As noted by Barry over at Seroundtable, apparently Google is now recommending that you do not have multiple match types for the same search phrase. So for example, you shouldn’t have the keyword ‘golf clubs’, set on broad, phrase and exact match types.
Broad - golf clubs
Phrase – “golf clubs”
Exact - [golf clubs]
Now I haven’t heard or read anything official from Google personally, but a member over at Webmaster World gives the Google representatives reasoning as -
“Instead of triples of all keywords, they want advertisers to go from “broad” to “narrow” (in their words).”
Although Google may have a point that every keyword does not need to be replicated for each match type it is suprising to hear (if true) because actually you should start completely the opposite way with your PPC campaigns. So ignore Google on this one and I will explain in more detail why. If you don’t already know what each match type does, read up here.
Start Narrow
Don’t waste your money by using the default broad match straight away. Start narrow with specific exact, phrase and negative keyword combinations before even thinking about using broad match.
You can start with all exact match phrase keywords before building out to phrase match, but if you are confident and use negative keywords properly phrase match is easy to use. Not all keywords will require an exact and phrase match equivalent either, but absolutely those keywords with medium to high volume should have an exact match version. Equally those lower volume keywords might not require a exact match version. So to take the golf clubs example, I might start with only an exact match version of [golf clubs] as it’s very high volume and could potentially appear against an even larger number of terms if on phrase. However, a lower volume term like “buy golf clubs uk” probably wouldn’t require an exact match version and you could start this on phrase match straight away.
This approach means you do not need a different match type for every keyword and helps to keep your campaigns managble when dealing with hundreds of thousands of keywords already. I know some agencies and bid management software companies recommend replicating keywords into each match type which is fine, but you will often find that your campaign is bloated and a large part of it is unnecessary.
The narrow to broad approach also applies to the actual keywords you are using aswell as the match type, so use specific keywords with long tail variations, rather than more generic general phrases to begin with.
Make sure your campaign is performing with these match types to start with – monitor your internal logs and run search phrase reports (to see what people really searched for) to expand your current keywords or add further negatives to your campaign.
Use Broad Match To Sweep Up
If you have additional budget or want more volume you can then think about introducing broad match, although the expanded match element does need to be very closely monitored.
Use broad match to ‘sweep up’ any low volume keyword variations that exact and phrase match types have not already covered. When using broad match, try initially going in with a lower bid than your exact and phrase match equivalents and it can produce great results. You will need to continue to monitor your logs and run search phrase reports to further expand your keywords (& negatives). Again, aswell as match type you can also start to trial more generic search phrases for further volume (on exact match of course, have you been listening?).
Splitting Adgroups Based On Match Type
Not always, but sometimes it makes sense to split up adgroups via match type. You know when using an exact match phrase that for the advert to appear that [exact phrase] must be searched for, so it makes sense to focus your advert on this term specifically. When using broad match, your advert might appear against a number of keyword variations so sometimes it makes sense to diversify your ads a little more and test. You might find that you just make a new adgroup for just one or a few of your exact match keywords as you need greater control over them for example. Remember, trial, review and test what produces the best CTR and more importantly conversion for your campaign.
Optimise Match Types Based On Performance
Obviously the great thing about using various match types is that each match type will perform differently from the other. So each should have their own separate bid and be optimised based on their own individual performance. This allows you to have greater control over your campaign and ultimately spend money where it makes the most sense for improved return.
Note – Don’t forget, the choice of match type does not impact your quality score. All match types for the same keyword have the same quality score regardless, so this is not a factor. They do obviously massively influence your CTR though, which is the biggest factor of Googles quality score algo.
Wednesday, June 30, 2010
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Always Get The Dot Com
I always wanted the ppcblog.com domain, but unfortunately it was registered before I got the chance.
At the time, the .net & .org were available aswell as the .co.uk and nobody had built a brand around the name ‘PPC blog‘ in the same way there were seo blogs seemingly everywhere.
About 2+ years ago when I developed this site for a little fun the ppcblog.com domain used to redirect over to payperclickblog.com and the site was aptly named after that domain. This was great as I always wanted to work with the shorter url and ‘brand’.
Aaron Wall of SEO Book is however the owner of the domain which his wife Giovanni and he have decided to develop in the past week, seperate and away from the payperclickblog.com domain.
Aarons SEO Book is a fantastic resource, so I have no doubt this new site will be equally full of great regulary updated content. Regular enough to stay in the Toprank search marketing blog list (ping) which I got kicked from for not updating regulary enough…
As I have never really had a goal for this site other than to share random thoughts, have a nice testing platform for ideas or vent frustration it doesn’t bother me that it shares the same name. But it does highlight the importance of getting all the TLD’s you can if you want to establish yourself globally and block out competition.
Geographical filters are pretty strong, unless you are a high authority domain and in my view you still can’t rely completely on Googles Webmaster Central (and others) to set geotargetting for the sub directory/folder route. Getting all relevant TLD’s for each country in my opinion can still be the safest way to go. Which I might expand upon in another post as I am going off subject.
Anyway, so don’t get confused guys with your .coms and .co.uks – or do and I might get more traffic. ;)
At the time, the .net & .org were available aswell as the .co.uk and nobody had built a brand around the name ‘PPC blog‘ in the same way there were seo blogs seemingly everywhere.
About 2+ years ago when I developed this site for a little fun the ppcblog.com domain used to redirect over to payperclickblog.com and the site was aptly named after that domain. This was great as I always wanted to work with the shorter url and ‘brand’.
Aaron Wall of SEO Book is however the owner of the domain which his wife Giovanni and he have decided to develop in the past week, seperate and away from the payperclickblog.com domain.
Aarons SEO Book is a fantastic resource, so I have no doubt this new site will be equally full of great regulary updated content. Regular enough to stay in the Toprank search marketing blog list (ping) which I got kicked from for not updating regulary enough…
As I have never really had a goal for this site other than to share random thoughts, have a nice testing platform for ideas or vent frustration it doesn’t bother me that it shares the same name. But it does highlight the importance of getting all the TLD’s you can if you want to establish yourself globally and block out competition.
Geographical filters are pretty strong, unless you are a high authority domain and in my view you still can’t rely completely on Googles Webmaster Central (and others) to set geotargetting for the sub directory/folder route. Getting all relevant TLD’s for each country in my opinion can still be the safest way to go. Which I might expand upon in another post as I am going off subject.
Anyway, so don’t get confused guys with your .coms and .co.uks – or do and I might get more traffic. ;)
Friday, June 25, 2010
Some Do's and Don'ts For Building a Social Bookmarking Network
Developing a strong presence on social networking and bookmarking sites doesn't involve complex formulas or algorithms. Sure, sites like Digg and Reddit have algorithms, but your best bet is to focus on the two major pillars of success on social bookmarking sites - great content and a network of users to promote it - rather than focusing on racing to the front page.
Building your social bookmarking network involves more than just adding users to your friends list. Participation is required - it's what gets you noticed. Voting for, spreading and commenting on other users' content shows you're willing to contribute to the community.
Keep reading for nine basic do's and don'ts when building your social bookmarking networks.
DO friend, IMvite and follow power users - but DON'T become a pest
The best place you can start building your social media presence is by making friends with power users. They have literally hundreds, if not thousands of friends, and a vote on your content from them can often translate into additional votes from their followers.
But remember, everybody is busy. They most likely won't have time to digg, vote or retweet 100 links a day or answer a beginner's questions personally. Be sure you vote on their content and respect their time.
DO participate in the SOCIAL part of social bookmarking - but DON'T be a troll
Commenting and participating in conversations on social bookmarking networks isn't so much about being social as it is about taking the time the to look at other's submissions.
But don't be too controversial just for the sake of stirring things up, and don't reply to something just to disagree. You can try to be funny, but remember not everyone will appreciate your sense of humor, so be careful.
DO embrace multiple social networks - but DON'T spread yourself too thin
There are literally thousands of social media networks and instant messaging utilities out there. Joining multiple social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Buzz is a great way to expand your reach. Manage your time wisely, though. Creating and maintaining an active profile can be a lot of work on some sites, so don't spread yourself too thin.
DO submit content from community favorite sites - but DON'T submit commercial content
When you're a part of a social bookmarking community like Digg, Newsvine or Propeller, it's likely you will notice certain sites make the front page regularly. Being the first to submit new content from these sites can be a great way to get noticed.
On the other hand, submitting content that has no place in the community you're in is one of the sure-fire ways to fail at social bookmarking. If you appear self serving, folks will vote your stuff down and remove you as a friend. Be sure what you're promoting is worthy of votes!
DO submit content from a variety of sites - but DON'T consistently submit content from a single site or short list of sites
This may seem obvious, however, there are many people who only submit their own content and occasionally make comments on or vote on other stuff. This is a red flag that you're only in it for the marketing, which is not the image you want to project.
The best way to avoid looking like a marketer is to submit articles, etc. from a wide variety of websites that fit the bookmarking site.
DO sign in, vote up, retweet and comment regularly, DON'T leave huge lapses of activity in your accounts.
One of the keys to successful marketing through social bookmarking sites is being a regular. Taking too much time away could mean all of your hard work going to waste. It's not that you can't take a well deserved vacation. But the more available you are to vote and spread submissions of others, the more influence you will have in gaining exposure for your own stuff.
DO perform favors for your friends - but DON'T ask for too much without giving something back
Help your friends out and they'll help you! Don't wait to vote up or retweet your friend's submissions. If you go out of your way for them, the more likely they'll do the same for you.
Don't ask too much without giving something in return and if you ask someone to vote or retweet something, be sure it's top quality content. Eventually, people will avoid or ignore you altogether if it's not.
DO act like a human being, DON'T act like a computer or robot
The basis of social media like bookmark networking sites is the human touch - the fact that a real person cares enough about a topic to pass it along to others who they think will also care. If you're trying to get content out to as many people as possible, you need to act like a real person. Be friendly and have conversations with others online from time to time.
DO keep at it and DON'T give up
Like anything, building a network for social bookmarking sites takes a lot of time and hard work. You don't have to spend all day everyday on social media to be successful. But you need to find a routine you're comfortable with and stick with. Persistence is the key to success.
Building your social bookmarking network involves more than just adding users to your friends list. Participation is required - it's what gets you noticed. Voting for, spreading and commenting on other users' content shows you're willing to contribute to the community.
Keep reading for nine basic do's and don'ts when building your social bookmarking networks.
DO friend, IMvite and follow power users - but DON'T become a pest
The best place you can start building your social media presence is by making friends with power users. They have literally hundreds, if not thousands of friends, and a vote on your content from them can often translate into additional votes from their followers.
But remember, everybody is busy. They most likely won't have time to digg, vote or retweet 100 links a day or answer a beginner's questions personally. Be sure you vote on their content and respect their time.
DO participate in the SOCIAL part of social bookmarking - but DON'T be a troll
Commenting and participating in conversations on social bookmarking networks isn't so much about being social as it is about taking the time the to look at other's submissions.
But don't be too controversial just for the sake of stirring things up, and don't reply to something just to disagree. You can try to be funny, but remember not everyone will appreciate your sense of humor, so be careful.
DO embrace multiple social networks - but DON'T spread yourself too thin
There are literally thousands of social media networks and instant messaging utilities out there. Joining multiple social bookmarking sites like StumbleUpon and Yahoo! Buzz is a great way to expand your reach. Manage your time wisely, though. Creating and maintaining an active profile can be a lot of work on some sites, so don't spread yourself too thin.
DO submit content from community favorite sites - but DON'T submit commercial content
When you're a part of a social bookmarking community like Digg, Newsvine or Propeller, it's likely you will notice certain sites make the front page regularly. Being the first to submit new content from these sites can be a great way to get noticed.
On the other hand, submitting content that has no place in the community you're in is one of the sure-fire ways to fail at social bookmarking. If you appear self serving, folks will vote your stuff down and remove you as a friend. Be sure what you're promoting is worthy of votes!
DO submit content from a variety of sites - but DON'T consistently submit content from a single site or short list of sites
This may seem obvious, however, there are many people who only submit their own content and occasionally make comments on or vote on other stuff. This is a red flag that you're only in it for the marketing, which is not the image you want to project.
The best way to avoid looking like a marketer is to submit articles, etc. from a wide variety of websites that fit the bookmarking site.
DO sign in, vote up, retweet and comment regularly, DON'T leave huge lapses of activity in your accounts.
One of the keys to successful marketing through social bookmarking sites is being a regular. Taking too much time away could mean all of your hard work going to waste. It's not that you can't take a well deserved vacation. But the more available you are to vote and spread submissions of others, the more influence you will have in gaining exposure for your own stuff.
DO perform favors for your friends - but DON'T ask for too much without giving something back
Help your friends out and they'll help you! Don't wait to vote up or retweet your friend's submissions. If you go out of your way for them, the more likely they'll do the same for you.
Don't ask too much without giving something in return and if you ask someone to vote or retweet something, be sure it's top quality content. Eventually, people will avoid or ignore you altogether if it's not.
DO act like a human being, DON'T act like a computer or robot
The basis of social media like bookmark networking sites is the human touch - the fact that a real person cares enough about a topic to pass it along to others who they think will also care. If you're trying to get content out to as many people as possible, you need to act like a real person. Be friendly and have conversations with others online from time to time.
DO keep at it and DON'T give up
Like anything, building a network for social bookmarking sites takes a lot of time and hard work. You don't have to spend all day everyday on social media to be successful. But you need to find a routine you're comfortable with and stick with. Persistence is the key to success.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Does Your Small Business Think Local?
For a long time, small businesses struggled with search marketing, because to succeed, they had to specialize, rather than being all things to all people in a local area. That's still good advice, but changes in how people use search (and in how search engines work) are suddenly making your location every bit as important as your specialty, at least for some businesses.
I've been talking for years about how businesses need to avoid the trap of thinking that being local will help them in search marketing. Just a few months ago, I beat that drum again, in urging that small businesses specialize on the Web. And that advice isn't wrong, because most searches are not focused on location, and if you want to win those customers, you need to do something special.
But that advice is increasingly incomplete.
Every week another shoe drops on local search--search queries that provide different results based on the searcher's location. Time was that searchers needed to type in a location to get a truly local search ("plumber in cleveland" or "dentist 90210"). Then the search engines started noticing the location of your computer using its IP address, and targeted paid ads and later organic searches based on where you are now, without you typing anything special into the search box. So, if you are in Cleveland, you just need to type "plumber" and you'll see local search results and local ads.
But now it is getting even more interesting. As more and more searchers are using their mobile phones, the kinds of searches they do are changing. Now they are likely to search for "coffee" or "office supplies" or any number of things that they need while driving or walking around. This makes being local again the most important thing, without any need for specialization at all.
As iPhones, Android phones, and other newer phones make it simple to search for things nearby (Google just announced its "Near Me Now" service), you can expect mobile search usage to increase dramatically in the next few years.
So how can local businesses make sure they are found? Start by trying out some searches yourself. Start first with your computer, but then try your phone, too. Ask your geeky friends to help you by searching on their phones when they are near your location so you see what they see. Different phones have different apps; different carriers have different default search engines; different locations will provide different results. And as personalized results become more common, different people will get different results, too.
