Knowing is half the battle

Sometimes knowing what’s going on before you set out on any new marketing initiative can make all the difference in the early stages. Take a moment and ask your self if you have the answers to the following questions:

• What do you expect to achieve as a result of this particular social campaign?
• How do you plan on reaching your goal?
• What will you use to judge your success?

The answers will help you to have an idea of what you’re expecting to happen as a result of your social activity, how you plan on making that end result a reality, and how you’re going to judge whether or not you succeeded in accomplishing your goal. That’s a lot to figure out before moving forward, but trust us when we say it will be well worth the time and effort to do a little planning beforehand!

It’s all about connections

One of the most interesting things about social media campaigns is their potential for meaningful conversation. Conversation is what drives most social activity, though of course things like “likes” and “shares” are important too. For the most part, conversions stem from one-on-one interaction between brand and consumer, and this is why making a connection is very important.

Meaningful conversations

When is the last time you had a meaningful conversation with someone through your social channel activity? While the definition of “meaningful” can be a bit subjective, we can usually agree on it being something that is helpful, insightful, etc.

Have conversations with your audience been meaningful? Ask yourself if your conversations have:

• Helped someone learn something new about your brand / products / services?
• Helped someone resolve a problem / answer a question?
• Helped someone to share their feedback with you or receive feedback from you?
• Truly engaged someone and enabled them to share information with you, and you with them?
• Helped you to reward someone’s loyalty / participation (i.e. presenting Facebook fans with an exclusive coupon)?

Engagement and conversions come from having objectives

Ask yourself what you really need to happen as a result of your social media campaign. What do you really need to see in order to see the effort as worthwhile and successful? And how can you reach for this goal, knowing all the while that you’re on the right path?

Clear objectives help you answer these questions by:

• Providing information on what to post
• Giving you an idea of what to include in your posts
• Showing you which conversations to continue and which to gently end
• Helping you to better understand your audience and their reaction to a crisis (which helps you form a crisis management strategy)

The effectiveness of a social campaign can be determined by the level of engagement you have seen forming around each item you post, and your brand presence as a whole. As we said before, likes and shares do help by showing what sorts of content people want to see, but they are not the only engagement metrics you should be looking at. Instead see how many comments have been made to each Facebook post, and how many conversations have been started by a given tweet on Twitter. How many people have actively engaged your brand, or allowed your brand to engage with them?

Tying any social metrics directly to profits isn’t really possible, and if it can be done it is incredibly difficult and time-consuming. This is why social success should be measured in it’s own right, and its value as a consumer engagement tool should be considered instead of exactly how it fits into the sales strategy of your business.

Comments:

How do you handle your social media activity? Do you go for more “likes” and “shares” or do you head more for meaningful conversations and direct engagement?

Penguin: Google’s anti-link spam update

Beginning with the Panda update, Google began cracking down on things it considered to be spam. Panda dealt with content spam, poor-quality content, and websites that dealt in this sort of thing found their traffic vanishing almost overnight.

Then came the Penguin update which waged war on link spam. Links that had been built using automated scraping, commenting, or publishing tools were in serious trouble, as were the sites that housed them. Websites that were little more than link farms went the way of the sites hit hard by the Panda update…they all but disappeared.

Some said this was the end to link-building as we knew it. Why build links if there was a distinct possibility that the methods you were familiar with could very well get your site penalized or even banned?

Penguin doles out penalties to link-spam violators

In the eyes of Google, these kinds of links tend to send up red flags that lead them to investigate your site:

• Too many links in your content (press release, blog post, etc)
• Links from low-quality article directories
• links from low-quality blogs
• Irrelevant links (don’t make sense in context of content)
• Random forum links (think relevance)

In the first round of the Penguin update, sites that had 80% or more of their backlink profiles made up of low-quality spammy links were penalized. This sent the link farms and the sites that just tried too hard using their automated tools down the river, never to be seen again.

Lately that standard has changed – Now sites with 50% or more of their profile made up of spammy links are getting the same penalties originally given to the 80% and up crowd.

Google is tightening the belt…where do you stand?

Instead of spamming, build your links another way

Despite what many thought at first, the days of link building are far from over. Instead, we have had to take a few steps back and consider things like value, relevance, and location. Brands had to be more careful what kinds of links they included in their site’s footers and sidebars, and what kinds of links they built pointing back to their website from generic web 2.0 properties scattered across the web. Instead strategies such as guest posting and blogger outreach were implemented, bringing in stronger, more relevant links that Google approved of much more than the kinds of links built in the past.

