Done the right way, email marketing is one of the fastest and least labor and capital-intensive ways to foster a passionate and engaged community around any given brand. Done the wrong way, email marketing is the quickest way to get relegated to the dark depths of the spam folder, never to be heard from again.

Okay, so I’m exaggerating…but only a little. Email marketing may, in many ways, be simpler to accomplish than traditional advertising and direct marketing campaigns, but, in order to produce real results that further your bottom line, it still requires a good dose of planning and creativity, not to mention a deep grasp of all that the medium has to offer.

If you’re really going to kill it in email marketing, I highly recommend starting with this email marketing guide, which covers just about every nook and cranny the subject has to offer. As you navigate the guide, here are a few important things to ask yourself.

Do you have a content strategy?

Let’s face it: most of us get pretty grumpy when we see a newsletter or even a sales offer in our inboxes. You can thank your competitors with poorly targeted, largely irrelevant content for all of those wary eyes. The real key to email marketing is to send unique and individually targeted missives that are so tempting and easy to read, customers won’t be able to help opening the email and reading more. Constructing those emails means doing one thing: developing a clear content strategy.

When doing this, you’ll want to consider:

1. Who your customers are. Whether you do some traditional demographic and psychographic research or you use Google’s Keyword Tool, it’s important to know just what makes your customer tick and what they’re searching for in companies like yours.

2. Strategies for keeping things persona. Once you’ve got a good sense of your audience, separate them further by creating segmented lists. This will help you target emails more closely to a follower’s interests, thereby increasing the likelihood your content will be relevant to them, and therefore be read. It also will enable you to create autoresponders that can move customers aptly through the appropriate sales tunnel.

3. An editorial calendar. Thought editorial calendars were only for your web content? Not necessarily. Creating a calendar to time your newsletters and promotions can help ensure you’re providing varied yet still relevant content while also pacing yourself so that your messages won’t be considered spam.

Do you know the outcome you’re trying to achieve?

While email is a very personal outlet, it’s also one of the most business-y advertising mediums available today. As such it’s okay to have an agenda, just as long as you’re also providing helpful resources along the way. A few admirable goals might include increasing the number of conversions on your site, selling a certain amount of products or services, increasing your social media following, or just generally increasing revenue. The more specific and targeted you can be in your goal setting, the more successful the outcome is likely to be.

Do you understand the email format?

That said, email is very different from most other mediums, and knowing a few format tricks can help you better engage customers and move them to action.

1. Create Scannable Content. Email readers, just like web users, aren’t so into deep, analytical reading like the kind they’d find in a textbook. Make it scannable by breaking chunks of text up with headers, bolding, numbered and bulleted lists, and the occasional photo (though make sure the email will still load even if the photo doesn’t).

2. Embed Social Media Links. One main goal in creating great content is to make customers want to connect with you further and share your work. Including links to all of your social media pages in the footer of your email will make sharing and connecting easy.

3. Have Clear and Compelling Calls to Action. By the end of every single email, you want readers to be motivated to act, whether that means buying a product or service, signing up for special deals, or paying for greater access beyond the snippet of information you’ve already provided. While calls to action are a definite must at the end of your email, you may also want them sprinkled throughout the email so that readers will have a way to act wherever they are, even if they don’t want to finish reading. Of course, don’t overdo it or you risk looking like spam. Use A/B testing to determine the most effective strategies.

Do you have a responsive mailing list?

Having a massive mailing list is nice, but not if only a small percentage of list members respond to your campaigns. One way to keep responses relatively high (and stay within the legal bounds) is to make the list opt-in so that (in theory) only people who are interested in your business are making it on to the list. To do this, however, you need to make the site design and marketing around your sign ups enticing, following web design best practices. Other ways to build a responsive list include offering an incentive, building trust by providing credible and useful content, and again testing different content and design styles out on different lists to find the most effective routes.

Do you have an email service provider?

Lastly, if you haven’t signed up for an email service provider, now is the time. In fact, there’s just no good way to do email marketing without one. Services like MailChimp allow you to create templates that match your company’s logo and design, build contact lists, and manage autoresponders, all from one dashboard. What’s more, you can easily measure the outcome of your efforts by looking at just who is opening your email, how far they’re reading, when they’re doing it, and what kinds of action they’re taking. This will help you further tailor content and determine the best times for sending mail.

Take Aways

Email marketing is a powerful and quick way to reach a mass of potential customers, stay fresh in customers’ minds and develop a passionate and engaged community around your brand. But to really kill it, you’ve got to think out your strategy in the same manner that you would any other form of traditional marketing. So, do your research, plan that editorial calendar, and get sending!

