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How Facebook Sent Us More Website Visitors Than Google

Apr
30
2012

Almost since WNW Design started back in January 2000 most of the visitors to our website have come from Google. Not just by a small majority but by a massive margin, typically more than the next ten sources of visitor traffic put together.

Over the past few years we have seen an increasing amount of business coming from Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and other social media channels but nothing that could challenge the dominance of, or indeed our reliance on, Google.

Since the early days when Yahoo lost market share almost overnight to the power of Google, Google has been the be-all-and-end-all in web marketing. Web based businesses that have made the mistake of upsetting Google and its highly secret algorithms have rapidly withered on the vine and died. At WNW our Google listings are closely monitored, treasured and worked on regularly, even daily.

But in March 2012 this pattern changed.

During March, Facebook sent more visitors to our website then Google, 24% more visitors. And our Google rankings didn’t fall, visitor referrals from Google remained constant, the normal number of leads came in, in fact it was quite a good month for Google led enquiries. But Facebook sent more visitors, how can that be?

Facebook has recently opened up its advertising to business users and the key to Facebook advertising is the extraordinary amount of information it has on its audience. The information that Facebook holds about its users may annoy the privacy advocates but for an Entrepreneur, it is a marketing dream come true. It’s a goldmine!

Facebook users provide their age, gender, relationship status, hobbies, interests, location, education and a whole lot more to create a detailed profile of their lives. From a marketing point of view information like that is dynamite!

By making targeted advertisements aimed at specific user groups, WNW Design was able to drive more visitors to our website than Google could send us. People who were interested in our market sector and the services we provide, people whose visitor details we can capture for on-going marketing.

The April stats will be in shortly but already we have seen a 240% increase in the number of people who have “Liked” the WNW Facebook page, again giving us permission to market to them in the future.

Google and Bing have already stated that they are changing how they return search results, based on social media sharing but Facebook advertising looks like being a real marketing Game Changer, no wonder Google is desperate to get its own channel Google+ into a market leading position.

About The Author: Nigel Wilkinson is the Managing Director of WNW Design Ltd. In addition to his business interests, Nigel is married to Movement teacher Michelle, the father of teenage twins, an avid Networker, a Social Media commentator, a keen golfer and football supporter. He is also an active member of Exmouth Chamber of Commerce, being Chairman from 2009 – 2011.You can follow him on Twitter @nigelwnw, email at nigel@wnwdesign.co.uk or telephone on 01395 542 569. You can also find WNW Design on Facebook here.

Posted in Blogs By Nigel W., Facebook, General SEO, Social Media, WNW Staff Blogs | No Comments »

What Does ‘Not Provided’ Mean in my Analytics Keywords Reports?

Apr
30
2012

I’ve had a growing number of clients asking me this, wanting to know why there is a rising number of keyword searches being replaced with ‘not provided’ in their Google Analytics reports:

The answer, unfortunately, is that Google are specifically withholding these searches. Every ‘not provided’ was carried out by someone logged in to their Google or Gmail account, and since late last year Google has been (by default) logging people into a secure search page to make these searches private.

Not Provided keyword in Analytics

 

They will still supply details of these search keywords for Pay Per Click advertising clients, but not for Organic searches in your Analytics statistics.

Given the reason for this missing data, it makes sense that the amount of ‘not provided’ keywords will increase steadily, as more and more users log in to Google and stay logged in permanently. Already we are seeing clients with over 20% of their search keywords hidden.

For the moment, there isn’t so much you can do. You can set up filters to show you the landing page for these hidden keywords, which gives you some small insight into what kind of search many have led that visitor to your site. You also have the option of paying somewhere in the region of £70,000 per annum for Google Analytics Premium, but that is no doubt vastly out of the budget of most businesses.

It’s a disappointing move on Google’s part, and we will simply have to use the remaining visible keyword searches as a guide as to the overall pattern of organic searches on our websites – keyword performance tracking will just be a little more challenging in future!

About The Author: Camilla Todd manages Search Engine Optimisation, social media campaigns and brand awareness for WNW Design SEO clients. You can follow her on Twitter @camilla_wnw, email her at camilla@wnwdesign.co.uk or phone on 01395 542 569. You can also follow WNW Design on Facebook here.

Posted in Blogs By Camilla T., Keywords, Tools, WNW Staff Blogs | No Comments »

Essential Web Video Concepts: Make’em Feel

Apr
30
2012

As much as some would have you believe that marketing can be formulized into a predictable certainty, it just isn’t so. The movie and music industries seem to be perpetually striving to boil-down human nature into some kind of algorithmic absolute, but the results have been, and will always be, less than promised. Each copycat iteration of movie or TV vampires and zombies seems to lose the essence of the particular combination of elements that made the original a success.

The advertising and broader marketing industries are guilty of the same lack of insight, constantly misinterpreting, or perhaps purposely distorting, the reasons for success of various marketing fads and phenomenon, and presenting their left-brain arithmetic contortions as somehow reassuring evidence of their ability to repeat someone else’s success.

An audience’s reaction to a presentation is unpredictable; but what you can control is the emotional and psychological impact you deliver using structure, style, technique, and performance in service of a strategic point-of-view. It is important to look at movies and television because they are culturally relevant, potentially informative, and occasionally memorable, and because they are the communication platforms that are the closest comparable media venues to how the Web is evolving.