Shunning automated tools, brands began building their links “by hand” and taking the time to make sure that each link was well worth the effort it took to create. Some brands turned to social media for additional link-building opportunities, and still others used their email lists to work towards this goal.

Many new techniques and strategies have emerged since the Penguin update debuted that are helping individuals and brands alike move towards a brighter future. The dream of a spam-free web experience are no longer simply dreams any longer – Google is working to make these dreams into reality. And while some disagree with their methods and believe things could have been or could be done differently, the fact remains that we are being forced to evolve and grow with the times.

Are you ready?

Comments:

The next installment of the Penguin update is scheduled for mid-2013, but could come at any time.

Is your business in a good place with back link quality? If no, what will you be doing to change that?

Does Google even care?

Yes, but not in the ways that you might think they do.

Google cares about your domain name because it is a part of your website.

Do you have to have it crammed full of keywords? No, not really, especially since the EMD (Exact Match Domain) update to their algorithm as it doesn’t do you any good from an SEO standpoint. Keywords in your domain name might help people find your website more quickly, but they don’t give much SEO value to domain names anymore.

Do you have to format your domain a certain way such as having hyphens between every word? Again, no. This is personal preference; how beneficial is it to you and your customers to have your domain name be all one word, or to be broken up with hyphens? Some people find having to type extra characters to be annoying and this could be bad for your business – others don’t mind them and you might believe that your URL looks better with them included.

Will changing your domain name affect your site’s SEO?

Of course! After all, links are built to your website’s URL. While the content might be the same, the domain name / URL is not, and since that’s what links are looking for, they’re not going to have any value when there is nothing for them to connect to.

Say you sell your domain name but keep your content. All of the links that you built to your content on your old domain are not worth anything any longer. You will need to focus on building new links because your content will be considered to be “new” because of your new domain name. This can play in your favor if you have any pieces of content that were popular under your old domain as you can republish these to your new domain at a measured pace and build new links to them. Let people know you’ve set up shop under a new domain name, but that the same content they’ve grown to love is still available.

If you still own your old domain and are just moving over to a new one, consider keeping the old domain for a few years and using 301 redirects to funnel the power and value of your old backlinks to your new domain. This only works if you’ve kept your content and are just migrating to a new domain. If you no longer own your old domain or your old content, it’s time to start from scratch.

If you do decide to change your domain name, don’t worry about having any trouble from Google. As long as you handle things properly Google doesn’t have any reason to care what domain name you use!

Comments:

Have you moved domains before, or are you still at your original domain name?

Social media: Essential or just another tool?

Actually, it’s a little bit of both. Social media is a tool, and as such is just as valuable as any other tool in your marketing and branding arsenal. It is however a very important and essential thing that can win you a great deal of business if approached correctly.

Consumer choices based on social media?

Consumer decisions are often influenced by the things they see on social media channels, though when this is cited it is most often in the context of the information consumers take in from their friends and family members; if Cousin Mary really enjoyed doing business with Company A, then maybe Consumer B will also enjoy it.

Something you might not be as aware of is the tendency consumers have to base their buying decisions on a brand’s social presence…or lack thereof. People are much more likely to do business with a brand that has some sort of social presence, no matter how small it might be. If there is no social activity of any kind, many consumers will choose to take their business elsewhere.

Why is that?

In simple terms, it’s a trust issue. A social presence is confirmation that not only does a business exist in relationship to your brand, but that business is active and available for customer service if needed. People like having a way to contact a business to give them feedback that can be seen by others; this is true for both positive and negative feedback.

The desire consumers have to see some sort of social presence is very logical. Many fly-by-night businesses can set up shop online and look very legitimate and professional, and then vanish just as quickly as they came. A social presence indicates not only an increased degree of legitimacy and professionalism, but also proves that a business cares about its customers and wants to have more contact with them – this is something a less legitimate or reputable business would be interested in because it would be one more avenue to contact and exposure.

Search meets social

While the vast majority of web searches are still performed using top search engines, more and more searches are being performed on top social channels. While it is highly unlikely that social will ever overtake traditional search, it is worth having some sort of presence on the top social channels to ensure that should someone search for your brand or the products / services you offer, you will have something there to draw them in and get them interested in what you have to offer.

Comments:

How essential do you believe social media is to a brand’s success?

Every day, people are searching the web…

…do you have what they’re looking for?