Image Credit: freedigitalphotos.net

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Conducting online surveys can be a great way to find out what your customers really think about your products and services. However, it can be quite a bit of work. The good news is that there are plenty of free online tools to help you build and administrate your surveys. Here we will look at 5 of the most popular online survey tools and how you can use them to your advantage.

Survey Monkey

With Survey Monkey, what you get is a no nonsense online survey tool which can be used effectively by companies of any size who are looking to collect a large amount of data.

It is one of the better known survey tools and has a reputation for being fairly reliable. It is not in any way a premium service, but it offers all of the basics you might need, including :

• a keyword search feature
• question logic add-ons
• security features
• see results in real time

The one downside to Survey Monkey is that the basic (free) level of membership only allows for you to include a maximum of 10 questions in your survey and you can get only 100 responses.

dotSurvey 

In terms of the editing tools offered by online survey tools, dotSurvey has, in my opinion, one of the best. Creating your survey is effortless with the drag and drop WYSIWYG building tool offered by this free online survey tool allowing you to edit in place to create the survey you need. You also have the option to change the overall theme of the survey to best suit your branding. With dotSurvey it is even possible to schedule your survey ahead of time and automate it to end on a chosen date. The dotSurvey online tool also offers in-depth reporting and data analysis. You will have the ability to look at who has seen the survey, where they come from and even how long they spent completing the survey as well as much more. You are even able to condense all reports into a single easy to follow PDF file.

Google Forms

If your survey needs are fairly small scale, then one of the best options available to you might be Google Forms. This is a totally free options which offers you unlimited use for as many surveys as you need – with enough space for in excess of 1000 responses. You can customize your survey with themes and it is very easy to embed the finished survey in an email or onto a website. Google Forms is accessed via Google Docs and offers a wide variety of options when it comes to visualizing your collected data.

Survey Expression

Another popular free online survey tool is Survey Expression. This tool allows unlimited surveys and questions, but unless you upgrade to a paid option you are limited to only 200 responses per survey. Surveys can be built using 18 different question types including :

• Various styles of single choice
• A selection of multiple choice options
• Free form responses
• Display only text, image or spacer
• Free text matrix
• Drop down menu
• Side by side matrix

Survey Gizmo

With Survey Gizmo, you have the opportunity to either create a new survey or choose from a selection of predefined themes. You can also use a template from the library. This is unusual for a free account as most online survey tools reserve their templates for paying members. Another nice feature is that you can preview the various question types offered and you can define your reports to make analysing your collected data much easier.

Once you have chosen the online survey tool that is best for you, it is time to get your survey out there. When used correctly online surveys can be very revealing. Just make sure that you have a solid strategy in place. Understand what you want to achieve with your survey and keep it fairly short and simple. The best time to deliver a survey as at the point of service so keep this in mind when setting up your survey. There are plenty of tools out there to help you create great online surveys and to analyse the data they collect.

Image Credit: freedigitalphotos.net

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Remember the days when SEO used to be so easy? All you had to do was get some directory links, some forum links, write a few guest blogs (the low hanging fruit) and then Poof! – You’re on the first page of Google. And then Panda and Penguin came along and made these link-building efforts practically obsolete right? Well not entirely.

In the wake of these Google updates, SEO’s have put more emphasis on content creation, social media engagement, and community building – you’ve probably seen a lot more info-graphics, more whiteboard videos, and more guest blog inquiries lately.

This strategy isn’t anything new, as quality content has always been the foundation of SEO. But to suggest that the “old link-building” ways don’t work anymore is simply not true. Having a diverse link profile is crucial with SEO and the “low hanging fruit” such as directory links, forum links, and Web 2.0 links still play a role.

Directory Links

These types of links have been overly abused over the years and low quality directories have been identified as “link farms” by Google. Steer clear of any general directories that look like ghost towns and seem to attract a lot of spam. Stick to directories relevant to your niche and that are actually getting traffic. SEOmoz keeps a list of quality directories and constantly filters them, this is a great resource for SEO’s and does require subscribing to their toolset.

Forum Links

Adding links in forum signatures is another tactic that got abused over the years and Google was quick to devalue these links. However, there are thousands of active forum communities out there for all kinds of niches and you can still get quality links and traffic to your site by joining the conversion. As long as the links are natural and add value to the forum users, forum administrators will allow the links and you’ll get SEO value from them. Links within forum signatures hardly provide any SEO value, but can still send traffic to your sites. Just like directories, stick to forums that are relevant to your site and appear to be of high quality. For example, if you produce software that integrates with QuickBooks, then contributing to the Intuit forums adds value to that community.

