Using Hashtags in Social Media Marketing

By Seowebmount

You don’t have to like it, but hashtags are now a part of our culture. They flash onscreen with alarming regularity during our favorite shows and sporting events and they populate our feeds on just about every social media site.

In case you’re somehow not familiar with them by now, hashtags are a way to tag posts in order to essentially hyperlink social media posts to search results. It’s a way for users to indicate that they’re responding, contributing to, or even creating a new conversation or trend. They can be serious or humorous, but one thing is for certain: they’re here to stay.

Even though hashtags have become ubiquitous, and seem to have always been with us, they date back only a few short years. Twitter officially endorsed the hashtag in the summer of 2009 as a way to drive meaningful conversations between the members of its huge userbase.

Since then, hashtags have become a part of just about every other social media site. Tumblr, Instagram, Flickr, and Facebook all eventually followed Flickr’s lead and incorporated hashtags into their services.

So what does this mean for marketing? What are the implications of hashtags, and how can you put them to work for you? Let’s take a look.

Hashtags Drive User Engagement

Facebook may have been one of the last holdouts when it came to adopting hashtags, so it definitely wasn’t before they’d done their due diligence on the research and found that hashtags can, sometimes dramatically, help to improve user engagement.

If you were to compare tweets with hashtags to tweets without, the hashtag-laden tweets would result in up to twice as much user engagement. Taking it a step further, a hashtag accompanied by a link performed better still.

Hashtags Can Help You Focus Your Message

One potentially unexpected use of hashtags is as a testing ground for campaigns, advertisements, and all different kinds of public outreach. A great case study is President Obama’s most recent State of the Union Address (#SOTU). Prior to the speech, the White House’s media team took the time to test an extensive list of hashtags, such as #EqualPay, #ActOnJobs, and #MadeInAmerica.

The project was a way for the white house to essentially test the waters when it came to the different topics the president would cover in his upcoming speech. During and after the President’s speech, the media team used the seven top-performing hashtags in their promoted tweets. They did this because they were the ones that, according to the research, resonated best with the American public.

Hashtags Can Tie All of Your Social Accounts Together

For better or worse, we live in a world that has offered us a great many social sites to get invested in. This presents a challenge for marketers, who in a perfect world would establish a single entity across each social site, thereby consolidating efforts to extend their reach and base of followers.

Thankfully, hashtags are a great way to do just that. Because most brands have multiple channels with which they promote themselves (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), hashtags can serve as a common identifier across each of these media outlets. What this means is that everybody, no matter their social platform of choice, can get invested in the conversation. In other words, they’ll know just what to search for, no matter which site they visit first.

Hashtags Can Help You Reach a Wider Audience

One of the most important parts of hashtag use is the ability to provide users and prospective customers with something memorable – arguably, something more memorable than the name of the brand itself, which is often lost on viewers during particularly engaging commercials.

The very first advertisement that ran after the conclusion of Super Bowl 48 was purchased by Esurance. It was a delightful ad, featuring John Krasinski of “The Office” fame. The ad carried the hashtag #EsuranceSave30, which viewers could use for the 36 hours following the ad in order to qualify for a chance to win $1.5 million – the money Esurance saved by advertising after the Super Bowl rather than during the game.

The takeaway here is that Esurance enjoyed unprecedented success as a result of this ad. Within just a few minutes, the #EsuranceSave30 hashtag received tens of thousands of mentions, eventually reaching nearly one-and-a-half million mentions. The campaign may have been an expensive one, but Esurance’s Twitter account more than doubled its following in just a few short minutes. The total gain was something like 40,000 followers after it was all said and done. With a single hashtag, and a memorable ad to go with it, Esurance demonstrated how powerful a tool hashtags can be in the right hands.

Hashtags Can Help You Track Statistics

Hashtags serve a practical purpose for social media users; it gives them the ability to take part in worldwide conversations about important topics. If you turn that fact around, you’ll notice that it can do something even more important for brands: it can help them to gauge public opinion and wade through results that would otherwise be a great deal more difficult to track.

Verizon and the NFL teamed up to do just that, prior to the Super Bowl. They launched a Twitter campaign asking users a simple question: #WhoIsGonnaWin. They even took the time to create a website dedicated to tracking the results in real-time.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/28/using-hashtags-social-media-marketing/

Test and Measure, Or Die! The 2014 Outlook for Search Optimization

By Seowebmount

Recently I met the owner of a small ladies clothing and accessories boutique in Pensacola, FL. Her store lease was about to expire and she made the decision to close her business after struggling with falling sales over the last few years. “Enough was enough” she exclaimed and finally folded her tent and went home. This decision, incidentally, came as a surprise to many of her best customers.

I asked this former shop owner what forced her into making such a dramatic decision in her small retail business. Her response: “The Internet. I couldn’t compete. It killed my business!”

Little did she know that the Internet was not the cause of her store’s failure at all. Her business closed because she ignored the importance of having a tested strategy for marketing her business online. Yes, she had a website. Yes, she had a Facebook page. Yes, she did some email marketing occasionally.

What she did not have was a clear understanding of what was actually working well online for her and what was not. As a consequence her online “strategy” was to wear herself out supporting each component (website, Facebook, e-mail, etc.) whether they were all making any difference in store sales or not.

Test and Measure. Or Die. Slowly.

The moral of the story about the former shop owner is that if your business is developing — or is planning to develop — an online marketing strategy for 2014 it must include a means for measuring and testing the effectiveness of each element of the strategy.

How does your website rank in a Google search? If it ranks somewhere after the first page of results, then why? If it ranks on the first page, then why?