Millions of web searches are performed every day all around the world. People are searching for answers to their questions, sources of entertainment, educational materials, and much more.

Your brand is among many that are positioned to be the source of the results web users seek. How can you capture the attention of these information seekers?

Your content.

Through content your business can bring in traffic to your website. All you need to do is offer the people what they need!

3 Tips for producing great content

If you want to put your business out there and really get things going, here are three things that you can do to take your content (and your content marketing strategy) to the next level.

1. Prepare yourself before you begin – Before you even start to write, you need to refer to your keyword research (and if you haven’t done this yet, get on it ASAP!), brainstorm topics based on industry news, popular trends, and questions your target audience is asking. Only after you have done these things should you write your first draft. Then wait a while and have someone else review it, point out any possible changes, and allow you to edit it again before publishing.
2. Be clear about your topic and your instructions – When you are producing great content, you need to make things clear and obvious for your readers. Make sure that your writing is easy to scan (formatting such as headers and lists help), easy to read, and is pleasing in other ways; you can use media (images and videos) to break up the monotony of a simple text-only blog post. And lastly, offer clear calls to action. Your readers need to know what you want them to do after they have finished reading your post on your blog or page on your website.
3. Offer opportunities for engagement – Yes people will share things on their own whether you have provided easy opportunities to do so or not, but why make them work for it? It is common knowledge that people prefer the path of least resistance, and as such are more likely to share your content if you offer them ways to do it right from your website or blog. You can use social sharing buttons, offer users the ability to leave comments or feedback, and then actually respond to these things and create a dialogue.

Great content is high-quality content. High-quality content is interesting, informative, unique, and relevant to your brand and your audience. The more useful your content is to your readers, the happier they will be. Because you are providing them with the information they have been searching for, they are much more likely to leave your website or blog with a good impression of your brand.

While most visitors do not convert to customers on their first visit, if they leave with a favorable impression they may bookmark your website so that they can return later, or tell a friend who is looking to buy about how they enjoyed reading your content and looking through your site.

Either way, as long as you have high-quality content, everyone wins!

Comments:

Does your brand have a content marketing strategy? If so, what is it like? What do you do to make things happen for your brand?

In the beginning, there was the Google algorithm…

…and while it was good, it was missing something…

For you see, while the Google algorithm helped to return search results to the people, there was a lot of spam and low-quality content in those results, and the people were becoming restless. Google saw their unrest and turned their minds towards separating the results with high-quality content from those with content that left something to be desired.

But how could they accomplish such a lofty goal?

After surveys going out across the land, data was analysed and the Panda update was conceived. This update was intended to help weed out the less desirable results from the search pages and promote the better quality content instead. On February 11th 2011 the first release of the Panda update occurred, impacting website all around the world.

How Panda will endure

Since it was introduced, there have been over 20 confirmed and suspected iterations of the Panda update. Recently sources at Google have confirmed that as of March of this year, Panda is now a permanent part of the Google ranking algorithm.

This means that from now on, the algorithm (now including Panda) will analyse each page of your website and assign it a different “score” relevant to the quality of the content. Your content will be ranked depending on the cumulative score you receive from averaging the total scores gathered from your website.

What does this mean for internet marketing and SEO?

Panda changed the face of content marketing as we know it and started a trend toward quality over quantity that is continuing to this day.

No longer can a website get by with thin, lifeless content. High-quality, interesting, relevant, useful content is now the currency of the realm. While to an extent this has always been true, Panda brought the issue of quality to light in a way that nothing had done before. It is one thing for a standard of quality to be known, it is quite another to see it enforced.

Businesses must now focus on providing content that people want to see. Things that are interesting, entertaining, relevant to the business publishing them, and can actually be useful to the user in some way are what search engines are loving these days.

What all of this means for your business

If you have been using content marketing to spread awareness of your brand and build links, now is the time to think about how you’re doing that, and how you are going to continue.

Your first step should be to look closely at the content on your own website; this includes a blog if you have one. Make sure that this content is high-quality and unique rather than lackluster and repetitive. If you have multiple pages with similar content on them, see what you can do to change things up and make each page a little more unique and useful. Add an image, a video, or other media element and consider rewriting the page with a fresh voice.

Sometimes it can be difficult to deal with all of the curveballs thrown by search engines, but if you stick to a strategy that promotes quality over quantity, you are sure to succeed!

Comments:

Was your website affected by the Panda update? If so, how did you recover?