Don’t worry, I’m not talking about some creepy stalker, hell bent on stealing your identity and ruining your life. Instead, I just described the concept behind Facebook’s new advertising platform, partner categories. Privacy concerns are understandable, but actually a non-issue with this new feature. What, you think Facebook would just ignore that whole Internet privacy thing?

Facebook promises that your personal information isn’t shared with the social network, third parties, or advertisers. It claims that companies have used this type of targeting off of Facebook for years and that “partner categories work the same way all targeting on Facebook works.” Who are we to argue?

Partner categories introduces a whole new spectrum of targeted advertising, and is allowing any Facebook Page to set their scope on a narrowed down, exclusively specific group of potential customers, followers, or fans.

Back in February, we told you about Facebook custom audiences, which was sort of a prelude to this new and more thorough advancement. We even said, and I quote:

“With a billion users on Facebook, waste and inefficiency is a constant worry for advertisers. The social network was built to allow users to find relevant pages, but not so much the other way around. Sure, Facebook does have an ad targeting functionality, but the broad demographic information available is next to useless for some marketers.”

Well, we can scratch that.

Whole New Ballgame

Now that Partner Categories is in full effect for US advertisers, they’ve got a much bigger field to play on. It is only available in Power Editor and through the Facebook API as of now, but that could be expanded soon.

Here’s the skinny: Facebook teamed up with three outside marketing firms, which include Acxiom, Datalogix, and Epsilon. These heavyweights are providing Facebook with the data (sort of blindly, as to stay within those privacy parameters), and Facebook provides page mangers with the categories. As of now, they number above 500, and will be added to as time goes on.

Of course, the old reliable demographics from Facebook’s original ad targeting attempts, including age, gender, location, and the like, are able to be incorporated with these new specialized partner categories. The personas that can be honed in on now spread wide and far, opening opportunities to find the exact customer you know will be interested in what you’ve got.

Think about these implications: you can now execute advertising strategies for the most specific customer base possible to date. If you’re a Mexican restaurant, you can send your discount ads to people who live in your area, eat ethnic food regularly, visit restaurants frequently, have kids, drink margaritas, listen to country music, and work a 9-5 job. Now that family-friendly happy hour with live music from a Willie Nelson cover band is going to be packed, right?

You get the idea: the seemingly endless list of categories would take forever to fully describe, but noodling around inside the possible combinations can really get you thinking about who you’re trying to reach, and how well they’ll receive your ad. For the small, locally owned business, the impact could be huge.

Okay, that’s great news. But how are you supposed to use partner categories? I knew you would ask…

Setting Your Sights

Facebook made it pretty simple to set things up with partner categories. As mentioned, it’s been rolled out to the Facebook API and Power Editor; we’d recommend using Power Editor if you aren’t already.

The process couldn’t be easier; it’s finding the right combination of customer categories that will prove to be the challenge. It might also prove to be the fun part.

Start by going to the “Manage Adverts” tab under the settings menu (shout out to our social media manager Molly Pittman for hooking it up with the screenshots).

Next you’ll want to go into Power Editor, which is found over in the left hand toolbar. For more information on installing and using Power Editor, go here.

After that, you can open up “Audiences,” and there you’ll find the “Partner Categories” box. Open that up, and choose one of the three marketing firms (you can only pick one for right now).

Once inside, you can start to narrow down your hunt for the right customer category, like people who are self-employed. Hover over the info button, and you’ll get a rundown of what you’re looking at. Choose what you see fit, and your categories will be included in your advertisement targets.

The Ball’s in Your Court

The scope of Facebook advertising has been changed to give marketers some pretty amazing capabilities when it comes to social media efforts. Though there isn’t real, measurable data yet on what the exact return on investment can be using this new feature, it’s sort of a no-brainer that your ads will be more effective, no matter what you’re trying to do.

There might be some drawbacks, but that’s to be expected. If someone searched online for plane tickets to Rome, and maybe even already purchased them, they’re going to get tired of constantly seeing ads hawking another cross-Atlantic trip. There are also some people who just flat out hate all Facebook ads, and do everything in their power to ignore or stop them.

But in theory, this new age of social, online, and offline advertising cooperation is going to shift the gears of the marketing engine.

Before you can appear at the top of Google searches or be known as an expert voice, there are tasks that should be completed and continually done to establish that first break out of the unknown.

While the debate about the way brands can build their awareness will continue into the end of time, here are four proven ways that we’ve found to be great places to start, and the best part is they naturally lead to even more effective presence-building strategies.