So, yes, it's not that easy to check thoroughly, but you are better off checking in an imperfect way that looking at nothing at all (and just hoping that it goes well). And there are ways for you to help yourself:
* Use location words. It doesn't hurt to make sure your address is in your footer of every Web page and that you use other location words to describe your business ("Cuyahoga County" or "greater Cleveland area" or "northern Ohio," depending on how widely you draw customers from.
* But don't overdo location words. Be honest with yourself. No one is going to travel an hour for coffee, but they might do so to get their classic car repaired. Make sensible choices about your real drawing area.
* Use local listing resources. You should make sure you are listed in as many Internet Yellow Pages directories as you can (most are free) but you can also use a free service such as GetListed.org to quickly show you how your business fares in local search, and help you make the moves needed to improve.
* Don't ignore reviews. Yelp and other review sites have long been consulted by the savvy local shopper, but you should expect reviews to be increasingly built into the regular search experience. Google might have been rebuffed in its attempts to acquire Yelp, but you should expect every search engine to provide reviews in its searh results.
So, while that car repair shop still needs to trumpet its specialty (classic car repair) to draw customers from a wider area, focusing also on very local search might snag the motorist whose car just broke down a mile from the location of the shop. For that customer, it's still location, location, location.
I've been talking for years about how businesses need to avoid the trap of thinking that being local will help them in search marketing. Just a few months ago, I beat that drum again, in urging that small businesses specialize on the Web. And that advice isn't wrong, because most searches are not focused on location, and if you want to win those customers, you need to do something special.
But that advice is increasingly incomplete.
Every week another shoe drops on local search--search queries that provide different results based on the searcher's location. Time was that searchers needed to type in a location to get a truly local search ("plumber in cleveland" or "dentist 90210"). Then the search engines started noticing the location of your computer using its IP address, and targeted paid ads and later organic searches based on where you are now, without you typing anything special into the search box. So, if you are in Cleveland, you just need to type "plumber" and you'll see local search results and local ads.
But now it is getting even more interesting. As more and more searchers are using their mobile phones, the kinds of searches they do are changing. Now they are likely to search for "coffee" or "office supplies" or any number of things that they need while driving or walking around. This makes being local again the most important thing, without any need for specialization at all.
As iPhones, Android phones, and other newer phones make it simple to search for things nearby (Google just announced its "Near Me Now" service), you can expect mobile search usage to increase dramatically in the next few years.
So how can local businesses make sure they are found? Start by trying out some searches yourself. Start first with your computer, but then try your phone, too. Ask your geeky friends to help you by searching on their phones when they are near your location so you see what they see. Different phones have different apps; different carriers have different default search engines; different locations will provide different results. And as personalized results become more common, different people will get different results, too.
So, yes, it's not that easy to check thoroughly, but you are better off checking in an imperfect way that looking at nothing at all (and just hoping that it goes well). And there are ways for you to help yourself:
* Use location words. It doesn't hurt to make sure your address is in your footer of every Web page and that you use other location words to describe your business ("Cuyahoga County" or "greater Cleveland area" or "northern Ohio," depending on how widely you draw customers from.
* But don't overdo location words. Be honest with yourself. No one is going to travel an hour for coffee, but they might do so to get their classic car repaired. Make sensible choices about your real drawing area.
* Use local listing resources. You should make sure you are listed in as many Internet Yellow Pages directories as you can (most are free) but you can also use a free service such as GetListed.org to quickly show you how your business fares in local search, and help you make the moves needed to improve.
* Don't ignore reviews. Yelp and other review sites have long been consulted by the savvy local shopper, but you should expect reviews to be increasingly built into the regular search experience. Google might have been rebuffed in its attempts to acquire Yelp, but you should expect every search engine to provide reviews in its searh results.
So, while that car repair shop still needs to trumpet its specialty (classic car repair) to draw customers from a wider area, focusing also on very local search might snag the motorist whose car just broke down a mile from the location of the shop. For that customer, it's still location, location, location.
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
Take Your SEO from Trash to Cash
Imagine yourself driving through a newly renovated area of town. The asphalt is freshly laid with bright yellow lines down the middle. Young, budding plants have been planted along the sidewalks between the street and newly stuccoed office buildings that look to be full of leather bound books smelling of rich mahogany. Now imagine walking into one of those buildings to find torn up carpet, water-stained ceilings, crumbling sheet rock on the walls, and someone doing their business off in the corner.
Imagine the change of emotions you'd feel. Stepping up to the door you feel confident that you're walking into a place that's going to meet your needs. But as soon as you open the door, you're hit with a stench that is the forebear of whats to come.
Focusing on search engine rankings while ignoring the quality and usability of your website may be a great way to get visitors in the door, but what will they find once they get there?
Putting your money where it counts.
When you're on a budget, as many businesses are today, you really want to spend your money where you're likely to get the greatest benefit. Unfortunately, money isn't always spent on what is actually the most beneficial, but rather what is perceived to be. While SEO can help you gain exposure and drive traffic to the front door of your website, if what's behind those doors isn't up to expectations, all the money getting them there is simply a waste.
A couple years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed, had a root canal and then a cap put on one of my teeth all in a couple of months time. I had to see several different dentists, each a specialist in a different area, so I got to see quite a few dentists offices, noticing a stark contrast between them.
Most of the offices were roomy and full of nice furniture, but one stood out as a genuinely scary experience, especially for someone who suffers from mild claustrophobia. The receptionist's desk was two and a half feet wide and piled high with about a years worth of "stuff that can wait."
I was placed in one of the procedure "rooms" looking right at someone else being examined by one of the nurses. As I laid back in the chair to get some X-rays, the nurse had to duck repeatedly around overhanging equipment while stepping over a small office trash can to get out to the hallway. It was like trying to perform an operation in a closet.
This is what many business websites are like when they focus on SEO and ignore their website design. There is nothing wrong with investing in SEO to drive traffic, but SEO is not the end of the story.
Conversions matter
A while back we had a long-time client undergo a major site redesign. They had held their rankings pretty solidly over the years but the site was design was getting stale. We had also been prodding over the previous months to address their site's many inefficiencies. Because their business had been growing significantly since we started working on their SEO campaign, they were never in a real hurry to make any changes. But finally they made the move.
The client invested in a major redevelopment of the site and rolled it out to the public. Almost immediately something amazing happened. Their conversion rates jumped by 30%!
This jump wasn't the result of new keywords optimized, or previously optimized keywords suddenly moving up in the rankings. The increase in conversions was directly tied to making their site more appealing and user-friendly.
The new site design cost them about what a years worth of SEO cost them. With a much more user and search engine friendly site, the efforts we were able to shift the efforts of the SEO campaign from creating band-aid solutions to being able to invest in a far more focused keyword targeting campaign.
With the additional revenue the client began talking about expanding the online marketing efforts; and why not? With a newly polished, high-tech interior, why not do all that you can to drive even more traffic to the higher-converting site?
No one can deny the value of getting first page placement for relevant keyword phrases. But many small businesses still need to be convinced that there is more to marketing than rankings and traffic. Bringing traffic into the slums isn't all that difficult to do. Getting someone to buy from you while they're there is. Lucky for you, it's not too great of a distance to go from trash to cash. Conversions do matter. And in the end, conversions are what matter most.
Imagine the change of emotions you'd feel. Stepping up to the door you feel confident that you're walking into a place that's going to meet your needs. But as soon as you open the door, you're hit with a stench that is the forebear of whats to come.
Focusing on search engine rankings while ignoring the quality and usability of your website may be a great way to get visitors in the door, but what will they find once they get there?
Putting your money where it counts.
When you're on a budget, as many businesses are today, you really want to spend your money where you're likely to get the greatest benefit. Unfortunately, money isn't always spent on what is actually the most beneficial, but rather what is perceived to be. While SEO can help you gain exposure and drive traffic to the front door of your website, if what's behind those doors isn't up to expectations, all the money getting them there is simply a waste.
A couple years ago I had my wisdom teeth removed, had a root canal and then a cap put on one of my teeth all in a couple of months time. I had to see several different dentists, each a specialist in a different area, so I got to see quite a few dentists offices, noticing a stark contrast between them.
Most of the offices were roomy and full of nice furniture, but one stood out as a genuinely scary experience, especially for someone who suffers from mild claustrophobia. The receptionist's desk was two and a half feet wide and piled high with about a years worth of "stuff that can wait."
I was placed in one of the procedure "rooms" looking right at someone else being examined by one of the nurses. As I laid back in the chair to get some X-rays, the nurse had to duck repeatedly around overhanging equipment while stepping over a small office trash can to get out to the hallway. It was like trying to perform an operation in a closet.
This is what many business websites are like when they focus on SEO and ignore their website design. There is nothing wrong with investing in SEO to drive traffic, but SEO is not the end of the story.
Conversions matter
A while back we had a long-time client undergo a major site redesign. They had held their rankings pretty solidly over the years but the site was design was getting stale. We had also been prodding over the previous months to address their site's many inefficiencies. Because their business had been growing significantly since we started working on their SEO campaign, they were never in a real hurry to make any changes. But finally they made the move.
The client invested in a major redevelopment of the site and rolled it out to the public. Almost immediately something amazing happened. Their conversion rates jumped by 30%!
This jump wasn't the result of new keywords optimized, or previously optimized keywords suddenly moving up in the rankings. The increase in conversions was directly tied to making their site more appealing and user-friendly.
The new site design cost them about what a years worth of SEO cost them. With a much more user and search engine friendly site, the efforts we were able to shift the efforts of the SEO campaign from creating band-aid solutions to being able to invest in a far more focused keyword targeting campaign.
With the additional revenue the client began talking about expanding the online marketing efforts; and why not? With a newly polished, high-tech interior, why not do all that you can to drive even more traffic to the higher-converting site?
No one can deny the value of getting first page placement for relevant keyword phrases. But many small businesses still need to be convinced that there is more to marketing than rankings and traffic. Bringing traffic into the slums isn't all that difficult to do. Getting someone to buy from you while they're there is. Lucky for you, it's not too great of a distance to go from trash to cash. Conversions do matter. And in the end, conversions are what matter most.
Tuesday, June 22, 2010
4 Reasons to Build a Social Media Strategy
As a small business social media strategist, I'm very happy to see so many companies finally beginning to recognize the need to invest some of their marketing dollars into social media. I'm even happier to see how many of them are willing and able to dedicate some internal staff to the matter. On the other hand, I'm finding that many of these companies have absolutely no idea WHY they need a social media strategy. They just feel the pressure to get involved and hope something will come from it.
Unfortunately, that's no way to build a strategy. What good does it do to invest time and money into a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other number of social media outlets if you have no goals, no measurement and quite frankly, no idea why you're there.
What companies need to do is embrace the benefits of social media while very carefully thinking through the goals of their outreach efforts. Different goals will require different strategies. Taking a shotgun approach of simply trying to "get out there" will rarely result in a solid payoff. It's far better to sit down and carefully consider what your company's goals are and to build backward to create a strategy that's most likely to meet those goals.
Here are four key reasons why your company needs to consider planning and launching a social media campaign.
Reason #1: Social Media Gives You Unprecedented Ability to Listen to Your Customers
For companies that don't already have some type of social media strategy in place, this is usually the best place to start. While it takes a little bit of common sense and guidance to create an active and vocal outreach plan that will deliver results, pretty much anyone is capable of listening to the existing conversation.
The goal here is threefold.
1. Find out where your customers are: The first thing you'll need to do is find out where your customers and potential customers are spending their time. You can run a search for groups or fan pages on Facebook, search for keywords related to your business on Twitter Search, set up Technorati and Google Alerts or using a free service like Social Mention. You can (and should) also check your log files to see what types of social sites (blogs, forums, Twitter, etc...) are sending traffic to your site.
2. Find out what your customers think of you and your competitors: Once you've figured out where to look (or as part of that process) it's a great idea to run searches for your company (and products) and for your competitors and their products. This lets you know what your customers like and don't like which gives you an excellent starting point for making changes, playing to your strengths and otherwise building offerings that will appeal to your audience.
3. Find out what your customers' passion points are: This becomes one of the keys of a social media listening strategy and it's one that's often overlooked. Social media listening isn't just about hearing people praise or complain about you, it's about identifying subsets of potential customers and learning about the things that drive them to conversation. Finding out what makes them tick and finding the hot button topics that get them focused.
Basically, companies need to view social media as a sort of endless focus group they can tap at any point in time. For companies that invest in listening and really sit down to consider how this information impacts them, there's amazingly valuable information available. Using this information to impact all forms of marketing can make this specific strategy perfect for companies who don't have time to invest in a social media voice, but who want to reap some of the benefits.
Reason #2: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Build or Introduce a Brand
Sometimes, the entire goal of a social media strategy is to create awareness about a new product, a service or a brand. Consumers are heading online in droves to have conversations and thanks to the explosion of interest in microblogging, social networks and blogs, they're talking about more topics and reaching more people than ever before.
Getting a customer to talk about your product used to mean they mentioned it to a handful of friends or co-workers. These days getting them to talk about it might mean they share it with hundreds of friends on Facebook, thousands of contacts on Twitter or even tens or hundreds of thousands of readers on a blog. That's a massive amount of potential exposure.
Let's take a look at three different ways of approaching this one:
1. Use social media to introduce a brand new company to the world: This is one of the most popular ways of using social media. New companies are springing up all the time, often in very competitive markets. Finding (or paying for) brand evangelists to go out, build relationships and educate communities about these companies can be very effective. The key here is to come at things from the relationship and educational side of things. Plugging or pushing products on social media rarely works, gently creating opportunities for exposure by becoming part of the community can get the job done very effectively.
2. Use social media to introduce an existing brand to a larger audience: For companies that simply haven't gotten into the social media space yet, there's tons of opportunity to grow beyond their current reach. These are the types of companies that benefit most from looking at their analytics and talking to existing customers to find out what communities they're part of online. From there, it's a matter of branching out into new and similar communities (i.e. if you get great traffic from parenting forums, seek out new parenting forums) or finding creative ways to equip your current customers with the desire to evangelize you to their friends.
3. Use social media to introduce a new product or service from an existing company: This tactic is very similar to introducing an existing brand to a larger audience. These companies generally have the head start of an existing base of loyal customers from which to build. This means they can approach existing customers who have active voices in social media and offer them the chance to test and experience the new products or services.
Reason #3: Social Media Gives You a Unique Way to Gather Feedback
Another excellent reason to turn to social media is the ability to gather feedback from your target audience. While this may sound similar to the concept of listening to the conversation, there's a strong difference in the two goals. Listening is focused purely on listening to the existing conversation without trying to influence it's direction. Using social media as a feedback channel is all about actively soliciting input, ideas and even complaints about your products or services.
The thing to remember with this type of social media strategy is that it takes some serious investment. You can't just show up on a popular social media channel and ask people to tell you what they think. You have make a heavy investment into building relationships first.
