So, you’ve setup your campaign, now dive into the following 11 must-do activities for a successful Google AdWords PPC campaign.

Use Ad Extensions
Enhance your ads with ad extensions. Ad extensions extend your ad with extra information not shown on a typical text ad. These extensions can improve overall performance, quality score, and ad rank. Google’s reasoning for giving ads with extensions higher ad rank is that they know ads with extensions perform better. If an ad performs better it means Google is making money off clicks, and hopefully you’re getting the lead you desire, and will spend more money with Google. So, add Ad Extensions to your ads and see a boost in performance!

Here are the different types of manual ad extensions you can use to enhance your ads:

• Call Extension
• Apps Extension
• Locations Extension
• Reviews Extension
• Sitelinks Extension
• Callouts Extension

Each of these can be used on a single ad. Google determines when they are shown, and if there are more than one extension showing at any given time. You can add these extensions in your AdWords account at any time. You don’t pay extra for these. The same cost per action applies to extensions. If someone clicks your call extension you pay, just as if someone clicked on the headline of your ad.

Mind your Punctuation
Punctuation, at the right spot within an ad, can increase performance. Here’s how. If you place a period, question mark, or an exclamation mark at the end of your first description line, that line will be pulled up into the headline when your ad is shown in the top two positions. We all know the headline is the attention grabber. So, if you have a bigger headline you have a greater chance of attracting that click.

Create Mobile Optimized Ads

You probably have 3-4 ads per ad group, make sure one of them is mobile optimized. When setting up your ad make sure to check the box next to the word “Mobile” at the bottom of your new text ad entry where it says “Device Preference”. This tells Google to display this ad when a mobile user has searched for a keyword in your ad group.

Now add a mobile CTA (Call To Action) to your ad text. For most of our clients, who like to heavily target mobile users, we use something like “Call Now!” or “Call Today!” or “Call Us!”. Be sure to have the “Call Extension” enabled with a Google Tracking number. This will give the user a Click-To-Call button on their mobile screen and allow you to track phone call conversions.

Mobile Bid Adjustment

Adjust your mobile max CPC bid automatically with this feature. If your target audience is a heavy mobile user you can adjust your mobile bids to automatically bid up to 300% above your regular max CPC for keywords within that campaign. This can help your average position move into that coveted 1-2 spot for mobile devices. Likewise, if you don’t want to show up on mobile devices you can adjust your mobile bid down by as much as -100% to opt out of mobile for a selected campaign or ad group.

This can be a very effective way to target mobile users. Do you own a pizza shop, a dentist office, or another business that relies heavily on phone calls? Bump up your mobile bid adjustment, add a call extension, and see your conversions and clicks rise.

View Impression Share
Keep tabs on your competition with Impression share reports in Google AdWords. Here is how Google explains Impression Share:

“Impression share (IS) is the number of impressions you’ve received divided by the estimated number of impressions you were eligible to receive. Eligibility is based on your current ads’ targeting settings, approval statuses, bids, and Quality Scores. Data is available at the campaign, ad group and keyword levels.

An easy way to understand the value of impression share is to think of the online advertising landscape as a delicious pie. You and your competitors are each trying to grab the biggest slice of that pie. By tracking your impression share metrics, you’re keeping tabs on the size of your slice compared to the whole.”

Once you know if your impression share is going up, or going down, you should make adjustments to your bidding strategy, particularly if you are losing Impression Share. Get back that piece of your pie.

Day Parting

Use the Dimensions tab in AdWords to find out what days and times during the week are most profitable, or are performing better in terms of meeting your goals for your Google AdWords campaign. Once you are armed with this knowledge you can adjust your ad schedules to match the most optimal time/day. It may take some time to gather the data needed to make informed adjustments so make sure you’re run your AdWords campaign for a couple months prior to diving into Dimensions.

Bidding To Gain Top Positions
It’s important to keep an eye on your “Average Position” for keywords within your campaign. If you are finding your keywords are averaging 3.0, and lower, you should look at increasing your max CPC to make sure you’re falling into the top 3 positions. I’d even go as far as to say that being in the top 2, if you can afford it, should be your top priority. Our data shows, with your clients, that being in the top positions is the difference between getting conversions and not getting conversions. Here is a case study by Think With Google that walks through success with

Use Flexible Bid Strategies

Flexible bid strategies let you apply multiple bidding strategies within a single campaign or across campaigns. This provides you the freedom to choose the appropriate bid strategy without being constrained by account structure. There are lots of strategies you can employ here based on what your end goals are. If you want to maximize clicks, maximize conversion value, or just make sure you’re in the top 3 spots at all times, you can do that with Google AdWords Flexible Bid Strategies. Here is a case study by Think With Google that walks through success with Flexible Bid Strategies.

Scaled, or Cascade, Bidding
We test everything, or as much as we can/have time for. Everything doesn’t work, but as we test we find what does, and what, doesn’t. One thing we do is bid on different match types with scaled max CPC bids.

Say we bid on the word “nike basketball shoes”. In our cascading bids for different match types we’d bid something like $1.00 for Broad match, $1.05 for Phrase match, and $1.10 for Exact match types. You might go as far as having unique ad groups for each match type. The results often vary but we usually find quickly which match type gives us the best results. We continue to optimize bids up or down based on the data. The point is that sometimes we don’t know which match type is going to perform best, and testing different match types helps us figure that out.

You may have noticed that we increased our bids as the match type became closer to exact. We’re telling Google that the closer the match to our keyword the better the potential match of our client to the user. If over time we find the competition for AVG Position on a broad match term is higher we could end up paying more for Broad than Exact or Phrase. Competition always determines the bid.

Merchants Should Use Google Shopping (formerly PLA)
If you’re a merchant selling widgets/products via ecommerce you should be using Google Shopping campaigns. Shopping campaigns display your products in their own box, potentially next to other merchants, on Google Search (above the fold and front/center), on Google Partner websites, and on Google Shopping. In Google Product Listing Ads (PLA) you can show product information like an image, title, price, and your business name. You must work through your Google Merchant account to add your product inventory before you’ll be able to create a Google Shopping campaign.

You’ve seen Product Listing Ads at the top of the SERPs. They dominate the real estate when a popular product is searched for. WordStream published some pretty nice metrics/case studies as to the benefits of Shopping PLA’s. You can read their article here.

A/B Test – Ads and Landing Pages
As I mentioned earlier, you have to test, test, and test some more. A/B testing can be a real eye opener. We test landing pages all the time. We try to always start with two landing pages for every ad group. We use Unbounce to run A/B variant testing to ultimately find the top landing page. Once we have a ‘winner’ landing page we’ll often make a “C” variant, based off the winner to test against the winner, and continue the cycle.

For ads, we always start out with at least 3-4 ads, with at least one of them being mobile optimized. We watch performance and make adjustments after we feel like we have enough data to do so. If the campaign is brand new we might wait 4-6 weeks before we make major changes. We often make small tweaks early in a campaigns life but we don’t gut everything in week 1 because we haven’t seen success. Likewise, we won’t pause an ad in week 1. We’ll often set a milestone before we completely pause an ad. It might be 100 impressions with 0 clicks, it might be 200. You’ll have to make that call based on the information you’re seeing in your account. The point is test, adjust, test, adjust.

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One thing we’ve learned over the years is that there is a seemingly endless amount of work that can be done in an AdWords account. Pace yourself, work smart, and use the data to make business decisions. All these things that we’ve talked about can help you work smarter, and help the money you’re giving to Google work harder for you.

If you’re doing this work, client side, and you’d like us to audit your account and assist you in any way, please feel free to reach out. We will give you a free consultation to see if we can help in any way.

Do you have a tip you’d like to share? Add a comment below. We’re always looking for more knowledge.

Earn Search Engine Optimization Brownie Points

As we head into 2017, search engine optimization (SEO) is more important than ever. Google is coming up with new algorithms to make the search experience easier for consumers, penalizing websites that don’t take the time to obey the rules. While having a blog isn’t mandatory, it works wonders on bringing up your site’s search engine ranking. Blog posts give you an opportunity to incorporate key search terms and phrases organically, link to authoritative sites to vamp up your reputation, add images to improve your website, and give readers a reason to subscribe. Blogging is an ideal way to master SEO.

Open the Door to Social Media Marketing

If you struggle with your social media presence, starting a blog can work perfectly alongside your efforts. A blog gives you content to link to in your social media posts, boosting the relevance of your accounts and driving traffic back to your site. Promoting blog content on a social media site increases your web exposure and gives you more opportunities to get your message across. Use a tool such as Hootsuite to schedule social media posts in accordance with blog posts.

Boost Site Traffic and Brand Awareness

While main site content is important for generating traffic, blog posts can multiply the number of hits your website gets. Blogs help new customers discover your website. For example, a search for “How to get wine stains out of my carpet” might not come up with your wine company’s site, but if you wrote a blog post with a similar title, this search would lead customers to you.

According to research from HubSpot, companies that post 11 or more times per month get almost three times the amount of traffic than those that don’t blog at all. Posting 16+ blog posts per month leads to about 4.5 times more leads and 3.5 times more traffic than companies that post zero to one times per month. With statistics like that, it’s no surprise savvy marketers are boosting their blogging efforts.

Master Lead Generation

Generating new leads requires consumers to interact with your brand and submit personal information. Blog posts give you another opportunity to communicate with your customers via the comments section. Visitors can pots their questions on your blog post after submitting their names or email addresses if they don’t want to use your contact form. Use your blog as an opportunity to interact with consumers, reply to comments, and demonstrate your knowledge and customer service skills.

Establish Your Authority

The Internet has given consumers millions of businesses at their fingertips. Most people are patrons only of the brands they find the most trustworthy, pertinent, and authoritative. Mark your company as a master of its craft by posting engaging, informative, and well-researched long-form blog posts. Evergreen content, or content that stays relevant for a long period of time, can boost SEO and make you an expert in your field. Let your blog serve as a testament to your brand’s respectability, influence, and consistent high-quality information.

Starting a company blog will benefit your business in a variety of ways. Include blog posts as part of your content marketing strategy this upcoming year and discover all of its advantages for yourself.

Get to Know Your Audience

At the heart of good content is a writer who knows his or her audience. As a content marketer, you probably already have a customer persona in mind. If not, start by identifying your target audience. Once you know who your audience is, step into their shoes. Create a persona of your ideal customer, asking yourself what he/she looks for in a brand. Hammer out details such as the person’s age, gender, income, hobbies, and lifestyle.

Find out what type of customer you want, and learn as much as you can about him or her. Create a short survey to find out what your audience likes, use data (try Google Analytics) to learn their browsing and sharing habits, and see whom your competitors are targeting. Do some research and find out what type of content your perfect customer responds to. The more detailed you can make your audience personas, the easier it will be to create content that will captivate them.

Find Out Which Type of Content Meets Your Goals

Once you know your audience, make a list of goals for your content. A few common content marketing goals include boosting brand awareness, driving traffic to your website, generating leads, sealing conversions, and retaining existing customers. Know what you’d like your content to accomplish before sitting down to write. Some forms of content work better for different purposes than others. Here are some examples of appropriate content for different situations:

• Brand awareness. You need to grab your target customer’s attention. Create relevant blog posts, exciting social media content, simple yet informative how-to videos, interesting infographics, and SlideShare presentations. Many brands are even creating memes to hook people with humor.
• Website traffic. You need to drive people to your website and keep them there. Consider long-form content, how-to guides, whitepapers, eBooks, case studies, infographics, and videos. Offering original information, research, and data will mark you as an expert in your field and keep the visitors rolling in.
• Lead generation. You need to motivate your customers to fill out a contact form with their personal information. The best types of content for this task include contest submissions, eBook downloads, product demos, and podcasts.
• Customer retention. You need to keep buyers coming back for more. Get personal with your content, using data to tailor your content and make it relevant for your existing customers. Update your blog regularly, send email updates, and offer coupons for existing customers.

People learn differently. Some people are visual learners, while others are more hands-on. Similarly, certain types of content will appeal more to different people. If you have more than one target audience, mix up your content to meet the needs of different consumers. Consider rotating the content on your blog or creating different landing pages for certain people.

Make it Personal

No matter what your content marketing goals look like, your audience wants to know you care about their individual needs. Your content needs to be personal and speak directly to the type of people you want buying your products or services. Make your content hyper-relevant, staying up to date on the latest consumer trends and demands. Once you know what type of content you need to create for your audience and goals, add a personal touch for that extra something.

Demographic Targeting

Your customers are people. Ok, duh. When determining the intent of the person making a purchase, keep that in mind. AdWord’s demographic targeting feature makes specific age and gender brackets searchable. Knowing the demographics of your customers is essential in leading potential buyers to your ad.

For example, consider a 22-year-old man alongside a 78-year-old man, both searching for a new pair of shoes. Demographic targeting places these two men in separate demographic groups based on their different ages. In the end, you benefit from this tool because you’re aware of the buyer’s intent.

The demographic tools will help you select what type of people you want directed to your ad. This can be found by going to the “Audiences” tab and then locating the sub tab titled “Demographics.”

Negative Keyword Setting

Negative keyword lists aren’t popular. Why? Because they can require a lot of work. However, negative keyword lists play a vital role in boosting the ROI of an AdWords campaign.

If you’re selling online note taking applications to a group of people looking for online note taking applications, for instance, then you could add keywords like “online notes” or “note taking applications online.” However, if your clients aren’t so tech savvy and desire a spiral notebook, you’d create a negative keyword list including the word “online.” This will prevent visits to your ad by people who aren’t interested in your product.

The search term report, found under the “keywords” tab, will reveal searches that people have used to see your ad. Here, you can either add new keywords or add negative keywords that you’d like to remove.

Display Targeted Keyword Settings

Is the display network a struggle for you? Do you have a smaller budget? Look no further for help: the new display feature is here.

Displaying Targeted Keyword Settings gives display network options to the advertiser. This feature satisfies the advertiser who focuses on the keywords and targets the content alone (such as apps, sites, and videos) with the audience in mind who is potentially interested in the keywords.

Research shows that above-the-fold ad placement provides the greatest opportunity for clicks. Since there are multiple types of devices out there (e.g., laptops, phones, and tablets), the best practice is to utilize above-the-fold ad placement. Click here for a video explaining how to do it.

The Image Ad Creator

A benefit of image ads is increased access to different properties. If a site only allows image ads, you’ll have access to this site.

A quick tip is to keep multiple sizes of your ads available. Some websites have specific size qualifications for images. Keep all the possible sizes of your ad on hand to contribute to any site specifications.

It’s simple and only takes seconds: click “+ New ad” and then click on “Image ad” – and you’re on your way. This is a much better option than making .swf files with Adobe Flash.

Expanded Text Ads

Google has enabled a new text ad format that allows you to increase the amount of text you can put in an ad. Google says that these ads are designed for a mobile-first world and have both the user and advertiser in mind.

Although the new Expanded Text Ads are not “required”, in that you can still create Standard Text Ads, there is a transition plan in place where Google will phase out the Standard Text Ad and only offer the Expanded Text Ad. Currently, that date appears to be January 31, 2017.

Here are the main differences in the Expanded Text Ads:

• There are 2 headline fields that allow up to 30 characters of text each.
• There is a single expanded description that allows up to 80 characters of text.
• A display URL that uses the final URL’s domain
• There are now optional “path” fields that allow up to 15 characters each.

Try them out today!

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Photo by damon jah.

Slow page load times could be due to a number of reasons. But does page load time really matter?

YES.

Usability is the #1 reason your page load time matters. If you don’t fix it, you may start losing people. If it takes 5 seconds, 7 seconds, or even 10 seconds to load a page, your customer probably already jumped ship. One bad impression can make a user think the whole website is slow and they’ll leave.

The second reason page load time is so important is because Google is watching. That’s right, they consider your page load time when ranking you in search results. Slow page load speeds could kill your rankings.

So, what causes poor page load speeds? It may be one or a few of the following reasons.

1. Bandwidth – Many larger companies host their site internally. If you do, do you have enough bandwidth on your server? Small internet connection can create a bottleneck on the server and result in slower page load times.
2. CSS and HTTP Requests – Pages with lots of images, backgrounds, tables, and icons often run at slower speeds. Consider using CSS Sprite to reduce the number of HTTP and CSS requests.
3. Hosted Third Party Applications – Does your site use third party services or apps? With hosted web fonts as an example, website pages could load up to a half to a full second slower. Results may vary depending on the third party service you’re using.
4. Image Sizes – High-res image files will take forever to load. Make sure your images are optimized for the web.
5. Server Resources – Similar to bandwidth issues, you should look at upgrading your resources such as CPU, RAM, etc. This can be remedied with cloud computing and virtual resources.
6. SSL – Is your site only supported when browsing in HTTPS? This could affect your load times. SSL doesn’t necessarily take longer, the browsers just can’t cache everything from page to page without increasing the page sizes.
7. Tracking Pixels and Tags – If you’re tracking pixels and tags for performance on multiple campaigns, you could be slowing your page load times. You could use one universal tracking pixel which eliminates your need for multiple tracking pixels or use asynchronous tagging which allows a browser to load multiple tags at once.
8. Web Hosting – Is your site on a dedicated server or a shared server? If you have a shared server, your site is competing with other sites for resources. You’re also susceptible to other sites getting hacked and taking the majority of your resources.
9. 301 Redirects – Does your site have 301 redirects? Each time your browser is redirected to a new page, the page load time increases.

These are just a few reasons for slow page load times, but a deeper analysis could be helpful to make sure your site’s performance isn’t suffering. If you’re interested in improving usability, SEO, or slow page load times, give us a call. We help clients find solutions to page load speeds so their users are happy.

With so many consumers using the internet to research products and services, your website should not only stand out with great design, it should be easy for searchers to find.

A search engine optimization (SEO) strategy will help you rank higher in search results, but simple SEO mistakes could affect your bottom line.

Are SEO mistakes costing your business money? Consider these common SEO mistakes and learn how to avoid them.

Mistake #1: Poor or Duplicate Content

Low-quality content, including machine generated content, is easy to spot by Google algorithms. Avoid copying content from other sources or duplicating content across pages. Good content on your website should be unique and useful to the reader while establishing you as an expert in your industry.

Yes, keywords are important. But Google also searches for quality content. So keep this in mind as you fill your website with fresh, relevant content. Bottom line, write your content for people not algorithms and you should be safe.

Mistake #2: Over Stuffing Keywords

Don’t fill your content with too many keywords. Keyword stuffing is a thing of the past and could cost you higher rankings if your website is filled with them.

Too many keywords or irrelevant keywords make your content hard to read, distracting, and uninformative. If that’s the case, users will come and go quickly which can impact your rankings.

Focus your energy on filling a page with creative, compelling content. When your user benefits, so will you.

Mistake #3: Link Manipulation

Link Manipulation is a big “No-No” according to Google. If you’re caught manipulating outbound links, or links headed to your site, you’re violating their rules. Link manipulation can include buying links, using link-building tools, excessive cross-linking, link wheels, or hidden redirects.

Penalties can hurt your visibility and significantly reduce your organic traffic. Stick to the rules and avoid link manipulation at all costs.

Mistake #4: Lacking Unique Title Tags and Meta Descriptions

Many company websites may list their company name as the title tag for each page, and while it’s okay to do, don’t lead with your company name. Title tags can include the company name, but it should be proceeded by a keyword explaining the page.

Each title tag should be unique to the page. Not only for SEO purposes, but it’s also helpful when someone shares a page on social media or bookmarks your website for reference.

Title Tag Example: SEO (Search Engine Optimization) | Digital Marketing Agency Portland | Digital C4

Meta descriptions should also be unique. You have 170 characters for your sales pitch, so use them wisely. They should be persuasive and give the user quick information.

Meta Description Example: Portland-based agency Digital C4 can help your online visibility in search results and improve your conversions through organic channels. Contact us today to learn more about search engine optimization

Are SEO mistakes costing your business organic traffic and leads? Don’t let these common mistakes cost you. At Digital C4, we help companies optimize their website to avoid these common mistakes and more. Call us today to learn how we can help your business.

In this recent change, they removed paid ads on the right side and now display a limited number of ads above and below organic search results.

This means more changes for paid search (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) campaigns. Read on to learn more.

New Google Layout Update

The ads living above organic search results aren’t anything new. Google, in recent years, has tested how these ads perform when removing the sidebar ads. Now, with the sidebar ads permanently removed, these 3 top page ads, with 4 ad showing if the query is considered “highly commercial”, will likely increase in cost, and value to marketers.

Three more ads are placed below search results changing the total ads on a page from 11 to seven.

The right side of their page certainly looks cleaner, but how will the reduction in ad space affect you?

As with any update, there’s some good some not-so-good. But generally this is only for the time-being as we adjust to the new changes.

What’s Good About It?

As it turns out, ads on the right-hand side weren’t getting many clicks. Sure, it may look great if your ad is appearing, but if searchers aren’t clicking, these marketing efforts aren’t worth the time to manage them.

Ads posted at the top of the page attract a significantly higher click-through rate than ads on the side. With no side ads, the top ads will gain even more attention. How many times have you reviewed your AdWords reports only to see 95-100% of conversions happening when your ad is Top Page? Exactly. That’s why Google’s made this a permanent update.

As far as SEO and organic traffic, we’ve seen several clients see increases, in clicks/site traffic, when they were already ranking in the top 3 or 4 positions for brand and non-brand related searches.

Time will tell the full benefits these ads will receive. For now, we adjust and push forward.

What’s Not-So-Good About It?

Fewer ads on the page mean less real estate and more competition for PPC campaigns. We’ll likely see bidding wars increase as marketers try to keep their high rankings at the top of the page. So look for a higher cost per click for this prime, top of page, real estate.

What Now?

This change undoubtedly will affect SEO and PPC campaigns going forward. Striking a healthy balance between PPC and SEO will be more important than ever.

On the SERP, the ads take up most of the position above this fold (depending on your display). This could cause difficulty for SEO traffic. At the same time, PPC results will likely experience a significant CPC hike. This means your SEO may need to work double time to make up for the difference.

Can your SEO pick up some slack from your PPC? Now is the time to make sure your SEO and PPC campaigns are well tested and balanced.

If you have more questions on SEO and PPC for your business, give us a call. At Digital C4, we help businesses navigate the course for optimal results.

You’re not alone. If we could snap our fingers and make quality content appear, we’d be millionaires. Unfortunately, we don’t have any magical tricks to share with you. But we do have a few techniques that will help you become faster and better at producing quality content.

Here are some things to consider:

1. Keep a Topic List

The task of deciding what to write about can take up a significant amount of your time. Who has time for that?
Keep a running list at work or on your phone with topic ideas. Sometimes these ideas strike when you’re on the treadmill, filling up your coffee, or answering client questions.

Speaking of client questions, these make for great content topics. Your content should add value, not create noise, so answering questions that are important to your clients is always a great idea.

2. Make a Plan

Now that you have your list of topics, create an editorial calendar for your content. Sure, it may seem like a lot of work upfront, but just think how much time you’ll save later!

Make it a goal to line up 3-6 months of topics. Schedule these topics on a content calendar to plan your content around seasons or industry events.

That said, plans can be broken. If something significant happens in your business or industry, your content calendar can be adjusted.

3. Begin with the End in Mind

Before you start your content, begin with the end in mind.

What do you want your reader to walk away with? What action do you want them to take?

When you start with the end result, it’s easier to work backwards so you know exactly what to write about.

4. Spin Current Content or Topics

Not every piece of content needs to be a new idea, process, or stroke of genius. Chances are you have great content right now that you could spin with a new title. Then refresh the body of the article by stating the same thing in a different way.

You may be surprised how a client or customer relates better to the same information stated with a different approach.

5. Make It Short and Sweet

High-quality content isn’t always long content. Enough said.

6. Don’t Write and Edit at the Same Time

The biggest mistake content creators make? Trying to make it perfect the first time.

Get it all out and come back to it later. Don’t be alarmed if it seems like a jumbled mess when you’re finished. This is normal.

When you come back to it later with fresh eyes, you can focus on sentence structure and grammar. The hardest part is getting the content out, so don’t let editing become a distraction.

7. Give Yourself a Time Limit

Whether you give yourself an hour or the entire day, you’ll use the time allotted to complete your task.

Enter the Pomodoro Technique.

If you’re looking for faster ways to knock out great content, try giving yourself a time limit – say 25-30 minutes. When your time is up, take a quick five-minute break and begin another 25-30 minutes of content creation or editing.

By giving yourself a time limit, you’ll stay focused and produce more jaw-dropping content faster.

Need help creating convincing content for your audience? At Digital C4, we specialize in helping businesses deliver consistent, high-quality content on schedule. Get in touch today to learn more about our creative content services.

Core algorithm changes happen often and typically go unnoticed, but this round was different. Many feared this may be the long-awaited Penguin roll out which was delayed from its expected arrival at the end of 2015 and moved to an unknown date in 2016. Google clarified on Twitter that the fluctuations in January had nothing to do with the Penguin rollout. They were merely more core algorithm changes.

What Do I Need to Know About the Recent Updates?

While many were left questioning why these changes were happening, Google offered some clarification a week later by announcing Panda was officially added to the core algorithm. However, this doesn’t mean the fluctuations we saw in the last few weeks were related to this update.

