The same holds true with online marketing. Although “content marketing” is the buzzword of the day, it’s not “content” that brings potential clients or customers to your website. It’s the value of your content that brings in the leads. A lead isn’t going to give away their contact information in exchange for “content.” However, if a potential lead sees value in the information offered they will be much more likely to exchange contact information in order to receive that information.

In the same way that someone might purchase a book on Amazon, a visitor to your website is “purchasing” the information you’re offering. Instead of paying cash for the information, they are making the purchase with an email address or phone number.

But it doesn’t stop there. The information (ie. ebook, white paper or webinar) they’ve purchased needs to provide enough value that they don’t feel ripped off. If the customer doesn’t find value in their purchase, chances are they won’t come back for more. Provide something they can really use though and you’ve not only captured contact information, you’ve created a warm lead–a lead that will be more likely to reach out for your services.

The Rise of “Content Marketing”
For years search engine optimization specialists (SEOs) specialized in moving websites to the top of the search engine rankings. An entire industry formed around quickly built websites filled with advertising and affiliate links but little information of value. Traffic was the key to making money and the top spots in the search engine rankings paid off. SEOs knew all the tricks needed to gain that top spot on Google for their clients. There was little concern for the Google user seeking information.

Google caught on however and with the Panda and Penguin algorithm updates it got much harder to game the search returns. Websites that provided content but no value were quickly dropped from the rankings leaving thousands of “SEOs” desperately clinging to their sudden obsolescence.

Suddenly, the phrase “content is king” rang true but unlike the keyword stuffed “content” of old, content now needs to provide value to the intended audience.

The Problem with “Content Marketing”
As the old search engine tricks fall by the wayside and people are finally realizing that the content on a website actually can make a difference, everyone is flocking to the term “Content Marketing.” The problem however, is that for many “content marketing” is still solely about moving a website to the top of the search engines with no concern for the intended audience (if they even considered the target audience).

A recent discussion on Google+ captured the epitome of this thinking when the author said he once heard that “the difference between mediocrity and excellence is about 10%” and then went on to state that excellence in a guest post meant adding a couple of links (other than your own) uploading an image or two and correcting your spelling errors. Nowhere did he mention his intended audience or creating value for the reader.

To the author and others like him, “content marketing” is about nothing more than guest posting for back links and other methods of the sort designed only to move a website up the search engine rankings. Consideration for the intended audience (or potential client) doesn’t even rank the need for a mention in the world of these lost SEOs clinging to their dying ways.

Content Marketing is About Providing Value
True content marketing is about creating content that provides value for your target audience at all points of contact. From the external outreach of social media and search engine returns to bottom of the sales funnel offerings, content offerings must be based around the idea of providing value for your target audience. Even more specific, it’s about providing exactly what they need at any given stage of the process. This could be as simple as a blog post reviewing top tools to solve a problem or as advanced as a personalized strategy session designed to help a potential client solve a problem.

As Cyrus Sheapard, (a SEO who understands the importance of content) so clearly stated in a recent article on SEMoz:

“Content without value is spam.”

Provide Value, Not Content
Once you move beyond the search engine rankings, opportunities to provide value are everywhere. Helped a client work through a problem via email? Turn it into a blog post. Find yourself answering the same questions over and over? Turn it into a video or online slide presentation.

The point is that you are not creating content, you are creating value for your target audience. When you do, you not only create warm leads, you build valuable relationships with the people you need to reach.

The post Content Marketing or Value Marketing? appeared first on JAL Communication.

The other day my daughter, Sophia, announced that she wanted to set up a lemonade stand. Seeing as how I didn’t really want to spend the better part of my weekend selling lemonade, I tried to talk her out of it by showing her how much she’d need to spend to buy the lemonade mix, get the cups, that sort of thing. Regardless of my best efforts, there was no changing her mind. She wanted to go into business and there wasn’t anything I was going to do to stop her.

So as I succumbed to my role as venture capitalist in her first business startup, I decided that at the very least, this would be a great chance to teach my daughter about counting money, basic business principals, that sort of thing. We sat down with a pad of paper and started writing the business plan.

