to these pages?
  • Is the bounce rate noticeably higher than pre-install?
  • Has the time on page changed?
• Compare pre- and post-installation traffic per PLP.
  • Where is the most traffic coming from (referral, direct, search)?
  • Have any search terms changed (include “not provided” and “not set” information)?
  • Has referral traffic changed (more/less than usual)?

What you’re looking for:

What Are You Looking For

It’s not easy troubleshooting by cookie cutter, but what you’re looking for is something that stands out. Optimization is 75% training, 10% trail/error, 10% instinct and 5% fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants. If it weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many kinds of SEOs. For example, you might see:

• A 14% drop in organic traffic, which could mean things like:
  • Your topical focus no longer matches terms the page was originally ranking for (i.e. search engines don’t see the relevance and the page dropped out of the SERPs)
  • Your title and description aren’t marketable (i.e. they don’t invite click-throughs to the page)
  • Something 404′d (error not found) somewhere along the line
• A heavy drop in time on page, which could indicate:
  • Your new content doesn’t draw the visitor in
  • Your new content is great, but calls to action fail
  • Your new content is great, but the page isn’t correctly targeting your market
• A heavy rise in bounce rate, which could indicate:
  • Your page doesn’t provide what your ad/search snippet promises
  • Your page is off putting in some manner (i.e. Too many images, too much content, not trustworthy, etc.)
  • A heavy drop in referral traffic, which could mean something as simple as your referring sites dropping off the map.

If you can’t figure it out, don’t start throwing noodles. Hire a professional SEO expert for a consultation and get rid of the guesswork. At least that way, any work you do has a much better chance of succeeding!

If it turns out that your PLP is the problem, don’t scrap it. You wouldn’t want to waste the thousands of dollars you watched fly out the window. Almost any content/page can be salvaged, it just takes a strategic approach.

• Did I define the goal of this PLP (what do you want to achieve)? Decide what the goal is for the landing page.  Are you trying to collect contact information?  Sell your product?  Talk about your services?  Whatever goal you’re going for needs to be the central theme of the landing.
• Does the title/description for the search snippet or ad match the content on the PLP? Your ad has a call to action also, so match your landing page with the ad.  For instance, if your ad says “The best professional SEO specialists money can buy”, you want your landing page to say something like “Level343: The Best Professional SEO Specialists Money Can Buy.”  Use the same phrases on the ad and the page.
• Is the page focused on its goal?
• Is the content call-to-action-focused or is there extra information? Keep it simple and direct without a whole bunch of extra words. Here, you have to keep the content as focused as possible on the call-to-action.
• Have I kept the navigation to a minimum? Limit or eliminate your navigation.  You don’t need links around your website on a landing page; these are only ways for them to leave the page.  If they leave the page before conversion, you’ve lost them.
• Have I kept distractions to a minimum? Do you need those images or are they just eye candy? Is that YouTube video important? Look at each aspect of your page and ask the same questions.
• Is the content easy to scan (bullet points rather than paragraph copy, for example)? Research has proven that individuals are more likely to click away from a wall of text. Keep paragraphs short and break them into bullet points if possible. Quick bullet points at that!
• Have I kept the sign up or contact form to a minimum? The more complicated it is and the more information you ask for, the more uncertain your visitor will be about giving that information. A good rule of thumb is, “if you don’t absolutely need it for the sale, don’t ask.”
• Does my PLP inspire trust? If you’re a member of your local BBB, provide Paypal or are registered with HackerSafe (for example), use these logos on your landing page.  Logos take little room, and these specific logos inspire trust.
• Did I test the PLPs before implementation?

Are You Listening?

Traffic, in and of itself, is just traffic. However, when you have good ad placements, that traffic becomes expensive. Therefore, you have to place a higher commitment on the PLPs those ads lead to. You have to be willing to dedicate time to those pages, because your conversion rates can always get better – unless they’re already 100% (in which case, contact us with your secret).

A strong landing page, much like a news piece, answers Who, What, Why and How.  Who are you targeting, what are you offering, why should they be interested and how do they act? Each step of the conversion process has to do its part in answering those questions.

How does conversion actually work? If you don’t know, you’re missing a vital piece of information, so pay careful attention. When you place an ad or have a paid search result, the last thing you want to do is have that link go to a generic page. Why? Let’s look carefully at the steps:

Step #1: Seeing your ad – Either your ad is on a site or you’ve paid for placement on a search engine. Whichever, a potential site visitor (not even a potential customer, yet), sees the ad or search result.

Step #2: Clicking through to your landing page – Either it catches their interest and they click, or it doesn’t – and they don’t. Clicking on the link (click-through rate) implies a certain degree of interest.

Step #3: Reading your landing page – Once they get to the page, either they read – or they don’t. If they see copy that doesn’t fit the link, the chances of them turning away are higher.  For this reason, your landing page should be relevant to the search term you targeted. For example, if you have search placement for “free business cards”, your headline and content needs to reflect “free business cards”

Step #4: Understanding the offer - Buyers are savvier than ever. They’ve learned about the fine print, marketers, so be careful with what you put in there. Somewhere in the content, they’re going to be trying to answer:  what’s the offer; what’s the catch; what’s the cost? You’d better be prepared to answer these questions within the body of the landing page itself. As a rule of thumb, it’s always best to lead with benefits and follow with features.

Step #5: Accepting the offer and ACTING – They understand the offer, catch and cost, and are now looking for a clear-cut sign of what to do next. Make this step very clear and prominent. You don’t want them hunting for it. Make sure they know what will happen next when they do act, whether they’ll receive an email, start a download, etc.

Step #6: Gaining security and trust – At some point, depending on how long it takes them to see some results, the converted individual will have second thoughts. They get that slightly nauseated “uhhh” feeling. Rather than let them have any time to get that feeling, give them some kind of encouragement, such as a thank you page that says, “You will be receiving an order confirmation in the mail. However, in the mean time, please accept this free gift as our thanks” – or something to that effect. Don’t let them leave without some sort of thank you and acknowledgement of their action.

Each step above is an important part of the conversion process; the ad itself draws them in, the call to action (and thank you) completes the process. If you’re not getting the ROI you expected – or any ROI at all – there’s something wrong in your conversion process.

Testing works to pinpoint the errors in a systematic way once you know your problem isn’t an overall site problem (such as getting iced by Penguin, in which case, call us). However, when it comes to testing and changes, you start backwards in the conversion process.

May The Results Be With You

For example, you might first test different shopping cart pages, or start by testing various trust issues. Do you have privacy and terms of use policies that are easy to see? Have you tried to put yourself in the visitor’s shoes, to see where they might feel uneasy in the sign up process? Maybe you need their social security number – do you have a question mark (for example) and a pop up that addresses why you need this information?

At each point, using A/B testing gives you a better chance of strengthening your PLP as you make changes. The changes are incremental, which allows you to pinpoint weaknesses while keeping the strengths.

We hope this article has provided you with enough information to really beef up your preferred landing pages to get the strongest conversions possible. Feel free to drop any question that comes to mind in the comments, and we’ll do our best to answer them.

“Welcome to another installment of SEO in the Outback. Today, we’re hunting a particularly elusive species of creature, situs al naturalis. They’re born with highly optimized content and navigation – these things seem to be in their DNA structure. Others in the websitus genus have to work hard to gain these attributes. These beasts are so rare they can normally only be found in carefully cultivated wildlife preserves…”

How Google tours the Outback...

You know that “Related Article” section many sites have? Well, while visiting Search Engine Land and reading Danny’s viewpoint on the Penguin Update  (I would have chosen the title “Google Ices Web Spam with Mafia Penguin Connection” but that’s just me) I happened to look over their related article section. It was almost a shock to see the titles listed there.

Oh, sure. We know Google’s been busy this year already. –And, yes, we keep up on the changes. However, in this industry, you just sort of absorb the changes and roll on: like California stops for marketers.  Once you’ve seen the changes and figured out how to (or if you need to) counteract them, you incorporate that knowledge and then move on to the next crisis {algo change | client | ranking dive}.

With that in mind, maybe you’ll understand why it startled me to see all the changes listed in one spot like that (and I’m sure they missed a few). Especially since I remember each one being touted as “rewarding high-quality sites”, “getting rid of spam”, and “making search better”.

So… is it working? Or did these updates (and the pre-rollout announcement of them) just scare some webmasters into cleaning up their sites? And, what exactly would they be cleaning up?

The All Natural Optimized, Ad-Free, User-friendly Website

So let’s break it down. What HAS Google been doing with their {beloved |hated | tolerated} search engine? According to them, they’re focusing on tighter, better searches. For the website owner, that means:

Quality content

But I LOOK harmless enough...

Panda had business owners struggling, no doubt. “What do you mean, they want quality?” Although Google’s Amit Singhal thoughtfully posted the Google blog “More guidance on building high quality sites,” it was abysmally lacking in essential “guide” like tendencies. It isn’t until you get to their Webmaster Guidelines that you start to get an idea of what the search engine sees as high quality.

As an aside:  Understand this. Whether you agree with a set of best practices or not is a moot point. You need to be aware of them, nonetheless, because the search engine is coded to see these best practices as indicative of quality. It’d be like us seeing “14K” on a yellow bracelet; all of a sudden, that bracelet takes on a shine that says “quality”.

Anyway… quality content isn’t thin. It doesn’t have a ton of keywords not-so-artfully buried in sentences. It has headers. And sections. And paragraphs and bullet points. (It probably doesn’t have fractured sentences, or lots of “ands”, but che serà, serà)

Quality vs… not quality is like:

• The difference between a Chrysler 300 and a Rolls Royce Phantom
• The difference between diamonds and cubic zirconia
• The difference between butter and spread

Fewer ads above the fold

If you have ads on your website, you need to take a good look with a reality-focused eyeball. Go ahead; load your site up and take a look-see. Is a banner ad the first thing you see? Okay, no problem… let your eyes slowly scoot down the screen – but don’t scroll. Percentage-wise, how many ads do you think you have versus content?

3 signs that your ad use outweighs your content:

1. If you say, “What content?”
2. Between affiliate links and ad links, all your text is underlined.
3. You use AdChoice for your article images.

Natural Optimization

Now this… this is the part that floors me. No matter how it’s phrased, Google is saying “your site needs to be optimized (i.e. perfected for relevancy),” which is basically what it says in the Google Guidelines. However, it also says, through the (paraphrased) words of Matt Cutts, “Your site can’t be optimized or it will be penalized.” Of course, as Cutts said when the Penguin update came out, “That’s not what we meant at all,” even though they’re still talking about an “over-optimization penalty”.

What does this double-speak mean? It means, to me at least, that the search engines are looking for natural optimization. In other words, relevance that happens out in the wild.

-And yet, if you look at the animal kingdom, some wild animals started out in shelters: cultivated, nurtured and groomed for their future life as a wild creature. Things that make you go hmmm…

Website Quality Assurance – Emphasis on “Quality”

People fuss over the strangest things. For example, they’ll {moan | complain | whine} when their site traffic drops 1%, but completely ignore that their conversion rate went up 3%. They’ll complain about 300 Twitter followers and totally miss the fact that Twitter brings a whopping 9,000 visits a month to the table. In other words, the {numbers | metrics} they use are skewed. What they use to decide growth is messed up.

Now, you’re not going to get a highly optimized, user-friendly, ad free website all by accident. Perfection is created. Therefore, you create one, while doing so in such a way as to make it appear as if “it juz happened, yo.”

Since Google’s guidance post seemed less than guiding, we’ve created a guidance post of our own. The emphasis is “quality, not quantity”.

• When was the last time you visited your site? (Correct answer: frequently – this week, etc.) Visiting your site should be a regular occurrence. You never know when something that was working perfectly yesterday is now toast today.
• Using LinkSlueth or other crawler, check your pages for link errors (404s, 500s,etc.) or redirect loops (301 to 301 to 301).
• Test redirections any time they’re set up, to make sure they’re working properly.
• When you put up new pages or replace old ones, make sure they’re visible to the public with no errors.
• Make sure each page/post on your site has a proper title, description, and headline.
• Make sure each page/post has unique, informative content.
• Use proper, semantic-style writing (headlines, section headings, paragraphs, bullet points, etc.). These give ample opportunity for visitors and search engines to decide the topic of the page and if it’s relevant to their search query.
• Connect the dots from search engine snippets to the content on the page and the images used with the content.

Remember that a good website is much like a book. A book may have several sections, but they’re all about the same topic (whatever that topic is). Your website is nothing more than a book – and a book with less than 150 pages, at that (for most of you). When you strip optimization down to its bare bones, it’s simply a way of making sure you stay on topic for a particular search query.

The Ending

A successful website isn’t about how much traffic you get. It’s about how many customers you keep. It’s not about quantity, but about quality; the quality of your visitors makes a difference on whether they buy or not. Doesn’t it make sense, then, that what matters to { your visitors | search engines } is your ability to provide them with quality?

You’ve spent hours researching and crafting the perfect piece of content. Now, you’re worried. What if your content fails to generate those much needed links?

So, you tweak the content. You tweak it some more. Then, you change a few things and add in a few more tidbits of information. Next thing you know, hours have gone by and you still haven’t hit publish.

Relax.

Sometimes Successful Link Bait Is Scary

Being afraid to press ‘publish’ is normally a good sign. It usually means you’ve been more honest and open with your readers than you normally are, and this is a good thing. People like honesty and authenticity.

Secondly, if you care this much about the results your post will get, it often means you’re passionate about the topic. And whether you want to admit it or not, this instantly shows up in your writing. Maybe you said something not everyone will agree with. Or, maybe you’ve said something we’re all thinking, but would never say out loud. Either way, you’ve done your best, and this is never a bad thing. So, bite the bullet and do it!

Can You Link to It?

No matter why you lack confidence in your work, there’s an easy solution. Ask yourself one important question:

Do you find it interesting and would you link to it if you had the opportunity?

After all, if you won’t (or can’t) link back to it, and you’re not proud of it, how could you expect others to? So, spend some time generating possible future topics. If you can come up with some, chances are, others will be able to come up with some, too. If you can’t, you may want to consider reworking your link bait and coming at it from another angle.

On the bright side, you’ll have a full list of content ideas you can use later on. In fact, I suggest you actually PLAN to use these topics and link back to the original piece. And here’s why:

Humans want to do what other humans do. If they see someone likes something, they’ll try the same thing and they’ll enjoy it, too. In the commercial above, for example, you can tell the cake tastes good because the man in the ad is showing us how good it is. The advertising company simply needs to hope it has enough staying power to last until you get the opportunity to purchase. (From a copywriting perspective, the script is pretty darn good, too.)

This phenomenon is called confirmation bias. With link bait, you want to use this to your advantage by writing guest posts and creating content that links back to it on the idea that it will inspire others to link back to you, as well.

The other benefit to this tactic is, of course, more content. Hopefully, it will readers the opportunity to come up with more ideas and even more chances to make use of the content you’ve created.

How to Plan Your Industry Takeover

Your first step is to figure out who your “ideal linker” is. This is an individual, business, or website that:

• Already writes about and covers topics related to your link bait.
• Is already pulling in your target audience (your ideal customers) and others who could potentially link to you.
• Publishes content.
• Has been maintained or is at least up-to-date.

You’ll find that, even if a site doesn’t advertise that it will accept outside content, you’ll find most sites will accept well-written content. It’s simply a matter of how you approach it.

Once you’ve compiled list of sites, spend time researching each one. You’ll want to know:

• What language they use.
• What topics do well on the site.
• What information they’re missing onsite.
• What and where they’re currently linking to.
• What their audience demographics is like.

Next, you’ll want to carefully craft a piece of content for each of your chosen targets. This will not only get you a link, and improve your response, but also increase the amount of traffic flowing to both sites.

Having trouble getting your target sites to accept your content? Make connections with the owners of these sites well in advance. Then, when you’re ready to push your content, you’ll already have your foot in the door.

Otherwise, you’ll need to email them, explain that you’d like to guest post on their site, and show them a bit of the content so they can see it’s not just an ad for your product, service, or content (which it shouldn’t be). Hint: Focus on how they’ll benefit from hosting your content, not on what you’ll gain by having them publish it.

Quick Tip: Always link back to other pages, products, services, and content on the host site, as well as to the piece of link bait you’ve published.

Publishing Your Guest Posts

Ideally, you want your site to benefit from the original rush of traffic, as much as you can, before you start to dilute the content. The second day or third day after publishing your link bait, however, you’ll notice the traffic and attention will start to die down. And this is when you can start publishing your guest posts.

Start by performing a content audit on your original piece of link bait, so you can see what worked and what didn’t. Then, you can make any necessary updates or changes to the piece, before giving it another push.

Quick Tip: If your content generates comments or interactions from an “ideal linker”, try to incorporate their wisdom into your existing piece of link bait. This will encourage interaction, and hopefully generate a bit more traffic and attention for both of you.

If you feel your link bait is in top form and doing what it should, start to publish your guest posts. Ideally, you should leave 1-7 days between each guest post you have published. Why? You want to leave enough time between posts, so you can accurately measure the results and devote time to answering comments, questions, etc. At the same time, you don’t want to leave too much time between posts. If you do, you’ll find whatever interest and buzz you’ve generated will go to waste.

The only time this really changes is if you’re pushing a news item or a time sensitive topic. In this instance, you’d want to publish on as many sites as you can, as quickly as you can, to make your news item appear ‘hot’.

In both situations, anyone who regularly cruises these sites will see that you’re generating a fair amount of interest, and hopefully, they’ll jump on the bandwagon.

You should find that you’re able to greatly extend the life of your content, but at the same time, you have to be willing to recognize the end of the road. Eventually, you’ll find your time could be better spent creating fresh content and sharing new ideas.

Quick Tip: Don’t forget to use your social media connections to help push all of your content.

How do you improve the effectiveness of your link bait and reduce the risk of suffering with another flop?

Did you know success could be fed and watered like a plant? Most definitely: in business, we just call it promotion and sales. Well, today, I’m excited to share an opportunity with you, our readers.

Be Willing To Dream...

If you follow Level343, JRPittman or SEOCopy on Twitter, you know we’re involved in the promotion and support of business women throughout the world. Whether mentoring, consulting or promoting, we work to help other women succeed. Several years ago, we started #honoringwomenwednesday. A few years ago, we started our 2012 Top Women of SEO. And now…

“Chicks Who Click”

Starting middle to (maybe) the end of April, Jahnelle and I will be hosting a 30-45 minute radio talk show, recorded and distributed via podcast through SEODojo Radio, as well as our own distribution channels. Many of you have read about the Dojo here, but if not, please read Become an SEO Warrior: How Do You Get the Low Down on SEO? for an informative look at this great community.

We’re super excited about this opportunity, and I’ll tell you why. To be honest, one reason is that I’ve had a lifelong dream to be a radio talk host. Two, we’re a global company, and extending that international flavor to our guests; we’ll be chatting with amazing, talented women from Italy, Britain, India, and Canada, as well as others.

The rest of the excitement, of course, is due to something much more important.

Each podcast of Chicks Who Click, we’ll be interviewing successful women online. From the search industry, content developers, technical writers, mom bloggers, inspirational speakers, artists: a large variety of women from differing cultures, backgrounds and stories.

Yes, Chicks Who Click is right in so many ways. We hope that by listening to women from different regions of the world, learning about their culture and struggles, you might find inspiration. For the business minded, this could give you better insight into how culture matters in the way you approach your markets. For those search for personal enlightenment, it’s a chance to see what you have for what it is, and compare it to the rest of the world, whether good, bad or indifferent.

These women have built their businesses, but success isn’t achieved without struggle. Lessons learned from experience are the second best lessons ever. Lessons learned from others’ experiences come first! Throughout the talk show, we’ll be picking through the lessons these women have gained, in the hopes to share their struggles, experiences and golden advice.

–And I do mean golden advice. We have over fifteen confirmed spots already, including:

• Dr. Anne Perschel (American leadership psychologist)
• Debra Mastaler (American master link builder, mother, speaker)
• Julia Rosein (Canadian SEO/SM Strategist, radio personality)
• Kindra Hibrawi (A Syrian American painter, calligrapher)
• Susan Geraeds (A Dutch woman living in Rome who’s a Director SEO, Content & Geography for one of the largest hotel & traveling booking sites online today. Expedia Inc. )

…and so much more! It’s going to be fantastic!

Now, let me discuss the white elephant in the room. I have nothing against guys. I know many wonderful men that are nurturing, smart, creative, whiz-bang geniuses and whatnot. –And, we’ll be talking with some of them, as well, throughout the show. However, we’ve met a lot of smart, fantastic women through the years, and we’re looking forward to introducing them to you; it might take a while!

The amazing part is that every woman we’ve asked has said “yes” so far. I really thought it would be more of a struggle to find guests. I mean, I could barely get Jahnelle to say yes (big secret time: she’s incredibly shy). Actually, I’m shy, too. That is, until I start discussing something I’m passionate about.

You probably wouldn’t know this by the content we write. Our “no holds barred” style has been welcomed by the industry and you, our readers. Thank you; we’ve been able to do a lot of growing over the past year or so.

This attitude is how I envision Chicks Who Click. A safe place where we can discuss, chat, share and do what women do best: become girlfriends. A place where women from all countries can network and nurture the hopes and dreams of others.

It’s important to note they aren’t all in the marketing industry, but they all have something important to teach. Some of the questions on our list to ask include:

• What do you think of Technology today?
• Does everyone have what it takes to get into business and/or search marketing, or does it take  a certain frame of mind?
• When did you realize you have to start your own business?
• Why do so many online marketing campaigns fail?
• What, in your estimation, is the value of your particular field of business?
• Can you “stack the odds” of a marketing campaign in your favor? If so, how?
• What advice would you give a young lady coming out of college?
• What do you think about online reputation?
• What is the single, most valuable piece of advice you can give people who are thinking about pursuing a career in search marketing?
• What is the single, most valuable piece of advice you can give someone thinking about starting their own business?

Fireside Chat

The big thing is we’re not looking for every woman to answer every question. We’re looking for discussion. We want to give you, the readers/listeners, an opportunity to learn more than what you can read anywhere online. We want to give you added value.

This is nothing new; talk shows have been around forever, of course. However, we’re independent. We can pretty much take the show in whatever direction is needed – so you can never be absolutely positive how a guest spot might turn out. We might spend all half hour discussing how the U.S. and Britain cultures differ, or, we might end up talking about raising kids as a full time working mom.

Oh – and I almost forgot. When we do start recording, which will be in the next two weeks, we’ll post a tweet notifier. Although the podcasts won’t be live, you’ll still have a chance to submit a question you’d like answered. Make sure you follow @jrpittman @SEOCopy and @level343, for news and updates on #chickswhoclick!

Content is a good word with a lot of meanings. It means significance, substantive information, topics. Depending on the use, it also means agreeing, satisfied or gratified. Put into a single definition, content could be, “Topics that provide a large amount of significant information and satisfy the needs of the reader.” Ooo – we like the sound of that!

There is Hope

Unfortunately, much of the content available on the Web falls far short of this definition. Does yours? The information offered in this particular blog post doesn’t cover what you’ll commonly read. You can find articles on common copywriting mistakes, all over the Web. We’ve even written one over at Search Engine People: 4 Common Copywriting Mistakes Everyone Makes.

Instead, we’re going to tear our definition of content (above), and your content offerings, apart and answer the question: are you making these mistakes with your content?

Off-Topic Content

It happens to the best of us…

Bob has a home improvement site. His wife is a Mary Kay seller. Bob has a blog with a high readership, but he’s not a writer; his wife writes well, but doesn’t know much about home improvement.

Bob needs a blog post. It’s due tomorrow, and his writer has disappeared. He goes to his wife, who agrees to write a post for him. Unfortunately, they don’t clarify what the topic should be.

His wife turns in the post two hours before it’s time to publish. It’s well written. It’s grammatically beautiful. It’s about lipstick.

Bob thinks about not posting the piece, but his wife obviously worked hard on it. In fact, she handed it over to him with a proud grin. Bob posts the article, even though it has nothing to do with home improvement.

His readers, many of which have signed up by email and have never once thought about wearing lipstick under their moustaches, are surprised to see a lipstick article in their email from Bob the Home Improvement Guy. Bob gets a whole bunch of joke responses that he would rather do without.

Because we’re using an example instead of reality, we’re going to have mercy on Bob. His readers find it funny, crack a lot of jokes, and everything eventually smoothes out for him. – But what about you? What’s the reality?

The reality is that off-topic content, while sometimes acceptable, should never become a common occurrence by accident. Planning a day to write anything that comes to mind and share it with your readers is one thing; throwing any old topic up because you’re in a deadline panic is another.

Moral:It’s better to write a short blog post on a topic relevant to your site than to write a long one on much ado about nothing.

It Has to be Relevant

Why? Because…

It Doesn’t Satisfy the Needs of the Reader

In some instances, you can’t help but have people visiting your site and then leaving without reading. Sometimes they click the wrong link. Sometimes the title is promising although the search results are off, and they don’t find out until they click through to your content. However, the more precise, concise and all those other “ises” your headlines are, the less likely you are to have these things happen.

Potential visitors gain insight into the topic of a post, article or other content through the headline, which (generally) becomes the title tag in the SERPs. They become readers because the headline promises satisfaction. They have a need for information; the headline indicates your content will provide information gratification.

You want this. Your visitors want this. You want your visitors to like what they find on your site, be gratified and satisfied by what’s available, and come back.

Bob’s post didn’t satisfy his readers’ needs. Not that all his readers are men (women like home improvement, too, you know), but they aren’t following Bob to read about lipstick. They’re following Bob to read about improving their homes.

Moral: Make sure your content applies to your readership, and that your headlines correctly advertise what the article is about.

It Offers Little Information

You’d be amazed at how much information can be provided in a few short paragraphs. Case in point, the amazing brand building ads of Volkswagen. The ad to the left says:

You’re missing a lot when you own a Volkswagen.

A VW has fewer major parts than most other cars because it needs fewer major parts. It doesn’t need a long drive shaft to transfer power to the rear wheels. Because our engine’s in the rear. For better traction. It doesn’t need a radiator. Or a water pump, or hoses or antifreeze. Because the engine’s air-cooled.

The parts a VW doesn’t use, it doesn’t have to haul and waste gas on. Which is one reason it gets about 26 mpg. And the parts you don’t buy, you’ll never repair. So you can’t waste money on that.

Of course, what you do get with a new VW makes up for what you don’t get. You get a new, longer-lasting engine that’s stronger than any other beetle engine. You get an electric rear window defogger. And double-jointed rear axles for a smoother ride.

You get four free VW Diagnosis checkups. With each checkup, your VW gets an X-Ray like examination by incredibly fast and thorough diagnostic equipment. It can actually detect little problems before they become big problems.

You get a – well, you get the point.

You’re missing a lot when you don’t own a Volkswagen.

It’s only 203 words all together, yet the ad writers gave tons of important information to the reader. Sure, it’s sales, but the same thing applies to your average content.

Moral: Your content doesn’t have to be long to make every word count.

It’s Insignificant to the Reader

One of the hardest things to learn is what your readers really want to read when it comes to your topic. We’ve had this problem ourselves, in fact, because you can’t just write about what you think they want to read.

• You can’t visit other blogs to find out, because the other blogs may be missing the target as well.
• You can offer a “suggestion box”, but you have to have a very active readership for it to do any good.
• You can use your keyword traffic, but you’ll miss a whole bunch of ideas that way – and besides, you’ve probably already written about the topic if someone is coming in from search.

You Get The Picture

So how do you find out what your readers really want to read? How do you find something significant? The answer is one word. Social.

Now, by “social”, we don’t necessarily mean Twitter and Facebook. Google has a handy “discussions” search in the sidebar (for now) that can help you gain insight into what people are asking. Start with something simple, like, “how do I, [topic]“.

For SEO, just on the front page alone, we see:

• How do I SEO my Google Places listing?
• How do Drupal tokens affect SEO?
• How can I tell if someone’s an expert SEO?
• How do I SEO my WordPress hosted blog?

You can bet, if one person is asking these questions, others are, too. Because one of our topics is SEO (and we want readers interested in optimizing their site), these are relevant, significant questions to answer.

Moral: You can’t guess at what’s significant. Find out what your target readers are asking, and then answer them with your posts.

Conclusion – Cleaning Up Your Act

Going back to fix issues that you find in your content offerings can be done, but should it? It can definitely be time consuming. Read why a content audit should be done to answer this question, and then how to repurpose your content if need be.

However, what you can do right now, if you find that you’re making these content mistakes, is take a new direction. From here on out, test your posts and articles against our definition of content before you post. Stay on topic, provide more information than filler, make it significant, and satisfy the headline’s promise to the reader!

Last Thursday we posted the article “How Do You Convert Readers to Buyers?” and discussed a few options to do just that. At the end of the article, I made a promise to you that we’d dive deeper into the subject of buyer psychology and the behaviors that make people click. One thing about me, you can’t say I don’t keep my promises…

Welcome to the Law of Effect

Fresh Squeezed

There’s something about human nature. I don’t know what it is, but it seems like every time we see something that occurs often, we have to call it a law. Like the law of gravity – Newton sees that the apple always falls… it must be a law.

Edward Thorndike saw a common occurrence in human behavior. He summed it up by calling it the Law of Effect. In short, if we do something that brings pleasant consequences, we’re much more likely to do it again. If we do something that brings unpleasant consequences, we’re much less likely to do it again.

As an example near and dear to my heart (another blog forthcoming):

We’ve recently received a few calls from businesses needing optimization. No big deal, nothing new, right? Well, the tone of the calls is different than it used to be. These businesses blindly trusted previous optimization companies, only to find out they were handed a big old tub of snake oil.

By the time they call us, they’re defensive. They’re on guard. They ask a million questions and trust maybe two of the answers. They’ve learned that hiring sleezy “professional SEO experts” brings unpleasant consequences. They’re so against doing it again that they end up being nasty with other prospective firms.

They’re afraid to trust, now. They don’t like the taste of fear, and the anger comes across loud and clear. This is, most assuredly, the Law of Effect.

Reinforcement: Operant and Respondent Behavior

Where Thorndike left off, Burrhus Frederic (B.F.) Skinner picked up. He said, “Okay, listen. If the effects of our actions define whether we do them again, then we should be able to change our behavior through positive or negative reinforcement.” He called it operant conditioning, and broke it down into three types:

• Neutral: responses that don’t affect whether the behavior is repeated
• Reinforcers: Responses that increase the chance of repetition (either positive or negative)
• Punishers: Responses that decrease the chance of repetition

The most famous example of respondent conditioning is what’s become known as “Pavlov’s dogs”. In short, a bell would ring and the dogs would begin salivating. The way this came about is by Pavlov inserting a learned response in the animals. Bell rings; food is shown; dogs salivate. Bell rings; food is shown; dogs salivate. Bell rings; dogs salivate, because they learned that the bell signaled food. The action of salivating is involuntary.

There are two major differences between operant and respondent conditioning/behavior:

• Operant conditioning comes after the action; operant behavior is voluntary.
• Respondent conditioning comes before or with the action; operant behavior is involuntary.

Keep this information in mind as you read the rest of the article, because I’m going to tie it in with business.

Merging Behavioral Psychology with Buyer Psychology and Business

The Law of Effect, operant conditioning and respondent conditioning are all terms from behavioral psychology. However, they all apply to buyer psychology as well. Our conditioning – through life’s experiences – greatly affects our responses.

As a business owner, you can’t do much about our inherent respondent conditioning. However, you can do a lot with operant conditioning. Here’s a real world (probably) example:

Lucy badly needs a new dress. A man she really likes has asked her out on a date to go dancing, and all she has are the same old stand bys. She gets online and starts browsing her favorite store; she knows from past experience that her local outlet almost always has the online clothes in stock. The staff is friendly and helpful, the clothes are good quality and the pricing is within her budget.

Pause: this is operant conditioning. The first time Lucy went to her (now) favorite store, she received positive reinforcement: friendly staff, quality, pricing. Her action of shopping at said store provided pleasant consequences (Law of Effect). She’s going to go back. Let’s look in on Lucy again…

Lucy is browsing through dresses and she comes across one she really likes. The dress screams at her to wear it. There’s only one problem; it’s red.

Now, Lucy’s mom comes from the really old school, and she’s had it pounded in her head since she was old enough to talk that red was the color streetwalkers wear (Lucy’s seen streetwalkers now, and knows they wear all sorts of colors, but still…). In fact, the one time she tried to put on some cherry red lipstick, her mom yelled at her in front of her friends and made her wash it off.

What does Lucy do? Go all out, say to heck with it, and buy the red dress? Or, does her learned response of shame and reinforced information that red is a “street walker” color wear her down? Does she pass over the red dress?

Pause, while Lucy is biting her lip in uncertainty, stuck between desire for the dress and worry about being perceived as a streetwalker: this is respondent conditioning. Past experience with the color red in apparel and makeup has been negative. At this point, there’s no telling what Lucy will do.

Go beyond indecision

You can’t change her respondent conditioning. You can, however, try to help her past the moment of indecision…

A little box pops up on Lucy’s screen with a friendly message. “Hi, there. My name is Carly. Is there anything I can help you with?” Ah… Lucy is now in familiar territory. The staff has always been friendly and helpful.

“Hi, Carly,” she types. “I’m looking at this dress and I really like it, but I’m not really partial to red. Do you have something similar?” She copies and pastes the link to the dress in the box and chews on her nails waiting for a response.

Carly sends back, “I don’t think we have any of that dress in other colors, but give me just a second.”

Lucy sighs and looks with yearning at the dress. It’s so pretty. “Okay…”

After a few minutes, Carly types, “I’m sorry, we don’t have other colors – but I did find a few similar styles with a variety of colors.”

Carly sends the links to Lucy, who clicks them one at a time. After the third click, she grins. There it is – almost the same style, if not nicer, in a beautiful light blue. She loves light blue. “You found it! Do you have it in this store, by any chance, size 12?”

“We do, but only one – would you like me to put it on hold for you?”

“Yes, please!” Lucy concludes the conversation with a huge smile on her face and warm thoughts about the store. She’s once again reminded why it’s her favorite clothing outlet. She gets on Twitter and gushes her happiness (Thanks @clothingoutlet! Your site’s sales staff is fantastic!). She gets on Facebook and pastes the link to her new dress with a rave review (This is why ClothingOutlet is my favorite store [story here]).

Stop.

Influencing Buyers Doesn’t Have to Be Sneaky

When someone comes to your site and begins to browse your products, many of them are actually looking for something. What they’re looking for is your best guess (or your analytics tracking’s results), but the fact that they’re looking for something is obvious.

Often, and this is true of brick and mortar businesses as well, they leave without buying because of something as simple as indecision. They simply can’t make up their minds. Either their torn by respondent conditioning, operant conditioning or just plain too many choices.

At this moment of indecision, what many need is a nudge. They need a little bit of influence to get to the sale. That influence doesn’t have to be hidden.

Something as simple as a chat box with a live, helpful person at the other end, can make a big difference. As we’ve seen with Lucy, the dear girl, someone to help them through the decision-making process can:

• Provide positive reinforcement about the company
• Build a feeling of trust about the company
• Provide the need to give positive feedback to the company
• Develop a feeling of self actualization, accomplishment and buyer satisfaction

Not every business can benefit from a chat box. That’s not the real take away, here. The real take away is this.

What does this space mean to you?

Your market is made of living, breathing individuals with their own buyer make up. When they come to your site, your online business presence has to be prepared to greet them on their own terms. It has to be prepared to deal with moments of indecision and worries from various respondent conditioning, and then help them walk through the buying process.

Your homework, should you choose to accept it:

Pretend you’re a buyer, visiting your site for the first time. You know nothing about the business, but it’s advertising a product or service you want. Try to find information on that product or service, and then answer these questions:

• How much information comes up?
• How many choices does the site provide?
• Are there places in the search/buy process where potential moments of indecision can be better addressed?
• How easy has the site made it to contact a live person with questions?
• How does the site address potential issues such as privacy concerns?

These are important questions to answer.

Buyer psychology is more than just getting into the customer’s head. It’s more than persuading them to buy something they don’t need. In actuality, it’s helping them to find the best answer for their problem.

A lot of people want to know the ROI of social media. It takes a lot of time and energy for social; a wispy, ethereal answer of returns for that investment just isn’t satisfying. Unfortunately, the ROI of social media is much like the ROI of anything else. How much… depends.

“What’s the ROI of Your Mother?”

A Wispy, Ethereal Answer...

Ah, what a lovely sentiment, spoken by Vayner Media’s Gary Vaynerchuk (and, incidentally, inspiring this humorous infograph from Flowtown, “What IS the ROI of Your Mom?“). Unfortunately, a recent conversation points out how misunderstood this statement often is:

Any marketer worth their salt who reads this statement should be aghast. Show me the ROI of a press release? Gary Vaynerchuk would be shocked to see his statement put in the same context as “show me the ROI of a press release.” As if none of these things can be measured. As if marketing data has no actual value and it’s all just pissing in the wind.

The first reply…

And the second one…

The ROI of Something All Depends on How You Use It

I’d like to pull out some statements from that last response and shamelessly use them for the rest of this article:

“The question is wrong.”

The Question is Wrong

If you can’t measure or quantify the ROI of your social media efforts, you’re asking the wrong questions. In Marketing Online, What’s That ROI Formula Again?, we gave an example of the right kind of question to ask. In short, specificity makes a difference on whether social media ROI can be measured.

“… you must be specific; generic inference to activities just won’t do. For example, ‘I’m going to use social media to achieve this’ can’t be correctly measured, while ‘I’m going to post a Twitter exclusive coupon campaign, 4 times a day for a quarter, to increase sales’ is very specific.”

In other words, the right question in this instance would be, “What’s the ROI for posting an exclusive Twitter campaign to increase sales?”

Where the question of social media ROI turns wrong is that it’s a blanket question. You wouldn’t ask, “What’s the ROI of running a business” would you? No, you’d break that question down into specific areas.

“Even a stapler has an ROI, which depends on how you use it.”

For example, if you buy a heavy-duty stapler for $20 and it does double duty as a hammer (don’t tell me you’ve never done that), you’re not only stapling papers, but you’re also saving at least $10 on the hammer. That’s increased ROI on the stapler, that is.

Silly example, but I think you get my point, and the point of the commenter. The ROI depends on what the platform is and what you’re doing on it. Otherwise, you’re throwing noodles at the wall to see if they’ll stick.

“The ROI of a press release… is measurable as well…”

A 2008 TopRank article gave three great examples of press release ROI. It’s an old article, but the information is still relevant – and so is the explanation of social media ROI your clients and/or boss will want to hear.

You Can Measure the ROI

Building Examples of Social Media ROI

You CAN measure the ROI of your social media activities. You CAN show your clients or boss examples. It’s more than possible. You just have to know how to do it.

12 Case Studies Prove ROI of Social Media Promotions

Not all of these examples should be used to describe ROI, especially if you have an audience that needs dollar signs. For example, the Jamba Juice case study ends with “The coupon campaign drove tens of thousands to Jamba Juice stores.” Of course, it’s Return on Investment of a sort, but it doesn’t show the bottom dollar. Neither does the KRAFT example (#5), unless the entire purpose of the campaign was to increase Twitter followers. Increased Twitter followers does not, necessarily, translate to increased sales.

The case study for Hautelook (#3) is well worth a serious look, however. Although it doesn’t share an exact dollar amount, the final sentence says it all:

“Not only did Hautelook generate thousands of new fans they also generated tens of thousands of sales in just one day and a return on investment of more than 5x and over 20% of purchasers were first time Hautelook customers.” (emphasis mine)

How Social Media Helped Cisco Shave $100,000+ Off a Product Launch

The title alone should be enough to excite any executive. The money quote, however, is buried in the content of the article:

“’It was classified as one of the top five launches in company history,’ said LaSandra Brill, senior manager, global social media. (emphasis mine)”

Case Study: Social Media Customers Are More Valuable Customers

Don’t miss this one. Here’s the money excerpt:

“What CareOne found was that the personal connection for consumers (having some sort of social media contact with the company) led to a longer buying cycle (24-28 days versus as low as 30-minutes for those without a social media relationship with the company), but an incredible jump in successful conversions through the sign-up process and ultimately the point of purchase.

How much of a conversion? Social media connections filled out the consultation (lead-generation) form at a 179% higher rate than the typical customer. Sales? They were 217% more likely to make their first payment. For one particular problem area (people who partially fill out the sign-up form then quit), social media prospects went back and completed the form at a 680% higher clip than non-social media leads. They made their first payment at an astonishing 732% better rate.”

Now that’s reallead generation.

Reach Your ROI

Social Measurement and Returns

As you can see from the various examples, the last commenter was right. The ROI of social media all depends on how you use it. It depends on what your goals are – and those goals don’t always directly translate into sales.

The next time you talk to a client or your boss says, “What’s the ROI,” take a deep breath. Remember that there really is a Return on Investment, it really can be measured, and you have the examples to back it up. – And for love of professionalism, please don’t say, “What’s the ROI of your mother?”

A long time ago, back in the dark ages of 2008, we wrote an article about building your SEO content. We know, because we recently practiced a little bit of the due diligence we preach so much about, and performed a content audit. Although it’s easy to say, “Things have changed a lot” or “SEO changes quickly,” we got a good view of how much things have changed by digging through our dusty archives.

Building Your SEO Content

The original version of this article, “Building Your SEO Content” (no longer available), was written in simple terms anyone can understand. Write articles rich in content and key terms. Even then, we were cautioning businesses to keep the terms to a minimum, and not overpower the content with SEO. Yet, we also spoke about things like article directories and Ezine sites.

Yes, indeed – many things have changed. One of the biggest things to change is our own approach to content development and marketing; you can’t help but grow your understanding when you put things in practice on a daily basis.

Content Domination
We recently wrote about content domination – using content to stay ahead of the competition. However, the focus of the article was on the competition itself, not on your readership. –And really, what good is dominating in the SERPs if your readers aren’t satisfied? What good is doing anything if it doesn’t translate to growing your readership and sales? To be honest, it doesn’t do you much good at all.

How Much Can You Reasonably Expect Them To Read?

With content domination, it’s easy to get into the habit of pouring out content in a flood. You can, however, ending up washing your readers right out of your pages, articles and blog posts. For example, sometimes Mashable puts out several articles in a day, and you think, “Wow, I wish I could do that!” Not everybody is a Mashable. In fact, most people aren’t.

Here’s the deal. Mashable has a wide audience, and they cater to that audience. They have people who follow specific sections rather than everything that comes across the wire. Therefore, when they post several articles in a day, they’re targeting sections of their audience. They don’t expect all their readers to read every article.

What about you? Are you bombarding your readers with content? Are you putting out three or four posts a day, without targeting specific areas of your site? For that matter, do you even have specific areas of your site?

For example, at the top of our blog, you’ll see five categories. Were we to start posting every day, we would:

• Offer an option for readers to subscribe to individual categories.
• Create a single post, per category, per day.
• Provide an option for readers to receive weekly (rather than daily) updates.

In other words, as we increased our output, we would also increase our readers’ ability to control that output.

Control your output

Using Various Types of Content – Where Should I Put This?

Right now, you’re probably saying, “Wait a minute. If I have to be careful about how much content I put out in a day, how can I possibly dominate?” That’s a great question, and we have a great answer.

Have you ever noticed that there’s more than one type of content? For example, pages (such as about pages, FAQs, whitepapers and so on) tend to hold long-lasting information that doesn’t need tweaking often. Blog posts, on the other hand, tend to hold information that doesn’t last as long, while press releases and news pieces have a short period of freshness.

When you’re publishing high amounts of content, you have to keep these “types” in mind. By creating a content strategy that allows for freshness issues, you can provide the copy needed without overwhelming your readers. Here’s how it works:

Step 1: Define the freshness of the content.

Decide whether the information is long lasting, and how often it might need to updating. If it’s long lasting information, consider creating a page rather than a blog post or article.

Step 2: Define the purpose of the content.

Understand that building content for SEO purposes should never be the main goal of any piece of copy. The goals should always be to:

1. Create a constant, growing source of information (your website and online presence)
2. Create copy that informs, entertains and helps the reader in some way
3. Create copy that causes conversation, engagement and interest

With this in mind, the next step is to define whether a specific piece of copy’s main goal is to grow the amount of information available on your site, keep your readers informed or create engagement.

Step 3: Separate content pieces into freshness categories.

You can choose how to name your categories, but the categories should define the freshness of the content. We use static (long lasting information), transitional (medium freshness use) and dynamic (timely pieces or those that will need updated quickly).

For the most part, your work is done. Static copy generally makes strong pages. Transitional makes for strong blog posts; dynamic makes for good news releases or occasional blog posts. However, a final step will help further define your content output.

Step 4: Check your work.

For each piece of copy, follow the checklist before publication:

1. Will this piece expire within a week? If yes, it’s a news piece. Go to #4. If no, go to #2.
2. Will this piece expire within six months? If yes, it’s a blog post. Go to #8. If no, go to #3.
3. Will this piece need to be updated regularly? If no, it’s a page. Go to #5.  If yes, go to #8.
4. If this is a news piece, can it be used as a press release? If no, it’s a blog post. If yes, stop and use it as a press release.
5. This is a page. Can it be made into a whitepaper and/or case study? If yes, stop and use it as a whitepaper and/or case study. If no, go to #6.
6.  This is a page. Can it be made into a FAQ? If yes, use it as a FAQ. If no, go to #7.
7. This is a page. Can it be made into a static article? If yes, make it a static article. If no, and the information can’t be included in a pre-existing page, it’s a blog post. Go to #8.
8. This is a blog post. Make sure it’s highly readable, easy to understand and interesting. Read aloud for grammatical and spelling errors. Go to #9.
9. This is a blog post. Schedule for the appropriate category. Go to #10.
10. Rinse and repeat.

Want to save this checklist? Download the Content Freshness Checklist (PNG infograph).

Watch, Listen and Learn

As you watch the SERPs, your rankings and your traffic flow, don’t forget to also watch the conversation. Which blog posts brought the most inbound links and social engagement? It’s easy to be caught up in ranking and traffic, but without engagement and conversation, all the content in the world won’t do you much good. By paying attention to the topics, tone, headlines and so on that bring the most interest, you can apply what you learn to future posts, articles, and whitepapers.

Remember, the main goals for any business’ content marketing are to increase authority, trust and engagement. When you have those, the traffic will come on its own.

Recent truth. A client came to us with a business strategy; their biggest concern was finding a copywriter familiar with the language usage of their target country. While English is a common language, the usage can change drastically from place to place, and copy written without this in mind is very noticeable.

Target. Market.

They went through the business plan with us, who they’re targeting, and their goals. “We worked with another copywriter and they just didn’t get the right tone. I think it was because they were American.”

Got it. We understand that – we get many good writers we can’t hire because American English isn’t a first language (and the majority of our clients are American businesses). Our use of grammar is strange to the rest of the world. For this particular client, the concern is that American English is our main language. No surprise there.

No – the surprise came when we looked over the material we were given to work with.

“Hey, who did they say they were targeting again?”

“Agencies.”

“That’s what I thought. This isn’t agency language. This is end-user language.”

Page after page after page of material targeted the wrong market. The problem wasn’t the language; it was the language.

You Can’t Sell a Horse to a Horse

A horse needs many things, but another horse is not one of them. On the other hand, a farmer might actually have use for the animal, or a breeder or… It may be a strange analogy, but it seems just as strange to write marketing material for the wrong user. There’s a huge difference between business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships; it’s even more important to use the right language.