Lessons Learned

Web video is different in many ways from its big brother TV and movie relatives. Whereas TV and movies are communal experiences, Web video is intimate and personal; where TV generally takes a shotgun approach to audiences, Web video uses a laser; and where TV makes hard distinctions between programming content and advertising, successful Web video blends the two into a new form of informative, commercial content. That said, what we can learn is that form follows function, and the venue dictates the tools and presentation skills necessary to make it all work.

In the early days of silent pictures, actors needed to look the part but it didn’t matter how they sounded. Once talkies arrived actors had to sound the part as well as look it, and those who didn’t were out of work. Once radio arrived voice was the determining factor and what you looked like was irrelevant. The rotund William Conrad who had the voice of Zeus but the body of the Michelin Man played the tall, dark and handsome Marshal Matt Dillon in radio’s long-running “Gunsmoke.” Once television arrived you had to look as well as sound the part so the more eye-pleasing James Arness replaced the corpulent Conrad in the television adaptation. All very interesting you say but what has all this to do with me, and my online widget business?

These technological changes may have been seismic in their impact on the entertainment community, but the real need was and always will be to communicate effectively using all the advantages a particular platform has to offer. In a medium that relies on both sound and picture, a roly-poly Marshal Dillon just didn’t communicate the necessary culturally relevant, Gary Cooper, western hero prototype of the time.

Effectiveness has to be defined as delivering meaningful, memorable impact, and not by some artificial misconception of efficiency defined as 140 characters, or any such meaningless standard. The efficiency experts and technocrats have already screwed up the workplace; let’s not let them further pollute the Internet with the same kind of mind numbing stupidities.

Connecting The Dots

Business, every business, is ultimately not about how good your product is or isn’t, it’s about how well your organization communicates a meaningful, memorable message to an appropriate audience. The better you communicate, the more successful your business will be, therefore it is important to learn how various techniques and technologies effect how your message is receíved, interpreted, and understood.

The Web, like every technologically based communication innovation that preceded it, requires a special skill set and perspective in order to maximize impact especially for companies restricted by limited budgets. Smaller businesses can’t employ the same tactics as major corporations who have the budgets to experiment with every new marketing gimmick that comes along. Few SMEs have the wherewithal to supplement these fads with the print, broadcast, and public relations support that distorts the intrinsic value of how these schemes would fair on their own without the high cost collateral help.

Fear of Being Left Behind

The barrage of nonstop media bafflegab puts a lot of pressure on small business owners to lineup for each flavor-of-the-month wunderkind in search of a big IPO payoff, even if it makes no marketing sense. Yesterday’s Pinterest is today’s Instagram, and tomorrow’s AOL. The fear of being left behind seems just too strong for many to resist, but unlike the Borg, resistance is not futile, it’s necessary.

What many people don’t understand is that most of the highly touted marketing phenomenon we read about, including: SEO, Social Media, Facebook, Twitter, Groupon, and Pinterest, et al are tactics not strategies. And whether you believe in, and use these tactics or not, is really not the point. What matters is, do these tactics serve some higher value strategy? In short, before you can communicate a marketing message to an audience, and before you consider what tactics to use, you must first have a strategy, or in movie terms a “high concept,” because if you don’t have one, you are nothing more than yesterday’s me-to wannabe.

A Marketing Strategy Framework

A high concept is the basis of a successful marketing strategy by providing a decision-making framework for implementing tactics that have a chance to succeed. If a tactic like Facebook, or any other for that matter, doesn’t fit the high concept framework established by your marketing strategy then it should not be used no matter how much pressure is applied by trend-pushers and pundits without anything at stake other than their own self-interest.

Where to Begin?

In today’s highly charged media environment fueled by kneejerk social media reaction, companies feel compelled to adopt tactics that do not serve a defined underlying strategy. In order to know what tactics work best for you, you first need to define your fundamental point-of-view that everything you do should serve.

We are all familiar with the quintessential television psychiatrist who asks, “How does that make you feel?” And perhaps that is a good place to start. How does your marketing communication make your audience feel; and are all your videos, display ads, and online activities in sync with that perspective? Advertising can only work if it presents a continuous, consistent point-of-view that touches people in some visceral manner. If your audience isn’t effected emotionally by your presentation, your chances of making a sale are slim or none.

About The Author
Jerry Bader is Senior Partner at MRPwebmedia, a website design and marketing firm that specializes in Web-video Marketing Campaigns and Video Websites. Visit www.mrpwebmedia.com, www.136words.com, and www.sonicpersonality.com. Contact at info@mrpwebmedia.com or telephone (905) 764-1246.

Posted in Internet Marketing | No Comments »

Webspam and Panda Updates: Does SEO Still Matter?

Apr
27
2012

Are Google Results Getting Better?

It’s been a crazy week in search. While not entirely unexpected, Google launched its new Webspam update (which should still be in the process of rolling out, as Google said it would take a few days). This update, according to the company, is aimed at black hat SEO tactics and the sites engaging in them, to keep them from ranking over content that is just better and more relevant. While most that don’t engage in such tactics would agree that this would be a good thing, a lot of people are complaining about the effects of the update on the user experience, and on results in general.