Which keywords were used in a search result to achieve a first-page ranking and why? Was a suspected high-ranking keyword actually used in a search by thousands (or millions) of potential visitors in the last 30 days? Or was it used by less than 10 visitors?

How many websites are competing for the very same keyword? Is it really worth your time and resources to compete for that popular keyword also?

Is the competition ranking higher than your site? If so, then why? What is your successful competitor doing that you need to be doing online? Or, if the competitor is ranking poorly what do you need to avoid doing to keep from suffering the same result?

How many human visitors landed on your website over a set period of time (day, week, month, quarter, year)? Which hours of the day, day of the week, week of the month, or month of the year does the site get the most total number of visitors? Why might this be important to know?

Do certain pages get more traffic than others during specific times of the day, day of the week, week of the month, or month of the year? Why does this happen and does this information represent a consistent pattern of interest in a product or service?

Where in the country (or the world) did these visitors come from? Why did they visit?

Which pages on the site were visited the most (and likely the most important to the average visitor) regardless of day, week, month, or year? Why? What conclusions can you make from this behavior?

How long did most visitors stay on your site or on a specific page? What conclusions can be made from the difference between five seconds on a page and three minutes on the same page? What did (or did not) interest the visitor?

Did the visitor use a Smartphone or tablet to visit your site? Should those visitors be automatically redirected to an easier-to-read, mobile website?

How many subscribed with their e-mail address to your regular newsletter or requested sales coupons to be e-mailed to them every week? Are those e-mail addresses being automatically stored in your customer e-mail list for a future e-mail marketing campaign?

How many visitors clicked on a specific website link? Does that signal an interest in a specific product or service?

How many visitors landed by mistake? Why did that happen?

How many visitors were led to your site by your new sales brochure? A new outdoor billboard? A magazine advertisement? A newspaper ad? An online ad? A search engine listing? An e-mail marketing campaign? Can this tell you how effective each of your online and offline ads really are?

Is your Facebook page actually producing revenue for your business? If so, then how do you know? Or, has your company’s Facebook page simply become an online gathering place filled with low-quality sales prospects?

Bottom Line: Is your social media strategy producing measurable, positive results, i.e. sales revenue? If not, why not? What should you be doing to improve your social media strategy to achieve a measurable return on the investment in time and resources?

Conclusion

An online marketing strategy in 2014 means much more than just having a website. A company website that is rarely updated actually defeats an otherwise well planned strategy. Having an ‘active’ Facebook page with lots of ‘friends’ and ‘likes’ is great, but how much revenue did all that activity generate for your company? You may even have a Constant Contact or iContact e-mail marketing account. But does anyone actually open your

e-mails when they hit a customer’s Inbox? If so, how many and do they ever buy anything from you?

Everything must be measured and tested consistently for its effectiveness and contribution to your company’s bottom line.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/25/test-measure-die-2014-outlook-search-optimization/

Did Bad SEO Practices Land Expedia in Hot Water?

By Seowebmount

Think bad SEO can’t take down the big dogs? Expedia proved recently this is not the case. Whether the corporate entity fell victim to a negative SEO campaign, or had one too many interns managing their marketing efforts, Expedia got hit where it hurts the most: their stock price.

After being penalized by Google back in January, Expedia watched its search rankings plunge over 20 percent, almost overnight. Shortly thereafter, stock prices dropped nearly 4.3 percent. The cause for the decrease seems to lie in black hat SEO. Either that, or someone really wanted to hurt the travel giant in a full-fledged negative campaign.

Don’t Cross Google

Expedia’s crime appears to lie in the practice of link purchases. Nenad, an SEO firm, called out the company late last year for the spammy practice.

What’s so horrible about paying folks to link to your content? To Google, plenty, and since they control search algorithms, it should matter to businesses large and small too. Paid links not only give an unfair advantage to companies with large marketing budgets, they also falsely increase rankings. Google does everything it can to base rankings on content quality and search relevancy, and black hat tactics like paid links work to counteract that mission.

Is Expedia Guilty, or Victim of a Takedown?

Shortly after the story broke, several outlets, like USA Today stepped forward with the theory that Expedia may have been the target of a negative SEO campaign. It is conceivable, although unlikely, that an Expedia competitor spent ample time and energy to purchase these links themselves.

More likely, however, is that Expedia has simply not been keeping close tabs on their SEO endeavors. It’s a gigantic entity, with SEO teams and vendors managing various divisions and company departments. The most likely scenario is that Expedia either engaged in these black hat tactics in the distant past, but failed to clean up the evidence in light of Google’s crackdown, or they have errant employees or partners that simply don’t obey the rules.

This alone is a crucial lesson provided by the Expedia debacle; if you trust your SEO to an employee or vendor, make sure they are diligent about practicing white hat strategies; it’s just too perilous these days to get on Google’s bad side. One adherence to questionable methods can eradicate your entire SEO campaign.

What is the Best SEO Strategy?

Black hat SEO is tempting for a reason; if left unnoticed, it works. But Google has shown time and time again that they’re watching how others are trying to buy their way to higher rankings, and with each mysterious algorithm release, folks are feeling the pain.

It can take months, even years, to undo the damage of SEO errors like those at Expedia. SERPs can take months to create, and a single algorithm update can wipe out every ounce of effort. If you’re dabbling in paid links and similar strategies, you’re likely to eventually see a drastic decrease in your rankings. Ignorance is obviously not an excuse either; just ask Expedia.