Wait, what? We know that answer may leave further questions, but continue reading and we’ll help explain.

What Is the Core Algorithm Again?

Google’s core algorithm is a family of working algorithms that are tested, proven, and given the Google stamp of approval to function well on their own. When an algorithm joins the core (in this recent case, Panda), it means it’s considered solid and consistent. Google won’t spend time making further updates to it very often. They trust it works well on its own.

Why Is It Difficult to Track and Understand Google Changes?

In the land of Google, they don’t work in real time. They’re consistently making changes and tweaks to algorithms which may fall under experiments, samples, or broader updates. These changes or tweaks often occur daily, weekly, and monthly. Some algorithms experience updates and may not see another update until months or years later, as was the case with Penguin.

Sporadic updates and changes of this nature leave many companies on careful watch. As Google has information, they’ll do their best to share it. But it’s difficult to pinpoint which update caused a ripple effect when multiple changes or updates are made daily.

What Does This Mean for Me?

If you noticed a dip in rankings during the month of January, check to make sure your site is up to Google standards for speed, usability, mobile capabilities, proper links, good content, etc. Extreme fluctuations in rankings that didn’t bounce back may mean updates to your site is necessary.

Keep in mind, Google is working hard to make a better online search experience for all of us. These updates may affect rankings now, but they’re being made to improve overall user experience. In turn, it rewards those who are using honest SEO methods and weeds out companies using black hat methods.

As updates continue to occur, we’ll keep you up to speed with the information you need to know. If you’re experiencing a significant decrease in your search rankings, give us a call. At Digital C4, we specialize in helping companies gain a better web presence through Google-approved SEO methods and rich content.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Content is King,” which is true. But if you send out lots of mediocre content, it creates extra noise in an already saturated market. And frankly, it doesn’t do you or your business any good.

To create exceptional content, your focus should be on your reader and less about meeting a daily or weekly quota. Exceptional content is purposeful. It aims to be useful to your audience or produce an emotional response. It creates a connection and inspires action.

So, how do you go from good to exceptional content? Use the following tips to improve your content and engage your audience.

Get to Know Your Audience

First things first, get to know the audience you’re writing content for. This may mean conducting market research, emailing out an online survey, or talking to clients/customers on the phone. Gather facts about who you’re writing to so you know what concerns them and how to help.

This research process develops a “Buyer’s Persona” where you’ve identified their demographics, frustrations, employment, lifestyle, hobbies, and even their hopes and dreams. Don’t write content to your boss or other competitors anymore. Write like you’re talking face-to-face with the people who matter most – your audience.

Be Interesting

Choose burning topics your audience is interested in reading. By discovering your buyer’s persona, you can create a list of commonly asked questions or daily frustrations your audience experience. Make your content ‘binge-worthy’!

Look around for topics that are most shared or linked to and put your own spin on them. Keep your topics interesting and whatever you do, don’t be boring.

Don’t Be Afraid to Share Your Opinion

As you consider lively topics, don’t be afraid to take a stand or state your opinion. Content that rides the fence all the time is quickly forgotten. People want something fresh. Something that challenges them. So don’t be afraid to pivot from the norm and share your own ideas.

Keep It Simple

Though it may be tempting to use flowery language and descriptions, the best marketing reads like you talk. Your goal is to make your message clear and concise for the reader. If they can’t follow along, you’ll lose them.

The best part? This removes the pressure of you being a literary genius. Your goal is to remain focused on the reader and speak clearly.

To write clearer content:

• Alternate sentence lengths
• Use shorter words
• Keep paragraphs to 3-4 sentences
• Step away and review later with fresh eyes
• Use bullets and headers
• Read it aloud to hear how it sounds
• Learn more great writing ideas

Treat It Like a Product

It takes a lot of time, research, and strategy to develop a good product. You wouldn’t hastily throw something together and toss it out on the market to see what happens, would you?

The same goes with creating exceptional content. It requires a well thought-out content marketing strategy. You’ll research the challenges people face and use this knowledge to plan and develop content that’s relevant and useful. Exceptional content isn’t created overnight. It takes time and starts with a plan.

Seek to Inspire and Motivate

Exceptional content connects people to businesses or brands. It reaches them on a deeper emotional level by understanding their basic needs and offering solutions.

Use content to educate, offer insights, and inspire as a tool to attract and keep interest. As your content bridges the gap between businesses and people, you’ll associate trust and confidence with your brand.

The main takeaway from this? Get to know your audience and understand that creating exceptional content takes time and planning. If you need help developing a stellar content strategy for your business, give us a call. We can help build a plan to take your content from good to great.

Sources:

http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/7-steps-to-creating-exceptional-content-01248638#fDpFzrdvbEDQMRGF.97

http://cognitiveseo.com/blog/8730/example-exceptional-content/

Be known as the “Go-To” company for information in your industry. Keep your website fresh and interesting by using these types of likeable content marketing strategies.

Consistent, Interesting Blogs

Company blogs are a great place to start with your content strategy. They’re an ideal platform to offer great information or answers to questions in your industry. Not to mention, they can improve your search rankings by inserting natural, industry specific keywords.

After all, Google loves “live” websites. What does this mean? It means you’re consistently updating your website with fresh, current information. A company blog keeps your website “live” while increasing social shares and attention with great content.

Attract Attention with Appealing Images

Attractive images grab a person by their eyeballs faster than they can read a catchy title. Your content strategy should include images that make people pause to admire or stir up a sense of curiosity. Combine appealing images with stellar content and you’re reaching two important learning styles at once.

Get Personal with Stories

There’s power in personal stories. When shared well, they appeal to strong emotions and create a connective bond. Become a master storyteller and weave your audience into a greater story. Don’t be afraid to get personal and share stories about your business, yourself or your staff, and show the personal side of your product or services.

Educate with “How To” Resources

Be the industry experts with user-friendly “How To” guides and resources. Go in-depth and offer the nitty-gritty details with answers to difficult questions from you and your team of experts. Don’t be afraid to make these resources longer than a typical blog post. Long, detailed “How To” posts are typically shared more often.

Present Research or Facts with Infographics

Do you have new interesting facts, data, or case studies to share? Take potentially dry data results and breathe life into them by presenting information through infographics. This brilliant content method appeals to both visual and factual learners and is shared often on social media. Infographics can be expensive, so integrate them when appropriate – especially for new data-heavy research and statistics.

Write an eBook to Share Your Knowledge

Why not combine your industry knowledge into an easily downloadable eBook? An eBook can be in PDF or HTML format and downloaded in exchange for joining an email list. Aim for at least 10,000 words, a catchy title, professional design, and well-organized content with chapters arranged by topic.

Entertain or Teach with Videos

Appeal to visual learners with videos used to entertain or train your audience. Some may not have enough time to read a blog post, but they’ll swap five minutes of time to watch your engaging video. Change up your content strategies with multiples ways to reach different users and present information in a fresh way.

Sharing stellar content drives attention to your brand and increases social shares and ultimately traffic to your website. Need a hand with creating likeable content? Drop us a line to learn how we can curate consistent, audience-friendly content for your business.

Sources:

• http://www.quicksprout.com/2014/04/14/how-these-15-types-of-content-will-drive-you-more-traffic/
• https://blog.bufferapp.com/content-marketing-tips

More Google Penguin updates are coming, but it appears they’re not ready quite yet. There’s still time to make corrections to your website before Google releases Penguin to the masses and hands out penalties to websites that aren’t up to par.

On two occasions recently on October 14 & 15 and October 19, many websites across industries and around the world noticed a dive in organic rankings. Some speculated the shift was related to Panda updates October 14 & 15 and new Penguin updates on October 19.

The Penguin theory was quickly ruled out when Gary Illyes at Google responded to a question on Twitter saying “it’s not too late.”

So what does this mean? These updates may serve as a warning or a wake-up call for businesses to make sure their website is up to snuff before the next round hits.

What’s the Google Penguin Update Again?

Google Penguin was originally announced in April 2012 as an update aimed at decreasing the rankings of websites that violate Google’s Webmaster Guidelines. Penguin put a halt to black-hat SEO methods and linking schemes to achieve higher rankings unethically.

Various Penguin updates were released multiples times in 2012 and 2013 with a “refresh” called Penguin 3.0 in 2014. Additional rollouts of the Penguin update are expected which will affect many more websites in the near future.

Though the recent changes in October were not admitted to being Penguin updates, we can consider these a warning. The next rollout could cause many websites to lose their rankings while others notice a significant increase. Now is the time to take precautions to avoid a loss in rankings.

How Do You Avoid Being Penalized?

Remember, the Penguin update penalizes websites with improper link building practices. The main takeaway: your link profile should appear natural. Here are a few tips you should keep in mind:

Remove Bad Links

Google isn’t happy about paid links as an SEO method and can spot them right away. If you paid for links or joined private blog networks, it’s time to remove all bad links from your website.

The new focus is to be natural and authentic. Create good content worth sharing and try guest posting or developing interesting infographics related to your topic.

Stay Relevant

The links on your site should be relevant to what you’re selling or the services you’re providing. If you’re selling tech products or services, you should not have links going to organic cat food, stand up paddle boards, or EPA-free Tupperware. Stick to what’s relevant and remove links that don’t apply to your industry.

Build Your Brand

Google loves big brands and is less likely to deliver penalties on bigger brands. So what do you do if you don’t have a bottomless marketing budget? Focus on having a beautiful, user-friendly website and a strong social media presence. When you’re well “liked” and people search for your brand online, Google notices and considers your brand trustworthy.

Manage Your Keyword Density

Avoid over optimizing your site and overstuffing content with too many keywords. This method no longer works to achieve higher rankings. Content should appear natural and not be overfilled with words that don’t help the average reader.

Is your website ready? The good news is there’s still time to make improvements. Give us a call to chat about your options. We help companies avoid nasty Google penalties and achieve higher rankings the natural way.

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Photo credit to wackystuff.

Sources:

• https://www.davidnaylor.co.uk/not-late-avoid-upcoming-google-penguin-update.html
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Penguin
• http://www.shoutmeloud.com/avoid-penalized-penguin-change-seo.html
• http://backlinko.com/prevent-google-penalties
• https://twitter.com/methode/status/659179804139220993
• http://searchengineland.com/google-targets-sites-using-private-blog-networks-manual-action-ranking-penalties-204000

As we dive into Google’s update, there are a few changes you should be aware of and how they may affect you as a business owner. We’ll dive into what this means and what action steps you may need to take.

What’s New for Local Search Results?

When Google rolled out these updates, the appearance of the 3-pack and usability changed drastically. Here are a few formatting changes you need to know.

Top 3 Businesses Displayed

As we mentioned earlier, Google used to show local businesses in packs of 7, 5 or 3 giving multiple businesses a fair shot at rising to the top of the page. Now, Google is tossing out 7 or 5-packs in favor of 3-packs only. This change simplifies the options for users (especially mobile users) but creates more competition for businesses to show up on first page results.

No More Phone Numbers or Addresses

Google removed phone numbers and full business addresses from highlighted listings. Instead of having your business contact info readily available, users are given the street name and are left to search for your phone number or click the “Call” button on mobile devices. Desktop users now have easy access to company websites or directions to locate businesses.

Store Hours Added for Convenience

Now Google makes locating opening and closing hours easier than ever by sharing when a business is open or not in the 3-pack. Results may vary depending on the time of day you search. If a user finds your business before or after you’re closed, Google tells when you’ll be open again.

What Does This Mean for Your Business?

To keep ranking high in local searches, here are a few tips to consider.

Don’t Panic

We know, easier said than done. But Google will continue to make improvements and changes so there’s really no need to panic. The best thing you can do is be informed.

If you ranked #4 before the change, there’s a good chance your traffic hasn’t been affected as much as you think. In fact, one of the main reasons Google removed the four through seven rankings was because they weren’t generating much activity.

Ratings Are Crucial

Even though Google removed addresses and phone numbers, they left the starred reviews and ratings on purpose. If you want to rank high in the top three local slots, your ratings need to be stellar. Focus on making great customer reviews a priority as these can help you climb the SEO ladder much faster.

Focus Your Local SEO Efforts

To make the greatest impact, your local search engine optimization efforts need to be integrated with your overall strategy. This means you need an optimized website with a strong local presence and a marketing campaign to keep your brand and business in the spotlight. Whether your business is currently in the top 3 or not, focusing on local SEO is important to remain ahead of the pack.

Your website should be mobile-optimized, user-friendly, and filled with strong content focused on local keywords scattered naturally throughout your website. Increase your ranking efforts by providing clear, consistent, and usable information through a company blog and blogging strategy.

Don’t get left behind. Keep up to date with these new Google changes and pivot your SEO or marketing tactics so you’re not left in the dust. Need help optimizing your website for local SEO? We can help with that. Give us a call to learn how we can help you navigate Google these changes.

What the Heck are KPIs?

A Key Performance Indicator, or KPI, is an indicator measuring the performance and success of your SEO strategy in light of your organization goals. Track where traffic is coming from, where users are most engaged, how your SEO efforts are working, and where you should spend more time and energy.

Organic traffic is perhaps the most important KPI for a successful SEO strategy. Unlike the quick fix of paid ads, organic traffic is free traffic driven to your website from content containing popular industry keywords or phrases. You may notice an increase in organic traffic as soon as tomorrow and as far out as next year or even longer. If organic traffic is steadily increasing, this in an indicator your SEO is working.

Within organic traffic, it’s important to look closely at visits (sessions), session duration, bounce rate, new users, and pages/sessions which are all KPIs for content performance. Content is important, as it can increase traffic to your site through organic search results, but what if you could track the content on your site to the point that you knew exactly what your audience was looking for. KPI’s can do just that. They will tell you what content was getting the most visits, the high session duration, the lowest bounce rate, and more. Take your best content and product more like it. Stop writing content that sucks, in KPI terms.

How Do KPIs Differ By Industry or Website?

KPIs may vary based on your industry, and your goals may differ from your competitor’s goals. They can be different from site to site. An e-commerce site interested in increasing sales, and revenue, will have different KPIs than an eye doctor searching for fresh, local, leads or phone calls. Here’s how to know the difference.

E-Commerce KPIs

Goals for e-commerce sites are typically to increase traffic (visits), gain more qualified leads, and increase sales (orders & revenue). Organic traffic remains an important measurement as an increase here can relate to an increase in revenue.

Tracking organic traffic is easy, tracking orders and revenue can be more difficult. You’ll want to make sure e-commerce tracking features are enabled in Google Analytics, or in the analytics package your company uses.

Local SEO KPIs

For businesses focused on marketing to a local market, KPIs take a different approach. A successful local SEO strategy can create an increase of traffic to your website, produce more leads and calls, and improve appointments scheduled. Since you’re interested in more clients (conversions), you should measure KPI’s like link clicks, call tracking, form fills, rankings, conversions, and traffic sources.

Universal KPIs Everyone Should Monitor

Whether you’re a blogger, local business, or e-commerce site, there are a few KPIs everyone should monitor.

A few of these include:

• Visits (Sessions): This is where organic traffic is important once again. Every site should measure how many visits are received and the performance of keywords drawing users to your website.
• Session Duration and Bounce Rate: How quickly do visitors come and go? These indicators tell you if users are finding what they need on your site quickly, and how long they’re sticking around.
• Sources: Where are visitors coming from? Segment traffic by specific sources such as organic, direct, referring sites, and email. You can drill further into these metrics like search engines, operating systems, devices, etc. All these metrics can be used as clues to build better content, and increase usability of your site.
• Subscribe or Contact: Track emails, calls, live chats, and email subscriptions to monitor an increase in audience engagement.
• Content Consumption: How are consumers engaged with the content on your website? Do they watch videos or read posts? Which posts are shared or commented on more often? This helps you know which content is performing best according to your audience.
• Impression Data: Interested in knowing how people are finding you in search results? Google Webmasters offers impression data showing keywords people are using to find your content.
• New vs. Returning User: How loyal is your audience? Analyze your audience behavior by measuring new versus returning users. Maybe all your visitors are current clients looking for a login button, or looking for support. If that’s the case, then you’d know you need to create content to attract new faces to your site.

There is no one-size-fits-all solution to KPIs. Though they may differ for each company, measuring your efforts is paramount to your success. After all, if you don’t measure, you have no way of knowing what’s working, and where you can improve. Get the most out of your website. Give us a call and we’ll chat about setting up KPI’s for your site.

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Photo credit to Kurt Bauschardt.

Even so, good SEO isn’t simply a game to be played; and it isn’t about rankings. Today it extends much deeper. Good SEO aims to be helpful to consumers, provide simple and accurate information for their web searches, and offer easy ways to call or request more information from their mobile phone. After all, when users are happy Google is happy, and your rankings and conversions naturally improve.

So what the heck is good SEO anyway? First, allow us to remind you what it’s not.

Good SEO isn’t First Page Promises

Wait a second, that’s what we want, right? Let us explain. Marketing agencies may promise to get your business to the first page of Google, but it doesn’t mean people will click on you. Even if they do, they may not convert to new clients or customers.

Good SEO is more than conquering the Google ranking game. It goes deeper and caters to customers and potential customers in a way everybody benefits. So beware of lofty first page promises. In fact, if someone promises a first page Google ranking, I’d walk away… fast!

Good SEO isn’t Black Hat Methods

Black hat SEO is a sneaky way to increase search rankings but goes against the search rankings terms of service and best practices. These back alley methods including keyword stuffing, shady redirects, hidden texts or links, and other tactics deemed black hat by Google. This is not a method long-lasting, trustworthy businesses should take part in.

Avoid working with companies who encourage or use black hat SEO tactics. They don’t add long term value and eventually they end up hurting results.

Good SEO is Quality Written and Visual Content

Pages filled with jumbled keywords don’t cut it anymore. Good SEO offers well-written, conversational content with industry keywords included naturally in the text. However, content is not limited to words on a page. Don’t underestimate the power of visual content to draw interest to your blogs or web pages. Use photos or infographics to attract the eye and explain a process visually.

Good SEO is Tech-Savvy

Ten years ago SEO catered to desktops users. Today, with over half the population on a smartphone, good SEO requires responsive web design with mobile-friendly options. Local searches are happening daily on-the-go via smartphones and tablets. If your website isn’t up to speed, your rankings and conversions could be left in the dust. Good SEO offers a fast, tech-savvy user experience and makes doing business with you easy.

Good SEO Converts New Business

The combination of compelling copy, colorful photos, fast loading times, and mobile optimization will take teetering customers and show them how doing business with you is both fun and simple. Good SEO sets you up for success by combining all of these important elements into one package to get the results you want – better conversions.

So what the heck is good SEO? It’s a combination of behind the scenes methods to provide a pleasant experience for consumers. In doing so, it increases your rankings while improving user experience. The results? More raving fans and higher conversions.

Good SEO is more than just these tactics of course. It’s an ongoing process of putting these tactics to work with purpose. There’s also a host of on-page and off-page elements that work with these to make the magic happen. That said, these elements are paramount to understanding SEO and certainly areas to be wary of. Are you looking for better results? Give us a call. We’ll craft an SEO plan that’s right for you.

You’re not alone. This is the cry of many business owners as they realize they have a need for content, but they don’t know where to start.

To help businesses like yours, we’ve compiled information on how to know good content when you see it. But first, let’s answer a very important question.

Why Good Content?

Many businesses today are offering fresh content on their websites to solve challenges for clients and prospects. Content isn’t merely talking about how great your product is, it’s providing solutions and creating rapport with your audience. These building blocks are necessary for improving your search rankings and earning trust with your clients which increase sales opportunities over time.

Good content can take the form of blogs, videos, eBooks, podcasts, infographics, and more. Blogs, however, tend to be the most popular choice and tend to appeal to a wide range of audience preferences.

Now that we know WHY good content is important, here are a few basics to keep in mind.

Good Content Has Words and Images

Great information can be explained by words, but combine this with a picture and you’ll capture your audience’s interests. It’s no surprise the human eye is attracted to color and pictures. Choose great images to attract attention, provide great information, and lead the eye to continue reading. Break up articles with headers and images to engage your audience.

Good Content Is Delivered On Time

Content should be shared consistently, but it should also be delivered in a timely manner. What exactly does that mean? It means your content should be relevant to your customers’ needs at this time of year, during this time of life, at this point in their journey.

Know your audience well enough to empathize with their biggest challenges. Then offer tactical ways to help them. Your business will be the hero and they’ll look to you for expert information and guidance.

Good Content Is Shareable

Content should be easy to be absorbed in bite-sized chunks. Some posts may be technical in nature, but break them down into manageable portions so you don’t overwhelm your audience.

Gage the knowledge level of your customers and prospects and speak in friendly, conversational tones where appropriate. When content is easily processed and absorbed, it’s shared more often. This widens your reach and attracts more attention to your business and brand.

Good Content Is Evolving

What’s hot today may be unimportant tomorrow. Good content evolves and tracks with current trends or shifts in an industry.

Keep up to date by providing fresh, current content. Users will trust you as an innovator in your industry when you’re providing information and tips on the latest and greatest changes.

So, what the heck is good content? It’s consistent, engaging, shareable, and timed just right. Is your business currently offering customers and prospects great content? It’s never too late to start. At Digital C4, we offer content marketing solutions to increase sales and search rankings while building trust and rapport with your audience. Find out how we can craft a professional content strategy for your company.

You see, Google likes their users to be happy and they’ve made lots of great changes to improve user experience. We could learn a thing or two by Google’s approach and from the many successful businesses who focus on customer happiness. In fact, when you focus on providing a positive user experience, Google rewards you with better search rankings. It’s a win-win!

In the spirit of good cheer, we’ve put together five ways to use SEO to spread happiness to your users.

Offer Relevant Content With Perfect Timing

Both Google and users prefer websites that are “alive”. This means your website is consistently being updated with new, relevant content for your users.

Post blogs, videos, and news updates with relevant content for your industry. Current trends in industries are constantly changing and users are attracted to businesses that are knowledgeable, follow current trends, and provide timely updates.

Save Time With Fast Websites

The fastest way to make a user unhappy is by having a slow loading website. In fact, you have a total of four seconds before users lose interest.

If your customers are forced to wait, they’ll take their business elsewhere. To increase the happiness level of your users, reduce large file images and decorative elements which slow loading time and cause your users to wait.

Update Content Consistently

Update your website daily, or a few days a week, with fresh, new content. Consistency tells users your business is a game player in your industry and you value them by offering useful information, tips, and tools to help make their life easier.

Whether you choose to post updates once a week or more, make sure you have a consistent schedule of providing value to your users. Users love consistency and it makes both your audience and Google very happy.

Build Audience Trust Naturally

When you have a well-designed website and are consistently churning out new, valuable content, trust with your audience builds naturally. Good content is shared on social media causing your brand and product or service to become more visible. Trust is built as you jump over the business to consumer barrier and make the user experience personal.

Share personal stories of your customers and offer free, relevant information to show your business cares and you’re invested in your users. As trust builds, your users will invest in you and encourage their friends to do the same.

Maintain Your Message Across Devices

With the many options we have today to view information, your message should be consistent across all devices. Responsive web design creates websites that transform based on the device your user has in hand.

Whether it’s a smartphone, tablet, laptop, or TV, your website should look and feel the same. Responsive web design eliminates needing separate mobile sites and keeps your users happy with a consistent look and feel.

The takeaway: Google rewards websites that make users happy. Increase user happiness and improve your search rankings by putting these tips into action. Shoot us an email if your website needs updated for SEO or if you need help providing consistent content. We have just the services you need to build trust with your audience and make your customers smile.

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Photo credit to Alex.

In fact, a consumer behavior study by Technorati revealed consumers turn to blogs to provide relevant information and influence their buying decisions. A total of 31.1% of consumers said authoritative blogs influence their decision on whether to buy or not.

Business blogs offer companies numerous benefits to increase sales and encourage audience engagement. Here are four important reasons why blogs are vital to growing a business today.

Increase Traffic To Your Website

When your company blog offers relevant information to your audience and visitors, you’ll drive traffic and increase page views on your website. Use Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Pinterest accounts to post links to new blog posts and provide interesting content and images so your followers want to click. When posts are “liked” and shared, your reach extends further and traffic to your website will continue to increase.

Improve Your SEO

Google loves when businesses offer fresh content on their websites. When you post new blogs on a regular basis, you’ll rank higher on online searches by including keywords and topics related to your business.

To beat your competitors in search engine results, post fresh, informative content that’s rich in keywords. Regular blogging about your industry, products, or lifestyle design will naturally include keywords, but be purposeful with including specific topics, categories, and keywords for searchers to find you. The more valuable content you provide with specific keywords, the higher you’ll rank on Google.

Educate Your Audience

People are searching for information your company can offer. A business blog offers a platform for educating your audience and attracting new visitors. Blogs can cover a wide range of topics including frequently asked questions, industry secrets, “How To…” posts, and product knowledge descriptions. Choose topics to position your company as industry leaders by offering articulate, personal, and well-researched articles. Become known as the hub for finding answers in your industry. Be the expert.

Create A Personal Connection and Build Trust

When you establish yourself as an industry leader, by providing consistent and helpful information, you build trust with your customers or clients. By combining blogs with social media strategies, you’ll improve connection and trust with your audience through conversational, and educational, writing. Building trust improves your brand, and expands your reach, as clients and customers share positive experiences with family, friends, colleagues, and social networks.