There are several different ways to do this:
1. Use your blog to run ideas past loyal readers before you launch them: The great thing about building up a reputation as a company who listens is it gives people reason to talk. Southwest is one of the best examples online of a company who has established a strong feedback channel with their loyal customers via a blog. If you regularly take ideas to your readers and demonstrate that you not only listen to, but act on their advice, you can open amazing doors of opportunity. Listen to your customers. Talk to your customers. Use social media to find out what they want and then deliver it. You won't be sorry.
2. Use social media to recruit a team of beta testers: Sometimes you have ideas or products you need feedback on, but are not yet ready for public consumption. While social media seems to be the very essence of "public consumption," it can still be a very valuable outlet for beta testing. Why? Because you can use social media to establish the types of relationships needed to put together a small group of beta testers. You can reach out into the community to find influencers, build relationships with them, and offer them exclusive and early access in exchange for their feedback and ideas.
3. Use social media to ask direct questions: Sometimes using social media is as simple as asking a direct question to a larger audience. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and even YouTube can be immensely valuable in terms of getting your question out to a group of people you already know share an interest in your topic or your product. The ability to ask your customer base what they want so you can find a way to deliver it carries a lot of value.
Reason #4: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Demonstrate Personality
One of the single greatest advantages the Internet and social media has given small business owners is the ability to once again go head to head with their big box counterparts. A decade ago, this was because web sites gave no indication of business size. The small mom and pop shop could have a site that looked just as good, was priced just as good and carried just as much inventory as a company like Sears or Walmart. These days, smart small businesses are using social media not only as an equalizer, but as a competitive advantage.
You don't have to look far to find a story of a consumer who feels unappreciated or ignored by a larger brand who has made them unhappy. No one likes to sit on hold for 2 hours trying to lodge a complaint or have a product replaced. Smaller brands who sell the same product at the same price but actually answer the telephone have the chance to differentiate themselves and bring in loads of new customers. Beyond that, small companies who establish a voice via their blog or social media outlets have the chance to build credibility by building relationships directly with consumers.
Here are a handful of ways to use social media to do just that:
1. Demonstrate your unique personality by communicating as a person and not as the company: Companies are faceless, people are not. Using social media to tie your business brand to a personality can go a long way toward making even the largest company feel small and approachable. Whether it's answering questions on Twitter or sharing anecdotes or stories on your blog, letting some of your personality shine through goes a long way toward helping consumers feel connected to your brand.
2. Use various social media outlets to make yourself both available and helpful: This may be the single biggest way companies are using social media to establish personality right now. Whether it's the president of Zappos making lunch plans with a complete stranger while he's in town on business or someone from Comcast responding to customer frustration with a solution...big brands are using social media to communicate openly and helpfully with consumers and it's paying off.
3. Use social media to communicate in the way that's most natural to you: Back in the early days of social media it was all about blogs. The problem with this is not everyone is a good writer. These days, a lack of natural writing ability won't keep your personality from shining through. Whether it's shooting video, recording a podcast or simply sharing unique finds and quick insight on Twitter, social media has opened up a ton of ways (other than writing) for people to communicate. This lets everyone play to their strengths and gives you a chance to be "you" in the best and most comfortable way you know how.
To be honest, there are dozens...maybe even hundreds of reasons to get involved with social media. These are just some of the strongest. What it all boils down to is this; your customers are online and they are using social media to communicate. If you aren't, you're business is missing opportunities. No one says you have to master every use of social media all at once, but you're doing yourself (and your bottom line) a disservice if you don't at least give some thought toward creeping into the social media space to do a little listening.
Unfortunately, that's no way to build a strategy. What good does it do to invest time and money into a blog, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube or any other number of social media outlets if you have no goals, no measurement and quite frankly, no idea why you're there.
What companies need to do is embrace the benefits of social media while very carefully thinking through the goals of their outreach efforts. Different goals will require different strategies. Taking a shotgun approach of simply trying to "get out there" will rarely result in a solid payoff. It's far better to sit down and carefully consider what your company's goals are and to build backward to create a strategy that's most likely to meet those goals.
Here are four key reasons why your company needs to consider planning and launching a social media campaign.
Reason #1: Social Media Gives You Unprecedented Ability to Listen to Your Customers
For companies that don't already have some type of social media strategy in place, this is usually the best place to start. While it takes a little bit of common sense and guidance to create an active and vocal outreach plan that will deliver results, pretty much anyone is capable of listening to the existing conversation.
The goal here is threefold.
1. Find out where your customers are: The first thing you'll need to do is find out where your customers and potential customers are spending their time. You can run a search for groups or fan pages on Facebook, search for keywords related to your business on Twitter Search, set up Technorati and Google Alerts or using a free service like Social Mention. You can (and should) also check your log files to see what types of social sites (blogs, forums, Twitter, etc...) are sending traffic to your site.
2. Find out what your customers think of you and your competitors: Once you've figured out where to look (or as part of that process) it's a great idea to run searches for your company (and products) and for your competitors and their products. This lets you know what your customers like and don't like which gives you an excellent starting point for making changes, playing to your strengths and otherwise building offerings that will appeal to your audience.
3. Find out what your customers' passion points are: This becomes one of the keys of a social media listening strategy and it's one that's often overlooked. Social media listening isn't just about hearing people praise or complain about you, it's about identifying subsets of potential customers and learning about the things that drive them to conversation. Finding out what makes them tick and finding the hot button topics that get them focused.
Basically, companies need to view social media as a sort of endless focus group they can tap at any point in time. For companies that invest in listening and really sit down to consider how this information impacts them, there's amazingly valuable information available. Using this information to impact all forms of marketing can make this specific strategy perfect for companies who don't have time to invest in a social media voice, but who want to reap some of the benefits.
Reason #2: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Build or Introduce a Brand
Sometimes, the entire goal of a social media strategy is to create awareness about a new product, a service or a brand. Consumers are heading online in droves to have conversations and thanks to the explosion of interest in microblogging, social networks and blogs, they're talking about more topics and reaching more people than ever before.
Getting a customer to talk about your product used to mean they mentioned it to a handful of friends or co-workers. These days getting them to talk about it might mean they share it with hundreds of friends on Facebook, thousands of contacts on Twitter or even tens or hundreds of thousands of readers on a blog. That's a massive amount of potential exposure.
Let's take a look at three different ways of approaching this one:
1. Use social media to introduce a brand new company to the world: This is one of the most popular ways of using social media. New companies are springing up all the time, often in very competitive markets. Finding (or paying for) brand evangelists to go out, build relationships and educate communities about these companies can be very effective. The key here is to come at things from the relationship and educational side of things. Plugging or pushing products on social media rarely works, gently creating opportunities for exposure by becoming part of the community can get the job done very effectively.
2. Use social media to introduce an existing brand to a larger audience: For companies that simply haven't gotten into the social media space yet, there's tons of opportunity to grow beyond their current reach. These are the types of companies that benefit most from looking at their analytics and talking to existing customers to find out what communities they're part of online. From there, it's a matter of branching out into new and similar communities (i.e. if you get great traffic from parenting forums, seek out new parenting forums) or finding creative ways to equip your current customers with the desire to evangelize you to their friends.
3. Use social media to introduce a new product or service from an existing company: This tactic is very similar to introducing an existing brand to a larger audience. These companies generally have the head start of an existing base of loyal customers from which to build. This means they can approach existing customers who have active voices in social media and offer them the chance to test and experience the new products or services.
Reason #3: Social Media Gives You a Unique Way to Gather Feedback
Another excellent reason to turn to social media is the ability to gather feedback from your target audience. While this may sound similar to the concept of listening to the conversation, there's a strong difference in the two goals. Listening is focused purely on listening to the existing conversation without trying to influence it's direction. Using social media as a feedback channel is all about actively soliciting input, ideas and even complaints about your products or services.
The thing to remember with this type of social media strategy is that it takes some serious investment. You can't just show up on a popular social media channel and ask people to tell you what they think. You have make a heavy investment into building relationships first.
There are several different ways to do this:
1. Use your blog to run ideas past loyal readers before you launch them: The great thing about building up a reputation as a company who listens is it gives people reason to talk. Southwest is one of the best examples online of a company who has established a strong feedback channel with their loyal customers via a blog. If you regularly take ideas to your readers and demonstrate that you not only listen to, but act on their advice, you can open amazing doors of opportunity. Listen to your customers. Talk to your customers. Use social media to find out what they want and then deliver it. You won't be sorry.
2. Use social media to recruit a team of beta testers: Sometimes you have ideas or products you need feedback on, but are not yet ready for public consumption. While social media seems to be the very essence of "public consumption," it can still be a very valuable outlet for beta testing. Why? Because you can use social media to establish the types of relationships needed to put together a small group of beta testers. You can reach out into the community to find influencers, build relationships with them, and offer them exclusive and early access in exchange for their feedback and ideas.
3. Use social media to ask direct questions: Sometimes using social media is as simple as asking a direct question to a larger audience. Twitter, Facebook, Blogs and even YouTube can be immensely valuable in terms of getting your question out to a group of people you already know share an interest in your topic or your product. The ability to ask your customer base what they want so you can find a way to deliver it carries a lot of value.
Reason #4: Social Media Gives You the Chance to Demonstrate Personality
One of the single greatest advantages the Internet and social media has given small business owners is the ability to once again go head to head with their big box counterparts. A decade ago, this was because web sites gave no indication of business size. The small mom and pop shop could have a site that looked just as good, was priced just as good and carried just as much inventory as a company like Sears or Walmart. These days, smart small businesses are using social media not only as an equalizer, but as a competitive advantage.
You don't have to look far to find a story of a consumer who feels unappreciated or ignored by a larger brand who has made them unhappy. No one likes to sit on hold for 2 hours trying to lodge a complaint or have a product replaced. Smaller brands who sell the same product at the same price but actually answer the telephone have the chance to differentiate themselves and bring in loads of new customers. Beyond that, small companies who establish a voice via their blog or social media outlets have the chance to build credibility by building relationships directly with consumers.
Here are a handful of ways to use social media to do just that:
1. Demonstrate your unique personality by communicating as a person and not as the company: Companies are faceless, people are not. Using social media to tie your business brand to a personality can go a long way toward making even the largest company feel small and approachable. Whether it's answering questions on Twitter or sharing anecdotes or stories on your blog, letting some of your personality shine through goes a long way toward helping consumers feel connected to your brand.
2. Use various social media outlets to make yourself both available and helpful: This may be the single biggest way companies are using social media to establish personality right now. Whether it's the president of Zappos making lunch plans with a complete stranger while he's in town on business or someone from Comcast responding to customer frustration with a solution...big brands are using social media to communicate openly and helpfully with consumers and it's paying off.
3. Use social media to communicate in the way that's most natural to you: Back in the early days of social media it was all about blogs. The problem with this is not everyone is a good writer. These days, a lack of natural writing ability won't keep your personality from shining through. Whether it's shooting video, recording a podcast or simply sharing unique finds and quick insight on Twitter, social media has opened up a ton of ways (other than writing) for people to communicate. This lets everyone play to their strengths and gives you a chance to be "you" in the best and most comfortable way you know how.
To be honest, there are dozens...maybe even hundreds of reasons to get involved with social media. These are just some of the strongest. What it all boils down to is this; your customers are online and they are using social media to communicate. If you aren't, you're business is missing opportunities. No one says you have to master every use of social media all at once, but you're doing yourself (and your bottom line) a disservice if you don't at least give some thought toward creeping into the social media space to do a little listening.
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Usage of PPC To Mess With The Competition
Some interesting talk today of ways of using paid search to play with your competitors. I am sure many advertisers have noticed incorrect prices, promotions, erroring destination urls or just plain poor adverts for their own campaigns – whether it be down to an in-house team, their agency or affiliates.
It can be a very frustrating process tracking down who is running the offending advert and getting it amended to display accurate information.
The reason is anyone can run any advert as anyone else. I can run an advert with the display url set as any company in the world. So can anyone else.
Sounds strange that someone might be willing to pay to do this if they are an competitor. But by doing this a person or company can set about a negative ad campaign against their competitor. It could be a fairly minor thing to something much, much naughtier.
Take for example if I were a competitor of both DialAFlight and Flight Centre.
DialAFlight have just released a statement saying it is instituting legal proceedings against Flight Centre for infringement of their trademark.
Flight Centre say they have removed the ‘DialAFlight’ keyword phrase from their campaign. This is not the first time DialAFlight have warned Flight Centre apparently.
So imagine what a competitor can do to really wind this situation up by just displaying a little advert against DialAFlight as Flight Centre. I’d imagine that would not go down well.
Another example might be where all competition within a niche are playing nice, not bidding against each others brands out of respect. There is an almost unspoken mutual agreement in place of ‘don’t bid against me, I won’t bid against you’.
So you could shake it up a little and start running competitors adverts against your other competitors.
You might just find that the competitors you are running adverts against spot this and react by now advertising against the company you were acting as.
Time to remove your own advert and watch the company you have been advertising as now run their own advert against the competitor because they spot their advert.
Oh the fun.
I am certainly not recommending anyone to do this. In fact, I am recommending people not to do this as there are more intelligent ways to spend your advertising budget. But I have seen some cases of this over the past few months and it’s something to keep an eye as we might see more cases.
It can be a very frustrating process tracking down who is running the offending advert and getting it amended to display accurate information.
The reason is anyone can run any advert as anyone else. I can run an advert with the display url set as any company in the world. So can anyone else.
Sounds strange that someone might be willing to pay to do this if they are an competitor. But by doing this a person or company can set about a negative ad campaign against their competitor. It could be a fairly minor thing to something much, much naughtier.
Take for example if I were a competitor of both DialAFlight and Flight Centre.
DialAFlight have just released a statement saying it is instituting legal proceedings against Flight Centre for infringement of their trademark.
Flight Centre say they have removed the ‘DialAFlight’ keyword phrase from their campaign. This is not the first time DialAFlight have warned Flight Centre apparently.
So imagine what a competitor can do to really wind this situation up by just displaying a little advert against DialAFlight as Flight Centre. I’d imagine that would not go down well.
Another example might be where all competition within a niche are playing nice, not bidding against each others brands out of respect. There is an almost unspoken mutual agreement in place of ‘don’t bid against me, I won’t bid against you’.
So you could shake it up a little and start running competitors adverts against your other competitors.
You might just find that the competitors you are running adverts against spot this and react by now advertising against the company you were acting as.
Time to remove your own advert and watch the company you have been advertising as now run their own advert against the competitor because they spot their advert.
Oh the fun.
I am certainly not recommending anyone to do this. In fact, I am recommending people not to do this as there are more intelligent ways to spend your advertising budget. But I have seen some cases of this over the past few months and it’s something to keep an eye as we might see more cases.
Saturday, June 19, 2010
Five Tips to Make Social Media Work for Your Business
Tip 1: Go ahead and share..
More than Facebook users, corporations are liable for information they share. Be sure you have a solid social media policy in place that ensures that information that is tweeted, shared and posted publicly is vetted and does not put your company or its sensitive information at risk. And, make sure that information is accurate – just ask BP, who has been suffering a proverbial firestorm filled with rage and media criticism because of their self-aggrandizing and inaccurate tweets over the past two months. Then, of course, there’s the fake BP Twitter feed. No business wants to be in that situation.
Tip 2: Is it time to move to the Cloud?