The Webspam update, as it’s officially been dubbed by Google’s Matt Cutts, is really only part of the equation though. Cutts also revealed that Google launched a data refresh of the Panda update around April 19th. So it would appear that a mixture of these two updates (along with whatever other tweaks Google may have made) have caused a lot of chaos among webmasters and in some search results.

What The Panda Update Is About

I’m not going to spend a lot of time talking about Panda here. I feel I’ve done that enough for the past year. If you’re not familiar with Panda, I’d suggest reading through our coverage here. Essentially, it’s Google’s attempt to make quality content rise to the top. There are a lot of variables, opinions and speculation throughout the Panda saga, but in a nutshell, it’s just about Google wanting good, quality content ranking well.

What The Webspam Update Is About

Interestingly enough, the Webspam update is about quality content as well. In fact, Google’s announcement of the update was titled: Another Step To Reward High-Quality Sites. It can be viewed as a compliment to Panda. A way for Google to keep spammy crap from interfering with the high quality content the Panda update was designed to promote. That is, in a perfect world. But when has this world ever been perfect? When has Google ever been perfect?

When Matt Cutts first talked about this update, before it had a name or people even really knew what to expect, he said Google was going after “over-optimization”. He said, at SXSW last month, “The idea is basically to try and level the playing ground a little bit, so all those people who have sort of been doing, for lack of a better word, ‘over-optimization’ or overly doing their SEO, compared to the people who are just making great content and trying to make a fantastic site, we want to sort of make that playing field a little more level.”

At the time, we wrote an article about it, talking about how Google was working on making SEO matter less. This week, Cutts aimed to clarify this a bit. Danny Sullivan quotes Cutts as saying, “I think ‘over-optimization’ wasn’t the best description, because it blurred the distinction between white hat SEO and webspam. This change is targeted at webspam, not SEO, and we tried to make that fact more clear in the blog post.”

Well, it’s clear that black hat webpsam is a target, because the post says those exact words. “The opposite of ‘white hat’ SEO is something called “black hat webspam” (we say ‘webspam’ to distinguish it from email spam),” Cutts says in the post, later adding, “In the next few days, we’re launching an important algorithm change targeted at webspam. The change will decrease rankings for sites that we believe are violating Google’s existing quality guidelines. We’ve always targeted webspam in our rankings, and this algorithm represents another improvement in our efforts to reduce webspam and promote high quality content. ”

OK, so as long as you abide by Google’s quality guidelines, this update should not impact you negatively right?

The part that isn’t quite as clear is about how much SEO tactics really matter. While he have clarified that that they’re more concerned about getting rid of the black hat stuff, he also said something in that post, which would seem to indicate that Google wants content from sites not worried about SEO at all to rank better too (when it’s good of course).

“We want people doing white hat search engine optimization (or even no search engine optimization at all) to be free to focus on creating amazing, compelling web sites,” says Cutts. Emphasis added.

To me, that says that Google is not against white hat SEO (obviously – Google promotes plenty of white hat tactics), but they also would like to have it matter less.

While I’m sure many in the SEO industry would disagree (because it could cost them their businesses), wouldn’t it ultimately be better for users and webmasters alike if they didn’t have to worry about SEO at all? If Google could just determine what the best results really were?

Don’t worry, SEOs. We don’t live in that fantasy land yet, and while Google (and its competitors) would love to be able to do this, there is little evidence to suggest that will happen in the foreseeable future. In fact, I’d expect the nature of how we consume information from the web to evolve so much by that point, that it may not even be a relevant discussion.

But rather than talk about what the future may bring (though Google’s certainly thinking about it), let’s focus on the here and now.

Who Has Felt The Effects Of Google’s Updates?

You can browse any number of forum threads and blog comments and see plenty of personal stories about sites getting hit. Searchmetrics, as it usually does following major Google updates, compiled some preliminary lists of the top winners and losers. Before we get to those lists, however, there are some caveats. For one, the firm was clear that these are preview lists. Secondly, the update has probably not finished rolling out yet. Third, they were put out before the Panda refresh was made public, and Matt Cutts says the list isn’t indicative of the sites impacted by the Webspam update.”

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

The New Google + Is Only The Beginning

Apr
26
2012

More integrations on the way

Google launched a big redesign of Google+ on Wednesday. It’s in the process of rolling it out over the next few days. A Google spokesperson tells WebProNews, “The new version of Google+ will gradually start rolling out to all Google+ users globally this morning.”

“We think you’ll find it easier to use and nicer to look at, but most importantly, it accelerates our efforts to create a simpler, more beautiful Google,” says Vic Gundotra, one of the main brains behind Google+, in a post on Google+ itself.

The most noticeable change is the navigation, which is now on the left-hand side and can be manipulated by the user. You can move apps around to the order you want them in, hover over apps to see options, and show/hide apps by moving them to the “more” section.

“Taken together, these powers make it easier to access your favorites, and to adjust your preferences over time,” Gundotra says on the Google blog. “We’ve also built the ribbon with the future in mind, giving us an obvious (and clutter-free) space for The Next Big Feature, and The Feature After That. So stay tuned.”