If your business website doesn’t have a blog, or section of your site, dedicated to providing educational materials, you could be missing out on opportunities to increase leads and grow your business. Use blogging as a marketing strategy to increase sales, improve SEO rankings, and establish your company as an industry leader.

We understand creating fresh content on a consistent basis can be challenging when you’re running a business. That’s why we’re here to help. At Digital C4, we offer blogging and SEO services to increase traffic and improve your search rankings. Contact us for more information on how we can create fresh blog content to grow your business.

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Photo credit to markus spiske.

Large businesses may appear as though they have it easy with big marketing budgets and access to services. Small businesses may think they can’t compete with tiny or nonexistent budgets. In reality, with a little creativity and knowledge of your customer base, you can learn to produce the right content to reach your audience.

Don’t let budget constraints limit you from marketing to your customers and driving results. Whether your marketing budget is large or small, use the following content marketing tips to increase awareness and improve sales on any budget.

1. Share Your Knowledge

People love reading productivity hacks or learning new tools to make their life easier. Share tools you use to do your job or write “How To” articles to explain a process. These articles are popular online and often shared via social media. Start with the basics of sharing what you already know. Just be sure to try and solve real world problems; baseless content does little to add value.

2. Utilize Available Content

Infographics are a great way to share information in a colorful, engaging way. However, they’re not always affordable to produce. If you’re on a limited budget, look for infographics already completed by other companies and write about them. Embed the image in your article and link to their research and findings. It’s a smart way to be resourceful on a budget.

3. Summarize Gated Information

Distill gated campaign assets into smaller blog post summaries. This allows consumers ungated access to some of your content while whetting their appetite for more information. In turn, you’re given multiple ways to use available content.

4. Present Information with SlideShare

Convert PowerPoint presentations into SlideShare posts and embed them into your blog. These offer your audience a visual way to click-through content and digest information at their pace. They’re also a great alternative to lengthy blog posts by appealing to your audience with colorful pictures and bite-sized information. Be sure to check out some of our more popular SlideShares:

• Website Migration SEO Best Practices Checklist
• Adwords Best Practices
• Content Optimization Best Practices

5. Spin Content from Popular Topics

Spin your content to relate to popular TV shows or movies. By weaving aspects of popular shows into your content, you’ll connect with your audience and peak their curiosity to keep reading. Reference current favorites such as Game of Thrones, Mad Men, or Star Wars and notice your audience engagement increase.

6. Tap into Internal Experience

Your customer service and sales reps are on the front lines answering questions and hearing customer complaints and praises. Ask them where customer pain points exist and create fresh content based on FAQ. When customers have a positive experience, share their story and highlight why your product or service helped them overcome their challenges. By sharing positive, real-life stories and addressing custom pain points you’ll engage your audience in a positive way.

Whether your content budget is zero or you’re delivered a blank check, content marketing is possible on any budget with creativity and knowledge of your audience. Peak their interest with current topics and use great visuals to share information. By providing usable content, you’ll drive results, increase sharing, and improve your sales.

To increase readability and social shares, a few important elements are necessary for success. Improve your content effectiveness by using these tips for your next blog writing project.

Use an Engaging Headline

A catchy headline is one of the first steps to attracting readers to your blog. A great headline will increase the odds of your content being read and shared by a larger audience.

The title should be useful, eye-catching, and intriguing to the reader. Some suggest spending half the time curating your headline as you would writing your blog post.

For help on determining the best headline, a tool like the CoSchedule Headline Analyzer can grade your headlines on effectiveness, emotional appeal, and unique words.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is important! Be sure to use some of your website’s SEO-based keywords. Keywords should be used intelligently throughout the post where they make sense for readership (not for Google) but certainly a key piece of real estate for keyword use is the headline (and subheads as well).

Include Visuals Where They Make Sense

We live in a visual world. Our brains are drawn to colorful pictures and images that hold our attention spans longer than words on a page. Because of this, every successful blog post should include visual content where appropriate.

We always include a photo at the top of our blog and you should too! Images throughout the post can help explain the information you’re presenting. So too can graphs, charts, quotes, or Infographics that can attract the reader and help them comprehend and retain information.

Be as Relevant as You Can

Your topics should be relevant and helpful to your readers. Blogs can be written with curated content, but blogs seasoned with new ideas offer greater value to be shared with others. If you do curate content be sure to add in some valuable thinking and build on the ideas of others.

Research your topic to know what others are saying, but don’t be afraid to chime in with your own opinions. Your readers are interested in hearing your experience so don’t be afraid to do so. Offer your audience relevant, noteworthy information to make it worth their time to engage.

Organize Your Thoughts

Free writing is a great exercise to get words on paper, but take the time to organize your thoughts before you hit publish. If your blog is scattered, readers will be less likely to understand the point you’re trying to communicate and they’ll likely lose interest.

Open with an engaging paragraph to draw the reader’s attention. Follow the opening paragraph by organizing your thoughts into main points to back up your message. Present organized information under headers and conclude with a call to action. Remember your English Composition teacher as he drilled the important of a sound opening thesis to help the reader better engage? Well… that applies to blog posts as well (IMHO).

Format Your Content For Scanning

When your thoughts are organized, your blog can be formatted for easy scanning. As readers click on your blog, they’ll first scan for headings, bullet points, images, and sub-headings. If these topics grab their attention, they’ll likely continue reading the rest of your content.

By formatting your blog for scanning and including images, readers know what information you’re presenting and where to locate what’s important to them; it might different for each reader.

Focus On Quality

An engaging headline and interesting images won’t guarantee success without quality content. Relevant topics engage your readers and providing quality material elevates your status as an expert in your field.

Focus on providing quality over quantity. One quality blog post per week is better than five mediocre posts. Edit your content for accuracy and continue editing until perfect. Quality matters.

End With Call-To-Action

After you present relevant information to your readers with visuals and proper formatting, your conclusion should tell the reader what to do next.

A call to action can offer where to find additional information or how to access your products or services. It can also ask a question to create engagement with your readers by encouraging them to respond in the comments below your post. Reiterate the value and purpose of your article by making their next action clear.

To create successful blog posts, build a strategy for content creation. When you focus on relevant topics and quality content, you’ll connect with your audience while establishing your brand and thought-leadership. Your content marketing efforts will pay off with better results and more reader engagement.

Due to this boom in popularity, mobile ads and landing pages can no longer be treated similarly to desktop advertising. Mobile users expect fast response time, clear directions, and optimized web pages.

To increase conversions when a mobile user clicks on your ad, your landing pages should offer the same simplicity and ease of use. The following are a few reasons mobile landing pages lead to greater conversion rates for mobile ad campaigns.

Mobile Landing Pages Save Time

A landing page built for desktop users may contain images, video, and creative content which are slow to load for mobile users. While a desktop user may browse this information, a mobile user doesn’t have the time or patience to wait and zoom in or scroll on a small screen.

Mobile landing pages load faster when they don’t contain Flash or large images. If your landing page causes a mobile user to wait more than 5 seconds to load – your chances of losing a lead increase. More sobering, a one-second delay can equal a 7% loss in conversions.

Keep in mind, a mobile user could be browsing from Wi-Fi, 4G LTE, or 3G services. The faster your page loads on the slowest service, the better off you’ll be when users browse on faster services. To know where you stand, test the speed of your site by using Google’s PageSpeed Insights.

Mobile Landing Pages Contain Brief Content

Desktop landing pages load slow on mobile devices mainly because they contain more information than a mobile user needs. When a mobile user clicks on your ad and is taken to your landing page, the content should include your keywords, but keep it brief. They should know on one page what you’re offering and what action they need to take.

Titles for mobile landing pages should be short with 3-4 words and bullet points reduced to two or three. Fast loading images can be used, but should not fill the whole page and distract a user with too many features.

A mobile landing page written in the voice of the customer with brief content will engage the mobile user and lead to higher conversion rates.

Mobile Landing Pages and Calls-To- Action

On desktops, users may click “Download Now,” but this call to action doesn’t apply to mobile users. Your CTA on a mobile landing page should be clear, immediate, and accessible on the first page.

A mobile landing page may include multiple CTA buttons such as “Shop Now” or “Call for info”. A “Call Now” button is unique to mobile landing pages and provides clear direction to gain an immediate response.

To generate mobile leads, keep requests for information simple such as their name and email. Mobile users are less likely to complete long forms and provide extensive information.

By optimizing your landing page to be mobile-friendly, you’ll gain the trust and attention of mobile users by marketing specific to their needs.

The number of mobile users is growing daily and cannot be ignored. To increase conversion rates on your mobile ads, a mobile landing page is likely necessary. Faster load times, simplified content, and specific calls-to-action for mobile users will increase your authority in the market and increase the quality of your leads.

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Photo credit to William Hook.

Google has heard the cries of mobile users and is responding by rolling out new changes this month.

Upcoming Changes

Google recently announced they’re making another big change starting April 21^st which will have a significant impact on mobile search results. On this date, websites worldwide will be required to be mobile-friendly to rank higher in mobile searches.

This widespread move by Google isn’t a surprise (they hinted at this back in November).

It makes sense when you see statistics on millennials where 50% use their smartphones to research products or services while shopping and 41% purchased products while using their smartphone. Online searches via cell phones topped desktop searches in recent years and will continue to rise.

The good news is mobile searches and shopping will become much easier for all of us. The bad news is some of us might have extra work to do to keep up.

Is Your Website Mobile-Friendly?

Google has taken out the guessing by providing a handy Mobile-Friendly Test to check if your website is mobile ready. Simply enter your URL and Google will scan for errors.

If your site passes the test, congratulations, you have nothing to worry about! If your site doesn’t pass, Google will let you know what errors need to be fixed. Don’t be surprised if you receive an error listed on their common mistakes list.

What If Your Website Isn’t Mobile-Friendly?

If your website comes up with errors, your ranking on mobile searches will be affected starting April 21^st. It will be important to address these issues as soon as possible. Current Mobile-friendly websites may experience an increase in mobile rankings after April 21^st while those that are not ready will notice a decline.

If your website is built on a template, make sure your template is updated with the most current version. Updates may have been made to your template to fix mobile issues.

Or, if your website is built or managed by a developer, contact your developer for more information on how to get your website ready. Google has provided tools to help including a Guide to Mobile-Friendly Websites.

Just as the Penguin and Panda updates made us improve how we do business, this change will bring improvements to support the growing mobile community. Google is leading the way and giving us a good reason to keep up with the increasing amounts of mobile users.

The April 21^st deadline will be here soon. Is your website ready?

“Why should I outsource our blog writing to an agency when I can get our employees to do if for free?”

This is a logical question to be sure, but given the number of blog management clients we’re currently working with it’s a question with a solid answer. Here are 6 reasons to outsource your blog writing and management to an agency (or at least to us fine folks at Digital C4):

1. We keep our deadlines so you keep a consistent, steady stream of content to your site. If you’re in charge of your company blog you know how difficult it is to keep people on schedule when it comes to writing. Heck, just take a look at some company blogs online and you’ll see for yourself. First you’ll see once a week or more. Then twice a month. Then once a month. Then you’ll notice that the last post was 3 months ago. Our blogging clients enjoy consistent and ongoing content populating their blog. It’s our worry, not yours!

2. We deliver optimized content that works hard for your website. Writing content is one thing. Writing content with SEO best practices in mind is yet another. Delivering content that is optimized for the keywords that drive prospects and customers to your site is what we do. Each blog post comes fully equipped (standard… no upcharge here) with recommended Meta data, outbound links, and even social media post recommendations to make your life easy. If you provide your social media login credentials to us we’ll even push your social media posts for you when we make your blog post live.

3. We won’t run out of topic ideas. It’s not easy to keep a steady stream of blog topics coming in, but we’ll never run out of ideas for a blog. Why? Well for starters it’s our job! We’ve honed the skills it takes to cull the Interwebs for curation opportunities, so that we can deliver content that speaks to your prospects and customers in your voice, with your brand tone, consistently.

4. We help get the social media conversation started. Not only do we recommend social media posts for your channels – Facebook, Twitter, Google +, or otherwise – but we share your posts at social media sites like relevant LinkedIn Groups, StumbleUpon, Reddit and other industry niche sites that might be relevant for your organization. This helps initiate dialogue and drive relevant traffic to your posts.

5. We can eliminate the overhead associated with managing your blog in house. Depending on the extent of your blogging effort you may have one dedicated person responsible for its content. This person costs money in the form of salary, taxes, benefits, etc. When you outsource your blog management to an agency like Digital C4, this overhead goes away. Whether you use one person or many, you can eliminate the time they’re devoted to blog content and leave that worry to seasoned professionals who have your best interest in mind.

6. We can manage your blog, not just your content. We can provide a soup-to-nuts blog management process that includes creation (design and programming) of your blog, promotion and marketing of your blog, writing and creating content for your blog, and the regular updating and maintenance of your blog as well. Weeding out the spam comments from those that should be posted can be time consuming. We can handle the full circle needs of your blog so you don’t have to.

Blogging is anything but a dinosaur today. The importance of online content for Internet visibility is paramount and a company blog is a great tool to introduce this content. It can play an important role in your website SEO, in your PR efforts, even in building company culture and your hiring needs. A company blog doesn’t have to be a daunting task, unless you want it to be.

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Image by FabSubeject.

Getting Readers Attention

Before worrying about your reader’s loyalty, you need to get their attention. Social media is an excellent way to access potential readers, and it’s completely free. This can be done on both personal and professional levels. If your personal network or friends have similar interests as you, get them involved in helping you promote your work-related content. It stands to reason that they have friends who have the same interests, so it’s an easy and fruitful network to tap into. You can also develop Twitter, Facebook, or Tumblr accounts fairly quickly and easily, that can help you create networks of relevant social media users. And finally, don’t discount those social media aggregators out there. I still find value in sharing content at Reddit, Delicious, Digg and StumbleUpon and perhaps most importantly, LinkedIn Groups of relevance.

Create Great Content

Once you have a source for readers, you need to focus on creating great content. Remember that writing is much more than great subject matter. You need proper formatting and website readability. Your goal is to be as informative as possible in short excerpts. Your blog shouldn’t read like classic literature; avoid longwinded passages. Webpages operate more efficiently when someone can scan the page and find the information they’re interested in easily.

Give your readers plenty of room between entries as well. Headers and sub-headers that are clumped together aren’t easy on the eyes and act like road blocks to your site’s visual mobility.

Search Engine Optimization

Search engine optimization (SEO) is another essential element to getting your content read. Determine which keywords readers are using in Google and use them throughout the article. Keep in mind that there is a wrong way to do this. Regardless of how many times you repeat phrases like “Best Denver burgers,” the content should read naturally. You always need to write for your audience and not search engines, but following SEO 101 best practices for content optimization is always in your best interest.

Use Images

Use visuals to keep readers engaged. There are plenty of sites that have vast reservoirs of public domain images you can purchase at cheap prices. And there are free image sources such as Creative Commons at Flickr. Find pictures related to your subject matter to break up the content and keep people interested.

Make sure your most important information is also most accessible. Highlighting the most important aspects of your writing can be done a couple of ways. One example is the first sentence of this paragraph. Set apart important facts by using bold (or even italic) text. As stated above readers do a lot of scanning and bold text stands out. The second thing you should do is keep the most crucial information at the beginning of each paragraph.

These are crucial steps to gaining and keeping readers. Test your site’s readability on a friend or colleague. If they squint at the screen trying to read your content then there’s probably something you could be doing better. There are tons of sites competing with you, so make sure your page is well designed with a smart color pallet. Great subject matter doesn’t deserve to drown in a poorly planned site.

1. Conversion Optimization #1

Mark Casey, Hanapin Marketing

http://www.momentology.com/2469-paid-search-trends-2015-top-ppc-predictions-from-the-experts/

“In 2013, our survey showed a surging interest in conversion rate optimization (CRO), specifically landing page optimization, and that certainly proved to be true this year. CRO was still reported to be the biggest area of focus for 2015, and that coupled with the higher interest in automation should result in a great year for software companies and A/B testing tools like Unbounce or Optimizely.”

Neil Patel, QuickSprout

http://www.quicksprout.com/2015/01/05/10-marketing-predictions-you-should-prepare-for-in-2015/

“It’s how they (companies) are going to combat the increases in advertising costs. Everyone knows they are going up, and the only solution is to increase your conversion rate.”

2. Top 2 Positions Ramp Up Heated Battle

Andrew Goodman, PageZero Media
http://www.momentology.com/2469-paid-search-trends-2015-top-ppc-predictions-from-the-experts/
“Partly by design, partly by evolution, Google in particular has built in a lot of incentive to gun for top spots. They take up more screen real estate than ever, and have the potential to convey significant trust cues based on the growing variety of appealing ad extensions that advertisers can qualify for. If you can afford it, that’s great; it’s a barrier to entry. If you fall short, you’re on the wrong side of the moat.”

3. The Rise of Shopping Campaigns

Practical eCommerce

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/78127-3-PPC-Advertising-Trends-in-2015-for-Ecommerce

“This was the top story in ecommerce PPC in 2014. Google initially called these Product Listing Ads. Google renamed, to “Shopping Campaigns,” in October. These ads greatly impacted search engine result pages.” “In 2015, we will likely continue to see improvements and refinements from AdWords and Bing Ads around product listings — yes, Bing Ads also offers “Product Ads.””

4. Remarketing Ads Will Grow

Practical eCommerce

http://www.practicalecommerce.com/articles/78127-3-PPC-Advertising-Trends-in-2015-for-Ecommerce

“Remarketing ads are spreading like wildfire. That product on Amazon you were viewing could follow you on Facebook and around the web for days in the form of ads. The product will be right there in the ad unit and will reflect the current price, which frequently is lower than you remember.”

5. Mobile Advertising Continues Growth

Justin Freid, CMI/Compas

http://www.momentology.com/2469-paid-search-trends-2015-top-ppc-predictions-from-the-experts/

“Not only will we begin seeing the share of ad spend and clicks hedging toward mobile even more than before but we’ll learn even more information about our audience on mobile devices. By leveraging location data, we can get a deeper understanding of who the searcher is, where they shop, where they linger, how far they travel for certain products and services and hopefully, we can leverage behavioral and location-based data for search programs.”

I’d say that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Remarketing and mobile have been trending up for some years and don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.

Shopping campaigns, if you have products that need to be sold online, are very important. With the real estate at the top of the SERP’s at an all-time importance you can draw attention to your products in a very real way with Shopping Campaigns. Your competitors are going to do them. Don’t be left wondering why your text ads are trending down.

Lastly, my top two go hand in hand. Conversion rates skyrocket when your ads show in the top two positions. All our client data agrees with these top 2 trends. There’s more to getting in the top 2 than just throwing money at it. Likewise, there’s more to conversion than being in the top positions. But, make no mistake, as CPC’s go up, and the cost of marketing goes up, it’s going to be more important than ever to focus on Conversion Optimization.

Do you have questions? Do you need assistance with strategy or execution of your PPC efforts? We’d love to talk.

Setting up a PPC campaign in Google AdWords isn’t all that hard. Google does a great job of walking you through the basics of each step to get a campaign up and running. Add your site, pick your location targeting, setup your first ad, add some keywords, and then enter your billing information. Creating your ad campaign is not the hard part. It’s making sure that your ads, and Google AdWords in general, are working as hard as they can for your business. You’re paying to run ads after all, and Google will take your money if your campaigns are optimized or not. So, let’s look at some things that will help you be more successful right from the start. But first, here is a graphic showing you the basic structure or your AdWords PPC account.

Let’s jump into some important things to do to get your account off to a great start.

Ad Groups

Break up your targeted keywords into small groups that bring similar keywords together to show one ad. For instance, instead of having 30 keyword phrases that all have the word “vacations” in them, break those 30 keywords into 3 ad groups of 10 where the 1^st ad group might focus on “family vacations”, 2^nd ad group focuses on “European vacations”, and 3^rd “Disney vacations”. Now you can write an ad for each of these groups that better target the entire group of keywords. This will also help drive up Quality Score, which we’ll talk about another time. Better than Quality Score though is the fact that you’ll be serving a more relevant add to the user.

Writing Ads

There are many articles out there on how to right a good ad for Google AdWords. I will just say this, make sure you’re using your keywords in your ads. This will increase click through rates (CTR) by increasing the ad relevance in the eye of the user. When you, as a user, search for something, using a keyword phrase, do you not immediately see the terms on the page that you just searched for? Google even bolds the phrase on the SERP. Lastly, using keywords in ads will, again, drive up keywords quality scores. More here on why Quality Score is important.

Sitelinks Ad Extension

Sitelinks are additional links that Google will display below your ad, increasing your chances of getting a click, increasing the amount of real estate your brand takes up on the page, and ultimately increases your chances of gaining a conversion. As you can see in the example below, Nike has 4 sitelinks below their ad. Where are you going to click? I’d probably go straight to Men’s Shoes. In my opinion, Nike’s just made it easier for me to find what I want.

You can add sitelinks to your campaigns using the Ad Extensions tab in your Google AdWords account.

Location Ad Extension

If you’re a “local” business, or you have multiple “local” business, you’ll want to make sure you’re adding a Location Extension for each of your locations. A Location Extension will allow your ads to be shown in Google Maps searches, including Mobile Maps, and display an address link on your ads. You’ll want to setup a Campaign for each of your business locations. For instance, if you’re a hair salon and you have locations in Seattle, Portland, and San Francisco, you’ll want to have a campaign for each location, THEN a location extension for each of those campaigns.

Call Ad Extension

If you’re a business that likes to receive phone calls then you’ll definitely want to setup a Call Extension. The call extension will place a “click to call” phone number next to your ad. Gone are the days of adding your phone number to your in ad text.

And finally…

Custom Ad Scheduling

You may want your ad to run 24/7/365, but most businesses don’t. Playing with the custom ad scheduling feature on your campaigns can help you target just the right time of day for your audience. Here are some things you can do:

• Specify certain hours and/or days of the week when you want your ads to show
• Set bid adjustments to increase or decrease your bids for specific days and times

If you don’t tell Google anything then it will assume you want to “Show ads all days and hours.”

If you take all of these actions after the basic setup of your account you will be ahead of the game right from the start.

If you have any questions, or need assistance, please feel free to reach out!

• The best way to set up a PPC campaign – what to consider and how to start
• Tips and tricks for getting the most out of your PPC campaign
• Ongoing optimization – how to steadily improve results over time

So let’s start by covering campaign goals and objectives…

Our competitors are all over page one of Google and we need to be too!

We need more leads and more site traffic ASAP!

These are fairly common client requests and I’m sure other agencies can attest, but before diving into an Adwords or PPC endeavor we recommend a more strategic discussion over campaign goals and objectives. There are many ways to use Google Adwords to meet a host of marketing goals, so before diving in it’s a good idea to step back and try and determine the best way forward.

Ask yourself a few important questions…

What is your number one goal with your PPC campaign? Is it driving traffic to your site? Is it driving leads or form fills? Is it just a branding or awareness effort? Each of these goals requires focus on a different metric, as well as requiring some unique campaign needs, so it’s important to know. You also need to have a good handle on what your monthly budget will be, since different keywords have different costs-per-click, which can affect your targeting. Let’s break this all down.

If you want to drive more traffic to your site, then you’ll want to focus on ad click-through-rate (CTR). While a key metric for any PPC campaign, for driving traffic (or clicks) it by name is paramount. Normally, we’d recommend marketing landing pages optimized for conversion as well, but in the case of increasing traffic to your site we recommend optimizing your site for conversion. Sites typically won’t convert as well as targeted landing pages, but that’s irrelevant when you just want traffic to your site.  Maximizing your campaign CTR requires a smart balance between keyword usage and delivering smart ads that engage people. You need to have a good balance of keywords as well – from broad (tend to be more expensive) to longer tail (tend to cost less and drive more relevant traffic, but get fewer clicks). This requires ongoing testing; something we’ll cover in a subsequent post on PPC best practices.

As part of writing ad copy, like any direct response tactic you’ll want a good offer. This can be a whitepaper, discount, or giveaway. It could simply be a smart headline that draws engagement. Whatever your ‘hook’ is you’ll want to test it against others to maximize ad performance.

If your campaign goal is to drive leads and form fills then you’ll want to focus on conversions as your key metric. To improve conversions you need to focus on your landing page environment. Follow landing page best practices to make sure people aren’t bouncing, and keep responders laser-focused on completing the form.

If you campaign goal is awareness, then you’ll want to focus on a couple of metrics, including impressions and ad position. Of course ad position is important across the board, but if you’re only focused on awareness where your ad appears is paramount. You may also want to consider the Google display network, where your ads appear as text ads across Google’s vast network of websites. These ads tend to convert less and generate fewer clicks, but they get a ton of impressions, which is what awareness is all about.

We’ll cover some best practices, tips and tactics to help you optimize for each of these metrics in subsequent posts, so come back soon. The bottom line, however, is that you need to establish your campaign goals and then develop a plan to meet those goals. Like any marketing channel, PPC and Adwords can play a leading role, a supporting role, or perhaps no role at all. Which role depends ultimately on your campaign objectives and goals.

Before diving in here I want to take a brief moment to define (in my mind) what dynamic content is. Websites are made up mostly of static content; static because it’s likely been there a while without change. Most websites are made up of mostly static content, which isn’t necessarily a good thing, but it is common.