Social spaces and collaboration applications that make it easy to communicate are built around open and rich multimedia environments. And, your new stakeholders expect to be able to share, “digg,” and recommend in the new social world. Moving data to the cloud can greatly lessen the demand on corporate bandwidth. And, increasingly on-demand application providers are providing APIs, monitoring and direct access to applications from Facebook, Twitter and other social media communities.
Tip 3: Never forget the importance of a trusting relationship
Want to build your brand? How about foster an army of customer advocates ready to go to bat for you in customer forums and on the Twitter boards? Then, be a good corporate citizen and be trustworthy. Again, we are brought back to the newest lessons from BP’s recent behavior on social media communities—the truth will set you free…eventually, and it builds closer customer and partner relationships.
Tip 4: Don’t forget Internal collaboration
With all the buzz around external social media communities, take a look at how your internal communications can be transformed by collaborative on-demand solutions like those available from hosted Exchange providers like Intermedia solutions. The ability to share information, maximize corporate resources, both human and technological, better positions you to utilize the resources and the skill sets you have at your fingertips. It also keeps every employee, from the VP to the mailroom clerk, apprised of corporate goals and strategy so corporate energy is focused on your overall objective.
Tip 5: Empower your Employees
Employees can be your best ambassadors in the competitive war waging within the social media community. You want to have a social media policy in place, for sure, but don’t restrict employee use of social media as some CIOs have done. Let your employees share opinions, thoughts and news to combat criticism and negative publicity, and they will play an instrumental role in communicating your corporate message and furthering your objectives.
For more information on how online social communities are becoming increasingly important to corporation, Verizon recently sponsored a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit called "Dangerous liaisons: How businesses are learning to work with their new stakeholders." The report provides insightful information on what new stakeholder groups corporations are finding themselves interacting with and what new technologies are driving forward the need for collaboration with new stakeholder communities. The research also provides the results of surveys and interviews with senior executives and their perceived use and importance of social networks. In addition, the research provides some recommendations for enterprises looking to take advantage of social networks to further their business.
More than Facebook users, corporations are liable for information they share. Be sure you have a solid social media policy in place that ensures that information that is tweeted, shared and posted publicly is vetted and does not put your company or its sensitive information at risk. And, make sure that information is accurate – just ask BP, who has been suffering a proverbial firestorm filled with rage and media criticism because of their self-aggrandizing and inaccurate tweets over the past two months. Then, of course, there’s the fake BP Twitter feed. No business wants to be in that situation.
Tip 2: Is it time to move to the Cloud?
Social spaces and collaboration applications that make it easy to communicate are built around open and rich multimedia environments. And, your new stakeholders expect to be able to share, “digg,” and recommend in the new social world. Moving data to the cloud can greatly lessen the demand on corporate bandwidth. And, increasingly on-demand application providers are providing APIs, monitoring and direct access to applications from Facebook, Twitter and other social media communities.
Tip 3: Never forget the importance of a trusting relationship
Want to build your brand? How about foster an army of customer advocates ready to go to bat for you in customer forums and on the Twitter boards? Then, be a good corporate citizen and be trustworthy. Again, we are brought back to the newest lessons from BP’s recent behavior on social media communities—the truth will set you free…eventually, and it builds closer customer and partner relationships.
Tip 4: Don’t forget Internal collaboration
With all the buzz around external social media communities, take a look at how your internal communications can be transformed by collaborative on-demand solutions like those available from hosted Exchange providers like Intermedia solutions. The ability to share information, maximize corporate resources, both human and technological, better positions you to utilize the resources and the skill sets you have at your fingertips. It also keeps every employee, from the VP to the mailroom clerk, apprised of corporate goals and strategy so corporate energy is focused on your overall objective.
Tip 5: Empower your Employees
Employees can be your best ambassadors in the competitive war waging within the social media community. You want to have a social media policy in place, for sure, but don’t restrict employee use of social media as some CIOs have done. Let your employees share opinions, thoughts and news to combat criticism and negative publicity, and they will play an instrumental role in communicating your corporate message and furthering your objectives.
For more information on how online social communities are becoming increasingly important to corporation, Verizon recently sponsored a study conducted by the Economist Intelligence Unit called "Dangerous liaisons: How businesses are learning to work with their new stakeholders." The report provides insightful information on what new stakeholder groups corporations are finding themselves interacting with and what new technologies are driving forward the need for collaboration with new stakeholder communities. The research also provides the results of surveys and interviews with senior executives and their perceived use and importance of social networks. In addition, the research provides some recommendations for enterprises looking to take advantage of social networks to further their business.
Friday, June 18, 2010
Seven successful Steps to Improving Conversion Rates
In the world of marketing and campaign measurement, the web has been a goldmine. Almost every conceivable metric can be measured online. But of all the things you can track, measure, weigh and analyze, the only metric that truly matters is conversions. Click through rates, page views, time spent on site, number of pages read, entrance and exit points, abandonment; all of these metrics are fantastic, but if you're not using them to improve your conversion rates, then why bother?
Most people look at their website as a whole but in reality it is a collection of many parts. These parts (web pages) are essentially individual steps on a path that should lead your visitors to a specific goal: the conversion. If your site as a whole, and web pages individually, are working properly, you should see an increase in conversion rates and sales. If anything is broken along the way your visitors are led the wrong way at the wrong time and you open the door to having them leave before they've reached the conversion goal.
Each entry point of your site (wherever the visitor lands first, not just the home page) needs to be treated as the starting point that will lead your visitors step by step toward the conversion goal. In order to guide your visitors from this starting point to the end point, you need to make sure each step along the way is aligned with the next; in sync and unbroken.
The seven steps to strong conversions
Step 1: Build the path to the conversion point
Stepping Stones
Just like good book needs to have a beginning, middle and an end, your site should be no different. All the steps, from start to finish, need to work together to bring the visitor toward the ultimate goal. However, with a website the start isn't always the home page. In fact, a website is more like a choose-your-own-adventure book than a traditional novel. The visitor starts at different points; wherever the search engine dropped them. This could be the home page, product page, testimonial page, informational page, an article, or anywhere else.
This makes building the path to the conversion a bit more challenging, but it can be done. Each page must be able to act independently from the previous, having a beginning and a middle while guiding the visitor to the end. Essentially, every web page of your site needs to be able to be the very first step in the process, provide a link to or act as the middle step, and lead the visitor to the last step, which is the conversion.
Step 2: Create alternate paths to the conversion point
Not every visitor has the same wants, needs or desires as the next. If you plan only a single path to the conversion point, you will ultimately lead much of your audience down a path that isn't meant for them.
Twenty visitors can land on the same page and take 20 different paths to the conversion. Some want to read about your company, others want to see your testimonials, while another group wants guarantee or warranty information. Yet still others want to read more about your products or services before learning more about you and then getting some testimonials for confirmation. And of course there are always those who are ready to buy now with very little persuasion having to be done..
A path to the conversion should be created to provide each of your users precisely what they need in order to take the next step. Every visitor has different needs, desires, and temperaments from the next. Their needs vary at any given time in the process. Keep your visitor's options open but also be aware that too many options can create confusion or inhibit your visitors from choosing any path at all. Don't try to be all things to all people, but instead try to narrow the options down to the most common and significant so you can be sure to meet the vast majority of your visitor's needs.
Step 3: Inspect your conversion paths
Once you have created your paths you then need to inspect them. Put yourself in the mind of your visitors and follow through as many paths as possible. This is where you'll find out if any steps are missing or broken, or if there are too many steps in the process.
Take notes of obstacles that may disengage the visitor or may be an impediment to them reaching the conversion goal. Look for missing information, errors on the pages, broken links and calls to action. You want to make sure that the visitor finds no hindrances to getting to the destination and are able to find all the information they need to make a confident purchase decision.
Step 4: Fix broken steps along the paths
This is pretty self-explanatory. Once you've uncovered any problems with your conversion paths, fix them. Patch holes, fill cracks or otherwise improve the performance of each step along the way. Use your analytics to identify problem areas and test different versions to see which performs better.
Step 5: Add or remove steps to create the most efficient path
Again, using your analytics, determine if there are places where steps need to be added or removed in order to make the conversion process more efficient. Your goal is to make the site as streamlined as possible. Add no more steps than are needed and no fewer than what it takes to get the job done.
Remember, each set of visitors is different. Some paths may be long, others short but you need to have the options there for each segment of your audience.
Step 6: Create and test new paths
Once you have tested, fixed and retested your original paths and everything is functioning as it should, it's time to start building and testing new paths. Consider your users carefully here. The first pass at creating paths should have been designed to hit the majority of your target audience. Now it's time to accommodate the rest. While the broader target is easier to hit, the smaller target is no less important. Build paths specifically for these users as they can be the source of many additional sales, and often result in higher conversion rates.
Step 7: Test new stepping stones
By this time your conversion process should be going strong and you have pretty solid conversion rates. Well, if it ain't broke... fix it anyway. Never stop looking for new opportunities to improve your conversion process. Test, test, and test some more. Sometimes adding new steps in the process can help improve conversions with certain audiences. Just be careful to keep an eye out for any negative effects as well. The goal here is improvement, not to add clutter.
Building a cohesive path from your visitor's landing point to the conversion goal isn't easy. What makes it even more difficult is that you never know what any individual's preference or needs will be. But by taking the time to know and understand your audience you can find ways to build and improve upon the conversion paths that will satisfy the majority of your visitors.
Follow these seven steps and there is no doubt that you'll find ways to improve your conversions rates. It may be incremental or you may find huge gains all at once, but every gain is a good gain.
Most people look at their website as a whole but in reality it is a collection of many parts. These parts (web pages) are essentially individual steps on a path that should lead your visitors to a specific goal: the conversion. If your site as a whole, and web pages individually, are working properly, you should see an increase in conversion rates and sales. If anything is broken along the way your visitors are led the wrong way at the wrong time and you open the door to having them leave before they've reached the conversion goal.
Each entry point of your site (wherever the visitor lands first, not just the home page) needs to be treated as the starting point that will lead your visitors step by step toward the conversion goal. In order to guide your visitors from this starting point to the end point, you need to make sure each step along the way is aligned with the next; in sync and unbroken.
The seven steps to strong conversions
Step 1: Build the path to the conversion point
Stepping Stones
Just like good book needs to have a beginning, middle and an end, your site should be no different. All the steps, from start to finish, need to work together to bring the visitor toward the ultimate goal. However, with a website the start isn't always the home page. In fact, a website is more like a choose-your-own-adventure book than a traditional novel. The visitor starts at different points; wherever the search engine dropped them. This could be the home page, product page, testimonial page, informational page, an article, or anywhere else.
This makes building the path to the conversion a bit more challenging, but it can be done. Each page must be able to act independently from the previous, having a beginning and a middle while guiding the visitor to the end. Essentially, every web page of your site needs to be able to be the very first step in the process, provide a link to or act as the middle step, and lead the visitor to the last step, which is the conversion.
Step 2: Create alternate paths to the conversion point
Not every visitor has the same wants, needs or desires as the next. If you plan only a single path to the conversion point, you will ultimately lead much of your audience down a path that isn't meant for them.
Twenty visitors can land on the same page and take 20 different paths to the conversion. Some want to read about your company, others want to see your testimonials, while another group wants guarantee or warranty information. Yet still others want to read more about your products or services before learning more about you and then getting some testimonials for confirmation. And of course there are always those who are ready to buy now with very little persuasion having to be done..
A path to the conversion should be created to provide each of your users precisely what they need in order to take the next step. Every visitor has different needs, desires, and temperaments from the next. Their needs vary at any given time in the process. Keep your visitor's options open but also be aware that too many options can create confusion or inhibit your visitors from choosing any path at all. Don't try to be all things to all people, but instead try to narrow the options down to the most common and significant so you can be sure to meet the vast majority of your visitor's needs.
Step 3: Inspect your conversion paths
Once you have created your paths you then need to inspect them. Put yourself in the mind of your visitors and follow through as many paths as possible. This is where you'll find out if any steps are missing or broken, or if there are too many steps in the process.
Take notes of obstacles that may disengage the visitor or may be an impediment to them reaching the conversion goal. Look for missing information, errors on the pages, broken links and calls to action. You want to make sure that the visitor finds no hindrances to getting to the destination and are able to find all the information they need to make a confident purchase decision.
Step 4: Fix broken steps along the paths
This is pretty self-explanatory. Once you've uncovered any problems with your conversion paths, fix them. Patch holes, fill cracks or otherwise improve the performance of each step along the way. Use your analytics to identify problem areas and test different versions to see which performs better.
Step 5: Add or remove steps to create the most efficient path
Again, using your analytics, determine if there are places where steps need to be added or removed in order to make the conversion process more efficient. Your goal is to make the site as streamlined as possible. Add no more steps than are needed and no fewer than what it takes to get the job done.
Remember, each set of visitors is different. Some paths may be long, others short but you need to have the options there for each segment of your audience.
Step 6: Create and test new paths
Once you have tested, fixed and retested your original paths and everything is functioning as it should, it's time to start building and testing new paths. Consider your users carefully here. The first pass at creating paths should have been designed to hit the majority of your target audience. Now it's time to accommodate the rest. While the broader target is easier to hit, the smaller target is no less important. Build paths specifically for these users as they can be the source of many additional sales, and often result in higher conversion rates.
Step 7: Test new stepping stones
By this time your conversion process should be going strong and you have pretty solid conversion rates. Well, if it ain't broke... fix it anyway. Never stop looking for new opportunities to improve your conversion process. Test, test, and test some more. Sometimes adding new steps in the process can help improve conversions with certain audiences. Just be careful to keep an eye out for any negative effects as well. The goal here is improvement, not to add clutter.
Building a cohesive path from your visitor's landing point to the conversion goal isn't easy. What makes it even more difficult is that you never know what any individual's preference or needs will be. But by taking the time to know and understand your audience you can find ways to build and improve upon the conversion paths that will satisfy the majority of your visitors.
Follow these seven steps and there is no doubt that you'll find ways to improve your conversions rates. It may be incremental or you may find huge gains all at once, but every gain is a good gain.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Latest Twitter SEO Best Practices
Welcome back to the Mindcore Consltants. Today I’ll introduce the most common Twitter SEO best practices. Twitter SEO means at least 5 things:
1. Ranking with your profile for your name & brand
2. Ranking organically with your tweets in Google
3. Getting found in Twitter search and other tools
4. Making tweets spread virally by retweets
5. Entering Google results via realtime search
Plus many others I can’t cover today. Let us start with the basic best practices everybody should take into account.
Ranking with your profile on Google sounds simpler than it is. What do you want to rank for? You can’t rank easily for different keywords. I rank for Tad Chef with my profile. What about onreact though, my older nick name or brand? I had to set up another Twitter account to rank for onreact as onreact_com is considered by Google to be onreactcom.
In the end I added 4 extra accounts that cover the most common terms associated with me. Also Twitter outranks me for my Tad Chef. So one day I might want to change that be de-optimizing it actually. List are a good tool to cover more terms. You can add only yourself or your employees if you like too. A list called “seo london” will probably succeed rather than one called just seo.