When you’re targeting the business, you may not use as much information. For example, when we offer our services to other SEO agencies, we’re not going to get into near as much information about the why as we are the what. We’ll use the term SERPs without adding (search engine results pages). To do otherwise could be misconstrued as talking down to the agency.

When you’re targeting the end-user, the consumer, you’re going to use a lot more information about the why. The consumer, not buried in the day-to-day work of an SEO specialist, has a much higher chance of not knowing the why or the what. To do otherwise has a high potential of leaving the client confused and unable to find the value in what we offer.

It’s a fine line, and one that has to be walked carefully.

Good Content, Bad Aim

Good content doesn’t mean much if you’re not writing to your target market. You can write quality content until the cows come home, but if it doesn’t address your clients’ and customers’ needs, it might as well be spam. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh, but still…

Consider this. When you receive emails to your inbox from companies, how do you define whether to delete, spam or read? It’s all sales, right? The difference is whether you are, or are not, their target market. In other words, whether their product is interesting or not… to you.

Have you ever wondered why businesses continue to stuff the same emails down your throat? Online Pharmacy, Viagra, The truth between meds and quality price… Because they work. Because somewhere out there is someone who wants to know about Viagra, or is looking for an online pharmacy, etc. Because somewhere out there is their target market. They’ve just lumped you in with it; they didn’t focus.

Focus, Focus, Focus

Having a defined target market is extremely important, if nothing else, because you can’t afford to target everybody. That’s too broad of an audience. The dangers of too broad an audience are many, including:

• Consumers will end up looking at price as the highest importance; if you aren’t the cheapest option, you lose.
• There’s a lot of marketing “noise” out there; if you’re shouting to a huge, uninterested group, you’re just adding to the noise. You aren’t actually talking to anyone.

The tighter your focus, the better chance you have of increasing your conversion rate, as well as the ROI of your marketing efforts.

Focus on your current customer base.
Who are they? Men? Women? Moms? Dads? Are the majority in a specific age group with a college education? The highest commonalities in your current customer base are the ones who respond most to your products.

Focus on your customers

Focus on your customers’ personal brands.
A single mom with three kids might pride herself on being smart with her money. A couple living a life of luxury may pride themselves on the quality of their possessions. The way you brand your product becomes an extension of the image they have of themselves – their personal brand.

Focus on your customers’ language.
Look. Listen. Learn. Because your target market may not be speaking the same language. For example, a web developer’s target market may be using words like “thingamabob” to describe a function of their website. Of course, you aren’t going to use this same terminology in your copy, but this should create awareness that your customer base isn’t as well versed in industry lingo as you are.

Focus on your customers’ needs and wants.
Why are these people buying from you? You are not a unique snowflake; your product is not one of a kind (usually). So what is it about your product that makes it stand out from the rest? How does it address the needs and wants of your customers? How does it ease their lives?

This is what it’s all about, you see – making their lives easier, better, more fulfilling. To the single working Dad pinching pennies and time, an inexpensive bathroom product that makes cleaning a breeze is a win. To the hard working real estate agent, constantly on the go, a cell-phone holder on their car’s dashboard helps them communicate faster, while not inhibiting their hand-to-wheel motions.

You Are Not Your Target Market

One last thing. Your target market? It isn’t you. What you like, what you want, what you need, has no bearing on your market, and it has no bearing on how you market. Don’t let your own biases, likes and dislikes color how you reach out to your customers.

Now that we’ve covered all this marketing goodness, repeat after me: “Target. Market.” Ready! Aim! Fire!

Early in the morning on March 6, 2012, the news poured into the online world from MSNBC.com’s Red Tape section. Government agencies and colleges demand applicants’ Facebook passwords, the headline reads. It seems that SOPA and PIPA aren’t enough; it seems the social arena is one area the government, colleges and employers just can’t leave alone.

Is Your Privacy At Risk?

For years, we’ve warned individuals to guard their social accounts closely. “Employers are including social networks as part of the employer screening process,” we’ve cautioned. “Be very careful what you put on there. Be very careful what you allow your children to put on there. Explain to your kids the necessity of managing their social networks for the future job market.”

We’ve also given wider warnings that add up to, “If you don’t want something exposed to a broad online audience, don’t put it online. Online privacy is ethereal; it doesn’t really exist.”

Of course, our advice has always been based on the idea that employers could only see what you allowed to be seen by the world (unless your friends shared it with a wider audience). In other words, a locked down account won’t tell potential employers much. They could search until the sun goes down, and still only find what you allow public.

According to the MSNBC article, active social monitoring by government employers, college officials and businesses in the public sector has stepped up a huge notch. It’s no longer enough to be able to view your public conversations. They want to be in on your private conversations, too.

Privacy, Please.

MSNBC reports that job seekers for Maryland Department of Corrections have been required to log in and let an employer watch over their shoulders as they clicked through what had previously been considered private. Oh sure, it’s voluntary (hint, hint, nudge, nudge).

As shocking as this seems, the flagrant violation of privacy has been worse. As early as 2008, 22% of 31,000 surveyed employers said they used social networks for candidate evaluation, while 9% planned to use them.

Privacy

In 2009, the Wall Street Journal blogged about the city of Bozeman, Montana, which, for three years, had required municipal job applicants to turn over their social account login details. According to the WSJ blog, the city’s job applicant release form asked for “any and all current personal or business websites, web pages or memberships on any Internet-based chat rooms, social clubs or forums, to include, but not limited to: Facebook, Google, Yahoo, YouTube.com, etc.”

It wasn’t until a local news station reported on the requirement and outrage ensued that Bozeman put the policy on hold. However, the city stated that, while they may no longer require login information, they may still require individuals to “friend” a city official, so what was posted could still be seen.

In a California case around the same time, a college student wrote an ode about her home town and posted in on MySpace. The California Appellate Court ruled that, because the ode was posted on MySpace, the subsequent reposting of the ode to the local newspaper by a high school teacher wasn’t an invasion of privacy.

In 2010, Maryland’s Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services began the same practice of asking for the voluntary divulging of social media log in information. Again, the practice was voluntary. According to the department, whether the applicant agreed or not wasn’t taken into account at all.

Uh huh. Can you see it? “We want you to hand over your log in information so we can dig through your personal information, but, you know, we won’t hold it against you if you say no.” Sure.

When the ACLU found out, they sent the Maryland DOC a nicely worded letter, which stated, among other things, that the DOC’s “demand for login information is equivalent to demands that they produce all of their private correspondence and photographs for review, or permit the government to listen in on their personal telephone calls, as a condition of employment.” It was only then that the DOC suspended the practice, pending administrative review.

What’s Good for the Goose is Good for the Gander? Colleges Snag Control.

Goose or Gander?

This might be understandable for a government job – maybe. After all, the higher up the food chain you go in government positions, the more problems can arise if you’re secretly a gang member, spy, or have a past as a terrorist. When applying for government jobs, there’s somewhat of an understanding that you’re exposing your lives to the agency you’re to which you’re applying.

However, while government jobs may be one thing, what about colleges? According to a February 2011 article on Time.com, a survey reported that 82% of admissions officers used Facebook to recruit. Not a big deal, right? It’s just recruiting.

However, a more recent survey, as reported by SFGate.com, points to a bigger issue. About a quarter of scholarship providers who responded to the survey said they use online sources, including Facebook, to screen college scholarship finalists.

This takes us all back to the MSNBC.com article, which shares a tidbit of the University of North Carolina’s recently updated handbook:

“‘Each team must identify at least one coach or administrator who is responsible for having access to and regularly monitoring the content of team members’ social networking sites and postings,’ it reads. ‘The athletics department also reserves the right to have other staff members monitor athletes’ posts.’”

Isn’t this going a bit far? Isn’t this, just like a request for passwords, an invasion of privacy? Believe it or not, it can reasonably be argued that it isn’t.

No Real Right to Privacy

No Real Right To Privacy

That’s right. The invasion of privacy is seldom actually addressed in the U.S. Constitution. The First, Third, Fourth, Fifth , Ninth and Fourteenth Amendments, most often cited as “right of privacy“, only account for certain privates rights. They aren’t, as many people assume, a blanket set:

• 1^st Amendment (Privacy of Beliefs): The right to privacy of beliefs, including religion, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and freedom to petition the government
• 3^rd Amendment (Privacy of Home): No soldier can force a home owner to allow them to live there, whether in peace or in war, unless it’s done in a manner prescribed by law
• 4^th Amendment (Privacy of Person and Possessions): The right to be secure in your person, house, papers and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures
• 5^th Amendment (Privilege Against Self Incrimination): The right to remain silent and not incriminate yourself
• 9^th Amendment (Broad statement of rights): The enumeration of certain rights shouldn’t be construed as denying or disparaging other rights
• 14^th Amendment (Liberty Clause): No state can deprive a person of life, liberty or property without due process

The closest amendment to deal with the Facebook issue is the 4^th Amendment, but it still has a fair amount of maneuvering room. For example, are your Facebook posts considered papers or effects? Can requiring a college student to “friend” a college counselor be construed as unreasonable search and seizure? –And, while your Facebook posts may very well keep you from a scholarship or employment, can they be considered incriminating evidence?

Social Media on the Horizon

All of this raises serious questions, the number one being: “Should a serious college or job applicant drop out of the social arena all together?” As well, the news hit the wires less than six months after Jobvite released a November 2011 survey and infograph (The State of Social Recruiting in 2011). The survey states that 89% of U.S. companies will use social recruiting, while 82% of job seekers use social networks.

The real answer may be, “yes” and “no”. In other words:

• Yes – use social networks and build an online reputation
• No – if you wouldn’t want your grandma or mother to see what you’re posting, don’t post it

Quite simply, the recent developments in social media monitoring by the government, employers and colleges demands you start taking your social account use seriously. If you thought Google pulling all their privacy policies together into one was bad step in the wrong direction, you ain’t seen nothin’ yet.

Occasionally, Wikipedia has spot-on information. On this occasion, it’s their definition of online reputation management: “Online reputation management (or monitoring) is the practice of monitoring the Internet reputation of a person, brand or business, with the goal of suppressing negative mentions entirely, or pushing them lower on search engine results pages to decrease their visibility. [It's] the act of monitoring, addressing or mitigating SERPs (search engine result pages) or mentions in online media and Web sphere content.”

Not bad. Not bad at all. –But is that all ORM is? Suppressing negative mentions? We don’t think so.

Reputation Is All Inclusive, and It Starts With You

You don’t build your online reputation in the SERPs alone, as many would have you believe. Word of mouth marketing, for example, is a huge asset – or a huge obstacle – for any business. While WOM may translate to your search rankings eventually, it translates to the consumer first. –And, while you want positive rankings in the SERPs, the search results should never be seen as the end all, be all of your marketing or reputation management concerns.

It starts with you:

Your website. It starts with how visitors perceive your business, based on the information you provide. For example, if you shout “Transparency!” while hiding your privacy policy or (for ecommerce) shipping information, your claims of transparency won’t mesh with your actions.

Other examples are the sites that offer you a “free trial” loud and clear. Once you order the free trial, you find out that you also signed up for a membership. Oh, yes, the membership was mentioned, but in print so tiny you’d need a telescope to see it.

Your customer service and promises kept. It continues with how you deal with your customers’ problems – or don’t deal, as the case may be. For instance:

• Do you provide more than one way for your customers to reach you, such as a phone number and a dedicated customer email address?
• Is the phone manned, or do they have to leave a message for you to call back?
• Do you clearly outline on your website what the customer should expect from your service team?
• Do you actively watch social networks for positive/negative mentions?

Red Alert

In social media, you should always keep an eye out for mentions of your company and social accounts. Of course, you don’t have to respond to every comment (although it helps), but certain types of comments should definitely be addressed and not left to float away.

For example, the following hashtags, along with your company name or Twitter account:

• Alert – Comments with #sucks
• Yellow Alert – Comments with #fail
• Orange Alert – Comments with #epicfail
• Red Alert – Comments with #scam

On Facebook, you might see comments like this: “I went to the [company name] event where I was promised a fancy, four-course meal freshly prepared, and all I got was this T-Shirt. No, really – all I got was the T-Shirt.”

Of course, the truth is that you probably won’t see this comment, because it was posted on their wall instead of yours. Therefore, it’d be hidden for you, but not, unfortunately, to their 500+ friends, family and fans. You can’t fight what you can’t see.

However, keeping your promises and providing excellent customer service really aren’t that important… that is, if your reputation doesn’t mean anything to you.

How you deal with publicity. When you’re publicly lauded, do you brag about it? When you’re publicly criticized, do you whine and moan (or worse, ignore/delete the criticism)? Think about this; you’re online. It’s one of the most public venues the world has ever known. You can’t silence the critics, and you can only cheapen the compliments. Think carefully before you respond to comments for, or against, your company.

How you extend your business. Comment spam, anyone? No? How about article spamming? Many business owners look at tactics like these as the quickest ways to grow their business. However, we have to ask – what does comment spam actually achieve in terms of reputation, other than creating disgust in the spammed bloggers?

True, not all bloggers moderate, their comments. However, what about readers who come across spammy comments with your company name and website in them? How can you not see that it reeks of desperation, when it appears that the only way you can get publicity is to fake it? Enough said, we think.

Bad Stuff Can and Does Happen, BUT…

Bad things happen...

Yes, your competition can get online and post fake, horrible reviews about you. –And yes, it’s true that not every customer will be a happy one. This is when Wikipedia’s definition comes in to play.

-BUT –

Online, you are your own worst enemy. To be more exact, you are your company’s worst enemy. Everything you say and do, as we have said multiple times before, is visible online. It can be passed from person to person, and often is.

Online reputation management is more than just dealing with bad publicity. It starts with you, doing your best to make sure the publicity never goes bad.

Content developers R’ Us. Using the highest forms of technological pen and ink (to wit, the computer), we craft humorous, informative, selling copy – not for just anybody, but for your target market. We talk about content on our service pages, emphasize it heavily in our articles (have you seen our Content Development section?), and use it with blunt force against our clients’ competitors. We call it content domination, and it works a little something like this…

Now You're Ready

Developing Content Strategies & Tactics

A strategy is immutable. It doesn’t change. It’s a “Big Picture” kind of thing. When you’re developing strategies, you do so by looking at the big picture and saying things like:

• People don’t come to us for answers; we need to increase our authority.
• Our brand is not well known; we need to publicize our company, products and/or services.
• Our site ranking across major search engines is low; we need to rise in the ranks.
• Our traffic is non-existent; we need to become more prominent and invite conversation.
• We consitently rank below our competitors; we need to dominate the competition.

Tactics, on the other hand, change depending on technology, open doors and current capabilities. When you’re developing tactics, you do so by looking at individual areas and saying things like:

• We need to increase our authority; we’re going to do this by guest blogging on authority sites.
• We need to publicize our company, products and/or services; we’re going to do this by publishing press releases.
• We need to rise in the ranks; we’re going to do this through organic, passive link building.
• We need to become more prominent and invite conversation; we’re going to do this by creating informative, entertaining content worth linking to and talking about.
• We need to dominate the competition; we’re going to do this by careful insertion of targeted content into the SERPs.

Even though these seem clear-cut, they are subject to changes. For example, although you can guest blog on authority sites, which sites you use can change drastically. While you may always target your content, the target itself may change. While you may plan on publishing press releases, what if your company has no news to speak of?

Tactics have to be flexible. Strategies, such as increase our authority, are set in stone.

Dominating with Content, One Piece of Copy at a Time

King Content and Queen SEO

It is possible to dominate with content using only copywriters. Where an organic SEO specialist comes in, however, is ensuring that each piece of content targets a specific niche area. If you’re going to put so much effort into something, you might as well make sure you’re targeting the most profitable areas, non?

With content domination, each piece of copy that goes out serves a specific purpose. For example, guest blogging on authority sites helps build your authority, but doesn’t necessarily work to invite conversation on your own site. Creating content worth linking to may invite conversation, but it doesn’t necessarily help dominate the competition.

To dominate – the competition, in the SERPs, through traffic, through authority – you have to carefully consider each strategy and develop specific tactics. Let’s walk through an example:

Strategy: Dominate the Competition
Tactic: Careful insertion of targeted content into the SERPs
Methods:

• Keyword research – It does no good to rank above your competitors if you’re targeting the wrong key terms. Sure, you may get traffic, but if people are coming to your site from the search query bugs life, and you sell bug spray, it’s not going to do you much good. Keyword research provides an in depth review of the terms that actually fit your site, your services/products, and buyer/information hunter personas. Thus, when you rank, you’re ranking for terms that will actually do some good.
• Competitor research – Is Wal-Mart your competitor? What about Overstock? Not really – not if you’re a small business, and most especially if you sell products or services much different than they. When talking about online competition, your actual competitors are any business ranking for the same terms as your company. These are the ones you want to watch.
• Rank monitoring – Where are you ranking? Where are your competitors ranking? You have to keep a careful on the SERPs, because they change rapidly. All it takes is the competition putting content out a few times without you matching them, and they can knock you off the front page.
• On demand content development – Once you rank at the top, you can’t sit there fat, dumb and happy. You have to fight to get there, and you have to fight to keep that position. To do so, you have to have on-demand content development.

Pulling It All Together – The Fight For the Top

Now What?

You have your targeted key terms, you know who your competitors are, and you’re now monitoring your ranking to the best of your ability. Now what?

The Internet is a content mill, constantly outputting information through various websites, blogs and news sites, etc. The job of on demand content development is to make sure your content gets out there at a rate that’s fast enough to keep you ranking, without being so fast that you bombard your readers and the Web with content spam. How do you do that?

1. Monitor your site ranking for your key terms, watching for a slight drop.
2. As your site drops (it will, for even mildly competitive terms), you counterattack.
3. Depending on the term, you create a well-written, informative, engaging piece of content that targets that term, and publish it on your site.
4. For a brief moment in time (relatively speaking), that article ranks at the top, above the competition.
5. Rinse and repeat across terms.

Caveats to Content Domination

There are several caveats to content domination, but there are also several work arounds:

Caveat: For the results to be quick, your site already has to have a good reputation and authority in the eyes of the search engines.
Work around: If you have access to authority sites, you can borrow their authority by guest posting. While this doesn’t generate the same amount of traffic to your site, it does put your content at the top of the SERPs.

Caveat: For the results to last, they have to be talked about and linked to. The more activity on the page, the better chance you have of staying high in the SERPs for a longer period of time.
Work around: If you have low amounts of traffic, it’s best to incorporate social media and active content marketing into your tactics. Strong articles can get much higher traffic returns for a low traffic site when social and content are combined.

Caveat: Content domination works best if your site is up to par with the current search engine expectations, such as site speed.
Work around: Performing a website audit before implementing your content campaign is highly recommended (in fact, we require it for most, if not all, of our projects).

Caveat: Content domination is not sales. It’s marketing. It’s driving targeted, trusting traffic (say that three times fast) to your site, so there is the possibility of sales. Your site has to do the rest.
Work around: There isn’t one, other than to make sure your site holds all the essentials needed to convert: calls to action (CTAs), converting sales copy, and easy guides (visible shopping cart, strong product or service descriptions, privacy terms,  shipping policies, etc), are just a few.

At The End of The Day

At the End of the Day…

Content domination works. You end up with an authoritative site with the information to back it up. You become a trusted resource for information on your industry. It helps to increase engagement, continue the conversation and build your brand story. The more seriously you take each piece of content you publish, no matter where you publish it, the better you’ll do.

Sometimes we forget that not everyone is buried in online marketing like we are. In fact, most people aren’t… it boggles the mind. Did you know most people aren’t professional SEOs? Makes sense; if they were, we wouldn’t have jobs, but it’s that whole “circle of I” syndrome we keep talking about.

Buried in Marketing

Anyway, we recently received a reader question from a beginner in social marketing. For those of you who are inundated with the stuff, we’d love to see your additions in the comments.

Reader Steve wrote:

I’m new to marketing online and the social stuff seems overwhelming. I’ve read videos are a good way to go for marketing, and after I saw your video Managing & Monitoring Your Social Networks, I was wondering if you might have some insight and tips you could pass my way. Is YouTube really a good place to look at, and, if so, how do I get into videos? Any help you could give would be great.

That’s a great question Steve. We hope this answer helps.

Using YouTube As a Marketing Platform – Should You? Shouldn’t You?

There’s certainly value in using established strategies for online marketing – a fully optimized website, landing pages, PPC ads, and whatnot. However, marketing online is much like marketing in the physical world – it doesn’t do any good if you’re marketing to empty seats. You have to go where your target market is.

- And where can the target markets be found for most industries? On a number of social platforms.

Let’s face it – we’re in a social world. We want to communicate with each other, with businesses big and small, with friends, strangers and the world at large. Big brands and small businesses alike benefit from utilizing the social arena, as long as they’re wise in their efforts.

As we’ve said before in many posts, using social as a marketing tactic only works if you have the right social platform. The same goes for YouTube. Because of YouTube’s popularity, it’s possible to draw your audience to the videos you upload, but you have to plan your strategy out first. For example, before you ever post your first video, it’s a smart idea to draw an outline of your expected goals for using YouTube, as well as how you plan to get there:

• What will your videos be about? What specific topics will you cover?
• How will your videos help people to:
• Build a personal connection with you
• Fix their point of pain
• Learn, have a better life/job/business/family, or otherwise enjoy watching
• How do you plan to draw traffic to your YouTube account?
• Will you provide links from your site and/or blog?
• Will you be sharing your videos in your blog?

YouTube is far and above the most popular online video website today.  Harnessing its potential alone could boost your existing internet marketing strategies enough to greatly increase your bottom line. Use it carefully.

With that said, let’s cover four basics of video marketing:

1. Creating Professional Videos

Your videos can be you simply talking about the benefits and actions that pertain to your business.  Perhaps you could pick an interesting topic that leads people to become interested in what you do.  If you’re creating a video that has you talking, however, you’ll need a few things:

• A room with a nice look (your office will do)
• Proper lighting (a dark video will get less views)
• Quiet acoustics (to avoid abundant echo)
• HD quality web cam (these are quite affordable)
• Good quality microphone (also affordable)

If you’re not capable of doing so, ask a friend or colleague to help you set up, or hire someone to make videos on your behalf.  Remember that the content in your videos is more important than their quality – but quality matters, too, so do your best.  Compare your video against others in your industry to make sure it is bright enough and has clear sound before posting.

If you’re creating how-to videos and walkthroughs like the one mentioned in this article, you’ll need:

• Quality screen recording AND editing software (we used Screen Flow, for Mac). The ability to edit is important, obviously, but many screen casting products don’t offer this ability.
• Quiet acoustics
• Good quality microphone

Other tips for video creation:

• Add text pages into the video with attractive backgrounds for a nice touch, adding a little bit of “slideshow” feel
• Use annotations sparingly, if at all – if your voice and the few text pages won’t get the point across, neither will additional annotations
• Include links to your site and other videos in descriptions
• Include only relevant terms in your tags – don’t spam YouTube with non-relevant information
• Create video replies to other parties’ videos

Note: It might take several tries to get one video right. Don’t get discouraged. The first video we put out on YouTube took over 15 times before we got one we were (mostly… we’re perfectionists) happy with.

2. Create and Design Your Company’s YouTube Channel

Make sure your channel has a good background and picture. By clicking on “My Channel” and then “Edit Channel” (in the upper right corner), you can change how your page looks.

Connecting the dots:

Consider your YouTube channel to be an extension of your website. Where is your logo? Add the links to your site. Fill out the “About Me” section. Try to carry through with business colors throughout for continuity. Finally, make sure you include your other social networks (if any), so people can continue the conversation outside of YouTube if they wish.

3. Brainstorming on Ideas for Content

Talk to your staff and business partners about what might get attention on YouTube.  Also, look at the videos that get the most views and make sure your videos have content that can compete with those.

Here are 4 ideas that will help generate a buzz:

• “How To”: Explain to your audience how to do something.  You need not give away the farm; just share some basics about your industry.

• Humor: Anything that gets a laugh gets attention and may potentially “go viral.”

• Reviews:  Review other sites or technologies, or even speak about news events and give your opinion.

• Unique Content: Come up with something unique or an original angle on an existing trend.

 4. Be Active

To generate activity, you must first be active.  That is the only way to get more views and start a buzz about your YouTube channel.

• Comment on other related videos
• Message subscribers and friends of your page – keep the lines of communication open
• Be polite, and avoid shameless self-promotion
• Reply to messages and comments as often as possible
• Use your other social connections wisely to share uploaded videos – use unique comments (i.e. don’t use the same words with every social post)

Be Prepared and Be Patient – Video Marketing Isn’t Instantaneous

Learning Patience

Unless you hit the jackpot of video marketing, you aren’t going to become an Internet sensation over night. Be prepared to invest a lot of time until you get your viewership numbers up, and be patient with how long it takes.

Before you get upset and decide YouTube isn’t for you, look back at the videos you’ve done in the past and the number of views, likes, dislikes, etc. you’ve received. If some have far better results than others, try to do more that are similar. Finally, remember that building your business so you could worry about things like social marketing took time, too.

Steve, we hope this blog post helps answer some of your questions. –And again, if you’re a YouTube veteran, we encourage you to post your tips and links to in depth articles you’ve written or read, in case Steve and other readers would like to know more. If we get enough, we’ll update this post with a list of further reading.

Until next time, happy marketing!

I’m not sure what’s happened since 2012 started, but social networking use has exploded. I see it in Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Scoop.it and, yes, Google+. I don’t care what the news media is saying; regardless of how much Google skew’s their numbers, I can tell you as a user of all the above platforms that social media is huge.

Social Network Explosion

I now have over 2,800 Google followers. Twitter has exploded to 8K+ and Facebook, even though it’s never been our strongest platform, has over 500. The reason I’m telling you this is because it’s become apparent that a lot of new people are joining us in social.

As a business that offers an array of SEO services, our main objective is to listen, watch, learn and communicate. When a client comes to us and says, “Our social accounts aren’t doing very well,” we can, with accuracy, provide them with competent information.

You Talking To Me?

Here’s the problem. Although we look at our company as a full service SEO company, or even professional SEO specialists (in other words, something to do with SEO), we’ve been referred to as one of the ORM global specialists (remember how we talk about perception?). This lowers the amount of anonymity we might otherwise have.

So… although I’ve seen such an explosion of crap across social networks that I’m tempted to be publicly rude sometimes, I can’t. What I can do, instead, is write a guide:

The 12 Commandments of Twitter

Okay, so maybe the title is a little bit heavy, but I hope this just adds more weight to how important I think the following tips are.

1. If you want people to follow you on Twitter, you have to join the conversation.

You can’t just post your stuff all day long. If you do post things of your own making, make sure you mix it up with retweets, conversation and being yourself. Don’t be a self-proclaiming tweeter!

2. Fill out your profile with a picture and description.

Look – I’m not saying I have to see your face, but at the very least, please, not those freakin’ eggs. Give me a dog to look at, I’ll be happy with that, but I’m tired of looking at bird eggs. For the description, it doesn’t have to be an intense bio. It could just be something that speaks of who you are, like “loves black coffee, small puppies and Twilight”. I’m not looking for tons of info, but there has to be something that calls me to follow you. An egg, a user name and nothing else isn’t enough.

3. Unless you have a very, very good reason to, don’t set your stream to private.

This is like inviting people to a party and then telling them they aren’t welcome. Why would you do that? Some do it because they think it makes them “cool”, but it doesn’t impress anyone. Not only that, but I won’t follow you if I can’t easily RT your stuff, or read your feed prior to clicking “follow”. If you’re trying to promote yourself or business on Twitter, setting your stream to private won’t work.

4. Incorporate Twitter into your blog.

I don’t mean have your Twitter feed posted; I mean, include a Twitter share button. Add a link to your Twitter account that people can use to follow you if they want. I can’t tell you how many articles or posts I’ve seen people write about social networks, yet they don’t have a share button on their site. Seriously? And I’m supposed to believe you because… why… you’re such a shining example?

Look

Take the time to connect the dots across your website, marketing and social media efforts. It will pay off.

5. Be careful when you retweet compliments.

If someone sends you a compliment and it makes you feel warm and fuzzy, that’s great. That doesn’t mean the compliment will make those who follow you warm and fuzzy. If you aren’t careful, it can look cheesy, desperate and tawdry. Can you imagine if you gave a friend a compliment, they taped it, and played it every time someone looked in their direction?

We’ll find out how great you are. Instead, respond to the compliment with a “thank you” or variations thereof. If we’re interested, we can see what you’re responding to. If you absolutely can’t resist and MUST make sure others saw it, then at least include your thank you in the RT. “Thank you so much! @complimenter –’compliment’”

6. When you use #FF and #FollowFriday try to do it manually.

I can’t tell you how irritating it is to see that FFHelper picks the names for you. How can an automation – a machine or program – decide who you enjoy following?  It shows no forethought and a severe lack of connection. Worse yet, you’ve made it apparent to everyone. Even if you only give 5 #FF a week, those are important. You took the time to actually say in 140 words why that person is important to follow.

7. Do not start an argument on line.

Not only does it have a bad reflection on you, but also anyone you’re associated with – including your company. If you must make a point, take it into private (also known as a DM or Direct Message). If they’re not following you and you can’t let it go, quickly and succinctly state your case and then move on. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve walked away from my desk in order to avoid tearing into a creep.

8. Don’t use the automated DM.

“Hello. Glad you followed me. Check out my Facebook, website and 50 other sites I’m involved in. Since you followed me here, I know you’ll want to follow me there, there, there and there.”

Um, no, dink. Believe it or not, most people (including myself) aren’t over-eager socialites. I followed you on Twitter because I wanted to follow you on Twitter, not because I wanted to be attacked with a list of your social networks. If I want to find you on other places, I’ll look for you in other places. But now, since you sent me this automated DM, I don’t want to follow you anywhere.

It’s intrusive. It’s like taking down someone’s phone number at a cocktail party. Once you get home, you have an email, snail mail letter and the person standing at your door talking about, “and here’s my address, my business, my business card, my license number, the phone number I had when I was a kid…”

Drama Queen...

Oy. Have some control.

9. Gracefully thank others for an RT.

If someone retweets your  link, of course you should thank them, but be graceful about it. If you have the pleasure of several RT’s, there’s nothing wrong with pairing those people up for a single “thank you” tweet. This establishes that people that your post was great, and it will allow the people who RT’d you the chance to follow each other. What a great way of helping people connect!

10. You don’t have to follow every Tom, Dick and Mary.

I know you’ve heard this before, and there’s a reason for that. -Because it’s true. Connections are not made by numbers, but by conversations. Communities aren’t built by the numbers, but by the people in the community. Always look at the person following you before you decide to follow them back. You never know – they may not be someone you really want to associate yourself with.

-And I can’t tell you how many times I’ll look and find out that they haven’t posted anything in months. I’m not sure what those people are even doing on Twitter.

11. Don’t schedule your tweets all at the same time.

If you’re scheduling, make sure you find yourself the perfect social networking platform for you; Hootsuite, RockMelt, TweetDeck, I don’t care, but something. Having all your tweets pushed across my feed at the same time is so irritating!

Look, I understand you have something to say, sweetheart. It’s okay… but 13 posts all at the same time? Spread that stuff throughout the day and, please, change the content up! Get creative. Post your tweets at different times. It can even be the same link a few times, but at least make each one original. Your Twitter posts have a shelf life of about 3 hours, depending on how many RT’s you get. Keep that in mind when you’re automating tweets.

12. Use your hash tags.

Hash tags are those words with # before them, like #FollowFriday. Like any other tags, they describe what a post is about. They’re very useful, especially when the title gives no clue. For example, although most of our titles clearly spell out what the topic of a post is, You Think You Can, But You Just Can’t, Nemo says absolutely nothing. Therefore, I might add hash tags such as #rant, #Google+, and #socialmedia.

Twitter Rules

Don’t just use hash tags on your own links, either. If you’re sharing a link from someone else, include the tags you think are relevant to the post (if they don’t include some of their own). In this way, you’re helping yourself and helping those writers you think provide content worth sharing. A word of caution don’t go #tag crazy either, that’s really irritating.

Thou Shalt Not Break the 12 Commandments of Twitter

Unlike the tablets Moses brought down, these things aren’t set in stone – but that doesn’t mean they should be ignored, either. I strongly suggest, if you’re just starting out, that you at least try to put them in practice before going off on your own. Use them as a guideline, and you just might see your community explode.

I’ve been boiling all morning long – and what does someone who blogs do, but kick out a rant? All morning, I’ve been researching marketing agencies, digging into sites, news articles and various sources to find out about them. –And that’s the whole damn point. Why, if you’re advertising yourself as any type of internet marketing agency, should I have to go digging?

Connect The Dots

Maybe it’s Gabriella’s influence. “Connect the dots, Jahnelle,” she keeps saying. “You always have to connect the dots.” However, I also think my expectations of someone claiming to be an internet marketer come from the years’ of experience in connecting those dots, and understanding why that connection is important.

Case in point:

I visited a site for an agency. They market themselves as a “digital agency” on the “cutting edge” of technology. You know what I found? A blog – with this cute little calendar that shows the number of posts per month. Two here, three there, a couple there… Whatever – so maybe they aren’t as strict about regularly posting as we are.

Then, I read their latest post. Even though it’s a month outdated, I think, “I like the way this company thinks.”

Now, if you follow the SEO Article Archive, you probably already know Gabriella is the more social of us. Me, I use it because that’s where you connect with people on line. –And damn it if that isn’t another point. It’s where you connect!

So, I’m interested in this company, and I look for their social links. Contact us? Nothing social, just an address and a phone number.

They have a Facebook and a LinkedIn profile button on the sidebar. I’m not too fond of Facebook for anything other than the dubious pleasure of saying the occasional “hello” to friends that no longer live in my area, so I click on LinkedIn. It takes me to their company page, which shows me a list of employees (most without pictures).

Those employee links, in turn, take me to the individuals’ pages, where I can then, and only then, see that at least two have Twitter accounts. To connect with these people through LinkedIn, I have to send an email stating that I’ve worked with them or known them in some way. I’m faced with a decision of how to class these people I don’t know and just want to see what they’re saying – rather than the one-click “follow” of Twitter. Talk about a waste of “being social”.

To be blunt, it ticked me off to the point that I tossed my headset down and stalked outside for a breath of fresh air.

Social isn’t everything, just like SEO isn’t everything; it isn’t the end all, be all of marketing mediums. I know this. Twitter isn’t everything; there are plenty of platforms out there. –But you call yourself an internet marketer!

Maybe it wouldn’t have upset me if I hadn’t just poured through over 10 sites of so-called digital, internet, social, etc. marketing firms with dead blogs, dead social accounts and dead ends.

Connect the Friggin Dots, Already!

I’m trying very hard to keep my language fit for public consumption. I really am, but how are we supposed to teach our clients to connect the dots if we aren’t at least making more than a half-hearted attempt to lead by example?

Connect the dots

That stupid “What We’re Saying” section in the sidebar? I don’t care what you’re saying, if you were saying it five months ago! We live and work in a fast-paced, constantly changing world. What you said five months ago may be completely wrong today!

“Thanks for the fantastic holiday event!” by marketingtwitteruser was posted December 19^th of last year…. What, was it so fantastic that you had to take two months off to recover?

It just absolutely blows my mind. If you’re an Internet marketer of any type (i.e. you market your client’s brand, business, and online presence to the public) there should be some proof that you know what you’re doing on your own site. There should be some sign that you are actually trying, instead of doing what a lot of business owners do and throwing noodles at the wall to see if they’ll stick.

 Business owners have an excuse. It’s not their job. Their job is to use their past experiences and know-how to grow their business. You don’t have an excuse. It’s your job. This is what you do to make a living, and as far as I’m concerned, you are the weakest link. Good bye.

Deep Breath and a Note to Business Owners

Please, don’t visit these types of Internet marketing sites and think, “Well, if they aren’t doing it…” Connecting the dots online is important; much like connecting the dots in the physical world. For example, if you have a logo, that logo will be visible on your business cards. It will also be visible on your business letterheads and your store front.

Online dot connection works the same way. It’s called consistency:

• Your logo should be on your website, connecting your physical storefront with your online presence
• Your logo should be able to be converted in a favicon, to be used on the site
• If you have a coder or developer on hand, you can have a widget created for other sites to use
• Your company name should be consistent across all platforms, websites, articles and so on – anything you put it on, it needs to be the same
• Your business phone number should be easy to find throughout the site
• If your company is participating in social media:
  • All social accounts with the business name should have the business logo
  • All social accounts for individual team members should have their pictures
  • Your Twitter accounts, depending on how big your business is, should be a mix of company and team member names:
    • Your main company account (example: @level343), which resembles your actual company name
    • Your team members’ accounts (examples: @SEOCopy and @jrpittman), which is how followers get to know your company personally
    • Your department accounts (examples: @companysales @companyservice, @company Q&A, etc.), which (in a large corporation) give customers direct access to the necessary department
• Your Facebook page should include links to your website, your company email, and other social accounts
• Every social account should have some kind of congruity with your business site
• Provide ways on your site in the contact area for people to connect with the various social accounts
• If you decide to start a blog:
  • Set a minimum amount of blogs posts per month and stick to it
  • Set a regular schedule of days you’ll post (example: we post every Monday and Thursday) and stick to it
  • Allow people to share across social networks – and don’t just limit it to the networks you’re on; that’s selective thinking, and it won’t serve you well
  • Provide ways on the blog for visitors to connect with your company’s social accounts
  • Link your site to your blog and your blog to your site – provide two-way traffic flow
  • If you decide to do content curation or guest blogging, like we do on Scoop.it, Tumblr, and Paper.li:
    • Schedule your posts on these content curation sites or guest posting sites to be on days that you aren’t posting on your blog
    • Put your name out there every day in some way or another – give the search engines a reason to crawl your site

At some point in time once the Internet started, we got this idea that everything had to be in a box. Don’t link out – that’s bad. Don’t let people share outside of your social circles – that’s bad. Don’t let the blog and the business mix, because, wouldn’t you know it, that’s bad, too.

It's a Fine Day To Walk The Walk

Times are changing, my friends. History is a cycle, and we’re cycling back to open borders – only this time, the open borders are the ones we allow online.

Walk the Walk

Look. I have no idea whether these marketers are any good at what they do. However, if they aren’t doing what they tell their readers to do, or what they plan for their clients, they don’t believe it. Why would you ignore something that you know works to grow a business?

There are many online marketers, SEOs, copywriters and so on that walk the walk. They do what they say you should do – because they honestly believe it works. Any time you decide to follow a marketing company through their blogs or their social accounts, keep your eyes open. If they don’t practice what they preach, at least to a reasonable degree, they’re just blowing smoke to look good. What they say may make perfect sense, but they don’t believe it.

You’ve all see the predictions about 2012, I’m sure. 12 Troubling Predictions for Internet Marketers in 2012 is a good example, along with 275 Internet Marketing Predictions for 2012. We don’t really offer predictions, but one we at Level343 can provide with a high degree of accuracy is this: we’re going to give back to the community.

3Plus International

Sometimes, talking about giving back to the community is a nice thing. It makes you feel good. –And sometimes, you get a chance to do more than just talk; sometimes you get a chance to actually do – whether it’s volunteering your time at the YMCA or participating in an outreach program for youth around the neighborhood. For Level343, in 2012, we get a chance to do more.

I’ve had the pleasure of meeting some amazing, strong-minded, wicked-smart women online. With our limited time, Jahnelle and I sometimes do pro bono work for mothers, friends – little groups here and there. We’ve taken on clients and (almost) done the work for free because we believed strongly in what they were offering. The experiences have been a pleasure – and I’m sure I’m speaking for all of us -; if given the chance to do it all again, we would.

Why? Well, one, it made us feel good to be able to give back. Two, and most importantly, we learned a lot creating and doing these “side” projects.

Coaching vs. Mentoring – The Finite vs. the Infinite

I was recently approached by Dr. Anne Perschel, co-founder of 3Plus International. Among many things, Anne has served as  Vice-President of the New England Society of Applied Psychology. In a discussion about what 3Plus does, she taught me a valuable lesson. There is a difference between coaching and mentoring.

Coaching vs Mentoring

You see, I had always thought of myself as a mentor, but there was no real difference between “coach” and “mentor. The words were interchangeable. However, while both provide important career guidance, the ways that guidance happens is vastly different.

Mentoring – The Infinite Guide

You can unknowingly and unwillingly mentor an individual – did you know that? For example, as a speaker, you may not know that the woman sitting in the second row of every conference you speak at is hanging on every word. When the conference is over and she goes back to work, she’s going to do her best to apply everything you said.

She trusts you and values your opinion; she reads your blog posts, articles and e-books. She occasionally asks you questions in 145 characters or less. When she comes to you, you listen and provide your feedback. She didn’t ask; you didn’t offer to be her mentor. You didn’t know she had picked you… because mentoring can (although it’s most often a mutual relationship) be a one sided relationship. A person can follow you and soak up any knowledge you’re willing to share without you ever being aware of it.

Infinite Length

A mentor doesn’t offer unsolicited suggestion and advice. Answering the question “do you have any ideas about…” is much different than saying “I have some ideas about…”

Another important distinction is that mentoring can be of infinite length. For example, if you’re knowingly mentoring an individual, she might call you up after three years and say, “Hey, I’m in this situation

and here’s what I think about it. Any thoughts?”

A mentor is:

• A giver of information
• A resource when advice or guidance is needed
• Not necessarily aware that they’re mentoring
• Most likely not the boss of the mentee
• Someone who helps the mentee achieve goals, make decisions or facilitate problem solving
• Often a life-long (or, at least, career-long) guide

Coaching – The Finite Teacher

You can’t, on the other hand, be an unknowing coach. Being a coach requires your intention, attention and leadership. The idea behind coaching is to develop the person’s skills for the current and/or future roles, but usually not for the duration of their career.  Coaching is focused on competence, whereas mentoring is focused on the whole person.

For example, your company hires someone to provide customer service support. As the manager of the customer service division, it may be your job to coach the new hire in how the company handles customer issues. Once that person learns how to perform the job position, the coaching relationship comes to an end. In this way, coaching is finite.

Somehow, I’d become a coach to many. It wasn’t unknowing because I knew I was helping; it was a matter of not understanding the role I had undertaken. I was a teacher, helping people learn how to perform their job better.

A coach is:

• A teacher of information
• A resource of direction at all times
• A willing, knowing participant
• A momentary teacher, for the period of time it takes the person to learn the job
• Someone who teaches how to improve current skills and performance

3Plus International: Sponsors of Change Through Women-to-Women Mentoring

Dorothy Dalton

Anne came to me because of our involvement in Top SEO Women, Honoring Women Wednesday and other activities that support women in business. She invited us into the 3Plus program to become mentors

for women who need guidance (but not, necessarily coaching) as they work to achieve their career goals.

Of course I said yes, but as it turns out, there aren’t a lot of women in the tech industry that are interested in mentoring. Anne and her co-founder, Dorothy Dalton, are working to change that.

Dorothy, an international talent management strategist recently featured in Forbes, runs coaching programs to meet the needs of women facing career challenges in the workplace.  On her internationally recognized blog, Future Perfect: Career Transition Strategies, she shares years of experience in corporate HR, European sales and marketing, global executive search and coaching with her readers.

Anne, also recently featured in Forbes and CIO Insight, has over 15 years’ experience as a leadership and organizational psychologist. Her business, Germane Consulting, coaches companies in strategic culture change for better business success (a 2006 Business Week article “Death of a Pushy Salesman”, outlined some of the process). As

well, she helps companies address obstacles that stand in the way of women being promoted to managers and top-level executives.

Both of these women are highly accomplished graduates. Dorothy is an Economics graduate. Anne has a Masters of Science degree in Human and Organizational Development, as well as a Doctorate in Psychology. Besides 3Plus International, they run their own businesses, are guest speakers and published authors. In short,

Ann Perschel

they’ve achieved a level of success that anyone would be happy to reach.

They have a joint goal, now. Anne talks about the Rule of 3 in 3…Plus:

“I’m in my first year of graduate school. The professor is leading a discussion on the correlation between medical/psychiatric diagnosis, race and ethnicity. There are two black students in the class. Neither speaks. I am puzzled and disappointed. After class I ask the professor about this dynamic, and hear for the first time what will later become the Rule of 3. Referencing social science research she states, “Until three members of the non-dominant group are present, they typically will not speak up, and if they do they will often not be heard.” Something rings true and I tuck this tidbit away as a possible Rule of Life.”

Later, she goes on to explain the goal of 3Plus International is “… raising a glass and the ceiling above us to ensure 3 women at top leadership teams in each and every company we touch – the early adopters. The rest will follow.”

Early Adopters – Walking the Walk

Walk The Walk

Those of you who follow us here and on our social networks know that we work to help other women achieve their professional goals. Happily, 3Plus International is another way to get involved, and we’re looking forward to working with Anne, Dorothy and the 3Plus group as mentors in 2012.

As women in the tech industry, to other women in the tech industry, we invite you to do the same by joining 3Plus International’s initiative. You can find out more about the mentoring program by reading the 3Plus Mission.

Over the past year, we’ve seen an emerging trend among big business clients. It’s disturbing, this trend, because it points to the fact that a lot of businesses believed the SEO hype and didn’t pay attention to what the actual practitioners were saying. So we’ll say it again.

SEO is not the end all, be all of online marketing. It’s a layover point on the way to success; not the final stop.

No Way Out

Look at a car, as an example. It takes a lot of parts for a car to work and get from point A to point B. You can have all those parts but the wheels, and the car still won’t go. That’s what you’re looking at with inbound marketing. SEO is the wheels, but you still need the rest of the car to make it go.

Emerging Trend in Big Business Websites

Several potential clients have come to us lately with a big, fat, noticeable problem. They talk about needing optimization. They talk about keywords, traffic and links. In other words, they use a whole lot of SEO lingo to describe what’s happening. But they miss the boat.

When you’re getting 2 million hits for over 2,000 relevant key terms and phrases… When you have over 300,000 links to your site with relevant terms as anchor text on strong pages… In other words, when you have the kind of traffic site owners dream of, SEO is not your core problem. (By the way, these aren’t numbers picked out of the air – these are actual numbers for a site we recently reviewed).

That’s not to say your site couldn’t use more optimization, but it does mean it isn’t the core issue. The traffic is already coming in. It’s already relevant, interested traffic.

So what boat are they missing?

Somewhere along the line, these (and many other) business owners got the idea that traffic means conversions. They assumed that more traffic meant more people buying. As we have seen by the trend of potential clients, this is far from true.

Search Engine Optimization vs. Selling Your Product

To be blunt: SEO alone will not sell your product. It doesn’t matter if you have 2 million visitors if no one wants to buy your custom-made banana peel high heels for $300. It can’t make your product look interesting. It can’t make your prices worth paying. It can’t make the shipping costs look attractive, your services needed or your site usable.

If you have a crappy product, site or service, SEO brings publicity to your crappy product, site or service.

Touch, Taste, Hear, Smell, See

Touch, Taste, Hear, Smell, See

When you walk into a store to buy something, your senses are engaged. Think about that new car smell, or the smell of new clothes and furniture. You can touch these things, run your fingers over material and feel how soft or smooth it is. You can see the shine on the chrome bumper of a car or the dazzle of sequins on a dress. You can hear a clock chime, a car motor purr or a toy chirp. The only sense that isn’t engaged in most cases is taste.