Web 2.0 Links

WordPress, Tumblr, Squidoo, Hubpages, and Blogger are the more popular members of this list. You’d need to create content for all of these as just adding links provides no value. These links don’t provide much link-juice to your site, but act more to add diversity to your profile from trusted domains. These are also good for building “2^nd tier” backlinks to increase your depth – basically building links to your links. 

All Things in Moderation

SEO is not dead like many doomsday advocates are saying – Google will always need signals to rank content within its search engine. If you put all your links in one basket (getting the same kind of links), then that basket most likely got crushed by the recent Google updates. A natural and relevant link-profile is the key to success in the post-Penguin era. If you don’t already have an audience, then the “build it and they will come” methodology won’t work for you, you need to expand your outreach by getting links. Nothing will replace producing quality content as the backbone of SEO, but forum, directory, and Web 2.0 links should not be ignored. They have their place and like everything else – should be used in moderation.

*Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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If you have a business website, chances are you’ve been told that you also need a business blog. What these helpful advisors may not have told you, however, is how to make your blog interesting and helpful to customers. These tips will help you get started.

Have Fun with It

Let’s face it, if you’re bored by the material you put on your blog, your customers will be bored with it, too. Pick a topic you find stimulating and interesting, and your customers will be eager to read what you’ve written.

Blogging allows you to be a little more informal in your writing tone. Proper punctuation and grammar are obviously still important, but don’t use the same tone in your blog posts as you would in a business proposal. Add your personality, opinions, and sense of humor to your blog posts. Your readers will connect more with your business when they realize that you’re an actual person sitting behind the computer writing these posts, not a money-obsessed robot.

Broaden Your Scope

If your topic is too narrow, you may run out of things to write about. So if, for instance, you write about auto body parts, consider including information about famous cars (e.g., the death car of Bonnie and Clyde) or how to deal with insurance companies after an accident.

Another tip: unless you’re a local business, don’t localize yourself. Even if you market yourself as a Baltimore SEO company, that doesn’t mean your blog should be limited to news and events in Baltimore. SEO is an international-wide industry. You want your readers to see that you’re one of the most knowledgably SEO companies in the country, not just in the city of Baltimore.

Network with Other Bloggers

Poke around the Internet to see who else is blogging about your topic. Read their posts and leave comments and questions. If you think their blog provides good information, link to the blog so your readers can find it, too. The more you network with other blogs, the higher your search engine ranking will be. A high search engine ranking makes it easy for readers to find your blog.

Publish on a Regular Schedule

You don’t have to publish every single day, but make sure your posts are predictable so that readers know when to look for them. For instance, you might want to publish posts three times a week on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, or you might want to publish a single time each month on the 15^th. Don’t go for long periods without publishing a post, because it makes your blog look deserted.

Change It Up

Try doing something different with your blog. Record an interview with an expert in your field and post a link to the podcast so your customers can listen instead of read. Another idea is to provide lists, like the 25 best auto repair blogs or the 50 best places to get used car parts. If you’re having trouble thinking of a topic for your blog, ask someone who knows your field to write a guest post. All of these ideas are fun ways to engage your customers.

Invite Interaction with Readers

Try to end each blog post with a question for your readers. Invite them to leave their answers in the comments section of the blog. If a reader does leave a comment, respond politely and promptly. Reader feedback and questions can also be a terrific source of ideas for blog posts.

Remember to Share

Adding social share buttons on your blog is essential. Anyone who enjoys your post will be more than happy to share it via Twitter or LinkedIn, so make sure it’s easy for them to do so. The more share options, the better. Don’t limit your share buttons to Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Google+, Pinterest, StumbleUpon, and Reddit are also great share buttons, so make sure all the options available.

So now that you’ve got the basics for a captivating blog, go ahead and start writing. Your customers are just waiting to get to know you better.

photo credit: Will Lion via photopin cc

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SEO is a fantastic tool for any webmaster hoping to make some money, and the most beautiful part of it, is the simple fact that it needn’t cost you anything.

This means that even the smallest start up or loneliest entrepreneur can compete with the big guns and get their site to number one as long as they’re smart and they’re willing to put in the work to get themselves there.