Ranking organically with tweets largely depends on the keyword usage and what comes first in your tweet. You don’t want to rank for [RT @andy RT @bill RT @chris] so make sure you add the users you retweet at the end with a blog-like [via @andy @bill #chris]. Also you should add some meaningful tags: #seo is fine for Twitter but something more exact like #twitterseo might be better findable and more accurate.
Getting found in Twitter search is not really desirable if you ask me. The results are messy and lack focus. Even the so called “popular” results on top are barely relevant. People still use this search in spite of better alternatives like Topsy etc. though. Scheduling recurring tweets might be a good idea here. Don’t spam though. I think more than 4 tweets a day is too much. Lots of Twitter tools support scheduled tweets. HootSuite and CoTweet for example do.
Making tweets spread virally is perhaps the most important discipline of Twitter SEO. The other stuff is very basic. Add popular terms and keywords to your twet to make people retweet. Words like “free”, “tips”, “tools” etc., brands like “Google”, “Apple” everybody cares for and something that makes a tweeet stand out like “OMG!”, “WTF?” or a number.
Of course the link you tweet or the message must be worth retweeting. In case it isn’t nobody will retweet it. Tweets about Twitter, technology, social media, business that are helpful for most users will get more popular that tweets about niche topics like SEO. Humor is also key. Even SEO jokes are quite popular.
Entering Google results via realtime search is easy once you’re tweet has become viral but it sometimes also helps to tweet your link from more than one account and more than one time. For instance we at SEOptimise tweet from the company account first, then in most cases the boss himself, Kevin will retweet the link and I will post it again or retweet as an author.
As our postings have considerable value the rest is done by other regular users. Don’t forget that many Twitter accounts are mostly useless bots that retweet automatically based on keywords: Nobody clicks those links. They may show up in Google though as it doesn’t really filter tweets.
These Twitter SEO best practices are neither SEO secrets nor controversial. Everybody serious about Twitter SEO tweets that way. Other people don’t mind but if you’re using Twitter for business reasons should do more than just click and run. Make sure to act accordingly to perform better in search be it Google or Twitter or third party tools like Topsy.
1. Ranking with your profile for your name & brand
2. Ranking organically with your tweets in Google
3. Getting found in Twitter search and other tools
4. Making tweets spread virally by retweets
5. Entering Google results via realtime search
Plus many others I can’t cover today. Let us start with the basic best practices everybody should take into account.
Ranking with your profile on Google sounds simpler than it is. What do you want to rank for? You can’t rank easily for different keywords. I rank for Tad Chef with my profile. What about onreact though, my older nick name or brand? I had to set up another Twitter account to rank for onreact as onreact_com is considered by Google to be onreactcom.
In the end I added 4 extra accounts that cover the most common terms associated with me. Also Twitter outranks me for my Tad Chef. So one day I might want to change that be de-optimizing it actually. List are a good tool to cover more terms. You can add only yourself or your employees if you like too. A list called “seo london” will probably succeed rather than one called just seo.
Ranking organically with tweets largely depends on the keyword usage and what comes first in your tweet. You don’t want to rank for [RT @andy RT @bill RT @chris] so make sure you add the users you retweet at the end with a blog-like [via @andy @bill #chris]. Also you should add some meaningful tags: #seo is fine for Twitter but something more exact like #twitterseo might be better findable and more accurate.
Getting found in Twitter search is not really desirable if you ask me. The results are messy and lack focus. Even the so called “popular” results on top are barely relevant. People still use this search in spite of better alternatives like Topsy etc. though. Scheduling recurring tweets might be a good idea here. Don’t spam though. I think more than 4 tweets a day is too much. Lots of Twitter tools support scheduled tweets. HootSuite and CoTweet for example do.
Making tweets spread virally is perhaps the most important discipline of Twitter SEO. The other stuff is very basic. Add popular terms and keywords to your twet to make people retweet. Words like “free”, “tips”, “tools” etc., brands like “Google”, “Apple” everybody cares for and something that makes a tweeet stand out like “OMG!”, “WTF?” or a number.
Of course the link you tweet or the message must be worth retweeting. In case it isn’t nobody will retweet it. Tweets about Twitter, technology, social media, business that are helpful for most users will get more popular that tweets about niche topics like SEO. Humor is also key. Even SEO jokes are quite popular.
Entering Google results via realtime search is easy once you’re tweet has become viral but it sometimes also helps to tweet your link from more than one account and more than one time. For instance we at SEOptimise tweet from the company account first, then in most cases the boss himself, Kevin will retweet the link and I will post it again or retweet as an author.
As our postings have considerable value the rest is done by other regular users. Don’t forget that many Twitter accounts are mostly useless bots that retweet automatically based on keywords: Nobody clicks those links. They may show up in Google though as it doesn’t really filter tweets.
These Twitter SEO best practices are neither SEO secrets nor controversial. Everybody serious about Twitter SEO tweets that way. Other people don’t mind but if you’re using Twitter for business reasons should do more than just click and run. Make sure to act accordingly to perform better in search be it Google or Twitter or third party tools like Topsy.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries
Google offered Top Search Query report through Google Webmaster Tools which gave you the top 100 keywords that are related to your website when Google users searched. Google upgraded and renamed Top Search Queries report to Search Queries report. Now Search Queries report shows you more information about your searched keywords.
Impression, Click and Clickthrough Metrics
Google SEO for beginners and best Google SEO resources mentioned the basics and factors to search engine optimization. Google SEO requires you to analyze the keywords that are driving Google search traffic to your website. For each search query (keyword), Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report provides:
* A breakdown of impressions, clicks, and clickthrough (CTR) for each position that your website’s pages appeared at in Google’s search results pages.
* A list of your website’s pages that were associated to from those Google search results.
You can select date range, country and search type (web, image, mobile, or all) when compiling the Search Queries report.
Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries vs Google Analytics Keyword Report
Google Analytics offers a similar keyword report that shows all keywords (search queries) from all organic search engines and paid search engines that received clickthrough (or visits) to your site, while Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report shows search queries (keywords) with impressions or clicks only from Google organic search.
Webmasters should use both reports as SEM keyword research tools, the keyword data in Google Webmaster Tools can complement the keyword data in Google Analytics.
Impression, Click and Clickthrough Metrics
Google SEO for beginners and best Google SEO resources mentioned the basics and factors to search engine optimization. Google SEO requires you to analyze the keywords that are driving Google search traffic to your website. For each search query (keyword), Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report provides:
* A breakdown of impressions, clicks, and clickthrough (CTR) for each position that your website’s pages appeared at in Google’s search results pages.
* A list of your website’s pages that were associated to from those Google search results.
You can select date range, country and search type (web, image, mobile, or all) when compiling the Search Queries report.
Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries vs Google Analytics Keyword Report
Google Analytics offers a similar keyword report that shows all keywords (search queries) from all organic search engines and paid search engines that received clickthrough (or visits) to your site, while Google Webmaster Tools Search Queries report shows search queries (keywords) with impressions or clicks only from Google organic search.
Webmasters should use both reports as SEM keyword research tools, the keyword data in Google Webmaster Tools can complement the keyword data in Google Analytics.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Monopoly of Twitter for Stream Ads: What Does it Mean for Business?
Welcome back to the weekly Twitter column. The biggest and saddest Twitter news this week was another blow to the Twitter app developer community: Twitter banned all third party stream ads to monopolize advertising for it’s own “featured tweets” ad platform.
While on the one hand, it’s understandable, Google doesn’t allow competing services to sell ads in search results either, on the other hand this a typical measure to stifle competition we all love to hate.
Twitter is biting the hand that feeds them.
One reason while Twitter has grown so fast is that it allowed third parties to add all kinds of functionality to it. While some of them charge users most people don’t pay for Twitter apps and thus many of the software developers rely on advertising. Now their business models are dead over night. Even Twitter clients can’t advertise in their streams or timelines.
Any display of tweets is a stream btw. so it doesn’t matter whether it’s the main Twitter timeline, a list or a search, displaying ads there is forbidden from now on.
Exempt from this new ruling are only ads outside the timeline/stream and privately inserted ads or sponsored tweets, like when you tweet an affiliate links. This is still better than Tumblr e.g which forbids all kinds of affiliate links on its services but it’s basically killing of some software. So the Twitter software business is basically a high risk endeavor now.
* Access to tweets has been limited repeatedly.
* Apps can get banned for all kinds of breaches of the TOS like the Pluggio client has been a few weeks ago for automating too much. Twitter doesn’t want users to unfollow more than a few people at once.
* Now you can’t make money by advertising on Twitter. What comes next?
Business relations rely on trust. How can you trust a company that stabs it’s developer community in the back again and again? I don’t think solely about the developers here. For everyone doing business on Twitter or via Twitter right now: This is the last call to back up your Twitter assets. Like Ning Twitter might decide one day that it wants to sell your Twitter followers or tweets back to you.
For SEOs and marketers the measures by Twitter are also bad news more often now. First they made the “bio” links nofollow, later they crippled all links in your Twitter stream to name the most obvious changes.
Even the average users get annoyed repeatedly. Just last week Twitter decided to block old school “RT” retweets from searches. Any day a change imposed by Twitter might crush your business model. Use Twitter to the max while the party lasts. Be prepared to leave when the party is over.
Other platforms become more and more important these days, both LinkedIn and Facebook for example. Last but not least platform independent business models are gaining foothold again in the highly volatile social media arena. I consider renaming my column to social media weekly. What do you think? Has Twitter jumped the shark?
While on the one hand, it’s understandable, Google doesn’t allow competing services to sell ads in search results either, on the other hand this a typical measure to stifle competition we all love to hate.
Twitter is biting the hand that feeds them.
One reason while Twitter has grown so fast is that it allowed third parties to add all kinds of functionality to it. While some of them charge users most people don’t pay for Twitter apps and thus many of the software developers rely on advertising. Now their business models are dead over night. Even Twitter clients can’t advertise in their streams or timelines.
Any display of tweets is a stream btw. so it doesn’t matter whether it’s the main Twitter timeline, a list or a search, displaying ads there is forbidden from now on.
Exempt from this new ruling are only ads outside the timeline/stream and privately inserted ads or sponsored tweets, like when you tweet an affiliate links. This is still better than Tumblr e.g which forbids all kinds of affiliate links on its services but it’s basically killing of some software. So the Twitter software business is basically a high risk endeavor now.
* Access to tweets has been limited repeatedly.
* Apps can get banned for all kinds of breaches of the TOS like the Pluggio client has been a few weeks ago for automating too much. Twitter doesn’t want users to unfollow more than a few people at once.
* Now you can’t make money by advertising on Twitter. What comes next?
Business relations rely on trust. How can you trust a company that stabs it’s developer community in the back again and again? I don’t think solely about the developers here. For everyone doing business on Twitter or via Twitter right now: This is the last call to back up your Twitter assets. Like Ning Twitter might decide one day that it wants to sell your Twitter followers or tweets back to you.
For SEOs and marketers the measures by Twitter are also bad news more often now. First they made the “bio” links nofollow, later they crippled all links in your Twitter stream to name the most obvious changes.
Even the average users get annoyed repeatedly. Just last week Twitter decided to block old school “RT” retweets from searches. Any day a change imposed by Twitter might crush your business model. Use Twitter to the max while the party lasts. Be prepared to leave when the party is over.
Other platforms become more and more important these days, both LinkedIn and Facebook for example. Last but not least platform independent business models are gaining foothold again in the highly volatile social media arena. I consider renaming my column to social media weekly. What do you think? Has Twitter jumped the shark?
Saturday, June 12, 2010
20 Brutal Truths About SEO, Google & Main Stream Media
Many people in the SEO industry write list posts about SEO myths. The authors always want to debunk myths but why repeat the myths over and over in the first place?
Why not just speak out the brutal truth instead? Is it because people love myths? Is it because people love to believe in the myths they are taught?
Several recent posts by Aaron Wall, David Harry and others have inspired me to write down the things that bug me. Thus I compiled this list of 25 brutal truths about SEO, Google & main stream media.
You may not find out much about SEO techniques here but you will get a good overview at the actual issues you have to deal with as an SEO specialist.
SEO
“SEO is bullshit” bullshit
People who dismiss SEO do it to gain a competitive advantage. Visit the sites of the pundits who said SEO is bullshit, SEO is dead or whatever such people tell us. How many of them are in Google? How many of them use SEO friendly CMS software like WordPress? How many of them use the meta noindex tag to make sure they do not commit the SEO crime of getting indexed? People who dismiss SEO are either deceiving you or they have no clue. That’s “SEO is bullshit” bullshit.
SEO needs time and/or money
There is no magic in SEO. It’s hard work. Any 19$ SEO secret tool that submits your site to 100k directories (aka blog comment spam) is either a scam, black hat SEO or simply worthless. Sure, your site might even get a push for a while but unless you’re a black hat SEO expert who uses throwaway domains you have basically committed suicide on the Web.
SEO is queen
The content is king mantra gets repeated all over the place. Google engineers love it. Bloggers and journalists who dismiss SEO out of cluelessness tell you that good content is enough and it will spread by itself. That’s nonsense. You need SEO, social media, blogger friends or a major publication to make that work. In the best case you have all four of them. It’s like in chess. Your site won’t work without the king but you need the queen and a lot of others. SEO is your queen. It’s the most versatile and long term ally of your content.
Everybody publishing on the Web does SEO
You never have never heard of SEO? Do you have a website? Are you on social networks? In case yes you have done or taken part in SEO whether knowingly or unknowingly. Part of the SEO definition is making web sites and content readable by search engines. Unless you have made your website invisible for Google etc., like you can do in WordPress in case you want to keep your blog “private” at installation, your site is optimized for search to some extent. Remember next time when you say that you hate SEO that everybody publishing on the Web does SEO. It’s like saying you hate web design or web hosting.
Global players dominate search results
As a site owner you are most likely not able to compete in the most lucrative niches as the likes of AOL and Yahoo already own them. They can show up in the top 10 with ten different sites and you wouldn’t even know that one company owns all of them. Just search for Google on Google. How many non-Google properties do you see on the first page?
Big Brands are Favored by Google
Google favors brands in search results even if they have less relevant content. Google CEO Eric Schmidt himself has stated the Web is a cess pool and only brands are reliable.
There are no real SEO secrets
Google has secrets. It won’t tell you its exact ranking formula because otherwise Bing and Yahoo could quickly catch up. On the other hand SEO secrets are really rare. Most SEO knowledge is readily available. Google itself offers basic SEO advice and lots of free SEO tools that are enough for most average webmasters. You just have to research a little more to find out about advanced SEO techniques. There are no real SEO secrets. Even black hat SEOs share their insights on blogs and forums.
SEO is not just SEO
These days when you refer to SEO you most probably also include other things like conversion rate optimization, usability or information architecture. SEO is not SEO these days. Social media is a big part of SEO for instance and it’s not automatically social media marketing then.
Good SEO is invisible
Do you know why most people hate SEO if you ask them? Good SEO is invisible to the naked eye. Normal web users only recognize bad SEO that is crappy keyword stuffed websites. Good SEO just make people find websites, click the results and perform the action the website owners wants them to. The users are perfectly happy and don’t even notice there was SEO involved.