Instead, focus on current white hat SEO trends and ensure your strategy has long-term success potential. If link building is a priority, do so organically, not by buying the prestige. And as we hear so often, the secret to great SEO is great content. If you build stellar, informative, and interesting content, you won’t have to pay folks to link to you – they’ll want to do so for the benefit of their readers. That’s a fool-proof strategy.

How to Know if Negative SEO is Hurting Your Business

Even well-meaning marketers make bad SEO choices; the key is to know how to look for signs that your campaigns are floundering. Here are some key methods:

1. Use a tool like Moz’s Open Site Explorer to keep tabs on newly discovered links to your site. If anything spammy or suspect appears, send a link removal request immediately.
2. Google Webmaster Tools is essential for spying SEO issues of all kinds. In fact, if you’ve spotted a suspect link, you can disavow it, which tells Google you aren’t associated with that link partner.
3. Apps like Link Research Tools feature a ‘detox’ option that analyzes backlinks, supplying a base score that indicates the potential they have to hurt your site’s rankings.

Basically, you’re watching for a volume of links that are unsolicited and appear to be spam-related. If you see a large quantity, you may be under attack. These are truly unusual; what’s more likely is unearthing a few low-authority sites with links that you are better off without. Regardless, it’s a good idea to stand watch; SEO rankings are marketing gold, after all.

With regards to Expedia, they have a long road to haul in executing their SEO damage control. Since their blunders most likely point to an internal issue, they likely need to rethink their entire SEO strategy, and related partners. The lessons they reflect for all of us are clear: be very wary of black hat tactics, and instead focus on high-quality content and a myriad of white hat methods. There’s no doubt Google is watching, and trying to skirt the system is simply not worth the risk.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/20/bad-seo-practices-land-expedia-hot-water/

How to Recruit Candidates Using Social Media

By Seowebmount,

In today’s business world, social media is more than a leisure hangout where people spout views and share information. To human resource workers and recruiters, social media is a live digital resume of potential employees, revealing their talents, skills, personality and social abilities — for better or worse. Businesses are refining their talent pools by skimming sites like LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook for recruitment purposes or take the initiative and invite top professionals who haven’t even applied for a position into their boardrooms for an interview.

The following are tips on how your business can rely on social media for recruitment:

Choose the right social media site for your business 

While LinkedIn, with its job histories, educational background, resumes  and professional contacts, is a beneficial tool for finding prospective employees in any industry, there are many social media sites geared toward specific professional interests. In addition to common platforms, such as Twitter, Pinterest and Facebook, find the lesser-known social media sites that attract members based on their degree or job. Otherwise, join interest-based groups on popular sites so you find people who are personally invested in your niche.

Ask every new and impressive person you meet for their social media handle 

When interacting at business gatherings and conventions, immediately follow your new acquaintances. It’s become acceptable to take out phones and laptops to send friendship requests during meeting breaks. When passing out business cards, include several of your social media address and tell people to friend you.  Feel free to explore the friends list or follower lists of your new contacts to look for talented potential employees and choose to follow them as well. Make a habit of following current employees and scoping out their most impressive friends.

Create a social media page that is a magnet for top candidates

Many out-of-work professionals or executives looking for work investigate companies through social media. They often send out inquiries even if job vacancies are not posted. However, social media pages that are cold and lacking in detail won’t attract the eye of these candidates. Make the page worth viewing by including company videos, photos, news articles, features on employees, notes on community service and anything else that will exhibit the personality of your business. Send the message that your company has a lot of benefits to reward highly skilled workers.

Be sure to include an e-mail address where followers can send resumes  or direct them to the company’s website section on job openings.

Use status updates to discuss hiring 

Dangle job opportunities online by posting job descriptions and contact information for responding to vacancies. Ask employees with social media profiles to also announce job openings. Even when your company is not hiring, if you see a candidate who is out-of-work, encourage them to stay in touch. Then, contact them the next time a position becomes available. Don’t get too personal on a public posting, however; use private and direct messages on social media to take the job conversation to the next level.

Poll and question your audience 

Don’t simply accept the light banter on social media. To find good potential employees, you’ll need to hear thoughts on industry matters. Ask questions about how followers might address industry problems or what they think about certain industry developments. This can provide insight into leadership skills and a candidate’s decision-making skills. If the discussion is over an intense or controversial scenario, replies can give insight into crisis management principles.

Match social media profiles to resumes 

When you get letters of inquiry or resumes for open job positions, immediately go to social media sites and use the search feature to find the person. Use his or her profile to gain a greater understanding of how this person interacts with others, particularly past or current co-workers. Find evidence to support his or her background claims and achievements. Look at photos to discern how they behave when off the clock because such behavior can reflect on the company.

Follow-up interviews with social media activity

If you like a candidate, link to them through social media even if you decide to hire a better candidate. You can watch this person’s professional evolution and see if he or she will be a good fit for the company later. For candidates making the final cut, interact with them on their social media accounts before hiring them to be sure their personality fits with the company.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/18/recruit-candidates-using-social-media/

Expert Advice for Facebook Advertising

News By Seowebmount

Last year, a study showed that only 37 percent of Facebook marketers felt their ads were successful. Stats like these hint that ads themselves are not universal, and nuances exist on platforms like Facebook that can make or break a campaign. If you have yet to master the art of social ads, let this article enlighten you to the fundamental differences Facebook requires in your ad creation.