1. Content, Content, Content

Always post to your blog or website as often as you can, and keep things interesting and engaging. There is no magic wand that you can wave over your keyboard and instantly create compelling content. Put in the work that it deserves, and add your own spin, voice, and opinion on things as much as possible.

Even if you think your take on things might not be received with glowing positivity, put it out there anyway. The Internet is a big place, there’s bound to be someone out there who agrees with you. And if not, a debate can go a long way in creating engagement and therefore traffic. If someone’s visiting your site to tell you you’re an idiot, well, they’re still visiting your site…

2. Get Social

Any business without a Facebook or Twitter account is way behind, and that’s becoming clearer by the minute. Make sure these aspects of a brand name are staying active and not neglected. There are plenty of automated platforms that let you schedule things ahead of time, so take advantage where you can.

Venture beyond that, with fresher versions of the same. Try Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn, or any other applicable social media platform. Each requires a different strategy, but each will provide positive reinforcement to your overall brand awareness.

And don’t get too caught up in merely connecting to your content or directing people to your site through social media. Be a part of the social conversation, and try to interact with people in a human way. If there’s something timely or important to the Internet, but it doesn’t really jive with what you’re trying to accomplish, that doesn’t mean it should be totally ignored. Be creative and you’ll be surprised at how effective it can be.

Use the updated features available, like Facebook’s ad targeting and Twitter’s Trending Topics, to get the most out of social media.

3. Open Communication

Customer service is obviously a huge task for businesses, especially ones that operate online. By making it extremely easy for people to approach you and your business, you’re taking the right steps in the right direction.

This works outside of basic customer service as well. Comments on social media platforms should always be responded to, as well as comments on blog posts or articles.

Keep that open communication line, and the effect will be positive. Even if people are requesting a refund or complaining about a service, at least they can be addressed directly and will therefore be more likely to repeat as a customer than you may realize.

4. Duh, Brand It

A business without a consistent logo or icon lacks a serious element of awareness capabilities. If design isn’t your thing, hire someone who has the skills and knowledge set to produce a memorable and relevant logo that can then be splashed across all outlets and repeatedly seen by followers and customers.

Recognizing something on site, without having to read text or investigate further, is one of the most important ways people can connect with you and your business. Taglines or mottos aren’t a bad idea either, just make sure they are still in line with what you’re trying to accomplish.

Ultimately, brand awareness is going to be naturally increased as long as you keep your promises and build upon them. Failing to meet expectations is going to stomp out any presence-building efforts. Keep things updated and moving, and you’ll stay ahead of the game.

Be different, be smart, and be the best you can possibly be. The awareness will follow if you’re doing your part.

What tips do you have to add? What are you doing differently that has captured attention for your business? Comment below and let us know what you think.

Traffic is really the lifeblood of any online business… especially when it comes to getting those all-important new customers.  I think we can all agree on this one simple truth:

more traffic = more revenue

Good friend and “traffic maniac” Jeff Johnson is about to launch his latest training:

“Tube Traffic Secrets”.

When Jeff first told me about his new techniques, I was FLOORED.  I’m using them now and not only are they highly effective… they’re also free!

So, I want to make Jeff’s training available to people who read my blog, PLUS give you a HUGE bonus for getting it through me.

Let me explain…  you see, traffic is something I happen to know a little bit about.  In fact, you may already know that I host a Summit around this topic a couple of times a year… and it SELLS OUT.

So, here’s what I’m giving away along with Jeff’s training:

THE BONUS:

You’ll get full access to the video recordings of the SOLD OUT 2013 Traffic and Conversion Summit we held in San Francisco in January.

Admission started at $475. (not to mention that folks who attended also had to pay for their own hotel, air fare, meals, etc…)  In other words, people invested a whole lot more to be a part of this event.  So it’s a huge value.

And did I mention, William Shatner took the stage?  That’s right, The Shat, people!  It was an unbelievable event.

These recordings are NOT available as a stand-alone product. You can only access them when you invest in Jeff’s training through one of my links.

In three intense days, we addressed the major challenges facing today’s digital marketers.

Topics like:

• Mobile payments
• Social commerce and social shopping
• Kindle and how to make it work
• PayWalls and the impact on revenue
• Demand side remnant traffic platforms (heavy!)
• Selling through video
• Post-Panda SEO

We also got into cutting-edge techniques like…

• SEO Recipes you can plug in for Auto-Pilot SEO (especially powerful in long tail search).
• Channel Optimization so you generate big free traffic from the “300 pound gorillas” of social media.
• Leveraged ecommerce strategies that send capital costs to next to zero.
• “Brand Leaping” online to get on the shelves of major retailers like WalMart, Walgreens, Rite-Aid and Home Depot.