But there is one way in which SEO does require an investment, and that’s the investment of time. For many of us the prospect of building all those thousands of links, and of writing multiple thousands of words in on-site content is just far too daunting to get our heads around and this can lead to us never even beginning to do the work we need to get our sites to number one.

And what really compounds this problem is the fact that SEO is not guaranteed. In other words you can do all that work, put in all that effort, and then find out that you’re no better off for it because you’re still not making much money. And then there’s the matter of losing it all by making one bad decision – how do you know that a site redesign won’t just flush all that hard work down the toilet?

The solution then is to think like a business and to really test your strategies before you commit to doing any major work. Here we will look at how you can do that, and how you can be certain that you’re going down the right road before you start staying up all night writing content and sharing links.

Better Keyword Research

The main idea behind keyword research is to make sure that the keyword you’re targeting is actually popular before you aim to get to the top of the SERPs for that term. But even the Google Keyword tool doesn’t guarantee a keyword that will work for you, so instead why not try spending a week at the top of a few and then choose the best one?

How is this possible? Simple – by using AdWords to be the sponsored link on a few different search terms and to see which ones bring you the most traffic and the most clicks/sales. Just because ‘make money online’ is more popular than ‘work from home online’ (this is an example, I don’t know if that’s the case) doesn’t mean that the latter might not get you more clicks if it’s more closely related to what your blog is about. So by using an AdWords campaign to test the quality of the traffic on both links you can say with much more certainty which one you should aim for.

Experience

The way businesses work is to release multiple products and to keep on iterating their offering in the hope that something sticks. They can’t afford to put all their eggs in one basket and try a single approach, so instead they test the water using several different strategies and that then tells them which area to invest in.

This is precisely the way you should operate with your SEO and it’s precisely why you should be putting feelers out. Rather than focussing on one website, try having a couple of sites and blogs – at least initially – and use slightly different strategies for each (you might build lots of links on other blogs for one, and focus more on social marketing for the other)so that you can quickly see what works.

And if you don’t want to do that then another strategy is to just check the archives and look into your previous projects. You probably have some old blogs or sites, or at least one with lots of different pages, so try looking at what’s currently the most successful and then ask how you can emulate or exaggerate that success going forward.

Split Testing

Now that you’ve chosen your keyword and your SEO strategy, you should think about your web design and your AdSense layout. You want to have a layout that minimizes your bounce rate and maximizes your click through rate.
And here there are all kinds of tiny factors that can work in your favour or against you – things like the size of your font, the colour of your AdSense units, or the number and location of them around your pages.

So how do you scientifically test which combinations work best? It’s called split testing and it means using a PHP script to funnel your traffic into two slightly different versions of your site – an ‘A’ site and a ‘B’ site. The A site will be your website as it is currently, and the ‘B’ version will be the site with a minor tweak to one of the aforementioned factors. Now you simply look at the stats for each – which one has the most clicks or keeps your traffic for the longest – and you go with the site with the best results. This is a sure-fire way to iterate because it means you’re only launching changes that havealready been tested in a real environment.

By using this kind of thinking it’s possible to create a fool-proof system for developing and enhancing your site. Think like a business, look before you leap, and you’ll greatly increase your chances of success.

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What draws a reader, or customer, to a website? Is it functionality, or useful information? Websites have grown, since their inception, into media-powerhouses, community-driven news sites, and booming billion-dollar businesses — take a look at Amazon. Most business websites record performance by examining metrics, including click-through rates, to measure customer interactivity.

One important aspect of success is your website’s design, which, if properly executed, boosts your click through rates, and creates an influx of repeat visitors. Design persuades customers — it motivates, promotes, and intrigues.

So, how can you improve your business website’s click through rate, and overall success, with design?

Draw The Reader Into Your Site

“Above the fold” is a common term in web design. Customers usually surf quickly, and with short attention spans. So, to combat this problem, designers began creating sites that placed the most relevant information above the fold — the top part of a webpage immediately visible to a web surfer.

This “sweet spot” is perfect for a concise explanation of the business, strong copywriting, and attention-grabbing headlines — meant to draw the reader deeper into the website. So, in order to take advantage of your website real estate, compile a list of the most meaningful phrases, terms, and information about your brand to insert at the top of your site’s pages.

Make Typography Meaningful

The font on a website determines how customers view your brand. Serif fonts relate to business, and present an image of authority. Popular Serif fonts include: Times New Roman, Georgia, and Cambria. Sans-serif fonts create a personal atmosphere, and remain popular with social media, and community-driven sites. Popular Sans-serif fonts include: Arial, Helvetica, and Verdana.