The “What’s Hot” section has become part of a greater “Explore” section, which also points you to Google+ trends, and lets you view “ripples” on various posts in the stream (granted, it already did this).

There’s more emphasis on Hangouts. There’s a dedicated page just for Hangouts, including a list of invitations from people in your circles, easy access to every public/on air hangout, and what Google describes as “a rotating billboard of popular hangouts, pro tips and other items you don’t want to miss.”

For webmasters, developers, and those in marketing and/or in publishing, Google itself hosts a lot of useful hangouts that you will probably be able to find in this section. In fact, this feature could be huge for content discoverability and make Google+ a great deal more useful for video content alone. I’d look for future YouTube integrations in this department.

Photography is another majar area of focus, and with good reason. Google presents the photo upgrades along with conversation upgrades, and that makes a great deal of sense. As you probably know, Facebook just bought Instagram, which is as much a social network as a photo app. Instagram (as well as Flickr and others over the years) have proven that conversation goes hand in hand with photography. It’s for this reason that Google+ has already been so popular among photographers, though the integration of PIcasa Web Albums and the instant upload feature have probably helped too.

Photos are an incredibly important part of social media, and certainly are strategically for the companies operating the social networks. Photos attract users, and they attract those users’ friends. It’s a simple as that. The better photo experience a user gets, the more likely they are to continue using that service, and showing their photos to said friends (and family), thereby promoting that service.

So, the new features in this department, are: full bleed photos and videos, a stream of “conversation cards” and an “activity drawer” highlighting the community around your content, as Google puts it.

What Do Users Think Of The Redesign?

Some reactions from Google+:

Dylan Casey says: “New Google+ looks great. Solves the mess at the top. BTW, where is ‘my’ Google Bar?”

Cesar Gemelli says, “Maybe this #newgoogleplus will increase my productivity…”

Ben Umpleby says, “Ahhh, pretty new facelift, #newgoogleplus. Let’s see if this becomes any more fun than before. I got kind of tired of the drab look of the previous version.”

Not everyone loves it, of course.

Holly Melton says, “Not loving that the #newgoogleplus pushes everything to the left side of my screen…”

Isriya Paireepairit writes, “Please consider my proposal with the #newgoogleplus space utilization problem. You will see the space is wasted badly. In the world of widescreen laptop with short height, vertical content display space is expensive. My screen is 1280×800 and you want to allow me using only ~27% of my screen?”

It’s interesting to see the reactions on Twitter, given that not all Twitters are Google+ users. I was surprised at how many positive things were being said, in proportion to the negative things I was coming across. We often talk about Facebook being a major rival to Google, but we’ve also talked about Twitter as a competitor in the past as well, and Twitter has just as much to lose as Facebook, in terms of where users are spending their time, so it’s worth noting that Google is impressing a number of Twitter users.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think this translates to people saying, “OK, forget Twitter, I’m only using Google+ now,” or “Finally, I can stop using Facebook. Google+ has better navigation.” I’m just saying, the more Google can do to impress users of rival services, the better chance they have of capturing more of those users’ time using the web, which really means they have more opportunities to get ads or other Google services in front of them.

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

Posted in Google, SEO | No Comments »

Is Social Really A Great Indicator Of Search Relevancy?

Apr
25
2012

A catchy title can make all the difference

It’s clear that titles matter to search. You’re less likely to rank well in search engines for key phrases if those phrases are not in the title of your content. It’s also clear that search engines are putting a great deal of emphasis on social signals when ranking content. Interestingly enough, titles also have a direct impact on just how much your content will be shared socially.

Earlier this year, there was a story from Forbes, which got some attention in the press. It was covering something that was already covered by the New York Times, but the Forbes version with the more provocative title reportedly got shared a lot more, and as a result received a lot more traffic. Nick O’Neill wrote an interesting piece talking about this, which I followed up with my own take on the discussion.

The main point is that the title can make a world of difference. Having the right words in the title of an article can be the difference between 30 pageviews or 300 pageviews. It can be the difference between 1,000 pageviews or 50,000 pageviews.

It’s possible to get a lot of shares based on great content with a not-so-great title, but it’s a lot harder. I also believe a lot of people share content based on the title without even reading the article. Titles matter. A lot.

There’s something about this, however, that doesn’t quite sit entirely well, with regards to the increased emphasis search engines are placing on social signals for relevancy. Here, you’ll find Bing’s Duane Forrester talking up the importance of social. Google, as you may know, launched Search Plus Your World, the highly personalized (based on social signals) version of Google search that favors content you have a social connection to.

Google’s +1 system is all about a social connection to an article, to send Google a signal. If I +1 a piece of content and share it to Google+, I’m not only sharing it with my followers, I’m endorsing that piece of content as being something Google should be ranking well. The problem with that is that I may like that piece of content, and so may many others, but that does not necessarily make it better than some other great piece of content out there on the web that is similar, and just hasn’t found its way in front of my (and others’) eyeballs. Perhaps that other, better (more relevant to a potential search) piece of content just didn’t have as catchy a title, and didn’t inspire as much sharing because of it.