It didn’t take long before Sophia, becoming completely exasperated with my efforts to teach her about price structure and ROI, looked up at me and said, “But Daddy, I just want to give it away. Our neighbors are so nice, I just want to give them the lemonade.”

Wow! What do you say to that? She hit me with a complete game changer that I didn’t expect. Suddenly, the lemonade stand had taken on an entirely different meaning.

So we put away the business plan, she drew up a sign and my wife helped her mix a pitcher of lemonade. Just as we were about to open for business, Sophia came in from the back porch with a sprig of mint she had cut from a pot.

“Can we put mint in the lemonade,” she asked. “I want to make it extra special.”

And with that, on a Sunday afternoon in a quiet neighborhood, Sophia was open for business.

Within a few minutes, one of our neighbors who heard about the project came over with 50 cents to buy a glass of lemonade. Twice the price my daughter was originally planning to charge.

“But it’s free,” Sophia told her.

“That’s O.K. I want to pay you for the lemonade,” she replied.

Not knowing what to do with the money, Sophia put it in a cup and set the cup on the table (where everyone could see it).

Before long, more neighbors came by, each one giving her at least 50 cents. When a car would pass, she would jump up and down and scream, “Free lemonade,” hoping they would stop. For the most part they didn’t. However, at one point, one did and the driver handed her three dollars for his glass of lemonade – 1,100 percent more then if she’d gone with her father’s suggestion of 25 cents per cup.

By the end of the day, Sophia had made a whopping eight dollars at her “free” lemonade stand.

When it was all said and done, I realized that although my original business lessons didn’t stick with my daughter, I learned a lot about marketing.

Here are 10 things I learned from Sophia’s lemonade stand that you can use to market your business:

1) Give people something for free and they will feel obligated to return the favor
When you help someone, it creates a natural desire to return the favor. Offer a white paper providing a solution to an industry problem, share your knowledge or expertise in a free presentation or webinar, provide helpful tips on your blog, participate in forums offering helpful advice or share ideas on Twitter. In doing so, you’ll not only build trust but establish yourself as the expert and develop relationships with potential clients.

When the free content is really good, people will be more willing to pay for the best stuff.

2) Give potential customers a taste of your offerings
Offer a sample or demonstration of your product or services. Provide trials which provide a hint of the full potential of your offering. Just be sure to make it good. When users are excited about the base product, they are much more likely to upgrade.

3) Make it “Extra Special”

Don’t just offer lemonade. Put in that extra sprig of mint. Make everything you do “extra special” and clients will take notice. Not only will they come back for more, they’ll tell their friends.

4) Don’t Be Afraid to Tell Your “Neighbors” (Network!)
One of the first things my daughter did when she opened her stand was run next door and tell the neighbor. After getting his lemonade, he called two other neighbors to tell them about the lemonade stand – both of whom came right over with “donations.”

Don’t be afraid to tell friends, colleagues and social media connections about your services. You never know, they may talk to your next big client later that day.

5) Do What You Need to Do to Be Seen
It wasn’t enough to just put up a sign. My daughter’s advertising consisted of jumping up and down screaming “free lemonade” at passing cars. While it might seem extreme, it worked. How are you “screaming” about your business?

6) Show Genuine Enthusiasm, Passion and Confidence 
Sophia maintained an unbridled enthusiasm throughout her project and it showed. She was excited about her lemon aid stand and it affected the way she did business. Most important, her passion was genuine.

People feed off passion. Passion builds confidence and people want to partake in the experience. If you are passionate in what you do, your passion will shine through. You go from being a sales person to a someone who wants to share their passion with others.

7) Be Persistent
Even though most of the cars passed by, my daughter didn’t give up. Finally, after many failed attempts, one of them did stop—doubling her income for the day.

8) Build Anticipation
My daughter’s first customer knew about her project in advance and was there as soon as she opened for business. Don’t just launch your new product or venture, let people know it’s coming. Drop hints, give them a tease, make them look forward to the big day.