Decide how you would like the customer to view your business, and look for an appropriate typeface which reflects your brand’s image. Do you want a more personal feel, or would a streamlined, minimalist site be more appropriate? So, knowing your brand is key when choosing a typeface.

Use High-Quality Images

Readers can spot a low-quality photograph. Many sites use low-quality, copyright-protected photos (often unknowingly) on their website, which lower their click through rates. Use high-quality stock shots from reputable sites to add a dash of class, and reputability to your site. Stick with professional, meaningful photographs of people interacting. These images evoke an emotional response in readers, and make them want to click further through your site. Choose photographs which add meaning to posts, and headlines. Web-savvy surfers are visual, and respond to well-placed images, and, sometimes, invest in a product solely based on its attractive visuals, including high-quality photographs.

Design means nothing without knowing your target market. Knowing your customer is the most foundational knowledge for a successful business website, and without that knowledge, design and aesthetics add no value. Discover more information about your audience with sites like Google Adwords, or Facebook Ads, and research their behaviors and trends.

Find out what they want, and tailor your design to advertise your product or service in direct response to those wants. With these tips, your business achieves a higher click through rate, and you walk away with a better understanding of your brand and target market. With this information in-hand, designing a functional website becomes much simpler, and rewarding to your business and customers.

Image Credit: freedigitalphotos.net

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“Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn’t really do it, the just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while”

- Steve Jobs

Guest blogging is something that we all as bloggers should do, if done correctly; it is the only strategy that you will ever need to gain your way into the top ten rankings in the search engines results.

The simplicity of this method is what makes it brilliant and at the same time a little hard to use, but the truth is that you can improve your site’s performance if you build some high quality backlinks. And it is precisely that what I want to tell you; I am about to nail not only the importance of guest blogging but also, I will tell you a strategy that will boost your results as a guest blogger, help you get more traffic to your site and ultimately increase your conversions.

It is quite common that bloggers think about guest blogging as another way of building backlinks, but in fact it is bigger than that. A guest post is a huge opportunity to build a win/win situation; not only you are building inbound links to your site, but also the site that receives the content has the opportunity to show a different point of view to its readers and thus enrich the website. You as a guest blogger also get exposure and recognition for your job; which in the end works both with the search engines and the humans that click on those links that you placed in your post.

Having said that it is very important to recognize that guest blogging should be understood as something that works both ways for the guest writer and for the hosting site. If done properly the inbound links that you get as a guest blogger will increase your online presence and thus help you convert more visitors into customers or subscribers.

Guest Blogging is all about Giving and Giving Value

You know the saying “giving is receiving” and fortunately for us as bloggers the big search engines think the same way; it is not about the links that you receive for your guest post, but about the value that you provide to the readers of the site that you are approaching to; that is the number one factor why a guest post could or couldn’t be accepted, any serious webmaster wants to provide value to their readers because gaining readers is hard work, and if you don’t provide good quality content I can bet you 100 USD that no one will give you anything back.

If you are serious about your website and want to gain real visitors, real subscribers and real money with the products and services that you market keep reading. I will tell you a strategy that will make your job easier and more effective; it may take a little more time in a daily basis, but in the long run you will see the results; and again, it is all about giving and giving real value for real people. That is what the law of income says: You will be paid in direct proportion to the value you deliver according to the marketplace, and if you are distributing guest posts you are in the marketplace of information, so your host and ultimately his or her readers are the ones who should say if you deliver value or not.

Find out what Matt Cutts from Google says about guest blogging:

Learn a Strategy to Increase your Results as a Guest Blogger

There is gentleman by the name of T. Harv Eker who is an author and speaker. Many of the things that I am sharing here are in his book “Secrets of the Millionaire Mind”, I’ve studied the principles in the book and applied them as a guest blogger; I have found that they work and now I would like to share those with you and hopefully provide some value to my fellow bloggers out there.

With this in mind I know that having a clear strategy is critical; this may seem obvious but the reality is that many bloggers out there just pitch a bunch of sites without thinking about it. That is like throwing a bunch of flyers from the highest building you can find; in the end you will have a very low response rate and even some of those who respond will say: No thank you. So having a clear strategy is a must. Luckily that is what you are reading right now.