The Universal Laws in Advertising

Before we dive into what makes a Facebook ad successful, it’s essential to understand the foundation of great advertising. The following attributes are required in any ad campaign you generate:

1. An intimate and detailed awareness of your target customer.
2. Engaging ad copy that draws in your viewers.
3. Eye-popping images that integrate well with your copy.
4. Ideal page-placement.
5. Efficient optimization and pricing structure.
6. Detailed analytics that give you necessary data about views and click-throughs.

If you’re not yet an expert on the steps above, take the time to master and understand each before you dive in to the particulars of a Facebook campaign.

Facebook’s Key Differentiators

Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s examine the special traits of Facebook campaigns that require an equally comprehensive understanding.

1. Micro-Targeting

Because Facebook has scads of demographic data about each of their users, this allows marketers to get extremely granular via targeted-ads. Newspaper and radio ads can’t let you target by gender and interest, but Facebook certainly can. This is why an all-inclusive understanding of your demographic is so essential in social advertising – the opportunity for micro-targeting necessitates this knowledge.

How targeted can your ads really be on Facebook? Even more so than on Google AdWords. While a Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaign lets you target by location and keywords, Facebook has the whole enchilada: location, keywords, workplace, birthdate, gender, age, and interests. This is immensely powerful advertising, but only if you know your audience.

2. Social is Key

Facebook is a social network, so your ads better have a social element too. This is especially true if you opt for native advertising placement; this gives marketers the chance to appear in a user’s feed, rather than traditional banner positions. The bonus of native ads is you are front and center to your audience. The drawback is you are competing with their chosen friends and content.

Native advertising necessitates that quality content be offered to your audience, rather than a hard sell. A great example of this can be found throughout gossip rag Buzzfeed’s many sponsored posts. Publisher Harper Collins has a great one called ‘17 Problems Only Book Lovers Will Understand‘. Link through to that ad and you’ll find a fascinating piece that appeals to their demographic, which in turn does an epic job of boasting the credibility and awareness of the brand.

As you craft your Facebook ads, think about what your audience cares about the most, and offer them quality information rather than just a blurb about your services.

3. Cost Versus Optimization

It’s a prevalent myth out there that because Facebook is so popular, advertising on the platform must therefore be expensive. Not so. Facebook ads are volumes cheaper than traditional advertising, and even Google AdWords. A few hundred dollars a month could very likely reach your goals.

What Facebook requires above high price tags is time and effort. You cannot just launch a campaign and expect great results; it requires daily check-ins and careful analysis. Since you have the power to micro-target your ads, optimization is truly the key to Facebook ad success. Key metrics include monitoring which ads are getting the most Likes and click-throughs (i.e. actions), and a constant analysis of your cost-per-click (CPC).

4. Great Profiles are Essential

Many marketers miss this critical piece of the Facebook puzzle: no matter how great your ads are, your business page must also be comprehensive and well-maintained. Your ads are likely to draw a substantial crowd to your Facebook page. If it’s dull and archaic, any positive brand identity infused by your ads can be undone in an instant via a terrible Facebook profile.

5. Outsourcing is Not Required

Facebook ads work best if the ad manager is well-versed with the company and its related industry. It is ultimately advantageous that you or someone very close to your business be your Facebook marketer, not an outside firm. The more you work with the platform, the more you’ll learn about what works and what doesn’t – for your specific business. Because it is so micro-targeted, the rules are very specific to each business’s results.

Consider Facebook ads a long-term investment. Additionally, be willing to change ad campaigns and strategies at the drop of a hat if your results require it. Facebook, unlike traditional advertising platforms, requires an organic perspective, or a “go with the flow” attitude. Hard-sells and spammy ads are likely to fail miserably. A small marketing budget and a commitment to quality can go a long, long way.

6. Know Why Your Ads are Successful

Once you have a campaign that brings you positive results, don’t just celebrate your success, study it extensively. An understanding of why your target audience engaged with your ads is critical to the ability to duplicate these efforts. Do some audience segments respond better than others? Does your audience interact more with sidebar ads or sponsored stories? Knowing the answers to these questions will help you continue the positive trend.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/19/expert-advice-facebook-advertising/

The Top 10 Ways to Drive More Visitors to Your Site

By Seowebmount

If you’re anything like the vast majority of website owners, you’d like to see more visitors to your site, correct?

Or more specifically, visitors who at some point want to purchase. Like any other online business, the success of your own business is tied in directly with the amount of targeted traffic your site can attract.

Fortunately, there are many techniques you can use right away to start attracting increasing amounts of quality traffic to your site. And they work long-term too.

1. Recommendations

Recommendations from other online businesses are very powerful, and drive valuable traffic for months if not years. So it’s worth investing time and effort in attaining some of these links.

After all, potential customers are far more likely to believe a third-party review of your business than your own marketing materials.

To help encourage these recommendations:

• Ensure whatever you provide through your business is the best it can be and delivers real value to your customers.
• Prioritize customer support, deal with inquiries on a personal level and build up a personal rapport with some of your best customers.
• Create an affiliate program, providing incentives for other businesses to start recommending you.
• Ask for referrals – you’ll be surprised how often your customers will be happy and willing to refer others to your business.

2. Article Marketing

Yes, article marketing has received some negative coverage of late, but much of it comes from business owners who use SEO as a central pillar in their marketing strategy.

Instead, it’s important to develop links from all over the web that drive traffic to your business independent of search engines, and reduce any such reliance on SEO. Article marketing remains one of the most effective ways in which to achieve that.

The fact is article directories are among some of the most highly-visited sites online … why wouldn’t you want your link on them, siphoning traffic back to your site?

And if you need any proof that article marketing can increase the online visibility of your business – you’re reading this, aren’t you?