Again… this was a totally sold-out conference and we’ve only released the videos to people who were there.

For a limited time, I’m making the videos available to people who get Jeff Johnson’s newest traffic training:  “Tube Traffic Secrets”

But you have to get it through me.

When it comes to traffic, things change quickly in our industry. Our friends at Google and the other search engines are constantly moving the goalposts.

This is your best opportunity to discover what’s working RIGHT NOW… from one of the world’s top traffic experts.

Jeff’s “Tube Traffic Secrets” goes live on Monday, April 29th at High Noon EST is now live. You can get to it by clicking right here.

Now that we know the day Google Reader will cease to exist (July 1), we can all start our mourning process and begin to give a favorite feature a long kiss goodbye. The response to the end of this seemingly well-used and well-liked blog and article feed has been mostly negative, but Google themselves made the argument slightly more understandable.

“Usage of Google reader has declined, and as a company, we’re pouring all of our energy into fewer products,” Google said in an official announcement. “We think that kind of focus will make for a better user experience.”

Okay, so there’s no way around this disappearance. Instead, smart business bloggers need to do some preparations that will hopefully keep their readers reading, and keep stretching content as far and as wide as possible.

The readership losses are going to happen, but if steps are taken ahead of time, you can make up for those losses in innovative and effective ways.

1. Retaining Readers

Email is going to be a front-running alternative to Google Reader lists, and should be a strategy already instilled in a successful blog. Sending email subscribers updates on recent blog posts, and even putting together a weekly Newsletter, will help maintain the level of traffic and engagement.

MailChimp is a good place to start learning about creating targeted landing pages that can be used to add email subscriptions, and their autoresponder feature will help automate the process.

2. Finding Alternatives

Just about every marketing and tech media outlet has offered up their suggestions for other RSS feed options, and most have come to similar conclusions on the best options.

Feedly has been the most popular choice, with more than 500,000 Google Reader converts in the first few days following the announcement of its end. The recommendation features are cutting-edge, and it has some great social media tools built directly into it.

NewsBlur is a free or paid service (depending on the volume you require) that is very similar to Google Reader, giving it a good shot at capturing many of the shifting content consumers. A lot of customization, including the ability to view text-only versions (cutting down on visual distractions), makes NewsBlur pretty attractive.

3. Keep Control

Most importantly, bloggers need to have control of the change and convey this to their readers. Keeping them involved in the decisions to replace or substitute for Google Reader will only help with transparency and objective.

Heck, it’s well worth it to flat out ask readers for their suggestions, or solicit ideas that they are already familiar with to make the transition smooth. Withhold that open line of communication, and you’ll be surprised at how helpful it can be for both reader and blogger.

Now that you’ve got some idea of the steps you can take to prepare, what are your thoughts? What else can be done? What other RSS alternatives are out there? What’s your overall plan for surviving the disappearance of Google Reader?

Leave a comment and get ready for some changes. T-minus three months from D-Day, so start working now to make the transition problem-free.

Startups are a dime a dozen, and it’s only the really good ones that make it past that initial phase and enter the realm of “successful businesses.” Encouraging news for Internet publishers! And yeah, if you can help it, avoid the independent restaurant biz!

Thanks again to Staff.com for the great work, this is the kind of info that every business owner (or potential one!) can appreciate.

What do you think of the figures?

Put yourself in the shoes of a total beginner, ready to embark on their startup journey. Would this discourage, or encourage you?

Share your thoughts in the comments!

Staff.com – Connecting Great Companies with Global Talent

The new age of moneymakers in the fast-paced world of the Internet business has changed the way the game is played. Distinguishing the differences between, say, Rupert Murdoch and Mark Zuckerberg, makes for a memorable comparison. Some of the monetary figures are downright jaw dropping.

The folks at Staff.com have come up with a nifty infographic spelling out the net worth, amount of time taken to get there, and year-over-year growth for these billionaires and their companies.

Hat tip to Radel Artida at Staff.com for sending the infographic our way. Here’s where it was originally published.

Staff.com – Connecting Great Companies with Global Talent

Though user intent could take up pages and pages of a thick marketing book, we wanted to share three reasons why it’s worth the time and effort to think about it in terms of generating traffic.

1. It Simplifies Content Strategies

When SEO content gets published online, the whole purpose is to maintain the quality and relevance so people find their way to it. Nailing down the intent people have no matter what they are typing into that search engine helps focus the requirements of content creators, who are therefore forced to think in terms of specific intent.

2. It Ramps Up Keyword Effectiveness

Picture this: you want to find out how to grow a vegetable garden, but you don’t want to spend a lot of money and you need specific information for your location. When you search for help, maybe you type something like “inexpensive vegetable garden tips for South Carolina.”