Dynamic content is fresh. Blog posts, videos, content streams that make their way onto pages of your site. This is the content that most people prefer to consume. Sure prospects are going to read some of that static content to understand what you do and maybe how you do it. At the end of the day, however, this dynamic content is generally more engaging and paints a clearer picture in your prospect’s mind as to who you really are.

This dynamic content is critical for search engine optimization (SEO). In fact, many of the Google algorithm adjustments over the past couple of years have put (greater) emphasis on dynamic content. Well written blogs and helpful videos (as example) that add new content to your website can have a huge impact on search rankings, site traffic, user engagement, and overall online brand visibility. When paired with social media outreach, dynamic content can really help your business.

While SEO has certainly evolved considerably over the last few years there are still SEO 101 best practices that can have an impact on your site’s success and one of those is on-page optimization. Using Meta titles and descriptions, alt image tags for imagery, smart use of keywords in body copy, and effective interlinking can all boost SEO impact.

Take a look around the internet and you’ll see many companies large and small that do a good job at SEO. Their static pages are following SEO 101 best practices with good use of keywords. And many do a great job of adding dynamic content regularly – blogs, videos and the like. But there’s a problem, AND we see it every day! These companies are not working closely with their SEO agency.

I’m not sure where the disconnect is here, but it needs to be fixed.

What do I mean? Well, while it’s nice to see steady streams of dynamic content, it needs to be optimized like the rest of the static content on your site or it’s not working up to its full potential. Has your SEO agency provided Meta data and optimization recommendations for that latest blog post? How about your most recent video?

To check, just right click on one of those pieces of dynamic content. Choose the ‘view page source’ option and look for a Meta title and description. Chances are you’ll see the video or blog title as the default title, but take a closer look at the description. Is it auto generated or cut off or not there at all?

We’ve seen this lack of optimization from some of the largest companies in the world right on down to the small startups. They understand the importance of dynamic, engaging content yet they fail to optimize it like the rest of their site.

Don’t forget to include your SEO agency. We call this GapSEO and its part of our SEO offerings to all our clients. They just send along their content as it’s being created and we turn around SEO recommendations. When they implement their content they include (or not) our recommended Meta data and other suggestions so that it works harder.

Make that valuable dynamic content work harder by using those SEO 101 best practices. And help your SEO agency help you!

Even if you’ve never held much stock in search engine optimization strategy and tactics (and I get that there are naysayers out there), if you’re site’s been around for any length of time it likely ranks on key terms and phrases that help people navigate your way. Depending on the type of site upgrade you’re making, the changes that inherently come with any site alteration can potentially have a big impact on whether you retain your current search engine rankings. Navigation changes, new page elements, URL naming; all of these can change in a new site, opening a potential hole through which your search engine traffic (and possible new business) can escape.

Check out one of our more popular SlideShares – Website Migration SEO Best Practices Checklist. In it we provide a fairly detailed pre-migration checklist along with 12 SEO best practices for site migrations. There are also some helpful tools at the end that can help keep your migration on course and your SEO intact.

Good luck!

Embed:

Twitter is a great place

SEO- Search Engine Optimization- Are Magic 8 Balls required?

— sandra sizemore (@sandra_sizemore) May 13, 2014

While a real Magic 8 Ball would certainly help what is really needed are content and a strong grasp of SEO best practices. Unfortunately for people in the SEO space it often feels like magic is needed. Why? I’d guess it’s the cloud of uncertainty around the changes Google makes to their algorithm; it keeps you guessing what changes you need to make to your SEO approach. What is or was considered a standard practice might soon be a black flag. This doesn’t create a stable industry to be sure.

There is no one single method of search engine optimization, but using meta tags is a good start.

— Edgar Seyler (@edgarseyler) May 11, 2014

Meta data is one the most important factors for proper optimization. It’s the ‘1’ in SEO 101 and its most certainly a best practice that needs to be followed. Use keywords intelligently in Meta tags, titles and descriptions and try not to optimize a single webpage for more than two keywords.

Blogging is your road to search engine optimization

— PRomoshin (@IvorMoyo) May 12, 2014

We’ve stated all along that blogging is a great foundation for search engine optimization success. That said I’d say that any well-planned, well-written content can also play an important role. In fact, with the content options available today I’d think more holistically. Blogging to be sure can play a major role, but there’s also press releases, eNewsletters, eBooks, whitepapers, other value-added content that lives on your site. There are also other media channels that can lead searchers back to you and your brand, so think outside your website to places like YouTube, SlideShare, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Google Plus to name a few.

#SEO Tip:Important keywords should exist in title, H1-6, META description, and in the URL #google #bing

— Web SEO Analytics (@webseoanalytics) May 14, 2014

Absolutely! If you can get a main keyword in all these places you’ll naturally do well for organic search – especially the URL. Be sure not to keyword stuff though, and make sure the keyword is relevant to the copy on the page. If there’s a disconnect there, it likely won’t matter what that keyword is.

Plan your inbound marketing efforts and set goals. Don’t just say “I’m going to do some SEO and social marketing” #MagentoImagine

— Joshua Warren (@JoshuaSWarren) May 14, 2014

I’d say this is true with almost any profession today. ‘Plan your work and work your plan’ has been part of my business vernacular since my first job out of college, and that job was not in marketing at all.

If you work in PR and you’ve never struck up a conversation with your search engine optimization team, there has never been a better time…

— Charles GROS (@GrosCharles) May 20, 2014

We do domain analysis’ all the time here at C4, and when we look at the results we often see some duplicate Meta data creep its way into the report, and it’s almost always in the press section of the website. PR folks do a great job of creating content (press releases are great!) but they don’t necessarily optimize the posts before pushing them live. Ask the PR folks to shoot over that release prior to pushing it to the site. You can add Meta data recommendations and maybe even get a keyword in the title or subhead. Beyond simple press release optimization, PR is moving more and more towards social media, and so is SEO. You’re going to meet there at some point, might as well plan your rendezvous ahead of time to make the most of it.

The one thing about Twitter that disappointed me and its likely everywhere and not just SEO, was the incredible amount of spam. At least three of every 6 or 7 tweets out there was a company or person touting how great they are at SEO. Come on people… we’re better than that. At least share some good content and show us all how good you are.

Ok … I don’t expect content marketing grommets of recent employ to get this Henny Youngman reference in the title, but my hope is that the words stand alone as an offer that both neophytes and know-betters can’t refuse in their rush to impress or fill space.

You see, along with the content marketing hype machine comes the churn of blogs, eBooks, infographics, white papers, videos and other vehicles all destined for the digital landfill because they shared the common trait of being untethered and painfully unencumbered by even a modicum of strategy or end goal.

You know how these conversations start because you are either forced to start them or weather them from above.

Witness: “We need a thought leadership blog.” “We need a video!” “I need you to write an eBook.” “Can you create an infographic for us?”

Need proof that chasing a content format or tactic isn’t working?

Try this:

Current data puts anywhere from 60 to 80 percent all content being created in business-to-business companies in the unread pile.

A not-so-gentle reminder to know your audience first

The pitfalls of falling into tactics before having a strategy are as old as marketing itself, I know, but in the age of “We need a Facebook page/LinkedIn Profile/Twitter handle/Instagram or Vine account,” it warrants this passionate plea:

Please, for the love of all that is good and right in the world, let’s start with a plan complete with a beginning, a middle and a measurable end before settling on what we need to do or how you’re going to do it.

Before you create anything …

I suggested last time – aided by the wisdom of Joe Pulizzi of the Content Marketing Institute – that having a point in the form of a Content Mission Statement is a good place to start. After you know what you intend to do with your content, let’s also agree to start content planning sessions by doing this or something like it before attacking the keyboard:

 1. Review recent sales data to understand the buying stages for your product, the most common buyer titles, content consumption patterns, and key influencer/decision maker requirements during the sales process.

2. Ask questions like this in relevant industry, title or topical groups in LinkedIn and Quora: “What information do you need before you make a significant purchase at work?”

3. Research content preference data to get a sense for what your prospects might want instead of what you believe they need.

4. Ask current and former customers which types of content helped them become purchasers.

5. Use this information to inform a content creation and distribution strategy tied to an editorial calendar, and then bring it all together in an integrated marketing plan.

In an effort to payoff my headline for this post and give you a head start on #5, I created this SlideShare deck for you: A proven content marketing strategy ready to steal + an offer to lend a hand. In this presentation, you’ll find not only proven content mix for each buyer stage, but also the inbound and email lead nurturing plan I use to increase sales-accepted leads and pipeline revenue for clients. Take a look and if the presentation proves useful, take it. If not, let’s talk soon so we can make it work for you.  As always, if you need market or buyer persona research and content execution assistance, send me a email or let’s connect on Twitter.

For those of you with a better way or some thoughts to add on how to create content that helps people solve a business problem, fire away below.

If you work in the digital marketing space, even in the slightest, then you’re certainly aware of the many changes that Google has imparted on us over the course of 2013 and most certainly to impart throughout 2014. Almost all of them have changed the course of search engine optimization and emphasized good, well-written content in some way. Penguin, Panda, Hummingbird are all designed to show more relevant search results, which is, in some facet or another, contingent on ultimately showing better content.

Now I certainly condone, recognize, and preach the smart use of Meta data and on-page SEO tactics there does exists (IMHO) the need to shift from what has been termed SEARCH engine optimization (SEO) to what needs to be WEBSITE optimization (WSO). What’s the difference? I like to think about from a user experience. Once you have your on-page SEO 101 stuff nailed down start to think about ways to improve your site so that your users benefit most.

1. Site speed – If you have page load issues, well… you need to fix them. You can use a simple tool that Google provides called Google Page Speed. Bottom line here… the longer your pages take to load the less attractive they are to both Google and your visitors.

2. Share good content – If your homepage is nothing more than an advertisement, people are likely not to stick around. You can see this pretty clearly in your site’s bounce rate. For a blog a higher bounce rate (60% or higher) may be okay, but for a website this simply means that people are not engaged. Check out what happened to our own website when we started putting blog content front and center. The numbers are pretty remarkable!

3. It’s about the leads – Almost all corporate websites are in place to attract new customers. It’s the online store front to attract customers. With that said there are a LOT of websites out there that do nothing to bring people in. There’s no call-to-action, no offers, no content to pull people in. It’s easy to change that by providing compelling offers or gated content on the homepage, above the fold. It’s also important to change out the offers periodically so they’re fresh.

4. People buy from people – This sounds sort of old-school cliché, but I believe it still holds water today. I think having real faces of the company adorning website pages can add real value to building strong relationships. We do it by featuring blog author headshots on the blogs that we feature on our homepage. These authors are the face of Digital C4. They’re who our clients work with day in and day out. Sure… if you sell printers you’ll need to have product imagery, but try showcasing some people with those printers and see what happens.

5. Think mobile – More and more people are accessing websites via their mobile devices or tablets. In fact personally I don’t log onto a computer or laptop at all on the weekend these days (for the most part). My internet access is done completely by smartphone or tablet. Understanding how your website displays and works from a mobile device is critical today. Responsive web design is a must!

These are just 5 ways to think about website optimization that can improve your SEO. You’ll be seeing some changes on our own site that will shift our focus away from SEARCH and into WEBSITE. Getting your website to work for you, and most notably your audience, will be the key for 2014 and beyond. Think WSO and not SEO! Stay tuned…

In this case “the plan” was more of a general aggravation and fear that lingered over four months and ended with a simple answer for saving Content Marketing from itself before it’s too late.
Does it need saving, you ask?

I think it does. Why? Content in my sometimes-humble opinion has been kidnapped from the words information or knowledge as a way to capture marketing budget, justify headcount and hopefully generate leads that don’t get kicked back from sales as worthless.

I’ve spent equal parts of my career in the information management and information creation and distribution worlds long enough to be literally at war with myself. The conflict is one we as marketers and the people we market to all face: too much information coming at us from everyplace we lay our eyes or lend our ears actually retards our decision-making process. And yet, there is a very real need for our companies to share the information that helps people solve problems and hopefully, buy products as an end result. So … yeah … it’s taken four months to figure this out but the answer is …

But first … a Twitter beat down and a hand up

I took to the socialsphere for answers. It’s a place I tend to go off half-cocked with intent. This was no exception.

I proposed to people in the content field I trust and admire with:

“Is Content Marketing on its way to becoming B.S?”
Needless to say … people like Lee Odden at Top Rank rightfully put me in my place with “It’s sweeping generalizations that are B.S.” with an RT +1 from m’pal @CarmenHill All stiff arms deserved and welcomed.

Admittedly, articulating a point on content glut and how to save the term “Content Marketing” from itself – if it’s worth saving — in 140 characters is perilous at best. Other bright minds like Eric Wittlake offered guidance (probably because he felt sorry for me) on saving not necessarily content marketing from itself but people from being a part of the info-glut problem, in this way:

3. Stop thinking YOU will be THE source. Become a valued participant.  @wittlake 28 Aug

2. Google your “brand new” idea first. It probably isn’t new .  @wittlake 28 Aug

1. Stop publishing just because you “should”  @wittlake 28 Aug

Read  #1 again. Great, right? That was back in August. It wasn’t until Joe Pulizzi from the Content Marketing Institute made an appearance in my hometown earlier this month that I found the answer that could help us all help others. Brace yourself. The answer is …

Now … exactly what you didn’t want to hear

Don’t do anything.

– Don’t blog.

– Don’t hammer out an eBook

– Don’t shoot a video

– Don’t schedule a webinar

– Don’t take to Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook … until you do this first.

The answer, my friends … is “Have a point.”

OK … Joe didn’t actually say “have a point” but it was close.

He said: Develop a content mission statement.

When I’ve had to develop a content mission it usually starts with a series of questions:

– Who do I want to read the information I am creating?

– What do I want them to do with it?

– Where do I think they will most likely encounter this information?

– How will I deliver this information so it gets consumed?

– After this information is consumed, what next step do I want my people to take?

– What does “Mission Accomplished” look like?

I’ll give you an example of a mission statement created from these questions that you can steal, amend or ridicule as you see fit.

Who:  Chief Security Officers of Fortune 500 companies

What: Develop a business case for the CFO to purchase security products that keep data safe

Where: In IT security communities online and off, including LinkedIn, Twitter and live events

What Now?

What’s the next step? A completed presentation to hand off to the CFO with an organizational and financial business case for making a purchase decision.

Mission Accomplished = A perpetual increase in content requests, Resource Center/Download Center web traffic, speaking engagements and marketing qualified leads

Mission Statement: All information created and shared online and off with our customers and prospects has this objective: To help the chief security officer do their jobs more confidently, secure the budget for products and services he or she needs to keep company data safe, and, ultimately, spend more time with their families.
See the clutter that clears up for you as a content person when someone says we need a new blog post on Product X? or an eBook on Solution Y?

Read it. Learn it. Live it.

Here’s Joe’s Slideshare that I’m told is similar to the presentation I saw this month in Portland, Oregon, where he shows examples of mission statements that drive content strategy. Hint: “Get more leads” isn’t in there, but something like “help our customers do their jobs better and quickly take action” is.

Happy Holidays!

Mark

If you’re like me in these situations … you clamor for something familiar.

I made myself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

It soothed the soul and set the following in motion.

You and I both suffer through marketing in the modern world filled with tools, tips & twists of phrase about “delighting customers” and other such platitudinal garbage that sounds so wonderful.  We also know that cute language, a rat’s nest of software and a “5 things you can do …” blog post all do very little separately or even McGyver’d together to help us “delight” who we should be: our sales team and the CFO.

What proof do you have that what you do each day actually results in a bottom-line contribution to the companies where you work?

This is the roiling nausea I mentioned. Hang in there.

Our Nausea has a name: ROMI

It should come as no surprise that we came up with an acronym for our nausea … ROMI or Return on Marketing Investment. The nausea persists given the fact that the only way you can get a true handle on what you’ve spent and if it actually yielded any return is if all technology, tactics and talent are used to a accomplish a common goal.

If you’re in marketing that goal better be investing in finding prospects, giving both prospects and customers information in the time of need on how to prove their value at work and then keeping them out of your sales team’s hair until that person wants to buy something you sell.

True to form, we as marketers have overthought this endeavor and given names to each stage or even the tactic du jour with qualifiers like Inbound Marketing (Search, PPC, Social outreach, blogging, etc.) Content Marketing (the information we share with prospects) Event Marketing (where we try to meet prospects and Vanna White our wares) Email Marketing (but a single tool available to share information using list we have or purchase that hopefully contain people who want to hear from us) Direct mail marketing (the non-digital dinosaur that we seem to fear but secretly know its massive clutter-busting power).

Still nauseated? Me too.

The Cure for Marketing-induced Nausea: Quit Slicing & Dicing

Here’s your Modern Marketing PB&J … Stop dissecting everything you do and stitch it all back together.

This togetherness is vital not only in how we execute as marketers but how we speak about marketing to others – particularly our colleagues in sales and finance. Subtitles for players on a marketing team led many of the sales guys and gals I worked with to ask me: “How many of them are you and what do all of you do other than cost money?”

That need to always justify your existence is all the more reason to stop carving out our little specialties.  Let’s not divide and fail. Let’s unite and conquer instead. We are all marketers with one goal. To grow the lead funnel and qualify potential buyers that sales can then close.

With that being the case, I joined forces with Digital C4 last month as the head of the demand generation practice to unite these marketing functions under the same roof:

• Content creation
• Search Optimization
• Social distribution of information and other the top-of-the-funnel exercises
• Demand Generation strategy, execution and optimization to turn prospects into purchasers.

I’m more excited than I have ever been professionally at this moment because I am now part of an agency that is built in the way a marketing organization should function within the companies we serve. Together.

Digital C4 is poised like few agencies are today to help clients create a perpetual demand generation engine of inbound tactics interwoven with outbound marketing tools like a marketing automation platform.

With the engine built, we are poised to help you pack the top of the funnel via your existing lists, SEO of your existing web properties or downloadable assets, online campaigns and buyer-centric content development. Then we’ll help you flow it through your marketing automation platform so it serves as the ultimate qualifying or nurturing machine that has proven to yield a higher quality lead at a lower cost.

This is my promise to you solely and our promise to you as an agency.

Let’s get to work.

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Photo credit to ironypoisoning.

Breaking Bad Withdrawal Syndrome (BBWS).

Yeah, I am a mess, but thankfully … Breaking Bad creator Vince Gilligan’s recent visit to the Eloqua Experience stage in San Francisco did take a bit of the sting out with tidbits about characters that weren’t supposed to survive but did, and other salacious details about his Emmy-Winning program. Plus, he delivered a bonus reel of tips to marketing storytellers so they can use his tricks of the trade to be better and more believable.

It got me thinking about how we can create binge-worthy content for our prospects and customers. I’m under no illusion that Breaking Bad or other favorites of mine in the binge-worthy category like House of Cards or Orange is the New Black or Downton Abbey have a distinct advantage over us as marketers.  Aside from the mediums of television or its Internet equivalent Netflix, they are specifically designed to suspend reality with phantasmagoric moments to lose ourselves in. It certainly doesn’t hurt that binge-worthy also have at their disposal superb actors and state-of-the-universe cinematography and writing. Marketing content, even with celebrity endorsements, is in the reality business.

So then, what would it take to give a heavy dose of reality to a person on a journey of self-discovery of a different sort? The “What do I need to do my job better so I can keep it or get a better one?” journey.

A Recipe for Binge Worthiness

If you put your prospect in the protagonist Walter White position with a well-mapped out sense of that person’s fears, desires, common quirks and short-comings, there is absolutely no reason you or I can’t create episodic marketing content that holds attention and encourages a healthy addiction for the next installment.

Here are a few reasons why content becomes binge worthy and how you can put a dose of that into your own marketing content.

1. It satisfies a craving

2. It often has the ending written first

3. It serve a community before its creators

4. It does the unexpected

5. It has an unyielding commitment to be true its characters, its story and its desired outcome

6. It knows when to shut up and leave ‘em wanting more

You can do that. I know you can. You know why?

I firmly believe your company exists and is successful because it satisfies a craving and serves a need. Your customers prove you have a story worth telling.

The landmines in this endeavor for most are staying true to the people they’re trying to help, knowing where to share that information and then being confident enough to put in a cliff-hanger in the online or offline conversation so prospects or customers have a chance to miss them a bit.

The rest of it is just a commitment to not be self-important, undisciplined, lazy or unimaginative. That stuff can be overcome with a plan, a process and people to help you so you don’t fail on the execution and distribution of content people will truly want to consume.

If you want to hear about how we’re tackling this at Digital C4 be sure to reach out.

Until then, here’s a binge-worthy nugget from the folks at Beutler Ink to put on your cube wall to see the brilliance of Vince Gilligan, his amazing team of scribes and the people who create believable characters.

http://www.pinterest.com/pin/218917231860387629/

With that in mind, we’re excited to announce that Mark Evertz has joined the Digital C4 team as part of our Nitro group designed to help organizations make the most of their marketing automation investments. Mark will spearhead our new demand generation strategy business unit charged with helping companies:

1. Understand their unique buyer personas and how and why they purchase products
2. Define what types of content are most preferred by certain personas, where it should be positioned at the stages in a buying cycle and identify content gaps
3. Create new high-performing email, landing page and downloadable content pieces or refresh existing content to fill those gaps
4. Design lead nurturing programs that introduce content in buyer persona-targeted social and paid environments online to enhance top-of-the-funnel growth.
5. Leverage Marketing Automation platforms as a prospect nurturing and lead-qualification tool so that only those who are most likely to buy will be passed on to sales reps
6. Move prospects through complex sales cycles with content they can use to actually accomplish business goals
7. Understand marketing analytics to optimize inbound, outbound and event-based programs that result in the highest return on marketing investment

As a founder of C4 this business decision to bring both inbound and outbound together is a natural evolution of our agency and the market at large. Many organizations, and even agencies, have all of these tools and tactics with no rule book on how to put them all together to be efficient with marketing spend, and they often don’t yield a higher quality of lead that sales is looking for to grow revenue.

In many ways, marrying smart inbound marketing such as SEO, paid search, social media marketing and even blogging lend themselves nicely to intelligent outbound demand generation marketing and marketing automation, provided there exists that smart rule book for putting them all together. They fill the top end of the lead funnel by engaging prospects. If outbound demand generation marketing is done correctly, the leads at the top of the funnel move to the bottom of the funnel and convert to sales-ready leads.

Most recently he was the Content Director and Demand Gen Campaign Strategist for Left Brain DGA, where he served enterprise B2B clients such as Lenovo, Sage Software and others. He’s also held similar roles at Babcock & Jenkins and startups as well as established enterprise organizations.

Be sure to check out our website as we build it out with information to support our new service offering, or contact us to learn more. We’re excited to help our clients and other organizations make the most of their outbound lead generation efforts in the weeks and months ahead. And welcome aboard Mark!

Produce Great Content

We’ve been saying this to our clients since we started Digital C4 back in 2010. Don’t worry about writing content for search engines, write for your prospects and customers, and do it well. After you do that, optimize it for search engines, if it makes sense. It’s been our stance from the beginning that good content will produce good results in the search engines. Quality over quantity. Let’s not try to manipulate the search engines while forgetting what our audience wants to read, or finds appealing. Will it help your business to have good search results, good rankings, only to have a prospect bounce off your page because your content sucks?

Produce great content, despite what Google is saying they’re going to do in their latest algorithm or in their analytics package. We do know this, Google wants to show the best content out there. They’ve shown that it’s their commitment. So, assuming they’re not lying, producing great content should get you results.

By the way, if you’re at a loss on how to produce great content, start here with our Four Steps to Building Content Marketing Success.

Don’t Ignore SEO Best Practices

Now, I’m not saying you can ignore some of the basic ‘best practices’ of SEO. You still need to have a focused keyword list. Then use those keywords in your content to be found when someone’s using a search engine. Very soon, even now, you’re going to have to work a little harder to figure out which keywords are sending traffic to your site. We do know this though, AdWords will always show us search volumes for keywords. Use Google AdWords keyword tools, Google Trends, Google Webmasters, and a myriad of other SEO tools out there (We use Raven) to do your research. Connect your Google AdWords account, you should have one even if you don’t advertise, to your Google Analytics account to have more insights into keywords. Finally, using those tools, create a quality keyword list to use while producing your quality content.

Roll Up Your Sleeves

Roll up your sleeves and accept the new challenge that’s laid before you. Again, I love Neil Patel’s take on it…it’s going to make us all become better Marketers. Take a deep breath. Don’t worry about Google. Instead, produce the best content you can. And if that doesn’t help, say these words by the famous Stuart Smalley over and over again…”I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggonit, people like me”.  Everything will be all right.

Google’s goal in unleashing its Panda and Penguin algorithm changes is to deliver good, relevant content when people conduct an online search. If they return bad, poorly written content is that good for a brand, or the user? Is that good for the agency that created that brand experience? The answer of course is no. And that’s why as a content creation agency, we pride ourselves in delivering well-written content.

Yeah… SEO is changing and morphing into something more content driven, but there are still SEO best practices that need to be incorporated into well-written content, into websites. Well-defined keyword lists are still of utmost importance, as is smart Meta data using those keywords. Link-building is still important, though it needs to be thought out strategically.