Most People confuse paid search results with real ones
Back in 2005 Wired cited a study asking how search users perceive the difference between paid ads in search and organic listings: They basically don’t. Ole 18% really did. This was even before Google introduced as top results. In 2005 Google only displayed ads in the rights sidebar. That’s why even news media today refer to buying ads as buying search results.
Google
Google does black hat SEO
Google uses black hat SEO techniques itself. Years ago there was a story in main stream media about how porn spammers used porn consumers to overcome captchas. They displayed captchas from sites they wanted to spam in iframes to show them to people wanting to watch porn. To get free access you had to use the captchas from the hijacked site. Now Google does the same. Google uses you to recognize text they can’t read in books they digitalize.
Also black hat SEOs use scrapers to show stolen content from other sites as theirs. Google does the same on Google Buzz now. It displays whole blog posts instead of just parts of them.
Google earns money by spam
Google makes 500 million dollars a year just by advertising on typo-squatting domains. Sites that have very similar web adresses to other, in many cases well known sites.
Live by the Google die by the Google
Google can destroy your business over night. Many nameless website owners have been put out of business over the years when Google tweaked its ranking factors. Yesterday they were on top today their rankings dropped and their traffic as well. Famous business blogger John Chow has been banned from Google a few years back and has proven that you can survive without Google relying on multiple traffic and revenue sources.
You work for Google
Whatever you do or publish the Web, you work for Google. Google finances its free services by your work. You provide the free content Google can place its ads on. You provide the data Google sells to advertisers and you provide the attention for its ads, whether it’s in partly or fully sponsored search results like the “shopping” search. It’s not just the captchas. You work for Google.
Google works with your government
Google China has been hacked by a backdoor built in by Google itself for the US government. This is no conspiracy theory. They are required to do so by law. Obama has not only extended the Patriot Act without adding any privacy provisions to it. So whatever you search on Google, write in GMail or Google Docs etc. can and will be used against you in court or outside of it. Remember, the US had locked up innocent people for years in Guantanamo without trial. It takes one day for the police to find you based on your Google usage. Google works with your government. Think twice before using Google.
What’s free today may be expensive tomorrow
Google enters new markets by offering services for free others have charged for. The people love it. The other companies go out of business. Now guess what, when that happens, Google can dictate prices in the future. Google can’t grow forever. One day Google will start charging for services like Ning just did. By then you won’t have that many choices other than to pay.
Google favors Google services in search results
Ever since Google Universal search appeared and Google started adding videos, products and maps to its results it favored its own properties. There is a word for it, monopoly. Google favors Google services in search results like Microsoft favors Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. When it comes to video Youtube already has also already almost a monopoly of more than 80% market share. The second biggest site, Vimeo, has only 10%.
Google says privacy advocates are conspiracy theorists
Google engineer Matt Cutts, responsible for search quality but acting as the main public relations person when it comes to webmasters refers to privacy advocates as “conspiracy theorists“. I don’t think Matt Cutts says what he thinks. Everything what the says is basically approved by Google lawyers. Google employees have very strict guidelines as to what they are allowed to say about and concerning Google. So it’s rather what Google says. Also Google CEO Eric Schmidt says on privacy: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Of course he himself is exempt from this as the case of his mistress blog shows.
Only 21% of Google’s results are organic
As of late 2009 Google’s results were showing so many ads, Universal search results (such as paid “shopping” results) and other distractions that only 21% of first page results were actually organic search results.
You can get Google free in one day
You need just one day to stop using Google services if you want to. I’m not referring to living in cages again. It takes that long to switch to alternatives.
Main Stream Media
Journalists copy
Journalists will steal your story and won’t credit you as the source. Most journalists just copy stories from elsewhere like Reuters or or DPA. So it’s not a big difference. They have to credit Reuters or DPA because they have good lawyers but they will even steal from high profile bloggers like Danny Sullivan who can’t afford to sue dozens of news organizations.
News outlets hoard PageRank and trap users
Commercial and other main stream news outlets like the BBC are known for not linking out to sources. There are two reasons for this beyond stealing: Hoarding PageRank and forcing visitors to stay onsite to generate more pageviews.
All major news media practice big time SEO
Many people on the Web still assume that SEO is some kind of spam. They are convinced that good content gets popular by itself and that old media prevail online because they excel at content creation. What they don’t know or prefer to ignore is that every major news outlet has a whole inhouse SEO department. The New York Times does SEO, the Chicago Tribune, the BBC (see above). All major news outlets practice big time SEO. In case you hate SEO just stop reading these websites, just go offline.
Wikipedia articles are biased
In German Wikipedia an article about the LHC security or rather lack of it has been deleted because of pressure by CERN supporters. Looking at Wikipedia entries for countries like Kazakhstan you won’t really know that there is a dictatorship down there unless you read between the lines. Full disclosure: I have been approached by a PR agency working for Kazakhstan to do their SEO but declined for ethical reasons. While Wikipedia ranks on top for most search queries it is the most unreliable source. Dig deeper to discover the truth.
Other media are only biased toward the views of the journalists or the owners/advertisers at worst. Wikipedia reflects the opinions of the people and organizations described. Just try to add something critical to a politician’s page. Wikipedia editors are a small elite group you can easily control. When a NYT journalist has been abducted Wikipedia held back the information along with all of the press. Only 13% of Wikipedia editors are women, most editors are young, male, white, middle class and thus reflect views of the American main stream as this study on “feminism” articles on Wikipedia shows.
Apple isn’t as popular on the Web as it seems
Before Twitter was mainstream, there was Digg. It blocked the topic “SEO” altogether. You just needed to say SEO in your headline and you wouldn’t end up on the frontpage. On the other hand Apple marketing stories always went wildly popular on Digg. So I took a closer look at who submitted those Apple stories featuring “Apple ads. Many of the submitters had some more or less direct connection to Apple. Either they sold Apple products directly or they had Apple ads on their sites. These days all media follow this example.
The iPad hype showed how efficient viral marketing works. All parties involved earn money via Apple. The newspapers that like blogs tried to rank at one for iPad in search engines are directly involved. The likes of the NYT hope to save its business model using the iPad. Technically the iPad sucks, it’s not even a real computer. Some Indian students have developed a far better tablet but Apple promises more revenue for those hyping it. Apple isn’t as popular on the Web as it seems. It’s not just Apple though. Always ask yourself who profits by a given article.
How do these brutal truths affect your business decisions? They do in manifold ways. Not only do they affect business decisions but also your private usage of the Web. Some readers tend to allege that “I hate Google” whenever I write something not just flattering the search giant. As a SEO you compete with all of the above: Google itself, mainstream media like news outlets, Wikipedia, huge conglomerates like AOL and Yahoo and the idiots who dismiss SEO to gain attention because there are enough other idiots who hate SEO out of cluelessness (just search for SEO FAQ to see what I mean). Thus you have to adapt. You can’t fight all of these directly. You have to develop your own ways to get found on the Web.
So I don’t hate Google. I use Google all day. Heck, I even use Google Docs to write my blog posts. So get off me and focus on what I’ve written. It’s all true.
Why not just speak out the brutal truth instead? Is it because people love myths? Is it because people love to believe in the myths they are taught?
Several recent posts by Aaron Wall, David Harry and others have inspired me to write down the things that bug me. Thus I compiled this list of 25 brutal truths about SEO, Google & main stream media.
You may not find out much about SEO techniques here but you will get a good overview at the actual issues you have to deal with as an SEO specialist.
SEO
“SEO is bullshit” bullshit
People who dismiss SEO do it to gain a competitive advantage. Visit the sites of the pundits who said SEO is bullshit, SEO is dead or whatever such people tell us. How many of them are in Google? How many of them use SEO friendly CMS software like WordPress? How many of them use the meta noindex tag to make sure they do not commit the SEO crime of getting indexed? People who dismiss SEO are either deceiving you or they have no clue. That’s “SEO is bullshit” bullshit.
SEO needs time and/or money
There is no magic in SEO. It’s hard work. Any 19$ SEO secret tool that submits your site to 100k directories (aka blog comment spam) is either a scam, black hat SEO or simply worthless. Sure, your site might even get a push for a while but unless you’re a black hat SEO expert who uses throwaway domains you have basically committed suicide on the Web.
SEO is queen
The content is king mantra gets repeated all over the place. Google engineers love it. Bloggers and journalists who dismiss SEO out of cluelessness tell you that good content is enough and it will spread by itself. That’s nonsense. You need SEO, social media, blogger friends or a major publication to make that work. In the best case you have all four of them. It’s like in chess. Your site won’t work without the king but you need the queen and a lot of others. SEO is your queen. It’s the most versatile and long term ally of your content.
Everybody publishing on the Web does SEO
You never have never heard of SEO? Do you have a website? Are you on social networks? In case yes you have done or taken part in SEO whether knowingly or unknowingly. Part of the SEO definition is making web sites and content readable by search engines. Unless you have made your website invisible for Google etc., like you can do in WordPress in case you want to keep your blog “private” at installation, your site is optimized for search to some extent. Remember next time when you say that you hate SEO that everybody publishing on the Web does SEO. It’s like saying you hate web design or web hosting.
Global players dominate search results
As a site owner you are most likely not able to compete in the most lucrative niches as the likes of AOL and Yahoo already own them. They can show up in the top 10 with ten different sites and you wouldn’t even know that one company owns all of them. Just search for Google on Google. How many non-Google properties do you see on the first page?
Big Brands are Favored by Google
Google favors brands in search results even if they have less relevant content. Google CEO Eric Schmidt himself has stated the Web is a cess pool and only brands are reliable.
There are no real SEO secrets
Google has secrets. It won’t tell you its exact ranking formula because otherwise Bing and Yahoo could quickly catch up. On the other hand SEO secrets are really rare. Most SEO knowledge is readily available. Google itself offers basic SEO advice and lots of free SEO tools that are enough for most average webmasters. You just have to research a little more to find out about advanced SEO techniques. There are no real SEO secrets. Even black hat SEOs share their insights on blogs and forums.
SEO is not just SEO
These days when you refer to SEO you most probably also include other things like conversion rate optimization, usability or information architecture. SEO is not SEO these days. Social media is a big part of SEO for instance and it’s not automatically social media marketing then.
Good SEO is invisible
Do you know why most people hate SEO if you ask them? Good SEO is invisible to the naked eye. Normal web users only recognize bad SEO that is crappy keyword stuffed websites. Good SEO just make people find websites, click the results and perform the action the website owners wants them to. The users are perfectly happy and don’t even notice there was SEO involved.
Most People confuse paid search results with real ones
Back in 2005 Wired cited a study asking how search users perceive the difference between paid ads in search and organic listings: They basically don’t. Ole 18% really did. This was even before Google introduced as top results. In 2005 Google only displayed ads in the rights sidebar. That’s why even news media today refer to buying ads as buying search results.
Google does black hat SEO
Google uses black hat SEO techniques itself. Years ago there was a story in main stream media about how porn spammers used porn consumers to overcome captchas. They displayed captchas from sites they wanted to spam in iframes to show them to people wanting to watch porn. To get free access you had to use the captchas from the hijacked site. Now Google does the same. Google uses you to recognize text they can’t read in books they digitalize.
Also black hat SEOs use scrapers to show stolen content from other sites as theirs. Google does the same on Google Buzz now. It displays whole blog posts instead of just parts of them.
Google earns money by spam
Google makes 500 million dollars a year just by advertising on typo-squatting domains. Sites that have very similar web adresses to other, in many cases well known sites.
Live by the Google die by the Google
Google can destroy your business over night. Many nameless website owners have been put out of business over the years when Google tweaked its ranking factors. Yesterday they were on top today their rankings dropped and their traffic as well. Famous business blogger John Chow has been banned from Google a few years back and has proven that you can survive without Google relying on multiple traffic and revenue sources.
You work for Google
Whatever you do or publish the Web, you work for Google. Google finances its free services by your work. You provide the free content Google can place its ads on. You provide the data Google sells to advertisers and you provide the attention for its ads, whether it’s in partly or fully sponsored search results like the “shopping” search. It’s not just the captchas. You work for Google.
Google works with your government
Google China has been hacked by a backdoor built in by Google itself for the US government. This is no conspiracy theory. They are required to do so by law. Obama has not only extended the Patriot Act without adding any privacy provisions to it. So whatever you search on Google, write in GMail or Google Docs etc. can and will be used against you in court or outside of it. Remember, the US had locked up innocent people for years in Guantanamo without trial. It takes one day for the police to find you based on your Google usage. Google works with your government. Think twice before using Google.
What’s free today may be expensive tomorrow
Google enters new markets by offering services for free others have charged for. The people love it. The other companies go out of business. Now guess what, when that happens, Google can dictate prices in the future. Google can’t grow forever. One day Google will start charging for services like Ning just did. By then you won’t have that many choices other than to pay.
Google favors Google services in search results
Ever since Google Universal search appeared and Google started adding videos, products and maps to its results it favored its own properties. There is a word for it, monopoly. Google favors Google services in search results like Microsoft favors Internet Explorer and Microsoft Office. When it comes to video Youtube already has also already almost a monopoly of more than 80% market share. The second biggest site, Vimeo, has only 10%.
Google says privacy advocates are conspiracy theorists
Google engineer Matt Cutts, responsible for search quality but acting as the main public relations person when it comes to webmasters refers to privacy advocates as “conspiracy theorists“. I don’t think Matt Cutts says what he thinks. Everything what the says is basically approved by Google lawyers. Google employees have very strict guidelines as to what they are allowed to say about and concerning Google. So it’s rather what Google says. Also Google CEO Eric Schmidt says on privacy: “If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place.” Of course he himself is exempt from this as the case of his mistress blog shows.
Only 21% of Google’s results are organic
As of late 2009 Google’s results were showing so many ads, Universal search results (such as paid “shopping” results) and other distractions that only 21% of first page results were actually organic search results.
You can get Google free in one day
You need just one day to stop using Google services if you want to. I’m not referring to living in cages again. It takes that long to switch to alternatives.
Main Stream Media
Journalists copy
Journalists will steal your story and won’t credit you as the source. Most journalists just copy stories from elsewhere like Reuters or or DPA. So it’s not a big difference. They have to credit Reuters or DPA because they have good lawyers but they will even steal from high profile bloggers like Danny Sullivan who can’t afford to sue dozens of news organizations.
News outlets hoard PageRank and trap users
Commercial and other main stream news outlets like the BBC are known for not linking out to sources. There are two reasons for this beyond stealing: Hoarding PageRank and forcing visitors to stay onsite to generate more pageviews.
All major news media practice big time SEO
Many people on the Web still assume that SEO is some kind of spam. They are convinced that good content gets popular by itself and that old media prevail online because they excel at content creation. What they don’t know or prefer to ignore is that every major news outlet has a whole inhouse SEO department. The New York Times does SEO, the Chicago Tribune, the BBC (see above). All major news outlets practice big time SEO. In case you hate SEO just stop reading these websites, just go offline.