This helps online businesses and content generators figure out what’s most important as they push for traffic, and how they can narrow in on less competitive keywords.

3. It’s the Center of All Searches

Behind every Google query lies a certain objective on the part of the searcher. They want answers, resources, reaction, trust, and so on. Making that connection stronger and using the right keyword phrases goes a long way.

User intent needs to be a part of every SEO strategy, and will only become more important moving forward into the future.

Have anything to add? How do you imply user intent strategies into your own production? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.

First impressions are a big deal, especially online — last week’s post all about bounce rates was a testament to that. As mobile traffic continues to climb, it’s impossible to tell how users will view your site the first time. Will it be on a desktop, a tablet, or a smartphone?

What’s more, users now expect a similar content experience across all major platforms. If they don’t get a quality experience, well… your bounce rate will almost certainly go up (as high as 61%). In fact, Google is now ranking mobile optimized sites higher.

According to SEOmoz’s Kristina Kledzik, responsive design will be the industry standard in no time. She’s right. Personally, I think we’re already there.

Here’s what I mean: If your page looks crappy on a mobile device, you’re going to have a tough time convincing people that you know what you’re doing — especially if you’re positioning yourself as tech and/or marketing expert.

Would you trust an SEO company that had a bunch of broken flash players on its mobile page? Of course you wouldn’t; it makes no sense. Poor design blows a hole in your credibility.

Would you think twice about ordering with a e-commerce site that didn’t display on your Galaxy S3? Of course you would.

The first step on the road to recovery is to admit that you have a problem. Right?

So how do you know you have a problem?  Sure, you could go into Best Buy and test your site on every device you can get your hands on… but that’s pretty time consuming. It’s a lot smarter to use one of these device simulator tools. Here are a few of our favorite mobile developer tools:

1. The Responsive Web Design Tool - Developed by designer/developer Matt Kersley, this tool is a one stop shop for checking your site layout. Basically, this is a great resource for running quick visual check-ups on how your site will LOOK on mobile — i.e. it’s a design tool, not a full scale simulator (or emulator).

Here’s what I really like about it: The RWDT will show you if there’s a problem with your current design on any of the major devices. If you dabble in design, but not the coding side of things, this is a great previewer. You can simply paste your url after the tool’s url (e.g. http://mattkersley.com/responsive/?drivingtraffic.com).

As you can see, I checked my author site and apparently I have issues on some small smartphones, but because it looks fine on the iPhone, iPad, and most Android devices… I’m gonna let it slide.

2. Screenfly – Screenfly is second on the list, but not second best. Screenfly is intuitive and smooth to operate. It also features a lot more device previews than the Responsive Web Design Tool.

The example photo to the left shows DigitalMarketer.com on a 7″ Kindle Fire HD. Screenfly has a bunch more smartphone models (even the Motorola RAZR V3M).

Screen fly is a simulator — like Apple’s iOS simulator, so it doesn’t fully emulate the experience on different mobile platforms.

Like the Kersley tool, Screenfly will operate using your internet connection’s download speed. It’s tough to experience what load times may be like on your 4G network.

3. Adaptive Images – Image load times are a huge part of why mobile users bounce. They are using smaller screens with slower connection speeds. If your images take too long to load, you’ll lose traffic.

This tool makes your images smarter. Basically, Adaptive images helps your site detect what type of device a users is on and loads an optimized version for their device. Very cool.

This tool is a must for graphic designers, even if it seems a little bit over your skis as a developer/coder. Don’t worry; the site has a ton of helpful information to help you get started.

Almost all of them will tell you why writing guest posts for popular blogs in your niche is the best thing ever. But that’s not what I’m going to tell you, not at all

Don’t get me wrong here, writing guest posts to expand you reach isn’t a terrible idea, exactly…

It’s just nowhere near as good of an idea as they make it sound — or as good of an idea as what I’m going to propose that you start doing. This strategy is way better than blogging… Actually, in the controversial words of Driving Traffic founder Ryan Deiss, “blogging is dumb.”

You see, the reason many of these authority blogs will tell you to guest blog is because (read this carefully) they want your content.

Think about it. When you publish a guest post on authority site, who really benefits the most? They get: Your content, your loyal fans, your social media following, and the reputation you bring. You get: More brand recognition and a tiny author box link back to your site that gets a CTR of roughly 0.001% or so…

Who’s getting the better end of that deal?

So you can see how it’s self-serving for all of these sites to preach the gospel of guest blogging. They want YOUR CONTENT, because it’s the key to getting YOUR TRAFFIC.