We don’t know how much weight Google gives to any singular signal (it has over 200). However, we can see various changes Google makes that do put social in the spotlight. The +1 button and Search Plus Your World are obviously two major components, but there are plenty of more subtle things. There were a few, for instance, in Google’s list of algorithm changes in March:

Better indexing of profile pages. [launch codename "Prof-2"] This change improves the comprehensiveness of public profile pages in our index from more than two-hundred social sites.

Updates to personalization signals. [project codename "PSearch"] This change updates signals used to personalize search results.

+1 button in search for more countries and domains. This month we’ve internationalized the +1 button on the search results page to additional languages and domains. The +1 button in search makes it easy to share recommendations with the world right from your search results. As we said in our initial blog post, the beauty of +1′s is their relevance—you get the right recommendations (because they come from people who matter to you), at the right time (when you are actually looking for information about that topic) and in the right format (your search results).

We discussed that first one in a separate article. It seems that Google+ profiles aren’t getting quite the special treatment that they were when SPYW first launched, but it clearly places great emphasis on social, with “improved comprehensiveness” related to 200 social sites.

The second one up there is very vague. Updates to signals used to personalize search results. I could be wrong, but something tells me the update wasn’t about making things less personalized (social, being a big factor in Google’s personalization).

Third, the expansion of the +1 is a no brainer. The title isn’t as likely to influence a +1 from the search result page, as a share on Google+ itself might be, for example, but it inspires more use of that social signal.

“The beauty of +1′s is their relevance,” Google says, but how many are driven because of a catchy title of an article the user didn’t even bother to read. Even if they did read it, who’s to say it wasn’t shared with them in the first place because it had a catchier title than some other publication that may have been competing for that user’s attention.

While it has the added value of sending a signal to Google search, we can probably agree that for all intents and purposes, the +1 button is Google’s (Google+’s) version of the Facebook like button. How many times have you “liked” a link shared on Facebook based on the title without reading the article? What if by simply doing that, you were getting that content (which may or may not have been a total piece of crap article) favored more in search engines just because of some title-based likes. What if that was ranking higher than a really thoughtful and original piece on the same topic, and was really much more suitable to searchers’ needs?

And that doesn’t even take into consideration the potential for real abuse. SEO strategist Trond Lyngbø wrote an interesting article talking about all of that. Most people blindly liking an article without reading it aren’t trying to promote a particular site or game search. But there are plenty who are.

For better or worse, it doesn’t look like social signals will play any less of a role in search engines for the foreseeable future. While titles should be relevant to the topic at hand (usually with relevant key words), you’d be wise not to undervalue the shareability of a headline.

As an added benefit, even if this doesn’t translate into the search visibility you’re hoping for, if it’s being shared a lot on various social networks, there’s a good chance you will hardly miss the search traffic anyway. It’s better to diversify your traffic sources anyway. You don’t want to be too dependent on Google or any other one source of traffic. Any Panda victim can tell you that. Good titles that inspire sharing can help a great deal in getting shared through multiple social channels.

A lot of people complained about Search Plus Your World when it was announced. The fact is, some people just don’t find results to be more helpful just because someone they know interacted with them. For many, that probably goes tenfold for people they’ve interacted with on Google+, as opposed to Facebook, where all of their friends and family are regularly networking. But that’s really beside the point.

Do social signals really make results more relevant. It’s possible that they do in some niches more than others. Some +1′s from friends who have stayed at a certain hotel in a city you’re getting ready to travel to, for instance, could make make a difference in relevancy. Likewise for restaurants, products, and probably some other things, but that’s not going to necessarily go for all pieces of information on the web. It’s not always going to work for articles. Think about political bias. Believe it or not, there are still liberals and conservatives who maintain friendships, though may have very different tastes in reading material.

For webmasters, there are issues with social being weighed to heavily as well. In addition to the points I’ve already made about one’s good content being trumped by someone else’s bad content with a better title, there is the fact that webmasters bend over backwards and jump through hoops trying to play by the rules set by the search engines – including the good optimization tactics that Google actually promotes, but should all of this be trumped by social connections? Do you risk having your content reach less people because one guy on Google+ has a lot of followers, and he happened to +1 a competing piece of content?

About the Author:
Chris Crum has been a part of the WebProNews team and the iEntry Network of B2B Publications since 2003. Follow Chris on Twitter, on StumbleUpon, on Pinterest and/or on Google: +Chris Crum.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

12 Social Media Rules of Engagement for Small Businesses

Apr
24
2012

Promoting your business on social media can be helpful in extending your brand, gaining visibility, and building relationships with your customers. Done right, it can be an inexpensive way to market your company.

But too many times I see companies plastering up a Facebook page just because everybody else is doing it. Or, they shoot out a few tweets and after a few days or weeks give up because no one is paying attention.

Is social media the right tool for your business? Here are some guidelines to help you use social media as a strategic marketing tool:

1. Have a purpose. Like any other marketing strategy, social media should be a tool that helps you meet a goal. You wouldn’t just go out and start buying ads without knowing what you want to accomplish, so don’t do it with social media. It might not cost anything to start a Facebook page, but there is a cost in time and that’s also a valuable resource.

2. Don’t sell. Social media is social. People use it to relate to one another and just like you wouldn’t walk into a party and start pitching your wares, you shouldn’t hard-sell on social media, either. There are ways to get people talking about your products or services, but you have to tread softly or risk losing your audience.