In fact, my own articles tend to get hundreds if not thousands of views within just a few days of publication. Some go on to achieve tens of thousands of views. And that’s just one article directory …

Multiply that when you syndicate to several high-traffic article directories, as well as other potential online publishers, and you start to appreciate how effective article marketing can be in raising your profile.

It’s also not always about linking back to your main website either. You can for example also link back to your pages on social media, or perhaps a squeeze page domain to help build your email list.

3. Paid Traffic

Can’t that be costly? Yes, but only if you do it wrong. Get it right, and it’s a continual, long-term profit stream.

Personally, I’ve been paying for traffic for years, as well as using other traffic-building methods.

Take time to master it; be willing to invest some cash up front while you get it working effectively, and it becomes an important asset for your business.

4. Retargeting

Of course, retargeting also involves buying traffic, but it works slightly differently.

When you get a visitor to your site, you then drop a cookie on them, and they continue to see ads for your site on other websites around the web long after they have visited.

This not only brings a percentage back to your site, but can also raise your profile with them and keep your business front of mind, increasing the likelihood of purchase.

5. Email Marketing

Capture the email address of your prospect, and you can then follow-up with them by email for weeks, months, and years to come. Some people on my own list have been receiving emails from me for several years now, and still end up back on one of my sites after clicking links provided in the emails I send out.

Communicate with your list regularly, and invite them to return to your website, whether for a promotion, to read your latest content, or to interact in some way with you.

It’s a powerful way to build a relationship with your prospects, build traffic for the long-term, and of course increase their likelihood of purchase.

6. Blogging

I’ve now been blogging for years, and it’s one of the central planks to my long-term traffic strategy:

• It gives you a lot of content in the search engines, with each post that you write (or have written) working to attract visitors over the long-term.
• It helps build relationships with the people who read your blog, who return repeatedly to read your latest content.
• It builds your credibility and authority, increasing the chance of both purchase and referral to others
• It gives you content to feed your social media activities.
• You can leverage the content for other purposes (for example, this article originates from a blog post).

7. Forum and Blog Commenting

Engage with forums relevant to your niche, and you can drive a lot of targeted traffic back to your site.

For example, link to a blog post where it helps someone’s question. Link back to your site from your signature, and via your profile.

You can also build up some powerful relationships which can result in long-term traffic from referrals and so on.

It works in a similar fashion with blogs. Avoid spam commenting completely, but instead add a useful, informative comment of real value. You can either link back by adding your website details into the field provided, or where appropriate try linking back to say one of your own blog posts where it adds further to the discussion.

8. Videos

YouTube can be hugely effective in driving traffic to your site, simply because it gets so much traffic itself as the world’s second largest search engine. By posting videos that will match up with some of those searches you’ll reach new audiences and attract new visitors to your site.

What’s more, you can create new videos relatively easily by simply basing them on earlier blog posts.

9. Social Media

Social media signals are becoming increasingly important for SEO purposes, and it also allows your content to spread far beyond your own shores and get seen by audiences you otherwise wouldn’t reach.

Every time you create or add new content somewhere, you can also post it to your social media profiles. This drives up engagement, attracts new followers, and raises the visibility of your business in general.

10. Do They Want What You’ve Got?

You might not think it’s a ‘traffic strategy’ as such … but in fact, it’s the most important one.

If people don’t want what you’ve got, you’ll find traffic generation a whole lot harder.

On the other hand, when you sell what people want, particularly when combined with a powerful USP (unique selling proposition) it all becomes a lot easier. People will spread the word naturally, your traffic will grow based on their willing referrals, and your marketing costs will reduce substantially.

resource: http://www.sitepronews.com/2014/02/17/top-10-ways-drive-visitors-site/

With Content Marketing, Link Building is Obsolete… Right?

It seems that every day a new blog post is published claiming that link building is dead. It makes for a great headline, but it’s just not true. In fact, it’s very much alive, and will be for the foreseeable future.
Unfortunately, the content marketing purists who preach the “build it and they will come” methodology are setting themselves and their audience up for failure.
When I get asked about whether a business should continue with link building in the future, I usually say, “Your competitor would love it if you stopped building links to your content.”
Don’t get me wrong — I am a proponent of producing useful content and making content marketing a large part of your overall internet marketing strategy; I even wrote a book about it. However, I also recognize the value of links and the impact they have across the web.
Let’s take a look at why I believe link building is still and will continue to be a tremendously important component of online marketing and the number one search engine ranking factor.

Not All Links Are Bad

Not too long ago, blog commenting, article sites and blind link requests were considered reasonable link building tactics. Spamming used to be commonplace in the SEO world. The quantity of links trumped quality when it came to search engine rankings, and internet marketers were focused on getting links at any cost, literally.
Fortunately, Google has cracked down on spammed-to-death, old-school link building, forcing website owners to embrace more sustainable methods of achieving high quality backlinks.
Links still matter, and there are many legitimate ways to obtain links that do not violate any search engine’s terms of service. Even Google’s own Head of Webspam Matt Cutts recently stated, “Not all link building is bad.” Link building has significantly changed, and for the better, but the premise behind the concept remains the same.
There are still many ways to build links to your content without being a spammer. Consider link reclamation, partnerships, sponsorships and even traditional marketing (press releases, radio, TV, etc.) that can result in a link. As long as links are actually helpful to the intended audience, they will positively affect SEO and rankings.
Sustainable, Penguin-proof links aren’t impossible to obtain, and even some old-school link building tactics can still work — when done correctly. “If Google didn’t exist, would you still want the link?” is a common saying used by self proclaimed link Moses Eric Ward. Some methods such as forum links, directories and, most recently, guest blogging have been knocked down by Matt Cutts as spammy tactics. Why? Because they are done incorrectly and spammed.
But, would you pass up a relevant link from this Adobe Forum, which boasts a DA of 100? How about a link on the DMOZ.org directory, or a guest blogging opportunity on your competitor’s own website written by an expert at your organization? Not all links are bad, but you have to ask yourself why you’re building the link. If it’s just for Google, then you’re starting off all wrong. Build a link that makes sense, provides value to the end user and showcases your content in a positive light.