On top of that, consider the way things are displayed. Cars are parked at an easy to get in angle. Jewelry is displayed on velvet backgrounds. Clothes are hung on the wall or draped around mannequins.  In grocery stores, products are lined in such a way to move you through the whole store for those impulse buys.

See

Online, the only engaged sense is sight. We can’t reach in and touch the products. Therefore, your website has to make up for the missing elements through sight. Somehow, you have to grab that buying instinct with only what the person can see. How do you do that? By grabbing them by something far more powerful than the physical senses: emotional desire.

Tapping into the Powerful Emotion of Need with Content and Calls to Action

Need is a powerful emotion, but it doesn’t have to be there initially. What has to be there is the potential of need, or the “I want” syndrome. Does the visitor digging through your hand-made cuckoo clocks really need one? No, but they want one.

So what builds that emotion? How do you turn want into need?

Buyer Psychology

It sounds sneaky. To some, it even sounds underhanded. What it really is, however, is marketing and buyer psychology.

Buyer psychology isn’t a myth. There’ve been enough repeatable studies to point towards science and fact. By guiding the buyer through “converting” content and calls to action, you’re allowing them to convince themselves they really need your product. How do you do this?

Well, we’ve covered this topic a lot over the past year, probably because of the trends. Here are a few posts that go far more in to depth than we have time for in this article:

In Presenting Your Product as a Masterpiece: You Can’t Market a Piece of Junk, we covered how to use product descriptions to sell. In short form, this means including the features, benefits, values and display pictures in an easily digestible, attractive format.

Online Marketing: Are YOU Practicing Converting Conversation explains how online conversions are much like a relationship, and must be careful managed. This article includes four rules for practicing the art of converting conversation. Are You Outstanding or Just Standing Out is the follow up, with several ideas of how to stand out from a constantly building din of online stores.

Finally, Has Your E-Commerce Shopping Cart Ran Away With Your Sales gives several solutions for shopping cart abandonment issues.

Sneaky Marketing or Good Business Sense?

If you think it’s sneaky, the way products are marketed, consider this. Did you really need that new T.V., car, shirt, shoes, etc. you bought? If you still had clothes, you didn’t need a new shirt or shoes. If you had a car, but it wasn’t pretty, you didn’t need a new one. As for the T.V., you don’t really need one of those at all. It’s not necessary to your survival.

All of these products were bought, by you the consumer, because you or the seller convinced you that it was a need – even though it was really a want. That’s how a consumerist society flourishes. So again, we say, you have to guide the buyer from the first step of clicking on a search result to the final step of clicking that last button on the buy.

The Final Word

It’s frustrating – for the client and for us – to see all that traffic disappear into the NetherNet. SEO brings traffic; it does not, necessarily, bring sales. Creating content that is buyer-value focused does. Creating calls to action that really mean something (buy now just means spend money) brings sales. SEO brings traffic so the sales are possible.

You don’t have to join the businesses suffering from too much traffic and not enough sales. Adjust your focus to included value-added content!

A new SEO tool has hit the streets, competing with thousands of others. As SEO consultants,  we’re always looking for that one tool – the one that will really help in measuring, managing and quantifying the work we do. Many SEO tools have promised the user will become a master, only to turn into something mundane.  Because of this, we went to the Microsite Masters website with a healthy dose of cynicism…

About this Tool Review

We often get tool review requests. This is one of them. However – and this is a big BUT -, we feel it’s important that you understand how our review process works. Long story short, we don’t do paid reviews. Those who ask already know that we’re going to give our real impressions. If, in our opinion, the tool is a waste of space or a copy, we’ll say so. What you’ll read is our opinion; your experience may be different.

Our honest reviews are geared toward offering you our insight, and the tool creators our feedback. We hope the owners of the tool can take some of these suggestions and consider their immediate impact to the user.

What about the Microsite Masters SERP Tracker?

Our tool reviews are done by walking through the process of use, from sign up to reports. We write down our thoughts, ideas, suggestions and so on. So, what about the Microsite Masters SERP Tracker? Let’s find out!

The Website – 4/5 ★★★★☆

• Pros: Pretty graphics, nice layout, pleasant sales video, user-friendly, clear calls to action. Microsite Masters offers flexible accounts that realistically follow the ebb and flow of client work; packages can be easily modified to higher or lower cost. As well, there are several levels, which makes it easier to find an affordable one.
• Cons: The first impression doesn’t give anything to make the site (and thus, the tool) stand out from the rest, so it’s easy to mix it in with all the other SEO tools out there. No trial feature (something Microsite Masters might consider).

The first thing any person is going to see is, of course, the website. For us, if a site doesn’t follow at least the basic structures of optimization and marketing, we’re not going to bother reviewing the tool. Maybe it’s snobbish, but you should at least have the basics.  Happily, this website has all the basics covered, including pretty graphs, reader-friendly content and a “we’ll solve all your problems” video.

One of the first things we actively look for once we’re on the site is tool pricing. In our experience, the price generally points out how valuable the creators really think the tool is. As well, it shows how much of an impression they think the trial or free version will make. This SERP tracker’s creators apparently think it will make a huge impression; cost ranges from free (most limited version) to $299.95/month (most robust version).

Promised Features

Microsite Masters promises healthy features that any SEO professional would love to have in their toolbox, if true. Unfortunately, they don’t offer a trial version of the more robust packages, which would give a healthy idea of the real product (you can see the feature list here and compare pricing plans here). While the upper echelon choices aren’t cheap by any means, it might be worth it for agencies.

The major promised features: accurate daily rank tracking, automated features to track dozens of campaigns and the ability to determine ROI and associated SERP impacts. It looks interesting, and the promised ease-of-use (laid out in pretty pictures under the commentary about features) makes us eager to try it out.

Side note: the site is easy to use and we appreciate the clear calls to action that are often missing on sites. However (and yes, it’s already been mentioned, but we feel strongly about it), we do feel that offering a trail version of the bigger packages would go a long way towards proving the tool.

Finally (hint, hint, wink, wink, nudge, Microsite Masters), you might reconsider the placement of the “how to create campaigns” section. We almost missed it at the bottom of the features page.

Sign Up Process and Project Setup – 4/5 ★★★★☆

• Pros: Sign up is quick. Setting up a new project, including adding new keywords, search engines to track and websites is extremely easy. Projects can be deleted, but a failsafe popup stops you from unintentional deletion.
• Cons: Setting up a project the first time around can be confusing.

The sign up process was quick; it took less than two minutes from start to finish, with a stop off at our inbox to verify the email address. Nothing difficult or time consuming, which is a huge plus. We signed up with the free version, however, so the paid versions may take slightly longer.

We hit our first snag while setting up the project. During the account creation, the tool offers the ability to create a project name; we did so, reset the password to something we could remember, and then clicked “Dashboard”. The site promptly logged us out, presumably to sign in using the new password. Signing back in brought us to a different spot (that was as yet unfamiliar). It wasn’t a big deal, it only took a few seconds to realize where we needed to go next, but that’s a few seconds of insecurity with a new tool.

We’d already created a project name at the original prompt, so when we clicked the Project Wizard and it for a new project name, there was another moment of confusion. Having said that, we were able to add everything easily by treating it as a completely new project.

Once the project wizard was finished, we had two “Level343” projects: one from the original setup, and one from the Project Wizard. The unfinished one has a place at the bottom to add a website and rename the project. Missed those, probably because the headings are grey, at the bottom of the page, and blend with the background somewhat.

We deleted the initial (empty) project and went on. Projects are easy to delete, but have a warning pop up in case you click “delete” on accident. Good fail safe.

Side note: The areas for adding information would be easier to see if they were pulled up initially and pushed down as more entries were added.

SERP Tracker, Tool Use – 3/5 ★★★☆☆

• Pros: This SEO tool gives what it promises.
• Cons: User experience isn’t immediately intuitive. The volume column can be misleading. For ROI to track correctly, you have to make sure user error isn’t involved.

Okay, the project is created. Now what? There’s no immediate direction – just the user panel. We did what anybody would do and started clicking around. First click, Analyze SERP Changes.

Analyze SERP Changes

Oooo… This is different. “Add a change you’ve made to your site and we’ll show you the impact it has made!” It just got interesting; before, we were only surfing.  It just so happens that we posted a blog recently, so we added the details for that.

Analyze SERP Changes is also “Add Notes”, reachable through the side navigation. The “Links” dropdown lets you choose from links, onpage content, offpage content, new content and the ever broad “other”. Fill in the blanks with “More Detail” and “Amount of Change”. “Cost” is how much is cost you in dollars (by whole amount) or time (by hours).

The Notes feature is extremely interesting, and ties in later with the project. Clicking “continue” gives you a list of the key terms you chose to track; this connects your changes with the key term rankings, to see how your actions affected your SERPs. To be blunt, we’ve never seen this option before, and are looking forward to seeing the results.

There are a few things worth mentioning here, however, that caused the rating to drop:

One: When looking at this feature, our first thought was to put previous efforts into Notes. However, if the time of change is before tool started tracking, nothing will show up in the reports. On hindsight, it’s rather obvious that a tool can’t go back into time and track (at least, we’ve never seen one that could do so reliably), but, come on – isn’t your first instinct to shove as much information as possible into a tool?

Two: You can’t go back and edit a Note once it’s created. We’d love to see a Note Center, where you can edit, delete, or view a list of created notes, as a way to keep track of what you have and haven’t done for the whole project. It isn’t there yet, and that’s frustrating.

Keyword Tracking

Here, we hit another snag, although, again, it only took a little clicking around to get back on track. The main question is – where the heck are the keyword reports? How do you find them? Where’s the breadcrumb trail?

As it turns out, you have to click the project name again; we had already done that to reach the view you see above. While this may seem like a small thing, it does make it less intuitive. Experience says clicking on the same link will take you to the same place.

Side note: It might be more intuitive if the “keywords” section becomes highlighted instead of the “website” section.

We move on.

Although viewing the keyword results isn’t intuitive, adding more keywords to the campaign is. It’s quick – and you can add several at a time (think SEOMoz and Raven Tools interface for adding key terms). This is a definite plus for campaigns that need hundreds of terms tracked.

Digging into the Knowledge Base reveals another big plus. Microsite Masters doesn’t count three search engines as three different keywords against your tracking limit. In other words, if you want to track “SEO specialists” across Google, Yahoo and Bing in the U.S., it only counts as one key term.

A note on “Volume”

The “Volume” column can be misleading if you don’t read the Knowledge Base information. Volume is provided on an “exact match” basis, not a “phrase/broad match”. “The information provided within Microsite Masters from SEMRush is not a replacement for obtaining metrics from Google as its intended purpose is to sort keywords by search volume to quickly analyze data sets inside of the Microsite Masters interface.” So, unless you’re interested in exact match information, this number only serves a purpose for reordering and qualifying terms. If you see a low number for a term you thought was a high volume query, don’t freak. It’s just Microsite Masters.

Side note: This might be information better served in a tool tip format on the actual page.

SERP Tracking, Expanded View

The expanded view at keyword level is a handy feature. If, for example, you have a blog like we do, you may also have more than one page ranking for a given search query. Microsite Masters gives you the ability to dig down into the key terms, sharing information about the other pages that also rank for that term. As you can see from the screen shot, we have three pages that rank for “organic seo copywriting”.

We can automatically see the benefits to this level of detail. If, for example, we see a page that isn’t ranking, but is optimized and has been targeted for these terms, what looks like a bunch of numbers on the SERP tracker becomes actionable data. We may not be able to see why it isn’t working, but the creators don’t promise that.

Where Does the ROI Data Come In?

Throughout the walk through, we haven’t seen a single sign of ROI tracking. Where’s it hiding? –And what happened to those notes we added? Clicking on a keyword reveals the truth, and it’s awesome (click on the picture to see a bigger version).

Now, we didn’t spend the time to put in real numbers for the cost data, and the notes we put in weren’t necessarily targeted for “online brand marketing”. We just wanted to see how it worked – and here are the goodies.

Graphs – the graphs (by the way, the creators thoughtfully made the colors customizable) make it very easy to see what’s happening at a glance. We’re ranking high on Google for the term, while Yahoo and Bing don’t like us as well. The black line is our ROI, which is pulled from the notes we entered.

Ranking Analysis – This is the output of the notes, in a different format. Here, you can see what notes you’ve entered for a specific key term and delete them. You still can’t edit, but that’s just a nitpick. We found the commentary humorous – should have been more specific when we entered those darn notes:

“Over the past 4 days you have spent $0 and 3 hours trying to improve your rankings for the keyword ‘online brand marketing’. As a result of this work, your Google rankings have stayed the same, your Yahoo rankings have gone down 1 spots, and your Bing rankings have stayed the same.”

The “view impact” column will eventually update in 7-day intervals.

Ranking Table – Another big plus is that Microsite Masters updates the rankings every day. Quite simply, it’s like watching your SERP rankings in real time. Again, we can automatically see benefits here – not the least of which is this: as soon as your rankings start falling, you can add another blog, link, etc. targeted towards the key term in order to stay on top. Very nice!

Finally, we also have the SEO Scoreboard. It doesn’t really show much for us – we only entered 15 key terms after stepping into one of the bigger versions to test. This isn’t available to the free version, due to the fact that it requires more than 10 terms to work properly. However, you can see the applications for those with a big list of key terms. It isn’t “prettified”; there aren’t any pictures, pats on the back or anything else. It’s a raw showing of which keywords are doing well and which ones need rescuing.

How Microsite Masters SERP Tracking Tool Lines Up – 4/5 ★★★★☆

Frankly, the SERP tracking tool still has some issues, as noted in the review. However, none of them are big enough to make this tool unusable. It delivers on what the creators promise, to a very large extent. Most of the issues are with the user interface, and can be ironed out within a few minutes. If you just want to see how your site is performing for a few keywords and don’t care about printing reports, the free version will do fine.

-Which brings us to the fact that some of the promised features are not available in the free version. For example, exporting results in CSV, PDF reports and so on aren’t available. As well, the free version only allows 10 keywords, so the SEO scoreboard won’t work.

In our opinion, that’s something that should be considered in the site’s content. These are blanket promises with no caveats. While the reports aren’t needed for anyone other than a professional with clients, the SEO scoreboard might come in handy for small businesses with a DIY mind frame. Signing in to find out that the scoreboard wasn’t available was disappointing.

SEO professionals and agencies may shrug and say “well, I can get most of that from this or that tool,” and they might be right to some extent. However – this is the first tool we’ve come across that compares actions to results in an easy to digest manner. As well, most of the features are seldom available in a single tool.

The creators try to add 3-5 new countries every month, and create updates based on “client-sourcing”. The ideas come directly from the users. The Notes Center that we’d love to see is in the planning, and they’re currently looking for more options to take the public results sharing to the next level. They’re openly interested on what we’d like to see, and work to improve the product.

Once some of these features/functions are available, we fully expect to be able to rank the Microsite Masters SERP Tracking tool at a full 5 stars!

Visit the Microsite Masters site, browse the features and snag a free version now to test… guaranteed, some of you will be grabbing one of the premium versions!

You know ROI is a measure of your company’s success, but do you know how to go about measuring ROI? Questions plague you at night, “How do I get the most ROI? Shouldn’t I already be seeing returns? Maybe I should stop this approach and move to a new one…”

ROI Formula

Dr. Peter Drucker, Medal of Freedom winner, once said, “What gets measured gets managed.” What a powerful statement! –And one that you need to keep in mind when you delve into marketing your business.

Formulas vs. Fantasies

You can always pick a metric to track and call it “measuring ROI”. When talking about Internet marketing, metrics are plentiful: visits, click through rate (CTR), click to conversion ratios, number of backlinks, goals funneled, and traffic generated. Yet, without choosing the right metrics, it’s all just numbers – not, as you might think, a true measurement of your returns.

Believe it or not, there is a real formula for measuring ROI: (Gains – Cost) / Cost = % ROI

However, again, you have to measure quantifiable numbers to be able to use this formula and get correct measurements, rather than numbers that fell down the rabbit hole.

Setting and Managing a Sensible Marketing Budget

Crunching Numbers

You have your marketing budget. If you overspend on marketing and place a limit on other areas of growth within your company, you could end up irreparably “in the red.”  On the other hand, under-spending could be equally detrimental.

This is when you need to have an internet marketing professional on hand – someone who’s committed to partnering with you and cheering for your success.   However, you should set your marketing budget by following a few suggested guidelines.

Crunching the Numbers

1. Calculate what percentage of your profits you can reasonably afford to spend. There’s a formula for this as well: Profits x Percentage Allotted = Marketing Budget.
2. Define a minimum amount you are willing to pay, even when revenue is tight – there’s no formula; this is where the passion and commitment play a very important role. You set an amount and stick to it.
3. If profits increase or decrease, re-calculate your marketing budget based on that same percentage and increase/decrease it accordingly (after a certain quarter not in the middle of one).

Here are some basic figures (for example purposes only). Let’s suppose you are willing to spend 25% of your profits on marketing, and your current profits for a certain website you own are $12K per month.

Formula: $12,000 X 25% = $3,000 per month.

Now, if your marketing is successful and profits increase, you can re-use your formula to calculate a reasonable budget.  Be willing to increase your marketing budget if your campaigns are going strong and increasing your profits.

Note: If you have a fluctuation in revenue, it doesn’t necessarily mean you’re overspending. It could mean that you’re not spending smart. Before reducing your marketing budget, look at your ROI for each campaign, or, at the very least, ask your Internet marketing firm how the portions of your overall marketing budget can be rebalanced for better returns.

Setting Up Your Marketing Campaign for Easy(er) ROI Calculation

Focus

Every marketing campaign will have its own methods of measuring. The answers to certain key questions will give you a very detailed and quantifiable way to gauge your return on investment:

What are my business objectives?

Your business objective can be one of many things, but make sure its focus is specific. For example, “building my business”, although an objective of any serious business individual, is too generic. “Sell more products” on the other hand, is a more specific focus while “Sell more of this product” is even more focused.

How will I reach my business objectives?

This is important – because the answer directly ties into the cost for your formula, as well as the KPIs you’ll measure. Again, you must be specific; generic inference to activities just won’t do. For example, “I’m going to use social media to achieve this” can’t be correctly measured, while “I’m going to post a Twitter exclusive coupon campaign, 4 times a day for a quarter, to increase sales” is very specific.

Note: When doing campaigns such as those in the example, be careful to walk the fine line between marketing and spam. If you’re tweeting the coupon 4 times a day, make sure you spread them out through the day instead of all at once.

What key performance indicators (KPIs) will I track?

KPIs are metrics that show you if you’re meeting your business objectives. Choosing the correct KPIs is important to correctly measuring ROI. Other metrics can be used, but they’re just numbers. KPIs are the magic metrics – the ones that say, “YES! You’re succeeding!” or, “We’re sorry. Your Internet marketing goals are not available for comment at this time.”

No KPI is Perfect

What metrics will help you figure out if a certain marketing campaign is working? Using the above example of business objectives, you can effectively track the Twitter coupon use to define how well the campaign did. Anyone that buys using that coupon is a direct result of the campaign. Therefore, in this case, your top metric – i.e. KPI – would be #of coupons used.

How much will this campaign cost me?

The cost of your campaign is, of course, directly decided by what you’ve chosen to do to meet your business objectives. A pay per click (PPC) campaign, for example, could be more expensive than a Twitter campaign. What you spend goes directly into your ROI formula. For example, if your Twitter campaign costs $1000, this goes into your ROI formula as (Gains – $1000)/$1000 = ROI.

What are my baselines?

Recording your baselines, or benchmarks, helps you actively see the returns. Your benchmarks will change, depending on your objectives, how you choose to reach these objectives, and the KPIs. If your campaign will run for a quarter, your benchmarks should span the entire previous quarter before the planned start date of your new campaign.

Measuring for ROI

Now, you have a good campaign start, and a good start to measuring the campaign’s return on investment. However, you have to be careful with calculating the Gains part of the formula. For example, you can’t make a blanket statement that your Twitter coupon campaign provided 50% ROI based on coupon sales alone.

Good Start

If you’ve set your sales or follow up pages with a Twitter link, there’s a strong possibility that you have followers that have already been customers. If you treated them with respect, they’re probably return customers. In other words, you can’t guarantee those followers aren’t among the ones using the coupon.

In this case, you’d have to narrow down to new accounts created that used the Twitter coupon.

Crunching the numbers

(for example purposes only)

At the end of your four month Twitter coupon campaign, 1,000 people used the Twitter coupon. Excellent. Those 1,000 people translated into $15,000 in gross sales. Even better. However $5,000 of those sales came from established accounts. Your actual, definable gains, then, would be $10,000.

This goes into your ROI formula as ($10000 – $1000)/$1000 = 90% gain in new sales (wouldn’t that be a great statistic to look at on your balance sheet?).

When you’re crunching numbers, you may have to do a little bit more than (Gain-Cost)/Cost = ROI to get the real answers. However, remember that you’re not supposed to be looking for numbers that make you feel good. You’re looking for numbers that tell you whether you’re spending your marketing budget wisely.

Managing Your Marketing Campaigns – When Your ROI Sucks

In the midst of all this monitoring, measuring and marking down numbers, take the time to also mark how low your ROI can be before you’re no longer willing to support a marketing campaign the way it is. For example, are you willing to push a campaign that only has 10% returns? How about 6% or 4%?

Once you hit that number, it’s time to assess what to do with the campaign. A total failure, for instance, might point to the wrong venue (i.e. Twitter, when your target market is on Facebook). A low, but visible ROI, however, is a strong candidate for A/B testing.

Dumping money down the drain on useless advertising, marketing or promotional efforts seems to be an obvious pitfall to avoid – but it’s unfortunately one that all too many fall prey to.  A/B testing is an excellent way to ensure you’re pointing your marketing dollars precisely in the right direction.  A/B Testing methodology on multiple ads, different venues, preferred landing pages, designs, content and other variables (on an isolated basis) also allows you to maximize ROI and put your budget where it belongs.

The Road to Riches

The road to riches is seldom paved with gold. In reality, it’s usually paved with a lot of hard work, sweat, mistakes and (eventually) achievements. It’s important to understand, then, that the above is just a guideline on building strong ROI with every marketing investment you undertake.

When it comes to the ROI of Internet marketing, you also have to be extremely careful with the metrics you choose, and whether those metrics pull in other sources of income. Online marketing revenue has a tendency to blend together.

Having said all that, marketing an online presence is a vital part of your business, even if you run a brick and mortar company. Much like growing a plant from seed to blossom, TLC and careful investments can turn a small business into a successful company.

Have you ever heard the phrase, “You can’t market a piece of junk?”  There are other… ahem… shall we say, more ‘graphic’ versions of the saying, but that’s the cliché sans the expletives.

While this quote could be disproven (you really can market it… doesn’t mean people will buy, though), it’s a no-brainer that you must have a good product while also making sure it’s well represented. Both are necessary for your advertising and promotional efforts to bear much fruit.  There’s only so much an ad agency or SEO/internet marketing firm can do for you if you don’t have trust in place as a foundation.

Market only the best

If your website is already garnering traffic (or its traffic has been increasing) yet sales conversions just aren’t there, what is the problem?  Many issues could be to blame, but one major culprit could be the way your products are presented.  If you don’t have certain essentials with respect to product presentation, you’re likely to turn away a substantial number of prospective customers.

1. A Good Description

It’s surprising how many webmasters go through all the trouble of putting together a beautiful website, complete with pictures of their products and separate pages for each one, yet they leave out one vital element: a proper product description.  Without describing what people are going to actually get if they do buy, you’re making two potentially fatal mistakes.

First, you’re assuming visitors are already familiar with the product, what it does and what it includes (and everyone knows what assuming does). A missing, inaccurate or incomplete product description can ruin a sale. Think about it. Aren’t you more likely to buy a product from a site with clear information, than from a site with nothing but a picture and a “buy now” button?   Of course you are; you want to be able to verify what you’re purchasing, right? So do your buyers.

Your second error in this faulty assumption is that you’re taking a risk. People might purchase the wrong product, the wrong size, an item that is incompatible with what they intend to pair it with, etc.

• General explanation of what the product is and what it does
• Benefits (value)of owning and using the product
• Most common applications of the product (in brief)
• Basic inclusions like batteries or accessories
• Requirements or separately-sold accessories that allow it to operate

Value, Benefit or Feature?

Value, Benefit, or Feature?

Don’t forget “Value vs. Benefit vs. Feature”. There are differences, and you need to understand them – especially in these economic times.

• Feature: what it does or has – A hood on a jacket is a feature
• Benefit: what you get from it – The hood keeps you warm, and can be pulled tight with sunglasses to mask your face if you want to rob a bank
• Value: where it saves you money – The hood is made out of durable material. You may have to buy a new jacket, but you won’t have to replace the hood for years.

If you wish to compete with, or be listed on Amazon.com, you can take a cue from their product descriptions. As well, it’s a good idea to research what other successful online retailers have done, such as IKEA or Staples. Staples even makes purchasing envelopes sound like an adventure (check out that product description).

2. Detailed Specifications

While specs are not quite as important as a general description, in some cases (particularly with electronics), they can still make or break a sale.  This is another situation where you can’t assume the potential customer knows everything about the product’s details.  If they have to go to another site to find out what it does, what do you think the likelihood is that they’ll come back to your site to purchase?

Specifications must include:

• Dimensions (Size)
• Color
• Other possible custom orders (like alternate colors or designs)
• Optional accessories
• For electronics, outlets built in
• Specific, measurable parameters on the product’s technical operations

A clock is just a clock...

For example, a clock is just a clock, right? Wrong. You have an off white clock with a metallic sheen that stands 7” tall and 7” wide. The charming box shape is slightly dipped at the sides to allow for a contemporary touch. Snooze, On/Off and Set Time/Alarm buttons are within easy reach at the top, for the days you want to sleep in just a little bit longer. A battery case holds two double AA batteries (not included) to turn your bedside clock into a friendly travel accessory.

When you’re talking sales, it’s all in the details.

3. Attractive and Informative Pictures

Naturally, you need to post a picture of the product and it must look professional.  It needs to be taken with a high quality camera with proper lighting and plain background (you never want the background to overwhelm the product).  It should be cropped so it shows as closely as possible.

It’s also important to make sure your product pictures are taken from ample angles, if needed, to give a thorough, accurate and honest image of what it truly looks (especially if it’s a product whose primary value to the consumer revolves around aesthetics).

4. Clearly Labeled Pricing and Shipping Charges

This is another “should go without saying” kind of rule – that sadly gets missed by an embarrassing number of webmasters.  Put your pricing clearly near the top of your product page (usually next to the picture).  It’s also helpful to give people an idea of what the shipping options and accompanying charges would be.

As a side note, having prominently displayed links to your shipping, returns and privacy policies can go a long way in increasing consumer trust for the buys.

5. Consider Offering a Money-Back Guarantee

If you haven’t already done so, consider offering a 30 day money-back guarantee for your products or services.  There are two main benefits this creates.

Use a Pro

First of all, it adds credibility, which increases your conversion rate at the outset of the sales process.  Visitors are more likely to buy something they aren’t 100% sure they want or need if they are given the chance to make the final decision later.  They’re also less likely to return the product at all once they have it. Once you discover something works or have it in your hot little hands, you just might lose the motivation to actually return it.

But the real secret here, and the second benefit, is that it gives you very valuable insight you can use moving forward.

A money-back guarantee tells you two crucial things:Which products or services are perceived as “better” in the eyes of your customers

1. Which products or services need improvement

NOTE: Surveys and other types of questionnaires have a similar effect in terms of providing valuable insight into product improvement needs.

Money-back guarantees also ensure your customers get the products they actually want and need, which is quite likely to earn you repeat business.

Rating Systems Can Increase Buyer Trust

Bottom Line: Trust

Providing a rating/review system for customer reviews increases buyer’s trust, although you’d better make sure you’re ready for negative feedback. If you decide to implement a rating system, create a plan for dealing with that negative feedback. Once it’s public, the worst thing you can do is delete it (witness the current Volkswagen social media fail). How will you show off your excellent customer service skills for the world to see?

Bottom Line: Presentation Makes a World of Difference for Revenue

When you apply these to every product page, you have a properly written and formatted website, in terms of presentation.  Without it, you’re turning away numerous customers – perhaps the majority of your visitors – before they even get the chance to decide whether or not to seriously consider clicking the “buy now” link.

You learn a lot of things in Marketing 101. Things like “Starting sales copy with negatives is a negative thing.” You learn that meeting a customer’s eyes is important, as is active listening. By the time you’re done with the course, you can sell sand to a man in the Sahara. Of all the things you learn, however, a few stick with you more than most. One of them is AIDA.

A.I.D.A.

AIDA is an age-old marketing concept. The acronym stands for: Awareness (or Attention), Interest, Desire, and Action.

The purpose of this method is to allow you to target your niche or demographic with systematic diligence, so you can create a sales funnel that truly works.  Below is a breakdown of each individual part of this classic acronym and what it means.  Let’s discover how each can be used effectively as part of your SEO and Internet marketing techniques.

Awareness (Attention)

Awareness has two tiers to it: branding (image) and attraction.  Generally, the AIDA method refers to the ability for your advertisements, website and landing page to attract that initial attention or awareness to begin with.  How is this accomplished?

A/B Testing can quickly reveal which attention grabbers are working, versus those that immediately bounce (Teflon, anyone?). It isolates two versions of an element (ad copy/headlines, pictures, graphics, layout, navigation, search results links and website content), and allows you to compare minute or major changes in the element. For example, a small A/B test can be changing the color and sizes of your headlines to see if one would perform better than another.

One way to measure this specifically is by cross-comparing the actual Clicks Per Impression (CPI) rate of your ads or other content.  If, for instance, you’re generating hundreds of thousands of impressions only to get a few dozen clicks connected to those impressions, your initial responses are lacking.  This is an indication that your first impression is ineffective at garnering the Attention or Awareness of your target audience.

Again, this isn’t just about your headlines or ads; it can apply to each page of your website.  If a certain page is resulting in a high Bounce Rate (BR) and has become a stumbling block, that particular page is hindering Awareness or Attention at the early stages of sales conversion potential.

You don’t have to have ads to be able to measure CPI. For example, Google Webmaster Toolsgives you data on how many impressions you may have gotten for a particular key term, and how many clicks you got for that impression.

Practice...

The CTR (click through rate) of your search snippets can also provide an indicator of your first impression.

Try continuously tweaking each element, one at a time, until your Clicks Per Impression reach a minimum of 10-20%.  Track how well the changes do through A/B Testing (Google Website Optimizer works well for many business types and sizes).

You can apply this to guest posts as well, especially if you have a good relationship with the site you placed the post on. If they’re willing to share their traffic numbers for that page, you can compare that to your referral numbers from the URL.

Statistically, most initial attention-based responses to a well-targeted piece of content or ad copy should be in the 10 – 20% percentage range (or higher).  If you run into a plateau on this, it could be time to consider whether you are placing your ads and/or content in front of an audience that has even the remote potential of being in your niche market – and adjust your placement accordingly.  Targeting is a key means to that end.

Interest

Once your content or ad copy has achieved the initial response of a click, it’s time to take things a step further.  Now the pressure is on and you must keep their attention by generating interest in the discussion.  A landing page that accomplishes this will bring you one step closer to the almighty conversion.

How do you captivate website visitors?  Sounds complicated, doesn’t it?  It’s really not.  All you need to do is give them something to identify with.  When you study your demographic properly, you learn what their age group is, what their income level is, what gender the majority is, and so on.  Use this data as a basis to write copy and present images that make them feel you understand.  Construct your copy with this mindset.

You may not even need to pitch your product directly at this point.  A landing page is very much an interest-based element, as is a website homepage.  The link that preceded their entry to such a page would be considered the Attention element that pulled them in, in the first place.  All you need to do at this point in the funnel is remind your target audience of a problem they likely have which needs a solution.  You can hint at the fact that you will be offering said solution, but you can wait to reveal it in the next step (on the product page).

Desire

Now that your potential customers are interested, you must build their desire to act. To do so, you have to show them that something about their life warrants a need or strong want for what you offer.  Classically, if you answer the following question properly, you are using benefits to spark a sense of desire:  “How will this product (or service) change the life of the potential customer.”

This is simply a continuation of the Interest phase.  You have to intensify the interest to the point where your audience becomes compelled to act.  The product page, for example, can generate a sense of desire.

AIDA

Not only should benefits be mentioned, they should lead the way.  “Lead with benefits” is a motto you should be repeating to yourself whenever you write copy or headlines.  Also, be mindful of the distinction between features and benefits.  You can lead with benefits and support those benefits with features.

Example: Let’s say you sell adjustable beds… Here’s a basic setup of how to position the benefit and support it with the feature, versus the other way around. 

Feature = Adjustable Positions 

Benefit = Comfort Throughout the Day and Night

Poorly Written Copy (Feature Only): “Our adjustable beds allow you to sit or sleep in multiple positions.”

Better Copy, Wrong Order (Feature-Leading, Benefit-Supporting): “Our adjustable beds allow you to sit or sleep in multiple positions which will keep you comfortable at every time of day or night.”

Ideal Copy (Benefit-Leading, Feature-Supporting): “Feel comfortable no matter what time of day it is; our adjustable beds allow you to sit or sleep in multiple positions.”

Easy? Sure...

Action

Action is perhaps the “easiest” part of the AIDA process, but it must not be overlooked.  This is where things like user-friendly and conspicuous navigation, purchase links, and shopping carts come into play.  Most of that can be automated, but remember that where you place your Buy Now buttons and what they look like matters.

Again, simply apply A/B Testing on each element to determine which ones generate actions (purchases, mailing list sign-ups, etc.) more often than others.

Relating AIDA to Your Online Marketing Activities

So how does AIDA really relate to online marketing? How can we simplify this a little?

• Awareness – Anything you’re putting out beyond your site fits in the awareness stage: guest posts, PPC, and YouTube videos all count.
• Interest – Your site and any pages a visitor might potentially see the first time they visit your site. For PPC and guest posting, make sure your links point to a specific landing page, geared for that video or post.
• Desire – The content found on your landing and product pages. Answer the question, “What’s in it for me?” and “Why should I buy from you versus the other guy?
• Action – Your calls to action: buy buttons, free shipping if they order today, only four left so order now.

By breaking each part of AIDA into steps, you have a clear structure to follow when developing your marketing and campaign initiatives. Using this information, revisit your click paths, from ad or search snippet to final buy. What have you done well? What could you do better? Answer these questions, and then start testing!

A confession: I don’t know much about branding. Oh, sure – I know words, but branding? That’s Gabriella’s bailiwick.

I know more now than I did six or seven years ago, but that’s because she’s been my mentor for several years (and you can’t have a client-centered conversation with Gabriella without branding coming in to it). So, when Level343 posts blogs about branding, that information comes either from Gabriella or information I’ve gleaned from her through the years.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve come across several articles here about brand building and social media. We talk a lot about social media and using it as a way to “build the story of your brand”. Whenever Gabriella talks about it, I’ve always just nodded my head, thinking I sort of got it, but figuring I never really would.

Today, I’m feverishly typing up this post for your consumption because I’m excited. I finally got it. And in case you haven’t, I want to share this concept with you, so you, trying to follow advice and build your brand story, can get a better grip on what it means.

The Story of a Company…

At the time of this writing, I’ve just finished researching for an article. The topic (not the client) is Volkswagen ads. If you ever have some free time in the middle of your busy company building day, I highly suggest reading about the history of Volkswagen and its advertising campaigns. It’s fascinating, to say the least.

In 1959, Volkswagen had just started growing in the U.S. They contracted with an advertising agency to create ads focused on building brand advocates. Because, you see, brand advocates will do for a company what an ad never can – add a positive reputation. They talk about a brand, share it, tweet it, like it… they become the cheerleaders for a brand. And unless that brand does something really bad, they’ll always be the brand’s cheerleaders.

Now, I learned a few things about Volkswagen that I didn’t know (not being a big car enthusiast – if you are, you might already know these things). Check this out, and tell me if it isn’t wild…

It was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian, for Adolf Hitler, a German dictator. During World War II, the manufacturing plant was turned into a forced labor camp for Germany. After the war, the British took it over, who then tried to pass it off to several places that turned it down flat, including Ford, Fiat and the French government. Americans didn’t want it, because it was too small and wasn’t “hip”. That is, until the mid 1950s, when college kids decided it was a good trendsetter.

After reading the history of the company (admittedly, the facts weren’t summed up in quite so few words) up until they started using ads, I turned to the ads themselves. The advertising agency had to reinvent the Volkswagen for the U.S. market, because we still had a lot of hard feelings after the war. And they did. They took a German made car and turned it into a U.S. quality brand.

How? With stories. The really fascinating thing about the Volkswagen ads is the stories they create.

The first ad alone, “Think Small”, is a study in building a brand story. Each succeeding ad only builds on the entire story, like “33 years later, he got the bug”. Increasing technology has only made them better, while still continuing the story, as seen in the Super Bowl commercial, “The Force”.

The Thunderbolt of Wisdom Strikes: Every Brand Has a Story

This stuff was fascinating to me (witness the fact that I’ve used that word several times already in this post). What was more fascinating was my reaction.

Up until this point, my only run in with the VW was Herby the Love Bug. I knew squat and cared less. Right after I finished researching, I was discussing all this new found information with a friend and it hit me: I liked the Volkswagen! Not only did I like the stories the ads told, but I felt warm and fuzzy towards the car and company!

I stopped in mid-sentence, because the thunderbolt of wisdom slammed into my head. “Oh!” I even said it out loud. “So that’s what she meant by brand story!” I get it! I really get it!

Here’s the deal:

Every brand has a story. Every brand, company and hobby business. The thing is there is someone out there who can relate to your story! The owner of a mom and pop store is out there right now, reading this article and thinking, “Yeah, but who’d be interested in ours?”

Listen. I doubt that there’s a single adult person out there who hasn’t visited a mom and pop store at least once in their lifetime. As well, I bet a lot of people know someone who runs one. Some would rather frequent a small, family-run store than a big brand store. So why aren’t you talking about it?

You just spent a half hour leaning against your countertop while you talked to Betty Lou about her son’s athlete’s foot and the best remedies. This is your life. To you, you may just be having a friendly conversation. To Betty Lou, you just provided fantastic customer service! So why aren’t you talking about it?

You run that parts store down on Main Street. Steve came in because he thought he needed a new alternator. While you’re helping him find the part to match his car, you two start talking about the problems. You think it’s probably something else, just by the way he describes it. After a 15 minute look at the engine in the parking lot, you show Steve that it’s not the alternator; it’s actually a frayed electrical system (which, by the way, is cheaper and easier to replace).

This isn’t in your job description. You run a parts store, not a mechanics shop. Yet, you like cars and enjoy helping people. To you, it was a fun, satisfying 15 minutes. To Steve, it was money saved, extraordinary customer service and the start of a good business to customer relationship. So why aren’t you talking about it?

Your Brand Story Doesn’t Have to Be Unique

That’s the real beauty of building a brand story, and the real lesson behind VW. The Volkswagen ad agency didn’t boost the brand by having a unique story. They boosted the brand by having a story people can relate to. If it’s unique, they can’t relate, can they?

With all this social media use – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. – you have the perfect platform for sharing your brand story. If you aren’t, then what are you doing? What on earth are you even using social media for?

By telling your story in the fashion of the example above, you’re actually sharing the story of a customer. Yet, the subtle undertone is about your quality service. You don’t have to be blatant about it; people will get the point without the pushy advertising.

If you’re not already putting your story out there, I urge you to really consider it. Your story is special by the very fact that it’s common. It’s something that reaches out to people who have been either in your position or your customer’s, or knows someone who has.

Look: the only way you’ll ever make friends is by letting them get to know you. The same goes for your company. Build that warm, fuzzy, friendly relationship with your market by giving them the story behind the brand!

So, did everyone have a good brouhaha good time for New Year’s? Are you ready to delve into 2012’s planning, marketing and magic? I don’t know about you, but around the office here, we’re ready to do more with less. We’ve taken a step back – but not a backwards step. – And if that isn’t enough double speak, I don’t know what is.

2012 Happy New Year

It’s 2012 – Are You Ready?

This is our 4th post of 2012. As far as the Mayans are concerned, this is the end. In the technology world, some people are predicting (rightly so) the year of the Mobile. Others have embraced QR codes as the second coming. Times are changing, my friends.

We even *gasp* went so far as to DARE not send out a blog post for one day (whether it will affect our readership or not remains to be seen). However, after a busy year, it was time to refuel the energy levels and decide how, what stories, which lessons and so on make sense for 2012.

Transitioning into the New Year

If you have a small company or a Fortune 500 and have yet to grasp that social has to be a part of your compass, brand, energy, purpose and (yes) daily language, you’ve been sleeping under a rock. We deal in a world of language and communication. Like it or not, text and keywords are how you, we, the world, formulate important concepts.

Yet, those concepts change, simply because life changes. We then have to formulate new words, new key terms and new text to define those changes.

For this particular blog post, we’re going to look back over the years at our most popular posts and what they’ve offered our readers. What concepts have changed? Experience leads to innovation and change of thought; do we think differently at the end of the year than we did at the beginning?

Are Social Media Tools Relevant to SEO?

Written in 2009, we covered a topic that was cropping up all over the place: social media and SEO. The end conclusion of the article was, “While social media in and of itself isn’t that helpful with SEO, the resulting links are.”

We’ve seen incredible results from a mixed campaign of SEO and social. Social seems to act as a magnifier of marketing efforts, due to the inherent viral nature of sharing. After the past two years in search, algo changes, G+ in Google, Facebook in Bing and so on, the picture is becoming much clearer.

In short, SEO and social media need to have seamless integration. It’s no longer about “the resulting links”. Individuals without websites are showing up in the results pages because of a Google Plus or Facebook profile. Some business owners have made one network or the other their home base, as it were.

Seamless Integration

The takeaway for you: If you’re using social media and have a website presence, make sure you connect the dots. The lines are fading between social media and SEO; having those connections ensures that you don’t lose out on your marketing efforts.

Merging Keyword Strategies and Effective Copywriting

No matter how you slice it, you need keywords, and this article does a fairly good job of explaining that. However, a lot of things have changed since we started the SEO Article Archive – patents, signals, Panda, copyright issues, citations… Because of this, the understanding of how keywords work needs to be clearer. (Read: Semantics and Relevance: Even Keywords Need Support Sometimes)

Key words and phrases work much like marketing words do in advertising. The next ad you listen to on the radio, pay attention to how many times they say certain words, and which words they repeat. The repetition of these words send signals to your brain, much like using keywords sends signals to the search engines.

The takeaway for you: We’ve written several articles since this time about how to effectively merge keywords into your site, copy and campaigns. Again, they connect the dots between your topic and those searching. Make sure that the terms you’re using are actually relevant to what you’re trying to convey and accomplish with your site.

Morphing Facebook

When we wrote this, Facebook had made an attempt to take over Twitter’s traffic (say that three times fast). They’d changed a lot in order to do this. Obviously, it failed. Odd, then, that they’re doing the same thing now that G+ is out.

How much have they changed over the past few years? We can’t even count the ways: ticker on the side, FB timeline, sharing abilities, lists… it goes on (and on, and on).

They’re the number one social platform. They have a larger user base than most countries have people. People use them for business and personal, fun and work. Why can’t they be happy with that? Ah, c’est la vie. Facebook will always be Facebook…

Always Another Platform

The takeaway for you: There’s always going to be another social platform; there’s always going to be the next best thing and the next shiny tool. Unless you have many clones, there’s no way you can keep up with all of them. Don’t try; pick the ones you can build a community on, and stick with them… unless they turn into MySpace (in which case, run).

You’ve already established your community and your story… why would you stop and start all over again.  Don’t be a foolish; learn how to listen and grow your audience.

“Big Brother” Google Step’s on SEOs

Before you ask, no – we don’t feel any different. We’ve seen example after example over the past few years that show us how Google feels about our profession. So what’s another year without fear in the SEO community?

Google isn’t all cherries and ice cream. There are enough lawsuits targeting them around the world that they should be enough to give you a taste of reality.

The latest includes things like moving search to https. Oh, sure, they call it a privacy issue; yet, we know they’re still tracking the key terms. They’re just being selective about to whom they’re giving that data to: i.e. the advertisers. As well, they’re testing PPC now, giving people the ability to fill out a “request a call” form from the SERPS. In other words, they’re trying to make it so no one ever leaves the search results pages.

The takeaway for you:Google is in business for Google. Before you put every cent, and every effort, into marketing with Google, remember that. Also, remember that they have control over your account; if you do something against their terms (whether you do it knowingly or not), they can shut your account down. Be very careful to observe the rules.

Google Is Always Watching You

How to Write an SEO Article

This is a good old stand by and, although we’ve written several updated and in depth versions, it’s still one of those good “foundational” articles. Having said that, however, it’s written from the article submission frame of mind… and that, friends, professional SEO specialists, and readers, has changed drastically.

For one, many article submission sites were hit by the Panda update, which pointed to a dearth of quality content. As well, many have lost their appeal to the visitor, lessening the impact that article submission once had.

Today, we look more towards content marketing (in truth, it’s a lot like article submission… but… not). With content marketing, your articles are written with an actual site and that site’s audience in mind (for example, guest posting for our blog). Rather than submit the same article to umpteen different directories, like many have done in the past, content marketing is a single, well written – nay, crafted – piece of art that you hang up in another person’s gallery.

The takeaway for you: Content marketing is more involved than article marketing, but can also bring better returns in terms of traffic, authority, publicity and, yes, ranking. Pay close attention to the sites you visit in your industry. If they offer guest article spots, give your site a marketing and publicity boost; offer a crafted piece of art!

Cutting It Short, Because Time is of the Essence

We were going to cover our top 10 posts of all time. We stopped at five because 1) we’re long winded and we’ve hit our self-imposed maximum word count and 2) because your time is of the essence.

We can’t do with you what we normally do with clients. With clients, we sit down and talk about their project – and then we shut up and listen. Since we can’t do that, we share with you what we do, and give you a starting point. Therefore, it’s time for your homework assignment – and since you’re busy running a company, you’re going to need all the time you can grab to complete it.

Create Your Masterpiece

Look at your top posts, landing pages and guest blogs and compare them with the “you” you are today. Were you able to tell your story? Can people say three things about you just by following you and reading? Have you branded yourself?

What are some of the things you can take away from them? What are some of the lessons you can share with your readers? What has changed since those top posts were written? This is good practice for you, in terms of paying attention to the content you’re putting out; you’ll be surprised at the amount of information and ideas that occur to you.

Our 2012 predictions, by the way, since everyone who’s anyone is giving them…

The world is not going to end. SOPA will have forced some underground groups to get a nice network. The housing market will still suck, and the 1% will still ignore reality. We, however, will keep steadfast and continue to shoot with both barrels while taking names along the way!!

The Rise Of The Phoenix

WordPress – it’s a content management system, a blogging platform and “that place you put your blog on”. It’s often thought of in relation to blogs, but have you ever thought of it as a “place to put your site on”? Thousands have, and many of them are big brands. WordPress is a flexible, viable solution for many, and it might just be the right one for you, as well.

WordPress for Website Developers

Any website developer worth their salt would raise their noses at a program (sneer) that helps them code. However, many a developer has some sort of bare-bones, wire-frame template they use to speed up the coding process.