I recently came across an article at Search Engine Journal titled #1 Ranking on Google for Under $100 and I thought ‘this must be a parody article or some joke title’ but sadly no. It was not. I read the article as it discussed ‘SEO Tricks’ that could have you ranking at or near the top of Google quickly and inexpensively and began to think what a terrible guest post this really is. Buying domains at auction, write crappy content and get crappy content from cheap guest authors, link with naked URLs… really? The post even offers a ‘black hat tip’ and suggests not to use this last step on a client site or any site you cannot sacrifice. What the…?

Is this how agencies or search specialists are hanging on to what was an SEO career? I certainly expected more from Search Engine Journal. Yeah… SEO is changing so it’s time that we as industry professionals change and adapt. Embrace good content or get out of the industry! There will always be poorly-executed SEO and black hat tactics out there. While it saddens me to think that this stuff is being promoted on sites that represent the industry usually in a solid, bright light, I will say that it appears – based on the 404 I’m getting now – that they pulled the article. Still you can check out some of the chatter about the article here: http://www.inbound.org/articles/view/1-ranking-on-google-for-under-100.

In short, if I try to pull up a page and it takes 5 seconds, 6 seconds, or 10 seconds (or more, seriously they’re out there) to come up I’m probably going to jump ship. My thinking would go something like this, “If it takes this long to load one page, It’ll be a nightmare to navigate through multiple pages on this site…I’m out!” So, usability is the #1 reason why page load time matters.

The second reason is that Google takes Page Load Time into account when they rank your site and pages. So, if you want to kill your rankings in the search engines then ignore high page load times.

So, here’s a good list of items you should look into if you’re page load times are high:

1. Image Sizes – Are your images optimized for the web or are you serving up hi-res files that take forever to load?

2. 301 Redirects – Are you using lots of 301 redirects in your site? Every time your browser is redirected to a new page the load time goes up.

3. Web hosting – Is your site on a shared server or a dedicated server? On a shared server your site will be competing for resources with other sites. If another site on the server is hacked or taking all the resources your site users will know.

4. Bandwidth – If you host your site internally, as some larger companies do, do you have enough bandwidth to your server? An internet connection that is too small can be a bottleneck creating slow page load times.

5. Server resources – Much like the above “bandwidth” issue, if you host your site internally, or even externally, but don’t have a large enough server to sustain the amount of concurrent users you need, then you should look at upgrading your resources (CPU, RAM, etc). This is especially relevant, and potentially easy to remedy, in today’s world of cloud computing where virtual resources can be added with a few clicks of the mouse.

6. Hosted Third Party Applications – Does your site integrate with any third party apps or services? An example with our client was they were using hosted web fonts. We’ve learned that, as a general rule, using hosted fonts can add a half to a full second to load times. This time could go up or down depending on the particular 3^rd party service you’re using. Something to keep in mind.

7. CSS and HTTP Requests – If your site has an intricate interface with lots of images, icons, backgrounds, tables, and etc you can run into page load latency with the browser trying to fulfill all the requests. Think about using CSS Sprite to reduce the amount of HTTP and CSS requests.

8. SSL – Is your site supported only in browsing in HTTPS? This can affect your page load times. The main reason for increased load times with SSL isn’t necessarily that SSL takes longer it’s that browsers cannot cache anything from page to page while making page sizes slightly larger.

9. Tracking Pixels/Tags – If you’re a marketer like I am then you may be using tracking pixels/tags to track campaign performance. Often, depending on how many campaigns you’re running you could be employing a large amount of tracking pixels that need to be loaded every time a page is. This can slow down your page load times. A couple options here are using a one, using a universal tracking pixel that eliminates the need for multiple conversion tracking pixels, and two, using asynchronous tagging, which allows a browser to load multiple tags in parallel, as opposed to waiting for each to load before the next can.

There are so many things that can affect load time. These are just the things that we went through with our client. I’m sure there’s more that could be reviewed to make sure you’re not ruining your sites usability, or SEO, with slow load times.

We’d love to hear from you. Let us know what you’ve found to slow page load times and how you remedied the situation.

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Photo credit to InAweofGod’sCreation.

Here are 5 simple to use, free tools to make content creation a little easier:

1. Evernote – Set up a free Evernote account and setup a folder structure that allows you to organize saved content by topic. You can tag content to further organize within topics so that finding information of value to you is easy and fast.

2. Feedly – What is becoming the go-to backup for Google Reader users (now that Google has shut it down) is a fantastic, free way to organize and find information on the web. Create a folder structure by content topics and add RSS feeds to each folder. Spend time each morning and just after lunch (as you’re easing into or back into your work day) going through new feeds to find compelling articles, blogs, videos, etc. As you find them, save them to Evernote in the appropriate folder, and with the most suitable tags.

One nice feature of Feedly is that it recommends content sources based on what’s in each folder, so you can quickly build a cache of go to sources that can cover any number of topics.

3. Twitter #Hashtags – Hashtag searches are a great way to see what topics are trending on Twitter. You can also find new sources of information that people are talking about in near real-time. Here are three places – besides Twitter (http://search.twitter.com) – you can search to find what Hashtags are popular and trending:

www.Hashtags.org

www.whatthetrend.com

http://trendsmap.com/

 4. Your Competition – I certainly don’t recommend copying what your competition is doing, but you certainly need to be aware of what they’re up to. What are they blogging about and how is it being received? What do they post on Facebook or Twitter? If you can gain a good understanding of how your competitors are doing content creation and their level of success, then you’ll be in a good position to create content that can capture some of their traffic.

Try creating a Feedly folder for each competitor, then create feeds for their blogs, site updates, and even their brand terms. You’ll be able to stay on top of what content they’re pushing on a regular basis.

5. Google Analytics/AdWords– What pages on your website are people frequenting now? What keywords are driving relevant traffic? If you can identify trends on what blog posts, videos, or other pieces of content are popular at your site than you can build on that success by creating similar content. Similarly, you can use the Google AdWords Keyword Planner to find out what keywords/phrases are getting the most traffic and visits across the web (in general). Start with a keyword, from Google Analytics, that you see is sending good traffic to your site, then add that to the AdWords Keyword Planner and it will give ideas for keywords that you should be using in your content creation efforts.

6. LinkedIn Groups – Chances are you use or have a profile at LinkedIn, and if you do you are most likely familiar with LinkedIn Groups. You should join some that part of your industry, and if you do you’ll likely discover that people are sharing good articles, blog posts, and industry insights. Find those discussions that are getting some good conversation and add value by expanding on the discussion via your company blog. This is a great curation strategy and one that can add timely dialogue to industry conversation.

These 6 resources always help me kick-start my content creation efforts. I’d have been struggling for topics long ago were it not for these. What resources do you find useful when you sit down to create content? Please share them below.

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Photo credit to Peter Løvstrøm.

In a recent blog post, by SocialMedia Examiner, 6 emerging marketing trends were labeled as possibly having “significant impact on your marketing strategies”. I think all 6 trends in this post are pretty much right on (if you care for my opinion J). However, I think the most significant trend on the list is the first item, Media Fragmentation. TV, Internet, Smartphone, and Radio, as you can see by the graphic by Edison Research, are all listed as taking serious time/brain share in today’s consumer.

Most of us in marketing probably immediately get anxious, tense, or, frankly, irritated when we think about “Media Fragmentation”. It all just makes our professional lives more complicated. How do we reach our audience across multiple devices and platforms and not break the bank? How many of us have mumbled the words “Really, another social media platform I have to pay attention to? Who’s going to pay for that?”

Well, in today’s world of marketing another social media platform may be the least of our worries. It’s about what device the consumer is using to access that social media platform. Are they using their Xbox (TV), SmartPhone, Laptop, Tablet, or their PC? What if they are using all the above (they likely are)? I guess it depends on the type of business you are but you can imagine the frustration of a company who has to create a version of their app for the Xbox, Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows Phone, etc. It’s no joke. A consumer may be watching TV and see an ad for a new app, website, or an Internet special, grab their Smartphone or tablet, and download the app, or visit the site, within a couple minutes of seeing the commercial. I’ve done it and I’m sure you have too.

All company sizes are dealing with this phenomenon. Whether you’re advertising or building apps you’re dealing with media fragmentation. Smaller companies are trying to decide if they should use Google Adwords, LinkedIn Ads, Facebook Ads, Radio, and an endless number of channels to reach their audience. Larger companies who spend significant marketing dollars across multiple channels are deciding on those same channels and more, plus the likes of TV, other more traditional advertising channels. What this means is that consumers are everywhere, and they’re everywhere all the time, and it’s very complicated to figure out the best way to reach them when budgets aren’t increasing every time a new platform comes your way.

Media fragmentation is most likely going to get worse before it gets better, and by better I mean we get used to it. So what is the solution for marketers? What word of advice do I have?

I wish I had some great blow-your-mind wisdom to impart. There’s a lot written about this out there with lots of different opinions. My advice would be to learn to accept the new norm of media fragmentation, and keep it simple. Prioritize your marketing efforts based on your budget and your audience. That is nothing new right? You can do that. If you know where your audience lives, where it’s spending it’s time online, on these platforms, then you’re well on your way to cut through the chaos and succeed.

Is Media Fragmentation the Most Significant Marketing Trend for 2013? Maybe. What do you think?

So while Google is doing its job, we in the SEO trenches need to do ours. While SEO used to be a series of on- and off-page tactics that worked somewhat independently from other marketing efforts, these efforts now needs to play nicely with content development efforts, mobile marketing initiatives, and more than ever, social media marketing.

Content Marketing

Developing interesting, engaging content that can help users make decisions is still paramount to successful search ranking. But the emphasis is still – and should always be – writing for the user and not the search engine. Don’t follow any formula for keyword density, just use them as you would in speech, and try and add some level of value to what you develop. You don’t have to be on the cutting edge of your industry to add value. As I pointed out in a recent post there are four basic steps to building content marketing success:

1. Learn to write – You don’t need to be a published author or even have an English degree, but you need to be able to articulate a point and write well-enough to be engaging
2. Content isn’t always written – There are a ton of forms that content can take, so think outside the blog
3. Find out what prospects and customers want (see below on using social media to listen)
4. Share your content (again… refer below on the importance of sharing socially)

Mobile Search

The PC or desktop is slowly losing ground, or disappearing, in favor of mobile devices, with the most important mobile device that SEOs need to consider is the smartphone. Now more than ever people on the go are looking for things, exploring options, and making purchasing decisions (at least in the consumer space) on their phones. The mobile experience has to be rich and it has to be fast. In fact, Google recently announced that they will begin demoting search results for mobile sites that don’t provide a quality experience.

Analyze your Google Analytics and see which devices are driving traffic to your site today. Chart that traffic against the same month last year and the year before that. See a trend? If you’re in B2B that trend may be growing slowly and depending on the cost of your product or solution, and the length of your sales cycle, you may have some time before mobile becomes an imperative (though it likely still will). If you’re a retail establishment or a consumer products company you’ll likely see the trend line growing more aggressively. Use this as a barometer for when you’ll need to take mobile site development and SEO seriously. Of course you could always take it seriously now and beat some of your competition to the punch, but then I’ll let you make that decision.

Social Media Marketing

Simply put… social shares, content interaction on social platforms, and ‘likes’ and its equivalent, are driving search engine results success. Google + followers and interaction is helping companies increase their rankings on Google and likewise Facebook is doing the same for these companies on Bing. It’s the new reality that SEO and social are forever linked and in fact more and more people are using the term ‘social SEO’ to define this link.

Social SEO goes beyond just sharing and interacting; rather it’s a hotbed of conversation that brands need to listen to. Listening to what people are saying about your brand, industry, the buzz can inform decisions on what content to create, how to adjust your website, your social media contribution and more.

Here are some statistics from combination of the Global Web Index Study and Gigaom that make the social media marketing argument pretty compelling:

• Facebook has 1.1 billion monthly active users, with 751 million of them using a mobile device
• Twitter has the fastest active user growth, with 288 million monthly users
• YouTube users now watch 6 billion hours of videos a month
• Google Plus should be taken seriously, with 359 million active monthly users, making it the second largest social media network

So what does all this mean? Well if you’re an SEO provider it’s time to change the way you think, strategize, and implement your SEO plan. If you’re an organization that is trying to broaden your search share, then it’s time to start thinking beyond your main website to mobile and social platforms to build success.

I’m not usually one for road trips… I prefer to just fly to my destination and start my vacation, but the idea of seeing parts of Oregon and California I might not otherwise see (at least at ground-level) appealed to me. So off we went; my two daughters, ages 4 and 8, my wife and our two year old Pug, Jubilee. The fact that Jubilee came down with a stomach issue the day before could have been a sign that this trip might not start the way I wanted, but if it was I ignored it. A quick trip to Banfield to see her Vet and some prescribed antibiotics at least made me think it was nothing to fret.

Resiliency…

The nice thing about Banfield is there’s a national network of locations that all have access to medical history and records. So having made numerous emergency highway stops and five overnight visits to the hotel pet poop area we thought it would be a good idea to have another Vet check her out before her stay at Camp BowWow for three nights while we enjoyed Disneyland.  When the Vet suggested that Camp BowWow was not a good idea given her stomach problem it was time for some resiliency and determination. Fortunately, there was a nearby 24-hour animal hospital and spa – that’s right… hospital and spa! Only in LA, but then thankfully in LA.

After three nights of rest, relaxation and medication, Jubilee’s stomach problems were behind her. And just in time too, since we were going to have her bathed and groomed while we went to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. But what’s this? A hotspot (the result of her identification collar at the hospital/spa) means the groomer refuses to groom? Thankfully, the Banfield there took her, ran some tests to make sure it was nothing more serious, while we saw the aquarium.

Did I mention that we were supposed to tent camp most of the way back to Oregon but it was too windy and cold? Yeah… 40 degree temps in the morning and sustained winds prevented that and facilitated the daily search for dog-friendly, reasonably priced hotels in places that generally don’t cater to reasonable pricing.

Ability to Laugh and Smile…

While all of these hurdles kept coming, we were able to enjoy what was certainly a memorable vacation. The fact that Jubilee left with one medical prescription and came home with five is, in hindsight, rather funny. The fact that throughout all 2500 miles of driving, our kids still like and speak to each other is something to smile about. And while able to safely navigate the family through scenic and often harrowing roads, I suppose it is somewhat funny that I got a speeding ticket half hour from home. I mean, what better way to end a road trip?

As I pulled into the driveway and slowly began the transformation back to reality I thought about Digital C4 – where we started, how we’ve evolved, and where we’re heading – and I thought of those two traits; resiliency and the ability to laugh and smile. Without those two (and a bunch of others) the ride wouldn’t have been as fun, might not have

1. Create and target a location based keyword list, which in our case includes phrasing utilizing Portland, Beaverton, Tigard, etc. We’ll include these in titles, content, metadata, and site interlinking in as natural and organic a way as possible. We want to target keywords for better Google ranking but we want to write our content for our users. It’s a fine balancing act.

2. Create location based landing pages within our client’s site for each unique physical address where our clients are doing business. Making sure that NAP (name, address, phone) are listed exactly the same across all location pages is very important. We’ll use our location based keyword list to rewrite metadata, content, titles, alt attributes, and links.

3. Make sure our clients have Google+ Pages that link to their location pages. If you want to be recognized by Google what better way than to use their tools and social networks? This is a very important step…but more importantly we’re linking back to our location pages from our Google+ Page.

4. Find relevant local directories and make sure our clients are listed there. Are there associations, chambers, reviews sites (claim your business), that we can be listed on? The key here is to try to get LOCAL, same city address, as our client’s locations. Basically, this is local link building. We’ll also see if we can get links from our client’s local customers and partners, keeping in mind that a link from a Portland based site to our Portland location page is best.

5. Add local images and testimonials on each location based landing page that we create. Include an image of the office, the staff, and the work environment. Use location based keywords in the alt attributes for each image. Include testimonials that are from customers that are specific to that location, and give a link, if possible, to that customer. Maybe they will reciprocate the link.

Bonus strategy:

6. “Geo-tagging, check-in.” We plan to setup our clients so their locations will be geo-tagged on social networks. This might come in the form of incentives to customers who check-in. “Be entered to win a cool prize by checking in at our location.” This will create social buzz and activity lending more authority to your local presence.

These are just a sample of the activities we’ll be doing to start our local search engine optimization effort for our clients. Are you a local business that has experience in ranking well in local search? What strategies worked best for you? We’d love to hear from you.

My daughter and I have volunteered at the Food Bank on several occasions before ourselves, but I’ve never been part of such a large group volunteering at one time, or a group comprised of such enthusiastic eight year olds. The kids quickly organized themselves around each two ton sack (massive sack I must say) of potatoes and proceeded to quickly designate themselves and each other with various tasks… baggers, bag tiers, runners to bring the bags to the crates. In a matter of two hours the kids had processed 10,555 pounds of potatoes; enough to feed 1,760 families approximately 5 meals. In fact, doing the math, each eighth grade volunteer supplied food for 150 families.

So why am I sharing this experience? Well for one I think it’s great to involve your children in activities that help them understand the hurdles that society needs to overcome. Oregon is one of the top two states in the nation in terms of hungry families. Telling our kids these hard truths is one thing. Having them work to help feed these families helps the kids gain a deeper appreciation for the problem, while being part of the solution.

The other lesson I learned, and one that I wish I learned a long time ago, is when faced with a challenge… just jump in do it. The kids today were much less concerned about who had what skill, whether they were better suited to a certain task, or whether one was harder or easier than another. They were, in fact, much more concerned with beating the other teams gathered around their massive sacks.

My promise to myself today – and maybe one each of us can make – is to continue to find volunteer opportunities for my kids, and me, that help solve problems while they learn valuable lessons. And second, to learn more lessons myself when working with kids. Observing kids with each other can teach you so much of what has been ultimately taught out of you since you were once a kid.

Photo Credit to graybeard.

How do you begin? Certainly there are keyword tools that help you determine the number of searches and competition for any particular keyword, but these may not be as useful as they seem. What can be a great indicator of SEO keyword success can be the data that resides in your Adwords campaign reports – if you’re currently doing PPC. Take a look at your PPC keywords that show the best conversion, those that are generating a strong click-through-rate, and those with a decent Quality Score. These keywords, while likely competitive, can help you establish your ‘head’ keywords off of which you can build some medium to longer-tail keywords for SEO.

For example, you might have a strong click-through-rate, high Quality Score, and great conversion rate for the keyword ‘cloud computing’ but good luck ranking for it through SEO in any decent time frame (unless you’re Cisco, IBM, etc.). However, you can use ‘cloud computing’ as your head keyword and start to look at variations of it that are less competitive but are still driving traffic, such as ‘cloud computing infrastructure’ or ‘mobile cloud computing’ – if relevant to what you do.

If you (or your client) don’t have any Adwords data, it could be worth a few hundred dollars to run a test campaign. Create some ads around your keyword categories and add a bunch of variations. Do it right and within a month or two you’ll have some decent data, at least enough to make some informed decisions.

Also… I’m not suggesting that when building an SEO keyword list you shouldn’t include competitive keywords. Just be sure not to load your list full of them. Balance your competitive keywords with these less competitive variations so that your keyword list has a good mix of both. We like to address our clients’ keyword list every three to four months. Are we seeing any traction? If so where or if not where? Adjust, adjust, adjust…

Search engine optimization is a long-term effort; something that takes time if it’s to be done well. PPC on the other hand is, or can be, more short-term. Why not use that short-term “quick results” aspect of PPC to at least give your SEO a head start?

The immediate results were quite remarkable, but then comparing site analytics the month after a refresh can certainly skew metrics so now that we’re approaching that one year mark since we made our site more content driven we wanted to compare its metrics once again to before the update. We compared this past February to present (2/1 – 4/16/2013) to last a comparable timeframe before the update, March to May (3/1 – 4/14/2012). Here are the numbers:

• Site visits:                            Up 63%
• Page views:                        Up 285%
• Pages/visit:                         Up 135%
• Site referrals:                     Up 140%
• Search referrals:               Up 53%
• Time on site:                      Up 59%
• Bounce rate:                      Down 97%

These are numbers that would have any digital marketing agency or SEO provider excited, but the number above that I still find remarkable is the bounce rate. Our bounce rate is a shade over 2 percent! This means that 98 percent of our site visitors find something interesting enough to click through to. Site stickiness…

In the next iteration of our site we’ll be adding relevant blog and resource feeds to our product and service pages. We feel that while our product and service pages explain what we do nicely, its blog style content that really depicts how we feel and approach those very services, and that’s more interesting to smart buyers today.

Some of our clients are seeing the value that this approach can bring and they’re starting to implement plans for site updates as well. We’ll be blogging more about how our next website content integration performs and what our clients find as well, so come back soon!

Photo credit to Andrea “spettacolopuro”.

So, first, how did I know that my site was hacked? Well, I got this funky message when I went to my site in Chrome. Thank you Google! I was like “oh great…crap…shoot…dang…darnit…”

I jumped on the Google machine and did some crazy fast searches on WordPress sites being hacked. I found a bunch of information out there that made me feel a little better, mainly because I found out I was not alone. You know the feeling, if you’re in trouble it always feels a little better if your buddies are in trouble with you. Anyways, I found a great blog that listed many security measures I could take to lessen the potential for future hacks. Notice I said “lessen the potential for future hacks”. A few of those that I felt were most important were:

1. Update to latest WordPress Version.
2. Change your login password often.
3. Block search engines from accessing the admin section.
4. Protect your .htaccess file
5. Don’t allow directory browsing.
6. Secure your wp-config.php file. Duh.
7. Prevent script injection.

Once I had this list I promptly shipped it off to “My Guy”. If you own a site you need a”My Guy”, unless, of course, you’re “The Guy”. I told My Guy we need to do all this stuff.  He said OK but first we have to fix this thing. Oh yeah…good point. So, FORTUNATELY we had a backup of the site…probably the most important thing that we had done aside from building the site. The problem was our backup was 4 weeks old, which means our latest blog posts were not in there. The site is now restored from backup, and we spent a few hours putting our blog posts back into the site, making sure URLs were exactly the same so we didn’t have broken links.

After finding that nice list of security measures to be implemented by My Guy, I decided I needed to backup my site more often than “when I remember, and can get around to it”.  Jumping back on the Google machine, I found a company called CodeGuard. It allows me to actively monitor and backup both my site and my site’s database. I connected the service to my site via FTP, or rather My Guy did, and now it’s monitoring the site for changes. If a change happens I get a notification via email. I can then say, yah CodeGuard that was me. Or, I can say no, that was NOT me and I want to reset the site back to before the change. Check out their video.

I’m here to tell you, if your site’s been hacked, or compromised, you’re not alone. There are many many site owners out there that are in the same boat as you and me; hacked.  The good news is there are many many good Samaritans out there showing us how to fix our sites and improve our website security. I’m not sure I’m cool with calling Google a ‘good Samaritan’ but I know they’ve recently created a new help center to assist folks in recovering from being hacked, or, as Google says, compromised. Here is a nice video that they’ve put together to inform you of your options:

Don’t take your site security for granted like I did. Get your My Guy to help you beef up your site security, enlist in some good backups, and keep on keepin’ on. BTW, doing all this doesn’t make me feel like my site will never be hacked again…but at least I know I’ve taken action, and I can restore my site in a moments notice. That’s the peace of mind I need.

For anyone in SEO, Panda and Penguin has had an impact. Site rankings and organic traffic has likely declined for at least one or two clients, but if you look at those clients with an eye toward user (prospect/customer) centricity you’d see that they’re likely off the mark. That is their sites are likely content deficient and not really focused on delivering information of value to their customers and prospects. For this reason, Google has helped clear the way for companies and websites that deliver value (information), and isn’t this what we all search for anyway?

I do strongly believe that there still needs to be fundamental SEO performed for all websites. I think every company should have a…

1) well-researched keyword list; one that evolves over time. I think that….

2) smart usage of keywords in creating website copy, content, and Meta data is still of strong value. I also strongly believe that link building and directory submission strategies that worked only months ago should be trashed in favor of…

3) real link building. Take advantage of your strategic partners (technology or otherwise) to create meaningful links; read and comment on relevant blogs and create links of value (not spamming); use directories but limit yourself to those that are of value to your industry.

Creating valuable optimized content is an art. It needs to be well-written, help educate your target audience, and take multiple formats. According to MarketingProfs 2013 B2B Content Marketing Benchmarks, Budgets, and Trends report, B2B content marketers are spending 33 percent of their overall budgets on content marketing, which is up from 26 percent last year, and 54 percent plan on increasing spend next year. This is significant and follows a trend that sees greater emphasis on producing good content that most think will continue for the foreseeable future.

It’s this content that Google wants to index and serve up in searches. And it’s this content that is taking the driver’s seat in the search engine optimization efforts of smart marketers. It’s all about content! In coming blogs we’ll address the three areas of SEO that we still feel are important, and share some content tips and techniques that can help clear the roadblocks to producing decent content, so come back!

So here are five things that any company can do (right now) to improve their blogging effectiveness!