9) Find Good Partners
My daughter’s little brother kept drinking the lemonade – not the best partner. However, her friend from down the street was out there with her jumping up and down screaming doubling her advertising efforts.

10) Advertise Your Popularity
Once my daughter’s cup started filling with coins, people were more likely to “donate.” Don’t be afraid to advertise your popularity. Include testimonials in your ad materials Place download counters, comment counts and subscriber numbers in prominent places on your web page. Just make sure the stats are high enough to warrant a little bragging.

This article first appeared on Webdesigner Depot. It has been modified slightly from it’s original publication. Sophia is a few year’s older now but she still keeps that same sense of adventure and enthusiasm wherever she goes. And yes, she’s still teaching her father…every day.

The post 10 Marketing Tips From a Six-Year Old’s Lemonade Stand appeared first on JAL Communication.

Unfortunately, if your website doesn’t succeed in all steps of the online marketing process, it can quickly turn into nothing more than an online brochure.

Here are five reasons your website may not be working and what you can do to fix it:

It Doesn’t Serve Your Visitors
As you plan a new website, it’s easy to get caught up in fancy design and flashy (or flash) gimmicks. In the process it’s easy to forget why you are building the website in the first place. As that glossy finish begins to fade, you can find yourself with a very expensive billboard that doesn’t serve your needs.

According to a recent Hubspot report, 76% of consumers want a website that makes it easy to find what they are looking for.

Visitors to your website are seeking some sort of information. This could range from basic research about your company to complex solutions to their problems. One of the most important things you can do is help them find it. This means that your site must be easy to navigate and guide the visitor both to the information they seek and the information you want them to see.

Step back and look at your website from the perspective of your perfect client. What do you see? Are the sidebars cluttered with links and images or is the text too small to read? Read the text on the page. Were you compelled to read through the entire page or did you find yourself quickly losing interest? Is it cluttered with images that don’t fit the flow of the website?

Remember, you only have a few precious moments to capture your visitor’s attention. Fail to do so and they will move on to the next site. First impressions count.

If your home page is busy and hard to follow, simplify. Select 4-5 menu items that can be used to help the visitor find what they are seeking. Provide too many options and your visitor will become overwhelmed and “bounce” away from your site.

You can always group items under those four or five categories but a clean, easy to follow website will always do better than a website which is cluttered and hard to navigate.

Website Doesn’t Capture Lead Information
You may be driving great traffic to your website but if you don’t have a way to capture lead information, those visitors are nothing more than just that–traffic.

Ebooks, white papers and other extended content are a good way to generate leads. (Click on image above for example.)

One of the most effective ways to capture lead information is to offer your visitor something in exchange for their contact info. This could be an ebook, video presentation, webinar or other information that helps solve a problem. A high quality ebook or white paper not only provides an opportunity to capture contact info, it can provide an insight into problems and interests. It can also be used to persuade the reader to the benefits of a given solution and lead potential clients to the next step in the sales funnel.

You’re Not Blogging or Not Doing it Well
Blogs are one of the most powerful ways to bring a visitor to a website. They give your reader a reason to visit and come back again. Good blog content can generate valuable incoming links and as you add high quality pages to your website, you provide more opportunities for Google to index your site and move you up the search engine rankings. (For more on this concept, download the ebook Blog to the Top)

The key to a good blog is to provide the information your visitor seeks and do it again. If all you do is post your latest press release or announce company sales leaders then your blog isn’t going to work. Although you may be excited about your latest big client or new widget, unless it directly helps your visitor they really don’t care.

Yes, you can blog about company developments and should now and then. However, if that’s all you do you at the expense of providing value to your visitors, your blog will quickly fail.

Site Is Hard to Manage or Update
This seems fairly basic but if you have to turn to the IT department every time you need to update your website then the site isn’t working. Making changes to your website or adding new pages and posts should be no more difficult than using a word processor. If you can’t easily add blog posts, videos, slide presentations, infographics or other content to your website than it isn’t working.