WordPress is simply that wire-frame template, with the added bonus of a friendly user interface. If you’re a coding guru and know how to create that UI type of thing, you may not find anything worth using on WordPress (other than the fact that it can save you time). If, however, you learned your coding skills through reverse engineering and haven’t quite gotten around to creating user friendly interfaces, WordPress is something worth looking into.

Some of what WordPress provides website developers:

• Complete content management system with database integration
• 5 minute initial setup
• Wire framework for a complete website
• Thousands of templates for inspiration
• Thousands of plugins for inspiration (or quick, added functionality)
• Easy “hooks” for creating your own plugins with the Plugin API (split between filter hooks and action hooks).
• Out of the box blog and site integration

The above is just a short list. We’d be remiss if we left out the fact that it’s developed through open source, which is one of the biggest reasons why WordPress is in wider use than Drupal or Joomla. Open source allows the platform to grow in leaps and bounds beyond the “competition”.

In fact, if you use WordPress in the right frame of mind, it can be an excellent tool to speed up your coding time and reduce costs. The key, however, is to use it in the right frame of mind, which brings us to the biggest con for developers…

The #1 Con of WordPress for Developers

Stay Away From The Crutch

Like any tool, WordPress can quickly become a crutch. –And, like any crutch, it can change the way you design and code. What often happens is developers get stuck in an, “I’m going to create a WordPress site,” frame of mind.

The problem is that WordPress sites have a WordPress feel. Once you’ve seen a few, you really have seen most. Oh, colors may be radically different, and layouts slightly different, but all in all, you know when you’re looking at a WordPress site.

The “trick” to using WordPress is to use it like any other tool. “I’m going to create a website. One of the tools I’m going to use is WordPress.” With this frame of mind, you really can do anything you or the client imagines (although that’s not always a good thing).

WordPress for Website Owners

“Anything?” the website owner asks. “Anything,” we reply. –And that’s one of the biggest pros for website owners. WordPress is extremely flexible, allowing for a variety of site types, functions and designs. Don’t take our word for it, though. WordPress is used by thousands of sites; each uses it the way it was intended – as a simple platform, with ultimate design freedom:

Bedford Hotel

Appleton Estate

Ford Auto Shows

Platinum Games

Flippa K

Yess BMX

WordPress Pros for Website Owners

There are so many pros, when it comes to using WordPress as a site owner, that it would take a book to list them – or at the very least, an eBook. With that in mind, we chose a few out of the many. The number one, however, is usability.

WordPress, for the non-coding site owner, is extremely easy to use. If you know how to use a document editor like Microsoft Word or Open Office Docs, you’ll quickly learn how to use it. In fact, a brief WordPress walkthrough can get you blogging and creating site content in a few minutes time. Another guide on widgets and plugins will help you customize your site like nobody’s business.

If you’re using the platform to host a business site or blog, we highly recommend using a WordPress developer. A developer will be able to give you exactly the look, feel and usability you need to properly showcase your business.

However, if you have limited funding, or are using the platform for a hobby business or just for fun, there are:

• Hundreds of thousands of free themes
• Thousands of affordable premium (or paid) themes
• Thousands of plugins and widgets
• Five (at least) choices of WordPress
  • WordPress.com – for those without a hosting provider
  • WordPress.org – for those with a hosting provider
  • WordPress Multisite – for those that need to create a network of sites with separate themes and information, but want to manage them all from a single point
  • BuddyPress – for those that want to create their own niche social network
  • bbPress – for those that want to build a forum
• Thousands of resources to learn how to create, build, manage and use a WordPress site, including:
  • WP Beginner
  • WordPress TV
  • WP Candy
  • WP Designer

Instead of going on, we’ll just finish the list by saying: there’s a whole WordPress world out there. Search for anything you want, need or would like to see and you’ll find tons of resources, examples, themes and how-tos. If you have the time to learn, and don’t have the funding to hire someone to build your site, WordPress (free) is an excellent program to use.

Link Love

A Side Note, A Question and Some Link Love

This is, of course, our opinion, based on three years of consistent WordPress use, design, development, and coding. Like any platform, WordPress has its problems (mainly in the area of third-party plugins); it’s not perfect. Yet, when you’re talking about a platform with a high number of pros for both the coder and the site owner, WordPress makes the grade.

Here’s a question for you, and a chance to get some link love: do you use WordPress? If you do, we’d like to see what you’ve done with your site. Drop your site link in the comments below. If we get enough respondents, we might be able to create a voting poll on “best WordPress site”!

Have you noticed how social networks are becoming more about building memories? You make friends, share events, get congratulated for happy events and condolences for sad ones. You can share pictures, videos… in fact, social accounts are like the digital scrapbooks of our lives (for individual accounts) and businesses (for corporate accounts).

Now, I’m immersed in social, SEO, marketing and branding. Rarely do I have time to enjoy and experience social media like the average user does. When a social site makes changes, I automatically look at those changes to see if they can be used for business purposes.

Because of the above, I didn’t really think about it much when Facebook turned on their Timeline in September of last year. It was just par for the course – just another way of displaying what you share. I did what I always do – how can I use it for business, what to do with the new layout and space, etc.

-And then, my personal connections started actually using Timeline. As these things often do, their use rolled into my view. I got curious and started delving into my own timeline. What I found was positive and negative, painful and wonderful.

My Facebook Timeline

If you’ve followed our social accounts and read this blog, you’re probably aware that I didn’t grow up as a U.S. citizen. I’m an Italian citizen, with Italian parents. The ironic part is that I wasn’t raised in Italy; I was raised in the Middle East. While this may seem out of the way to people in the U.S., but if you look, at Europe in proximity to the Middle East, it’s almost like driving from Iowa to New York – maybe even shorter, now that I think about it.

Can you find me?

My mother was a budding starlet back in the 60’s. She was promised fame and fortune if she moved to Lebanon. Needless to say, she did move, and ended up marrying one of the most prominent political figures of that country’s history (my mother’s life would be a book in and of itself).

To dramatically shorten a really long story, our way of life had an adverse affect on my sense of stability, safety and family. As an only child, I learned how to play by myself and with my imaginary friends. –Yet, before the war in Lebanon, there were so many kids from various nationalities, you couldn’t help but be immersed in a plethora of cultures. Smart wonderful people from every walk of life, culture, and nationality.

I fell in love there, kissed my first boy and smoked my first cigarette. I didn’t move to this country until later. Our lives weren’t tons better once we moved here, but there was a sense of strength, of pride… and, of course, the streets weren’t paved with gold compared to where I’d grown up. Opportunity was all around this great, big land, but the memories and connections I made in Beirut will live in my heart forever.

Post War Lebanon

All these memories came flooding back by looking at the Facebook timeline. It made me wonder how much of my past I could build with this one network. Maybe I’m lucky, or maybe not. Not all the memories are pleasant, but I have major red flags with historical facts and whatnot, so I can actually draw a pretty accurate timeline if I chose to.

During my youth, Lebanon was riddled with civil unrest. Yet, I hold treasures and moments when I look through pictures. During the 16-year-war that started in the mid-70s, more than 100,000 were killed, and the same handicapped by injuries. About 900,000 were displaced from their homes. In the meantime, I lost track of so many of those I’d known…

Looking through the timeline on a Sunday afternoon, my mind wandered. How many of you can look at a certain picture, food or smell something, and you’re back in a particular moment? That minute, what I felt of upon seeing the year 1972 was fear mixed with joy.

Once I looked over things, considering whether to fill in moments with images and so on, I had time to really think about Facebook’s timeline. Was it a good thing? A bad thing? Just a thing?

Pros and Cons – Is Facebook’s Timeline Such a Good Thing?

How will you share your story?

For me, not everything in my past is something I want to broadcast to the public – and I don’t think I’m alone in that. I realized, while writing this, that most of the cons are personal based, while most of the pros are business based.

For example, one of the first cons that popped in my mind is that someone can share a picture of you to their network, tag you in it, and have it show up on your timeline. In other words, that photo of you tying more than a few on at the last company Christmas party could end up very public.

When you post something now, you have to be extra careful and decide with everything how public you want it to be. Because anything you share with your network has the possibility of being shared by them to their network and so on. While this is great for business, it’s not so great for personal.

Another con that comes to mind ties in with your communications on other sites. By clicking that innocent-looking “Add to Timeline” button on a site, you’re agreeing to let your network know everything you’re doing on that site. In a world where privacy is a huge factor, is this something you really want to do?

Another: the ease of use for the Timeline really calls to you. It’s inviting, and it pulls you to want to fill in the timeline. Before you answer the call, think long and hard about what you want to fill in – others will be able to see, comment, share and so on. As with anything you put online, a good rule of thumb is to never share anything, no matter how privately, that you would have a problem with having plastered across the Net.

On a business level, there really doesn’t seem to be many cons for the new Facebook layout. The timeline allows you to build an in depth “about us” wall, and the picture panel is a definite plus for branding your business.

In fact, the only real con I can see is that none of this new functionality is available to brand pages – only user accounts. Darned if that doesn’t make us brand users green with envy. So, if you have a personal account, but you’re using it to talk about your business, you get the best of both worlds.

As a business user, filling in the timeline could be a great addition; again, I would caution you to choose carefully what you do and don’t share. The wide picture panel can be used to make an outstanding impression on your followers. In short, the changes have been very good for those who use their personal Facebook accounts as business additions.

Stories At Work

You Have a Story to Tell

I wouldn’t be surprised to see some brands creating some type of personal account, or, at the very least, developing some apps, to get a timeline-type look. Facebook Timeline is an excellent way to share your brand/business story.

-And isn’t that really what social is all about?

Every business – every brand – has a story to tell. Of course, you decide how transparent your story will be, and you do that by being very careful what goes out on your timeline. Every connection from your past can come back to either boost your reputation or haunt you forever.

No one knows how much of this will matter in a few years, technology changing as quickly as it does. No one knows how many of your connections you’ll still have later, because the Internet is such a fluid medium. What we do know is that we live in exciting times; you, your business and your brand are parts of those times.

As you delve into Facebook’s Timeline, remember that we all have a story to tell, including me – including you. Tell it well!

For you, Mr. New Orleans Computer Repair Guy, also known as French Quarter Repair Services and iPhone or iPod Repairman:

You returned my Mac Airbook in worse condition than it was before. That’s bad business. You charged me more than the agreed upon amount and wouldn’t return my possessions until I paid for it. That’s extortion. You call yourself a certified technician; in my estimation, you’re nothing more than a scam artist. Then you advertise SEO on your site. Mister now you’ve really messed up.

Photo credit: Frank Benson

For our readers: You might say, after reading this article, “Wow, Gabriella, isn’t this a little vindictive?” To which I respond, “Yes, and no.” I dislike scam artists. It pisses me off when someone screws people out of their hard-earned money. It pisses me off even more when these people have my industry plastered on their site. Then, it becomes one more piece of coal to fire, fueling stories about bad optimizers. You can be sure this guy treats his SEO customers just as well as his computer repair customers.

I’m going to do my very best to make sure this one, at least, has an online reputation that reflects his lack of professionalism and honesty. –And my best is very good. Call it a lesson in reputation management.

French Quarter Repair Services? I Don’t Think So…

You’d reasonably think that someone like me, working online with computers, dealing with people all day long and buried in search, could figure out how to get their computer fixed. Right? That’s what I figured, anyway, but I was wrong.

Yes I'm happy :)

So, when I loaned it to my partner, who accidentally dropped coffee on the keyboard (a whole other point of irritation), we quickly searched for a certified Mac technician in New Orleans. My AirBook needed emergency care, and I was going to make sure it went to the best computer doctor around. There aren’t many of them; I think we found two.

My partner spoke to the man we chose, who quoted $100 for a diagnostic “and we’ll service it right away”. Not a problem. She drove the hour to New Orleans. While there, she asked to verify if he was an Apple certified technician, and was told that he was. This is important, because Apple says the Macs need to be taken care of by certified technicians.

She dropped it off, paid the $100 and then waited for the shop to call back. This is how the process is supposed to go, right? I mean… reasonable expectations being what they are?

Mr. New Orleans Computer Repair Guy Calls Back…

We’re told the $980 AirBook I bought will take $450 for a new motherboard and an additional $250 for labor. There’s no way, little cuteness be damned, that I’m going to spend almost as much for repair as it cost to buy it fresh out of the box. We told him “no, thank you,” and that one of us would pick it up Monday.

Everything happened like a normal business transaction should. In my mind, this means he just puts the computer back the way it was, closes it up and calls it a day. However, when my partner showed up to pick up the computer, the owner of the shop is out, and the salesman tells her he can’t release the computer to her until the shop owner gets back. Odd – we were told we could pick it up any time.

It Was Love At First Sight

He also told her he spoke with the owner, who said the computer was still opened, had special diagnostics equipment in it, and he needed to get the stuff out. She calls me and informs me she has to hang out in New Orleans until the shopkeeper comes back in the afternoon; she didn’t want to drive an extra two hours for a second trip.

“Tell the guy we want our computer back, and don’t want to wait for the owner,” I told her. After all, again, we were told we could pick it up any time.

There I was, listening to the conversation through the phone lines, and hearing it escalate into an argument. My partner threatened to call the police if the owner did not, at the very least, get on the phone with her to address why she had to wait during business hours. And here’s where it got really…messed… up…

What?

The salesman came from the back of the shop, with my Airbook still open, an hour later. He told her the owner was back (who she had yet to see), but she needed to pay an additional $50 in order to get the computer. When asked how he could charge more than Apple, he said, “I can charge a hundred thousand million dollars, if I want.” On hindsight, I’m glad I wasn’t there. Someone would have ended up calling 911 to report a whole series of violent crimes being committed.

Why were we being charged an additional $50? Apparently, there’s a policy stating that you owe a $50 fee (on top of the initial $100, mind you) if you decide not to use their services. There has to be that policy, because the salesman said there was, and that it was stated on their tech support page. It isn’t.

Seriously?

When I got my computer back, I have to tell you, it was a sad sight. My poor Airbook looked completely beaten. It still had big drops of coffee on the inside (so there’s no way he cleaned like he said), and there was a brand new dent on the corner.

The Reviews – Too Little, Too Late

A lesson, here; always check the online reviews. I know that – hell, I push having people review your products. I didn’t think about it. If I had, I’d most likely have my computer back, it’d be clean, and … oh yeah… working. Reviews for French Quarter Computer Services New Orleans on Yelp are plain nasty. One reviewer says, “This place changes names when their reviews get too bad. They have 7 BBB complaints and didn’t even bother to respond to 1 of them.  If it’s anywhere near the 1900 block of St. Claude DO NOT GO!!”

Evidently not cleaned

Digging even further finds the iPod Repair Man site, which claims to be a subsidiary of… drum roll please… New Orleans Computer Repair. ACD Computers in Covington? Yes, that’s him, too. I’m not absolutely positive, but Apple Repair New Orleans also appears to be the same guy, if you go by the footer links in this tech forum profile.

The fact that this guy advertises data recovery services makes me shudder…

Online Reputation Management – Lesson #1

This has been wiped with alcohol?

You know… this is what I do for a living. We help clients with their reputations, their online presence, website, branding, and optimization. With this article, I wavered on whether to expose him publicly on our company blog, because I don’t want people to get the idea that we’re anything other than professional.

However, while I must profess a tad bit of malicious glee, I’m also greatly concerned about this individual’s business practices. Why? Because:

• he “runs” at least four companies
• he advertises his services as covering at least six cities
• he advertises several different services under separate operational names (iPod Repair Man, ACD Computers, Apple Repair New Orleans, Devious Designs)
• New Orleans Computer Repair AKA French Quarter Computer Services is listed under at least three different addresses in various local directories
• he knows enough to at least “try” to bury bad reviews and could one day be successful

WTF did you use?

I’m going to call the BBB and add yet another negative mark against his “F” rating, but I know that’s not going to do much good. What does help – what will help, is social media.

I’m posting this article on our site, with our site’s authority pushing it. I’m going to share it across my social accounts. I’m going to ask everyone I know to retweet, Like, Share and otherwise forward to a friend. I’m going to do my best to get this page pushed so far up in the SERPs that it outranks his own site. I want people to see this page before they ever get to his site; just in case they forget to check for reviews.

Mr. New Orleans Computer Repair Guy, rule #1 of reputation management is: Don’t screw your customers over. They can get online and talk about it.

Every so often, we look through our old blog posts as a way to pat ourselves on the back for the work we’re doing. Okay, not really – the reason for poring through almost three hundred blog posts is a little strategy called content repurposing.  Today, we’re going to dig into this content development strategy and answer the questions: what is it, why, which ones, and how.

Find the Treasures

Get your list of blog posts ready and let’s dig in!

What Is Content Repurposing?

When you’ve had a blog for a few years, your content has a tendency to get old. Especially when you’re in a fast-paced industry like ours, information that was relevant six months ago can quickly become outdated – stale, if you will. Content repurposing is a strategy of taking that old content – the same topics – and rewriting it to meet current standards and information.

My Content Is Just Fine Already… (The Why)

This isn’t an easy job for most people. You get close to your content, especially if you’re the one writing it. Yet, the reasons to go through this exercise are many and, ultimately, they’ll strengthen your overall content offerings:

• More updated content – as mentioned already, repurposing your content gives your readers current information.
• Shows your readers you care – by keeping your blog updated and repurposing, you’re showing your readers you care about the content you’re providing them. This further strengthens the idea that you can be trusted to provide good information.
• Provides fresh signals for the search engines – although search engines like sites that have been established, they’re more likely (for most searches) to provide the newest results first. Updating an article to current standards also means giving the SEs something more recent to rank in the results. They like that!
• Stronger content – the longer you write, the better your writing becomes. It just happens like that; practice makes perfect, as the old axiom goes. Repurposing gives you the ability to create stronger, more authoritative content than the older posts provide.

Which Blog Posts Should I Retouch?

When you have a lot of blog posts, the last thing you want to do is go pouring over all of them, right? Right. So how do you choose which ones to repurpose?

Create The Magic

We have a short, three-step process, to help you decide:

1. Visit the oldest blogs in your repository.
2. Scan the titles – look for outdated terms, or terms that may indicate an area you know has changed throughout the years. For example, here at the SEO Article Archive, any article before 2010 that mentions keywords is probably ripe for repurposing. This should narrow your choices considerably.
3. Scan the oldest ten, and look for:
   1. Blog posts shorter than what you currently put out
   2. Poor grammar
   3. Outdated facts
   4. Lack of word flow – you learn, as time goes by, how to pull your content into a smooth-reading post. It flows seamlessly from point to point. If you started blogging like most, however (i.e. you don’t have a college degree in journalism), your content didn’t start out that way. This is a perfect opportunity to polish those less than perfect articles.

By the time you’re done, you should have a list of at least two or three articles (if not more) you can polish to provide a stronger content offering.

Okay – Now What? (The How)

Unless the blog posts you pull are truly awful, you probably aren’t going to want to scratch the whole post and start from scratch. So how do you go about repurposing an article without making it look like you just reposted?

First, remember that Copyscape is your best friend. If you run your finished article through Copyscape and it shows more than 30% of the same content, you aren’t quite done. Also, keep the list of “whys” next to you, and address each point with the question, “Have I accomplished this?”

Step One: The first step is to touch the most important parts. Don’t worry about grammar, punctuation or word flow – get the changes in first.

• Change the title – the last thing you want is two blog posts of the same name. Update your title to reflect your stronger powers of headline writing, and write one that calls to your readers. You know them by now: who they are and what they like. Reach out to them!
• Rewrite the first and second paragraph – Generally, these two paragraphs will stand out most in long-term readers’ minds. As well, they’ll be more likely to flag the SE’s duplicate content filters.
• Rewrite the final paragraph – Again, the final paragraph will stand out more readily as duplicated if they go untouched.
• Rewrite any erroneous facts – Anything that is outdated should stand out like sore thumb as you read the old post over. Update the information as you find it (again, don’t worry about how it reads, yet, just replace the information).
• Mark places for more content – As you go through, you might find places where you would add more information. Mark these places in the document and move on.

Step Two: Starting with a new, empty document, type (not copy/paste) your updated content, now concentrating on tone, grammar, punctuation and flow. Don’t feel inhibited by the amount of text on the old post – remember that you aren’t duplicating; add more content as the muse moves you.

Repurposing Opportunities

Step Three: Check your content through Copyscape. If you have large blocks of text that stand out (i.e. two whole paragraphs in a row and so on), you need to go back to work. On the other hand, if Copyscape reports back that it can find no instances, you’ve done your job exceedingly well.

Step Four: Read your content out loud to make sure everything reads well. This exercise will also help your mind trigger instances where the information is still incorrect, so don’t pass it up!

Step Five: Schedule your blog post, grab the brand new URL, and then revisit the old blog you just rewrote. Add an editor’s note with something like, “The content of this post is outdated. Please visit (the new URL) for our most current post on this topic.”

Other Repurposing Opportunities

Rewriting old blog posts isn’t the only way you can you repurpose content. For example, you can also turn long-winded or explanatory emails, slide presentations and other offerings into new content. It’s not always easy to do, but the returns are well worth the time it takes.

As part of your content development strategy, make sure you schedule content repurposing into your editorial calendar. It should never be more than 10 – 15% of your blog posts, but it should definitely be a part of them. Take the time to show you care; wipe the dust off your content!

For those with a “must-register” e-commerce solution, cart recovery emails can do wonders in turning abandoned shopping carts into high sales. –But what if your site has registration only as an option, or has no email capture at all? What then?

Actionable Tips

The first order of the day is to make sure they don’t abandon, and to do that, you have to address why they abandoned. We’ve covered this topic recently, with “E-Commerce Marketing: Why Are Your Shopping Carts Being Abandoned”. Today, I’m going to address some of the main reasons, and give you a few actionable tips you can do from the comfort of your own site.

Shopping Cart Abandonment and How to Stop It From Happening to You

There are well over ten reasons why people leave without buying. Some, you can’t do anything about. For the rest, sometimes all it takes is a few tweaks to your buying process:

Their problem: the buying process was complicated

We’ve seen a lot of sites while doing audits. One stand-out point that we often find is lack of structure and direction. Some sites, we couldn’t even figure out how to place an order. How do you have a “store” button and no “buy now” button? For sites like these, abandoned cart percentages are high.

Your solution: Simplify!

• Offer a “guest checkout” option, for those that don’t want to sign in or register (HomeDepot) OR
• Show three options: sign in, guest checkout, register (Macy’s) OR
• Use the Amazon approach: one field, one radio button, one continue button
• If it doesn’t have anything to do with checking out, more shopping and brand, considering removing it from the check out page (i.e. category links, etc. – see Paypal for an example)
• Make it easy for buyers to add products, remove products or change the quantity
  

  Simplify your e-commerce

Finally, avoid “create an account” stops during the checkout process – if they have to have an account to order, make it plan on the product page. If they don’t, wait until after they’ve ordered. Heck  – they’ve already given you their information. How much more time would it take for them to push a button that says “turn this information into an account for me”?

Their problem: the buying process was uncomfortable

I don’t know about you, but I’m leery about who I give my credit card information to. Regardless of what some say, that price is the most important thing, it isn’t; privacy and protection is. For this reason, you need to make sure your site addresses these concerns.

Your solution: Clarity!

• Don’t ask for information you don’t need to process the request
• Provide at least three trusted logos (Paypal, for example, or the logo of the security solution you’re using, such as VeriSign)
• Show the Privacy and Terms of Service links prominently; most probably won’t read, but if they can’t find it, they’ll feel even more uncomfortable
• Secure options to buy – I hate to harp on Paypal, but seeing that logo gives people a sense of security. Security is Paypal’s brand, yo.
• Be upfront and transparent about shipping options and pricing, who you are and what you’re about. Make contact details highly visible on the “about” or “contact us” page. (this includes, by the way, your customer service number – I won’t buy if I can’t call)

Their problem: they’re shopping in a hurry

Sometimes, carts are abandoned because the shopper runs out of time. Life got in the way. Unfortunately, what often happens is they can’t find their way back to your site.

Shopping In A Hurry

Your solution: Be understanding, and help them find their way back.

• When they back out, show a pop up with an offer to email the details to them OR
• Show a pop up with a bookmarking applet
• Prominently display a “pressed for time?” call out on your pages, with a “convenient” bookmarking option to come back later
• Provide a site search for those that don’t have time to browse

Their problem: shipping costs were high

Shocking shipping costs often throw the consumer off and cause them to back out quickly.

Your solution: Transparency and accountability

• Show your pricing and return processes link prominently on the site
• Prominently display shipping discounts and free shipping promotions
• Add a pre-checkout shipping estimate tool – no surprises
• Be aware of the shipping options you can offer  – you are accountable for the service you use

Test, Test, Test Your Shopping Cart

You’ll find a lot of information online about streamlining your shopping cart solution or making it “abandonment-free”. –And, I hope the tips above help.

However, remember – we aren’t standing there with you. I can’t see your particular site, so I can’t provide the nitty gritty on how to fix your particular situation. Therefore, it’s important to test each change you make. If you receive better results from a change, keep it. If not, don’t keep it just because we say so.

Always test first – and then come back and tell us how it turned out for you!

Have you ever looked at your ecommerce analytics and thought, “Why didn’t they finish with the sale?” It’s frustrating, isn’t it? If those darn customers would just finish with the buying process and quit abandoning their shopping carts, you’d be making a cool million this year.

Abandoned Shopping Cart

• The average website only has a 2% to 3% conversion rate
• 7 out of every 10 shopping carts never make it to checkout
• Approximately $18 billion is lost in sales every year
• Shopping cart abandonment is up to 75% (Listrak)
• 88% of online consumers have abandoned a shopping cart at least once (2010 Forrester Study)

Wait – Come Back! You Forgot to Pay for Your Stuff!

Before you can fix it, you have to understand the underlying cause (we’ll tie this in later in the article). Why do visitors drop products in their online cart and then leave without paying? Several reasons:

• Comparison shopping – many studies report that comparison shopping is one of the biggest reasons why carts are abandoned. “I just wanted to know how much it would all cost after shipping.” In fact, if you shop online, this is probably something you’ve done yourself.
• Ran out of time– Many consumers are in a hurry when they’re shopping online. Sometimes the buying process takes so long, they run out of time. They click the “x” to close the site down, leaving them with a full shopping cart and you without a completed payment.
  

  Ran Out Of Time

• Shipping costs – Have you ever been told you’re going to pay $12 in shipping for a small purchase? We have, and we didn’t finish the buy. Unexpectedly high shipping costs, especially for products shipped within the same country, will lose you those completed sales.
• Uncomfortable buying process – “It’s a download – why do you need my mailing address?” Often, consumers are inhibited by yet another registration process, requests for too much information and so on.
• Technical problems – Occasionally, the buying process can go terribly wrong. “We’re sorry for the technical difficulties, but your order didn’t go through. Please try again.” Um… not likely.
• Out of stock – Unless they’re loyal to your company for some reason, such as being a long term customer, few will wait until a product comes back into stock. If you have a “sold out” sign, it’s highly likely your visitors will find another site to buy from.

There are more reasons, such as a product costing too much, but most of them fall under the same type of issues. Now that you understand the reasoning, let’s get to the solution.

Getting Customers Back to the Buy

Often, e-commerce owners get the idea that once the cart is abandoned, there’s nothing left to do. Sure, it’s frustrating, but it’s not like you can go knocking on their doors, right? Wrong. Isn’t that sort of stalkerish? No, it’s just good business practice!

It’s called cart recovery (or remarketing).

Cart recovery emails

Recovery & Hope

A simple email marketing plan can recover as little as 6%, and as much as 50%, of abandoned shopping carts. Wow – sounds like something you might want to get in on, doesn’t it? Especially if you own one of the e-commerce sites enjoying 2% to 3% conversion rates? Depending on your average cart amount, that could translate into thousands of dollars in retained sales per year.

How does it work? It’s simple. When a customer abandons the shopping cart, you send them an email. It’s simply a gentle reminder that they’ve left their cart sitting in your online store.

Keys to successful cart recovery emails:

Timing – An interesting MIT study, How Much Time Do You Have Before Web-Generated Leads Go Cold, points out the importance of immediate response. Within an hour, 90% of online leads go cold. 90%! Of course, the study was based on B2B or B2C lead generation – not abandoned shopping carts. What this shows, however, is that timing is everything.

Test to see what timing works best for your industry and target market. Generally, it’ll be within 72 hours for the first email. Too soon can be pushy; too late can be a lost sale. As well, the most successful email remarketing campaigns often send out three to six emails, spread out over a period of time.

Why does this work? If your visitor has abandoned their shopping cart, they obviously aren’t ready to buy. A sequence of emails (not just one), has the ability to:

• Gently nudge them towards the buying point
• Catch them at a more convenient time
• Give them time to consider
• Remind them (if they have forgotten or can’t remember the site address)

Relevance – Rather than send a generic email that looks like you weren’t paying attention (because you really weren’t), make sure the email is relevant to the items left in the shopping cart. For example, a relevant email might include such things:

• The customer’s name
• A list of the items left in the cart
• Items similar to those left in the cart
• A link to their cart for easy check-out
• A way to reach sales and/or customer service in case they’d like to speak to a live (not robotic) person

At this point, remember it’s all about them, which brings us to…

Remember Your Shoppers List

Tone – This is gentle marketing, not brute force. Aggressive sales in a remarketing campaign can kill the sale altogether. What your visitors need is a legitimate reason to finish the sale. Hint: legitimate does not mean because we’re the best.

Think about why the possible reasons they abandoned the buying process, and address these issues in the email. Customer service and support are important at this point, which is why these links are included in the email. Let them know you company is there, and actively interested in answering any questions they may have.

Cart recovery phone calls

Some successful cart recovery campaigns use a phone call. If you have the budget, you can hire a company that specializes in recovery calls. They work a bit differently than emails, in that you obviously don’t want to call over and over again (test for the best timing). However, tone and relevance remain the same. It’s still the soft-sale approach, and it’s still all about them.

A mixture of email and phone

Some of the most impressive and successful remarketing campaigns have been a mixture of both. For example, a foray into Alpha Omega Publications’ abandonment recovery process is enlightening. We tested it, and this is what happened:

Step one. Within two hours, an email was sent that said, approximately, “Oops! Has there been a problem? You seem to have left some items sitting in your shopping cart.”

Step two. The next day, we received a follow up email that said, “This is a friendly reminder that you have items waiting. Would you like to empty your cart?”

Both emails included a phone number to call for customer service (not sales), a reminder of what we’d ordered, and a link to the cart.

Step three. Three days after the second email – five days all together – we received a phone call from a very nice, friendly woman from AOP customer care. She introduced herself and immediately told us why she was calling. “We noticed that you left some products in your shopping cart, and I’m calling to see if there’s something I can help you with.” At no point in time did she actually push the sale; the entire conversation was focused on helping us make a decision.

#1 Way to Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment

Stop Shopping Cart Abandonment

The caveat to cart recovery campaigns is that your shopping cart solution has to include some sort of information capture. Without that, you can’t very well contact them. If you have a “registration-free” option, however, your best option is to address the potential issue for abandonment before they leave the site (blog coming on this topic).

Of course, some leave because life gets in the way. For these, an email or a “send a cart reminder to my email” button comes in handy. For the others, remember – once they leave the site, it’s no longer about the sale; it’s about creating a long-term, repeat customer.

We read a lot of stories that talk about how companies are joining social media by the droves, but are they really? I mean, what are they doing? If all they’re doing is opening social accounts and sitting on their professional graveyards, is this really joining social media? I think not.

iPhone ROI... Really?

A recent YouTube video, Social Media ROI Hypocrisy, makes an excellent point. Many companies will spend thousands of dollars supplying their employees with iPhones, iPads, Blackberries and other smartphones, without once asking what the ROI is. Yet, let a marketer mention social media, and “What’s the return on investment, here?” is the question companies have to know.

Only 14% of Companies Get It

A recent InSites Consulting survey of 400 senior marketing managers delivered some interesting, and somewhat frustrating results:

• 68% of companies have a Facebook page
• 56% have a Twitter account
• 47% have a LinkedIn account
• Only 14% actually have integrated social media
• 20% aren’t doing anything at all

So, out of all the Facebook pages, Twitter accounts and LinkedIn accounts that companies have, only 14% combined are actually integrated into the companies’ various campaigns. Meh.

You know what the biggest barrier is to full social media integration? Return. On. Investment. InSites calls it “financial added values”, but it’s still ROI, no matter how fancy you dress it up.

Wake Up And Smell the Social

Having a company social account alone isn’t enough. Especially if you’re going to claim that “you got no ROI from social”. Social media marketing is like exercise; you don’t see results unless you actually do something.

Wake Up And Smell The Social

So, if integrated social marketing isn’t hopping on the most popular social sites and creating an account, what is it? First, let’s make sure you’re ready:

How to know if you’re ready for social media marketing

• If you feel like you’re being forced to integrate, you aren’t ready;
• If you’re still uncomfortable about the ROI, you aren’t ready;
• If you don’t know the reasons for integrating, you aren’t ready;
• If you don’t understand what you’re going to do once you get there, you aren’t ready for social media marketing.

If you have all those issues out of the way, let’s get started.

What Is Integrated Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is a lot of things, and they all take work, as I think I’ve already been clear about in the first portion of this article. –But, what are those “things”?

Creating a strategy

Would you build a house without having blue prints? No. –And you shouldn’t use social for business without having a plan, either. However, you have to remember that social media isn’t a standalone marketing method. With this in mind, how are you going to incorporate it into your currently successful methods?

For example, if you use television advertising, this is an excellent opportunity to share your company with the world as a business that cares about the consumer. Most companies that succeed with social use it as a consumer platform, to connect, troubleshoot and otherwise communicate with their target market.

Once you’ve made the decision to set up your accounts, but before you actually do, have a well-outlined strategy of how you’re going to use social media. Your strategy should include the (realistic) goals you want to achieve. Split those goals into phases, such as “set up”, “communication” and “reputation management” – which brings us to the next point…

Seriously people...

Tracking your reputation

Unlike many other forms of internet marketing, social really opens your company up to feedback. Hopefully, it’s positive feedback, but you can’t please everyone all the time, as the old saying goes. You need to know how you’re going to watch, listen and learn what people are saying about you. For example:

• Google Alerts
• Trackur
• Icerocket
• Hootsuite
• Yahoo Pipes

After all, if tracking social media as a way to gather public sentiment is good enough for the government, it should be good enough for you.

Choosing your public voice

If everybody in the company hops on your social account, followers will become confused. Having one or two dedicated individuals running your social gives your company a personality, which is what you’re aiming for anyway. Who wants to speak to a building, when you can speak to a person? However, you want to choose your people wisely; a strong voice can make all the difference in the success of your social media marketing. Even if you have a large company, you at least want to have a social media “manifesto” outlining how your voice(s) are expected to communicate with the public so there are no surprises waiting in the wings.

Setting up your reputation management strategy

Hope for the best; most companies never see the dirty side of social media. Yet, prepare for negative comments. For smaller companies, this may mean you and your employee talking it over. For larger companies, make sure your marketing department is talking to the PR people, who are talking to the sales people, who are talking to… you get the idea. A chain of command has to be in place. How will your company respond if a customer bad-mouths you, or someone tells you to kiss off? How will you deal with hostility? Getting your reputation management strategy ready before a crisis strikes is the first step to avoiding – and managing – one.

Share your social accounts

Many… oh so many… businesses set up their accounts and then hide them in the basement. You don’t have to be embarrassed. When you set these accounts up, wear the badges proudly. Give your website visitors easy access to your company via these social sites. Put those easily-recognizable, linked icons on your site and on your blog where they’re visible!

Use Only A Few

Customize your accounts where possible

Twitter lets you customize your background. So do YouTube and Facebook. For that matter, although it’s limited, so does LinkedIn. These accounts are your online “face”; put some makeup on them! Add your logo, colors, information…  claim them as your own. Put a big ole’ “we are here” stamp on them!

Interact

Okay, so I left this one for last when it should be first. Let’s be clear, here. It does no good to go through all the setting up, strategizing and personalizing if you’re not going to listen and interact with people. Don’t use the excuse of “no one is talking to me”. It gets old. Get out there, already!

There are literally millions of people online, interacting on these social platforms. How many of them are you going to leave to your competitors, simply because they didn’t talk to you first? Find people of like interests. Share good information, even if it’s not your own. Do something without thinking “what’s the ROI” first.

I strongly encourage you to read The Marketing Nut’s 125 Ways to Integrate Social Media to Zoom Your Business. It’s a long list of possibilities any company can easily do to get their social going. Fulfilling even half this list will give you a strong start.

Change Your Thinking

You have to start thinking differently. You have to take the time to stop and study your market. Here’s a hint; social is growing. Only once you step outside the box of thought that says “ROI now” will you gain inspiration and growth. You can’t not go there simply because of fear of the unknown. Eventually, you have to ACT – or be lost behind the companies that do.

When I was a kid, I dreamed about flying through the air with the greatest of ease to rescue puppies, kittens and grannies. I ran around the house in pink fuzzy pajamas and a blanket tied around my neck, on a mission to save the world.  I was Super Girl, Wonder Woman and the GI Joes combined! Evil doers beware!

Super Hero. Mom

You remember how happy everyone was when the super hero saved the day? They clapped, waved their hands in the air, gushed their thank yous … and you thought, “Wow, that’d be so cool!” I always thought they were the cream of the crop, the crème de la crème, which excludes ordinary people, of course.

Funny thing is, when I grew up I found out that everyone can be a super hero. Even me. Even you.

The Case of the Website Bandit

Me, I’m a mom. I get up in the morning like every other parent and send my little loves off to school. Yet, once the home is empty, I slip into my super hero gear and fly off to save the world. Granted, it’s a small world, but the effects are the same.

Because, you see, I was able to join the Level343 Team. It’s like the Justice League for business! Everyday, we get to save companies from falling into oblivion. We get to help lift them up and make them shine brighter than they ever have before. We’re not just helping companies, though; we’re helping the people who make up those companies – the hard-working business owners and employees who are struggling to keep going. – And that’s awesome.

Got Hacked?

We beat down problems with the powers of our mind through creative brain storming with clients. Occasionally we work with other super heroes when the dark forces of competition are particularly strong and viral, like those shows where Batman and Superman team up. We even help some of our clients be heroes themselves when the case has something to do with reputation management.

Every once in a while it’s something big, like The Case of the Website Banditwhen a client’s website got hacked. Some foul fiend had fiendishly (of course) hidden diabolical links in the client’s site. With ruthless determination, we investigated the cause of erroneous outgoing links, leaving no stone unturned. We uncovered the culprit files and, although the fiend got away, we saved the site. The client was happy, the Team was happy – happy endings, high fives and cocktails all around.

Now, maybe you think this is all a lot of make-believe from a grown woman who needs to gain a little maturity. Or, maybe you’re already getting the idea…

Brand-Empowered Super Heroes: Customer Service That Excels

While doing research on how well brands are embracing social media, I came to a startling realization. When these brands address concerns for their customers, that’s just fancy marketing talk. What they’re really doing is saving the day – they’re coming to the rescue of the people who trust them.

These “brand-empowered” super hero stories are all over the Web:

In 2007, an American Airlines gate attendant became the heroine for an award-winning economist by saving his seat until the last second, allowing him to make his flight. A week later, a United Airlines employee went out of his way to make sure the economist had a seat on an earlier flight when the original one was delayed by several hours (read Outrageously Good Customer Service at Freakonomics).

In February 2010, an executive chef at the Ritz-Carltion, Bali did a good deed for a family whose son suffered from food allergies. When it was found that their specialized eggs and milk had gone south, he called his mother-in-law, who bought the products in Singapore and flew to Bali with them. The mother-in-law became a heroine.

The same year, an employee at Trader Joe’s became a family’s hero when a winter storm blew in and an 89-year-old grandfather was stuck in his house because of the snow. Trader Joe’s not only delivered a load of groceries to the man’s home, but also gave the food to him for free.

In August 2011, Morton’s Steak House exceeded the call of duty for a man who had too much flying and too many engagements he had to be at to have time to eat. He was really hungry after a busy day, knows he’s going to miss supper, too, and sends out a joking tweet to Morton’s corporate, “Can you meet me at the Newark airport with a porterhouse when I land in two hours? K, thanks.” An employee from Morton’s drove 23.5 miles to the airport with supper. The man, a well-known PR and social media leader was blown away. Morton’s saved the day.

There are oh-so-many more examples available – all you have to do is search for “examples of customer service”. You’ll find things like An Extraordinary Customer Service Experience and What’s Your Best Customer Service Story?

How Can You Be a Super Hero?

In 3 Easy Steps...

You can be a super hero, too. Oh, maybe not like Superman or Captain America, but a super hero none-the-less. How? Well, let’s look at what the heroes, fiction and reality, have in common:

• They watch what’s happening. The Justice League had the Watchtower with the Monitor Womb, where they observed all the going ons of planet Earth. So does Morton’s, only they use social media. You have this power. Monitor your brand, your product names and company name on social sites. If you sell other people’s products, that’s okay. You can go that extra mile and respond to someone who’s having a problem, even if they didn’t buy the product from your particular store. You can start with something like, “Hey, I sell that product, too – I’ve found that if you…”
• They actively listen and look for the alarm. Batman had the Bat Signal. You, on the other hand, have the Internet. Actively look for negative comments that you can respond to. When you have the time, search for your brand citations. Any time you find a negative comment, where a customer/client is unhappy, get on your super hero gear! Being a hero doesn’t have to be about saving the world; for us ordinary mortals, it’s about saving the day one person at a time.
• They go out of their way to help. Superman, the Man of Steel, didn’t just fly around saving the world. He helped kittens out of trees, blew holes in mountains for passageways and saved grannies from having to walk across the street. No job was too big, or too small for his personal attention. The same can be said for the employees of American and United Airlines, Trader Joe’s and many others.

For the man racing to meet flights, what the employees did was no small thing. For the elderly gentleman who couldn’t leave his home, what Trader Joe’s did was fantastic. For the family at the Ritz-Carlton, the chef and his mother-in-law did something unexpected, caring and awesome. These businesses became heroes to their customers, and their customers became fans for life.

This kind of super human action is not beyond you. It may take a few hours of a day. It may take a few dollars out of your pocket. It may take some phone calls, a short walk or a long drive. Yet, for the relatively few hours you spend saving the day for your customer, you gain a lifetime fan. If that’s not enough motivation and you need something that ties into your business, you also gain a lifetime customer and a whole bunch of better PR than you’ll ever get from paying somebody to write it.

The point….

TRUE CUSTOMER SERVICE…

…is not about saving your brand or company’s behind. True customer service is about the people who trust you enough to invest their time and money into your brand. It’s about treating people like people – treating them like the backbone of your business that they are. It’s about being a super hero whenever the opportunity arises.

True customer service – great customer service – is about saving the day, one person, one problem, at a time.

At Level343, we have some people who grew up without the Internet. We have some who were kids when the Web was first introduced. We even have some who have never been without. No matter the time it came into our lives, however, the Internet has always seemed like a wonderland of information. We’re a small, diverse group, but we all have a yearning to expand our knowledge, meet new people, and grow in our personal views.

How do you use the Internet?

What about you? Do you get online and read the news to find out what’s happening in the world? Do you search for information to gain more of an understanding about subjects? Do you like to meet new people and explore other mind sets? We use the Internet on a daily basis to expand our horizons and grow as a business and as individuals. Do you?

If so, please read on – because the amount of information you view is a lot smaller – and less broad – than you think… and it may get smaller.

The Circle of “I” – What You Are is What You Read

In May of this year, Eli Pariser spoke at TED (Technology Entertainment and Design) and brought a very salient point to the attention of thousands. Thousands, when millions use the Internet. The point?

We, by the very links we click on and queries we search for, cause a self-imposed censorship on our personalized results.

-And personalized doesn’t mean just logged in results. It means results. Period. Eli mentions that Google uses 57 signals to personalize your results. Most, if not all, do not rely on you being logged in to the search engine. A recent Stone Temple interview of Jack Menzel, Product Management Director for Google Search, further reinforces how much our results have changed. There is no standard search result anymore.

The interviewer, Eric Enge, ask, “Do you need to be logged in to get personalized results?”

To which Menzel replies, “Being logged in is the best way to get personalized results. We do a certain amount of personalization for people who are not logged in.”

Circle of "I" On The Web

Later, Enge asks, “Does appending &pws=0 to the end of a search result URL still turn off personalization as it used to?”

Menzel: “Yes it does work. It turns off “personalization”. However it isn’t really useful because people assume that it then will show them what everyone else sees. That simply isn’t the case. There are a whole lot of contextual factors that make everyone’s results most relevant to them. This takes most of the wind out the sails of these types of analysis.”

Eli, in the 9 minute TED video, Beware online “filter bubbles”, uses an excellent example of this “certain amount of personalization” using a search for Egypt. One friend searched for Egypt (no quotes, no modifiers) and received a list of the current unrest in the region. Another, using the same search, was provided nothing more than typical tourist information: Wikipedia, TourEgypt, Egypt Daily News, etc.

Your Daily, Filtered, Self-imposed, Censored Results

So, what does this mean? It means if you don’t do as Menzel suggests in the interview and set your web browser to block cookies, your search results are only as broad as you are. If, for example, you’re a liberal, your results will sooner or later filter out conservative views and vice versa. If you tour the world and frequently search for travel information, you may not see the issues that are happening in these countries.

Move On. Nothing Here for You.

Why? Because your daily searches tell the personalized results these things aren’t relevant to you. In other words, if you’re not actively working to expand your horizons by searching for a variety of opinions, information, and so on, there will be no expansion. You have to initiate it. You have to work for it. You have to insure that your searches cover a broad set of topics and points of view. Otherwise, the information served up from the Internet will offer you nothing but what you already have – your own small set of interests, ideas and points of view.

Some of you may think, “Awesome. I’m tired of seeing all this liberal/conservative crap coming across my screen. How great this’ll be; I don’t have to ignore it, because I won’t see it.” (We’re picking on political parties here, simply because they’re often some of the most gung-ho about the opposite sides). Yet, without being able to see the other side’s point of view, you might miss important things, like more active censorship…

Protect IP Act and SOPA – Government Censorship Made More Real

Opinionated, bull-headed women that we are, the women that comprise the Level343 team work hard not to let our personal political views color our online interactions. We seldom publicly complain about the things that irk us in the political arena, and generally keep our heads above the fray on the Article Archive. Yet, when it comes to things like the Protect IP Act and SOPA, it’s hard to keep our mouths closed. So, we won’t.

September 2010, the idea of a censor-free Internet came under attack with U.S. Senate Bill S.3804, or COICA (Combating Online Infringement and Counterfeits Act). COICA failed to pass; the bill was reintroduced under a different name, with the same bullshit. In fact, there are now two, count them – two – bills in motion.

November 16^th, the Protect IP Act (Preventing Real Online Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property Act of 2011; U.S. Senate Bill S. 968) came under Congressional hearing. At the same time, so did SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act, U.S. House Bill H.R. 3261). It must have taken them a long time to come up with those titles…

S.968 is “a bill to prevent online threats to economic creativity and theft of intellectual property, and for other purposes.” H.R. 3261 is an Act created “to promote prosperity, creativity, entrepreneurship, and innovation by combating the theft of U.S. property, and for other purposes.”