3. Be prepared to invest time and effort into your social media marketing. You will need to understand your target audience and how best to approach them. You need to understand what interests them, and know what it is you have to say that is valuable to that audience. Don’t post or tweet just to do it – make sure you have something to say or you will quickly be dropped by your readers.

4. Understand social media and use it yourself. There is no better way to understand Yelp, Chime In, Twitter, etc. than to participate and use them regularly.

5. Tie your efforts together and integrate them with your overall marketing strategy. You should not be doing something completely different online than you are doing offline. Avoid the split personality – don’t try to be hip and cool online if you are a traditional, conservative business offline. You risk damaging your brand and alienating online audiences who can see right through that.

6. Keep up with the changes. New sites are emerging all the time. Auction sites, gaming sites, photo sharing and music sharing – they are all expanding their focus to include building communities. Some of those communities are bound to include potential customers.

7. If you don’t have time to do it yourself, find someone who can. Often companies have younger employees who are well versed in social media and could, with guidelines, represent the company. There are many agencies that will help you with this.

8. Have guidelines. This ties in with #1 because your guidelines will be driven by your purpose. Establish guidelines for anyone posting on behalf of the company about what they can and cannot say. If you don’t want to put pricing on social media, say so. Be clear about what employees can post on their personal sites, as well.

9. Monitor constantly. Many experts in the field recommend that you start your social media adventure by listening first. Find out what your customers and others might be saying about you online. Once you are active in social media, be sure to set up Google Alerts and other tracking to monitor what is being said.

10. React but don’t overreact. If you see something posted about your company online that you don’t like, feel free to respond. But don’t get overly emotional about it, and don’t fire back. Respond with basic facts and a real desire to solve the customer’s problems – that will gain you a lot of credibility from anyone else who sees the exchange. And remember, one complaint is just one complaint, so don’t overreact.

11. Enjoy it. This is a new way to engage your customers and draw in new customers. People of every age are participating in social media, from teenagers to grandmothers, and it is a growing part of our culture. As you bring your business into the discussion, you may find raving fans who will provide recommendations for you.

12. Online marketíng is a tool – it doesn’t replace your other marketing efforts. Sure, a lot of what used to be advertised in print media is now online. But there is still an important role for all of the other marketing tools including public relations, direct m@il and advertising. Like your toolbox, each tool has a different purpose and you wouldn’t use a hammer to sand wood. Online (or inbound) marketing is a great resource that is very cost effective for businesses, but it must be a part of the larger marketing strategy or it will fail.

About The Author
Kim Deppe, APR – President, Deppe Communications.

Deppe Communications provides marketing strategy and outsourced marketing services for small and medium sized businesses. Services include social media marketing, SEO, marketing planning, advertising, copywriting, and more.

Posted in Social Media | No Comments »

How to Ensure Your Website and Pages are Discoverable with Sitemaps

Apr
23
2012

Sitemaps are used to tell the search engines about pages on your website that may not otherwise be discovered by the search engines. Generally there are two types of Sitemaps – a HTML Sitemap or a XML Sitemap. Both types will contain a list of the URL’s that lead to pages within your website.

The HTML Sitemap will contain an organized list of HTML coded text links pointing to the important pages on your website. See an example of what a HTML Sitemap looks like at:

Sitemap

The XML Sitemap will contain a XML structured list of URL’s pointing to all pages on your website which you want the search engines to know about. See an example of what a XML Sitemap looks like at:

Sitemap.xml

If you are knowledgeable about HTML and you know how to hand code, you can create your HTML Sitemap file using a text editor such as Notepad. If you want to spend less time creating the file then use Adobe Dreamweaver or another HTML editor to assist you.

Creating a XML Sitemap file for your website is considered an SEO best practice. You can create a XML Sitemap file based on the Sitemap protocol either by manually hand coding the file or more efficiently by using a XML Sitemap generator. You can try my favorite XML Sitemap generator here.

XML Sitemaps are useful because you can include metadata for various types of content on your website, including video, images, mobile, News, and web page source code. You can also specify within your XML Sitemap the date on which a file on your website was last updated. This indicates to the search engines when they need to revisit your files and spider them. Additionally, you can specify the frequency at which you wish for your files to be revisited by the search engines. You can also assign varying levels of priority to each file listed within your XML Sitemap. Generally your homepage should have the highest priority assigned to it.

There are several important reasons that you should be using a XML Sitemap on your website:

* Your website uses AJAX, is image intensive or your content is not easily discoverable by the search engines.

* Your website hosts dynamic content and your URL’s have all kinds of funky characters or use session ID’s in them.

* Your website is brand new and has very little in the way of links from other websites pointing to it.

* Your website has lots of orphaned pages within it that are not linked to internally from your home page or other sub pages inside of your website.

Submitting Your XML Sitemap

We’re only going to address submitting to Google.com and to Bing.com. These are the engines that matter most at the present time. Yahoo uses Bing’s search index to power their own search results. So submitting to Bing will get you listed in Yahoo’s organic results.