1. Enable commenting. I think some companies are nervous about what people might say about their blogs or content. If that’s your feeling, then I’d advise against blogging at all. It’s ALL about the conversation. If someone disagrees with what you’re saying that’s okay; it shows they are passionate about the topic. Comments can also have relevant and worthwhile outbound links that can help boost your blog’s visibility.

2. Enable social media sharing. Your blog needs to find its way into the social spheres of your prospects, customers and partners. Sharing is the easiest way to give your blog some legs. Sure, people can copy the link and paste it elsewhere, but in this day and age where ease-of-use is core, clicking a button is the way to go. With WordPress, there are any number of social media share plugins that can be incorporated into your site quickly and complimentary. Do it!

3. Capture email addresses. You’re in marketing; you market; you create leads. There’s nothing wrong with asking people to leave their email addresses so you can let them know about new posts. Once you gather email addresses you can then send out a monthly newsletter that showcases the month’s popular blogs, highlights new (exclusive) content, and more importantly keeps you top of mind. And… there’s a plugin for that!

4. Show authors for each post. A blog that is written by ABC Company is sort of impersonal and likely won’t deliver the engagement you’re ultimately looking for. Create authors (real, live people at your organization) for each post; include their picture and short bio at the end of the post. People are more apt to comment on a blog written by a person than one written by a company.

5. Show related posts. At the end of your blog post display the five most recent related posts. Whoever is reading your blog has an interest in what you’ve written about and you should try hard to keep them at your blog, reading more posts. So why not deliver to them what they’re looking for. You’ll likely find that time on site and pages per visit increase, creating a stickier site.

There’s a ton more you can do to create a stickier, more interesting blog. In fact as a bonus I’ll suggest you add some imagery. We’re a visual people after all. What else can marketers do to their blog to make it more useful? Drop your thoughts in the comment field below.

Photo credit to Ben + Sam.

Let me ask you… what was the ROI of your last press release? How about your last trade show? These are two marketing tactics and strategies that are part of most organizations marketing, yet I’m pretty confident that ROI is something that isn’t factored into them (for the most part); they’re just ‘things that marketing needs to do.’

I sort of liken a good company blog to someone speaking at a trade show. It can impart knowledge, build brand leadership, and help a company’s visibility, much like leading a breakout session at a trade show. If you don’t blog, or guide the conversation, you’re like a trade show attendee sitting in the crowd listening to a speaker, and that’s okay, but not nearly as powerful.

I like to think of social media as the place where conversation can occur around good content – a blog perhaps, or even a smart post or share. In this way, social media is much like the networking sessions of a trade show. If you’re active in social media then the conversations are active, your brand is part of this dialogue. If you attend networking sessions you meet prospects, customers, potential partners… you get the idea.

Now marry the two – social media and smart blogging. You’re starting the dialogue (trade show speaker/smart blog post) and then carrying the conversation over to include a larger audience set (networking sessions/social media channels). I don’t know about you, but when I see someone speak at a trade show or event, they usually have a pretty decent gathering around them during the networking sessions. Many who don’t speak enjoy the networking, but end up leaving early to catch Sportscenter in the hotel room… just sayin’!

I believe that social media involvement and blogging are two essentials that need to become part of every organization’s marketing efforts. They’re things that ‘you just need to do.’

Photo credit to Olivier Hodac.

After you post your blog what do you do? You don’t need to spend hours posting it all over the web, though I suppose depending on where you post it that couldn’t hurt. You can, however, take FIVE minutes and do these FIVE things.

1. Post it to your social media channels. Assuming you don’t live under a rock and you have a Facebook, Twitter, and Google+, and LinkedIn account get your blog up there. Using a tool like Hootsuite, this task should take you a total of 50 seconds to a minute, tops!
2. Share your blog at some content aggregator sites. If you’re blog doesn’t have ‘share’ buttons this can take you a little longer, but assuming that you’ve set up your blog correctly you should have the necessary buttons to share your blog at Reddit, StumbleUpon and other sites like them. Total time here… maybe two minutes.
3. Post your blog in relevant LinkedIn Groups. I’ve already mentioned LinkedIn above but that would be your personal news feed. Here I’m talking Groups. There’s a well-attended Group on LinkedIn for just about everything, and I find that more conversation (comments and discussion) happen when I post my blogs there than at the actual blog itself – which is fine by me. You can post using Hootsuite as well, so the total time here… maybe one minute.
4. Find some other blogs on the same topic and comment. If you’re like me, you probably have a number of blogs that you follow regularly to keep tabs on your industry. Maybe they’re set up in a Google Reader feed so it’s easy to stay current. You’ve more than likely found some articles or blogs on the topic you’re writing on, so it should be easy to comment on one and insert a link to your blog. If you’re not being spammy, and you’re adding value, I’m sure your link will be approved. Total time here depends on how organized you are, but figure one minute for a well thought out comment.
5. Distribute your blog to your subscribers. Your blog or site should have some way of collecting contact information. On our site, we collect email addresses so we can stay in touch monthly with people interested in who we are and what we blog about. With a short amount of setup time, you can easily create a monthly newsletter template in Constant Contact or MailChimp that pulls all your blogs in a given month and sends it to your email distribution list. Once set up, this takes zero minutes to manage.

These are five things that you can do to increase your blog readership. Okay… so there might be a little setup time, but once that’s done and behind you, your total investment is about five minutes per blog. There’s a ton more you can do, but these five are we call the raw minimum. What have you done that works?

As far as search engine optimization and generating quality organic traffic is concerned, the Penguin and Panda updates from Google place a greater emphasis on quality, well-written content. With social media channels becoming more and more crowded, and cluttered with poor content the need for good content begins to become apparent. So what to do if you’re a B2B marketer charged with developing content today?

First, I think it important to highlight (and dispel) a few content marketing myths. These myths were recently discussed in an article at Search Engine Watch by Andy Betts (about Lee Odden’s presentation at SES London) entitled Creative Content Marketing: Winning Hearts, Minds & Wallets. I think they’re worth repeating:

Myth 1: Content marketing simply means creating more content.

Myth 2: Quality content isn’t sustainable.

Myth 3: A content object only has one life.

These myths are really more like excuses. Excuses for why content marketing isn’t easy. I didn’t say it was hard, but it’s not easy. Get over these excuses and you’ll find yourself and your marketing team on a path that not only creates good, quality content, but results in better organic traffic, better social media conversation, and ultimately more sales-ready leads.

Step one: Learn to write! Writing well isn’t easy; not everyone can do it. If you aren’t a decent writer it’s okay, but you need to recognize that and find people that are. They may be in-house sitting at a cube nearby or they may be people you need to source. There are even some great agencies that can be hired (subtle self-serving hint here). Bottom line… the content needs to be well written if you’re going to stand a chance competing with all the good content being produced.

Step two: Content isn’t always written. You still need to be able to write, but content can take a number of different forms. Written content like blogs, articles, press releases, e-newsletters, and stories can be complemented with video, Infographics, Pinterest boards, photographs. Your marketers; your creative; it’s what you do… time to start doing.

Step three: Find out what prospects and customers want. The content you produce needs to be compelling for the people that matter – your customers and prospects. Use social media (LinkedIn Groups, Facebook, Twitter) to LISTEN to what people are saying, consuming and engaging with. Use surveys or polls if you have them available. Heck… ask your customers what interests them. I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to tell you what they want – especially if you’re going to give it to them.

Step four: Share your content. Sharing your content in your social media channels is great, but also take advantage of LinkedIn Groups, Reddit, StumbleUpon, and other relevant, categorized social media aggregators. If you’re not putting your content out there for consumption you’re missing out on audiences you haven’t engaged with yet.

There are other steps to successful content marketing for sure, and I’ll likely blog much more on the subject, but these four I believe for a strong foundation to build your efforts around. I’d love to hear what you would add to these steps for content marketing, so drop a comment.

What is AdWords Express? Google explains:

“AdWords Express is an advertising option for local businesses that want to get started quickly. It’s ideal for local business owners who don’t have a lot of time to manage their online advertising.”

With Google AdWords Express you basically setup your monthly budget, you write an ad, and based on the business category you choose Google will come up with a list of terms and phrases to display your ad against. There is little to no ongoing maintenance once it’s running.

Up until yesterday these Express accounts were not available to marketing agencies in their MCC accounts (central dashboard where all AdWords accounts can be managed).

For more information you can visit the following pages:

Adwords Express Overview

Adwords/Adwords Express Comparison

Here at C4, we help our clients grow their online brand visibility through search marketing, content creation and blogging, and social media. If you would like to know more about how we can help you with your Adwords campaigns just give us a shout.

Enter Cause Marketing.  Cause Marketing is the idea of giving back to your community, to not-for-profits, and other good causes through charitable donations while marketing your own company. So, how exactly does it work? Enter CafeGive Social.

CafeGive Social has created social media apps that provide a way for you to engage in social media marketing activities, growing your social presence, and all the while partnering with not-for-profit organizations to bring awareness and funding to their cause. It’s an amazing way to use marketing activities, that many of us are already doing, to give to a worthy cause on the backend. You might say it is the best of both worlds.

What apps are available through CafeGive? Here are just a few of the social media apps available:

• Social Giving Apps – Donate App, Make the Match App
• Social Awareness Apps – Voting App, Featured Video App, Social Impact App, Curated Facebook App
• Social Engagement Apps – Like Us Give Back App, Video and Photo Contests App
• Custom App Building

After a recent meeting with CafeGive we were inspired to look into the using one or more of these apps to do our own version of cause marketing.

One example of a creative use of the apps, that the CafeGive team gave us, was a company using the “Like Us Give Back” app to build their Facebook page Likes. This company, that was building Likes, got another company to “sponsor” the campaign and give to a local cause for each LIKE they received. In exchange for the sponsorship their logo and name were used across the campaign as the sponsor. Three companies benefitted in this case! We thought it was an amazing way of thinking outside the bun (as they say), and making your marketing campaigns mean more.

If you want more information about Cause Marketing, or CafeGive Social, visit their website. Give them a shout if you have some ideas for your next campain. They’re very interactive and will help you strategize your next marketing campaign and turn it into a cause marketing campaign. You’ll be glad you did.

Even if you’ve never held much stock in search engine optimization strategy and tactics (and I get that there are naysayers out there), if you’re site’s been around for any length of time it likely ranks on key terms and phrases that help people navigate your way. Depending on the type of site upgrade you’re making, the changes that inherently come with any site alteration can potentially have a big impact on whether you retain your current search engine rankings. Navigation changes, new page elements, URL naming; all of these can change in a new site, opening a potential hole through which your search engine traffic (and possible new business) can escape.

Before initiating a site migration, know the facts, and more importantly what you can do to retain as much SEO site value as possible. To help you get started, here are some SEO best practices for website migrations.

Good Luck!

I get no fewer than 2 emails each week from an SEO provider in India touting how they can provide me with cost savings and service that is unparalleled and I delete them all. I’ve heard of horror stories from people that tell me they Googled ‘India SEO firm’ and it didn’t work out. Does this really surprise anyone?

If you’re a company that depends on web traffic for your business – or in our case a company that is building its livelihood on SEO as a service – then you really need to spend time (and money) vetting providers to get what you really want. Oh, and it’s not easy! My business partner, Jason, has been to India, where he spent time with what became our team. He got to know them personally, reviewed their business processes, and watched them in action. Our team has been to the States and spent time with us. Over the course of the last 3-4 years, we’ve forged a working relationship that is now based on trust and understanding. To say that we now have a well-oiled machine would be an understatement.

All of the cons that Brick Marketing mentions in their blog are definitely worth considering…

> Price – you do get what you pay for. I would say that we definitely didn’t go with the lowest cost provider, but we’re still the best value in town!

> Marketing-minded – there are many that are over-focused on just SEO. This is why we spent the time we did finding the right partner. Our team thinks holistically about SEO, SEM, web development and how these all fit into the greater picture. They work tirelessly with us to make sure we fit into our clients overall marketing strategy.

> Language barrier – definitely takes time to work through this, but if you put in the work and find the right partner this can easily be overcome. You’re going to have to do some writing and editing, but share this with your team and they will get better and better!

> Time difference – there is one, but use it to your advantage. While you’re sleeping, they’re working, so we always get all our needs over to our team by the end of the day. When we get back to our offices, we usually have what we need to deliver to our clients.

Is outsourcing SEO your best bet? I would say it depends on what you’re looking for. But, I’ll say this,  I’ll put our results, and work, up against any locally-based provider any day of the week. Our clients are all seeing results and I couldn’t be more proud of the work we – as a collective team – do day in and day out.

Last year we talked about how PULL marketing was replacing – or at least seriously augmenting – PUSH marketing. Social media, fed by well-written, optimized content, helps buyers make decisions, and brands that understand this and participate will reap the benefits.

We don’t think much has changed this year. In fact, content will continue to play a large role in online brand visibility. Content goes beyond the written word – especially this year – to include video, SlideShare, and other interactive formats. So hold on to your hats… Big Data is going to get even bigger!

1. Content will be promoted from ‘King’ to ‘Emperor’ status.

Our first prediction around content was that “Content will be promoted from King to Emperor status”. No doubt this happened. Content creation is so prevalent that everyone is finally asking themselves, how do we make our content different, and better, so it stands out from the ocean of content being produced every day. Is content now Emperor? Who knows, but we do know that if you’re not producing quality content, that’s optimized around your keyword strategy, that you will be falling behind your competition in the ongoing SEO arms race.

Another point to make around content is that Google is a major influence in moving content from King to Emperor. Google continues to make algorithm changes that focus on the importance of fresh, dynamic content. Thanks Google!

2. Active blogs will continue to boost online brand visibility.

Not much to say here except that more and more companies ARE now using the blog as a central hub for their dynamic content. In our world of digital marketing, blogging is a no brainer (I know, you’re never supposed to say that). The blog is central to showing thought leadership, culture, industry awareness, knowledge, etc. It’s also where you can start, and have, that conversation with your clients, partners, and prospects. We highly recommend the time and effort it takes to blog.

3. Content curation will continue to enjoy strong growth.

This was definitely TRUE! With all the content being created, as we mentioned above in #1, there is a TON of opportunity to curate content that other folks have written. We do this all the time with our clients. We scour blogs and news sites for content written around the subject matter that matters to our client. We then provide them with the opportunity to use that content to write their own ideas about it. They refer to the original content, usually link to the content, and the often will notify the original author that they’ve added some thoughts to the subject. Curating content not only give you the opportunity to show knowledge and thought leadership, it’s a way to create communication with likeminded people.

4. More and more websites will adapt a blog format

I’m not really sure this rang true for 2012. I would say more sites adopted blogs but not sure more sites moved from a typical site format to a blog format. As for Digital C4, we took this one to heart. We launched a new site in June 2012 with the main focus being our blog. Most of our home page is dedicated to the blog. Sure, we have some links to our services, but mostly we want our blog content to be front and center.

Just a few positives to highlight from moving to a typical site that highlighted our services to a blog format:

> Bounce rate dropped from 50% to less than 5%
> Organic visits increased by 50%
> The pages per visit and time on site metrics both saw significant increases
> We received positive feedback from our clients (we send monthly blog updates via email)

Like I said, these content creation and blogging predictions for 2012 weren’t a real stretch to predict, but they all rang true for 2012. Where do you see content creation going in 2013? We’ll have some thoughts on this in the coming weeks. Check back with our blog for that!

One of the predictions we made (and this was a no-brainer) was that Google would continue to make algorithm updates that centered on ‘fresh’ content. I’m sure most people had this on their list and if they did, they nailed it! Panda updates continued throughout the year and in March, Google rolled out the Penguin update that penalized sites that were over-optimized with poor content.

We’ve preached all along that content is Emperor, but it has to be good, well-written content. Write for your audience with information that is of value and they will find it, as will Google. Optimize it with smart SEO content marketing best practices, but don’t be an idiot. Come on! We all know better.

Another of our insights was that Google+ would emerge as an important business tool for SEO and we believe that this is happening and will continue to happen. I don’t think that Google+ will ever threaten Facebook – so long as Facebook continues to evolve as it has – but for B2B companies I think Google+ will continue to be a tool that will play a role in online brand building. I think 2013 will be a benchmark year for Google+ as a platform that will either propel it to new heights or leave it dangling on the vine like MySpace and the myriad of other ‘social media’ marketing platforms.

And finally (at least for this blog post) we predicted that Microsoft will acquire Yahoo and make some inroads into Google’s search marketing share. Well… we didn’t really nail that one, but I do think that Yahoo continues to be an acquisition target, and Microsoft certainly makes sense as an acquirer. Other than a news portal, antiquated email platform, and search engine for the elderly I don’t see Yahoo’s business model keeping up with the Jones’. Maybe 2013 will be the year?

We’ll dissect more of our 2012 digital insights and lay some groundwork for our 2013 digital marketing insights in the days ahead. We hope your holidays are unfolding nicely!

Google EMD Update

This update is targeted at low quality, spammy, exact-match domains. You know the ones right? It’s been common practice for years for SEOs to register domain names that exactly match the keyword that the site is attempting to be optimized for. For example, if I wanted to rank well for the keyword “SEO Portland” then I might register the domain www.seo-portland.com. This type of practice has been effective in achieving positive results for years. Because of the easily found success of optimizing an exact-match domain, these domains are often very spammy. The Google EMD update does not intend to penalize all exact-match domains, just those that are of low quality and spammy, according to Matt Cutts of Google. This update is said to affect less than 1% of search results, but could well be more than that.

This update is long overdue. It never really seemed right that these exact-match domains could outrank an established brand, with a higher quality site and content, just because the domain matched a searchers keyword.

Some other updates in the past couple months included minor updates to Penguin and Panda updates, as well as a Google Image Index update that has some folks up in arms. It’s a moving target folks…try to keep up!

— Search engine optimization and visibility (SEO)
— Establishing thought-leadership
— Shrinking sales cycles
— Building brand loyalty
— Generating leads
— Generating social media conversation and followers

When I think about content marketing, I think about the lifecycle that content goes through online. It helps me not only come up with content ideas, but what I’ll need to do once that content is created.

1. Gather – search the interwebs for content of interest. There are tons of sites that you can find good information at:

– Twitter – do a hashtag search
– StumbleUpon
– Reddit
– LinkedIn Groups
– Blogs and articles
– News sites

In fact, there are so many places to source content that I like to create a Google Reader feed from publications, blogs, and using subject matter Google Alerts. This allows me to quickly and easily view the places that I think have the best and most interesting articles and blog posts. I get great ideas from seeing what other folks write about.

2. Curate – you can certainly write original content based on what you find and cultivate online, but you can also curate content by building on what other people write about. Find a good article or two that discuss a topic? Great! Add to it with thoughts of your own and refer to the article or blog in your post. This not only gives credit to the author that you’re referencing but also an outbound link to some relevant content. You can even create an inbound link on occasion by commenting on the referenced piece if they allow comments.

3. Write – start your piece with a keyword rich title and use keywords intelligently throughout. I say intelligently because you don’t want to stuff keywords into anything with Google in mind. Write for your audience, but use keywords where they make sense. Writing? Content can come in many forms beyond your traditional blog or article, including:

– Case studies
– White papers
– FAQ sections of a website
– Facebook notes
– Video
– Podcasts
– Comments on someone else’s content

4. Publish and Share – okay you’ve created some piece of content. Now what? Now is the time to get it in front of people that matter, share it socially.

– Tweet it
– Post to Facebook
– Google+
– LinkedIn Groups of relevance
– StumbleUpon
– Reddit
– Reference it in comments on relevant blogs and articles

There are an unlimited number of social media sites, and some are more relevant to certain audiences than others, but there’s no limit to where you can share information, only the time it takes to do it.

5. Recycle – the joy of knowing that a well-written piece of content might be curated by others so that your content can live on.

A while back we created an Infographic on the Content Lifecycle. Be sure to check it out, especially if you’re more of a visual person. I’d love to hear your thoughts and additions to our content marketing lifecycle thoughts so drop a comment below.

Here are a couple charts/graphs from a recent Hubspot blog post that show the importance of blogging in terms of traffic and leads. These are derived from statistics on their more than 7000 customer database.

So, increased traffic means increased leads, right? Well, this is where the “…but only if you do it right.” Getting a “lead” involves so much more than just getting traffic to your blog, or site. Here are 2 simple things to consider when blogging for leads.

1. Is your post worth reading? So, your strong, catchy, title and description persuaded someone to read your post. Congrats! Hopefully now the visitor will actually like what you’ve written. Good content within your post is the first step, after that catchy title, in capturing a lead from your blog. The reason why I say you need ‘good content’, maybe great content, is that seo content marketing is blowing up. It’s all the rage. More people creating content means that the quality of content will need to be great for you to stand out above the rest. Don’t cut corners on your writing, do it well. That doesn’t mean you have to write 1000 words. Just something that’s relevant and represents you, and your company, well.

2. Do you have a “call to action” on your post/page? Is there something else the reader can do if they are interested in learning more about what you’ve written, or what you do as a company? Are there related articles at the end of your post? Is there an option to contact you? Is there opportunity to leave a comment and enter into a discussion? Do you have a guide or ebook they can download after giving you their info? All these things can engage the visitor and drive them closer to becoming a lead.

Yes, blogging increases traffic, which in turn should increase leads, but it won’t if your site/blog isn’t optimized for inbound lead generation. If you’d like more ideas on how to use blogging for inbound lead generation, blog management services, or blog writing services give us a shout. We’re here to assist.

On link building on the heels of Penguin and Panda algorithm updates…

Purchasing links was always risky but resembled a game of roulette, you could get caught but many people also got away with it. Today it’s not a question IF you get caught, it’s merely a question of WHEN you’ll get caught. Not only this but take PR for example, getting a link from a high PR page used to always be valuable, today it’s more the relevance of the site’s theme in regards to yours, relevance is the new PR.

Very interesting what he says about site relevance versus Page rank. Obviously irrelevant links regardless of Page rank is not a sound strategy, but to hear that Page rank might not even be a factor is interesting and something to keep in mind as they roll out more changes.

On implementing on-page SEO elements appropriately…

Of course you can’t over-do it [on page SEO]as Google now also penalizes for over optimization, so don’t putt more than 2 commercial keywords in your titles or Google will frown upon it. 

Not sure if there was ever a keyword limit for titles, but this is good to know. We recommend that a page never optimizes for more than two keywords, but using more than two in titles is food for thought.

On off page directory submissions…

Don’t dismiss directories completely. I have heard people talking about directories being altogether bad and advise people to avoid them. This is not the case, good quality, moderated directories, or niche directories are still worth looking in to. Third, to stay focused on quality of pages linking in to you, Google judges your link profile by the quality of pages linking to your site, getting 3 links from authentic pages will do much more than 1000 links from splogs, so invest your time into getting quality, not quantity.

I would caution here that while directory submissions are still an important part of link building and SEO, there are a ton that border on spammy, so use sound discretion and consider quality over quantity.

On social integration into the search process…

The change is definitely in the air, I think we have all seen signs of this happening already. It also looks like Google is moving towards more localized versions of search instead of a country wide version. Social will surely play a huge part in this. Integrating Google places into Google+ was a clear sign of the direction in which they are heading. I can only guess how it will look in the future but you can bet on Google+ being a very important part of it. I don’t think Google will let go of their social network any time soon so if you don’t have a profile for your site yet… don’t wait.

We’re seeing this already, but he certainly drives the point home, at least with regard to Google+. I think in the future you’ll see more social integration across other platforms as well, so keep your social activity active and relevant.

One of the themes Andrew drives home in his interview, and one that we have been preaching for some time now, is that it’s all about quality content. Optimize by the rules, but at the end of the day, if you’re not creating a steady flow of good content, no one is going to care.

Photo Credit to gerlos

In a nutshell Nick says:

1. Cut back on your online advertising

2. Minimize your PPC spend

3. Don’t go to that tradeshow

4. Learn SEO yourself and do it in-house (or use an affordable agency… *hint hint*)

We see fluctuations in traffic with our clients all the time. In fact a couple clients in particular see traffic dip in fall months – usually around September and then pick back up in January and February. While we never like to see traffic dip there are usually good reasons. If they work with the GSA (Government Services Administration) which are the buyers of products and solutions for the government, then this is a natural period of slowing, since their buying cycle ends in September and budgets for the following year aren’t available. In fact, budgets drying up could be the case for many IT buyers at non-government entities.

What we want to see when analyzing traffic is the year-over-year gains in organic traffic, since last year will likely pattern this year in terms of trends. This is the best benchmark for measuring success with SEO – at least in terms of site traffic.

I also agree with Nick with his suggested areas to cut budget… online advertising and pay-per-click in particular. These are all great lead generation tactics, but they can be very expensive. They are also tactics that can help support broader campaigns and promotions, but the percentage of people that click on paid advertising online is much lower than organic links.

With this in mind, I’d suggest that in times of slow business, ramp up your SEO. Adding 10 or 20 keywords to an SEO program doesn’t add tremendous cost (at least not with us), and the additional content created to support those new keywords can help expand your online footprint, build thought-leadership, and even drive… yup, leads.

Photo Credit to soelin

1. The main search result

2. Sitelinks

What Google is doing is using its algorithm to best determine the links on the page that the user might actually be looking for.  So, if I do a search result for “Digital C4”, I get the following search result, with sitelinks:

Good stuff! More search results about my company. But, what if I don’t like the sitelinks that Google is displaying? What if I don’t want a sitelink that is titled “to download”, or I want a service page up there instead of our “Privacy Policy”? Well, Google allows you to DEMOTE sitelinks. Google says, “Demoting a URL for a sitelink tells Google that you don’t consider this URL a good sitelink candidate for a specific page on your site.” Here is what you need to do, per Google.