Social Signals Aren’t Being Used

Many marketers believe that social signals are being used as a rankings factor, but that just isn’t true. There are plenty of reports stating the correlation between social signals and rankings, but there is no conclusive causation mentioned along with any of the findings.
Marketers are forgetting the fact that correlation does not imply causation. Just because there is a correlation between social signals and rankings doesn’t mean that one causes the other, and that’s a huge distinction that people are missing.
Additionally, Cutts explained that +1s (and any other Google+ social signals) do not have an impact on search engine rankings. He also stated that Google+ and other networks’ social signals such as Facebook “Likes” and shares and Twitter mentions and retweets won’t improve rankings in the short term, but could help in the long term. Cutts said that an accumulation of social signals may be able to give search engine bots a clue as to whether your content is authentic and should be trusted, and could eventually affect search engine rankings.
The only definitive thing about social signals, Cutts has said, is that social signals are not being used to rank content right now. So what does this mean? It means that having a social presence could be helpful in terms of search engine rankings down the road, but right now, it isn’t.
That’s not to say that having a faithful and engaged online audience isn’t lucrative in other ways — it is. Web traffic, branding and positive sentiment are hugely important and can impact marketing and sales in other ways, just not currently with search engine rankings.

“Build It And They Will Come” Doesn’t Exist

Though quality content creation can make link building easier, it does not mean that proactive link building shouldn’t be part of your content marketing strategy. Publishing quality content should result in links based on its own worthiness; but, that is often not the case.
Consider that 73 percent of B2B content marketers say they are producing more content than they did a year ago. More and more content continues to be produced, which means more and more competition. Without manually building links to your content through promotion, distribution and other proactive link building tactics, you run the risk of losing out to your competitors that are.
Content marketing and link building should be used in tandem. Develop content that will naturally attract links and give it a boost by obtaining some links manually. PR folks do it all the time, garnering great mentions for their clients. You can do that, too, with the goal of obtaining a link.
Leverage your content by sharing it with an individual who created a great resource page — ask to be added. Look for relevant links lists or search for mentions of your brand discussing your content but not linking to it. These are all opportunities that exist for just about every brand with a web presence today.
Social media is critical to almost every business, but just sharing your content on social networks isn’t going to cut it, either. Again, having an engaged audience that shares your content across social networks is great exposure and can certainly result in increased links, traffic and sales. However, in most cases, you will need to participate in proactive link building if you want searchers to find your content.
Almost half of all web traffic comes from natural search (and for many of us, way more than half), which means search engine rankings can really impact overall web traffic. If your site is like most and relies on organic search traffic, link building is not an option — it’s a necessity.

In Conclusion

Getting backlinks is hard work. That’s probably the single biggest reason people want social media and other factors to outweigh the value of links. In my opinion, there is no way that search engines are going to make links a zero factor any time soon—like in this decade. And though many content marketers may like to think that creating quality content on its own is enough, it’s not, as links are undoubtedly still the top ranking factor.
However, link building has to be done right. Today there is no doubt that certain types of links will help your cause while others will hurt, and search engines continue to do a better job of telling which links are which.
resource: http://marketingland.com/content-marketing-link-building-obsolete-right-72567

LinkedIn Study Shows Social Media Marketing is Working for SMBs

By Seowebmount

A small business is one that has less than 500 employees, which doesn’t really sound that small. But of the 28 million SMBs in the US, 22 million are single person companies who are juggling everything from sales to marketing to service. For these companies, social media can be the key to keeping in touch with customers.

LinkedIn conducted a survey of 998 SMBs in the U.S. and Canada and discovered that 81% of SMBs are using social media. Mostly, they see it as a way of maintaining brand presence and for lead generation.

Now we get a little chicken or the egg-y:
3 our of 5 businesses in the survey were in growth mode – they had an increase in revenue year over year. 1 in 6 was in “hyper growth” mode, which means a significant growth in revenue. 73% of those hyper-growth folks increased their spend on social media.
LinkedIn says this shows a high correlation between hyper-growth and social media usage but I’m not sure that’s totally true.
First off, three cheers for the success of small business. I feel for the 2 out of 5 that saw their revenue drop year over year but that’s life – not everyone is going to make it. But it’s great to see that not only are most businesses growing, a few are blowing it out of the water. (Target, I love you, but I love SMBs more.)
So growth leads to social media spend. . . probably because that’s the easiest way to market on the fly. Think about it. You’re selling Pink Widgets and suddenly there’s a huge demand for Blue Widgets. You make them but it’s too late to change the postcard you had printed or the newspaper ad, but you can go on Facebook right now and send out a blast to all of your followers. Blue Widgets Are Now Available. 20% off if you buy more than 10. If you sell out of Blue Widgets you can go on Twitter and let your customers know that they’re out of stock until next month.
On the fly is the small business way, especially one that’s growing faster than the company can meet to discuss it. It’s vital and alive and that’s why I love start-ups. Hey, sometimes you’re driving a sinking speed boat but it’s exciting while on top.
So here’s my end of the week advice. Take the weekend off. Spend time with the people you love and clear your brain. Next week, hop on the speedboat and make a splash on social media. Don’t run it by 25 people first or schedule a conference call to discuss it. Just do it. Post something off the wall on your wall and see what happens. Give away a free Blue Widget to the first 10 people who post a selfie with your hashtag. Just do it. Worse thing that can happen is it’ll flop. Best case, it will get new people excited about your company.
resource: http://www.marketingpilgrim.com/2014/02/linkedin-study-shows-social-media-marketing-is-working-for-smbs.html