Basically, these Acts are being pushed through the House and Senate to protect copyright infringement. Sounds good, right? Who wants their stuff kiped? Yet, under the big bold print is a whole bunch of fine print that falls in the “and for other purposes” section of the official summary…

If these Acts are passed, the U.S. Department of Justice will have the power to seek court orders that will:

Censorship = Silence

• Stop online ad networks from doing business with foreign sites accused of helping copyright infringement
• Stop online payment processors from doing business with foreign sites accused of helping copyright infringement
• Order search engines to stop providing links to these sites
• Order domain name registrars (you know, those you buy your domain from) to remove the sites
• Order Internet service providers to block the sites

SOPA allows people who hold copyrights the ability (through court orders, of course) to do the same, with the ability to target U.S. sites and services as well.

“Well,” you might think, “what’s so bad about that?” After all, we’re talking about sites that steal content, offer fake products, allow pirating and so on, right? Yes. But – we’re also talking about:

• Twitter, which offers completely uncensored user-generated content, including links to…
• YouTube, which often has videos of everyday people singing songs – which are copyrighted…
• Ebay, where people resell products they’ve legitimately paid for and no longer want
• Any website that offers any type of user generated content

User Generated Content Runs the Web

Let’s be blunt. This is censorship beyond burning heretical books. These Acts threaten crowd sourcing, open source initiatives, freedom of expression, social interaction and innovation. It enables companies in the entertainment industry (watch the video quick before it gets taken down), as well as others, to dictate what’s allowed on the Web and what isn’t. With this in mind, it isn’t surprising why the Screen Actors Guild, Directors Guild of America, American Federation of Musicians, Independent Film and Television Alliance, and the Motion Picture Association of America are all on the list of heavy SOPA supporters.

Yet, as understandable as it is that one might want to combat online piracy, unbridled censorship isn’t the only issue. PROTECT IP and SOPA also threaten cyber security:

Seriously?

“PROTECT IP would empower the Department of Justice, with a court order, to require operators of DNS servers to take steps to filter resolution of queries for certain names. Further, the bill directs the Attorney General to develop a textual notice to which users who attempt to navigate to these names will be redirected. Redirecting users to a resource that does not match what they requested, however, is incompatible with end-to-end implementations of DNS Security Extensions (DNSSEC), a critical set of security updates. Implementing both end-to-end DNSSEC and PROTECT IP redirection orders simply would not work. Moreover, any filtering by nameservers, even without redirection, will pose security challenges, as there will be no mechanism to distinguish court-ordered lookup failure from temporary system failure, or even from failure caused by attackers or hostile networks.

“This secure authentication is critical for combating the distribution of malware and other problematic Internet behavior. Authentication flaws, including in the DNS, expose personal information, credit card data, e-mails, documents, stock data, and other sensitive information, and represent one of the primary techniques by which hackers break into and harm American assets.” (Whitepaper: Security and Other Technical Concerns Raised by the DNS Filtering Requirements in the PROTECT IP Bill)

This is not a small issue. This isn’t something that can, or should be, swept under the rug. Everyone will be affected if these bills are allowed to pass. Many of the sites you use on a regular basis, guaranteed, will be negatively affected in some way, shape or form.

If we look the other way, what will happen to the dreams of millions of people? What about the kids who want to be singers and use YouTube to publicize, or the people who want to be entrepreneurs and use EBay as a jumping off platform? What about the millions of people who want to learn how to improve their lives and do so through user generated content?

They’ll be buried under censorship and control. In short, dear readers, those dreams will disappear because the entertainment industry isn’t happy with the piddly billions of dollars they bring in on a yearly basis. How much money is our freedom really worth?

Exercise the freedom of the Internet and expand your horizons away from the circle of “I”. Research the SOPA and PROTECT IP bills; find out more about them. Find out what’s happening to YOUR Internet.

Further Reading:

• AmericanCensorship.org
• CNet – How SOPA would affect you: FAQ
• Read Write Web – Infographic: Effects of the Internet Blacklist (SOPA)
• Matt Cutts Blog – Progress against SOPA
• O’Reilly Radar – Congress considers anti-piracy bills that could cripple Internet industries
• Electronic Frontier Foundation – SOPA: Hollywood Finally Gets a Chance to Break the Internet
• Web Pro News – Tech Giants Back Off of SOPA Support

So, you’ve finally decided you want to learn all you can about SEO. Now what? Where do you go? How do you know that where you are is the right place to be? The last thing you want to do is waste your time and money buying into a bunch of SEO bull. So… where do you go to get the real low down? You find a a room full of SEO and patent geeks! Of course, when you first step in, it’s going to sound like a foreign language. You might hear things like:

The Long & Winding Road

“…it can be a pain in the rear, but it’s good for sessionized data. Log data – not so good.”

“Splice that keyword data into declines and trends; you can see what new words peeps are looking for and get some kind of direction…”

“…like the source, internal, external… whether or not it was an apparent query refinement…”

You’ll spend a lot of time with a puzzled look on your face but, eventually, the light bulb comes on and it all starts to make sense. Because, you see, the only way to really learn SEO is to pick the brains of the warriors…

SEO Reading: Lots of Meals, but It’s Mostly Just Chicken

In SEO Fast Food: I’ll Take #1 Ranking with That, but Hold the Fries, Gabriella wrote about the various types of SEO companies in relation to the ratings of restaurants. As informavores on the hunt for bite-sized snacks of information, you’re looking for steak. Yet, a lot of blogs and articles out there, no matter how they’re dressed up to look like steak, are really just… chicken.

A few bring out the good meals and fine wine when it comes to information for beginners, such as the Google Webmaster Central Blog and Bing Webmaster Center Blog, but what about when you’ve read all you can? Where do you go next? Where ARE the rooms of conversating search professionals, geeks and pundits, filled with prodigious commentary unintelligible to the common mortal?

Where’s the Beef? Where the SEO Experts Go

If asked where the experts go to get industry news, discuss topics, read about search patents and so on, you’ll get a list of places to visit. What you’ll also have is an (almost) absolute guarantee that these places will only be serving the tastiest, most filling meals for your informational taste buds. When taking the advice of the experts on where to go, however, keep a few things in mind:

• Don’t mind the mess – these sites aren’t always going to be pretty. Some search geeks are so obsessed with search; they’re completely lost when it comes to design. They’re like the absent-minded professors of the search world.
• Carry a dictionary – or, at the very least, have search up and ready. If you think “long-tail” refers to a species of animal, you’ll be wearing out your search engine of choice before you’re through the first article.
• Take small bites – you WILL get overwhelmed if you try to digest years’ worth of accumulated knowledge on optimization. Read a little every day and chew slowly.
• Ask questions – because you’ll need the answers to gain further understanding. Questions are your saving grace, and most (if not all) are willing to answer them.

With that said, here’s a short list of sites for beginning to advanced optimization learning:

Search Engine Land – Without a doubt, SEL is a top notch online publication. Here, you can find tons of information and news on the extremely broad topic of internet marketing. Categories include: SEM, SEO, PPC, Social Media, How-To’s, Google & Search and Indepth Analysis. SEL is well worth the bookmarking and daily intake.

SEO Book – Created, managed, and mostly written by Aaron Wall, SEOBook is a comprehensive blog full of search geekiness. You may not always agree with what Aaron has to say, but he’ll always make you think. Warning – he fills his posts up with handy, informative links. You could, quite possibly, get lost in the reading.

SEO By the Sea – Owner/Author Bill Slawski is a true search patent geek. He’s the guy optimizers go to when they don’t have the time to search the patents themselves. The amount of pure information found on this site -in terms of search and SEO –  is nothing less than phenomenal. When you’re ready to advance in SEO, this is the place to bookmark.

Webmaster World – The tagline says “News and Discussion for the Web Professional”, and it doesn’t lie. Code, content, presentation, hardware and OS technologies, analytics, ecommerce… Webmaster World has it all. Best of all, it’s a heavily moderated forum, and you’ll always find someone in there to talk shop with.

And Then There’s the SEO Training Dojo

Most of the above places are blogs; a few have forums.  Yet, none are quite like the  SEO Training Dojo. On many a professional’s site or blog, you’ll either find a link to the Dojo under “Places to Visit” or some form of a “Proud Member” badge. In fact, you’ll find the SOSG (Seriously Obsessed Search Geek) badge at the bottom of this blog. The SEO Dojo is chock full of people on the road to becoming SEO warriors: beginners, advanced optimizers and top notch experts alike.

SEO Dojo Members

This isn’t just a training platform, however. Within the Dojo are hundreds of members who love what they do and want to share, engage and grow with like-minded people. If you’re interested in really digging into optimization, this is the room full of SEO and patent geeks. When you enter the Dojo, you’ll learn about SEO whether you want to or not. It’s kind of a “survival” kind of thing, because you’re in the ring with people like:

David Harry – AKA the Gypsy. The Dojo’s creator and an original SOSG, Dave is buried in all things search. He has more patent information stored in his head than Microsoft has in their whole portfolio. He’s been involved in design and search for over 12 years, pandering to his obsessions of information retrieval, machine learning, research papers, patents and anything else he can get his hands on.

Terry Van Horne – AKA Webmaster T. Terry’s been buried in the search world since… well, since before there was a search world. You can find some of his earlier writings as far back as 1997 (the year Google Search was created), if not further. Founder of SEOPros.org, Terry is one of the original SEOs (OS), passionate about industry standards and contrary as they come!

Debra Mastalar – President of Alliance-Link and a practitioner for almost 12 years, Debra is one of the most well known link builders in the industry; she’s also one of Level343’s Top SEO Women of 2011. Her words of wisdom have been shared at SMX (Search Marketing Expo) and SES (Search Engine Strategies Conference), and she’s provided several training sessions for SES and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). If you’re having problems with your link building, Debra’s the woman to read, follow and otherwise learn from.

Anthony Verre – AKA the Milwaukee SEO. Tony is the co-author of eProfitability, an eBook on understanding the search landscape for C-Level executives and upper level management. He holds Qualifications for Google AdWords Individual and Google Analytics Individual; individuals with these qualifications have to retest every 18 months to retain them. He’s been in search for at least six years, is a definite SOSG, and as nice as they come – though extremely blunt. Don’t ask his opinion if you aren’t prepared to receive it!

Barry Adams – A regular contributor to State of Search and Search News Central, as well as the Senior Internet Marketer for Search at Pierce Communications, Barry’s another Dojo member who’s been involved in the Internet since before it was cool. Of course, SEO was an afterthought until about 11 years ago, but as these things go, he can still be considered an early adopter. Barry’s a Dutchman, SOSG, Mensan and top notch SEO; he swears a lot, but we’re pretty sure it’s not his fault.

All-in-One Community, Marketplace and SEO Shop

The Dojo is a thriving community; it’s also a strong community, where B.S. and ego is (mostly) left at the door. It’s devoted to search, and everything involved in search. In the dedicated chat room, we’ve discussed Google, the impact of social signals, Panda, key terms, link targets and too many other topics to name. (If you want to hear the things we complain about, you can always visit the SEO Bullshit blog – the optimizer’s place to rag and rage. Be warned, though… the language ain’t pretty.)

Along the way, we’ve had the opportunity to meet a lot of professionals in our industry and make great contacts. For many a professional, these contacts sometimes become co-workers on various projects; no optimizer can do it all, and the SEO Dojo is excellent pool of qualified resources. Copywriters, marketers, patent geeks, optimizers, coders and any other profession you can name come together to learn, grow and produce search geek goodness.

As an added benefit, many of these people are also the creators of a number of tools, used by SEO professionals and beginners alike. Because of their belief in the Dojo and enjoyment of the community, many have become sponsors, providing a slew of tools, products and services at discounts for Pro Dojo Members. At last count, the discounts added up to over $1000 in savings, and the amount is still growing.

Heavy Resource Lists

Among all the goodies offered by the Dojo, you’ll find an extensive video library encompassing all things search. You also find a long list of tools used by a number of practitioners, productivity resources, links, articles and much, much more. It is, after all, called the SEO Training Dojo. No matter what level of learning you have, there’s something for everyone.

A Discount for You

We have a disclaimer to make. We realized we couldn’t say enough good things, so we did the next best thing. As careful as we are about recommending and supporting sites, products, services and so on, we’ve become one of the Dojo’s sponsors. Yes, we’re that proud to be members of this great community.

With that said, the SEO Training Dojo recently celebrated its 2^nd birthday, and we wanted to share with our readers. Until December 1^st, you can buy a Dojo membership for 25% off, using the coupon code LEVEL343. We hope you take advantage of the discount to find out about this wonderful, thriving community of search!

*Disclaimer: This is not an advertisement, and there are no affiliate links within this article. We do not receive money or special privileges from the SEO Dojo for our support. This article is simply a show of support for a program that we feel is well worth the time, money and effort involved to be a participating member. With rare exceptions (a few Amazon links to books we have read and recommend), Level343 does not provide affiliate marketing links on this site, and has no plans to do so in the future. Thank you.

We’re buried in the Internet day in and day out. Being surrounded by the very things we talk about, it’s hard to remember sometimes that some people don’t have so much as the basics. Today, we’re going to walk you through one of the foundations of traffic building – a company blog. From the concept to the reality, here’s a step-by-step process to creating a company blog for traffic generation.

I want to start a blog

Blog Conceptualizing Stage

It’s easy to say, “I want to start a blog”. Without taking time for the conceptualizing, however, you’ll end up with just another blogging graveyard. As with anything else in business, it takes planning.

#1: Decide how often you can afford to write blog posts.

Tip: Be realistic. We strongly caution our clients on the number of blog posts they plan to write per month. Many companies – especially SMBs – don’t have the resources to write every day, even if they wanted to. Our rule of thumb is to start conservatively. You can always add in an extra post here and there; what you don’t want to do is miss a planned post.

#2: Create an information schema / content layout.

It's Imperative

An information schema is simply a layout of your blog’s information structure. How will you provide this information to your readers? What drop downs will you have, if any? What categories will you have?

Tip: When it seems that you have too many categories, make sure some of the categories can’t be combined under a more general one. For more information and help about creating your blog’s information schema, read: Information Architecture: Content Layout is Everything.

#3: Choose a design that supports your business niche.

For example, if you have a portfolio and want to use your company blog as a way to showcase that portfolio, some designs will support this better than others. The same for showcasing specific products, photographs and so on.

Tip: Spend time searching through free WordPress themes before contacting a designer (we’re strong supporters of WordPress as a blog or site platform). The slowest part of starting a blog is the designing stage; if you come to the designer with something tangible that can be modified to fit your needs and brand, it’ll go a lot faster and smoother.

Blog Creation Stage

You’ve followed steps one through three, and now it’s time to start blogging, right? Wrong. It still has to be built. If you already have a business website and you simply plan to add a blog, you can move on to step 6. For everyone else, read on.

Step #4: Choose an appropriate domain name.

Your domain name is your URL, like http://example.com.

Tip: Make it easy to remember. People often try to stuff their domain name full of keywords. That’s all fine and dandy, but you want to make sure people will remember it enough to type it in.

Choose wisely...

Step #5: Choose your hosting provider.

Hosting providers are the landlords of the Internet. They have the online homes, and you have to rent them.

Tip: Do your research! There are some reputable hosting providers. However, this is one of the niches that call to scam artists and con men. If you can, get a referral from someone you trust. If you can’t, research, research, research!

Step #6: Give your web developer access to your servers to upload your fresh new blog platform and design.

This isn’t a difficult process but, if your hosting provider doesn’t have a one-click install process, you need to know what you’re doing.

Tip: Many hosting providers allow you to set up a login for website administrators. If you don’t want your web developer to have your account information, you can either:

a)      set up an account for them to access you site or

b)      call the hosting provider’s customer service and ask them to do it for you

Step #7: Walk through the finished blog setup.

What's wrong with this picture?

Before you go live, you want to make sure everything looks good – no errors, no issues.

Checklist:

• All links are working.
• All images are visible.
• The design isn’t skewed in any way.
• The blog looks the same across a wide variety of browsers. Tip: you can use Browser Shots for this.
• Your social network links are immediately visible.

Step #8: Make sure you know how to use the platform.

Tip: Your web developer should be able to give you a short training session on how to use the platform.

Step #9: Write your first blog.

Tip: Introduce yourself to your incoming audience. What will the blog be about? What kind of things do you plan on sharing? Make sure they know your blog is always a work in progress (every blog is).

Step #10: Publish your first blog.

With WordPress, this is as simple as copy/pasting the content from a Word document to the WordPress editor and pushing Publish. If you followed these steps in order, you already know how to use your platform.

Step #11: Make your blog visible to the public.

This entire time, your blog should be set to be ignored by search engines. It’s now time to change this.

Visibility is a must

Step #12: Link your site to your blog and vice versa.

Don’t skip this step! If you’re getting traffic to your company site, you want to use your blog to keep bringing that traffic back. When you start getting traffic to the blog, you want that traffic to also go look at your site, where your products/services can be found.

A Few Last Tips

Remember that a blog – even a company blog – isn’t a sales platform. Sure, you can use it to showcase some of your products and services, but people visit a blog for information, not to buy things.

Keep your tone personable. You aren’t selling your services here; you’re introducing people to your company, your brand, and the people behind that brand. Talk to your readers; create conversations. Respond to them when they comment. In other words, think of your blog as your PR platform… because it is.

We hope this step-by-step walk through gets you started on your way towards many happy years of blogging. Last but not least, don’t force it to grow. A blog is a living platform; when nurtured and cared for, it’ll grow on its own.

While performing some much needed inspiration reconnaissance, we came across the title of this article as a search term in our analytics. What an interesting thought – the idea that a business owner might want internet marketing without a website. How odd, and yet, how enticing an idea to explore!

Usually, people that come to us either have a website and want to market it, or need a website and want to market it. Either way, a website is involved. Whoever was searching our site for internet marketing for brick and mortar businesses gave us a whole meal of food for thought.

Today, we’re going to explore the possibilities, based on the current sites and technologies available to anyone. Follow along, if you will. You may find some ideas of use to you that can be adapted to fit your own business!

Are Websites a Thing of the Past? Er…

As soon as this thought crossed our minds, the obvious answer followed. No, websites are very much a necessary part of many businesses. However, there are some drawbacks to owning a professional website presence:

Cost of hosting: While you can use a free hosting service, and those services work well for hobby sites, they aren’t recommended for business entities. Therefore, the cost of hosting is a factor, and it can range from as little as $60 a year to as much as $200 and up (depending on your business’ online needs).

Cost of site development: If you aren’t using a content management system (CMS), the upkeep on a site can be extremely expensive through the year. A CMS takes initial development costs for the design, but usually doesn’t take a lot coding upkeep after that. Still, you’re paying for the cost of professional content development to make sure your site is ready for converting visitors.

Cost of maintenance: This could be time, money, or both. A website takes a lot of work to maintain, whether you do it yourself or hire someone to take care of that maintenance. If you hire someone, you better make sure you have a well thought-out budget set aside for this work.

Now that we’ve explored some of the drawbacks of a website (mainly because we website hussies have to pretend we don’t need one in order to step out of the box), let’s look at the possibilities!

Creating a “Website Free” Online Presence (Phew!)

We don’t need no stinkin’ website! But how are we going to market our brick and mortar without one? Well, like any good SEOs, we’re going to look at the search engines first. What are search engines offering the business owner?

Google Places for Business: As the number one search engine, it behooves business owners not to skip over the Big Daddy Google. Happily enough, the search engine provides an online business card just for your business.

Enter your name, address, and phone number (NAP), upload photos and videos (if you have a YouTube account), enter the hours you’re open, and business categories. You can also enter additional details, such as whether parking is available and what brands you carry, etc. Google Places for Business is very easy to set up, and quick.

Bing Business Portal (BETA): Yes, Google is big, but leaving out other search engines and putting all your eggs in the G basket would be a large mistake. It’s not as easy to get into the BBP as it is to set up a Google Place page; you’ll have to jump through some hoops. However, the results are worth it.

One of the things BBP offers that Google doesn’t is a mobile version of your business page, where you can offer your products and services with individual services and ratings. This offering includes a QR code. People take a snapshot of your QR code and have your business information instantly available in their phones.

Yahoo! Local: Yahoo! offers business listings much like Google, with a slightly different layout. With Yahoo!, however, you’ll have to upgrade your listing to “paid” if you want to add images.

With just these three places, you’ve already gone a long way towards building a “website free” online presence.

Unending Online Marketing Opportunities for the Savvy Business Owner

One of the great things about the Internet, in a business sense, is that there’s no end to the number of places you can input your business information and have it posted. Think of these places as “online business cards”. Most of them are easy to set up and get going. Such places might include:

 Internet Yellow Pages (IYP): There are tons of these, so go for the bigger ones. To find out which local engines are best for you, try search for service and/or product terms in your city. For example, kundalini yoga Kansas City brought up Yellow Pages, Citysearch and Yahoo Local. Dentists Kansas city, on the other hand, brought up Super Pages, Yelp and Yellow Pages. It might take you years to hit them all; doing a little bit of research ahead of time can save you lots of work!

Vertical Directories: AKA niche directories, verticals give you ample opportunity to display your business listing without needing a site. Thanks to current technologies and social networks, these directories are reaching out to more individuals in more ways.

The problem with vertical directories is that they’re a dime a dozen. As with IYPs, you could spend a lifetime submitting to all of the directories out there and still have some left. –And, more are coming every day. So, how do you find the right ones for you? A post on SearchEngineLand, How To Find the Right Local and Vertical Sites for Your Small Business, goes a long way toward explaining the process.

Classifieds: This may be an online world, but that doesn’t mean the classifieds are out. Don’t forget that there’s an online version for just about anything in a brick and mortar world.  Examples of online classifieds, just to get an idea, include Craigslist, Oodle, OnlineClassifieds and more. Be careful of the email you use to post your classifieds, however; a lot of places like these are an open invitation to scammers and spammers.

Moving Into Social

Of course, you can’t leave out social networking. We’ve written tons of articles in the past about using social media for your business. The difference is, you’re not pushing traffic to a website; you’re pushing traffic to your business pages and your brick and mortar place. Because of this, you’ll need to look at other sites we don’t always mention.

Moving Into Social

Check-in sites, are an excellent example of mingling business savvy with social media. Places like Foursquare, Bright Kite, Loopt, and Gowalla give you the ability to reach out to consumers. Those consumers can reach out to each other, as well as find, talk about, share and visit your business. These multi-phone platforms also allow you to share coupons and deals – and, you can specifically share them with users on these sites for extra incentive to come to your brick and mortar.

Yes, You CAN!

You CAN have an online presence without a website. You really can. In fact, there are enough business listings out there – legitimate, frequently visited ones – that you can do very well with them. The only problem with a non-website online presence is the lack of control. Unless you’re using paid listings, these places can yank your information at any time.

After thinking outside the box for a while, we’re glad to be back in it. We like our website and all it entails – from the amount of time it takes to keep it maintained to the interaction we’re able to have with our readers. If you own a brick and mortar business and don’t have the time or money to keep a site going, we hope the above helps get you started with online marketing. For us, however, we’ll take keep our website and continue building her into her own, warm, friendly, yet somehow bossy, personality!

While talking to a friend of mine the other day – small business owner trying to grow her business like anyone else -, I had that line going through my head. You know, the one from A Few Good Men – “You want the TRUTH? You can’t HANDLE the TRUTH!” You see, my friend has big dreams; she wants and expects big things from her website…

The TRUTH About Your Small Business, Brand and Marketing Power

Can You Handle The Truth?

There’s a lot to be said for drive and ambition. Drive and ambition can take you a long way towards whatever your idea of success is. BUT, there’s a lot to be said for “keeping it real”, too, and today I’m going to throw some realism your way.

You CAN’T compete with big business.

When you run a brick and mortar company, it’s easy to keep your head out of the clouds and your feet comfortably situated on the ground. However, there’s something about taking your business online that tells you, “I’ve made it! I can conquer the WORLD!” (insert mad laughter here)

You start dreaming about taking business from places like Wal-Mart, Overstock and JCPenny’s. You begin to think you’re bigger than the biggest dog on the block – until reality comes crashing down. Nothing worked the way you thought it would, and you’ve spent more money, time, or both to find this hard truth out.

Marketing Budget

That’s because you think you’re in competition with these mega corporations. You aren’t, because you don’t have:

•  their massive marketing budgets,
•  the millions of satisfied customers,
•  the years of brand name building,
•  their infinite (or close to) resources.

You simply can’t compete on their level! Don’t throw your arms in the air and give up, though, because there is something you can do.

Dream Big, In Small Doses: Branding & Inbound Marketing

You’re small, yes, but you’re not insignificant. You just have to tweak your thought processes a little. You have to learn how to dream big, but in small pieces. No matter how big your dream, remember the following:

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Your brand won’t be either. It takes time to build a brand. It takes customer satisfaction, authority, and the knowledge of who you are. People will have to learn what your business is all about, and you start with things like:

• A strong brand statement
• A plan for managing your reputation
• Content development strategies to increase your authority and brand recognition

You have to start somewhere. Rome started with some dirt…

Your website is just a business card.

If you’re new to the online world and your site barely has the bubble wrap off of it, it’s nothing more than an online business card at the moment. It has a chance to grow, but it takes time. You’re not going to get online and receive tons of traffic the first day – life isn’t that neat, nor is it that convenient. Just as you would with a brick and mortar store, you’re going to have to work to build up visitors.

• Create a blog, and decide how much time you have to put into it. How often will you be posting? Be conservative; once you start a schedule, people will very quickly learn to expect blog posts from you on those days.
• If you don’t have enough time for blogging, pinpoint a few places for posting occasional articles to share your particular expertise with others.
• Showcase your services or products, much like you would in a department store. How visible are they on the site? Did you just throw up a picture (or worse, a one-line description), or did you put thought into how the product looks on the page? The art of proper display is still everything!
• Make sure your site URL and social info is on everything you put out that pertains to your business: business cards, letter heads, emails, and any trade show products, for example. Don’t miss these great opportunities to turn offline meetings into potential customers and relationships.

Your business card needs to be passed to other establishments – online.

What does that mean? It means Google Places; it means Yahoo Local, Yelp and HotFrog. It also means getting to know your neighbors, potential coworkers and competition. Therefore, just as you might introduce yourself to the business owner next door in a physical mall, you’d do the same online:

• Make your social icons and accounts highly visible, giving individuals a chance to reach out and connect more closely with your brand
• Visit blogs in your niche or relative niches
• Introduce yourself and ask about them
• Add your business to local directories
• Treat Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, HotFrog, Bing and other sites as if they were allowing you to put a business booth up – because they are:
• Videos
• Photos
• Maps
• Testimonials
• Phone number
• Address
• List of services

You can learn more about these topics by reading Local SEO: Are You Hitting Your Traffic Corridor and Local SEO Is Like Real Estate: Location, Location, Location.

Growth is Your Main Goal

Sales and growth are your main goals.

When you get online and start reading about all this SEO stuff, it’s easy to get stuck in the idea of traffic. You have to have traffic to your site if you’re going to succeed, right?

The reason why optimization has grown to encompass so many skill sets is because traffic, in and of itself, does you no good. Traffic gets you nowhere if your visitors don’t buy. Otherwise, they’re just putting wear and tear on your merchandise by handling it and putting it back on the shelf.

This is the number one reason why SEO is changing into inbound marketing (a whole other post by itself). Inbound marketing focuses on your main goals: sales and, through sales, growth. Yes, it’s done by traffic, but it’s targeted traffic – and that makes all the difference.

Don’t obsess over whether you get more sales from one of your search place pages than you do from your website. Pay attention, yes, but don’t obsess. If you implement the tips above and your sales are growing, you’re doing well!

Meet the standards of SEO first – then worry about the rest.

In this instance, we mean “standard” practices first, before getting into indepth SEO. What are some of these standard practices? A short list includes:

• Check your URLs. Are you being listed for www and non-www versions of your site? Are your URLs reader friendly or full of dynamic parameters? Are they easy to remember?
• Make sure your meta data is strong – relevant, readable, clickable titles and descriptions.
• Ensure your anchor links aren’t there just for SEO. Don’t add a link to increase optimization; add a link because it helps the user. Where should they best be placed?
• Check your content for proper, semantic, heading usage (h1, h2 tags, for example).

Just making sure these things on your site are correct, relevant and strong can make as much as a 50% difference in your traffic and conversions.

Your Budget Isn't A Suggestion

Your budget isn’t a suggestion.

You have set a budget, right? If not, set an annual, bi-annual and monthly budget. In this budget include your SEO, social and marketing. How much can you afford?

Then, ask yourself, “How can I work within my budget to achieve what I want to achieve?” Can you break your marketing into phases? How? Many inbound marketing companies will work within your bi-annually or yearly budget – IF you let them know you have one.

No matter how much you may want to spend tons of money on this product or that service, you have to face facts. The fact is that your budget is all you have to work with. When it comes to inbound marketing, it’s important to remember that it takes time. The less money you have the more time it takes, but it’s never instantaneous, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Don’t strain your budget on products or services, hoping they’ll skyrocket you to the next level. We get lots of people contacting us that know they don’t have the budget for a full campaign, but aren’t willing to go for anything within their constraints. Be realistic about what you can afford, and work within those confines until you can do more!

The Truth Hurts, But…

You own a small business. You aren’t Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or any other Mart. You’re just you. –And yet, it takes a special kind of person to take the steps needed to become a small business owner. It takes your drive, ambition, courage and dedication to keep it going. That all translates into your business, your marketing and your brand – and that’s a brand I can get behind!

Branding. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of marketers quite like this concept. For entrepreneurs with many interests, it’s difficult to think they can be summed up in a single construct. For others with a narrower focus, it’s frustrating to find just the right words to accurately represent what they stand for.

Announce Your Brand

Your brand is what represents the core values of your company—your mission statement, if you will. Your target market will likely never see the brand statement because it’s not for them. It is designed to guide you through product development, marketing strategy, and even customer service.

Successful branding is critical for your company, and it takes time to do it properly. In many cases, it goes against what seems like common sense. As you develop your brand, you may need to buck the traditional system and go against the conventional wisdom about people and their motivations.

Trick #1: Branding on Price.

Conventional wisdom says that if people buy the cheapest product available, you can increase sales by offering the lowest price. Then it points to Walmart as the perfect example of how price is the ultimate deciding factor for people. After all, Walmart has made a fortune following Sam Walton’s idea that it’s easier to get “100 people to buy an item for one dollar” than “1 person to spend $100.” Although the formula worked for them, it’s not a wise idea to create your brand around it.

What's your business brand say?

For one thing, Walmart is already the low price leader, and you don’t have their buying power to undercut them. It’s just not going to happen. However, all is not lost! People don’t make all their buying decisions based on price alone. They buy what they can afford, but the more important consideration for most is the value they get for their purchase.

Think about that for a minute. Do you really want your core value focused around money? Worse still, do you really want to be known for being cheap? I don’t care how you try to dress it up with words like thrift or value or conservation. The bottom line is that your brand should be built around the message you want to send to your customers. Cheap should not be the message.

Instead, consider who you really are and what motivates you to wake every day to connect with your world. Get your mind off the price and show customers how you can improve their lives through the value of what you offer.

Trick #2: Creating an overly general brand statement mantra.

Conventional wisdom says the more people you reach the more sales you can make. It seems like a logical idea, but it’s not a good idea—or even possible—to be all things to all people.

There’s a reason people despise politicians. One of them is their ability to speak and write with many words that don’t really say anything. Despite their abundance of words, most people walk away still wondering what there they stand. It works to the politicians’ advantage because when they’re finally elected and do the opposite of what the voters expected, their campaign words can easily be twisted into whatever is most convenient for the moment.

You’re a business owner—not a politician. You want your customers to know who you are, what you believe, and what you offer them to improve their lives. In fact, a customer who doesn’t get what you promised is a frustrated customer who can hurt your business.

To avoid this problem, you need a brand mantra to drive product development, production, and marketing. A mantra is supposed to be short, easy to remember, and repetitive. You want a brief statement that characterizes who you are—and how you want to be recognized.

Trick #3: Inconsistent messages.

Building Reputation: Mixed Messages

You have a target market. These people are those most likely to buy your products and services. They are a unique group of people with similar core values and needs that are met by your company. Your target market identifies with you for a reason, and they don’t like surprises.

In fact, people like familiarity. Your marketing materials, social media comments, and every other form of communication should be consistent. When you focus on your target market—what they want and what motivates them to buy—you are able to

Your brand should not change. As an individual, you know who you are. You have interests and skills that are specific to you. If you don’t like rollercoasters, you may not make it a priority to visit amusement parks. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s just part of who you are. Your business should operate in a similar manner.

What do you offer your target market? Identify their needs and where those needs intersect with your values. Create your brand from there and stick with that message across all forms of marketing and media.

Guidelines for writing a brand statement.

Your Unique Brand

Let’s work with the following statement from a small t-shirt company. “Innovative, high-quality t-shirts for an urban culture with vision and style.” (Yes, this is a real statement from a real company.)

#1. Choose strong, descriptive words that express your intention—in five words or less. Anything longer than this dilutes the message you’re conveying to yourself, your employees, and your customers. Keeping your statement short forces you to really concentrate on what you have to offer and will help you stay focused. Remember, keep it simple!

I hope you immediately recognized the problem with the example’s length. I stopped paying attention after t-shirts, and those four words didn’t tell me anything about who the company is and what they can offer me. If I can’t determine what makes them different, chances are they can’t either. Changing the statement to “T-shirts with vision and style” still conveys the idea and tells me far more about what I can expect from their products.

#2. Use language that your customers will understand. Forget the buzz words. They’re cheap words that say nothing about who you are and what you believe.

One of the first problems with our example is the use of the buzz words, “innovative” and “high-quality.” Come on, t-shirts are fairly standard in design. What makes these t-shirts stand out from the rest? Including “high-quality” is insulting. If you expect your business to survive, you had better be providing high-quality merchandise. These words do nothing to help me understand this company.

A better statement might be, “t-shirts changing the world.” Yes, it’s still a general statement, but it conveys the important idea that the company desires to change the world. It may be through witty statements or clever logo designs that convey “world changing” ideas. Perhaps a portion of the proceeds are donated to organizations that feed the hungry or provide education opportunities for the less fortunate. Eliminating empty adjectives and incorporating verbs goes a long way toward creating a usable and effective brand statement.

#3. Create a brand statement that can be adapted for marketing purposes. Your brand statement is not an advertising tag line. The brand statement is for you. An advertising tag line is for your customers. This is a tricky concept for most business owners. If our example company’s goal is to “change the world” through t-shirt sales, every decision made by the company ties back to that goal.

When the company decides to support a charity that offers free medical services in third world countries, this decision is clearly in line with the desire to change the world. The brand statement then can be adapted for this particular undertaking. The company knows it’s trying to change the world (brand statement). The customer will see a line like, “This t-shirt protected a seven year old from a dangerous flu” (tag line).

What works in the world of business doesn’t always make sense in the light of conventional wisdom. Successful entrepreneurs understand this and aren’t afraid to do what works instead of what makes sense. Align yourself with this thinking and create a brand to guide you on your way to corporate victory.

Inbound Marketing

People say the darndest things. They really do. Some of these things come from individuals who think they know what inbound marketing is all about; some come from individuals who want to know what it’s all about. Some… well some are just letting words go from brain to mouth without any thought.

These sayings aren’t exclusively from clients, either. We’ve heard them from people applying for a job, others who supposedly knew inbound marketing, and still others who really do know what they’re talking about… but they didn’t think before they spoke.

Today, we decided to pull some of these sayings into a post. If you’ve said any of these things, we hope this post helps you get down to the truth of the matter. For the most part, we hope it’s just a good read!

Don’t Tell Your Inbound Marketing Client…

As an inbound marketer, you have a certain reputation to uphold. We’re still a growing industry, you know? The legitimate SEOs, SEMs and so on are shiny nuggets of gold in a huge bed of dirty, black coal. So, how’s about we don’t smudge the rare gold with acts of idiocy, m’kay?

1. I can guarantee you…
Hush your mouth. What happens if you do all your optimization and Google does an algo update that drops your client off the map? You can’t control the SERPs, Mr. SEO. -And quit snickering, Ms. SEM. Unless you plan on hunting down target markets and forcing them to pay at the point of a gun, you can’t control sales, either.

2. Meta data is for newbs.
Okay, so maybe you didn’t say it like that, but you said it. Metadata counts – to the consumer and for the click through. Try to broaden your horizons a bit, and realize that search engines come second, m’kay, honey? Thanks bunches.

3. Yes.
Yes is probably exactly what your client wants to hear. Good job on making them happy; here’s your cookie. –But, don’t say yesif you don’t know. You end up over promising and under delivering. It’s better to under promise and over deliver than the other way around.

Time for a reward

Don’t Tell Your Inbound Marketing Employer…

If you’re looking for a job in the inbound marketing industry, there are some things you just don’t say. A few of the biggest ones include:

4. I don’t have any experience; that’s why I’m here.
Of course you do, dahling… Since inbound marketing is still growing, many prospective employees seem to think all jobs are on the job training. This happens even when a job ad says 3-5 years experience needed. At the very least, do some reading on the subject before you walk in talking about the little green PageRank bar.

5. I right good, and can editor too.
Anytime someone applies to be a copywriter or editor, you can be sure grammar, punctuation and spelling will be looked at. We need strong writers; they’re awfully hard to find. That doesn’t mean we’re desperate enough to hire anybody who can put fingers to keyboard, though. Do yourself a favor and don’t rely on spell check (which, by the way, passed the heading of this section).

6. Your search is over. You’ve found your new…
No, the search isn’t over, and we haven’t found our new whatever. What we’ve found is an arrogant, overconfident douche who thinks they’re all that and a bag of Doritos. Show us your resume. Show us your portfolio. Show us what you’ve done. Let us decide whether our search is over, k? We know what we’re looking for, and we’ll tell you if we see it.

Thank you

Don’t Tell Your Inbound Marketing Firm…

An inbound marketing firm can be a joy to work with; by the time the project is finished, you’ve developed a profersonal (professional, personal) relationship with your project manager, at the very least. Yet, there are a few things you can say to really strain that relationship…

7. I hired you to do what I tell you to do.
No, you didn’t. You hired us because you weren’t getting the results you expected on your own. You expect us to provide you with these results. If we don’t, you’ll be all upset about it, and feel like we didn’t do our jobs. If you really want us to do what you say, alrighty, but we’ll take our cash upfront, please.

8. That shouldn’t be too hard.
This generally comes right after, “I want #1 ranking for that highly competitive term.“ Of course you do, and we’ll be more than happy to do that for you. –But, just so you know, we don’t do SEO fast food, here. That term is two-star, at least; it’ll take a lot of time, manpower, work and money.

9. I read somewhere that…
You can read a lot of stuff about inbound marketing; the fun thing is you can read a lot of dumb stuff about inbound marketing from people who don’t actually practice it. Don’t take everything you read and turn it into your marketing strategy. That line of thinking is a no-go for your business.

Crazy Sayings Span the Inbound Marketing Industry at All Levels

Crazy sayings like these span all levels of the industry: firms, clients and employees. These are just a few of the things we’ve heard, read and experienced for ourselves. If you’re involved in inbound marketing, we’d like to hear your “crazy sayings”. What have you heard, and how did you respond?

Today, we’re going to take a look at how YOU are inviting people to comment on your blog. The big question is, is it easy? Can they just comment, or do they have to jump through hoops, give you their first child or sign over their house to comment?

Are you jumping through hoops?

It’s time for some tough love, people. There’s no other more off putting action than telling them they have to sign up to comment. When you get ready to comment on someone else’s blog, how willing are you to go through the song and dance you’re putting your readers through?

• CAPTCHA, which most probably can’t read
• Registration required to comment
• Required fields such as email and website
• Third party commenting programs (Example: Disqus)

Yes, yes – you have the nice, cushy privacy policy note that says you won’t sell their information toPakistan, and you swear you won’t spam them, but what of it? They don’t know you from Adam! They just got here, just met you, and you want them to go through all this rigmarole just to say “hi”.

Help Yourself to the Comment Fridge

When you invite someone to your house and tell them they can dig through your refrigerator contents, most people won’t even go near the kitchen. They’ll tip toe around until they get comfortable with you.

The same thing goes with a blog. You can throw all sorts of goodies at your readers, who have an open invitation to walk through your “house” anytime they want. Yet, until they’re comfortable with you, they aren’t going to share their golden knowledge nuggets or thoughts with you.

The Third Party “Come As You Are But Log In First” Comment Platform

DISQUS commenting platform

Third party comment platforms, like Disqus, are everywhere. Now, some people swear by Disqus. Some people swear at Disqus. Me, I’m of the latter variety. Yes, it makes signing in easy, but only if you’re registered on a social network, on Disqus, or have an OpenID. Not everybody has these things.

Then, you have the fact that Disqus hosts your comments. If you, for any reason, decide to remove the plugin from your blog, the comments go with it. I know – we had it happen to us.

Third party plugins are all well and good if you want a pretty comment system, but there are reasons people are going back to the old WordPress stand by. Instead of making it hard for people to comment, maybe you should start making it easy, fun and worthwhile.

Making Your Comments Stand Out and Your Commentators Feel Special

Focus on what's Important

You don’t have to have a plain jane comment system just because you’re using the one native to WordPress. There are plenty of ways to show that comments are important to you, and that your commentators are, too. Here are just a few of them:

Live Comment Preview
Live Comment Preview lets your commentators see what their comment will look like ahead of time. It’s easy to implement; just upload and activate.

TwitterLink
TwitterLink allows your visitors to add their Twitter user name in the comments. Extra social value for them.

G.A.S.P
Growmap Anti Spam Plugin is an excellent replacement for Akismet. Akismet may send legitimate comments into the spam folder; for those who just click “empty spam”, you may be deleting some of the best comments you’ve ever received. G.A.S.P. provides a CAPTCHA–free way to proving you’re a human: the checkbox.  It also has features that allow you to customize it to your own audience.

KeywordLuv
We hate it when people spam our blog with keyword names. –But, KeywordLuv is a little different. One, you have to provide a real name first. Two, we can set how many approved comments you have to have before this feature is enabled. If the feature isn’t enabled, it automatically strips the keywords from the name. This gives us the benefit of not having to dig through a whole bunch of keyword name comment spam, and gives our frequent commentators a little more value.

CommentLuv and CommentLuv Premium
CommentLuv is an excellent way to reward your readers for commenting. It provides a little link love back to the commentator’s most recent blog post.

CommentLuv Premium provides a powerful combination of CommentLuv (with extra features), TwitterLink, G.A.Sp. and KeywordLuv plugins. In a few seconds, you have great anti-spam and three wonderful ways to give your commentators that little something extra.

DoFollow
Native WordPress slaps a “no follow” tag on name links in the comments. Combined with CommentLuv, you can set links within the comment text to “do follow” based on:

• the number of approved comments a person has
• whether they’re logged in or registered or
• no criteria – just let the link love flow

Comment Reply Notification
Comment Reply Notification allows your readers to receive an email when their comment is replied to. This is a great way to keep them coming back and interested in the conversation.

Answering Platform

Dashboard Luvvers Widget
Integrated with the premium version of CommentLuv, the Dashboard Luvvers Widget gives you the ability to see the links your commentators have left through CommentLuv. This way, you can visit the links, read, and leave your own responses.

As well, it’s great comment management. The Dashboard Widget shows you which comments on your blog have yet to receive a reply.

Don't be fake...

Thank Me Later
Thank Me Later sends an email to your commentators with a “thank you” note for commenting and invite them back. You can use the native email or write your own to give it that special human touch with a hint of you.

All of these plugins are “gifts” you give you reader. They make it easy for people to comment, give them value, and show that you think they’re special. –And your readers are special; without them, you’d have no real reason to blog.

Oh, and by the way, with the exception of Thank Me Later (which we’ll be adding soon), these are all plugins we’ve implemented on our own site. You can test them out by… well, leaving a comment!

10x10x10 Marketing Rule

By now most online business owners have heard of SEO. In this day and age, hearing about website optimization is like the 80’s Faberge Organics Shampoo commercial: We called it the 10x10x10 rule…you told two friends, and they told two friends and so on, and so on!

It’s seems like every time you think you know something about a subject, though, the Internet Marketing community wants to throw something new at you. Okay, so local SEO isn’t exactly new, but many optimizers have been pushing it lately. This is largely due to the changes in the SERPs – and since local SEO is highly recommended, we’re filling in this particular content gap.

So, what’s this local SEO stuff? Is that anything like putting your zipcode on your website? What good does it really do, and what can you do to capitalize on this?

A whole 10 people for every small business…

Every time there’s a recession, statistics show a jump in small business ownership. According to the Office of Advocacy [PDF], there were 27.3 million small businesses in 2008. It’s probably around 30 million by now. That sounds like a lot of competition, but consider that there are over 300 million people in the U.S. (population density by state [PDF]). That’s an average of 10 people per small business.

Now, consider that not all 30 million small businesses live close to you, and that most can only handle a small area. Suddenly, things start looking a lot easier, don’t they?

Well, they are… and they aren’t; you still have to advertise. You still have to get the word out about your business. Conceivably, you could hand out thousands of business cards, pay a TV station or two, and put out radio ads, but these kinds of traditional advertising generally take more than the small business owner can afford.

A website, on the other hand, gives you a relatively inexpensive way to become known to your target market; namely, those in your area (and, who doesn’t want more than ten customers?). That is, if you practice local SEO.

Why would I need local SEO?

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you know over 80% of the U.S.is either using Twitter, using Facebook or on their mobile phone somewhere. You should also know that most (somewhere in the 90 percentile) of America is online. If you aren’t searching, it’s because you’re being searched.

Local Bike Shops Results

Local SEO thins the herd of SERP results. Some searches only bring back 20,000 results or so; some bring back even less. However, it’s common to see over 1 million, or as many as 240 million pages for any given search term. This is especially true if the term is about a product or service in high demand, like SEO (service) or statistics software (product).

If you have no location attached to your site – if you could be anywhere in the world -, there’s no way for the search engines to consider your site relevant for a local search (i.e. SEO in Mississippi). This is where local SEO comes in very, very handy.

Local SEO Fun Factors

As much goes in to local SEO as goes into SEO in general. The difference is focus – your focus – and where you put your efforts. If you have a physical store on top of your online presence, you’d better take some time management classes; you’ll need them to get your own local SEO done… like some of the important key factors below:

NAP

No, this doesn’t mean go get some sleep on a regular base. NAP stands for (N)ame, (A)ddress, and (P)hone number. If you’re a local company, your site needs to have all three pieces of information on it, especially on the contact page.

• Provide a local number, even if you have a toll free number, too.
• Don’t use an image for this information. Make sure it’s all searchable text.
• Use full names with no abbreviations (i.e. avenue, instead of ave).
• Include zip code, city and state information.
• Be consistent. Wherever your company and URL are, make sure your NAP is exactly the same.

Location. Location. Location.