1. Join a guest blogging network: The best thing you can do to maximize your efforts as a guest blogger is to reach people that are looking for guest posts. Many websites have a guest posts guidelines page, and even when that seems to be a clear sign that these sites are accepting guest posts, the truth is that this is not enough. Many bloggers have that section to refer a person for when they seek guest posts, but this not necessarily means that they accept guest posts all the time. Thus, joining a guest blogging network is great because you can reach people who are actually looking for guest posts, this increases a lot your chances to get a positive response or at least a “no thanks email” so you can hit the next button without wasting time.
2. High Quality Content: This is critical, as a blogger it is your duty to share only the best of the best, you want to provide an article that will help the other webmaster to increase the value of her or his site; in the end that is what is all about, remember, we as bloggers are in the business of information, our product is information, so sharing the best information possible with a website is all that matters. I still don’t know of one serious webmaster (and I know a lot) that is willing to share low quality content with their readership; it is their business, that is why they have a website in the first place, so make sure your articles are an eleven out of ten.
3. The Pitching moment: If this step it’s not done properly could send your high quality content as well as your good defined strategy right to the spam box. When you are approaching to a site you want to send a targeted email, very short and clearly stating your intention of sharing an article with that webmaster. There are a lot of ways to detect spammy emails and if you send a letter with a lot of words you could be pressing a spam filter’s red buttons; this is another advantage of sending an email to someone who posted a message in a blogging network, chances are that this person will even check the spam box to see if someone answered his message .
4. Sharing the content: When you share the content it is all about  simplicity; some webmasters will tell you how to share the content with them, this is great because you just follow instructions with the intention of facilitating both the reviewing and the publishing processes. If you have no instructions about how to share the content, then it is a good idea to send the article as a notepad file in HTML format; if you share images (which will increase the value of your post) these must be attached in the email as well; make sure those images are royalty free and are good to use for that webmaster, the last thing you want to do is to get you and the other webmaster in trouble for the copyrights of an image.
5. Generate conversation: It is always a great idea to end your article with one or two questions; ask the reader her or his opinion about the article and what other tips and tricks can be added, this makes your article shine because if your post get comments it means that it is performing well. Also and very important, make sure to answer the questions and comments that you see in your article, this will position yourself as someone who is not only interested in guest posting but actually is willing to pay attention to other people’s mind.
6. Social Networks: I am not a fan of exchanging links, but it is always a great idea to share your article in your social networks with intelligence. An example here: Follow the person who is hosting your article on twitter; now mention that person in a tweet with a question or an opinion about the article; this will increase your chances to land another article in that site as well as to generate conversation about post.

So there you go, be creative, use your imagination, and remember that it is not the cards you are dealt, but how you play those cards. Give value and give it all.

I recently started to use this same strategy and my landed articles started to grow, you can try this in less than a week and see if this is good for you as well. What other things do you consider that would skyrocket your results as a guest blogger? Are you willing to give this a try? Share with all of us your experience leaving a comment.

To your Success!

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Google is continuously looking for new ways to protect hard-working authors who provide informative, valuable and relevant content to their audience, and “punish” bloggers and webmasters who use improper SEO techniques by manipulating keyword density in their text, buying links or spam-commenting on other blogs.

For many years, the main method of ranking websites on SERP (Search Engine Results Page) was implemented through PageRank, which involves classifications based on “old” SEO techniques that are vulnerable to manipulation and “fraud.”

Google has updated their search algorithm numerous times through small-scale improvements, but for 2013 they decided to implement a major one, which may change completely the way online marketing and website ranking is achieved.

Google is ready to implement AuthorRank in 2013 as a measure of relevance, authority and information quality of a blog or website. It is a combination of traditional PageRank techniques combined with social media metrics that reflect the reputation, presence and visibility of authors on major social platforms. The entire definition of Search Engine Optimization will be modified through major improvements that are aimed at protecting both relevant authors and Internet users from black-hat SEO techniques and webmasters who use spam to create more links to their websites.

Why Would Authors Care About Google Authorship In 2013? 

Google is the company that leads the Internet search market, with over 80 percent market share. If you are serious about online marketing and building a solid online reputation and presence, then you may want to implement what Google decides is best for a healthy search market, otherwise you may be left behind and experience a substantial loss of website traffic and online visibility. If you have a consistent organic traffic, a “clean,” interactive and diverse social media presence and produce high-quality content, then Google will help you rank higher in search engine listing through AuthorRank. In fact, AuthorRank will only “hurt” webmasters and bloggers who use unhealthy SEO “magic,” spam comments on other blogs and other negative manipulation, which is why relevant and hard-working authors are advised by Google to embrace Google Authorship without hesitation.

How Will Google Authorship Benefit Your Blog or Website? 