“Login into Google Webmaster Tools to demote a sitelink URL:

1. On the Webmaster Tools Home page, click the site you want.

2. Under Site configuration, click Sitelinks.

3. In the For this search result box, complete the URL for which you don’t want a specific sitelink URL to appear  (Make sure the URL is EXACT as even an error in capitalization could point Google to a different URL).

4. In the Demote this sitelink URL box, complete the URL of the sitelink you want to demote.”

It can take some time for the sitelink changes to show up in search results. You can demote up to 100 URLs and they will be demoted for 90 days. Once a URL has been demoted it allows another URL to take its place. Here is where you might ask, “How can I make Google display the URLs I want?” Well, you can’t really make Google do anything. Having said that, Google gives you some advice to help ensure they get it right. Here is what they say:

“There are best practices you can follow, however, to improve the quality of your sitelinks. For example, for your site’s internal links, make sure you use anchor text and alt text that’s informative, compact, and avoids repetition.”

Sitelinks have been around for years but how often do you look at what Google is displaying on a search for your brand or domain? I’m guessing not very often, or not often enough. And did you know that you could demote URLs? Well, now you know and now you can do something about it.

Photo Credit to John-Morgan

In the article they point to the obvious three:

1. Search engine optimization improvements – this one is a no-brainer. Write good, optimized content and search engines will find it. Write enough good content and people will also find it.

2. Rent free media or advertising – good content can be engaging and actionable. A good blog drives visitors and creates dialogue around a product or service.

3. Content marketing supports lead generation and sales – good content moves people through the sales cycle and creates thought-leadership, resulting in sales ready leads.

These three content marketing benefits are huge, and one of the key reasons why content marketing agencies are busy these days. But there’s a fourth reason to employ content marketing and it has to be done very methodically, and that’s for brand reputation and, dare I say, brand reparation.

It’s inevitable – especially for a B2C company of size – that people are going to say things that aren’t nice. They may not even be entirely true or taken in context, but that won’t stop them. They’ll post negative comments at one of the many ‘review’ sites out there that solicit them. User-generated content has a tendency to rank quickly and voila! Your negative comments are seen on page one of Google for a brand-related search. Not fun!

There is a way to employ content marketing to overcome this ranking, or at least push it down off page one. It’s not a quick fix and here lies the conundrum: it’s hard to write a ton of GOOD content, so the tendency is to write a lot of content no matter what. In fact, there are agencies out there that will write tons of blog posts on your behalf and post them to blogs of all types on the cheap. What a deal! Over time, these blog posts may, in fact, enjoy some quick ranking success and presto! that negative review site has been wiped off page one in favor of… oh, crap content with your brand all over it.

Alas… take the time to write good content, be creative in where you post it and how you promote it, and in time those negative comments will be a second thought. What’s more, the good content will take its place.

Content marketing doesn’t have to involve original writing per se. Examine all the other positive sites that are ranking just after that review site and what do you see… a Yelp page? LinkedIn page? Maybe your Facebook page? Employ content marketing strategies at these sites as well since you have a head-start in ranking with them. Write reviews, create Facebook content that engages and draws likes, and you should see some upward movement here that can knock down that negative site.

Content marketing has a number of valuable benefits for organizations of all types, but I can’t stress enough how important writing GOOD content is. Your brand is at stake after all!

Photo Credit to Victor1558

Having said that, the whole post made me think about my own little rant…Is Google really being fair in all this?

I mean really, most SEO’s are just doing what they CAN to get results within Google’s system. They’re trying to get results for their clients. SEO’s don’t pull these ideas out of thin air. It’s what SEOs have been doing for years. Building links, creating content with keywords, H1s, blah blah blah. And sure, some do try to ‘work’ the system, but frankly Google has created the “SEO monster” that it’s constantly trying to beat. Is THAT fair? Google says “this is what works”, then turns around and says NOW this is what works, and what worked before doesn’t, and if you did what worked before we’re going to punish you for doing it…even though it was good to do it back then. Then we’re all like “WHA?!!”.

Over the years…  Keywords are super important so we put lots of keywords in content and in meta tags. Meta data, meta data, and meta data.  H1’s and H2’s…you have to do that or else! The URL is super important so we buy awesome domains with keywords in them, like www.search-engine-optimization.com or www.seomoz.com. Site interlinking. Anchor text. Links are super important, because of PageRank, so folks find ways to mass produce links over the years. Dynamic content is super important so now we’re all focused on creating content to the extent that the quality of content has to be going down. Holy shmokes!

AND THEN GOOGLE CHANGES ITS MIND AGAIN. Is that really fair? Would it be fair for IRS to change its tax code and then punish me for all the times I violated the new law in the past? No. And they wouldn’t. But, alas, we’re not talking about law or government. We’re talking about a company that has the right to do whatever it wants, and if you don’t like it then stop using them. Stop being an SEO.

Is Google really being fair? IT DOESN’T MATTER! Google’s gonna keep changing and we’re going to have to keep learning.

Seriously, I want to hear your thoughts. I’m whining big time here, but do you ever get frustrated by this endless change?

Photo Credit to Pink Sherbet Photography

“Marketers are involved in a variety of different relationships with agencies—on the one hand, having one traditional agency to handle major integrated campaigns or, on the other, working with specialized shops for social media, website design, strategy and analytics.”

Digital C4 is a niche agency, a specialized shop, providing an important, but complementary solution for inbound marketing. There are ‘mega’ agencies that have grown their service offering through acquisition and claim to be the all-inclusive, integrated, full-service, one-stop-shop to everything. Have you ever worked with one of these agencies for the soup-to-nuts solution to all your problems?

It’s not that these agencies aren’t smart; it’s just that it’s nearly impossible to coordinate a fully-integrated solution from under one agency roof. The best solutions that I’ve seen in play are when client-side marketers – Directors of Marketing – break out their marketing needs by solution set (and perhaps even by product if the company is large) and coordinate small nimble groups of niche agencies that play well together. They could even work with one agency that manages other nimble agencies on their behalf.

One of our clients has partnered with a local agency here in Portland to provide a complete inbound marketing solution. The agency manages the work of a couple of other agencies that combined provide an inbound marketing solution comprised of niche experts across the board. The client wins because they only have to manage one agency relationship for inbound. The agencies all win because they get to work with a great client, and connect with other niche agencies in the process. Does it work? Well, we’ve seen nothing but great results for our client. We get to focus on what we do best, as does each niche agency, and the client sees the results.

As Kate states in her article, “Working with many agency partners requires marketers to define what each is responsible for and coordinate their efforts, as well as bringing agencies on as true business partners.” This can be a tough task, which is why many companies choose one agency, but if you’re organized and patient the long term benefits of using niche agencies can be huge.

One final benefit of using multiple, niche agencies is that if you want to end a relationship with any of them, the transition is far less than replacing an all-inclusive agency that is handling all aspects of your marketing needs.

As an agency principal, the most important thing to me is that we’re seen as a true, strategic, partner. If that’s how our clients see us then we know it will be a success for both sides.

Photo Credit to amira_a

Considering the massive amount of people that use social media, on a personal  and professional level, I’m a bit surprised. I understand it’s hard to break old habits, it’s hard to form new habits, and time is hard to come by, but you’re missing out on the largest marketing opportunity today. Listen, you don’t have to engage in some massive Facebook campaign, or buy sponsored tweets, or do a PPC campaign on LinkedIn, but you need to take some baby steps and get engaged.

Whether you’re a small niche, B2C or B2B, small or medium, you can, and should, start small. Get social media profiles at the “big 4”, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, and Google+.  Do some online research to learn more about each network if you don’t know how to use them. Hubspot and Mashable (.com) have many resources to teach you the ropes.

Lastly, if you’re an SMB and not using social media, talk to your friends and other business owners.  Ask them how they’re doing it. If you think that sounds like a good idea, then you already have a good understanding of the power of social media. It’s OK to have not started…just don’t wait any longer.

Photo Credit to nan palmero

Tip #1 – Creation of new pages will impact freshness

Tip #2 – Document changes affect fresh content

Tip #3 – Time on Page

Tip #4 – New links to page

While nothing here is really earth shattering or new, he makes some great points by going into detail on each Tip. Here are my favorite, quick hitting, impact tips that Neil mentions.

#1 – “Increasing your traffic” – It’s simple, the more you blog the more traffic you’ll bring to your site. Since launching our new site back in June, we’ve tried to post at least 2 blog entries per week and, although it doesn’t always happen, we have significant in traffic, and rankings for keywords we’ve used in posts.

#2 – “Invite others writers” – This seems like a no brainer. Although we have not done this yet, this is on our list of to-do’s. We know plenty of experts out there that would be great contributors to our blog. If we had two guest posts a month we’d be increasing our blog content by 20% each month…and that would lead to more readers as well. Reach out to your network and see who’s ready to write!

#3 – “Review your posts daily, quarterly” – This is such a simple tasks but one that I seldom do. If you publish a blog, review it the next day. Make any updates or changes that come to mind when reading it the next day. It might be a typo, or adding a 5^th thing to the list of 4 things. Whatever it is it’s keeping your content fresh. This can be especially effective if you are reviewing content from 2 or 3 months ago. All the sudden you have updated content you can now share and promote again. I need to get on this tip right away!

#4 – “Identify your less-important pages” – Basically find your underperforming posts or pages, check them out, and attempt to figure out why they’re not performing. Rewrite content or titles, add new images, and make any updates that you feel will take the content from good, or poor, to great. Sometimes we don’t know that our content sucks until the public tells us it sucks. Ouch.

#5 – “Time on page” – Google looks at the time spent on your pages. If folks are spending more time then you’ll surely get a boost in rankings. The converse is also true. So, using tricks to get more time on the site can really pay off. Use images in your content. Use video to get folks to stick around a little longer. They may not watch the whole video but they’ll have stayed on the page longer than if they just saw a bunch of text and then bailed. Also, using social plugins to get users to engage can increase time on the page. Facebook and Twitter both have interactive plugins worth noting.

And finally, the pièce de résistance, is…

#6 – “Write compelling content” – It’s not all about blog posts getting up twice a week, or once a day, it’s about writing good content. With so much buzz around the changes Google continues to make, the one thing remains true…write good, compelling content and people will read it. Here is another nice article,  written by Laura Crest over at seocopywriting.com, titled “How to stop worrying about Google updates…and learn to love writing really great SEO copy”.  The title says it all but the idea is just focus on making your content better.

If you do just a few of these things on a regular basis you’ll see marked improvement in your content readership and rankings. Check out the full blog post by Neil Patel for more great ideas.

Photo Credit to *clairity*

We’ve all had clients that ask the question, “How long will this take? 3 months?” and I always respond in the same way… “It depends what you’re looking for.” If you’re looking for us to optimize your site for the short term, then sure… we can do it in 3 months and be done with it. If you’re looking for site traffic and ranking improvement on an ongoing, consistent basis, then it’s something you need to be constantly doing.

As Nick points out, once the site itself is optimized – keywords are in place, copy reflects a smart usage of those keywords, Meta data is updated and in place – then a smart link building (off-page) effort needs to start. Does that mean that you’re done with your site? Absolutely NOT! Search engine optimization, if done correctly, takes time. Go back to your site, review analytics and see where there are opportunities to make adjustments.

1. Start with your keywords. Search behavior changes constantly, so be on the lookout for keywords on your list that may have changed the way they are used. Your analytics can tell you what keywords are driving traffic and consequently which ones are not. Adjust accordingly.

2. Adjust Meta data based on the new keywords. New keywords require new Meta titles, descriptions, H1 tags, image tags, etc.

3. Adjust and update copy for the new keywords. If you’ve changed keywords you need to make sure that your copy reflects those changes.

4. Have a blog? Write some blogs using the new keywords. This will help boost your site (at least in the short term) for the newly added terms.

5. Update your XML sitemap.

Google loves fresh, new content. Adjusting and updating your on-page SEO efforts will be well worth your time and effort. If you’re agency is NOT consistently – like every 4-6 months or so – at least looking at updating their optimization efforts, then you may want to consider a change.

Put another way… optimize your site optimization efforts for optimal results!

Photo Credit to Noel Feans

Kodak set to quit camera film and photo paper business

This is sad news to folks my age or older, who grew up with cameras. No, I mean real cameras that took pictures with film. You then took that film in to be developed and sometimes got it back in a hour; more likely got it back in a few days. It was like opening presents, since you didn’t know how those pictures came out, just that you took them. Digital photography certainly is more flexible (and instantaneous) but there’s a certainly part of me that misses the old days!

New Penguin Update:  SEOs Beware!

Penguin update 1.2 or 2.0 (depending on how they version them) is set to release soon. How will this update affect websites? Well the article references a Twitter response sent from Google’s own Matt Cutts that points at linking as one area of concern.

“@joshbachynski saw your comment on Barry’s post. Certainly links are a primary area to monitor. Been true all this year; expect to continue.”

So I guess now would be a good time to review your link building strategy!

5 Things PPC May Be Telling You About Your Business (Without You Realizing!)

The immediacy of PPC relative to SEO can provide some great insight into your organization, besides drive leads. Read the article for the details, but here are the 5 things referenced in the article:

1. Impact of Branding Exercises
2. Website and/or Landing Page Performance
3. Insight into Your USP’s
4. Insight into Your Audience’s Language Behavior
5. Popularity of Certain Products

All great points to be sure! I might also add that you can get some pretty quick insight into the performance of keywords, which can help you with your SEO efforts, but that’s another blog for another day.

Anyway, one article that did catch my eye was 6 Unpleasant Truths About Social Media. I thought they were spot on… for the most part! Here they are:

1. Engagement can’t be seen in dollars – While I agree that social media is not all about sales, depending on what you sell you can certainly realize huge financial success with social media and there are plenty of success stories out there that prove this. That said I think it best to approach social media with other goals in mind and let the sales side of it work itself out.

2. Social is just PR in overdrive – Well I think social media is a little more than PR, but it does for the most part fit nicely into the PR side of marketing. I think it also deserves a place at the demand generation and digital marketing table.

3. Money can’t buy everything – Totally agree! In fact I think that companies that try to bull nose their way into the spotlight via social media will actually regret that move. Social media is more organic than that!

4. Facebook isn’t a megaphone – Again I totally agree. Facebook is community… shouting your message here and at other social platforms can have a negative effect.

5. You’re being watched – Good! This is what it’s all about, but be sure to be real and genuine. Fakes and frauds will be eaten alive in social media.

6. Content rarely goes viral – Very true… you need to share viral worth content, but it’s up to your networks to decide what’s worth their time.

So these 6 unpleasant truths are certainly worth noting, but I suspect there are others. Here are a couple more that I’d add to the list:

7. Nobody is an expert – There are definitely people that are better at it, understand it more, and have more success, but nobody is an expert! It’s too new. It changes and evolves too quickly. And, there’s no one formula that fits each industry, company or social platform. This isn’t to say that consulting with experienced social media professionals is not a good idea, just don’t believe people who claim to be experts.

8. Social media platforms are not a place for testing – Polling your followers for ideas on creative… yes! Testing your ideas… no! Just not a good idea… don’t do it. Test your ideas in other media like email, direct mail, etc., but not a channel where people can actively discuss these ideas amongst themselves.

What other unpleasant truths do you see or have experienced? Drop them in the comment field below.

Image source:  Fast Company Magazine September 2012 Issue

Instagram 3.0 – Photo Maps & More

Yesterday Instagram released its 3.0 version of the app. Released both for iOS and Android, the new ‘maps’ feature allows you to browse your, or others images, on a map where photos appear where they were geo-tagged at the time of shooting.  Here is how Instagram describes the new experience:

“With every major release, we pick a theme – and for this one we’ve focused on the browsing experience. We’ve introduced a new and unique way to browse your photos and others’ photos on a map, which means you’re no longer constrained to browsing through page after page of photos. “

Read more on Instragram’s blog by clicking the link above. Here’s a walkthrough video:

Instagram 3.0 – Photo Maps Walkthrough from Instagram on Vimeo.

McKayla Maroney Scowls Amiably For Stephen Colbert [VIDEO]

By now we all know the famous McKayla Maroney scowl that she flashed when receiving the silver medal in HER event. Well, since she flashed the scowl she’s had a ton of publicity and continues to be good natured about it.  Her recent appearance, along with other US Women’s gymnasts, on the Stephen Colbert Show was more of the same. If ever there was a way to turn a negative into a positive this is the way, with a smile and sense of humor.  Here is the video:

The Colbert Report
Get More: Colbert Report Full Episodes,Political Humor & Satire Blog,Video Archive

Finding the Right (Bra) Fit, With Technology’s Help

This New York Times article is an odd article for us to post but we found it to be a great example of online technology solving a very real issue, for women.  Retailers are now trying to draw women away from in-store dressing rooms and get them to use a more convenient, and private, online tools to help them find the best-fitting bras. What caught our attention, besides the word bra, was that a San Francisco startup, True&Co, signed up 20,000 women to its website in the first 36 hours of “opening its doors”.

What we like most about this story is that these companies are realizing the needs of their audience and meeting those needs in a creative, successful way. Companies that do that will find that online marketing efforts just pour gasoline on the fire. 20,000 signups in 36 hours says it all.

First we want to say this…try not to over think content, but DO think about it. The little time you focus on it will pay off big in terms of online brand visibility. Here are our ideas (Of course this is not a comprehensive list so please be sure to share your ideas and tips in the comments below).

1. Blogging. Write one blog entry every week. Pick a day of the week to post it and do that every week. Pencil your blog writing time on your calendar, and stick to it! If you need ideas to blog about look no further than other blogs and online resources. Check out our Content Creation Lifecycle Infographic for a look at curating content. You can do it! Time is the biggest factor here. But again, don’t over think blogging. Just do small posts to start. As you get into the habit start building larger/longer posts that show your expertise at a deeper level.

2. Commenting. Comment on blogs you read. You’re already there…get busy and interact. Don’t be too promotional; just share your ideas and thoughts. Occasionally, if you write your own content that’s related to an article or blog entry you’re reading, you can comment and post a link to your own content. You have to be careful not to be too promotional when comment and linking to your own content. Make sure it’s very relevant. Also, many blogs don’t allow links so know the source. Again, comments are content. They show you can think for yourself, you’re relevant, and have an opinion.

3. Tweeting.  Tweet the articles, blogs, images, videos, or any other content you find interesting. Keep it focused, as much as possible, on a few of your top interests and expertise. I’m a huge Oregon Ducks fan, and my biz partner is a huge Boston Red Sox fan, and we tweet often on those personal interests, but be sure you’re mostly professionally focused if you’re using Twitter as a content marketing medium.

4. Sharing.  Sharing content is content marketing. Are you a member of a social network? Seriously, do I have to ask this? As a member of Facebook, Twitter (I mentioned tweeting above), LinkedIn, Google Plus, Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon, or any other social network you have the opportunity to show people your expertise, your likes and dislikes, and your opinions. Try to stay focused on your expertise, particularly on sites like LinkedIn (and LinkedIn is a very important content opportunity), so as to build thought leadership and a solid professional reputation. When you share something, be sure to make a comment with your thoughts instead of just posting an article or blog. This will show your thought leadership. Hey, you’re already reading stuff so grab yourself a Hootsuite account and start sharing. BTW, don’t forget to share your own content. If you blog then you HAVE to share that!

5. Infographics. Yeah, we know, they’re all the rage right now but it’s for good reason. People LOVE them. There is nothing like an infographic that shows us in a few pictures what might take hours to read in a statistical report. If you have insights into industry statistics, gov’t statistics, or have produced any content that might easily take the form of an infographic then you should turn it into one. Seriously, the Content Creation Lifecycle infographic that I referenced in the blogging section above has given us thousands of visits to our site, as well as hundreds of inbound links (which, of course, are VERY good for SEO). It doesn’t have to be complicated or long, just make it interesting. BTW, many of the links are coming from Pinterest.

6. Videos. The evolution of video content has been very good for business. No longer do companies have to produce $50,000+ commercials/videos to get eyeballs. They also don’t have to spend that much money to produce a valuable piece of video content. You can shoot a video in 10 minutes, slice it up using some very easy to use tools out there, and push it to Facebook, YouTube, or Vimeo in just a few more minutes. Videos can now be created for hundreds of dollars, not thousands.  Do you, or anyone on your team with an expertise and an experience, have a few minutes to talk in front of a camera? Maybe I should make that a statement….You, or someone on your team, has a few minutes to talk in front of a camera.  Just do it.

These, of course, are just a few ideas. They can take time but Online Brand Visibility is dependent on the content you and your company put online. If you don’t produce content you can be sure your competitors are…guaranteed.

What are your content marketing ideas? Do you have a “no-brainer”, battle tested, content marketing strategy? Let us know your secret!

Photo Credit to Johan Larsson

Global CMOs:  Here are 6 Reasons Why You Cannot Manage Search Through Translation

This search engine land article by Andy Atkins-Kruger tells CMOs what they don’t want to hear… that translation is not the answer for global search. From imperfections in translation to keyword alternates to grammatical variations, simple translation simply won’t get you the desired results when it comes to search in foreign languages.

Translation doesn’t work for any marketing, frankly, so why would it work for search? I’ve seen many a blown marketing campaign by folks who thought that simply changing the language was the way to go. The reality is that you need to think ‘localization’ to get it right! Different languages have different cultures behind those languages. It’s time to think holistically!

10 Old SEO Methods You Need to Stop

This Search Engine Watch article by Greg Habermann outlines 10 tactics that most of us SEO types have used in the past that just aren’t cutting these days. With all the Google Panda and Penguin updates that have come down the pike our way in the past couple of years it’s time that old-school SEO providers wake up (or move over). Every industry on the planet changes, which requires every company on the planet to evolve of face certain extinction. It’s been this way for ever. Not going to change.

Why the Olympic Games Social Media Policy Failed

This Brian Solis guest post by Eric Schwartzman paints a clear picture on why Rule 40 of the Olympic Games social media policy completely missed the mark. I couldn’t agree more! State funded athletes are at a huge advantage here versus corporate funded athletes like those in Western countries. Not being able to promote a brand whatsoever using social media not only kills free speech, but puts these corporate sponsored athletes in a pickle. Isn’t this supposed to be about sport?

Market Smart in Stormy Times: Market Content

We all know that in tough times it gets harder to spend money, particularly on marketing. This article from Search Engine Journal, written by Jen Carroll of Pole Position Marketing (@martijen), talks about the growing shift from outbound marketing to inbound marketing. The shift is happening for a couple reasons as the article states. One is economics.  As the economy moves along slowly, inbound marketing is saving companies money over expensive outbound campaigns.  Two is inbound marketing is hitting people where they are. People are online more and more.  The article calls it marketing ‘smart’. I’ve never tried to market dumb, nor would I recommend it, but I tend to agree that inbound is the way to go.

Facebook DOES NOT have 83 Million Fake Accounts, Relax

Recent Facebook statistics to come out show that nearly 10% of its accounts are fake. If you were like me you probably thought “Who cares?”, or rather “I’m SO surprised. (sarcasm)”. This blog by Jason Keath (@jasonkeath) of socialfresh does a great job of explaining what it all probably means. From business accounts to private accounts there are a lot of reasons why there are probably 83 million ‘fake’ accounts. One stat I’d like to see is how many young kids are lying about their age, you’re supposed to be 13 years old, and joining Facebook.  I bet that number is staggering too!

Iran nuclear facilities hit by cyber attack that plays AC/DC’s Thunderstruck at full volume

This article, by www.dailymail.co.uk,  has to take the cake for the funniest read of the week. This quote from the article says it all!

“It has been alleged that unidentified computer hackers have forced workers at two of the country’s controversial nuclear facilities to endure AC/DC’s hit song Thunderstruck repeatedly – and at full volume – sometimes in the middle of the night.”

Although I think this is very funny, and clever, it is somewhat disturbing that a nuclear facility’s systems can be hacked. I’m hoping the damage done is limited to some annoying music being played and doesn’t lead to a major incident.

So, late last year when we decided to remake our website, we thought about how to best showcase our dynamic content. So many sites (like all corporate sites), including our own at the time, have a blog “section” within the main site. The two were living together but not sharing any of the common space so to speak. Given the importance of blog-type content to SEO, as well as to the sales process in today’s social media driven world, we decided to make our blog (dynamic content) the focus of our site.

So in June we launched our new site, complete with a homepage that doubles as our blog. Blog content is integrated throughout the site and visitors are given easier access to content that (frankly) does a much better job of selling who we are as an agency than any static webpage can any day of the week. There’s more integration into our social media channels as well, so site visitors can really interact with us, as well as our content.

So… how has this changed our site analytics and interaction?

Comparing May 2012 (month before launch) with June (month of launch) the following stats tell the story best:

• Visits up 127%
• Page views up 482%
• Pages per visit up 155% (to 5.5 pages per!)
• Site referrals up 497%
• Search referrals up 65%
• Time on site up 72% (to 4:20)
• Bounce rate down 94% (to 1%!)