Local Profiles

There are many sites out there where you can add your business profile information. All of them require a few top pointers, such as:

• Choose the most relevant categories – Categories shouldn’t be chosen based on keywords. Instead, choose what most closely matches what your business is.
• Use your local number, not 1-800 or tracking number.
• Ensure your website URL is exactly what you want it to be – in other words, if you have a www site, don’t leave off the www (and vice versa).
• Leave no field left unfilled out of laziness – don’t get lazy with your listings. If there is a place for a description, as an example, fill it in!
• Point out that visitors can review your business on these profiles

Search Engine Profiles

Local profiles are a pretty big thing in local SEO, and where better to have one for search engines than on the search engines themselves? Google, Yahoo and Big all have their own versions:

• Google Places (FAQ)
• Yahoo Local Listings (Plan comparisons)
• Bing Business Portal (FAQ)

Good Starting Places

• Guide to Google Places and Local Listings by Anthony Verre @ Milwaukee SEO
• Complete Guide to Bing’s New Local Business Portal by Matt McGee @ Small Business SEM
• How To: The Newbie Guide to Submitting a Business to Yahoo! Local byTracy @ Wisnet

Google Places is even more important now, thanks to the company’s new City Portals. Only a few city pages are up, but why wait until your city is on the map and then scramble madly to get things taken care of? Take a second and look at what a Google Place page can do!

Top Local Directories

Although many people think of directories as nothing but spam, local directories have a lot of major pull. Think about it – how often have you put in a local search only to find directory listings all over your SERPs? Here are a few good, busy places to get you started:

Local Chamber of Commerce

• CitySearch
• Yelp
• Express Update USA
• Insider Pages
• Localeze
• Hot Frog
• Local
• Manta

Before submitting your business, first search and make sure it’s not already listed. If you don’t show up, then list away!

Local Popularity

Are you a part of the Chamber of Commerce? How about a member of the local Business Association? Perhaps you’re a member of the Better Business Bureau. These things may not seem like part of your online presence, but they can be. Think of the memberships you’ve taken part in, and consider which ones you might be able to ask for a link.

Local Blog

Hey, even small business owners can benefit from a blog. Having a blog gives you the opportunity to write posts specifically targeting your neighborhood or city. Do you sell candles? How about an article about the upcoming Halloween festivities, and your favorite, decorated homes?

Not only does this give your visitors something interesting to read, but you can also let the homeowners know you gave them kudos in a blog post. Very few people really have a problem with being made famous.

Local SEO Is All About Location

The above are just a few of the things you can work on to increase your local visibility. We’ve left out tons, such as making sure your website address is on all your physical assets, as well. Remember the key term for “local SEO” is “location”.

Places for further reading:

Smugg & Happy

• Local Search Ranking Factors
• Local SEO Tools
• Definitive List of Local Search Citations

As a small business, we understand there’s going to be competition. We also understand that you don’t have a lot of time. Therefore, you have to be smart about the time you do spend building your online presence. Gather as much information as possible before digging in, and then build your local community. After all, that’s where you’ll see the most ROI!

Our question to you: What tips have helped you the most with your local SEO efforts?

How Many Hats Do You Wear

If you own a business and want it to succeed, you have to market it. That’s just Business Basics 101. Traditional marketing – direct mail, newspaper ads, t.v., radio, etc. – does the job, but it’s expensive and generally isn’t cost effective for small businesses. There are aspects of inbound marketing, however, that any business owner with a little time can do. – But why bother? What’s the value here?

That’s really the first question…

The Value of Inbound Marketing

It’s been our experience that business owners who mainly receive referrals have the hardest time seeing any value in inbound marketing. The philosophy seems to be, “I don’t need to market. My customers market for me.” Yet, when you ignore inbound marketing, you’re ignoring a distinctly profitable, mostly cost effective, generally highly effective method of building your business.

More Leads

If you’re so busy you don’t have room for more clients/customers and you don’t want to hire someone for the overflow, well, you might not need more leads. If more leads sound like a useful thing, inbound marketing is something you might want to look into.

More Qualified Leads

More Qualified Leads

More leads, visitors, etc. don’t mean much if they aren’t qualified. For example, if you’re selling shoes, someone looking for pants that happen to land on your site is probably not going to be your target customer. You might be able to convert them, but it’ll be a lot hard than the person actually looking for shoes.

Increased Reach

T.V.? Well, that’s great.Lot’s of people watch T.V. Yet, you have to consider why people are watching… because most of the time, it’s not to buy something. The Internet, on the other hand, is still in the growing process as an avenue for eCommerce sales. It’s the biggest mall in the world, and millions of people visit it every day.

According to eMarkerter.com, around 179 million people will use the Internet to research products, and approximately 83% of them will actually buy online. Those people could be searching for you…

Less Costly

To get the same kind of reach on T.V., it could cost you $2,000,000 and up (the Super Bowl brought in around 111 million people, with a $2.4 million cost for one 30-second ad!). Radio ads could cost as much, or more, than $20,000 for one month. Direct mail, even if it cost as little as three cents per person mailed, would be over $1,000,000.

On the other hand, for $20,000 in one month, you could have a whole slew of inbound marketing tools in place, and still have enough left over to treat yourself to a lot of lattes.

Inbound Marketing Tools

Inbound marketing tools all have a few things in common. They:

• Create interest
• Increase your level of authority (or, at least, whether people perceive you as authoritative)
• Help you build your brand

With that in mind, let’s get to the list, shall we?

Well-crafted website

Learn How To Shine

Websites are a dime a dozen. I’m sure all of you have seen at least one that made you want to quit searching for things online. You can find a huge list of the worst websites for the past six years at Web Pages That Suck (be prepared… most designs really do suck).

Your mission, if you wish to accept it, is to make sure your site doesn’t end up on this list. Don’t make these design mistakes, and you’ll be partway there.

Well-organized website

Do you have your products (or services) and information all mixed in together? –Or, did you spend a lot of thought on creating sections that make sense?

Think of your site as half library, half car parts store. I doubt that you would have your car parts sitting in front of the books, or the books sitting in front of the car parts. You’d have two sections – and so should your website.

Optimized website

Optimization does a lot for SERP ranking. However, ranking is not the only goal, and it’s not the only outcome. Optimization helps make sure your site seldom deviates from its topic. When you look at keywords, you’re looking at a long list of potential topics for you to write about and share with your visitors. When done right, SEO leaves no room for accidentally off topic content. Therefore, the site is a gold mine for people interested in that topic.

High Quality Blog

Working on the chain gang

Blogs give people a reason to come to your site beyond the marketing. They also give a way to publicize your authority. A high quality blog (i.e. well written, interesting, topical) has a good chance to go viral, creating more publicity, more visits, and a wider reach.

eNewsletters

There’s a lot of question about whether e-mail newsletters really work. They do, but you have to be aware of the steps to getting visitors to sign up. As an example, having one doesn’t do any good if you don’t offer it – and, you can’t just offer the newsletter in tiny print in a hidden corner of your site.

Do you offer white papers? If the content is good enough, you can request name and email before allowing the download. What about PDFs? Same, same. Have a blog? Most people don’t mind a short, sweet pop-up, inviting them to get the blog in their inbox (Erika Napoletano, aka Redhead Writing, has a good example). Big ones:

• MailChimp
• Aweber
• Constant Contact
• Feedburner
• More: Mashable’s 30+ Mailing List Services

Printable Information

Printable information can be an excellent resource for individuals wanting to learn about your product, service, industry or industry news. They can also be an excellent tool for you to share what you know. If you have the ability to provide these items, don’t leave them out! Big ones:

• White papers
• PDFs
• eBooks
• reports

Social Networking

Yes, we brought out social media as an inbound marketing tool. Why? For the most part, it should fall in the realm of “passive” marketing. In other words, it’s not a place to pour your ads, discounts and company braggadocio. You can occasionally share this stuff, but the main point of social networking is to, well… network. The big ones:

• Facebook fan pages
• Twitter
• LinkedIn

Inbound Marketing Works, If You Work Inbound Marketing

Are You Attracting the Right People

We’ve gone all the way around the corner; we’re back to the start and the title of this article. None of this stuff works if you don’t use it.

• A good design only goes as far as the organization of the site
• An organized site only goes as far the product or service offered
• A blog only works if it has great content
• In marketing to a niche audience, content only goes so far as its relevance (or optimization)
• Great content does no good if no one sees it
• No one will see it if you don’t give them a way to see it
• Etc, etc, etc…

Use the tools available, but don’t ignore other marketing tools – like having at least one CTA (call-to-action) on every page, or making sure people can find the sign up for your newsletter. Be good to inbound marketing, and inbound marketing will be good to you.

Collective Intelligence

Science fiction stories often talk about the “Collective” – or “intelligence”, if you will – where the mass of mankind’s knowledge is accessible through a telepathic thought. While much of science fiction is still just fiction, we’re a whole lot closer to the idea of the Collective then you might think. It’s already here, in the form of the Internet.

“Big deal,” you say? Ah… read on, oh lucky visitor!

Humanity’s Mass Mind

All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players…
William Shakespeare

Consider how much knowledge is now at your fingertips! Marketing data, medical studies, scientific papers, blue prints: anything you want to know, anything you want to learn, can be found on the Web. Not only that, but the Internet has become a collection of peoples’ thoughts, opinions, studies and experience on any given subject. So much so, that it’s become a mass mind – a living, feeling, learning creation.

We all play a part…

The fascinating thing is that each of us plays a part in helping this creation grow. By writing and posting new content, we add to the collection our own thoughts, experience and knowledge. Even if the topic is the same, with few exceptions, each person’s content is unique, because our views on our personal experiences.

How amazing! How wonderful! How fantastic! With prolific online authors, you can search their names, and learn all about them. It’s almost like reading their minds – it’s all there for us to digest.

Collected Information Leads to Collective Intelligence

Mankind & Evolution

All this information pouring into the online collection has begun to serve a greater purpose than one individual learning new things. This collected information, humanity’s mass mind, is leading to new forms of Collective Intelligence (CI). In turn, Collective Intelligence is leading to mankind’s continued growth as a species – to learning new things that no one has ever known before!

What is collective intelligence?

The MIT Center for Collective Intelligence describes CI as “groups of individuals doing things collectively that seem intelligent.”  (emphasis ours)

Crowd-sourcing, collaboration, and the wisdom of crowds are all minimalist forms of collective intelligence. It’s seen in nature, in the hive mind of bees or in the way ants colonies work as a unified entity. The key word in the MIT definition is seem. For any collaboration to be a true example of collective intelligence, it has to lead to new levels of intelligence. In other words, something more than what was before.

Why are we bothering to discuss this?

That’s a darn good question. We have a darn good answer.

Collected information and collective intelligence are changing the way we live, act, react and interact. It matters for SEO, because optimizers need to learn how to capitalize on it. It matters for marketing, because social is a big part of collective; your target market’s wants, needs, thoughts and opinions are right there for you to gather, in big, bright, bold words. It matters for business because of all of the above and then some.

Look at the applications we’re building! We’re creating our home security systems online. We’re pulling an entire company’s data stream into one central location in the cloud. We’re gathering information from around the world in a matter of a few seconds.

The world is growing in leaps and bounds – the way we interact with computers and people (social, blogging, search, surveys, comments, programs, applications, research and development, marketing, etc.) has changed in such a way that we’re ALL a part of that growth.

Intelligent Emergent Behavior

5 Real World Examples of Collective Intelligence

Everything you put out there, everything thought, opinion or bit of knowledge, is a contribution towards the future of mankind. You never know what will spark of the next round of innovations and ideas.

Listen – do you really think the people behind every successful business, every great piece of technology and every standard scientific process knew their ideas would be successful, great or become a standard? How many of these things started with just a spark? It might not have even been the “inventor’s” own thought – it could have just as easily started with someone else’s comment…

The thousands of real world collective intelligence examples should be taken as inspiration. They are just the beginning of what’s possible. We’ve barely started, yet there are literally thousands of real world examples of collective intelligence in use:

Google

Google is an oft-used example, yet it’s important to specify the search engine itself, not the search engine’s output:

Google’s Output – The feedback that comes from any given query is subject to misinformation. Anyone can write about anything… and we do. Therefore, it’s important to point out that mass authoring isn’t synonymous with mass authority. Just because many people write about something doesn’t mean we learn from that writing.

Google- If you’ve ever seen the list of patents that went into creating Google, you’d quickly notice that the patents don’t always have the same creator’s name. You’ll see names like Mayur Datar and Ramanathan V. Guha, but you’ll also see Alexis Battle, Barbara Engelhardt and so on. Not all patents were created by Google employees for Google, and most patents were created by a team of inventors. What we end up with, then, is a search engine designed, built and added on to by hundreds of people. Unique in its overall abilities, it was the only one of its kind when first created: intelligent design developed through collective intelligence.

Google +

From the time that Google Plus hit the online world, it’s been an example of collective intelligence. They opened a bare bones project, not to the masses, but to a specific audience – the geeks and coding freaks of the Internet. They gave these individuals the ability to give automatic feedback on all areas of the system.

G+

Why? In order to turn out a strong, working product when it’s released for everyone to use. The company wants the best social platform out there, and who better to finish the creation process than the very people they’re targeting?

Open Source Projects

Anything “open source” can be considered a strong example of collective intelligence. Open source projects are developed by the people for the people; open source is a completely organic approach, if you will. In fact, some amazing products have come out of the Open Source Initiative. The list includes several well-known products, such as:

• The Apache server
• WordPress
• Drupal
• MySQL
• Mozilla Firefox
• Many, many more

BRAIN

BRAIN, Behaviorally Robust Aggregation of Information in Networks, created by Hewlett Packard, is a fascinating example of collective intelligence. According to the creators, “Existing processes tend to be either too data-driven, and therefore lacking the perspective of human insight, or too ad hoc, and therefore inconsistent with the data. “

BRAIN was developed to gain more accurate information for prediction markets using data side-by-side with team surveys. It’s worked for HP, and other companies, such as IBM and Ford, have implemented prediction markets as well.

KuiSchi

Knowledge Unifying Initiator for Science and Technology, or KuiSci, is “a meeting place for discussion among scientists and technologists, a place for presenting national and global scale problems, a forum for brainstorming, skill and expertise exchange among scientists to harness the collective solutions. KuiSci is a place for innovative work creation. “

History of Mankind

On to Bigger and Different Things

We’re in a technological space we’ve never been in before – not in the entire history of mankind. We’re able to collaborate globally in ways that have previously not been possible. Open source projects are changing medicine; social networking is changing how we learn in a classroom. –And, the power of the collective is changing how we do business.

That’s not so bad; change is the beginning of growth. Although no one knows how things will turn out in the future, we do know that it will probably be something totally unexpected – something different. Something no one has thought of before. As content developers, marketing managers, application developers, search engineers, SEO geeks and so on, it’s our responsibility to make sure we follow a mantra of respect, honesty and communication. Maybe “Respect, honesty and communication for the betterment of mankind” should be part of the 10 Online Commandments (wonder how well that would go over?).

Over the next several weeks, months and so on, we’ll be talking more about Collective Intelligence and how it applies specifically to marketing your online business, branding, users’ opinions, etc. In the meantime, put your thinking caps on; if you have any questions or comments, you know where to put them (in the comment box, people…)!

All the bells & whistles in the world...

A vendor at the mall stopped me the other day. I don’t know if it was my frizzy, messy hair piled in a ponytail or the smile on my face, but he thought he could sell me his wares. I sat down in his chair and politely listened to the virtues of his products. He was a friendly—a great conversationalist—but I walked away empty-handed.

When I left the mall, I called a friend who has worked in sales for years. “I think I am a salesman’s worst nightmare,” I laughed into the phone as I told him my story. Without missing a beat, he replied, “You weren’t the right prospect. That guy needs to do a better job sizing up his customers.”

That comment lingered in my head. We know the goal of marketing is to sell products. There’s no magical formula involved. If customers know about your product and need it, they will buy it. It seems easy enough, so why do even the best marketing plans sometimes fail? A friendly face, excellent product, and perfect sales pitch can lead nowhere. How does this happen?

16 Basic Desires That Motivate the Sale

Research & Studies

The key to this puzzle lies in the hearts of your customers. In the end, people do things—including buy products—because they want to do so. The deciding factor isn’t you or your product. It’s the ideals that drive your customers to do—or not do—something. Successful marketers understand this. They know who their customers are and what matters most to them.

How do you know what will convince your customers they need your product? Researchers at Ohio State studied the factors that motivate people do whatever they do.

• Acceptance: I want others to approve of me.
• Curiosity: I want to learn how and why things work.
• Eating: I want food.
• Family: I want children and a partner.
• Honor: I want to be true to the values of my cultural group.
• Idealism: I want justice in the world.
• Independence: I want to be myself.
• Order: I want organization and systems.
• Physical activity: I want to exercise.
• Power: I want to be able to influence people
• Romance: I want to have sex.
• Saving: I want to collect things I may need.
• Social contact: I want to have friends.
• Status: I want to be important in the world.
• Tranquility: I want to be safe.
• Vengeance: I want to get revenge.

On a subconscious level, each one of us has certain dominant motivators guiding what we choose to do. This explains why workaholics are truly happy sacrificing relationships and leisure time, while social butterflies cannot imagine life without a bevy of friends and acquaintances. What motivates me to spend my time and money may be very different from what motivates you to spend yours. – And we’re both equally happy with our lifestyles.

Marketing the Right Way

Embrace Knowledge

There’s a right way and a wrong way to use these basic desires in marketing. What’s the right way?

• As you develop your marketing plan, stop to consider your target market and what motivates them. What do the members of your target market have in common? Are they pet owners? Parents? Senior citizens? Creative types? Of course, your target market is composed of individuals with different motivators, but they also have common motivators. For example, people with children are often motivated by family. Senior citizens living on fixed incomes tend to be motivated by saving. Make a list that represents your market—age, location, lifestyle.
• Prioritize the desires. Review your list. Which motivators are most dominant in your target market? Young professionals may be motivated by acceptance, independence, power, and status. If your market of young professionals is filled with recent college graduates working in the corporate world, the needs for power and status are likely stronger motivators. Knowing this will help you zero in on what will make them want to buy your product.
• Develop a marketing plan that shows how your product or service will meet these needs. For example, how can you convince young professionals that you offer them a way to increase their status within their peer groups? Incorporate images of young professionals who are surrounded by people showing they respect them. Use strong language implying how your product will arm them with the tools that bring the honor they strive for.

When Marketing Goes Wrong

Making The Wrong Decisions

The sales rep who tried to sell me his hair products tried several techniques to convince me I needed them. He started with, “See how much better your hair looks with this?” (romance and acceptance). When I didn’t respond, he tried, “Your friends will all be jealous and want to know what you’re doing different” (social contact and status). Again, I refused to buy. Then he asked me about my family and told me about his (family).

He knew that I needed a reason to buy his products. What he didn’t understand was that my need to save money (saving) was far more motivating to me than the factors he assumed would matter. Had he offered to lower the price or demonstrate how I could save money using his products, he would have been more likely to make a sale.

I’m sure you don’t have the time or the resources to make a similar mistake. When you understand what motivates your target market, you can tailor your marketing plan to those needs. As a result, you will spend more time on marketing campaigns that bring results.

You don’t want to invest your time and resources on marketing that falls on deaf ears. Knowing your market and their needs is a key factor in developing a marketing plan that will reach them—in ways that will resonate with them. When you consider their needs, you are well on your way to increasing your conversions.

If you do it right! And that’s what this article is about. Like death and taxes, some things in business are inevitable. Even if your product or service is the best on the market and your customer service is better than everyone else’s, you can’t make everyone happy all the time. At some point, you will deal with negative feedback and dissatisfied customers posting on social media platforms.

In The Know

Let’s face it. Many people online are unafraid to share the most intimate details of their lives, from what they ate for lunch that day to problems with their exes. What’s going to stop them from posting negative information about your company when they feel slighted?

Turning Negatives Into Positives Through Action

You don’t want your brand tarnished by these types of comments, but it certainly isn’t the end of the world if you come across someone with a bad experience or an axe to grind. Rather, it’s just a fact of life. How you respond to the negativity, though, is critical. You still have a business to run and a brand to protect. Look at it as a chance to improve your brand, and then take action to remedy the situation.

Find The Lesson

1. Check your systems. When you receive negative feedback, your first step should be a quick check of your systems. Let’s imagine for a moment that you sell informational books, CDs, and DVDs. What happens if a customer starts complaining in an online forum that he didn’t receive a book he ordered? Your first reaction should be, “How did this happen?” Then you need to start looking through the quality control structure you have in place to find out where the process failed (you do have some kind of checks and balances system, right?).

Was there a delay in shipping? It might be time to evaluate your shipping company, and—if necessary—find a new, more reliable one. Did your online order system fail? Find out what happened and take the steps to fix the glitch. Use this as an opportunity to make sure everything and everyone involved in your production process works effectively so this won’t happen in the future.

2. Offer a solution. Once you’ve investigated and found the source of the problem, you need to take steps to correct it with your customer. Initiate contact privately and explain what happened. Then offer some sort of compensation. Ask the customer, “What can I do to make this better?” You may be surprised to hear the answer.

Sometimes they won’t know what to say. In this case, you can offer to give a discount on a future purchase, a partial refund, or a complimentary product. Sometimes they may specifically request this. Regardless of the response, it is usually in your best interest to sacrifice a small profit to retain the client and rebuild your damaged (in their eyes) image.

3. Address the issue online. Once you’ve taken steps to correct the issue with your client, you can address the online comment. Be very careful about what you say, because you have potentially millions of eyes watching your response, and this has a direct effect on your brand. As you do so, you need to keep a few ideas in mind.

• Don’t wait. The longer the comment goes unaddressed, the longer your customer has to build negative feelings about you and your company. It also means that potential customers are seeing only the negative ideas about you. Make sure you take care of everything offline, but don’t put off responding to the comment longer than necessary. It can taint your brand to have such negativity posted without a response.
• Keep it impersonal. This issue is not about the dissatisfied customer as a person. It is about the interaction the person had with your company. For example, if you discovered that your customer didn’t enter the correct credit card number, say something like, “Thanks for letting me know there was a problem. Everything should be resolved now, and you should have your book soon.” You don’t want to point out something like, “I can’t process your order if you don’t enter your information correctly.”
• Stay calm. What you say will have an effect on your brand, and you always want to be seen in the most positive light possible. Even if the comment is a direct, dishonest attack on you, you must remain the ultimate professional. Refuse to respond in a derogatory manner and remind yourself that it’s not really about you.

4. Drop the rope. Sometimes you won’t be able to please certain people, and the best course of action is to move on and learn from it. You did the best you could. You checked to see if there was a problem on your end and corrected it. You offered a solution. You responded professionally and politely. A certain group of people will always see only the negative, and nothing you do will change that. Instead of concentrating all your energy on this small group of people, pay attention to those who are thrilled with your products and services.

Transactions with Transparency

Transparency | Gustavo Boaventura

So, not everybody likes your stuff. Get over it. Deal with it. Use it to grow and become a better business owner, develop a better brand and create a strong product. Negativity is only negative if you don’t use it.

Along with the tips above, it’s also worth mentioning one thing you don’t do. Don’t try to hide it. Some of the most successful marketing campaigns started because a customer/client posted a negative comment about a product. Rather than delete the comment or otherwise shove it under the rug, the companies embraced the negativity and turned it into a positive marketing campaign.

“You’ve said our products suck. We’ve listened. Welcome to the new…”

Don’t be afraid to deal with the commenter publicly, at first. AT&T is good at this. Someone posts on Twitter “Thanks AT&T, for dropping my business conference for the fifth time in a row.” AT&T customer service responds with, “Hey, we’re sorry to hear there was a problem. If you’ll follow us, we’ll get you on DM and get some information to help you solve the issues.”

Letting consumers see the negative comment and your positive reaction provides a much stronger example of how you’ll deal with potential clients. It says, “I care, and am willing to work with you to get the problem resolved.”

Negative Comments Happen, But a Damaged Reputation Doesn’t Have To

Although I certainly hope you never have to address online negative comments posted about your company, just be aware that it may happen. Remember that they don’t have to cause untold damage to your company or brand, and use the opportunity as a chance to show the world you are a professional with great respect for your customers.

Get Fresh!

If your company’s Web site has been drawing less and less attention from customers, perhaps you have a freshness issue. It’s not that you’re getting testy with customers, but that your site’s content hasn’t been updated on a regular basis for some time.

Fresh content you can market and advertise to customers is critical in today’s online world. As more customers turn to the Internet to shop for and purchase products, it’s imperative that your content be interesting, informative and, most importantly, fresh.

Stale Content Leaves Your Site Smelling Bad

If you have a small business and are wondering why your site needs fresh content, look at it from this perspective:

In the event you were running a bakery, you wouldn’t leave stale goods on display for days and weeks, would you? Of course not. Nobody would buy a cake that could be used to play discus, or a pie you could use as a substitute hockey puck.

Keep Your Content Updated

If the content on your company’s Web site is from several weeks ago, current and potential customers are left to wonder if you have anything new to offer them. They’ll wonder why you don’t change the look, and how much importance your site really has at your company. Then – since we all look at things from a “me” perspective -, they’ll wonder how much importance you’ll give them if they hire you.

Now, should you find your site’s content needing some refreshing, don’t just post copy for the sake of it. It’s important that a site’s content have a good ebb and flow to it, so just throwing anything on there for the sake of updating it doesn’t do the trick.

Content Strategy is Critical

When putting your content strategy together, remember that having an individual or individuals in place to oversee the content is the starting point. With a person or persons giving the content their full attention, the site will have a regular look and feel to it, providing your business with a leg up on the competition.

Critical Thinking

As you prepare your site’s content, keep several factors in mind:

1. When you maintain fresh Web site copy, it tells your customers you’re on top of things in your respective industry;
2. Having the site updated regularly lessens the chances you’ll be penalized by major search engines such as Google. Such penalties will oftentimes result in decreased visibility for your site;
3. Topical information like press releases, newsroom items, etc. need to be fresh. If the last press release on your site is from six months ago, customers may begin to wonder what in the world your business has been up to as of late;
4. As important as the content is, review the site’s design from time to time. Is the look getting a tad old? Has it been a while since you put any effort into your site’s look and feel? If it’s time to update the design, don’t hesitate to do it. That being said, don’t be constantly changing your look (there’s a fine line, people!);
5. Lastly, get some outsider views of your company’s Web site. Nine times out of 10, in-house folks are going to say it looks great. Get the viewpoint of someone outside the company who is unbiased.

With fresh content on your company’s Web site, your business stands a much better chance of attracting potential customers, maintaining many of your current customers, and always having a fresh business perspective.

One of many pings...

One of our favorite past clients, and one of our most loyal supporters, recently asked about pinging blogs:

“Do you find it beneficial to ping your blog? I have done it. I usually use pingoat, pingfarm and pingomatic. I didn’t see anything in your blog about it. Any thoughts?”

Thanks for the question, Carla. We do have some thoughts, as a matter of fact – lots!

Ping – The Go To Guy for Website Owners

If you’re used to IT lingo, it’s important to point out that this isn’t the same as pinging an IP address.
We’d like to introduce you to PING, your personal search engine notifier. PING, in this instance, stands for Packet InterNet (or Inter-Network) Groper. This utility is the go-to guy. Have you ever wondered how Feedburner, for instance, knows you have new content on the site to send out? Or how this RSS feed directory or that one knows your site has changed?

You send out a ping, he runs to the search engines or social bookmarking sites, and says, “Psst! There’s content over there!” Maybe he waves his hands in the air, jumping up and down to get their attention, whichever visual you prefer.

In other words, ping notifies the search engines, feed directories, social bookmarking sites, etc. that new content has been published. He invites their crawlers back for a read. Seconds later (a long time in Internet years), a bot from the site or search engine PING notified comes by for a visit to peruse the new content you put up.

New content crawled, newest page (potentially) indexed – et voila!

Why You Might Ping Your Site/Blog…

Google Crawl

Pinging is a way to help the spiders crawl your site faster. Not to say they don’t do their job, but some people, especially those with a short amount of patience, think it can be done better.

We often see Meta tags that try to tell the spiders when to come back to the site – i.e. how often they should visit. However, the “revisit-after” tag isn’t a command; it’s a suggestion. In fact, it’s a: “Hey. If you feel like – you know – maybe, sorta, kinda, paying attention to this sign that says ‘come back tomorrow’, would you maybe, sometime, possibly consider it?” Generally, this tag is just plain ignored.

Crawlers have a “how often”, a “how fast” and a “how deep” set of instructions when they visit your site. You can specify the rate you want the Googlebot to crawl your site (for example), but “how often” and “how deep” are up to the bot. All setting the rate does, is tell the bot how long you want it to wait between each page request. This setting is used to ensure the crawling doesn’t overwhelm your bandwidth.

As well, your site may not be set up in an efficient, “spider-friendly” manner (this is one of the reasons it’s a good idea to have a sitemap). Therefore, you might have some pages crawled and indexed, while others are left hanging out in the non-crawled, non-indexed ethereal NeverWhere.

The “revisit-after” Meta tag doesn’t work. You can’t tell crawlers to come back at a certain time. – And, since your site may or may not be crawler-friendly, you’re left with few options if you want your content crawled quickly and efficiently.

Before you start pinging, don’t forget a sitemap

This is an excellent time to mention sitemaps again. Having a sitemap on your site, as well as added to Google Webmaster Tools, helps in several ways:

• Ensures that pages within the sitemap are indexed
• Helps search engines better understand your site layout
• Allows you to tell the search engines how often you plan to update your content

Most importantly, a sitemap provides a user-friendly experience that can help visitors with little time quickly find what they’re looking for. Of course, you can use an onsite search function, but what if they don’t know exactly what they’re looking for? A successful site owner always has to take these considerations into account.

Offer Help when you can

When to Ping

There’s nothing wrong with pinging search engines, social bookmarks and RSS feeds. However, there’s a caveat to that. You don’t want to ping these places every five minutes; it’s called spam-pinging, and if it has “spam” in the word, you know it’s not a good thing.

So when’s the best time to send a PING? The only time you really have a good reason to ping a site is when you’ve a) put up new content or b) changed content so much it might as well be new.

Pinging in WordPress

WordPress has a built in PING feature, which means you don’t have to worry about manual pinging. However, it’s also an over-eager feature.

WordPress automatically notifies popular Update Services that you’ve updated your blog by sending a XML-RPC ping each time you create or update a post. [our emphasis]

Sounds good, right? Except… the bolded part of the statement above is a problem. This means, every time you update a post – whether it’s a single update (make all changes and save) or several updates (make changes, save, make changes, save) -, each “Save” sends a PING.

Could you be spam-pinging through WordPress without knowing it?

If you publish every day and are someone who makes changes, then saves and makes more changes, the answer is… maybe. Fortunately, some plugins will help you cut down on the amount of times WordPress unnecessarily pings; other plugins can help you keep track of where your site is pinging (list of WordPress PING plugins here).

Crawled Doesn’t Mean Indexed

Before you jump on and start throwing pings around, understand that pinging doesn’t do anything for ranking; it’s not a short cut. It doesn’t guarantee ranking any more than crawling guarantees indexation. It doesn’t even guarantee traffic (unless you count bot traffic).

The only thing PING does is notify, so the crawlers will come. What happens then is up to your content and your site.

Jumping with your eyes closed

Therefore, before worrying about a ping, make sure your site and content is in good order. Make sure your current pages are being indexed; if they aren’t, deal with that issue first. Make sure your headlines are interesting and actionable, because they’ll be seen first – in the SERPs, in the RSS feeds and in the social bookmarks. Once you know everything is good, only then should you consider using PING.

Learning as we go

Bonnie, NapoliUnplugged.com’s owner/operator and bloggess extraordinaire of all things Naples, Italy, recently nominated the Level343 Article Archive to join in a project. The project, started by TripBase, is called “My 7 Links”. It’s an interesting idea; according to the goal posted on the rules page, the aim of My 7 Links is:

To unite bloggers (from all sectors) in a joint endeavor to share lessons learned and create a bank of long but not forgotten blog posts that deserve to see the light of day again.

What a fantastic idea, and a great endeavor. Not to mention the fact that it gives us a chance to blog about and share some of our posts from the past…

The truth of it is, no matter how good a writer you are, you’ll have some lessons to learn on the road to success. You learn how to write posts that people enjoy (and how not to). You learn what kind of humor is acceptable to your audience (and what kind of humor makes them think you need to be locked away). Ultimately, what you learn is that every blog post has to come from the heart or it’s destined to fail.

Using the My 7 Links Project, we’d like to share the 7 blogs we chose for the project, and the lessons learned with each:

1) Our Most Beautiful Post:

Dancing the Google Dance – And a One Algo Change, Two Algo Change, Go!

Why?

Google Dance

We’ve become famous (or infamous, however you want to look at it) for the images we choose to compliment our blog posts. Most of them are courtesy of talented Flickr friends. However, the image used on Google Danceis an infographic – and our very first infographic to be posted on the blog, at that.

Not only was it initially received exceptionally well, it’s still getting visits. Upon request, we translated it into Italian, and we’re getting more requests to update the infographic to include the Panda update.

The Lesson:

Don’t be afraid to try new ways to get your thought across.

2) Our Most Popular Post

Are Social Media Tools Relevant to SEO?

Are Social Media Tools Relevant to SEO?

Why?

Although it was posted in 2009, Social Media Tools has consistently been a top visit ever since. This post is still bringing in comments, as well as tweets and shares. It was more an “informed opinion” rather than a “how to”, but it continues to be received well.

The Lesson:

At the time, we were writing articles based on trending conversation. Social media was growing as a marketing medium and a lot of people were talking about a choice between SMM and SEO. It was written for the times.

We talk a lot about how rapidly things change in the world of Internet marketing. Yet, if it changed as rapidly as it feels, this article would no longer be relevant. In other words, we got caught up in the circle of “I” and our perception of events.

The moral – don’t assume you know what will be a lasting piece. Write everything with your heart in it and as tight as you can get it.

3) Our Most Controversial Post(s):

Comment Spam vs. Comment Links – What’s the Difference?

Continuing the Conversation – Comment Spam vs. Comment Links

Which one is it?

Why?

Although we’ve written controversial posts in the past, the series on comment spam was a doozy. The question was, “How do you, as a blog owner, define comment spam?”

The answers were surprising. Quite simply, for the majority of people, anything with a link in it is spam. Many owners don’t even look at the comment if it contains a link – even if the person who commented gave a realistic name. No one resorted to calling names, but the comments were enlightening and, at least to us, somewhat disheartening.

The Lesson:

If you want your comment to be seen on someone else’s blog – i.e. not just thrown in the trash – you first need to look over previous comments. If links have been allowed, you’re probably safe sharing something you read or write that you think is relevant. However, if you look through comments and don’t see a link, posting one of your own will likely get yours put into the spam bin.

4) Our Most Helpful Post

Writing Organic SEO Content: How To and Definition Terms

Organic Tree

Why?

When we looked at this category, a few posts came to mind under “most helpful”. Yet, how do you define this? Can you go strictly by the number of visits? No, because a high number of hits doesn’t necessarily mean a post was helpful. This was an interesting exercise, to say the least, especially once we found the answer.

We had to choose a set of criteria for defining our most helpful post. The criteria we chose were:

• Visits: indicates interest - We’ve received over 800 visits for this post alone
• Comments: indicates engagement - The post created on-site engagement
• Trackbacks: indicates enough interest to actually link to the post - Organic SEO Content received several external site trackbacks
• Shares: indicates enough quality (informative/helpful) to be worth sharing - 27 shares on various networks, 17 shares on FB and over 42 tweets

The Lesson:

To be honest, the results aren’t very scientific; so many factors go into how well a post does. We didn’t really learn a lesson from the post itself, but we did learn a lesson from this exercise. What you think is helpful and what is really helpful may be two totally different things.

What criteria would you use to choose your most helpful post?

5) A Post Whose Success Surprised Us

Google + A Facebook Killer?

 “Google + a Facebook Killer?” Question Answered

Why?

On any given post, we can expect anywhere from 150 – 300 visitors for the first day the post goes out. We got the expected, about 260, and called it a day.

Beautiful Traffic Spike - Ain't It Perty?

This was a news piece – and news pieces (i.e. timely pieces) normally fall off the grid in a very short period. Therefore, we expected occasional visits after the first day, but nothing like what we got. All told, we received over 4,000 visitors, and over 200 repeat visitors on this post – over 2,000 of those visits came on a Saturday, if you can believe that! Okay the fact I (Gabriella) posted this on my Google + that Saturday morning “may” have something to do with this… but that’s still up for discussion.

On top of that, we gathered over 152 tweets, 62 shares and 151 shares to various networks, 15 comments and 127 trackbacks. We hit the SERPs on page one and stayed there, above places such as Mashable, Business Insider, Search Engine Watch, Search Engine Land and other strong sites.

The Lesson:

There’s a sweet spot in blog posting. If you’re lucky enough to hit it, good things happens. When you do hit it, you have to go digging and find out why… so you can do it again!

6) A Post That Didn’t Get the Attention it Deserved

Digital Culture: The Freedom to Use Reason

Power to the Digitial Evolution

Why?

Sure, it was an opinion piece. Yet, Digital Culture had some strong points that we thought needed to be said, such as the responsibility that comes with being able to make a difference with 140 characters of text.

The digital culture we have today has revolutionized the way we communicate, in good and bad ways. The way we communicate and collaborate has increased exponentially. In fact, the Internet is the largest collaboration project… ever.

The Lesson:

We had a lot of shares on the post, and high average traffic. However, we post opinion pieces, for the most part, to increase engagement and gain feedback. What did we learn? We learned that opinion pieces are a fine line to walk – and you can never be sure of the reception.

7) The Post We’re Most Proud Of

5 Must-Dos for Effective Twitter, Facebook, and Blogging Campaigns

Make The Time

Why?

We’re proud of all the posts we put up here. Whether they were received well, poorly or barely seen, every post has our heart and experience written into it. We love getting comments like, “great post, it really helped me…” and give high fives when they come. That’s what we write for.

With that said, we chose 5 Must-Dos because, although it was a “back to the basics” post, we got the kind of comments we love. Between the tweets, shares, comments and trackbacks, we know that it was successful, in terms of giving our visitors something they can use.

The Lesson:

Not every post is going to get rave reviews or tons of comments. Not every post will be shared, tweeted or tons of hits. However, as long as you’re receiving a positive reaction in some way, don’t sweat the small stuff. You’re still on the right track.

And a final addition, not included in the My 7 Links Project, which we included “just because”:

8) Our Funniest Post

What Kind of SEO Are You?

What Kind of SEO are You?

Why?

It had no purpose but to be fun and light. Not only was this a joy to write, but the comments were great! This post definitely got some conversation started; it’s one of our top reads.

The Lesson:

A little humor goes a long way!

Our Nominees for the My 7 Links Project:

Valeria Maltoni, Strategist – Conversation Agent

Shelly Kramer, Veteran Brand Strategist – V3 Integrated Marketing

Heather Lloyd, Copywriter – Success Works

Liz Strauss, International Business Strategist – Successful Blog

Erika Napoletano, Online Strategies Consultant – Redhead Writing

Your Social Network

For many, social media – in all its forms – is a steady diet of information, entertainment and interaction. It is the ultimate snack bar for informavores, serving up tasty bit-sized nuggets to tempt, tantalize, follow and consume. Therefore, it’s blatantly obvious when a part of the snack bar closes.

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when that happens. Little frustrates me more than stumbling upon a social media gravesite: the dead remnants of a poorly thought out social campaign. You’ve seen it, too, I’m sure.

You find a Facebook page with outdated information, or a blog that hasn’t been updated in weeks (or months). How about that YouTube account, with nothing more than the fantastic videos you watched last year? Or the worst part – they have liked their own post… I cringe, but move on.

You see, I’m not just a social media marketer; I’m also a consumer. As a consumer, I want to  use it efficiently, and I want my favorite companies to use it in ways that help.

Yet, many business owners – both big and small – embark upon this adventure without understanding how to use the platforms. This is a dangerous mistake. Your time and money are at stake here; you need to use them wisely. If you expect to use social media to your advantage—and not end up part of an online cemetery, you have to start with a well thought out strategy.

The Social Cemetery of Dead Campaigns

How does it happen – the death of a campaign, that is? Have you ever wondered what happened to the people behind the accounts you come across? Or, like many, did you just shrug and go on? This is an important question, because their stories teach lessons that could keep you from making the same mistakes if you only pay attention.

The average story goes something like this:

A day in the life of Joe & Tom

Joe heard from his friend Tom that Twitter was a good platform to bring in business. “How does it work?” he asks.

“You just go out there and talk to people.”

So Joe grabs himself a Twitter account, then tries to do what Tom suggests. He pours himself into trying to find people to connect with and talk to. He obsesses over follower numbers, finds out about Klout and obsesses some more. He posts religiously, checking back often to see if he got some kind of response.

Four months later, Joe is frustrated. He’s had few reaction, has less than 50 followers and little ROI for the time put in. He calls Tom back. “It’s not working.”

“Huh… Try Facebook.”

Joe lets his Twitter account die a painful death and turns to Facebook. He tries harder than before to connect and talk to people. Again, no ROI.

“Have you heard about Quora?”

…..

Joe is a quick, simple example. For many, however, it isn’t far off the mark. So what did Joe do wrong? If you’re a regular reader, you should be able to say the first part with me… He didn’t have a plan. Therefore, Joe is doing the well-trodden walk of shame, shuffling his feet into Never Should Have Socialed Land… but not so fast. How about asking things like:

What do you want social media to do for you?

You wouldn’t plan a vacation by boarding the next available Air France or Delta, would you? Your time and money are too valuable to throw away without an idea of where you want to go and what you plan to do. Incorporating social media into your marketing program is no different.

Thinking Beyond...

What results do you want to see from social media? Think beyond just driving traffic to your site:

• Do you want to build your brand recognition? What/how are you going to build your brand? Write your steps out; understand what it takes to promote and market that aspect of your campaign.
• Are you hoping to interact with your customers and colleagues on a more personal level? What platforms are you doing this in? Do you have a time line set aside to accomplish this? Think this down to the most mundane action in order to grasp the time it will take.
• Would you like to promote your products and services? Here is where the fun begins: how, why, where, to whom? Do you know? Have you really assessed your market and your product? Are people talking? Do you have recommendations? These are all things that will connect the dots when outlined from the onset of your campaign
• Is your goal to expand and educate your customer base? How will you do that? Is it data base driven? Does your hosting provider even accommodate your needs? Are you using social networks? How many hours and what tools will you use to automate? Will you automate?

You have to know the answer to the “results” question first, and every decision you make thereafter must be based on how it will help you reach your goal(s). Define one or two goals, as well as a length of time to reach them*.

*Hint: most goals will take at least 6 months to achieve with any type of strong ROI.

Where are you starting from?

At this point I’m not sure how much we like Joe. You see, he didn’t take the time to mark where he was at in terms of traffic, conversions and so on. We’ve said it before; you have to have baseline metrics.You have to set down your starting point, your zero if you will, before starting any campaign, so you have a data-based way of tracking results. You can use several metrics to track your social success once you know what your goals are*.

You Have To Start Somewhere

The metrics you track depend on the goals you set. For example, if your goal is to increase positive brand recognition, you might track:

• The number of times someone asks you a question
• Engagement on your blog or site once you start posting on social platforms
• Do you have recommendations readily available online.
• Are you active in social networks or do you simply have 24 Twitter followers and under 200 Facebook fans?
• Referrals (rather than gaining customers through normal marketing channels). For example, maybe you have a widget you are giving away.
• The number of mentions – but here, you have to pay attention to what they’re actually saying. Figure a ratio between positive/negative/neutral mentions. Do you know what tools are available out there?

Hint: Setting goals gives you a baseline to see what is working for you and what is not.

What social platform will best meet your needs?

For most people, the term social media conjures thoughts of Facebook and Twitter. Yet, the reality is that social media is more broadly defined, and encompasses outlets like blogs, video sharing, wikis, and much more. Some of these outlets will work for you, and some of them won’t.

Jump in the water's fine...

For example, if your goal is to build your brand, consider where that might best be accomplished. Depending on your writing manpower or what you are willing to invest in regards to a content driven campaign, blogging is one of the strongest and long lasting methods for achieving a recognizable brand. Write your own content and opening the blog up to readers’ comments. This also lets you interact with potential clients and customers. Get up close and personal to what people are actually saying.

Yet, you also need to consider the time necessary for such an endeavor. As I mentioned, creating a content-centric campaign around blogging is not easy – unless you’re an unusually prolific writer – takes a considerable amount of time. Keep in mind, you do have the option to  hire a full time writer, but that’s dependant on how committed you are to your business. As well, you have to stick to whatever schedule you start. If you start posting twice a week, keep posting twice a week.

If your goal is to promote special features and discounts, you might use venues such as:

• Twitter, to announce current company promotions. Make sure you schedule several posts in a day, write them differently, and make sure you can track them through one of the many Twitter analytic tools.
• eNewsletter, to share the latest company news. Use a service that allows you analytic access.
• Facebook, to share special, month-long discounts. Visit your Insights to see what’s happening and which posts receive the most feedback.
• YouTube, to showcase exciting new product lines. Allow your users to post video responses; get maximum participation.

Take the time to explore the world of social media, and choose what makes the most sense for your company and your goals*.

* Hint: If your goal is to increase authority only, you need to check your ego at the door and have a secondary goal. Why? If you are truly an authority (simply because you are good at what you do and know your industry), your knowledge will show. It’s especially a given when you are humble about your craft and your business.  It will show in your blogs, in your answers to questions and in how you deal with people about your topic on a whole. “Building authority” should never be a loan goal.

What goal /result is most important to your business?

Smooth Sailing

I’m sure you’ll agree, one of the top reasons most businesses fail with social media is trying to do too much without a focus. When this happens, you cannot offer your best to the world, the public doesn’t respond, and social media is written off as a failure. You don’t have to be one of these people.

Go back to your goals and decide what is most important*. Then determine what you can realistically do on your own. If you only have an hour each day to devote to reading and responding to comments, then that’s all you can do. -And you should certainly use that hour if it is an important part of reaching your goals.

If you can’t do it yourself, consider outsourcing tasks to qualified people. More on that in another blog, but you can start doing some preliminary work on your own. Use tools when you can, such as Hootsuite analytics, to get a good start on your campaign.

At the same time, don’t waste your energy on anything that does not move you in the direction of reaching your goals.

* Hint: Many start with the goal of “bringing traffic”. Not only is this goal a generic one, but it is also a waste of time. By redefining it as “bringing quality traffic”, you provide yourself with a stronger set of base metrics, as well as steps to reach that goal.

Ask yourself, “What is quality traffic?” For you, quality traffic could be individuals who subscribe to your blog. Quality traffic could be those who convert to customers, individuals who visit more than one or two pages and so on. I would even suggestion you become an observer of your followers and find the connection that matters to them. The point is, if your goal is to bring traffic to your site, you have to further define what you want that traffic to do once they get there and incorporate it into your campaign.

What are your goals?

In conclusion, no matter what your goals may be, you have to promote and engage your audience. In the world of social media, these are often the same concepts. The approach may be different in the various platforms, but the more you interact with your audience, the more you promote your work. As you promote your work, you open the doors for more interaction with your audience. Be the one the go to when they have a question.

As you develop your social marketing strategy, remember flexibility is important. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as you experiment with what works for you and what doesn’t. No campaign, whether it’s a marketing, social media, SEO or content development campaign, is written in stone. That’s the beauty of working online today. It’s evolutionary, don’t you think? Go ahead, don’t be shy, tell me all about it…

Ignorance Is Bliss?

There’s a notable difference between the outlook of those in the internet marketing industry and those who aren’t. This difference became very noticeable to us when Google Plus came out. It seemed that everyone was talking about Google’s new social platform. G+ news, opinions and how-to’s were everywhere.