Submit to Google.com

If you have not already done so, create an account for yourself at google.com/webmasters then login and add your website address to your Google Webmaster Tools account, then follow the on-screen instructions to verify your ownership of the website. On the Webmaster Tools main page, click the website that you wish to work with, then under Site Configuration, click Sitemaps. Click the Add/Test Sitemap button. In the text field paste or type the URL address to your Sitemap file – i.e. . Then click the Submit Sitemap button.

Submit to Bing.com

Create an account for yourself at bing.com/toolbox/webmaster, if you have not already done so, then login. On the Home tab, add your websiteURL – i.e. and then follow the on-screen instructions to verify your ownership of the website. Then again on the Home tab, click the website that you wish to work with, then click the Crawl tab. Click Sitemaps and then click Add Feed. In the Add Feed dialog window you just paste or type the URL to your XML Sitemap file – i.e. , then click the Submit button.

Pro Tips

Pro Tip: if you have more than just a few XML Sitemap files to submit which all belong to the same domain name, we recommend that you create a single Sitemap index file that lists the other Sitemap files on your site, and then submit the index Sitemap file only and do not submit the XML Sitemap files that are lísted in the indéx file. Search engínes will discover and visit other XML Sitemap file URL’s within an index XML Sitemap file.

Another Pro Tip: After you have created your XML Sitemap file and have uploaded it to your website you should reference the location of your XML Sitemap file inside of your robots.txt file. For more about robots.txt see this article. The proper way in which you reference your XML Sitemap file inside of your robots.txt file is to simply append the following line into your robots.txt file -

Sitemap:

Now that you know about Sitemaps, why they are important, how to create and use them – drop what you’re doing and go create your Sitemaps now, then watch for an growth in the number of pages that the search engines index on your website.

About The Author
Brendon Turner is Director of SEO / SEM at WebDevCompany.com. Feeling overwhelmed by all of this SEO stuff? Leave it to the Pro’s at Web Development Company Inc. Request a Free SEO Analysis and receive a detailed report of your website, including tips to improve your SE rankings and traffic.

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

You and Your SEO Content Writer – 5 Reasons You Should Break Up

Apr
20
2012

As the old song says, “breaking up is hard to do.” But in some cases, breaking up is absolutely critical for your survival. And if your SEO content writer isn’t “the one,” you’re risking the survival of your business by sticking around!

So, how do you know if it’s time to break up with your SEO content writer?

1. You’ve Been Taken Out for a Spin

When your boyfriend shows up to take you for a spin in his new car, that’s a good thing. When your SEO content writer takes you for a spin – as in shoving your stuff through an article spinner – that’s a bad thing. So bad, in fact, that it means it’s time to call it quits.

I actually landed one of my biggest SEO clients this way. The firm’s president caught his content writer spinning stuff, instead of manually rewriting it like he was supposed to do. Their break-up was a messy one, since the SEO firm now had to pay me to re-do all of the other guy’s work (and, believe me, the content was a mangled mess!). But for my client, ending the relationship was absolutely essential for the survival of his business. After all, who can establish a solid reputation when they’re publishing junk content everywhere?

2. You Were Cheated On

Cheating is a big no-no in any relationship, including the one you have with your SEO content writer.

How can your writer possibly cheat on you?

By handing over work he did for you as a “sample” to a potential new client. This is a huge deal for a couple of reasons:

- First, you’re the copyright owner of that content, not your writer. So, it’s not his to give out to anyone.

- Second, who knows what this person is going to do with your content now that he’s got it. There’s nothing to prevent him from publishing it under his own name, sending it out to his email subscribers, or using it as a chapter in his next ebook. As soon as it leaves your writer’s inbox, your content is de-valued.

When your SEO content writer cheats on you like this, it’s no different from seeing your girlfriend out on a date with another guy – and you have just as much reason to be angry.

3. Your Second Date Wasn’t as Good as the First

We’ve all been there – you go out on a date with someone, and you think you’ve hit it off. Then, for some reason, the second date is a total dud.

Your SEO content writer can pose the same problem.

Let’s say you place an order, and everything was just awesome. You’re so excited to have found a decent content writer that you can’t wait to place another order. But that second batch just isn’t very good.

What’s the deal?

It’s a common ploy in the SEO content writing world – do whatever it takes to land a client, then slack off and cut corners once you’ve got one. Lots of subpar writers assume that you’re way too busy to go through the entire vetting process again to find another writer. They figure you’ll stick with them because it’s “easier.”

Here’s the bottom line – good SEO content writers will deliver high-quality stuff whether it’s your first order or your 1,000th order. In the content writing world, dealing with “duds” is completely unacceptable.

4. You Just Don’t Mesh Well

Personal relationships fizzle out every day because, sadly, some people just aren’t compatible. It’s no different with your SEO content writer. Even if your writer tries really hard and his heart is in the right place, he may not be able to give you a finished product that meshes with your brand or your company’s style.

Like in any relationship, communication with your SEO content writer is crucial. If you want witty content, tell your writer that upfront. If you want a more formal tone, let your writer know. But if your writer knows exactly what you’re looking for, and still can’t deliver, it’s time to break up.

5. You Don’t Have Time for Him

You see it all the time – people break up because their busy lives make it impossible to devote a lot of time and energy to their relationship. Unlike a romantic relationship, you shouldn’t have to devote a lot of time to your SEO content writer.