Wikipedia articles are biased
In German Wikipedia an article about the LHC security or rather lack of it has been deleted because of pressure by CERN supporters. Looking at Wikipedia entries for countries like Kazakhstan you won’t really know that there is a dictatorship down there unless you read between the lines. Full disclosure: I have been approached by a PR agency working for Kazakhstan to do their SEO but declined for ethical reasons. While Wikipedia ranks on top for most search queries it is the most unreliable source. Dig deeper to discover the truth.
Other media are only biased toward the views of the journalists or the owners/advertisers at worst. Wikipedia reflects the opinions of the people and organizations described. Just try to add something critical to a politician’s page. Wikipedia editors are a small elite group you can easily control. When a NYT journalist has been abducted Wikipedia held back the information along with all of the press. Only 13% of Wikipedia editors are women, most editors are young, male, white, middle class and thus reflect views of the American main stream as this study on “feminism” articles on Wikipedia shows.
Apple isn’t as popular on the Web as it seems
Before Twitter was mainstream, there was Digg. It blocked the topic “SEO” altogether. You just needed to say SEO in your headline and you wouldn’t end up on the frontpage. On the other hand Apple marketing stories always went wildly popular on Digg. So I took a closer look at who submitted those Apple stories featuring “Apple ads. Many of the submitters had some more or less direct connection to Apple. Either they sold Apple products directly or they had Apple ads on their sites. These days all media follow this example.
The iPad hype showed how efficient viral marketing works. All parties involved earn money via Apple. The newspapers that like blogs tried to rank at one for iPad in search engines are directly involved. The likes of the NYT hope to save its business model using the iPad. Technically the iPad sucks, it’s not even a real computer. Some Indian students have developed a far better tablet but Apple promises more revenue for those hyping it. Apple isn’t as popular on the Web as it seems. It’s not just Apple though. Always ask yourself who profits by a given article.
How do these brutal truths affect your business decisions? They do in manifold ways. Not only do they affect business decisions but also your private usage of the Web. Some readers tend to allege that “I hate Google” whenever I write something not just flattering the search giant. As a SEO you compete with all of the above: Google itself, mainstream media like news outlets, Wikipedia, huge conglomerates like AOL and Yahoo and the idiots who dismiss SEO to gain attention because there are enough other idiots who hate SEO out of cluelessness (just search for SEO FAQ to see what I mean). Thus you have to adapt. You can’t fight all of these directly. You have to develop your own ways to get found on the Web.
So I don’t hate Google. I use Google all day. Heck, I even use Google Docs to write my blog posts. So get off me and focus on what I’ve written. It’s all true.
Friday, June 11, 2010
5 Successful Steps to a Winning Social Media Plan
So you’ve set up your social media empire using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and you’re blogging too.
But how do you make it all work together? You want to reach potential clients and establish your authority online, but what’s your plan?
This article delivers five foolproof steps to get you on your way to finding, formulating and distributing content that will get you noticed. Content could include your own blog posts or links to others people’s work posted on your social networks.
#1: Find Your Target Audience.
The first step in social media planning is largely the first step in identifying your brand—determine who you are and who your customers are.
What unique aspect of your product or service attracts your target population?
Are you a veteran business coach who works with small entrepreneurs? A grandmother and knitter who likes to teach others how to create gifts?
You’ll need to determine what your readers want to know from you, what their likes and dislikes are and where they congregate.
You’ll also need to find the right tone. The “social” in social media requires a conversational approach, but you still need to speak your clients’ language.
Be sure you know the lingo and style that your clients are comfortable with and where they talk to each other—on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs or on social bookmarking sites.
Write out a basic profile for your most common type of client or customer. How would you classify them in terms of education, hobbies, tech-savviness and time spent engaging in social networking?
#2: Solve Readers’ Most Important Problems.
Become a reporter/editor.
Sharing information on social media is essentially about becoming a reporter/editor for those who take part in your industry or your passion for your product or service. As a newspaper editor asks herself, so must you: “What do the readers really want to know?”
Most newspaper editors today have to admit that what readers want is tomorrow’s news yesterday. So be timely. Your clients have specific issues that need solving, whether they’re about your product or service or their own business struggles that you can help untangle.
Pick the right sources.
Research will be a big part of your social media planning, so make sure your sources are on the cutting edge of your topic.
You’ll also want to provide analysis to help guide your readers’ absorption of the information you provide. Most readers today—of any format—don’t feel they have the time to connect all the dots, so tell them why the information you’re sharing is relevant to them.
Do the work for them by writing on point, underscoring the impacts and keeping the content valuable. You’ll be rewarded with clients, followers and fans who trust your information and know you won’t waste their time.
Sit down now and write a list of burning questions the people you would like to have as fans and followers are asking. Later, you will conduct regular research to keep this list current. For now, the most pressing questions that are top of mind should form the initial core of the topics for your editorial plan.
#3: Decide How You’ll Fulfill the Content.
Who will regularly do the information-gathering, writing and distribution for your content? Is it you? Or maybe you have staff that can do it. Before you can determine volume and frequency, you’ll want to figure out what your business can reasonably deliver.
One thing to keep in mind: whatever schedule you set for yourself or your staff will no doubt require more time than you think, especially in the beginning. Getting started with social media content has a learning curve, so be prepared for the extra time needed to get comfortable with the process.
According to the recent 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, most business owners can maintain a very respectable social media presence in six hours a week, including research and production time.
#4: Create Your Plan.
Now it’s time to create a plan. You can use a number of different methods to help you build your content strategy.
Mind-mapping
Try mind-mapping for higher level development. If you have some themes that you would like to explore in intricate ways, mind-mapping helps you flesh out the many angles around any given idea. It can also help you plan how you would like the components of your social media plan to interact. Freemind, XMind and Mindjet are all popular mind-mapping programs.
Editorial calendar
The greatest time-saver and strategic tool in your content-planning arsenal is an editorial calendar. One option is this Google docs-based social media calendar to lay out your content by date and topic. This gives you an easy-to-follow look at the formats you use and what part of your theme you want to deliver during a given day or week:
Using an editorial calendar helps you bring clarity and purpose to your content—on a committed schedule. Never underestimate the power of a deadline!
Keywords
You can also add keywords to your calendar, so you know which words you should be including in your content about a given theme. Google AdWords and Wordtracker both offer free tools to help you find the most valuable keywords for your subject.
Content cycles
A great deal of the content we respond to, whether by creating our own posts about it or directing readers to what someone else has said, happens as breaking news. As you chart your content, be sure to leave space for news from others.
Some content planners create a formula centered on blog posts: Monday for best-of lists; Tuesday for product/media reviews; Wednesday for personal experience stories; Thursday for an editorial on a controversial topic; and Friday for fun, freewheeling commentary or guest posts.
Interviews make great content as well, and because they happen less frequently, you can target individuals for monthly, bimonthly or quarterly rotation. And don’t forget about video! Share clips from the interviews you conduct or vlog your how-to article on a given week, rather than writing it. Now you’ve added YouTube as another platform to post your content.
More great content ideas are found in these Social Media Examiner articles: “5 Easy Steps to Creating Reusable Social Media” and “4 Steps to Driving Faster Sales with Social Media Content.”
#5: Schedule Your Content
To schedule your content, consider what formats you will be sending and how often. Applications such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and SocialOomph will let you simultaneously post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others.
Platforms like HootSuite allow you to schedule your tweets for future dates. When you type your post into the left-top field, you can use the calendar button to choose your release date.
But a strong word of caution here. Automating posts, when done carefully, is an effective way of pushing content when you can’t be there to do it yourself. But consider the following:
* Twitter and Facebook both have applications that will push to the other when you post to one, so know if you have set that up.
* Whatever Facebook RSS app you use to pull your blog posts to your profile or fan page may also be given permission to update automatically.
* If given the proper permissions, HootSuite and TweetDeck (and others) can push content automatically, without you scheduling it, so they may also tweet a new blog post, for instance, when you’ve already done so using another app.
All of these various permissions can lead to an embarrassing loop of repeat tweets and/or Facebook status updates if you’re not careful. Consider going manual until you understand exactly which permissions you have opted into for each platform.
Quality Over Quantity
You don’t have to post every day to create an effective presence with your social media. Find the frequency that makes sense for your business and go with that. Remember, quality must always trump quantity. If you can’t maintain the quality level of your content at the rate you’re trying for, reduce the frequency until you can.
Whew! Seems a lot to do, right? Well, the beauty of content planning is that it will create its own cycle. Use responses and questions you get to one area of content to begin planning your approach to deepen understanding on a given topic or to explore another.
The single most important component to your editorial planning should be your ability to absorb new information and create valuable content from it.
What do you think? Have you employed any of these ideas? Have a few of your own to share? Please comment in the box below…
But how do you make it all work together? You want to reach potential clients and establish your authority online, but what’s your plan?
This article delivers five foolproof steps to get you on your way to finding, formulating and distributing content that will get you noticed. Content could include your own blog posts or links to others people’s work posted on your social networks.
#1: Find Your Target Audience.
The first step in social media planning is largely the first step in identifying your brand—determine who you are and who your customers are.
What unique aspect of your product or service attracts your target population?
Are you a veteran business coach who works with small entrepreneurs? A grandmother and knitter who likes to teach others how to create gifts?
You’ll need to determine what your readers want to know from you, what their likes and dislikes are and where they congregate.
You’ll also need to find the right tone. The “social” in social media requires a conversational approach, but you still need to speak your clients’ language.
Be sure you know the lingo and style that your clients are comfortable with and where they talk to each other—on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs or on social bookmarking sites.
Write out a basic profile for your most common type of client or customer. How would you classify them in terms of education, hobbies, tech-savviness and time spent engaging in social networking?
#2: Solve Readers’ Most Important Problems.
Become a reporter/editor.
Sharing information on social media is essentially about becoming a reporter/editor for those who take part in your industry or your passion for your product or service. As a newspaper editor asks herself, so must you: “What do the readers really want to know?”
Most newspaper editors today have to admit that what readers want is tomorrow’s news yesterday. So be timely. Your clients have specific issues that need solving, whether they’re about your product or service or their own business struggles that you can help untangle.
Pick the right sources.
Research will be a big part of your social media planning, so make sure your sources are on the cutting edge of your topic.
You’ll also want to provide analysis to help guide your readers’ absorption of the information you provide. Most readers today—of any format—don’t feel they have the time to connect all the dots, so tell them why the information you’re sharing is relevant to them.
Do the work for them by writing on point, underscoring the impacts and keeping the content valuable. You’ll be rewarded with clients, followers and fans who trust your information and know you won’t waste their time.
Sit down now and write a list of burning questions the people you would like to have as fans and followers are asking. Later, you will conduct regular research to keep this list current. For now, the most pressing questions that are top of mind should form the initial core of the topics for your editorial plan.
#3: Decide How You’ll Fulfill the Content.
Who will regularly do the information-gathering, writing and distribution for your content? Is it you? Or maybe you have staff that can do it. Before you can determine volume and frequency, you’ll want to figure out what your business can reasonably deliver.
One thing to keep in mind: whatever schedule you set for yourself or your staff will no doubt require more time than you think, especially in the beginning. Getting started with social media content has a learning curve, so be prepared for the extra time needed to get comfortable with the process.
According to the recent 2010 Social Media Marketing Industry Report, most business owners can maintain a very respectable social media presence in six hours a week, including research and production time.
#4: Create Your Plan.
Now it’s time to create a plan. You can use a number of different methods to help you build your content strategy.
Mind-mapping
Try mind-mapping for higher level development. If you have some themes that you would like to explore in intricate ways, mind-mapping helps you flesh out the many angles around any given idea. It can also help you plan how you would like the components of your social media plan to interact. Freemind, XMind and Mindjet are all popular mind-mapping programs.
Editorial calendar
The greatest time-saver and strategic tool in your content-planning arsenal is an editorial calendar. One option is this Google docs-based social media calendar to lay out your content by date and topic. This gives you an easy-to-follow look at the formats you use and what part of your theme you want to deliver during a given day or week:
Using an editorial calendar helps you bring clarity and purpose to your content—on a committed schedule. Never underestimate the power of a deadline!
Keywords
You can also add keywords to your calendar, so you know which words you should be including in your content about a given theme. Google AdWords and Wordtracker both offer free tools to help you find the most valuable keywords for your subject.
Content cycles
A great deal of the content we respond to, whether by creating our own posts about it or directing readers to what someone else has said, happens as breaking news. As you chart your content, be sure to leave space for news from others.
Some content planners create a formula centered on blog posts: Monday for best-of lists; Tuesday for product/media reviews; Wednesday for personal experience stories; Thursday for an editorial on a controversial topic; and Friday for fun, freewheeling commentary or guest posts.
Interviews make great content as well, and because they happen less frequently, you can target individuals for monthly, bimonthly or quarterly rotation. And don’t forget about video! Share clips from the interviews you conduct or vlog your how-to article on a given week, rather than writing it. Now you’ve added YouTube as another platform to post your content.
More great content ideas are found in these Social Media Examiner articles: “5 Easy Steps to Creating Reusable Social Media” and “4 Steps to Driving Faster Sales with Social Media Content.”
#5: Schedule Your Content
To schedule your content, consider what formats you will be sending and how often. Applications such as TweetDeck, HootSuite and SocialOomph will let you simultaneously post to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and others.
Platforms like HootSuite allow you to schedule your tweets for future dates. When you type your post into the left-top field, you can use the calendar button to choose your release date.
But a strong word of caution here. Automating posts, when done carefully, is an effective way of pushing content when you can’t be there to do it yourself. But consider the following:
* Twitter and Facebook both have applications that will push to the other when you post to one, so know if you have set that up.
* Whatever Facebook RSS app you use to pull your blog posts to your profile or fan page may also be given permission to update automatically.
* If given the proper permissions, HootSuite and TweetDeck (and others) can push content automatically, without you scheduling it, so they may also tweet a new blog post, for instance, when you’ve already done so using another app.
All of these various permissions can lead to an embarrassing loop of repeat tweets and/or Facebook status updates if you’re not careful. Consider going manual until you understand exactly which permissions you have opted into for each platform.
Quality Over Quantity
You don’t have to post every day to create an effective presence with your social media. Find the frequency that makes sense for your business and go with that. Remember, quality must always trump quantity. If you can’t maintain the quality level of your content at the rate you’re trying for, reduce the frequency until you can.
Whew! Seems a lot to do, right? Well, the beauty of content planning is that it will create its own cycle. Use responses and questions you get to one area of content to begin planning your approach to deepen understanding on a given topic or to explore another.
The single most important component to your editorial planning should be your ability to absorb new information and create valuable content from it.
What do you think? Have you employed any of these ideas? Have a few of your own to share? Please comment in the box below…
Thursday, June 10, 2010
What is Google News Rank Boosters
According to Ms Ohye some of the best practices you should adopt include:
Keeping the article body intact – Don’t break the article body. Place ads and other stuff on the sidebar or at the bottom of the article but not in between paragraphs!
Put dates between title and body – This makes it easier for Google to determine recentness of your articles. This is also really useful in terms of usability. One of my pet peeves is having to look for the date/time stamp when reading online articles/posts, especially when reading older articles because I want to be sure I know how old or new an article is when citing that article.