Yet, while doing some research, we found out something interesting – at least to us. Google Plus wasn’t everywhere. In the first week, only 6 million results came up for the term. A month later, there approximate search volume is only 2.7 million.

If you think that’s a lot, compare that to:

• Facebook: 3 billion searches per month
• Google: 618 million per month
• Twitter: 124 million per month

In fact, what we realized is that G+ was just everywhere we were looking. Most people weren’t talking about it – just the many, many people we follow, engage with and read… who happen to be in our industry. This knowledge was somewhat of a surprise, and somewhat of a wake up call.

The Circle of “I”

It’s easy to get caught up in the circle of “I” and personal perception. You’re inundated with your chosen industry, which becomes your entire day. When you “know” something, you begin to assume that everyone else knows it, too. You throw out names, talking about people you know – “So-and-so said…” -, not realizing that the individual you’re talking to may have absolutely no idea who “so-and-so” is.

Realizing, once again, that we’d fallen into our own circle of “I”, is what brought about this post. It’s an important distinction to understand – how marketers vs. non-marketers look at the world of Google, the Internet and so on…

How much do you and your company depend on Google?  

Living In A Bubble

Marketer:

Google is only as dependable as I can make it. Sure, I use it as a search engine – who doesn’t anymore? Oh, right, those strange people still on Bing and Yahoo for whatever reason…

The point is Google is a product. This product allows me to offer a service. As long as I can continue offering that service, Google is a viable business product. I use Google because it behooves me to know and understand what I’m giving my clients; I need to know how it works – to the best of my ability – so I can give my clients what they need most: results.

Non-marketer:

The answer, for most, is the same – I live, breathe, eat, and sleep Google. Not a day goes by when I don’t pull up the Google search engine and demand that the little man hiding behind the logo answer each and every question.

I want results and I expect to get them. If I’m asking how the moon was made of green cheese, Google’s going to tell me – or at least point where to go to find out.

So, because we as a modern culture have come to swear by Google, do we automatically love all the other applications that are associated with it?

The newest cousin to America’s favorite search engine is Google+, a Facebook-like website that’s meant to be used for one thing, and one thing only – socialization. After all, Myspace was eventually made obsolete by Facebook, so, a company as big as Google should be able to turn around and accomplish the same thing, right? Maybe, but maybe not…only time will tell.

Marketer

Absolutely not – you can’t automagically love everything Google does. What you can do is cautiously embrace it. Google + is one of those things that we cautiously embrace; it has the potential of being a fantastic opportunity for networking and marketing. Not only will we not ignore it, we can’t ignore it.

Simply put, if we don’t keep abreast of the newest, brightest, shiniest object out there, we could quickly be left behind in the dust of those who did.

Cool New Club

Non-marketer

Google Plus is much like the season premiere of an up and coming reality television show. We all want to know what it’s about, so we tune in, but not all of us are going to keep watching after the first episode. So far, this seems to be the case with Google’s latest networking creation.

When it was first introduced, like Gmail, in order to join you needed a super-secret clubhouse invite that only the cool kids could provide you with – an automatic selling point for the nerdier folk. After awhile, though, it was kind of like, hmm, okay, well, back to Facebook it is!

What does Google+ have that Facebook doesn’t?

Marketer

That’s still up in the air. There seems to be stronger interaction of G+, for one. Two, there are a lot of people unhappy with Facebook that have just been waiting for some place else to move to. The last FB privacy scandal really did them in as a network for many individuals.

However, at the core of it all, what does Google + have that Facebook doesn’t? The fact that it’s not Facebook.

Non-marketer

Why should we spend all this time and energy creating ourselves a new profile, and locating all of our friends and clients on a website that’s, in theory, exactly the same as the one we’re already on? Seems like a waste of time, if you ask me.

Google Plus From the Non-Marketer’s Point of View

“I’m not sure if G+ is all that. It really is a lot like Facebook, and I don’t know if it’s worth the trouble of switching.

The Circle of Trust...

However, if you look a little closer, you’ll see some varying degrees of separation between Google Plus and the already-existing and ever so popular social networking sites. For instance, Google+ has what are called “Circles,” where you can separate your social life from your business life altogether.

Don’t want your boss or clients to know what kind of company you kept last Saturday night? Then split ‘em up! It’s much easier than making an entirely different profile for both business and for pleasure, and having to maintain multiple web pages on one site. After all, you’re just one person!

Also, you can video chat with others in what’s called a “Hangout.” If you’re typing skills aren’t up to speed with the wheels that are frantically turning in your head, then offer your clients the option for a videoconference instead of a typed-out instant message.

Another perk to Google Plus that also assists with communication is the option for group chats, where you and your clients, or you and your friends and family can all message one another at the same time, instead of having to relay he-said/she-saids to one another via separate screens. We all know how that tends to work out!

So, all in all, Google Plus is much like Facebook, but a wee bit techier. So far, I’ve yet to meet many people who use this site as their main place to conduct both business and social relations, but as it was with Myspace and Facebook, all good things come with time. I wouldn’t be the least bit surprised if Google+ was the next big Brad Pitt for social media and networking gurus, once everyone hops on board. ”

The Future of Google’s “Facebook”

None of this means that social networking fans are going to live, breathe, eat, and sleep Google+ the way they have the Google search engine, Gmail, and Facebook. Using the search engine doesn’t mean whole-hearted embracing of other Google products. Not being able to see the future of the network (if you read a lot of marketer’s blogs, you’ll see the industry rides the fence) makes it hard to prepare from a business sense.

Can We All Just Get Along?

The main take away from this article isn’t how people view Google Plus, or Google itself, for that matter. The take away is that people think differently about internet marketing, networking and so on, depending on their personal lives. This is a valuable lesson to keep in mind the next time you’re working on copy for your site, or considering a new campaign. It’s just not the same – and if you can pinpoint the major differences, you’ll be a head of the game.

Expand Your Business

What would you say if you were told that the secret to your blog’s (and company’s) success might lie in your ability to write—for someone else? Already, some of you are arguing that you don’t have time to keep your own blog up to date. You can’t spare precious time for content that will help a site other than your own. You don’t see the value in helping out your competitors. You want people visiting YOUR site.

Understandable. However, guest blogging—writing articles for someone else’s blog—can be a valuable tool for expanding your business, your credibility, and your networking potential.

Guest blogging can help you stay up to date with your industry.

Know Your Questions

It’s easy to get bogged down in your day-to-day tasks and lose sight of what’s going on in the world. –But, let’s face it; you need to know what is going on in the minds of your customers, competitors, and colleagues if you expect to keep up with the changes that take place every day. Chances are you already have a series of blogs or websites you scan on a regular basis for this very purpose.

The insight you gain from participating on these sites helps you target your products and services to meet the needs of your customers. It also helps you be aware of trends in your field so you can improve your products and services. Guest blogging is just one more way to get you out into the virtual world so you can be proactive, productive, and stay in touch with your audience.

Whose idea is it anyway?

The business model of the new economy is changing. No longer is the world of business filled with cut-throat competitors seeking to annihilate the competition. Of course, that still happens, but growing numbers of business owners are seeking ways to build relationships with competitors. There seems to be a shift toward focusing on what makes them different instead of what makes the competition bad. Haven’t you heard “Sharing is Caring”?

Part of this is due to a change in our society, a shift in the way we view communication. People are more willing to share information and ideas with each other under the belief that we are one culture with a shared intelligence and creativity. When you create an alliance with friendly competitors, your shared knowledge and experience can help nurture and produce a greater number of believers. Guest blogging is one way to build relationships with people you can help, as well as those who can help you improve your game. These relationships can pay large dividends down the road.

All in the name of increasing quality traffic.

Lead by Example

At the end of the day, online marketing seems to boil down to one idea: increasing quality traffic to your site and converting that traffic into sales. The only way to do that is to increase your exposure. With that in mind, consider the fact that guest blogging gives you an opportunity to connect with people beyond your circle of influence. You can drive traffic directly to your site through a link back. There’s nothing sweeter than watching your traffic rise while earning your valued links across the web.

Guest blogging shouldn’t be limited to your contributions to other sites. Invite people to write for your blog as well. This is especially true for people in your industry who have more experience and name recognition. When you allow them to contribute to your site, their followers will have the chance to see what you have to offer. Just make sure that you have something valuable to say. Good content will attract and keep more readers. Eventually, when done correctly, you have built a community that trusts your content and will share it with their friends.

Build a reputation.

Your reputation—and the perception the world has of you—can make or break your company. You’ve heard perception is 100% reality? Well it couldn’t be more à propos than in this case.

For example, people continue to buy Japanese cars under the impression that they are more reliable, despite the evidence proving this isn’t necessarily so. Your customers need to know they can trust you, as well as trust what you can deliver for them.

Do people think you're Hot or Not?

Guest blogging is a great way to build your reputation. The fact that someone else let you put your content on their site shows readers you have something valuable to say and offer. This sort of third party validation shows you’re trustworthy, because your name is now tied with someone they already trust and know. As more people read your content and see your name, this confidence will increase.

Don’t let your fear of reaching out to the competition prevent you from the benefits of guest blogging. Anything that helps you increase your exposure and provides opportunities to expand your business should be part of your online marketing plan.

So You Want to Guest Blog – Now What?

Rules are made for a reason

If you’ve looked at guest blogging and decided that, yes, it’s a good idea, then good for you. –But, how do you go about it? Before you ever start offering to guest blog, follow these few simple rules:

• Make sure you have a strong, short – and above all -, well written bio. A good bio should never read like a spam bot wrote it. Limit the links to no more than three (we recommend this, even if the hosting site allows more).
• Ensure you have a LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter account. Individuals who aren’t active on social platforms have a lower chance of actually promoting their guest post. This is a matter of perceived value; remember – the hosting site wants to get something out of this too.
• Make sure your own blog shows strong, grammatically correct writing skills. When you offer a guest post, the hosting site will, more often than not, look at your past work. There is no better platform to show off your writing portfolio than your own. Before stepping into guest posting, make sure your blog is nice and tight.
• Make sure your blog shows you moderating and responding to readers’ comments. A moderated blog shows individuals that you care about impressions. In other words, you understand the value of the writing and don’t want to devalue it by leaving your blog to run on its own. The more active you are on your own blog, the more likely a hosting site will be to offer you a guest posting spot.

When you contact a site for guest posting opportunities, the following tips will up your chances of future requests:

• It should go without saying, but make sure your guest post is as good as it can be. Don’t give hosting sites sub par material and keep the best for yourself. The blog owners are giving you a piece of prime real estate (any place on their blog is prime real estate, because it gives you extra exposure); don’t ruin it by not making sure it’s top notch.
• Research the hosting site. What have they talked about? Read their archives, read the comments and get a feel for the audience. Rest assured, if your post bombs, they won’t be asking you back. When guest posting, you aren’t targeting your audience; you’re targeting theirs.
• Research the article and cite sources. Your guest post doesn’t have to be written in Associated Press Style. However, if you read something somewhere and are going to talk about it, mention where you read it and kindly give them a link. If it was worth mentioning, it’s worth linking to. As well, make sure you have the facts straight, so you don’t make the host look like an idiot for letting you post BS.
• Include relevant images to compliment your writing and make it more valuable for the hosting site. Again, remember that they expect to gain from this exercise as well. When you send your post in, make sure it is clearly formatted how you want it to look – and make sure that format fits in with the rest of their site.
• Show you’re a blogger who really cares. Understand that your part doesn’t stop with turning the guest post in. Visit often to respond to comments. Make sure you promote the blog on your various social networks. You could even write a continuation of your guest post on your own blog (i.e. talk about the guest post you wrote and link back to it). In other words, be involved!

Where Can I Guest Post?

Start Fresh

You can always wait until someone offers you a guest posting spot. You can offer the bloggers you know and read if they’re interested in a guest post (always provide titles, at least, with your offer). As well, there are several places that offer you lists of blogs that are open to guest posting. Some of them include:

• Blog Synergy
• PiggyBankPie – 101 Blogs that Accept Guest Posts
• ScopeforMoney.com – List of 50 Blogs that Accept Guest Blogging
• Techuse – Blogs Where You Can Guest Post
• My Blog Guest

The lists may or may not be up to date, and they probably overlap somewhat, so don’t just go willy-nilly clicking. Like you would anyway, right?

Hey – Don’t take it from us; a lot of people will agree that guest posting isn’t for everybody. Not everybody can do it; not everybody wants to do it; not everybody has the time. However, it is one of the quickest ways to be noticed and gain recognition in your niche market. Automatically assuming that it would be a waste of your time is a good way to cut your business off at the knees. Look at the possibilities and decide whether guest posting is for you.

A question for you – What rules would you lay out for guest posting?

Google World Domination

Back in January 2010, we published “The Path to Google’s World Domination Is Covered in Free Applications”. Truth be told, it was simple curiosity leading us to write the post:

“Google World Domination [video] is based around a prediction that Google will run the world by 2014. There’s even a countdown to “doomsday”. When you read the page and watch the video, it seems like a conspiracy theory. We wanted to see where it was going and started clicking links.”

Recently, Google acquired Motorola Mobility – Motorola’s Mobile Devices division until January 2011. Of course, there’s a big paragraph at the bottom full of legalize about “forward-looking statements” in true Google CYA manner.

Anyway, this acquisition once again caught our attention. –And, once again, we decided to delve into the path of Google’s world domination. How close are they getting? What do they own now? What’s changed?

Google Is a BIG Company

Google World Domination

At the time of this writing, Google Inc. (GOOG) stock closed at $563.77 per share. That’s more than Apple (AAPL), at $376.99, and definitely more than Microsoft (MSFT), which closed at $25.10.

Among a huge list of other things, Google owns:

• At least 75 offices in 43 countries
• Approximately 900,000 servers
• 2 operating systems (Android and Chrome OS)
• A public DNS resolution service
• 12+ advertising-based products, including DoubleClick, AdWords and Click-to-Call
• 26 Facebook pages
• 45+ YouTube channels
• Way more Twitter accounts than one company should ever need
• 187 patents by 2008; 316 patents, two years later (a good Google patent list here)
• An additional 1,029 patents, bought from IBM in July 2011, with more to come once the Motorola deal is finalized
• 70 charging stations for electric cars
• Google Energy, an all-Google electric utility, which has the power to sell energy, capacity and services
• It’s own suite of office products, such as Google Docs (free) and Google Apps (business) – by the way, Google Apps is also Google’s own cloud service
• An eBook store
• A social network (of course)
• A paid/free website creator/hosting provider (think WordPress.com, Typepad, etc)
• Google One Pass (Associated Content, anyone?)
• Over 100 products, including Chromebook, Android, Chrome Web Browser, Google Desktop and Picasa (desktop and online photo editing software)
• Free, WiFi service (Mountain View only)
• An entire city block of Manhattan
• A fiber optic network
• A philanthropic section
• A venture capital investment section
• 30 acres in the small city of The Dalles, Oregon aka “Googleville”

Googleville seriously, here it is

As if that wasn’t enough, Google also provides services to the U.S. Government, such as a souped up Google Earth contracted to the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (built by the CIA and Defense Department). In fact, they’ve been in the government contracts business since 2009/2010.

Investments and Acquisitions – Google Pies

How many pies does Google have its fingers in? How many investments have they made? Since the beginning of 2001, Google has either bought or invested in over 100 services, companies and divisions.

For example, Android Inc was originally the brainchild of Andy Rubin, Rich Miner, Nick Sears andChris White. Google liked the look of the operating system and brought it into the fold – along with Rubin, Miner and White. In fact, Rubin is currently the Senior Vice President ofMobileat Google.

Picasa, a desktop application for photo editing/sharing, was a 2004 acquisition. At the time, it was meant to be used with Blogger. The online version, Picasa Web Albums, is now integrated with Google + as a way to instant upload and share photos.

Google Maps was built with the help of at least 6 different technology acquisitions, from four countries.

Cool or what?

Google Ventures investments cover such things as payment services, online marketplaces, the development of negative and carbon neutral fuels, anti-malware technology, vacation rentals, crowd sourced legal answers, fuel efficient cars… they’ve even invested in HubSpot (get the full list of Google Ventures investments).

So what pies does Google have its fingers in? Among the list is:

• Mobile phone software (Android)
• Smartphone creation (Nexus)
• Advertising
• Search
• Community grants
• Government application/contracts
• Imaging software
• Website development
• Green energy development
• Payment processing
• Social Networking (Google +, etc.)
• Video sharing
• Business/Enterprise applications
• Office software
• Web and social analytics software
• Cloud computing
• Blogging software
• 3D Modeling
• Online security

Is Google really aiming for world domination?

Is This The Future?

As the year 2014 draws closer (the year outlined in the original video), it definitely seems more possible. Who knows where they’re going next? Only Google, but you can be sure it’ll be something fantastic and, most likely, out of their expected sphere of influence.

What do you think? Can you see Google taking over the world – not as in “owning the governments” or “running countries”, but will the world turn Google centric? Weigh in!

Why I ask you, why?

Why are we, Level343, sharing information about mobile payments and your business? Buried in analytics, trends and so on as we are, we’ve seen a definite trend of visitors using mobile phones on our clients’ sites.  

The plain and simple truth is that mobile usage – in all forms – is growing; that growth includes the expectation of being able to make mobile payments. Take, for example, Google Wallet, which will use Citi® PayPass™ MasterCards and Google’s Prepaid Card at launch, but is planned to have more partners.

For many online business owners, the site is simply a virtual extension of the physical store. Making it more convenient for customers – and doing so before the competition – can be extremely advantageous. Having said all that, read on, as our guest poster, Dave Thomas, goes more in depth about mobile payments.  

From all indications, the mobile world we live in is only going to get more advanced, becoming a bigger part of our everyday lives.

As a small business, are you prepared to handle the demands of your customers or let them drift away to a competitor?

According to a recent report from KPMG International, 83 percent of some 1,000 executives in a variety of fields (tech to retail) believe mobile payments will be the mainstream prior the end of 2014. According to those surveyed, 46 percent believe paying via phone will be the norm by 2013.

As KPMG International sees it, ever-increasing smartphone growth and a number of opportunities will increase mobile payments at a much faster rate than respondents initially thought, especially given the competition. Companies like Isus, Google, Pay Pal and Square are among those looking to take their piece of the mobile payment pie, a sign of just how important this market is.

For small businesses, mobile payments can, not only offer the consumer an easier ability to pay, but can open up the doors for you, the business owner. They also provide a faster and more stream lined payment process. The day may not be as far away as some may have thought where credit cards and wallets take a back seat to one’s phone in order to pay for a purchase.

As a small business owner, are you prepared for when this day comes?

The Future of Mobile

According to many experts who follow the world of mobile payment technology, it would behoove small business owners to be in the forefront and not at the back of the line in accepting this technology.

In the event your company is not up to speed on the mobile payment world, now would certainly be the time to jump in and get your feet wet.

Among the advantages to having mobile payments in place are:

• Payment processing is quicker – Given that you’re no longer required to stand idly by waiting for a receipt, you can move your customers in and out more quickly;
• You snooze you lose – For those small businesses not offering mobile payments, there is a greater chance of losing customers to those businesses that do. Remember how things were before your business was able to accept credit cards? There is a good chance you lost customers who wanted to pay with plastic instead of cash. The same will hold true with those wanting to use their phone instead of plastic;
• Fraud is less likely – Although nothing is 100 percent foolproof, not having customers use credit cards as much lessens the chances of fraud. We all know that credit cards can be lost or stolen, while the chance of someone having their phone stolen is smaller.

If you’re not dialed in to mobile payments just yet, here are several means to go about it:

First, determine what type of implementation you want – among the choices would be a smartphone app, using the smartphone to read credit cards or letting customers use smartphones via near field communication (NFC).

The next step involves selecting a vendor, but be sure to research each and every one of them to look how the contracts are worded regarding fees etc.

Lastly, make sure security for both you and the customer is a high priority. You will want a secured wireless network with a card swiper that is encrypted.

While not everyone will immediately catch on to the world of mobile payments, your business can leave its footprint in the mobile world and reap the benefits of more customers in the process.

Ready. Set. Jump Into Metrics.

You’ve taken your website through the evaluation process. Maybe you found some things that need to be changed; maybe you were lucky and found that your site was already well prepared. Either way, you’ll eventually have to dig in to the metrics and make sure things are happening like they’re “supposed” to.

Maybe it’s too soon for some of you to roll up your sleeves and jump into metrics. However, monitoring things, at least once a quarter, is always something we recommend with any new business (or any old business, for that matter).

How good are your metrics? How good is your social media and SEO ROI? Do you know?

Tracking Direct Campaign Benefits

One of the biggest reasons to look at your metrics is because your campaigns can go off track without you knowing it. For that matter, if you implement a campaign without watching the results, you wouldn’t know if it ever did what it was supposed to.

With website statistics, you get a chance to find out if your campaigns are giving you direct benefits. For example, how many people came to your site, and where did they come from? Are you getting more visits from Twitter or from your Facebook page? How many referrals are you getting from other sites that are talking about your content?

Not only will you need to know the answers to these questions, but you’ll also need to be able to compare the information.

Why?
Social media and content campaigns are two big parts of many marketing efforts now. With this in mind, consider the number of social networks. As well, consider how many sites you could guest post on. Can you possibly use them all? No. Therefore, we always recommend trying a social network and a few content sites first, then watch the results for at least three months.

Comparing Metrics for Informed Decisions

For social networks, you compare the new one to the results from networks you’re currently using. Based on the information you receive, you can then decide whether it’s worth incorporating that network into your campaign. Metrics you might compare are:

• Traffic from the networks
• Bounce rate per network (make sure you have the 10 second GA rule in place before putting any weight at all on this metric)
• How many mentions, RT’s and conversations you had per network, per post

In this way, you can find out how much exposure you get. You can use products such as TweetReach, HootSuite or Kloutto track your reach and exposure on individual tweets. As well, Facebook Insights can give you metrics on the health of your FB page.

What Are Your Social Metrics?

What about content placement sites?
Well, mainly, you’re looking at the number of referrals. The other metrics you’d track depend on what you’d planned for a particular post. For example, if your article only has a link to your home page, you want to look at whether they went anywhere else on your site. If your article has a deep link, perhaps to an article, you’ll need to look at how much time they spent on the page, whether they went anywhere else and so on.

Points to Ponder
It’d be nice if the above were all you had to keep in mind. Just look at the data and compare numbers, right? Unfortunately, it’s a little more complicated than that. You also have to look at what the post was about, how it was written, how long it was and so on. You need to be able to keep track of how you send out the posts as well.

For example, are you asking questions before or after the link? “How do you feel about XYZ – weigh in! [link]” In other words, are you giving them a reason to click on Twitter? Do you give them something to respond to on Facebook?

When you guest post, do you push the post as well, or leave that up to the host site? In other words, how involved are you in your content?

The Metric Called “Relationships”

Once you have something to look at – once you have all your data in one spot – you can look at how the metrics relate to each other.

Conversions are a good example. If you have analytics set up correctly, you’ll have a goal funnel in place. With a goal funnel, you can see the whole process – from the time they reach your site to the time they (hopefully) convert and then leave.

In this way, you can see how many from Twitter vs. how many from Facebook (for example), actually went through the entire conversion process and out the other end. -And, this data can help you understand which sites, networks, etc, bring stronger results in terms of meeting your main goal.

Yet, with all this data and all this knowledge, decision making, et all, there are some things about building relationships that you can’t track using analytics metrics. For example, the data doesn’t tell you about Joe, who’s running in the same site circles as you. Joe likes your content; he recognizes your name and company every time he sees an article you posted, no matter where you posted it.

Here’s another good example:

We had a potential client contact us for a big contract – one of our first big contracts, at that. About three months in, during a conversation about social media, the client said, “Well, yeah, that’s where I found you guys.”

As it turns out, they’d been following our Level343 account for several months – just one of the thousands of followers and monthly visitors to our blog. When it came time to optimize their site, they immediately thought of us.

Trust... never break it.

Why?
Because, unbeknownst to us, we’d created a relationship with them. Of course, that was the plan all along, but you don’t know if you’ve succeeded until such a thing happens. For this person, we’d managed to do what everyone aims for with social media and content development: create a sense of trust, a sense of authority, and a feeling that they “know” us.

How Do You Track Social Relationships?

“Social” relationships don’t come just from social media. They don’t even have to be someone you’ve spoken to or interacted with. Social relationships are any relationships you’ve built throughout the business and marketing processes. For example, they can be someone:

• You met at a conference
• Who’s a regular of a site you guest post on (but may never have actually visited your site)
• Following you on a social network
• Who has visited your blog
• Who’s a friend of one of your vendors
• Who’s a friend of a client/former client
• Who was forwarded one of your newsletters

With all these possibilities, how can you possibly figure out where they came from? Simply put, you have to ask:

Trust is more than an emotion

• In your contact form, have a “how did you hear about us” question. Offer 3 – 5 options of places you’re actively marketing, such as a newsletter, on Twitter, on Facebook, through a friend, through a client, etc.
• If you don’t have a contact form, you can provide a brief survey that includes the question.
• If they call you on the phone, ask them.
• If they’re buying products, add the question to the buying form.

For that matter, you can offer them incentive to answer the question and/or continue the conversation on social networks and/or subscribe to your newsletter:

Example:
Are you following us on Twitter? Enter your Twitter ID for a chance to win [product name, discount, etc].

Example:
Subscribe to our newsletter to get exclusive offers and discounts!

Take it from us, tracking your traffic and conversions isn’t hard, but eventually you have to delve into the returned data to be able to do anything with it. Otherwise, you’re just throwing actions and energy into a bunch of “stuff” and hoping something works. This is what we call “counterproductive” campaigns.

Use the data. Use the metrics. Use the relationships and everything that comes along with them. Knowing where your traffic is coming from and what referrals convert the best will greatly enhance the return on your campaigns, as well as the return on your investments! 

ANOTHER SOCIAL NETWORK?? Come on!!!

It seems like every time a new social media network pops up, a fresh spate of articles are sure to follow. These cookie cutter articles tout all the many wondrous, fantastic reasons you should hop on, jump in and climb on the bandwagon. 

Well, we say “enough”! Social media has enough cheerleaders, pro-social arguments and lessons. It’s time somebody put their foot down, and brought up some points about why you don’t need social media.

It’s just another way to drive traffic.

Who needs direct traffic? All those people following Twitter and Facebook links… they’d just put wear and tear on your website. Plus, there’s article marketing, directory submissions and PPC to drive traffic to your site. Don’t be a sheep! You CAN get traffic without social media, networking or connecting!

You can’t handle the demand.

Can't keep up?

Who needs cheerleaders? This is an important point, because Twitter and Facebook have been proven to generate leads. What happens if you have a strong social media campaign? What if you get tons of leads? No… don’t worry about it. You have more work then you can handle! If you get on social networks, you may not be able to keep up with demand – and nobody wants that worry.

You can’t afford it.

Everybody talks about the “affordability” of social media, but success never comes cheap. Why, even if you have a social media marketing plan, it takes an hour maybe two every morning to implement. – And, if you want to use something like Hootsuite to track your social campaign, it’s a hefty $5.99 a month!

You don’t need feedback – your product and business is just fine, thank you.

No comment!

The last thing you need is to worry about how people view your products, services or business. So what if you can get instant feedback from social media networks? Who needs that headache? Nobody wants to hear about how their business, customer service, products or services can be improved. –And anyway, improvement is highly overrated. There’s something to be said for “old school”.

Your site is ranking on at least the third page of the SERPs.

Just because social marketing is an important signal to search engines doesn’t mean it has to be an important signal to you. You’re on the third page of the SERPs, at the very least, and, really, that number one spot isn’t that valuable. It only gains about 36% of the traffic for that search, right? Pfft – who needs it!

Relationships are for sissies.

When people talk about social, they talk about “building relationships”. Look, you own a business. You’re in the business of building that business, not making friends. As well, there’s all this “trust” stuff, which doesn’t make sense. Why have all those trusted signals, like the VeriSign logo, on your site if it wasn’t to build trust?

Don't need no stinking help

You don’t need more publicity.

Millions of people, nay, hundreds of millions of people, use social networks. That’s a lot of publicity you don’t need. You have a fantastic product, and word will get out on its own. Besides, how much can you say in 140 characters or less that you can’t say when someone asks you what you sell? Waste of time, really.

Conclusion

Ah… sarcasm. Ain’t it wonderful? For you regular readers, you know how much weight we put on social media and networking: a lot. Social media marketing is an inexpensive, relatively easy way to drive traffic to your site and gain leads.

You have lightening fast distribution, a large audience and a variety of networks to work with. On top of that, you also get a certain quality of traffic; readers are more likely to read all the way through (or a larger percent of the way through) an article given by someone they know. You can develop relationships, find cheerleaders, gain an edge on the ranking competition and much more.

The next time someone brings up social media networks and asks why they should use SMM, don’t forget the all-important rejoinder: Why not? Then, point them this way… we’ll get them started on the right path!

Can you feel it?

After all the Google Plus hoopla (and a few posts of our own), it seemed only right, fair and equal to spend a little time on Facebook. Of course, it helps that we had a specific request for this article.  A  pro pos to this post, the request came from a Facebook fan – can’t beat that for on topic!

Before getting deep into lead generation facts here, I’d like to mention a fantastic Facebook page to inspire you and show you what’s possible. Facebook isn’t just about posting status updates; you can do that anywhere. In fact, some businesses use FB as their only place of online business.

The business page I’d like to direct your attention to is Livescribe’s. The Livescribe FB page is of particular interest here, because it shows exactly how much can be done in terms of lead generation. Go ahead, click around.

What Livescribe did right on Facebook…

Now, it helps the Livescribe is an interesting product. What could be more interesting than being able to write on a notebook and have it turned into a document? However, they did a lot of things right to turn their FB page into a lead generating machine.

1. Make it interesting.

I couldn't resist... :)

When you first come to the Livescribe page, you don’t see the Wall. You see, instead, three carefully targeted ads – yet, they don’t exactly look like ads. They look like information sections: perfect for the informavore. What they do is act like a “snack sized” bite of information. As well, each one has a specific call to action, and that CTA tells them what they’re going to do if they click.

2. Pre-qualify leads.

You might expect that clicking on one of these will send you to the website. It doesn’t. Each of the three links take you to another page – still on Facebook – to help you narrow down what you’re looking for. It isn’t until the third click that you’re taken to the site. In this way, the company begins lead pre-qualification; most visitors to the website who click through from Facebook will be truly interested in the product.

3. Give more.

Fanning on Facebook, which basically bookmarks the page for you, gives you access to features not available on the website. For example, Livescribe has a FB support group. As well, you have access to their YouTube channel from within their pages, rather than having to take that extra step. Actively moderated, you have access to a live person, responding to questions and comments.

Give More

4. A place to leave feedback.

One of the most positive things about G+ reactions has been the fact that they opened their product up to user feedback. Livescribe also does this, through the FB support forum, allowing individuals to submit ideas based on their experience, needs or wants. Due to the native FB features, other people can add that they’ve thought of it too, indicating one particular feature request is more wanted than another.

What you might be doing wrong on Facebook…

A while back, a blog came out on Outspoken Media entitled The #1 Reason Your Customers Hate You On Facebook. True to the name of the company, the article is straight up, nay, bluntly forward, about what the author considers the #1 reason FB isn’t working. To put it simply, the reason is lack of follow through or, in reality, lack of thought all together.

Facebook is a tool. That’s all it is. What you use that tool for, and how you use it, is what decides whether it’s a successful tool. For example, banging a hammer against something isn’t going to do much beside leave dents – but you put a nail under that hammer, a piece of wood and some plans, you might be in business.

Fixing your Facebook page for lead generation…

Now you’ve seen a company using Facebook like the tool it is, and you’ve read about what might be lacking… get to it!

Just kidding. Don’t hate me.

Here are a few tips (with example links) that can help you improve your fan page:

Make it harder to access – This completely goes against the grain of “ease of use” that we normally say, but stick with me here.

Lets' get picky

When people first started contacting us to guest blog, we turned them down. Not because they were bad writers, but because it wasn’t a direction we were looking at then. Having been closed off to guest writers for four years, when we opened up the blog to guest posters, we started receiving a lot of requests for guest spots.

The moral here is, when something seems inaccessible, the human condition is to want it more. The Creative Marketing and Acclaim page capitalizes on this concept, by starting with a game. Find the real “like” button to be taken to the official fan page.

Create a welcome page – Most business pages can be accessed at their walls. Quite simply, a wall can be bland, boring.. meh. Having your FB go to a specially created page, however, spices your FB area up. Where do you want them to go? What can they do after they click the Like button?

The Big Click Studios page, for example, does an excellent job of redirecting the user after the “Like”. Most people won’t be visiting your FB page every day. Big Click Studios prepares for that with links to the blog, a hint of what you’ll see by following them on Twitter, and – most importantly – that beautiful “Subscribe to our newsletter” section with a bit of random fact next to it. Finally, the FB page is it’s own shiny example of the quality of service they offer.

Give them the chance to share their contact details – Like Big Click Studios, the fan page of Tristan Richards (Internet Marketing Reggae Star, love that title) does just that.

Now, you don’t have to have a blatant sales page. You can do something as simple as Brand Sprout’s understated example, as immediate as Big Click’s, or as in your face as Tristan’s. You can even try something like Blue Sky Factory’s example. However, if you have a newsletter or other offers that require an email address, don’t leave this part out!

Offer something extra – Give them a worthwhile reason to become a fan. If you offer special sales, offer a few exclusively to FB fans. Maybe you have videos, pics or demos; you can offer them an early preview. In short, consider what you can give them that they won’t get elsewhere?

Lead them – Finally, don’t leave them dangling at Facebook with nothing to do. Lead them – guide them to do something interesting, whether it’s on FB with an app or on your site with a link. You have to show them some way to get to the buy/signup/conversion, whether it’s a tab, a link, an offer, or a product. – And, that offer has to be enticing enough that they are caught up in the process.

As a perfect example, I was surprised to find myself on Livescribe’s site. If I’d had the time, I’d have browsed it, and maybe bought something. Instead, I bookmarked it for later – a certified FB lead.

Further reading…

A little extra for you!

I know, you’re thinking that all this might take some serious programming and design skills. However, if you’re really interested in sprucing up your fan page, these links will get you started:

• Facebook Cheat Sheets, Sizes and Dimensions
• 4 Free Facebook Landing Page Creation Tools
• 20 Examples of Great Facebook Pages (HubSpot) 
• 25 Brilliant Examples of Facebook Brand Pages (eConsultancy)

Finally, read How Facebook Factors Into Lead Generation. Yes, you have to fill out a nosy “who are you” form to get it, but there’s a lot of good information in this PDF. For example, businesses with over 1,000 FB fans generate 12 times more leads.

Conclusion

Facebook is one of the highest lead generation and revenue generating platforms on the Internet. If you’re using it for business, it only makes sense that you use it right. No matter what you do, or what changes you make, just remember that it’s a tool. And a tool is only as good as the use it’s put to!

Sneeky Google Plus

So, Google comes up with this fancy “Plus” thing. Everybody rushed to take a look-see, only to be locked out as the big G slammed the doors on the masses to slow the flood to a trickle.

The first week was like a Black Friday rush on sales. For the first time, iPhone users frowned at their fancy gadgets and longed for an Android just so they could use the brand spankin’ new Google + app (Apple, by the way, allowed the iGoogle app to go through Tuesday). G+ invites were being sold on eBay for a paltry $25 – $100 (depending on the seller), guaranteed immediate delivery*.

*Most sales have dropped to a starting low, low price of $0.99.

In the First 24 Hours, Speculations, Facts and Fallacies Run Amuck

Psst.. Google Plus is a Facebook killer - Pass it on!

Over 18,000 pages showed up on the Internet in the first 24 hours that specifically spoke about Google’s new baby. Topics were varied:

The Wall Street Journal wrote a short piece about Google’s Facebook copycat, saying the company “appears to like crushing the dreams of soon-to-be-public tech companies.”

ReadWriteWeb offered up a piece after scoping out Google’s new social digs, calling Plus “really cool” and a “super ambitious effort”. The well-written initial Google Plus review by Marshall Kirkpatrick is a basic once-over. Interesting to this reader was the fact that he ended it with, “Can you imagine hundreds of millions of people leaving Facebook for this and sticking with it? That’s a very tall order.”

-And who wouldn’t expect Mashable to throw in their two cents? They did, with a piece called, “Google’s Latest Social Network – Google Launches Google + To Battle Facebook”. Again, it’s a great “once over”, with comments interspersed throughout from Vic Gundotra (G’s senior vice pres). Again, the most interesting thing is the mention of G+ as Google’s answer to Facebook.

In the Conclusion, author Ben Parr writes,

“No matter what Google says, Google+ is the company’s response to the rise of Facebook. The two companies are in heated competition for talent, page views and consumers. While Google controls the search market and has a strong presence on mobile with Android, it hasn’t been able to crack the social nut.“ [emphasis ours]

The Washington Post talks about it taking aim at Facebook. Gawker.com says G+ swears it’s more trustworthy (than FB, of course!), while Business Insider says it’s just like everything else and no big deal.

Google Plus Facebook, via Baby Banter

Now That Everyone Has Weighed In…

Everyone seems sure that Facebook’s death is Google’s goal in launching G +… or maybe it’s Twitter… or maybe Skype. It makes sense in a way, right? After all, social seems to be one of the few corporate pies Google consistently missed and had yet to get its proverbial fingers in, doesn’t it?

Well, now that everyone has weighed in with the “Facebook killer” theory, let me ask a question:

If G+ is only to kill Facebook, why make Google employees bonuses dependant on the success of this venture? Is it just about ad revenue percentages? eMarketer.com predicts FB ad revenues to reach 21.6%, while Google’s is expected to be at a paltry 12.6%. – But is this the only reason for Google Plus?

Google Plus One…

Google Plus One button

In an article discussing the ad revenue forecasts as well as the introduction of Google’s +1 button, Mashable’s Jolie O’Dell begins to open up a slightly different point of view. “Google’s +1 may pit the search giant against the social network in four key areas,” she writes. The top key area is “New User Acquisition”. Keep in mind – this is a full three months before Google Plus was announced:

“Making a Google Profile a requirement for those addictive little +1 buttons is a smart move on Google’s part. It may not match Facebook’s 500 million-strong membership when the feature rolls out to all users, but it has a good shot at vastly increasing levels of profile adoption.”

+1 rolls out and people (somewhat) just shrug and go on. Too similar to Facebook’s “Like” button, with nothing really attached to it. Oh – right, except that Google profile you have to have if you want to use the +1 button…

In a one-two punch, Google then lays out G+, which, incidentally, connects +1 buttons and Google profiles. Don’t forget that there are now more Google profiles than there had been, due to the +1 implementation. –And, for those that didn’t care enough about +1 to get a profile, there’s now G+, which also needs a profile to use.

…and a Slightly Different Point of View

At this point, more people have Google profiles, and more people are using their previously dusty profile, in order to participate on G+. Plus gathered 10 million users in 2 weeks, by the way, and is currently serving up more than 1 billion items per day.

Although this is a “never seen before” statistic, it isn’t the true success of Google Plus. So, what is? Feast your eyes on the following three comments plucked from the SERPs (on Google):

+Tom Anderson: “In the past, I’ve used Google Docs mainly because I wanted web access to files. I’ve never collaborated on it, and now I’m hooked on doing that. Google+ is making me use Google products that I formally only had a slight interest in. In the past week, I’ve started to toy with Blogger & Picasa. Why switch to Gmail, I used to think? Yahoo will do just fine. I’ve been using Gmail more and more.”

+Dominique Johnson: “This is pretty cool! I must say I have found myself using Google more & more since I got on my G+ platform.”

@orli : “Also I must say that Google Plus excites me because of the extensive options and its future connection to other Google services (Gmail, Calendar, Places, etc).”

Finally, let’s read a little of AllFacebook.com’s post, “The One Google Plus Feature Facebook Should Fear”. Author Nick O’Neil opens the post with, “I’ve found the one feature that could take away from Facebook where it’s most dominant: Time on the site.”

However, here’s the really important “take away” from Nick’s post:

“To be honest, my gut reaction after using Google Plus was initially, ‘Why on earth would anybody switch to this from Facebook?’

However, when I loaded up Google Finance as I do every morning, I suddenly realized that I was asking the wrong question. The reality is that users won’t have the option of not using Google Plus.

Google already has more users than Facebook, over one billion. They aren’t going to suddenly leave Facebook in droves, they’re just going to spend more time on all the sites in Google’s network. That big notifications box in the top right of all Google sites is the reason why.”

So What Is Google Really Aiming For?

Jus squeeeeze yer eyes

Humans are intrinsically lazy – as in, most of us will willing adapt if that adaptation is easy. With Google + and “ease of use” in mind, please follow this last thought trail:

From within G+ Hangouts, you can:

• have a private “face-to-face” business meeting
• watch videos together on YouTube (Google property)
• give a presentation and discuss
• co-produce a spreadsheet or document live (with Google Docs)

From within G+ Circles you can:

• Share sensitive documents to a private corporate “room”, or circle and lock down resharing (document control)

From within the G+ Mobile App, you can:

• Conduct meetings or continue private sharing (currently still only available on Android, a Google produced phone. It’s earmarked for Apple as well, which means snagging some of Apple’s market for Google’s products).

From within G+ Photos, you can:

• Create and share a presentation (using Picasa, a Google product)

In short, Google is swiftly integrating a large amount of its products into its new social networking productivity platform. It isn’t Facebook that needs to be watching its coat tails. It’s Microsoft. It’s Apple. It’s every productivity suite you’ve ever come across.

For those that need visual convincing (i.e. pictures), we came across this great presentation on, you guessed it, G+. By +Vincent Wong, It’s also a fantastic example of how a presentation can be created and shared.

The little black bar at the top of the screen takes you to your:

• Calendar
• News Reader
• Documents
• Spreadsheets
• Presentations
• PDFs
• Online photo albums
• YouTube
• Search

You can use it for shopping and quick checkout, for finding recipes, for finding sales and researching scholarly write ups. It’s a single click from your Blogger blog, or photo editing on Picnik. With Fusion Tables, you can create data maps and charts. In short, there’s a lot you can do with Google, and it’s all connected to G+.

Conclusion

Google Plus isn’t a Facebook, Twitter or other social network killer. Yes, they want to get into social, but as a means to bigger and better things. Google wants the cloud, and it wants to take you (and your friends, and your friends friends friends) with it.

– And you know what? By the time they’re done tinkering with G+ after all the feedback, you might not find that such a bad offer.

Fight! Fight!

In a day and age when companies are fighting fervently for each and every consumer dollar, it should come as no surprise that branding is more important than ever. Whether it is the AFLAC Duck, the Pep Boys’ bobble heads or the GEICO caveman, companies want you to remember them for one simple reason – branding.

While not all consumers make their purchasing decisions based on a character they see or hear in the media, some in fact do. That being the case, what are you doing to brand your small business so consumers remember your brand and services?

Make no mistake about it, it takes time and funds to construct a brand that is on the tips of tongues, but it can be done with even the smallest of businesses. While your small business does not have the funding of the major players, it can construct a branding campaign to make it stand out from the competition.

The key to any successful branding efforts is repetition.

Key to Success

Simply put, you need to remind consumers why they should use your brands and/or services and not the other guy. Sound difficult? Well, it really isn’t.

First, branding is not going to be successful if you’re not consistent with it, especially early on when you are looking to establish a name for yourself and construct your brand. Constantly changing the look and feel of your product does not allow the consumer time to get to know you, therefore likely leading them to search for a company who has a more stable feel to it.

Businesses should make a logo.

This is something that can be done either in-house or farmed out depending on your financial means and talent within the company.  The logo will be your identifying mark when communicating with consumers via company signage, business cards, emails and more. If your struggling with a concept for a logo, put it on the back burner so as to do it right the first time around.

Web sites are another important piece of the pie.

Many consumers now shop for goods and services online. Keep in mind that the Web site should be professional in nature and reflects your brand image. Lastly, the Web site needs attention, so plan on updating it regularly. If your Web site’s content is stale and unappealing looking, customers are more apt to go elsewhere.

When piecing the Web site together, be informative.

Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together

Make sure there is “About Us” information and “Contact” information. How many times have you been on a company’s site and felt frustrated because you had trouble locating the above-mentioned information? Don’t make readers go on a safari looking for pertinent details such as what your company does and how you can be contacted.

With your site in play and an identifiable logo to boot, networking becomes a key factor.

Whether you blog, use social media or do both, you need to network with individuals in order to spread the word regarding your brand.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are great ways to push the word out regarding your brand. Social media can be a formidable tool to promote your business, discuss industry trends and happenings with others, offer deals on your company’s products and more.

Business cards are another important piece of the puzzle as you look to market your brand.

While you do not have to spend a ton of money on cards, do not try and make them yourself if you’ve never done it before. Having a tacky looking business card is not better than having no card at all. With both your identity and image making up your brand, take the time to do the cards right initially.

Lastly, track your company’s online reputation.

While you can’t be in two places at once, you need to stay abreast of your company’s online reputation.

If a customer has said something negative about your goods and/or services online, you need to present your side of the story. By setting the record straight, that doesn’t mean getting in an online shouting match with someone, but you should not let complaints, concerns, etc. go unchallenged.

Like they say, there are always two sides to a story. Present your side of the story in a professional manner so that your online reputation is not seriously harmed.

Conclusion

These are but a few of the numerous branding tips that one’s business should give strong consideration to in order to communicate with customers and inform them of your products. Branding, simply put, is the “face” of your business in a specific industry, so give yourself more reasons to smile by doing things right the first time around.

Growing your business

When a person becomes successful, it seems like suddenly they’re too busy dealing with the higher echelons to take time out for the “little people”. It’s something that’s always bugged us. It was all fine and dandy for you to respond to comments and whatnot when you were a little guy, but now that you’re big…

It’s something we’ve been thinking a lot about lately, because we’re growing. We’re taking on bigger jobs, bigger companies and more work. Along with this growth, come questions like:

• How can we continue to write our blogs personally?
• Will we still be able to moderate the blog at the same level of attention?
• How can we continue to build our relationships?
• What will fall by the wayside?

We’re facing the possibility that we may not be able to do all the things we’ve been doing: things that make a business more approachable, more human – friendlier.

Today, we’d like to discuss the idea of “remembering the little people”. Not just for your benefit, as your business continues to grow, but also as a reminder to us. Because one day, someone might be complaining about us – how we were cool with commenting and sharing while we were a small company, but now that we’re big…

You Didn’t Build the Business On Your Own

Wherever you are in your business goals right now, you didn’t do it all by your lonesome. Maybe you have friends and family that support you. Maybe you have good employees.

You didn't do this on your own!!

Maybe, the “little people” you need to remember are the old bosses you had. Those who, by their actions, forced you into a position of “I’m not going to take it anymore.” So, you packed up your professional bags and took them on the road. You hung out your freelancer or entrepreneur sign and settled into the business of running a business.

Or, maybe the “little people” are your clients and customers. They bought your product, contracted your services, or otherwise invested their trust and money in your brand. It’s a big leap of faith for them to do that – to complete that first order.

Or even you – yeah, you. Because you’re one of the little people, right now, at this time in your business. You’re working the long hours, struggling to figure out how to do it all, fighting that uphill battle. You’re wishing one of those “higher ups” would answer a question and give a helping hand.

Don’t ever forget where you are right now – no matter how far you go.