Modern websites such as those built with WordPress make website management easy. If technical challenges are preventing you from creating a dynamic, up to date place for your visitors to engage and interact then it is failing you and costing you business.

It Isn’t Optimized for the Search Engines
Search engine optimization (SEO) isn’t rocket science or some sort of technological voodoo. It is nothing more than the process of letting the search engines know what is on the page and providing the tools to make sharing and promotion easy. SEO starts with a well built website and continues through the daily publishing of blog posts and web pages. Once the tools are in place, it should be a simple part of the publication process.

If you can’t easily manage the tasks on the Google SEO Cheat Sheet or some of the other basic elements of SEO, then your website isn’t working for you.

Making Your Website Work
None of the problems outlined above are hard to fix but they can take time and effort. Some will require a rethinking of your website and possibly a new web design. If you find yourself facing a number of these issues, use the points above when setting goals and  screening possible web designers or internet marketing consultants.

Remember, your online marketing efforts revolve around your website. If it doesn’t work for you chances are it’s not working for your visitors and if it doesn’t work for your visitors than you are losing business.

If your website isn’t working for you, contact us today for a free inbound marketing review and website analysis. We will help you create a plan for internet marketing success.

The post Five Reasons Your Website Isn’t Working and What You Can Do to Fix It appeared first on JAL Communication.

(be sure to test the G+ comment function at the bottom of this post)

First a little background
Since the early days of the search engine, Google has placed a value on incoming links. In it’s most basic terms, when Google sees a website linking to content on another website, especially if it is related to the content on the linking page, Google assumes the linked content is of value and moves the website up the search engine rankings. Links coming from a trusted, high traffic site such as the New York Times are valued higher than links coming from a smaller site. The value of a website is expressed as “Page Rank.” When one site links to another, it passes some of it’s Page Rank (or “juice”) to the linked site. A small number of links from highly ranked sites can have a big impact on a websites search engine results.

Over the years this became one of the most abused aspects of search engine optimization with “SEOs” buying links and developing a number of schemes for generating these valuable back links. These link building tactics have also been one of the areas hardest hit by the Google Panda and Penguin algorithm updates.

Although earned back links from websites with high Page Rank still hold their value social recognition on Google+, especially sharing on G+, is also becoming an important element of the search engine algorithms.  A number of tests recently suggest that post shared on Google+ also pass Page Rank to the original website. Therefore, the more a post is shared and the more comments it receives on G+, the better it should do in the search engine rankings.

The potential impact of Author Rank, which although not implemented yet, only adds to the formula as author profiles become ranked based on authority in the same way that a website gets Page Rank.

Long story short, shares, comments and +1s on G+ are an important element in the search engine rankings.

Enter Google+ Comments
Up until this point, if you wanted to share a post on G+, you either clicked the +1 button on a post and maybe added a comment or two or you copied the URL and shared it directly on your G+ profile. Other G+ users might comment on the shared post or they might click through to the actual website and comment directly on the site. There was no connection between comments on the website and comments on G+.

Now however, with Google+ comments enabled, when a user leaves a comment it not only posts as a comment directly on the website but the comment shows as a shared link directly on G+ along with a link to the original article. The mere process of making a comment equates in a G+ share.

Thinking back to the impact of G+ sharing in the search engine results described above, let me say that again…

The mere process of making a comment on a blog post with G+ comments enabled results in a share on G+.

This means that every time someone adds a new comment to your blog post, the post is shared on G+ with the comment appearing in the user’s stream as a shared post. Not only that, but as people on G+ make comments, the comments appear back on your blog post as replies to the comment that created the original share.

Likewise, replies to comments made on the actual blog also appear as replies to comments on the G+ profile where it was shared.

If all this sound confusing, the screen shot below taken from my G+ profile should help:

As you can see, the comment I made on wjdylofinance.com which has enabled G+ comments appears in my G+ profile as a shared post. The eight comments below show both on my G+ share and on the blog post itself.