Good writers can work without too much direction from you. Remember, you’re paying them to save you time! If you have to hold your content writer’s hand, then go through and clean up his work once he’s finished, you’re devoting way too much time to him – and it’s time to break things off.

About The Author
SEO content that sets you apart, talk to Nicole Beckett and the team at Premier Content Source!

Posted in SEO | No Comments »

Give Your Website Hollywood Blockbuster Treatment

Apr
19
2012

Ever since YouTube first launched its groundbreaking site back in 2005, the buzz online has been about – how video has been changing the face of the Internet. Yet while millions have posted video clips to this and other video portals, many website owners still haven’t figured out the connection between online video and online success. With the low cost of entry into this multi-media promotional extravaganza, there are a number of ways that any business owner can use video to give their website the Hollywood blockbuster treatment.

When It Comes to Video, Size Matters

In the first place, if you want to create online videos that people will want to watch and pass along to their friends and family, the first thing you have to understand is that when it comes to riveting online video, less is more. This means that you don’t have to shoot a feature film or documentary to make the scene with online viewers. In fact, if you have spent any time on YouTube, you will quickly come to find that most of the clips that generate the highest clickthrough are only one to three minutes long.

Lights, Cameras, Viral Video

The most important factor to getting your videos to go viral is to start off with a catchy title that hooks the viewer into giving your clip a whirl. Then you need to back it up with a clip that is either humorous, thought provoking, or otherwise visually appealing. The last thing that any one wants to watch is your last board meeting, or a 30-second commercial promoting your business.

While production value on video portals tends for the most part to be quite low, this doesn’t mean that you should post a clip with audio or video quality that is so poor that the clip is more annoying to watch than Rosanne Barr singing the National Anthem. So while it isn’t necessary for you to spend $5,000 on a pro-level digital video camera, don’t try the opposite tack by trying to produce compelling video on that $29.95 webcam either.

The good news is that there are a number of consumer digital video cameras in the $300-$500 range that will give you the ability to capture video and audio of reasonable quality without breaking the bank. Post production software is even a bigger bargain, since most computers come complete with video editing software that is more than up to the task. If you want to take your postproduction ability to the next level, there are some terrific packages in the hundred dollar range like Video Studio or Adobe Premier that provide even greater editorial prowess. Or you can simply hire the project out to any competent video production company.

How to Create Must-See Online TV?

One of the beauties of video portals like YouTube is that you can do all the research you want by simply entering keyphrases and perusing the videos that pop up. For instance, if you are in the mortgáge business, entering “mortgages” will pop up thousands of clips. By scrolling down the list of the first dozen or so, you will notice that there are some clips that have gotten thousands of views and some that have garnered precious few. By researching the clips at both ends of the spectrum, it will become readily apparent why some clips do better than others. Before you spend any time in front of the camera, you need to decide exactly how you plan on hooking viewers into watching your clip. Or, as we say in the video biz, “Every hour of preproduction saves five in post.”

Now That I’ve Got It, What Do I Do With It?

Another thing to keep in mind is that you don’t want to put all your viral video eggs in one basket. Once you have bit the bullet with regards to production costs, you have to remember that distributing your products online doesn’t cost you one penny. So the trick to getting your clips to go viral is to shoot, shoot and shoot more video, continually adding new clips to every video portal you can find. Plus, the more videos you have on your channel, the less opportunities your competitors will have for their videos to pop up on YouTube after your clip has run its course.

Using YouTube as a Search Engine Optimization Tool

Another technique that you don’t want to neglect is the fact that since Google acquired YouTube, it is possible to generate page 1 Google search engine links by optimizing your videos. In order to optimize your clip for Google, make sure you embed the title with keyword phrases that will help steer your clips much as meta tags used to do for your website. For instance, if your company is offering a business opportuníty that you are going to showcase via video, insert the keyphrase “Business Opportuníty Video” in the title. Another technique that’s useful in turning your clip into clickthroughs is to add titling to every clip you produce in order to provide viewers with your website’s URL.

Sharing the Wealth

Also, don’t forget that your video doesn’t have to reside exclusively on the video portals. You can also embed every clip you produce into your existing site, your blogs, social networks and newsletters. To do this, simply use the html code that YouTube provides once you upload your clip. This will allow you to include your clips in all your marketing vehicles without having to concern yourself with bandwidth issues. You can also generate free QR codes that will allow you to include a video on every piece of print literature and advertising you employ to promote your business.

Any way you look at it, adding Hollywood blockbuster appeal to your website, blog and social networks couldn’t be easier. Best of all, with a little planning, any company can achieve Hollywood results at Main Street prices.

About The Author
If you are considering adding online video to your marketing mix, call the viral video pros at (904) 234-6007. Carl Weiss and his staff will show you how effective and affordable video marketing can be to your growing firm.

Carl Weiss has been helping clients generate exposure and results online since 1995. He is President of W Squared Marketing Group, a company pioneering the use of corporate web TV productions. His “Working the Web to Wín” radio show can be heard every Tuesday at 4pm Eastern on BlogTalk Radio.

Posted in Internet Marketing | No Comments »

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