Google Authorship will be implemented by coupling your blog with your Google+ account. It does not mean, however, that Google will favor strictly Google+ users and ignore authors who are highly active on Facebook or Twitter. Nonetheless, you need to have a Google+ account, and it is recommended that you become more active on this social media platform to achieve a higher ranking in search engine listings.

The major breakthrough in terms of SEO improvement is that in 2013 Google will start paying close attention to social media signals and authors’ social media activity and reputation. It means that webmasters and bloggers who are implementing unhealthy SEO techniques and provide poor-quality content will become irrelevant and unattractive, which may translate into a lower search engine ranking.

If you are conducting a healthy and dynamic activity on the major social media platforms, such as Google+, Facebook and Twitter, then you don’t need to change much in terms of complying with AuthorRank requirements, because you will be classified as an author with a solid social reputation.

All you may need to enhance is your PageRank through better SEO techniques, and a higher relevance, attractiveness and utility of your content. Sharing, commenting, liking, recommending and interacting on major social media platforms will send valid and solid signals to Google through Google Authorship, which will translate into a higher ranking and more organic website traffic.

How Will Google AuthorRank Be Applied And Calculated? 

Google will use several complex metrics to determine the authority, quality and relevance of your blog or website to Internet users. PageRank techniques remain valid, so you still need to be concerned with keywords, basic SEO tools, comments and link creation. However, social media signals will play a crucial role in determining the social reputation, quality of information and relevance of an author to his or her audience.

The main factors that will be used to calculate AuthorRank will be:

•  The PageRank of a blog or website, which requires the usage of basic SEO techniques.
• Post frequency and the number of comments on each post.
• Number of Google+ shares of a post or content, which reflects the importance of a dynamic activity on Google+ for an author.
• The number of Google+ Circles in which the author is included.
• The number of social media users that follow your content through Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms.
• Comments and connections made with other highly ranked authors on their blogs.

How Exactly Can One Achieve A Higher AuthorRank? 

To achieve a higher ranking in search engine listings through Google AuthorRank you basically need to implement healthy SEO techniques and become highly active and present on major social media platforms, especially Google+.

Here are a few recommendations that you may want to implement to become more visible and relevant, and enhance your online marketing efforts in 2013 through AuthorRank:

• Increase your interaction and communication with other highly ranked bloggers or webmasters.
• Use social media platforms to connect with other authors through comments, shares, likes or recommendations.
• Share your posts and content on social media platforms once you published them on your blog or website
• Increase your presence on Google+ and become a member of more Google+ Circles.
• Make informative and relevant comments on highly ranked, reputable websites or blogs.

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Affiliate marketing is by far one of the most popular and easiest ways to monetize your blog. You don’t have any inventory to keep up with, you don’t have to do anything with regard to the transaction, and yet you get paid a percentage of every sale that is made with your affiliate link. It’s a thing of beauty.

Unfortunately, it can also be incredibly obvious to your visitors if you’re not careful.

Most people have become aware that any ads on a site are there for the sole purpose of making the site owner money. Most people are fine with that to an extent. But when you have more ads on your site than you do content, your site begins to look junky and your visitors get turned off.

Identifying the Imbalance

When you’re looking to improve your Google SEO, you have to maintain a delicate balance of quality content, on-page SEO, keyword insertion, backlinks and other factors. It’s the same when you’re doing affiliate marketing. In order to be seen as a credible, trustworthy site, you have to strike the right balance between ads and content.

The trouble is that there always seems to be one more place you could squeeze in a banner ad or a clickable graphic. There’s always room for one more small text ad, and the sidebars are just begging to be filled. You know that you have a greater chance of conversions if you have more items for people to choose from – or at least you think you do.

The Problem with the “More” Philosophy

When you fill up your blog with a ridiculous amount of ads, you could be shooting yourself in the foot in a number of ways. You could:

• Make your visitors think you’re an amateur or more concerned with making money from ads than providing useful information.
• Cause your visitors to tune it all out if they do decide to stick around.
• Confuse your visitors with so many products that they decide none of them are worth looking into further.

Besides all of that, too many ads just look tacky and cluttered. Depending on the type of ad and its source, they could even slow down your page load times, which Google and your visitors absolutely hate.

Restoring the Balance

If your site is so full of affiliate ads that you’re squirming in your seat right about now, don’t worry. After all, you put them there, so you can certainly take them back off. This isn’t to say that you have to take every single ad down and start over, although it might not be a bad idea to begin with a fresh canvas.