As I write this, the post on wjdylofinance.com has 61 comments. Each of those comments equals if not a full share, engagement on both G+ and the originating website. Do a search for Google+ Comments WordPress and you will see Jesse Wjdylo’s post coming up fairly high in the rankings. No question the Google+ comments/sharing is helping that post.

Twitter on Steroids
One of the most appealing aspects of Twitter is it’s ability to help content go viral. Sharing and retweeting takes nothing more than a click of a button and the power to move through Twitter exponentially is huge. Google+ comments take this same viral nature and adds discussion beyond 140 characters. And unlike content on Twitter which has a very short shelf life and can disappear as fast as it came, comments on G+ tend to stick around for a while and have the ability to generate extended discussion over a period of time.

Google+ comments has the potential to provide both the viral nature of Twitter combined with the potential benefit of moving up the search engine rankings. From a social media/search marketing perspective, Google+ comments may truly be a game changer.

Not Ready for Primetime…Yet (on WordPress)
At this point, Google+ comments is fully available on blogs hosted on Blogger. Although I haven’t tested it, it sounds like the transition on Blogger is fairly smooth. A plugin has recently been released for WordPress but it is not yet supported by Google. There are also a number of issues to consider before adding the plugin to a WordPress site.

All or Nothing 
First and foremost, adding Google+ comments to a WordPress based website is an all or nothing venture. If added using the Google+ Comments plugin it will completely take over your comment system. Anyone who wants to comment on your blog will have to log into G+ first. If they don’t have a G+ profile, they will need to create one before commenting on your post. For those who have a large, active audience on G+, this may not be a bad thing. However, for those who’s audience reaches beyond those on G+, this might cause some problems.

On established websites this may also cause a problem as old comments are lost and Google +1s are retroactively converted to comments. This means that a post iwth 100 +1s would suddenly become a post with 100 comments.

Loss of Control
Once Google+ comments are enabled on a WordPress site you no longer have the ability to control the comments from the WordPress dashboard. In fact, it doesn’t appear that you can control them at all. In other words, if you have a troll leaving offensive remarks or spammers hitting your site, you have no way to delete the comments.

This also means that people will have the ability to leave comments or add content to your site in the comment section without your knowledge. Normally, WordPress lets you know when someone has left a comment on your site. With G+ Comments enabled on a WordPress site, you won’t get this notification. For newer blogs this may not be a big deal but as your blog grows it will become much harder to monitor comments as they are added to older posts. Take my word for it, managing comments on a blog with 500+ posts can be difficult enough as it is. Without notification, it would be completely impossible to manage. Comments could be left on posts that were written years ago and you would have no knowledge of the comment.

However, spam and trolling may not be as much of a problem because in order to leave a comment, you must be logged into a G+ profile. This makes it much harder to leave the anonymous comment. For those with websites being attacked by spam, this might actually be a benefit as the comments would be pulled off your server and onto Google. I have a website that is under a serious spam attack that is causing the site to significantly slow down. Enabling Google+ comments would probably solve the problem (but I’d also lose thousands of good comments).

Contextual Concerns
When you make a comment on a website with Google+ comments enabled, it shows on G+ as a shared post. As you can see in the example above, my comment looks somewhat out of place when displayed on my G+ profile. Although my example isn’t too far out of context, you can quickly see how a quick response could be misunderstood by seeing the comment in their G+ feed without seeing the actual article or discussion where the comment took place.

However…
Even with the above concerns, I wouldn’t rule out enabling Google+ comments on your blog or website. The potential impact on search and social sharing is just too much to overlook. The WordPress plugin is very new and appears to be changing quickly. Once the bugs are worked out and a plugin is endorsed by Google, Google+ comments could be a game changer.

Test for Yourself
After much experimenting and some extra help from +Terry Simmonds (follow him) we’ve been able to add G+ comments to this post (directly below although it may or may not work). Please comment and experiment to see Google Plus comments in action. I’m also curious to see how it works in real life on a WP post.

The post Google+ Comments Poised to Change Social Media…But Not Yet appeared first on JAL Communication.