Our site bounce rate is down to 1 percent! This means that just about everyone who hits our site finds another page of interest. Crazy stats!

So if you’re thinking about whether fresh content can make a difference in your site experience, our answer would be ‘HECK YA!’. Our advice would be to integrate that content into your site, Today!

Epic Fail: Barclay’s Facebook Debacle Highlighted the Chasm Between the Bank and Its Customers

This ReadWriteWeb blog from Taylor Hatmaker really underscores how companies can make huge mistakes using social media. Banks have been reluctant to jump into channels like Facebook given the exposure it provides their customers and this gaff by Barclay’s clearly exemplifies why. This is a great live-and-learn case study for companies that may have some possible baggage to deal with.

Chick-Fil-A Accused of Setting Up Face Facebook Account

Here’s another example of how to NOT do Facebook. In an effort to combat negative Facebook posts regarding their stand on gay marriage, Chick-Fil-A is accused of setting up fake accounts and posting comments in their favor. This sort of tactic will most certainly always come back to bite and on a channel like Facebook, the negative repercussions could possibly be more damaging than what they were trying to overcome in the first place.

Prioritizing Your Keywords

Nick Stamoulis in his Search Engine Guide blog, talks about how to best prioritize your keywords. It still amazes me how many companies DON’T have a well-thought out keyword list. If your one of the smart ones that have compiled a list, distributed it to your marketing team, agencies, and writers, then this blog does a nice job of showing you which keywords to focus on first.

They link to a blog post on the Webmaster Central Blog that focuses on guidance for building a quality site. This whole Panda series of updates started in February of 2011 and continues to keep the industry on its toes.

Frankly, anything that drives websites and webmasters to build more original content and to build quality links/sites is a good thing. I guess the hard part is how can we trust Google has figured out how to evaluate ‘quality content’? Sure, there’s blatantly BAD content that’s created to ‘trick’ the system into giving it good search rankings. But isn’t there also original content that isn’t optimized, that may appear bad, but is actually really good? Do you trust Google to be able to make that decision for you?

Give us your thoughts in the comments below!

New data refresh of Panda starts rolling out tonight. ~1% of search results change enough to notice. More context: goo.gl/huekf

— A Googler (@google) July 24, 2012

Content Creates Engagement

This CMO article from Anoop Sahgal – Executive Marketing at Adobe Systems – is spot on. I especially like how he positions social media as “an ingredient, not the recipe.” Too many people dive into social media and focus on the number of followers and not the engagement with them. Create good content that people want to read and the followers (and engagement) will take care of themselves.

SEO Audits:  Strategic Vs. Tactical – The Right Solution for Clients

This Search Engine Journal blog from Alan Bleiweiss details his definition of strategic and tactical SEO audits. He’s right… you can certainly spend hours performing a site audit and create a report that’s hundreds of pages in length and then watch as your client laughs at you. No client (of ours anyway) wants this much information. They want a synopsis of their current SEO scenario and then a project plan for addressing shortfalls.

5 Ways to Boost B2B Conversions

This Search Engine Watch blog by Alex Cohen provides some insightful tips for improving conversion rates for your B2B lead generation efforts. At the core of his tips is mitigating risk – a key emotion in B2B buying cycles that needs to be addressed for optimal conversion. One way to mitigate risk he touches on that is paramount is “ask for less.” This is especially true in longer sales cycles, complex purchasing decisions, and high-ticket products or solutions.

“When it comes to communicating with your customers and fans on social media, truth, transparency and timely updates are always the best strategies to take. You have to remember that you can never please everyone, and social media attacks may arise when least expected.”

In this particular case, Starbuck’s did, in fact, play by the transparency rules that social media dictates and yet they still became the focus of a backlash. They probably could have been a little more careful positioning Argentinian-made backup products, especially to an Argentinian audience, but their intentions were good.

The even greater lesson here is not to ignore negative comments. Some companies choose to simply let negative comments dissipate on their own – and sometimes they do – but they can also fester. In direct marketing, we used to say that a “no” was at the very least a response, albeit one we weren’t hoping for. Turning negative comments into something positive simply by the way you address them can bring the kind of social media attention that brands can capitalize on.

I’m really just writing this blog to say DON’T.  Don’t underestimate organic traffic conversions. And it’s all about conversions, right? Traffic is great; conversions are greater.

We’ve seen an amazing case of this in the last year with one of our clients.  They hadn’t really focused on organic traffic through SEO, rather they’d focused on measuring and tracking their efforts on the paid side of SEM (search engine marketing).  CPC, CPM, keyword bid management, goal conversions, etc. were all the focus with not much thought about measuring the same on the organic side.

We don’t manage our client’s paid campaigns but I’m going to make a wild guess that they are paying more to Google than they are to us to optimize their site using our SEO techniques, including GapSEO.  This leads me into my final point.  You can, and often should, pay to send targeted traffic to your site through online advertising, but don’t ignore the fact that you can spend a lot less money to an SEO marketing firm and get more bang for your buck.  Here are the raw numbers for paid and organic traffic conversions for our client in the last 12 months:

• Paid Conversions/Traffic – June 2011 to May 2012: 7,806 conversions from 226,771 visits
• Organic Conversion/Traffic – June 2011 to May 2012: 38,852 conversions from 1,536,338 visits 

So, my recommendation to you is to start, if you haven’t already, by optimizing your site for organic traffic and organic traffic conversions, then jump to the online advertising to supplement your online marketing efforts.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and let’s discuss!

In fact, we could add that the ‘social media’ section of typical site also has its own section, separate from the ‘corporate’ section and often times separate – although usually more integrated – from the ‘blog’ section. Why is this? Given the established fact that blogs and social media networks play a strong role in the sales cycle – be it exploring, comparing, or gathering opinion – why then aren’t blogs and social content more visible throughout websites?

Some are of course, but more often than not a huge opportunity is being neglected. It would stand to reason that if ABC Company that sells various pens and writing utensils has A) a blog, B) a social media presence with a YouTube Channel and maybe a Twitter account, and C) a corporate site, then mingling content would help their cause.

Imagine… your on their site examining the latest mechanical pencil, when down the right sidebar there’s the last two blog posts that discuss the value of mechanical pencils, a video featuring the latest breakthrough in mechanical pencil design, and the last several tweets that they sent around the same pencil. You could easily explore content that is often less salesy and more informational by nature, gather public opinion via comments and retweets, and make an informed buying decision.

Okay… there would be the potential for opening up possible negative blog comments and other public opinion, but I’d argue that’s okay! In fact, I’d argue that these negative comments could also help push your products and solutions into favorable light (a blog for another time perhaps).

Put that social media and blog content to work for you! It’ll not only make your SEO marketing firm happy, but it’s your best ally when it comes to sales cycle closure.

The SlideShare below walks you through key components of any good PPC campaign, including:

• Managing your Adwords budget
• The account structure and keyword selection process
• Writing good ad copy
• Defining campaign parameters
• Setting up landing pages that convert traffic
• Tracking and monitoring your campaign
• Managing Adwords Quality Score
• Branded keyword strategy

There’s a ton you can do to improve ad performance over time and optimize your results. If you have some tips and ideas that we didn’t cover, drop them in the comments box below. We’d love to hear from you!

What do I mean by ‘dynamic content’? Well, core website pages rarely change, so I consider these static. They’re important to be sure, but as we all know by Google’s constant stream of algorithm changes, that new, fresh content – dynamic – is even more important for search engine visibility, yet they’re often ignored from an SEO perspective. This makes no sense given their importance!

Enter GapSEO – something we coined (yet I’d be shocked if we ‘invented’ it) – that remedies this for our clients. Blogs, videos, e-newsletters, press releases, articles… anything that our clients create that is considered fresh, new (and dynamic) is sent on over to us for optimization PRIOR to posting live. Implementing SEO best practices can make this fantastic content work harder for you! Is your dynamic content optimized? If not, close the gap, with GapSEO, so it can be found more easily.

Photo Credit to Elsie esq.

We recently began a new initiative with one of our clients to help facilitate the sales and marketing conversation that was missing in their organization. The idea was to gather information from both teams in order to begin to formulate unified messaging across their website and sales collateral. What we found was that the conversation was a breath of fresh air for everyone.  The response from both teams was amazing because there was a realization that although they work for the same company, the often worked in silos as ‘sales team’ and ‘marketing team’. It was like having a conversation with a distant relative for the first time in years.  So good to catch up and see what the other was doing and in the process revitalizing the relationship.

Beyond the ‘catching up’ and relational part of working together as a unified ‘Sales and Marketing’ team the information shared and gathered was invaluable.  Here are some of the questions we asked SALES, that were extremely valuable for both sales and marketing. I recommend that every organization ask (and get answers to) these questions on a quarterly, or semi-annual, basis.  Read and see why…

1. List three (or more) objections you hear from prospects. Are these similar across products and solutions? If not how do they differ?
2. Who do you feel the buyer is in terms of title or persona (if your company has personas created)? Does this vary by business size or vertical?
3. Who (by title or persona) are influencers in the sales cycle?
4. Describe the typical sales process from engagement through close.
5. How much time does it take to get through the sales cycle?
6. What questions do your prospects ask of you? What are they asking of you to help them make their decision?
7. In a successful sale, what do you think, most often, makes it a success?
8. List the key product/solution differentiators that your company has over its competition. Not just what your web page says; What are your clients/customers saying are your key differentiators? Why did they purchase?
9. Buyer: What frustrations do buyers typically have in their daily work, or company, that you’re solving? What are their fears? What pressures are they under in making decisions?
10. Influencer: What frustrations do influencers typically have in their daily work, or company, that you’re solving? What are their fears? What pressures are they under in making decisions?
11. What are your competitors doing better than you? OUCH, but you better know.
12. What are you doing better than your competitors?
13. Is your website a valuable sales tool for you?
14. If you could make any change to your website what would you change?
15. Does your site meet the needs of your entire target audience?
16. What are prospects and customers saying about your website?

I really could create a longer list but we went in with a set amount of questions and allowed the conversation to ebb and flow based on the answers.  You can see how much real value it would bring to any organization if you had the answers to these questions.

The ultimate goal is to use this valuable information for content development with strong messaging that speaks to your audience.  To make that happen, and to gather this info…marketing you are going to have to speak to Sales;  Sales, you’re going to have to work with Marketing to help them understand the objections and problems you face when your feet on are the front line talking to prospects.  Too often Sales just wants to complain about how Marketing never knows what’s really going on and what Sales really needs.  Marketing, you know you’re guilty of complaining about Sales wanting everything, and wanting it now, without really empathizing with the pressure they’re under to sell; pressure that is often driven by sales goals and quotas.  Both teams need to put the other’s shoes on, talk some shop, and strategize together on how each can help the other.  Trust me; both teams will be more successful.

Do you find the Sales and Marketing chasm being an issue in your company?  How have you worked through that?  Let us know in the comments below!

Photo Credit to bibendum84

Do I know what my Business Objectives/Goals are?
What is Success going to look like for this campaign? Are you looking for product sales, brand awareness, whitepaper downloads, new users, new blog subscribers, etc?  How many transactions per dollar spend will be a success? How many new users per dollar spend will be a success? In order to be able to define whether or not your campaign is successful you’ll need to know the answer to these questions.  Once you define your campaign success you’ll be able to measure your success, and ultimately your PPC campaign ROI.

Do I know my Target Audience’s online behavior?
Almost equally important to knowing your campaign objectives, know your target audience and their online behavior. Is it the C-suite, VP, or Director for a B2B tech company who uses search primarily during business hours, Monday through Friday? Is he or she on the east coast, or west?  Or is it a consumer like a working Mom managing her kids and her household who can only get online in the evening after the kids are in bed? You’re likely to know this right away but I mentione it because it’s important to understand the search behavior of your audience. This means knowing the types of keyword terms they use to search, the time of day they spend most of their time searching for their needs online, and the area of the country your audience primarily resides. The more you know about your audience’s online behavior the great chance you’ll have to achieve your business objectives.

Whether you’re a small business owner managing a PPC campaign on your own or a marketing manager at a large company responsible for PPC campaigns you’ll have greater success by answering these questions in the beginning. If you’re the marketing manager or director and you’re looking for buy-in from top management having the campaign well planned with details about business objectives and target audience will most likely get you the buy-in you’re looking for.

These are just two of the questions we look at when we help strategize a PPC campaign. What are some essential questions you ask when planning PPC efforts? Leave a comment and let us know!

Photo Credit to milos milosevic

Take a look around… we’ve made our blog and all of its content more of a focus. Why? Well for starters other than telling you what we do, the main service pages of our site – and any site really – don’t offer a ton of value. Sure they’re important. But we feel that the insights that our blog provides to people looking to solve problems, get answers, or learn about things in our space provide more value. We also fully recognize the importance of fresh, relevant content to online brand visibility – and preach it every day to our prospects and clients.

Also new to our site is a Resources page. Here you’ll be able to download the latest infographics, page through some SlideShares, and download some One-Pagers on what we do and how we do it. We’ll be adding more content here for your consumption as it’s built and created.

Finally, and also new to our site, is a Clients page. We work with some of the best companies and are blessed to have them as valued clients, so we wanted to show them off to you.

That’s it! Hope you like the new site. We’ll be back at blogging regularly now, so check back often.

Well check out these statistics…

• 51% of people use social media
• 51% of social media users have posted original content somewhere in the social sphere
• 73% of people have posted a product review
• 97% have searched for a brand online
• 66% of social media users have ‘friended’ or ‘followed’ a brand
• 65% of social media users have had their mind changed about a brand perception
• 97% say that social media has influenced a purchasing decision

Brands need to profile existing customers and learn what social media channels they prefer. They then need to listen and watch how their customers and prospects interact and use social media. There are tons of social media monitoring tools available today and they can help companies uncover brand trends, listen to conversations, and see what people are saying about them, their customers, and advocates.

Brands can then take part in these conversations, while developing a base of ‘fans’ or ‘followers.’ With transparency and an appropriate persona, brands can create and nurture perceptions while overcoming negativity. They can educate their prospects and customers and influence decisions.

Social media is not, however, a new outlet for general advertising or making sales pitches. Brands that don’t understand this will suffer damage to their image and unleash a backlash that could have detrimental consequences. One example of this that comes to mind is T.G.I. Friday’s Woody Facebook promotion.

Friday’s created a fictional character named Woody on Facebook. Supported with a TV ad campaign (notice I said supported) Woody was seeking fans. When he hit 500,000 fans, each fan would receive a coupon for a free burger at Friday’s. Woody soon had 1 million fans and was making appearances at restaurant locations throughout the U.S. Fans would post pictures of them at restaurants – with Woody or without. I thought it was very clever, and with 1 million fans to market (cleverly) to, Friday’s was quickly realizing social media success.

Until that is, they decided to have Woody go back to his girlfriend as a way to end the campaign. END the campaign? The negative backlash on Woody’s Facebook page was instantaneous and massive. Why end the campaign entirely? Couldn’t they change it a little?

Embracing social media, and respecting its power along the way, will open huge opportunities for any brand looking to get closer to its customers and prospects – something traditional media just can’t offer.

I certainly believe that content now more than ever is the primary driver of decent site ranking, but I also fundamentally believe that site search engine optimization – at least the implementation of SEO best practices – is a key variable as well.

We see a shift in SEO, where a well-optimized site, combined with fresh, dynamic content that is shared among social networks will make up the core SEO offering. We see link building as it exists today shifting to more relevant inbound links that are created by social network members, followers, circles, fans, etc.

Does this spell the end of SEO as many of the blog comments suggest? No. More like a shift or evolution, and frankly what most marketing tactics endure each and every day. The internet and email didn’t kill direct mail; it just made it stronger. Websites didn’t kill collateral; it just made it more focused. Online media didn’t kill television advertising; it just made it more integrated. Likewise, content marketing isn’t going to kill SEO, it’s just going to make it that more important.

So we think the future of improved online visibility via the search engines – or at least Google – is a well-optimized site (keywords used in Meta titles and descriptions, alt image tags, anchor text, body copy, H1 and H2 tags), a strong stream of well-written and optimized content, and established social media networks to share and distribute that content.

Phew!

The argument for the dinosaur comment really couldn’t be further from the truth… “that with the increasing popularity of social marketing, as well as the inundation of free ezines (or free e-magazines), blogs have become the online dinosaur?”

Wendy makes some great points… especially about the importance of PULL marketing, but I wanted to add a few points and statistics that support blogging.

First… with all the changes that Google has made in their search algorithm, the importance of dynamic, well-written content is huge. How huge? HiveFire, a Cambridge, Mass based internet company surveyed 400 marketing professionals and found that 82 percent of B2B companies now employ content marketing as a strategy. Add to this fact that 91 percent of email users have unsubscribed from an email they previously opted into and 84 percent of 25 to 34 year olds have left a favorite website because of intrusive or irrelevant advertising, and suddenly well-written content like corporate blogs become very relevant!

Second… with Google’s added importance on dynamic content, the SEO value inherent in well-optimized blogs is huge. They need to be well-written… of course, but adding smart, SEO tactics to that nicely written blog will help drive not only blog rankings, but your corporate site’s rankings as well.

Third… I would argue that blogs are very much a part of social media. Social media (at least as far as I’m concerned) is about communication across networks comprised of people and businesses of interest to each other. Sharing custom content, ideas, and thoughts – what a blog should be – is the very heart of social media.

What do you think?

Google’s latest development could be seen a mile away. Is it a bad thing? To me, it certainly looks like Google believes that social media is where the most relevant custom content lives and thus provides the most relevant search results, and to some degree they may be correct, though they need to be fair in serving up that content. This would align with their recent push toward favoring fresh, new content – which traditionally would mean greater relevance; at least in theory.

All this said, the last several ‘big’ stories to break, from the Tsunami in Japan to Michael Jackson’s death to Kim Jong Il’s passing, I found on Facebook and Twitter. Google+ is in its infancy relative to Twitter and Facebook, and while it makes sense to include social media content in search results, Google is missing a huge part of the boat here.

Google claims to want to provide the most relevant search results possible, which is why many people prefer to use Google over Bing and Yahoo, but this latest change in providing results seems to me to be falling short of achieving this goal. Could this be an opening for Yahoo and Bing? I think time will tell.

So the debate will continue, lines will be drawn in the proverbial sand, and many companies will setup their Google+ pages; and they should. In fact, given this latest change they need to. Whether we agree with Google’s move or not, until someone or something comes along and changes the search marketing playing field, Google dictates the moves.

These touches do not have to be push communications – direct mail, email – but can be pull efforts in the form of blogging or social media. Most B2B buyers of expensive products and services today look to their social media networks for information and advice, and having yourcustom content available to them helps shorten lengthy sales cycles.

Smart B2B lead generation is about creating relationships and dialogue with prospects. Once you develop the initial conversation, it’s about having the right information in front of them at the right time. Your blog needs to speak to your prospects and customers with this in mind. Providing information for each stage in the sales cycle, and then sharing this information (not just once) in social media networks and channels, can play a big role in reducing sales cycles. Oh, and by the way, you may not be able to measure this assistance directly, but rest assured it is doing its part.

So where do you begin? Well… start thinking about your sales cycle and what people need to move from one part of it to the next. Let’s use the case of an enterprise software solution that is centered around financial services. The solution will touch at least two areas within an enterprise – finance and technology, so right away you need to speak to implementation scenarios for both lines of business. Check!

Now you need to think about the stages in your sales cycle. There’s the evaluation of potential vendors (how does your solution differentiate itself from your competitors?). Then there’s implementation concerns perhaps involving other, existing software, databases, or legacy systems (5 ways our solution plays well with others…). Then there’s ROI considerations (See how ABC company garnered a 200% ROI…). They may also be interested in ongoing support (2 nightmare scenarios that are easy to avoid…). You get the idea.

This type of customized content (searchable, visible, findable) will differentiate your company from other competitors who continue to send mail and email in an effort to generate leads. Generating leads is great, but it’s only a small part of sales generation.

These Insights aren’t designed to be earth-shattering, but rather to plant an idea in your head for how you might think about marketing next year. We hope they help you see the importance of brand visibility and help guide you in your decision making surrounding online brand presence.

We’ve listed our Insights below, and embedded the SlideShare below, which contains more detail on our thoughts.

Search Engine Marketing:

·         Google will continue to make algorithm changes that center on ‘fresh’ content

·         Google+, and pages for Google+, will emerge as important SEO tools for businesses

·         Microsoft will acquire Yahoo and make some inroads in search marketing share of business

·         Social media will continue to play a significant role in search visibility (SEO)

Content Creation and Blogging:

·         Content will be promoted from ‘King’ to ‘Emperor’ status

·         Active blogs will continue to boost online brand visibility

·         Content curation will continue to enjoy strong growth

·         More and more websites will adapt a blog format

Social Media Marketing:

·         Facebook will continue to dominate the consumer social media networking landscape

·         Facebook is becoming an ecommerce platform that brands shouldn’t ignore

·         Twitter will continue to evolve their advertising offering; creating opportunity

·         Social media will chip away at traditional marketing budgets to play a greater role in lead generation

It’s been an exciting year in digital marketing and we’re excited about the opportunities that lay ahead in 2012 for marketers. While they say that nobody likes change save for a wet baby, we do believe that the changes taking place in digital marketing are good ones, and if embraced can lead to tremendous opportunity.

With just over $34 billion in online sales last year, a 40% increase over the previous year, Amazon leads the web in sales. Impressive numbers to be sure, and I especially like how Amazon recommends additional purchases based on who also bought what you just did. Pretty slick.

Now imagine purchasing something on Facebook and having it tell you that 4 of your friends also bought that, and oh, by the way, they also like this storefront and that storefront, and also purchased A, B, and C. Just wait for it… it’s going to happen.

More and more web-based ecommerce platforms are supporting Facebook checkouts and many of them don’t require shoppers to even leave Facebook to complete a transaction. That’s big stuff, but not nearly as big as Facebook itself. This year, Facebook has over 800 million active users, each with an average of 130 friends and over half login and use the platform daily. Almost every retail brand has a page with a strong following of fans, so all they need to do is start facilitating commerce and Amazon would likely feel the hit.

A lot of people get “creeped” out by the contextual nature of Facebook suggesting that your best friend liked this, so you should too. Frankly, if a social media site is going to collect information on me (and trust me they all are) than at least put that data to good use. I’d rather be shown products and solutions that suit me versus some crap that doesn’t pertain to me. Likewise, I’d like to see what my friends are buying… they’re my friends. If they like it, chances are I might.

So my prediction over the course of 2012 is that Facebook becomes more of a transactional community – with places, shops – both boutique and big-box – and less of a network. If that happens Amazon had better look out… oh, and I’d argue that Google+ should look out too!

Google’s Panda update has been rolling out over the last several months, but their latest iteration – Panda 2.5 – places an even stricter emphasis on unique content. The result has been lower keyword ranking and organic traffic for many organizations that go about business as usual. Sound search engine optimization best practices have and will continue to be very important, but now the creation of unique, relevant content will play an even more important role in overall search engine visibility.

Add to this latest Panda update the Freshness Update that was announced last week and content is becoming more like Emperor than King. The Freshness Update – which according to Google will affect nearly 35% of searches (more than even Panda) – rewards sites for posting new, relevant content. Content with outdated information – old events, older blog posts, etc. – will see a drop in ranking in favor of new information. This is especially true for industries that revolve around products that have versions versus industries that are constant – television industry versus enterprise software as example.

These two changes are significant by themselves, but together it means that Google will prioritize search results for content that is unique, fresh, and well-written – something we should all actually be grateful for. SMBs can capitalize on this opportunity by writing blogs, articles, and content that should see a pretty decent spike in rankings – giving them potentially equal footing with larger organizations. The most difficult part of this is the sustained effort that will be required, since rankings will recede over time. So write about new product updates, service enhancements, the latest features you have to offer, and make sure that content is well-optimized.

This should give Google+ a boost in users and maybe slow the decline of activity on the social network that we’ve all read about.  But is this enough to make it win the social media game from an enterprise/business standpoint.  I’m not sure at this point.

Time will ultimately tell about Google+ life expectancy, but Google putting in place a social media networking platform that might help boost search engine optimization through it’s “Plus One” button seems to be insuring businesses will HAVE to take part in the social network.  That’s pretty good “job security” if you ask me.

The one reason Jason cited as a possible way Google+ could succeed is because of Google’s domination in search. When you’re logged in to Google+, your posts now appear in search results. Does this mean that companies will have no choice but to create Google+ profiles and post content? I think the jury is still out here, but I’d have to argue YES. You simply can’t ignore a media outlet that will – it seems – get preferential treatment from the largest, most dominant search engine available. For this reason I think Google+ could potentially succeed in the long run… or will it?

It seems that Google has made its way into nearly every facet of our lives these days, but there will come a time when it will go too far. Is this it? In August of this year, Google’s search engine market share fell below 65 percent for the first time in two years, and while September’s figures show a slight rebound, could this provide the opening that Yahoo and Bing have been waiting for to capitalize on market share improvement?

Time will ultimately tell – for both its search market share and Google+ life expectancy, but I do not like that Google is putting in place a social media networking platform that might become a requirement for search engine optimizationefforts or even decent search rankings. This seems to fly in the face of providing relevant and accurate results, and takes the social out of social networking.