Why Remembering is So Important for You and Your Business

You didn’t think we’d write a blog without adding info for you to use, did you? Other than keeping you on solid ground sans swelled head, what good does remembering do?

• Friends and family – Believe it or not, a lot of successful business people aren’t so successful in life. They put so much energy into building a business, into their meaning of professional success, that there just isn’t much left over for anything – or anyone – else.

The Takeaway – Don’t neglect friends and family. If for no other reason, than that a business won’t keep you warm and laughing when you’re old. When you unplug for the day, really unplug. Put your business thoughts to bed. Turn off your phone; step away from the computer. You need the break, and they need your undivided attention.

• Employees and crappy bosses – Why remember a bad boss? Why dredge up old memories? Often, the motivating force behind people “becoming their own boss” has to do with their previous encounters with professional authority. A good employee is hard to find. Yet some business owners forget, and use sentences like, “You’re replaceable.” It’s true, but then, bosses are replaceable, too.

The Takeaway – Good employees help your business grow. They help you with the “grunt work”. They talk to clients, to customers, to potential partners – all to grow your business. Don’t forget what it was like when you were the employee. The more you treat your employees with respect, the more they’ll be willing to go that extra mile that is so often needed.

• Customers and clients – The people who buy your product or pay for your services are the backbone of your company’s growth. You can’t be successful without them.
  

  We love our clients!!

The Takeaway – Treat your customers like friends whenever possible. Thank them when they take that final step of payment, or the extra step of connecting with you. Although some businesses have NDAs, eCommerce sites might offer to connect using #newcustomer, for example. Let them feel like they’re an important part of the business, because they are!

• You – Listen. Without “you”, you can’t do any of it. Don’t ever forget that, although you’re a vital part of the company, you aren’t the company itself.

The Takeaway – Cut yourself some slack once in awhile. Accept that, darn it, you’re human, and you’re allowed to be human. You’re allowed to rest occasionally and enjoy the fruits of your hard labor. It’s not illegal to pause for a day!

Conclusion

All of the people above, all of the so-called “little” people, helped get you where you are. You didn’t do it on your own; remember that others helped you along the way, no matter who they are or how they did it. That’s why we say:

When all is going well with your business, when comments are pouring into your blog, when you no longer have to ask for retweets and your bank account is flush with greenie success – remember the “little people”.

Now’s your chance, and we’d love to hear your stories. Tell us about someone who has made a difference in your business or outlook on life!

It's official I'm Hawt!!

It’s official – Gabriella has left the building. She’s off to Italy for three weeks, and she’s left me in charge. Mwahahaha – the awesome power! *mad giggle*

I’m excited, and I’ll tell you why. I get to test stuff while she’s gone!! Okay, so it’s only three weeks, and it won’t be able to be anything really crazy – I mean, I’m not going to put comments above posts or anything. Don’t be too surprised, though, if you see some changes. Today, it’s the Article Archive, tomorrow, the world (I feel like the mad scientist of websites)!

Allow me to direct your attention to the bottom of the posts, where I’m testing a new button. Well, it’s a new button for us. I want to switch our tweet button from the Official Twitter Button to the Topsy Tweet Button. Gabriella* wants to keep our current button. Therefore, I have to prove why Topsy’s button is better.

*because she doesn’t want to loose the hard work she’s put in the last quarter getting us a ridiculous amount of traffic and RT’s  from pimping on every street corner to promising Nutella jars to anyone and everyone. Furthermore, she let me switch from another version of the Twitter button and we lost a large percentage of the RT power we had… Sure, she’s easy, and always looking to be progressive – to keep up with the times -, but after loosing all RT buttons she lost faith. Faith in the RT values, faith in numbers and faith in these OVERNIGHT success buttons that come and go like the wind (she’s serious about her social, people).

Here’s my argument. Maybe you can help me make it more persuasive, huh?

Why the Official Tweet Button Sucks

We’ve used the Official Tweet button (called the OTB from here on out) since it first came out. First, we had problems with the code output… several instances of oh-so-not-sexy “AKPC_IDS +=” code. Okay, so that might have been, MIGHT have been, operator error. I’m willing to accept that and move on.

Then, the real problem showed up, when Gabriella came banging on my door, demanding for me to tell her what I did with her social numbers. To be fair, I had done something with the numbers on three articles a few days before. I changed the URLs, the tweet numbers plummeted to a big fat zero, and I forgot to tell her it would happen*.

*By the way, don’t ever just copy your blog title and publish it without checking the link first. Especially if you use extra characters like dashes, apostrophes or quotes. One, they transfer into fugly URLs. Two, you’re more likely to have broken links and 404 errors if someone copy/pastes the URL to use as a link back to the post. Lessons learned and all that…

Oops My Bad!

Anyway, when she showed up at my door, I assumed she meant the three articles. “You already told me that,” she said, “but what about…” Long story short, we’d lost numbers. Big numbers. They didn’t all go to zero, but we’d lost 50 here, 30 there, 10 there, and so on. Turns out the culprit was the OTB or, to be more exact, Twitter. It took me months and an interesting conversation to figure this out.

You see, Twitter occasionally purges its system of old, dusty tweets. The OTB bases its numbers off the Twitter database. So, when Twitter purges, so does OTB. If you’re using OTB, expect your numbers to drop occasionally.

On top of this, OTB’s count is based on a specific URL. That is, the URL that posts when you RT. So, unless the tweeter actually pushes the button on the page, or you push the OTB and they RT your exact tweet, you don’t get the count.

Finally, there’s no style. It’s just… blue. There are WordPress plugins that go along with this button (TweetButton, WP-TweetButton, and WP Tweet Button, to name a few), and they have varying degrees of extra functionality, but… they’re just blue. Twitter Fail Whale blue, at that.

I’m not a colorist; I don’t have anything against blue, but it just doesn’t go with the site, know what I mean? Blue is just not how we roll.

Why Topsy’s Tweet Button Doesn’t Suck

Okay I'm spoiled too...

Dig the section titles? Yeah, I’m creative like that. It’s called “taking liberties”.

Anyway, observe, if you will, the following…

→ Firstly, Topsy’s Tweet Button (TTB) didn’t give me any crap when I put the code in. I didn’t get any stray characters or weird meta descriptions. Bonus; I like that about a plugin.

→ Secondly, TTB’s count is based off Topsy’s database. -And guess what? Topsy doesn’t delete old tweets. For us, TTB shows a count for posts back at the beginning of 2009 (when we really started hopping into social), while OTB shows zip, nada, zilch.

→ Thirdly, you have the option of showing, along with the tweet count, where a particular post ranks in comparison to the others on your site, in terms of Twitter conversation. For example, Top SEO Women – Just the Tip of the Iceberg (July 2010) is the top tweeted post on the Article Archive (by the way, Google Analytics shows it’s our top post, period). I really like that cool little “Top [star] 100” (or 1,000, 5,000, etc) addition.

→ Fourthly, TTB allows you to pull in the tweets as trackbacks to the blog, or as part of the comments. I’m currently dinking with that, so if the bits disappear and rearrange, ignore it – and that’s an order. I don’t know about you, but it seems a handy feature to me; even when someone doesn’t comment on the blog, visitors can still see it’s active.

→ Fifthly, TTB isn’t selective about the link. As long as it leads back to the page, it can be a bit.ly, ow.ly, add.me – doesn’t matter; TTB will pick it up as a count. Therefore, seems to me the count is closer to the real deal than OTB’s.

→ Sixthly, you can filter out your own signal, so you see what others have tweeted. I mean, you already know what you tweeted, right? Why do you need that information to muck up your metrics?

There are a lot more reasons why I’d like to switch to Topsy, but the final big reason is style. Sure, if you want blue, you can have blue. BUT, you can also have brick red, hot pink, wisteria, jade. Thirteen choices and flavors. On top of that, you can turn the “Top [star]” part off, if you prefer not to have it on there. You can just have a retweet button, put the numbers on either side or pop them up on top of the retweet in a big box.

Flexible, stylish, with options.

It’s flexible. It’s stylish. It has options.

I’d talk about the ability to add hashtags automatically, or add “by @twittername”, etc. but some of these options are offered by the OTB plugins as well. The things I mentioned above are native to the button itself.

Conclusion

I’m not sure if this is enough to back up my theory that TTB is a better button. I’m not sure if it will be enough to convince Gabriella to switch. There’s a reason she’s head of business development for Level343… she looks at the appearance of the company as much as she does the processes of the company; it’s her bailiwick.

Me… well, to tell you the truth… I’m a specie-ist.  I just don’t like the looks of that Twitter bird…

Here’s where I appeal to you, dear readers. Are you willing to help me convince Gabriella that TTB is better? By all means, pass it on to me! Or do you disagree? Maybe I’m the one that needs convincing. Share and share a like!

Are You Outstanding?

When the money’s pouring in and the economy is booming, almost everyone seems to flourish. The demand for products and services is high; there are more pieces of a bigger pie and more businesses can be involved. Of course, this isn’t so true when the economy “drags butt”, as so many eloquently put it.

“Well, duh,” you say, and start roaming around the page to see if there’s something here you don’t know. How about this – did you know there’s a way to succeed while other people/companies are dropping like flies?

You did? Oh. Well, do you know what that way is?

Problem: When the economy slows down, many small businesses are left holding an empty box. Consumers have too many choices, and we’re more meticulous in a slow economy than in a smoothly rolling one. We’re less likely to make impulsive decisions.

Solution: Interesting, not interrupted, marketing. A business that stands out from its competitors is a growing business – even in a slow economy.

Wait! Don’t roll your eyes – you’ll miss the slight of hand act!

Ask yourself:
Can I, with all the information and competition out there, really do something unique?

If not, the next question is:
Can I do something interesting?

Standing Out From the Rest

Standing out could mean a lot of things, and not always good things. You can stand out for poor customer service, for example, where you actually just stick out like a sore thumb.

Outstanding, however, means a lot more. It means being exceptional and the exception to the rule. It means excelling at being excellent. It means trying harder. Because you have to be doing a) something the competition isn’t doing or b) the same thing in a more interesting way. c) using the magic bullet (hard work).

How do you do that? Here are a few ideas:

Give ways to continue the conversation

That thank you page after the sale is SO important. What do you have on it? Is it just “Thanks, we took your money and we don’t need you anymore,” or is it exceptional? Does it allow customers a way to connect with you after the sale? For example:

• Remind them to bookmark the page with all your contact details
• Remind them that they can follow you on social networks

Excellent customer service

Do you respond quickly to customer service queries? How many ways do you provide for them to reach you if they have an issue or question? A few examples of what you might offer:

• sales@company.com
• support@company.com
• phone number for sales
• phone number for support
• @social account
• http:// link to monitored Q&A or FAQ site/page
• contact areas that report to a monitored email address

When we had a problem with AT&T, and then a technical issue with Empire Avenue, we took it to Twitter. Both responded promptly with ways to resolve those issues. This type of customer service – prompt, helpful, courteous – is outstanding. It sets, in the mind of the customer, a sense of trust and reliability towards the company.

Social monitoring and reputation management

To be able to provide that level of customer service, you have to know when people are complaining. Unfortunately, thanks to Facebook, Twitter and other social networks, as well as blogging opportunities galore, you’re probably not going to be able to hide your dirty laundry.

The best you can hope to do is monitor your online reputation and respond quickly. Not only does this give you the opportunity to turn an angry customer into a happy one, but it also shows potential customers that you care enough to “send the very best”.

So how do you monitor? A few ways include:

• Search Twitter using your @brand or #brand
• Watch your Twitter mentions
• Setting Google Alerts for specific brand words
• MonitorThis, which scans for terms across several types of search engines
• BlogPulse, which you can use to track conversations, find blogs based on a term, follow the conversation around a specific URL, etc.
• Use social search and specific hashtags (if applicable)

Go the extra mile

Take a look, it's not so bad...

One of the most effective things you can do to stand out from the rest is go that extra mile. “What does that mean?” you ask. Well, again, let’s give a few examples:

Write real reviews – take the time to review products, books, etc. that will be helpful to your target market. Share your insight into these products. Did you like it? Why or why not? What stood out most? This type of helpful information – unpaid, unbiased – can help you develop a trusting relationship with your customer base. It teaches them they can count on you to give an honest, in depth, unbiased opinion.

Create helpful videos – Do you sell a product that takes more than two steps to use? Even if you think something is obscenely easy to operate, there is at least one person out there, staring in confusion at a page of directions. There are tons of video creation products out there; if you have a little bit of time and initiative go that extra step and create a “how to use this product” video.

Build relationships – Easier said than done, you say? Pfft. Building relationships is easy; it’s keeping them that’s hard. Maybe it’d help to treat social media like a tactical exercise. Lure people in by following them on Facebook and Twitter. Buy them on Empire Avenue. Then, when they least expect it – as soon as they follow or buy you back -, attack them with engaging, witty repertoire! They’ll be so surprised, they’ll be sure to join your side.

Conclusion

Sometimes, you can’t beat out the competition in the SERPs. Sometimes you can’t beat the competition online at all. What you can do, however, is create a small niche – not a niche market, but a small niche of friends, satisfied clients, engaged readers and happy followers.

These people turn into your personal cheerleaders. They’re your small, yet effective marketing team. They say, “Ooh, have you checked with [insertyourcompanyhere]? Good products, awesome customer service… Maybe you can buzz them on Twitter with your question.” In fact, they say a lot of really nice, really helpful things – AND, they say these things to people who trust them. You can’t beat that kind of marketing.

In conclusion, don’t be afraid to go the extra mile. Don’t be afraid to give extraordinary customer service. In this economy or any other, the extra touches really make a difference.

More than one way

The problem with the word “conversion” is many assume it means “clicking on the call to action (CTA) and following through with the sale”. In other words, it’s assumed that there’s only one point of conversion. There isn’t; there’s many. With that said, let’s get to the good stuff…

How Conversion is Like a Relationship
There’s a reason why it’s called the buying process – because buying is much like a relationship. It’s a process of interactions, sharing and conversation. Now, we understand your imagination might not work like ours, so let’s walk you through it.

For the purpose of this illustration, Jack is the searcher. Jill is the page. Got it? Here we go…
• Jack is looking for some hot action in the SERPs.
• Jill’s title catches Jack’s eye.
• Jack checks out Jill’s whole package, eyes undressing her title, description and URL. He might even check her “posted on” date, if she’s showing it. Don’t want a result that’s too old, you know.
• Jack is in lust – it’s a date! Click through to Jill, advance to having coffee.

An invitation to coffee is like testing the waters. After all, you don’t want to end up stuck for hours with someone you realize you can’t stand within the first three minutes, right? Well, unlike relationships, where you might invite a first date to dinner, searchers are always in coffee mode. They’re going to test the waters first.

• Jack first gets the small talk out of the way and scans the page. Jill’s images are hot, layout is hot, logo is sexy and she’s just as good looking up close as she was in the SERPs.
• Jack enjoys the small talk and proceeds on to some in depth conversation. Jill shows him her title, adds a little paragraph and, maybe, if he’s lucky, a few bullet points.
• Jack likes what he hears and agrees to a second date, this time over dinner, by clicking on the “get more info” button. He gives Jill his contact details and says goodbye.
• Jill contacts Jack, says, “Hey, thanks for giving me your contact details. I really appreciate that. Let’s meet for dinner – I’ll give you more information.”

The rest, as they say, is metaphorical history. However, if you read between the lines, what you find is more than one conversion point. What you also find is more than one place where you get the chance to continue a conversation.

The Art of Converting Conversation 

Do you know the art of conversation?

Having a converting conversation is an art. Ask any star sales person and they’ll agree. So, how do you practice the art of converting conversation?

Rule #1: START with an interesting headline.

Many headlines read like really bad pickup lines. For instance, Bad Headlines: Double Meanings From Around the World gives some great examples of news headlines that obviously weren’t well thought out. The headlines mentioned in here could be considered the equivalent of tripping over your tongue when you’re nervous around a new date.

• Diaper Market Bottoms Out
• Queen Mary Having Bottom Scraped
• Teacher Strikes Idle Kids
• Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant

However, they would make a great conversation piece. Oh, come on… you know you’d click on a few of them (kind of gives you that “watching a train wreck” feeling, doesn’t it?). With headlines like these, the first conversion point – the click through to the page – is almost guaranteed.

Rule #2: STAY on topic.

The second conversion point continues the conversation that began in the SERPs. You gave them a hint that you had something interesting to share, so they clicked. Now, you have to actually share that information. The news headlines above probably lost a few once they reached the page, because the on page conversation didn’t mesh with the SERP conversation.

Now – keep in mind that people are used to visual, as well as verbal, communication. We pay attention to body language; we also pay attention to images. Therefore, as JR stated in Website Conversion – Forget About the Obvious, it’s important to make sure your images are also on topic. They should enhance, backup and reinforce the textual content.

Rule #3: SPEAK their language.

If you’re speaking Spanish and the other person doesn’t understand the language, you’re not going to have a very satisfying conversation, right? Right. In the same way, you have to speak the same language as your target market. Marketers know this, which is why so many dollars have been spent researching the responsive difference between such words as act vs. buy.

This is the third point of conversion – the on page content. It has to speak to them, and it has to use their language. If you fail the on page content, you’ll never make it to the buy now/act now step.

Many people talk about a Yale study, or a University of California study, that outlined the twelve most powerful words in marketing. While the study can’t be tracked down to an actual research paper, the list of words is pretty powerful, indeed: Free, Now, You, Save, Money, Easy, Guarantee, Health, Results, New, Love, Discovery, Proven, Safety.

The list says a lot about what people are thinking. Of course, you can’t just use the words and expect conversation and – consequently – conversion, to happen. You have to make sure you’re using the words in the right order and tone, as well.

For example, in Are You Asking the Right Questions, Karon Thackston writes, “Behaviorally speaking, not everybody responds in the same way to the same questions. Those with different communications styles will relate in a variety of ways depending on how you phrase your sentence.” She then goes on to discuss a set of behavioral profiles, and what type of headlines each profile would respond best to.

In short, you have to speak their language; otherwise, it’s not going to be a satisfying conversation for you or for your visitor.

Steer the conversation

Rule #4: STEER the conversation.

Have you ever gone to a site, followed along, tried to sign up/buy now and not understood how to do it? When you’re writing conversion copy, you have to tell them what you want them to do. You can’t hide this vital step in beat-around-the-bush style. The last thing you want is for them to get to the buying part and then say, “How do I sign up?”

The fourth and final point of conversion is the actual buy/sign up. This is your call to action, transaction page and, finally, the thank you page. For each of step of this three-step process, you HAVE to guide them with clear directives.

Continuing the Conversation

Don’t make the mistake of thinking the conversation is over once they get to the thank you page. Even if your services/products are one-time deals (buying a central air conditioner, for instance), you don’t want to close the conversation. Why? Because that customer has the potential of bringing more customers due to customer satisfaction.

Offer to continue the conversation on your final thank you page with a list of your social accounts, support email or other contact information. Allow them to connect on a personal level!

Conclusion

No article can contain all the information necessary to teach you how to write converting copy, or how to keep the buying process going. However, if you keep in mind the rules above and practice the art of converting conversation, you’ll be taking the first of many steps to a truly rewarding online business experience.

What are you waiting for?

There are really only two types of people using social networking platforms: those that use them for fun, and those that use them for business. If you’re using social media for fun and to make new friends, well, this articles isn’t for you. Move along. I said MOVE ALONG!

This article is only for business owners, struggling to figure out “this whole social media thing”. This article is for those who wish it didn’t have to be such a drag; those who want to forget about the business part and just socialize, but can’t. In short, THIS article is for those who hate social media and wish it wasn’t so darn necessary.

Okay – have all the readers left who enjoy social media? Good – let’s go surfing. Strap your goggles on and tighten your creative cap.

Take A Walk Down Empire Avenue

If you’re a regular reader here, you know we test many social platforms. The one we’re testing now has a lot going for it. Best of all, it’s fun!

Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, “Not another social networking platform!” But wait – because this one is just a little different.

It’s called Empire Avenue, and it’s relatively young (EA has only been around for about a year). The company doesn’t call itself a social media company, however. Duleepa Wijayawardhana, aka Dups, calls Empire Avenue a “social influence stock market”. You can learn more about the EA Team here, but be prepared… these aren’t your normal bios. For example, apparently, Dups can’t keep a secret and the COO, Robert Kallir, has to reign him in (so, Dups is probably the one to slyly pick at if you want some juicy info).

Having fun yet?

Now, for Facebook fans, Empire Avenue might remind you of “Friends for Sale”, where you buy and sell your friends. However, don’t have preconceived notions based on the similarities. Where EA differs, it really differs.

Concept:

Empire Avenue is a social networking game, where individuals can buy and sell shares, investing in people and brands. You can win award badges and even get virtual currency, called “Eaves”. Use the virtual currency for things like:

• More shares
• Sports cars
• Upgrades
• Hang gliders
• Mansions
• Yachts

Oh, come on! You want me to take a game seriously? I have real social sites to manage!

No – we want you to take your business’ social outreach program seriously. Here are a few BIG things Empire Avenue has going for it:

It makes networking fun. When something’s fun, more people get involved – and get more fully involved. Seriously, how many of you didn’t play on LinkedIn when they came out with the Water Cooler? That’s the fun we are talking about here – a connection like a bridge that can give you a better understanding of who and what your market is doing.

Through personal, city and interest level communities, you can connect with local people, people with shared interests and – tada – your target market. For example, if you sell organic home cleaning products, what could be better than a community named “Family and Kids”?

More social reach… You’re not going to find everybody who might want to connect with you a single network. Some, for example, are only on Facebook, while others are only on Twitter. Empire Avenue allows you to connect your LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube accounts. This gives you access to more social media users based on the platforms they’re using.

More exposure… When someone invests, one of the first things many well tell you is that they go check out the profile of the person who bought the stock. So, let’s say you buy 10 shares of (e)XYZ. The person running (e)XYZ will see that you bought stock and visit your profile. On your profile, they’ll be exposed to:

• A brief biography
• Your Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and Fan page accounts
• Your blog feed
• Your Twitter feed
• Your current share price
• Your current social influence (i.e. how active you are on social networks)

What Others Have to Say About Empire Avenue

Now, don’t take our word for it. First, visit Twitter. Search for EmpireAvenue and read some of the comments. A few talk about how they don’t understand what EA is or how to use it. Most, however, really get into the whole “social marketing, networking, stock investing game, thing”.

Then, you can read Why Top Brands Are Investing So Much Time in A Social Media Leaderboard. Read Katharine Robinson’s commentary in Empire Avenue – The Thinking Person’s Farmville, where she makes some good points. There’s also a good article about how Empire Avenue Helps Teach Social Media Engagement.

Do it... Buy!!

–And finally, just in case you’re the type of person who never does anything unless the big dogs do, here’s a sample of people on Empire Avenue:

• ☆ Gabriella Sannino (e)SEOCOPY
• ☆ Jahnelle Pittman (e)JRPITTMAN
• ☆ Liz Strauss (e)LIZS
• ☆ Shelly Kramer (e)SHELLYKRAMER
• ☆ Dean B (e)THEDUDEDEAN
• ☆ Chris Pirillo (e)Pirillo
• ☆ Darren Rowse (e)PROBLOGGER
• ☆ Erika Napoletano (e)RHWFTW
• ☆ Ann Smarty (e)SMARTY
• ☆ Anita Campbell (e)SBT

This list, of course, leaves out people like Jennifer, Kasey, Dedric, Nicole, Dawn, Reg and Gabe. They aren’t big swimmers in the pool of social media. Some don’t have a business, and are just checking out Empire Avenue because they heard it was fun.

The point is, these people count, too. Because social media isn’t really about business – not really, no matter what they tell you. Social media is about making strong connections. It’s about turning potential customers and clients into friends; it’s about creating strong relationships.

For Empire Avenue players, it’s about having fun and building a network while you’re at it.

Conclusion

Some people look at Empire Avenue and either shrug their shoulders or write negative commentary (the comments are interesting) about it. It’s hard for some people to see past the “game” idea. – But then, EA probably isn’t for everyone, anyway.

However, if you’re new to social media and trying to figure out how to use it – or, if you’re tired of same old, same old, give Empire Avenue a try. You might just find your share price – and your engagement level – skyrocketing!

Now that you’ve read this article, hurry up and buy some shares – and don’t forget to let us know your (e)name so we can invest!

Forget about the obvious?

Is your website doing what it’s supposed to be doing? Is it bringing in visitors that stick around, read and convert? If it isn’t, we ask you to consider the points in this article. They’re big points, even though they may seem like little, nit-picky, OCD things. They matter.

Oh, wait… before you continue reading, you have to pretend you’re dumb – because, guaranteed, you’ll one day get a comment about your site (if you’re providing surveys, or otherwise testing, that is) and think, “Well, that’s dumb. It’s obvious that XYZ means…”

So – pretend you’re dumb. Forget about the obvious. Stop believing that everyone thinks the same way you do, because they don’t. When you get to this point, look at your site with your new, fresh eyes.

Does your home page – through text, video, links, or other content – clearly define what it is you offer?

? – If you use images, do they clearly support the text, or are they just pretty pictures?  Example: That picture you have of the man sitting in an office, in front of a computer, staring at a cell phone, may not mean “mobility” to your visitors. To them, it could mean, “lazy employee always dinking around with his cell phone when he should be working.”

? – Do your navigational links clearly define where a click will take your visitors?  Example: Does the link “Clients” mean –

• Click here if you want to become a client
• Sign in here if you are a client
• Click here for a list of our clients

? – Do you have a clear call to action? Examples:

Clear call to action

• View our products
• Call today
• Act now
• Sign up for more information
• Contact us today to…

*Hint – having “Contact Us” in the navigation doesn’t count.

Would your interior pages work as one-page websites?

Many people simply assume that everyone enters a site from the home page. They imagine a clear-cut path of to conversion: Home, Services, Service One, Contact Us, and then Thank You. This is, after all, the most logical, “obvious” path to a completed sale. Because the path is seen as being so cut and dry, many make the mistake of starting the “conversation” on the home page. They simply treat the other pages as a continuation of that conversation.

Reality doesn’t work like that, however. It’s not nearly so clean; it’s somewhat messy, in fact. A site set up in the way just described ends up providing a disjointed conversation. The real path, or paths, to conversion are quite different (please see: The Real Path(s) of Conversion (INFOGRAPHIC)).

While the home page for most sites is the most common landing page, it isn’t the only point of entry. Therefore, each page has to have:

• Its own call to action
• Its own, clearly defined points
• Its own conversation

If your interior pages would not stand on their own as individual websites, you need to do some reorganizing.

Do your 404 pages end the conversation?

Ah, the 404 page; that frustrating page that says, “You know that thing you were looking for? Yeah – it’s not here.” Many visitors won’t take the time or don’t have the time to go digging in your site to find what they were looking for. Most of the time, they’ll just return back to whatever search brought them there.

By creating a custom 404 page, you lessen the visitor’s frustration. Custom 404’s can start a conversation, or continue one. For example, “We’re sorry – the page you’re looking for isn’t available. However, our top pages are listed below, or you can use the handy search feature.”

Check what your 404 page says. Just type in your URL, add a forward slash and a couple of characters ( http://mycompany.com/xya ). This will take you to your 404. Look it over with the ideas of convenience, consideration and keeping visitors there.

Conclusion

Many things can go wrong with a site. Some of the most insignificant changes – changing the link colors, for example – can raise your conversion percentages. If you stop focusing on what you think is obvious, focusing instead on the not-so-obvious, it can help you prepare for your visitors.

Have you thought something was obvious, only to be told that it didn’t make sense? What other tips might you have to help our readers strengthen their sites?

We've Come a Long Way

Call this a press release. Heck, call it a chatty letter. You can even call it bragging, because we’re proud of the things our company is doing. We’ve come a long way, baby.

The founder of Level343, Gabriella Sannino, is an Italian transplant. She’s lived in the U.S. for more years than she’d care to say (and we have an NDA clause that says we won’t spill the whole “age” thing), been in more countries than you can shake a stick at and speaks five languages fluently.

Her educational background is in marketing and communications; transitioning from print media to online media was easy. During the dot com era, she worked with high profile clients as an account executive at a San Francisco boutique agency. She went from medium-size agencies to working in the corporate life and hating it. She finally quit and came here to where she belongs, running Level343.

Gabriella’s spent the past seven years making up for corporate skirts, heels and briefcases, emerging into Web 2.0 at a new level. Italian rocker and rebel, she loves what she does. Her favorite pitch, which we’ve used once or twice in our blogs, “Communication is the new currency.” On the other hand, her elevator pitch sounds more like, “Today’s brand marketing is an evolutionary mix of SEO, social media and traditional marketing principles. We guide the way; all you have to do is walk it.”

We love her; we hope you do too, because she’s worth it.

The support staff of Level343, on the other hand, is much less traveled. Gabriella fondly refers to them as her “American hillbillies”. Whether hailing from Missouri, Tennessee, Florida and other “small”, non-coastal areas, we love our cows, horses and gardens. As opposite as we are, and from different walks of life, we’ve made it work.

With the exception of two men, we’re all women. Contrary to occasionally popular opinion, this doesn’t make us less functional – i.e. there is no gaggle of hens, here. We’re workaholics, schmoozlholics, coding geeks, writing wonders, etc. We’ve gone from a copywriting company to a full service SEO and copywriting company, thanks to our wonderful team members, partners, associates – and you, dear reader, who kindly shares our links, comments on our blogs and engages with us.

And now…

We’re Going to Italy!

Enabling Technology Bologna July 9th, 2011

Now we get to do something awesome. Now we get to do something beyond the business. Now, we get to do something exciting!

Look up, right above this section. You see that picture? It may not look like much, but it means a whole bunch.

On July 9^th , Gabriella and three handpicked speakers will be giving a seminar on Enabling Technology for Small and Medium Businesses to Italian professional men and women. This is a big opportunity for us; we’re especially excited about the fantastic speakers that have offered to give their time and share their knowledge.

Agnese Vardanega, for example, has a Ph.D. in Methodology of Social and Political Sciences. She taught social research and theory at the University of Rome, and currently teaches Techniques of Social Analysis at the University of Teramo.

Then there’s Cesarino Morellato, aka the DAO Daddy, who’s been teaching Digital Asset Optimization since 2008. He’s been in the business since 1998, and performed over 1,000 SEO projects.

Finally, we have Dr. Sante J. Achille. After getting a degree in engineering and working for companies such as the European Space Agency, he fell in love with the web. The second World Wide Web Conference spelled doom for his career in engineering. He resigned, started his own company, and has been in search marketing ever since.

We also have two great sponsors aside from Level343: Raven Tools and SEOPros.org Much thanks to them for working with us!

Please Hold for a Lesson About Social

Let’s be blunt, shall we? We’re relatively new in Italy especially in the search industry, compared to Agnese, Cesarino, and Sante. So how did we get where we are? You’ve probably guessed it by the title of this section: through social.

Now, social doesn’t mean just places like Twitter and Facebook. It means being sociable; it means socializing. Gabriella, as the face of the business, spends hours doing just that. She talks to people, through social platforms, through places like the SEO Dojo, through guest blogging, making contacts… you know, connecting.

Other team members do the same. You might call it schmoozling; we call it making friends. We like what we do, we like to share information about what we do, and we like to talk to people who do what we do. It’s a win-win-win situation for all involved.

Back to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

The most exciting thing about the Enabling Technology seminar is what we’re going to be able to do with some of the proceeds…

April 6, 2009, a 6.3 magnitude earthquake struck the small, city of L’Aquila, Italy, damaging thousands of buildings and leaving more than 30,000 people homeless. In light of more recent earthquakes, such as Haiti (2010) and Japan (2011), this may seem like small potatoes… two years old, small city, old hat, old news.

Giampaolo Giuliani

Yet, two years later, the earthquake could have just happened. In many places, rubble still fills the streets and buildings stand empty with gaping holes in their facades. A blog by a freelance writer living in Basilicata, Italy describes current conditions, “It’s sad; the soul and identity of the city is still in rubble, two years later.” Yes, they’re rebuilding, but it’s a slow, arduous process.

We’re still trying to figure how the proceeds can best be used, but we’ll figure it out – especially with Sante’s help, who lives in L’Aquila.

Now, our humble seminar won’t change the world. It won’t change Italy; it won’t even change L’Aquilla. But it’s a start. Maybe one person can’t make a difference (although I wouldn’t bet on it), but we can try… and keep trying.

Evaluating SEO and Marketing Software

Anyone who’s heard about the miraculous, site saving service known as SEO has eventually researched it online. Anyone who’s researched it and has had problems with their site has probably looked at SEO providers at least once. Anyone who’s had problems with their site, researched SEO providers and decided optimization didn’t fit into their budget has probably looked – at least once – at potential SEO and/or marketing software.

If this is you, did you look past the first results in the search engines?

You know, even most professional SEO specialists have some form of marketing or SEO software. – And, sometimes, we end up testing software that flops or doesn’t perform like we think it should (or as it’s marketed to perform). Overall, however, most of us do a good job of finding software that does what we need it to. Usually, we don’t find it in the #1 place for an “SEO software” query.

First-page ranking doesn’t always mean the best

This is true whether you’re looking for software, hardware, vacuum cleaners or laundromats. In fact, if a site shows up in the #1 spot for a high competition search result, this is more likely to be due to an excellent SEO instead of an excellent product. As you research for SEO and/or marketing software, keep this important point in mind.

Finding and Evaluating Marketing or SEO Software

Yes, look at the top results. However, before signing on the dotted line, you always want to look further than the SERPs. Here are a few tips to help you find the best software for your project.

Define what you need your software to do

As of yet, there isn’t a single piece of software that will perform all the tasks you’ll need for an SEO project, although some come close. Most SEOs have four or more tools in their toolbox. Before you actually start researching, you’ll need to lay out some basic guidelines. For example, “I need this piece of software to help me…”

• Track my key term rankings
• Research my competition
• Research key terms for competition and search volume
• Perform a site audit for errors
• Perform a page speed check
• Find other, related key terms

Now, you may end up with a long list. If so, pare it back to those you absolutely have to have a piece of software do. Remember, there is no complete SEO tool out there… yet (although many SEOs are working feverously to create one).

Let's Go Fishing

Go fishing

SEO software, or marketing software, doesn’t always go by these two terms. To get a complete picture of what’s available, you have to use other search terms as well, such as:

• SEO tools
• Marketing tools
• SEO platform
• SEO management tools (or software)
• market research tools

Use any search term you can come up with to find what you’re looking for. For search ideas, you can also look on the left side of your search engine. For Bing, “Related Searches” are shown right at the top. For Google, click “Related searches” under “All results”. Bookmark software offerings that look promising.

Research your potential SEO or marketing software

Once you have a list of potential software options, start clicking through them. Do searches on each product name. Read reviews and testimonials. You can also gain great information on these products by searching under the “Blog” or “Discussion” tabs available in Google.

Most software review sites are, unfortunately,<ahem> useless. If you use a software review site to gain information, read their review process and, always – always – look for backup reviews, no matter the review site.

Choosing between paid and free versions

Just as a #1 placement doesn’t mean it’s a good product, a price doesn’t mean it’s worth it. If you’re looking at a paid version and it offers a free trial, take it. You may end up trying several products before you find one that fits the bill, but the time will be worth it. For example, Raven Tools and SEOMoz (either of these tools is a great addition to your toolbox) both have free trials of their pro version. You’ll get full access to the tools available before you pay a dime.

Now, not all the good tools are paid. Some really good tools are free, just limited in what they can do. Professional SEOs often look for a tool that does as much as possible, and then use other tools to supplement where the big one is lacking. Conceivably, you can choose several free tools to take the place of one large one. Therefore, don’t choose based on price unless you have no budget. Choose based on what the software can do, versus what you need it to do.

SEO and Marketing Software – A Short List

Below are listed a few of the products (free, paid and trials) we’ve either used or heard great things about through the SEO grapevine. Listed in no particular order, with a variety of functions, the list includes:

• Raven Tools
• SEO Moz
• Web CEO
• Traffic Travis
• SEOBook Toolbar
• SEM Rush
• SpyFu
• Page Speed
• SEO Power Suite
• Authority Labs
• Index Checker
• Majestic SEO

Conclusion

Amazing amounts of people pay for products, services and software simply because they rank on the front page of the search results. – And sometimes, it works out okay. However, when you’re talking about SEO and marketing tools, you’re basically talking about the backbone of your site.

Don’t buy marketing and SEO software just because it ranks well. Do the research; take the time and test those product offerings with free trials. Find out what product will do the most for you!

Okay, it’s your turn. Do you have a favorite piece of software in your SEO or marketing toolbox? Give us the product, and don’t forget to include the link so we can check it out!

Traffic Boost

It was down to the wire. We needed a big boost in traffic and we needed it yesterday. Everyone waited impatiently as the boss read over the copy; the copywriter rubbed her raw fingers, staring down at the still smoking keyboard she had ruthlessly pounded in a race against the clock. The optimizer, bouncing on her toes, stared at the boss and chewed a fingernail down to the nub. The boss gave a quick nod. “Send it to the client.”

With a sigh of relief and the first line of approval passed, the copywriter jabbed out a quick email, attached the copy and sent it flying through the lines. Leaning back, she gave a half-hearted grin to the optimizer, who switched to destroying another nail.

Five sweaty, painful minutes later, a reply came back.

I like the tone and the information. It’ll spread like wild fire – but what about the keyword density? I think you could fit “Kansas city real estate law firm” in there at least 10 more times. And don’t split it up. I want at least 10% density for the whole term. Nobody will notice.

Keyword density…

…the bane of existence for many an optimizer and copywriter. Somewhere, somehow, people got the idea that there is some magic number for the times a keyword should be used in a piece of copy. The idea has stuck. Oddly enough, they apparently haven’t found out what the actually number is, however, because everybody seems to have a different percentage.

What is keyword density

Rushing around

For those that don’t know, keyword density is a percentage value, based on the number of times a key term is used vs. the number of other words in a piece of copy. The “talked about” density ranges from 2% to 9%, depending on who’s doing the talking. To give you an idea of what that looks like, consider this:

At an 8% density, a single keyword would have to show up eight times in a piece of content approximately the length of the first two paragraphs of this article. Eight. Times. Now, you might think, “well, a single word… that’s not so bad”, but what if it’s actually a key term?

When the idea of keyword density became big for a while, we had clients who wanted a high keyword density percentage for terms like real estate law firm and used car deals. Trust us when we say, no matter how good the copywriter is these words will not look natural used several times in a single piece of content.

Sacrificing SEO

A while back, we wrote a post about organic content. In the comments, a reader said, “I don’t quite understand the phrase ‘Sacrifice SEO before you sacrifice the content quality’, could you elaborate?” This question ties in perfectly with this article.

We don’t, and never have, advocated any type of crappy content. This includes keyword stuffed articles. High quality articles retain more traffic, every time, than a bunch of overly SEO’d content.

By “sacrificing SEO”, we mean don’t choose SEO over user experience. In this case, it means don’t be so worried about keyword density that you forget someone is going to read your article. Don’t use a keyterm again just because there’s room for it. Your readers will notice, will consider the copy as content spam and will not stick around for more.

Never force the usage of a term. Let the words flow like music, baby, and let your readers dance to the tune. One commenter summed it up this way, “…if you’re in a situation where you could put out lower-quality content that would rank better, or have a better quality article that might not “rank” as well (due to lack of spammy keywords, etc.), you should put out the better quality article. Your audience and the Internet will thank you.”

Ranking isn't everything

Ranking isn’t everything.

Don’t scoff, it’s really not. It doesn’t matter how much traffic you get, none of it counts unless you retain at least a portion of your visitors. That’s the idea behind organic SEO – to bring in, and retain, visitors. Because:

• People who come back are more likely to associate your business with a product or service
• People who read your blog on a regular basis are more likely to think of you when they need a product or service
• People who read your blog on a regular basis are more likely to trust your opinion
• People who come back are more likely to bring others to your site

Guaranteed, these same people who could become word-of-mouth cheerleaders, will ignore you if you spin out spammy content. Even those that don’t recognize keyword stuffing and don’t know anything about SEO… they may not know what it is, but they know bad content when they see it.

Conclusion

If you’re writing articles and blogs about your topic, key terms will naturally show up in the copy. It just happens that way. If you can’t figure out how to “fit them in”, you need to change the focus of your article. Because, yes, Virginia, people will notice when you force keywords to fit. Keyword density is just another number. If you worry about it too much, you could end up killing your content and, ultimately, your traffic.

So, you broke down and paid for a course. You learned that content marketing is the wave of the future and that with great content your profits will explode; all your worries will be over. You spend some time each day researching and writing. You’re doing it all right.

Marketing Strategy

Before you do, take a second to look at these common content marketing mistakes. You might be on the brink of exploding profits without even realizing it!

1. Your list isn’t targeted. Just who are you writing all that great content for, anyway? It’s far better to have a small, carefully targeted list than it is to have thousands of email addresses of people who will never, ever do business with you.

It isn’t about the numbers. Two hundred people who open your email, read your content, click your links and at least occasionally buy your stuff will always beat a list of 2,000 people who don’t know you, don’t care about you and wouldn’t spend a dime with you.

I hear you. You’re wailing, “But how???? How do I find the right people?”

Talk to your customers, even if you only have 3 of them. Ask if they would like to receive your newsletter. Let your friends on Twitter know about your newsletter. Share your blog posts on Facebook, Stumbleupon and Digg. Be, you know, social.

Getting people to ask to receive your stuff is the first crucial step.

Randomly grabbing email addresses from your shopping cart software will equal failure. Pulling email addresses from directories you are a member of will equal failure.

Those tactics will frustrate you and possibly get you blacklisted because your fabulous content amounts to spam if you are sending it to people who don’t want it.

2. You don’t post (or send) on a regular basis. Some folks say you should only post on your blog when you have something brilliant to say. However, when it comes to your customers, you need to be useful and informative. Brilliance is optional.

There are things you know that your customers don’t. You can tell them stuff that will make their lives easier or more interesting.

• Keep a running list of questions your customers ask you.
• Write down any kind of specialized knowledge you have.
• List any odd tools you use regularly that people might not know exist.
• Write down weird ways your business is like other businesses.
• Take note of industry lingo that outsiders don’t know.

Those lists can serve as an almost endless source of ideas for posts and articles.

3. You over-sell. This one is just awful. I can’t even count the number of newsletters I’ve unsubscribed from because all they did was say what was on sale. Please, tell me something. Make me laugh. Teach me something.

I dare you...

If every post you put on your blog has a sales pitch in it, try making every other one informational. Then make every third one a sales pitch. Add in one or two articles that are purely for fun. Make them relevant to your business, of course, but also entertaining.

The temptation to over-sell is understandable. Maybe you got a great response to your first couple of posts and you want to see those numbers jump again, so you keep on selling, week after week. Maybe your first newsletter caused a spike in your sales and you think “If I’d had three or four “buy now” links in there sales would have been even better!”

Do you tune out commercials on the radio? Do you read the “sponsored tweets” on Twitter? We are all so used to being bombarded with sales pitches we have all – including your customers! – learned how to block out the noise.

4. You under-sell. Do you worry that if you try to sell something on your blog people will leave in droves and your list will drop to nothing? Do you fret over each unsubscriber from your newsletter?

Let them go. If they don’t want to hear from you and they aren’t interested in buying anything, you don’t want them on your list. They are not your target. If you want to make money, you must sell stuff. Don’t be afraid to do it and, if people leave because you are selling, they are not the people you need to share your informative, entertaining content with.

If (after checking to make sure you aren’t committing one of these errors) you still aren’t making any headway with content marketing, get a second opinion. There are lots of professionals who will review your strategy (you do have a strategy, right?) to help you figure out what’s going wrong.  Then, if that doesn’t work, maybe you should consider renting that billboard…

Google coming through

“It’s Google’s game; we’re just playing it.”

~ Igor Tossell, The Globe and Mail

There’s been a lot about SEO in the mainstream news lately, from the Wall Street Journal to The Globe and Mail, and even the New York Times. Last week, we posted a rant, (If You’re Going to Write About SEO, Get It Right) showing off a little bit of spirited irritation for the inaccurate and often sensational portrayal of an industry we love.

It’s no wonder some of these places might not be completely accurate about SEO, especially if you count the Huffington Post as “properly SEO’d”. For the longest time, almost every article started out with something similar to, “If you searched for [key term], you’d find [large number] of searches. What does that say? That a lot of people want to know about [key term].” You’d also find a long list of key words “artfully” disguised as tags.

These methods worked, getting the Huffington Post ranked for a many an unusual term. Therefore, people interested in SEO (but not having much knowledge) nodded and said, “Yup, that must be SEO.” In fact, a similar method was made in a NYTimes article about websites not fighting fair for the term “Mother’s Day flowers”.

Which just happens to be the very first three words on the page.

Standing all alone by themselves.

In a single sentence.

Hmmm… Was the NY Times trying to take over the SERPs for a highly targeted phrase around the same time as Mother’s Day? Just a thought; not, of course, an accusation.

Pardon the digression. The point of this article is to shine a little light on some misconceptions.

SEO and Google Gaming

Many online places have written about SEO from the view of someone who doesn’t actually practice it. You can tell, because very seldom will an actual optimizer use the term “gaming the system” or “gaming Google” to describe optimization (although the number is rising as the term becomes just “part of the lingo”).

The more Google changes the SERPs, the harder it becomes to rank for terms without at least nudging the guidelines a little. However, that doesn’t mean the basics they outline have changed. In fact, when you’re looking at the Google SEO starter guide, what you actually find is some good, common sense information.

Now, keep in mind that Google doesn’t care about your business. Google cares about Google’s business, and Google’s business is relevant results.

Visitors, Google’s users, want relevant results. They’re on a hunt for information; they don’t want round about titles and descriptions where they have to guess what’s on a page. They don’t want to come to a page and find out the information on it has nothing to do with what the search snippet promised.

Tips from Google’s SEO starter guide include things like:

What do you think?

• Choose a title that effectively communicates the page’s topic
• Write a meta description that informs and interests users
• Use simple-to-understand URLs with relevant words in them
• Use mostly text for navigation
• Keep your on page content organized around the topic
• Create anchor texts that makes it easy to tell what content is being linked to

This is a short list of steps that fall under search engine optimization – and it’s followed by SEOs everywhere. It’s the closest thing you’ll probably find to an “optimization template” in fact.

This isn’t “gaming the system”, people. This is focused marketing.

SEO – Laser-focused Marketing

Search engine optimization is all about relevance. You have a site that covers everything about home improvement. You want to rank for home improvement, and hire ABC Professional SEO Specialist to take care of that for you. The first thing they’re going to do is find out what your business is about and what you hope to accomplish for your site.

Somewhere along the line between the first step and the campaign creation, they’re going to check the pages of your site for topical relevance. Almost every optimizer will have a story about the client that “over optimized”, and put every descriptive tag they could think of on a page. Our job, as the professional SEO, is to clean it up and categorize into as few, tightly focused categories as possible.

Further reading on this topic: Building Campaigns Around Key Words and Phrases: SEO, Marketing, Social Media Information Architecture – Content Layout is Everything

In fact, our job – the real job of optimization – is to make sure everything is relevant to the search, that each page and everything surrounding that page is tightly focused around a single topic (aka key term). As a visitor, who isn’t thinking about SEO, it can be helpful to see things like informative page titles, a beginning paragraph that summarizes the article, or concise wording in links.