Smart Titles – Titles matter so think about your titles really hard. It matters in SEO so make sure you squeeze in your most important keyword(s) in there. It also matters to readers so make sure it is both informative and catchy.
Separate original content from press releases – As mentioned in my previous post, Ranking in Google News, “opinions, editorials, satire, press-releases and subscriptions are not eligible to lead [story] clusters” so make sure you separate them and give them their own section/page. Of course you should place the original articles on the main landing page and not the other way around.
Publish informative unique content – When it comes to publishing, whether internet publishing or in whatever form, we will never tire of reminding everybody – Content is still and always be king!
The use of unique permanent URLs with at least 3 digits - This helps Google determine that the page contains an article and is not a static HTML page. This has roots in the traditional way news sites/publishers choose their URLs. However, if your pages does not have this kind of URL you may skip this and simply do the next tip.
Submit a news sitemap – News sitemaps are beneficial because it will make it easier for the news crawler to find your article and re-crawl that same article to look for updates (re-crawl happens in 12 hours). Aside from this it contains the meta-data (i.e. keywords, publication date) needed by Google to help them determine not only relevancy of your article to their story clusters/categories but also determine the other ranking factors without having to rely on Google’s extractor.
Keeping the article body intact – Don’t break the article body. Place ads and other stuff on the sidebar or at the bottom of the article but not in between paragraphs!
Put dates between title and body – This makes it easier for Google to determine recentness of your articles. This is also really useful in terms of usability. One of my pet peeves is having to look for the date/time stamp when reading online articles/posts, especially when reading older articles because I want to be sure I know how old or new an article is when citing that article.
Smart Titles – Titles matter so think about your titles really hard. It matters in SEO so make sure you squeeze in your most important keyword(s) in there. It also matters to readers so make sure it is both informative and catchy.
Separate original content from press releases – As mentioned in my previous post, Ranking in Google News, “opinions, editorials, satire, press-releases and subscriptions are not eligible to lead [story] clusters” so make sure you separate them and give them their own section/page. Of course you should place the original articles on the main landing page and not the other way around.
Publish informative unique content – When it comes to publishing, whether internet publishing or in whatever form, we will never tire of reminding everybody – Content is still and always be king!
The use of unique permanent URLs with at least 3 digits - This helps Google determine that the page contains an article and is not a static HTML page. This has roots in the traditional way news sites/publishers choose their URLs. However, if your pages does not have this kind of URL you may skip this and simply do the next tip.
Submit a news sitemap – News sitemaps are beneficial because it will make it easier for the news crawler to find your article and re-crawl that same article to look for updates (re-crawl happens in 12 hours). Aside from this it contains the meta-data (i.e. keywords, publication date) needed by Google to help them determine not only relevancy of your article to their story clusters/categories but also determine the other ranking factors without having to rely on Google’s extractor.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
9 Successful SEO Tips for Small Businesses
Ignore the search engines at your peril. Today, with so many people flocking online to research purchases, to find suppliers, and to otherwise conduct business — knowing something about how to get traffic to your websites from the search engines is an essential part of marketing.
Whether you are a do-it-yourselfer, or use SEO professionals to help you, it pays to know something about SEO. I subscribe to the philosophy that the more you know about a subject, the better you are able to ask informed questions, hire qualified professionals, and make good decisions to enhance your Web presence.
That brings me to last month. I was asked once again (my 5th time!) to present a webinar for the Verizon Small Business Center. This particular webinar was called: “Improving Your Current SEO Experience.”
For that webinar I polled 9 of my professional SEO and social media colleagues for their insights of key SEO tactics and strategies that we should be addressing in our small businesses. Below I have paraphrased a small sampling of the advice from the expert panel:
- Aaron Wall of SEOBook on choosing domain names: “Start with a good descriptive domain name. You spend less to market & brand descriptive URLs. Plus, they are good for search engines and for humans. Look at premium domains – you will pay more initially but thereafter the cost to renew is exactly the same. ” Aaron goes on to advise: “A mistake that small businesses make is to divide up their blog and websites into too many different domains. Trust, reputation and link equity accumulates faster with one site than multiple sites. In general, one large site is going to be better than 3 small sites.
- Matt McGee of Small Business Search Marketing on developing a trusted site: “Trust is the #1 SEO ranking factor. Earn trust from your visitors (through providing great content) and search engines will follow suit. Establish yourself as an expert — create excellent content that people will want to link to and share. Keep a long term focus; tricks and shortcuts are not the way to earn trust.”
- Robert Brady of RighteousMarketing.com on paid search marketing: “When it comes to paid search ads, it’s about ‘relevance.’ The keywords you bid on, the ad copy, and what’s on the landing page should match closely and be relevant to one another in order to increase customer conversions. Using keywords in your ad copy will boost click-through rates by as much as 50% better. Landing pages that deliver the promise of the ad will also boost conversion rates.
- Vedran Tomic of SEO Rabbit on optimizing for local businesses: “To attract visitors from your local area, include words on your website that your customers use to describe your business (not necessarily the words you use). If you serve a specific geographic area, describe that in detail on your website. Get links from local businesses, local industry associations and local suppliers. Vedran goes on: Create “local listings” in all major search engines and Internet Yellow Page sites. Be sure to describe and categorize your business correctly. Encourage customers to review your business.”
- Tamar Weinberg of Techipedia.com on social media: “Social media sites tend to be trusted sites today. This means search engines may rank these pages higher than other destinations on the ‘net. Create profiles on social media sites (e.g., Twitter) and add content to such sites regularly. Fresh content means search engines will visit often!”
- Marty Lamers of Articulayers.com on creating website content: “When writing website copy, write for humans first, before search engines. Include your targeted keyphrase in your page title. Use variations like plurals or even synonyms in the header. Create stronger content versus increasing the density of targeted keywords. ”
- Will Spencer of MemeBridge.com on links to your site: “Links to your site from other sites are crucial. A diversity of link sources/techniques is important – among them: creating linkbait content; blogger outreach; guest blogging; article marketing; and niche directory submissions.”
- Debra Mastaler of LinkSpiel.com on developing link building campaigns: “Understand your market and demographic, to know where and how to promote your content. Survey your customers and watch popular news outlets for trends and ideas to create linkable content. Make your branded content EASY to link to. Develop a presence on high traffic sites. Become known as the “go to” source for certain types of information.”
- Diane Vigil of DianeV.com on the importance of a strong technical foundation: “Choose a great Web host with 24/7 phone support. Make sure you actually own your domain name (e.g., your IT consultant may have registered the domain). Be sure your domain name resolves to www.site.com or site.com — not both. Site backups are vital, so confirm that your entire site is backed up regularly. Pay attention to your website’s security.”
And now for my own bit of advice:
- Anita Campbell on finding good SEO professionals to hire: Build SEO into your marketing plan, just like other disciplines. Doing SEO well takes learning and skill. Value that skill set when hiring SEO service providers; focus on the value of the results, not price. In other words, don’t just go for the low-priced provider. Ask for recommendations from other small business owners and managers. Finally, educate yourself; the more you know, the better your interaction with SEO service providers. How do you educate yourself about SEO? Attend seminars. Read blogs. Network to get to know professional SEOs.
Monday, June 7, 2010
Best Tips for Google Adwords PPC Optimization
Google Adwords campaign Optimization is a full time job for PPC professionals as Google regularly improves Adwords PPC ad auction system with new features and Quality Scores updates.
Google offers official Adwords guides for beginners:
Before optimizing your Google Adwords campaigns, go through the check list below:
Google Adwords Quality Score is one of the most important ranking factors for Adwords campaign optimization. Optimize your Adwords campaigns by improving the Quality Score of your accounts, campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords and landing pages.
Account Structure
A Google Adwords account consists of campaigns and ad groups. Campaign level settings allow you to select locations (e.g. countries, cities), languages, networks, budgets, bidding methods, ad scheduling and ad delivery methods. A Google Adwords account typically has the following structure:
Google’s traffic partners within Adwords content network are different to those in Adwords search network, so one of the best practices is to always separate your search campaigns from content campaigns. Adwords content targeting optimization differs from search targeting optimization.
Ad Copy Optimization
High click through rate (CTR) is the most important factor for achieving high Google Adwords Quality Score. Professional PPC ad copy writing will ensure the CTR of your ads is optimized.
Keep the size of your ad groups small so that each ad group contains only closely related keywords. It is easier to write targeted ads for an ad group of 10 keywords than for an ad group of 100 keywords.
Test two ads per ad group. Rotate the ads evenly and allow each ad to display for a minimum of 100 impressions. After each A/B ad test, keep the ad that produces higher conversion rate and replace the ad that results in lower conversion rate. Repeat the A/B ad test until you are satisfied with your ad groups’ conversion rates.
Inside Adwords Blog also offers some ad text optimization tips.
When targeting some countries such as the US, you can include whatever trademark within your ad text.
Keyword Research
Create your core keyword list using the SEM keyword research tools. When building your keyword list, you should always include:
Keyword Bidding
Keyword bidding on Google Adwords is an ongoing process, as you do have to adjust your keywords’ bids according to your bottom line (aka PPC business model). When using multiple keyword match types within your Adwords account, set your keywords’ cost-per-click (CPC) as below:
If you aren’t able to keep up with manual bidding, Google offers Adwords Conversion Optimizer to automatically optimize your campaigns based on your campaigns’ past conversion data.
Location and Language Targeting
Google Adwords offers geo location targeting on the campaign level. For example, show your ads to only China’s users if your products are only available for sales in China.
Adwords offers many built-in reports which offer you insights to your Google Adwords account.
Set up Adwords Conversion Tracking in your Google Adwords account. Adwords Conversion Tracking allows you to track key metrics including cost per sales, cost per leads, and cost per sign-up on the keyword level. Once Adwords Conversion Tracking is installed, the conversion data will be shown under the conversion columns within all your Adwords built-in reports.
Install Google Analytics and view your website’s traffic by traffic sources, visitors and pages viewed. To complement your Adwords account’s data, link your Google Analytics account to your Adwords account and import your site’s Google Analytics goals into your Adwords account.
Landing Page Optimization
The conversion rate of your website is highly related to your site’s landing pages.
Each keyword or set of keywords should be targeting a product which should have a unique landing page. The keyword of your product should be displayed at a prominent position (or within one of the most important tags, e.g. H1) on your landing page.
Google offers official Adwords guides for beginners:
Before optimizing your Google Adwords campaigns, go through the check list below:
- Quality Score
- Account Structure
- Ad Copy Optimization
- Keyword Research
- Keyword Bidding
- Location and Language Targeting
- Reports
- Conversion Tracking
- Landing Page Optimization
Google Adwords Quality Score is one of the most important ranking factors for Adwords campaign optimization. Optimize your Adwords campaigns by improving the Quality Score of your accounts, campaigns, ad groups, ads, keywords and landing pages.
The AdWords system calculates a ‘Quality Score’ for each of your keywords. It looks at a variety of factors to measure how relevant your keyword is to your ad text and to a user’s search query. A keyword’s Quality Score updates frequently and is closely related to its performance. In general, a high Quality Score means that your keyword will trigger ads in a higher position and at a lower cost-per-click (CPC).Google’s Quality Score is a “live” ranking algorithm which is re-calculated at the time of each search query. Quality Score also differs for search network campaigns and content network campaigns.
Account Structure
A Google Adwords account consists of campaigns and ad groups. Campaign level settings allow you to select locations (e.g. countries, cities), languages, networks, budgets, bidding methods, ad scheduling and ad delivery methods. A Google Adwords account typically has the following structure:
Google’s traffic partners within Adwords content network are different to those in Adwords search network, so one of the best practices is to always separate your search campaigns from content campaigns. Adwords content targeting optimization differs from search targeting optimization.
Ad Copy Optimization
High click through rate (CTR) is the most important factor for achieving high Google Adwords Quality Score. Professional PPC ad copy writing will ensure the CTR of your ads is optimized.
Keep the size of your ad groups small so that each ad group contains only closely related keywords. It is easier to write targeted ads for an ad group of 10 keywords than for an ad group of 100 keywords.
Test two ads per ad group. Rotate the ads evenly and allow each ad to display for a minimum of 100 impressions. After each A/B ad test, keep the ad that produces higher conversion rate and replace the ad that results in lower conversion rate. Repeat the A/B ad test until you are satisfied with your ad groups’ conversion rates.
Inside Adwords Blog also offers some ad text optimization tips.
When targeting some countries such as the US, you can include whatever trademark within your ad text.
Keyword Research
Create your core keyword list using the SEM keyword research tools. When building your keyword list, you should always include:
- Singular and plural keywords – phone vs. phones
- Synonyms – mobile phones vs. cell phones
- Common misspelled keywords – entrepreneur vs. entreprenuer
- Geographically related keywords – Illinois search marketing workshop
- Your brand or trademark keywords – Amazon
- Add the irrelevant keywords as negative keywords to your existing campaigns or ad groups (where appropriate) to filter out clicks that would have cost you but would not have converted
- Add the relevant keywords as exact match keywords to new ad groups to capture additional clicks that you would not have previously captured with targeted ad text
Keyword Bidding
Keyword bidding on Google Adwords is an ongoing process, as you do have to adjust your keywords’ bids according to your bottom line (aka PPC business model). When using multiple keyword match types within your Adwords account, set your keywords’ cost-per-click (CPC) as below:
- Exact keyword: Highest CPC
- Phrase keyword: Medium CPC
- Broad keyword: Lowest CPC
If you aren’t able to keep up with manual bidding, Google offers Adwords Conversion Optimizer to automatically optimize your campaigns based on your campaigns’ past conversion data.
Location and Language Targeting
Google Adwords offers geo location targeting on the campaign level. For example, show your ads to only China’s users if your products are only available for sales in China.
Adwords offers many built-in reports which offer you insights to your Google Adwords account.
- Place / Keyword Performance Report gives you keyword or placement data depending on the type of your campaign’s network
- Ad Performance Report shows you the performance data of your ads
- Account Performance Report is the top level report for your Google Adwords account
- Search Query Performance Report is a great source for discovering new keywords and negative keywords
- Geographic Performance Report breaks down the geographical locations of your traffic sources
- Placement Performance Report tells you where your ads have been shown within Google’s content network sites
Set up Adwords Conversion Tracking in your Google Adwords account. Adwords Conversion Tracking allows you to track key metrics including cost per sales, cost per leads, and cost per sign-up on the keyword level. Once Adwords Conversion Tracking is installed, the conversion data will be shown under the conversion columns within all your Adwords built-in reports.
Install Google Analytics and view your website’s traffic by traffic sources, visitors and pages viewed. To complement your Adwords account’s data, link your Google Analytics account to your Adwords account and import your site’s Google Analytics goals into your Adwords account.
Landing Page Optimization
The conversion rate of your website is highly related to your site’s landing pages.
Each keyword or set of keywords should be targeting a product which should have a unique landing page. The keyword of your product should be displayed at a prominent position (or within one of the most important tags, e.g. H1) on your landing page.
- For specific keywords such as “Nokia phone ABC3801″, the content of the landing page should only be about the product “Nokia phone ABC3801″.
- For generic keywords such as “mobile phones”, your landing page can be a list of all the mobile phones available on your site.
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