By the Understanding Search Analytics, You can Making Better, Data-Driven Decisions

By Seowebmount
At this time, it is must for any web promotion for any business that how you create website and promote in any search engine. It is also necessary to think that how any site optimize for updating the system. We analyze that which operating system can be used max by any person. It is necessary for max business can be open to all persons.

Do you feel like your analytics is working for you? Like really working? If you don’t, you’re not alone. In fact, a survey by Covario revealed only 20 percent felt their current analytics setup gave them insight to help make better business decisions.
The cure? Do a better job of leveraging data. Sounds simple enough, but in today’s multiscreen world, sifting through mounds of data and working through proper attribution can be a full-time job.
The good news is that we have more data now than ever before (or is that the bad news?); today, it’s just a matter of getting a handle on what that means to our business and our marketing programs.
These concepts and more served as the foundation for a discussion on “Understanding Search Analytics” at Covario’s INFLECTIONPoint 2014 event, just last week.

Bird’s Eye View of Device Usage and Tracking

The devices we optimize for and track are changing. And that’s no secret. But as marketers, we always need to be one step ahead. For example, the devices that matter today, that our target audience uses, will increase or decrease in importance over time. So where will you continue to focus your tracking efforts?
Covario’s Steve Beatty shared the results of an eMarketer/Nielsen survey that illustrated the importance marketers place on certain devices today, and which devices they felt would be important a couple years from now:




This data segued nicely into a presentation by Google’s Michael Burke, who spoke about optimizing the experience for a multiscreen world. And it’s not about the device, he said.
Take off your marketer hat for a moment, and put yourself in the shopper’s shoes to get an empathetic view of device usage, and how to make that experience great for that user at that moment (referencing Google’s ZMOT philosophy).
Burke walked us through a scenario that went something like this:

• A guy is thinking about getting a new shaving kit. 
• He decides to search for it on his mobile phone as he sits in the dentist’s office.
• He sees something interesting in the results, clicks through and then abandons the process. 
• Later, he decides to continue the research at home on his tablet, and he finds a store nearby that carries the product.
• A couple days later, he goes to check it out. While there, he does a price check on his mobile phone to see if he can get it cheaper elsewhere (aka “showrooming”). He sees he can get a discount online.  
• Finally, a few days later, he makes the purchase on his laptop at home.

If you can tailor the experience to the needs of the user when they are performing search or engaging on your site on a particular device, you’re beginning to think in line with ZMOT’s philosophy of sending the right message at the right time.
And it’s not just devices that matter. The intent behind the action is worth understanding to become even more relevant to your audience. For example, Burke said, someone searching for “best mobile phone” on a Wednesday night on a laptop has a completely different intent than that same search coming from a mobile phone on a Sunday afternoon.
So when you’re optimizing for devices, optimize for the experience.



And with this, comes the need to attribute not only how devices impact the experience and the bottom line, but also how each action (no matter how small), can lead to something bigger. As Burke pointed out, ecommerce transactions are not the only value-driven action. In fact, he said, there are lots of untracked events that have serious positive consequences.
But there’s still a ways to go when it comes to measuring the value of certain actions. In-store purchases are one conversion point that Burke said Google is working hard towards finding ways to attribute which actions drove that purchase, and, he said, they’ve started experimenting with Web history and geolocation to begin to get an understanding of that.

OK, So How Do You Attribute?

All this talk about attribution sounds great, but not everyone has a handle on how to do it. As Covario’s Anthony Stagg pointed out next, attribution is still an emerging discipline, but a lack of standardization plus challenges with online data access, collection and quality can be an issue.
Especially as we face a “cookieless” world, as illustrated by the following graphic:



There are implications, Stagg said. Consider the following:

• Every cookie generates its own user profile leading to multiple and often conflicting profiles of user behavior. Cookies don’t work with smartphones and tablets.
• Google, Microsoft and Facebook have begun development on their own browser-based individual identifiers.
• These individual identifiers would allow them to collect behavioral data across all content, campaigns, and devices—smartphone, tablet, PC and laptop—and attribute them to a single unique user profile.
• This increases the threat of Internet giants monopolizing online user behavioral data and selling it to advertisers and agencies.   

Today, when companies do practice attribution, the majority of it is pretty straightforward. In a study published by Forrester Research, companies most used channels like paid search and SEO in their attribution calculations:



And even though marketers are working towards more sophisticated attribution modeling, the last click, said Stagg, is still the default for many.
His recommendation? Explore the technology that’s out there now, looking out for the many new features and functionality attribution technology vendors have to offer.