What it does mean is that it’s time to put your blog on an ad diet. The good news is that you can still find ways to saturate your blog with affiliate links without making it look like the world of internet products blew up on your site. You can:

• Choose one or two tall ads with graphics to display along your sidebars, depending on if you have a two or three column setup.
• Create small text boxes to display along your sidebars, around three lines each.
• Choose one very nice, long banner ad to display along the top of your page and perhaps another for the bottom, depending on how long your pages are.
• Take advantage of your text! You can hyperlink strategic anchors using your affiliate link. You’re still getting your links up, but they aren’t overwhelming your visitors’ senses from the moment they land on your site.

Follow these tips and you are sure to create a successful and tasteful affiliate marketing campaign.

photo credit: Chris Pirillo via photopin cc

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You don’t need to be a sports nut to recognize the name Mark Cuban. He is the high-profile owner of the NBA team Dallas Mavericks, and can be seen in a wide multitude of media outlets. The latest happening with Cuban’s name all over it concerns a brush that he has had with Facebook. The conflict reveals the issues between ease of branding for companies who engage in social media, and the interests that those social networks have for themselves.

Facebook EdgeRank and The Branding Issue

Cuban was very vocal last month with staunch criticism of Facebook for the change to their EdgeRank algorithm. This is a metric that determines what posts created by Facebook fan pages (in the case of Cuban – the Dallas Mavericks fan page) are seen by all of the fans.

You might notice that if you are a fan, or “like” a company or brand, you see less on your news feed from that company than you would on the actual page. The change to EdgeRank that occurred in September is responsible for this, as it aims to provide only the most “engaging” content that comes from the content creators of the fan page rather than just a promotion or mention that may not attract many comments.

Facebook makes it more difficult for businesses to get their word out more than people might think. According to the Business Insider, the EdgeRank change caused a drastic drop of organic outreach for a large number of fan pages by up to fifty percent. One could understand Cuban’s frustration, and how other social media managers would be irate as well.

Since the change, the contingency of outreach now lies in two main factors, and they are dependent on one side or another:

• Businesses can completely reach their fans by as much as they want with a “promoted post”. This means paying Facebook several thousand dollars (i.e. $3000 for around 1 million-1.8 millon) so that a promotional post will be guaranteed to appear to an audience.
• A new feature that will allow individuals to filter out their news feed so that only branded pages (not any friends) show up. This “pages only” option still wouldn’t let everything through, but Facebook’s EdgeRank would be significantly loosened.

Number one is where Cuban has the biggest problem, and will probably spark a long line of debate for months to come.

(Writer’s Note: Before I move on, it would only be fair to mention that Cuban is NOT the only one who feels the way he does, and I don’t want to make it seem that I am singling him out. His perspective is meant to represent potentially ALL business owners who are experiencing the same problem with Facebook.)

Some felt that Cuban was whining too much about having to pay more to have more promotion. According to writer Ryan Tate, perhaps not everyone wants to see every insignificant thing that comes from the Mavericks fan page. Tastes do vary, and this annoyance can not be seen as ubiquitous.

If social media allowed businesses to connect with their fans, why all of a sudden do they have to pay to do it? Don’t think too hard about this question: just remember the letters: I, P and O. You’ll figure it out quickly.

Then there is the second “pages only” option. This might take the edge off of the frustration, but I highly doubt that many people are going to voluntarily single out their Facebook news feed just to look at companies, even if they have followed them. It is a meagre negotiation by Facebook that will probably not last.

On Facebook

There is no question that Facebook has definitely changed their demeanor over the years in dealing with brands. At the end of the day, Facebook is a business just like everyone else. Their biggest problem was their own size. When businesses see the social media opportunity, they expect the operation to go through with little to no costs at all. Since the IPO, that just is not the case anymore.

Some might say that people like Cuban just have to shut up and deal with it. (Actually, his main response has been to look into other platforms other than Facebook.) Others might say that Facebook has gotten way too greedy. But this is the game today. Interests on both sides need to be protected even if this means losing interest in one another.

Social media is a big slice of the Internet pie without a doubt, and where people should be able to voice their mission, a task that was once so easy is undoubtedly getting more difficult. Whether it’s Facebook trying to clean up their content, or other social media sites making it more difficult for branding with something as simple as a photo, the direction is certainly changing.

Look at what just happened last week between Twitter and Instagram. To protect interest as a company who is meant to serve the self-promotion of others is a difficult task to connect to, and we can expect to see more adjustments in the future.

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