Look, I’m not saying that there’s really any old-fashioned, honest to goodness collusion going on here… It’s just a bunch of “experts” that may or may not know exactly why their sites are doing so well.

In a lot of ways, what we have going on here is an accidental conspiracy, caused by a traffic feeding frenzy. It’s a traffic loophole really, that many of the most popular sites on the web stumbled onto by accident.

So what are they doing? And more importantly… how can you use this to your advantage?

Screw Guest Blogging… Start Host Blogging!

The simple truth is that hosting great content is at least 10x more profitable than writing it. How do you think that folks like Arianna Huffington, Matt Drudge, and Steven Forbes built such successful online empires? Here’s a hint: They didn’t do it on the strength of their amazing writing skills…

It plainly obvious if you think about what popular blogs will pay for your content. They’ll pay you $50 for a 500-word post, then they’ll turn around and charge an advertiser $500 to run a banner ad above it.

I say that just to make a point. I’m not indicating that you’re going to get rich selling banner space on your blog.

Instead, I’m recommending that you become a “host blogger.” Instead of writing content all day long, spend your time forming relationships with the most relevant experts in your industry and convincing them to publish great content to your site.

It’s a win-win. It helps them expand their reach, but it benefits your site even more… That’s exactly why you should do it.

Hosting the best content on the web, instead of writing it, is the shortest and best path to building a high-traffic authority site. If you’re looking to build your brand, get traffic, and leverage that traffic to market products. The reason is simple multiplication.

When an expert gets published on your authority blog, they need to publicize it in order to build their reputation. In other words, they have a selfish reason to drive traffic to your site… it’s bragging self-promotion. So, these expert bloggers drive qualified traffic to your site, which benefits your site’s reputation. In return, they get a link back and maybe a small fee. The more frequently you make this transaction, the faster your traffic heads skyward.

Who to Target

Most people get caught up on the idea that they can’t get get the top-tier celebrities in their industry to contribute to their up-and-coming sites. Don’t.

You don’t need these big shots as you start out. Instead, focus on mid-tier experts that have large followings on social media. As your traffic grows, you can go after bigger and bigger celebrities.

Google has worked hard to dramatically improve the quality of its search results and provide Google users with the absolute best search results possible.  Over the past two years, Google’s focus has been improving the quality of material being delivered. In doing this, they have focused on many new elements such as social engagement and a site’s bounce rate.

What is Bounce Rate?

There are a lot of competing definitions for exactly what counts as an official “bounce,” but the only one that really counts is Google’s — as usual. According to Google, here is the definition of bounce rate:

“Bounce rate is the percentage of visits that go only one page before exiting a site.”

Although Google has been analyzing bounce rates for a long time, recently they have added a lot more weight and credibility to the statistic.  This means that we now need to be taking a harder look at our site’s bounce rates and what we can do to improve them, especially if a page isn’t ranking well.

How Do I Find My Site’s Bounce Rate?

The easy way to get this information is directly from Google.  If you don’t already have Google Analytics connected to your site, you need to take a few minutes to make this happen. Lots of WordPress users rely on third-party plugins for their analytics information, but I recommend that you rely on Google Analytics for your traffic info.

Not only is Google Analytics going to reflect the data that Google is using to rank your site, but  it’s also free and simple to set-up.

In this example you can see that the bounce rate is 52% which sounds bad but in actuality it is average for content sites.  I found an infographic that can help you better understand Bounce Rates.  You can view the full version here.  If this site could get its bounce rate down below 50%, it could start to see search engine ranking improvement.  So. . .

How Do I Improve My Bounce Rate?

There are actually many, many ways you can tweak your site that will help keep your readers on your site.  The key is to get them to click on other, internal links to additional content on your site.

Here are a few quick improvements you can make to help facilitate an improvement in bounce rate:

1. Make sure you have at least two contextual links to other, relevant pages within the body of your page. It’s simple to look back into your previous posts and select related posts, but few webmasters do this.
2. Add an “Other Articles You May Enjoy” section at the end of your content. Sites that showcase more content on each page, typically get more clicks to internal content. It’s simply maximizing the traffic you’re already getting.
3. Reduce the number of outbound links on your page or at the very least, have them open in a new window. Simple enough.
4. Encourage social engagement through comments.  The longer you keep them engaged on your site, the better the odds that they click to another page, e.g. encourage comments and discussions on your blog posts!

There are many other factors that can affect your site’s bounce rate but this will be a great start.  If you improve on these elements of your site, you should start to see a slight reduction in your bounce rate over time depending on the amount of traffic your site gets.

I encourage you to ask any questions you may have here in the comments section.  I will try to answer them all to the best of my ability.