Drowning in Data? Investigate the Numbers

Half the battle is getting the data; the other half is interpreting it. Covario’s Nick Morrelli pointed out the pitfalls of analyzing data next. One such pitfall is treating the data you collect site-wide in the same manner.
For example, it’s common to treat your website users differently based on where they engage on the site, but Morrelli argued it’s time to start analyzing the data for those pages differently as well.
One scenario is the bounce rate. The bounce rate for users in your sales segment should be looked at differently than the bounce rate for your users in your technical support section, he said. In those cases, the bounce has different implications.
If you’re drowning in data or your numbers just feel lackluster, there’s a remedy: dig deeper. One of the best things you can do when analyzing data is to always ask yourself, What is the next step? What other questions can I answer?
And to avoid becoming too comfortable with face-value analytics; Morrelli reminded the audience to always look for evidence to prove or disprove your assumptions.
As Beatty took the stage again for closing remarks, he left us with a quote from the fictional detective character, Sherlock Holmes: “The temptation to form premature theories upon insufficient data is the bane of our profession.”
As marketers, it’s easy to become overwhelmed with data, and do nothing to resolve tracking what matters. But the investment up front in doing so can pay dividends to making better data-driven business decisions through search analytics.
resource : http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2328266/Understanding-Search-Analytics-Making-Better-Data-Driven-Decisions

Best future of Content Marketing for Business & Scaling Beyond the Noise

Importance of contents is up with them in web market. by the content we expand or are of our brand or business information, qualities, uses, importance etc.
There has been no revolution in the content marketing space. People have been publishing content since the days of cavemen carving on cave walls. The rapid fusion of search and social digital technologies combined with a rapid desire from consumers and audiences to engage in new and creative ways has put content marketing as the hotspot on the search marketing ‘heat map'.
There is no doubt that growth and interest has evolved over time and has been heavily influenced by Google's algorithmic changes (Panda, Penguin, and Hummingbird).
Every individual is now a content marketer and every organization is a publisher right?
Wrong.

Beyond Content 101: Strategy to Scale vs. Tactical Noise

The Internet is awash with content ideation and best practice for creating and distributing content. In just under 0.28 seconds, the mighty Google served me with over 1,070,000,000 results. Many are fantastic, but many more crowd the market with noise and confusion.
Clearly, organizations are now becoming more content savvy and consuming media at maximum capacity. However, the key question, challenge, and opportunity for your business doesn't lie within a tactical, 101, best practice document.
The answer lies within the heart of a business, its culture, and how it scales its operation and produces quality and relevant content efficiently.

The Real Issue: Scaling and Measuring Quality Content

To address the real issue of scale, quality, and measurement, businesses must focus on how to target, structure, and build sustainable strategies and frameworks.
A clear strategy and process leads to far more effective implementation of tactics. Unfortunately many businesses focus on too may tactics (for example, B2C tactics in a B2B market) and in-between all the confusion and mayhem objectives and aims are lost.
Solutions lie "embedded" within culture and the subsequent strategy and process that follow.
A 2014 B2B survey from Joe Pulizzi and the Content Marketing Institute highlighted statistics showing the challenges of content production:

The real business challenge with content marketing lies within production and scale. It begins with a streamlined strategy that gives you scope, process, and bandwidth to execute on new and innovative content marketing tactics without the mayhem.
If you don't do this, then your business faces many issues across resource, quality, and RAM (Random Acts of Marketing and Social Media).
As Pam Moore puts it in her excellent article, "These usually end up smack in the middle of projects."
Teams get sidetracked by RAM, which eats into business time, ROI, budget, and free time; a key source of frustration that many true content marketers can relate to.
Sustainability and success rely not just on content creation best practice, but best practice around internal protocol, asset management, and talent management.

A Content Marketing Business Solution – Built For Scale

If you want to make the most of the content marketing evolution, expand upon tactical execution across content, search, and social, and scale to become a "publisher," it's essential to build a framework that works.
In a recent ClickZ article, Aaron Kahlow set down a blueprint for content marketing success by stating, "You really need a blueprint - a guide - to help you get and stay on track."

To scale quality and relevant content, your culture needs to become the key driver of the following model.

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The best type of content always starts with the user in mind. The user, buyer, and audience decides how good your content is – if it is worth sharing, downloading, and relevant to their need and/or business issue. Your content culture must be based around the user/buyer and optimizing for them first – your business comes second.

1. Understand audience demand – Utilize analytics, survey your audience, and invest in search, social, and market research. Start with the basics. It's economics 101 – demand and supply. As Lisa Barone puts it, "Without this step, you're creating content for a dark room and hoping there are people biting. With personae in hand, you not only get to see the people you're writing for, you become their best friend."
2. Take time to identify and drill down into the different types of personas of people with whom you want to connect and understand. This extends beyond just economic buyer personas. You can go a level deeper and dive into individual personal personas (what is in it for them). Get psychological not just economical!

Audience centric content culture starts with what the audience wants and can then be matched to what your company can offer them. This should be objectively driven.

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We all have a multitude of reasons for producing content. This can range from subjective motives such as a personal desire to raise your brand profile, the simple want to share information and insight and, for some with no experience, to prove your worth as a content marketer and industry expert.
For businesses, content production has to be objectively driven with a clear aim and crystal message. Quality content must serve a purpose.

1. Ensure that before you start your content creation process, you agree on your aim. Is this to deliver timely insight and data, meet a set business objective or goal, support a marketing message, or match a product innovation to a market need?
2. Once you've established your aim and gained buy-in from relevant stakeholders in your business across sales, client, product and marketing services you can then, and only then, begin to craft your message and think about assets.

This is a critical stage of the content process and it is where many companies can come unstuck. If you don't establish the aim and key message you will waste vital content time and resource. Bottlenecks are created as stakeholders go back and forth editing multiple versions of content and messaging.
resource: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2328025/Future-of-Content-Marketing-Business-Scaling-Beyond-the-Noise