Slow news day or press release opportunity?

My first job out of college was editor of a neighborhood weekly newspaper. I pretty much did everything from covering neighborhood meetings to reporting breaking news to layout and paste up of the newspaper. I even took the majority of the pictures with a cheap point and shoot camera. It was a low paying, high pressure job with a never ending deadline schedule screaming to be met.

One of the biggest challenges was that I would often find out a day or so before final deadline that the ad team hadn’t filled their weekly ad spots. Sometimes with just hours to go I could find myself with a page of more to fill. During these panic filled moments I would often turn to the stack of press releases on my desk (pre email) in hopes of finding something, anything that could fill the space. Chances were if it even resembled news, it made it into the paper that week. Better yet if there were pictures to go with it–another 10 or so inches filled.

Yet in my desperation for good PR that I could use, I often found myself tossing an entire stack of press releases because they were either so poorly written that I would have to research and rewrite the entire thing or they just weren’t newsworthy–no matter how hard I tried to make them so.

Journalist Need Good Press Releases

Years later when I switched to the dark side and became head of PR for a major mid-Atlantic real estate brokerage, I was amazed by what passed for a press release in the world of public relations. From my past experience with that neighborhood weekly I also knew that if I could place a well written story, a story that at least looked newsworthy in front of the right editor at the right time, it had a much better chance of getting coverage than the majority of the press releases I came across.

So that’s what I did. Instead of writing a press release, I wrote news stories. I wrote them as if I was reporting them myself for my own newspaper. Sure I added the necessary formatting, the contact info at the top, boilerplate copy at the bottom, those little ## tags to let them know where the press release ended. Strip all that away though and you had a story written in AP Style, usually following the traditional journalistic pyramid (important info at the top) complete with a strong lede, quotes from experts (which were always my company presidents or another company rep we wanted to place in the story–usually quotes I wrote and they approved), data that we wanted to present, whatever.

And you know what, they worked. Often I would see the stories cut and pasted verbatim as I wrote them. No phone calls, no follow up to see that they got the press release. Just a clip with impressions I could show to the company execs.  Journalist even started to call me to see if I had anything for them. It got to the point where I just wrote the monthly column for one of the real estate editors in my area. Although nothing was ever formally said between the two of us, when she copied and pasted an informal email I sent her into her column and put her name on it, I realized I had a journalist in need. From that point on, every month I sent a special press release just for her talking about the real estate market in her area. I’d put forward the data we wanted her to see, quote the people in the offices her paper covered and she would put her name on it and publish.

Yeah, it may sound shady but it worked for me and it made her job all that much easier.

Journalist need press releases just as much as P.R. people need their stories placed. A good press release alerts the journalist to news they may have missed. They sometimes convince a journalist that a story they may have passed over really does deserve a second look.

Unfortunately, they also fill a journalist’s email with time consuming junk.

So Think Like  a Journalist

Somewhere along the way public relations people got the idea that journalists really cared about their company’s top sellers or that the company was “pleased to announce” something. Not to burst your bubble but they don’t. They care about the news that is important to their readers or at least something that looks like news. And yet press releases are filled with industry speak and cliched phrases that instantly make a reporter move on to the next press release.

Shift Communications recently released an infograpahic (below) listing the most overused PR words of 2012. Although they are incredibly common press release terms, they are also the words will send even the most newsworthy press release straight to an editor’s trash bin. (Shift also didn’t leave an embed link for their infographic. If you see them, send them my tips on embedding an infographic.)

Let’s Try a Few

So let’s have some fun. Let’s try out a few of these overused terms in an imaginary press release and see if they sound familiar:

“Widgets Inc., a leading developer of innovative environmental solutions, is pleased to announce a strategic partnership with Widgets ‘R’ Us that will secure the Widget Inc. brand as we expand to meet the demands of a growing global market.

“We are excited to work with Widgets ‘R’ Us as it provides an opportunity to join forces with a widget maker who has truly made an investment in the worldwide market,” said John Doe, CEO and President of Widgets Inc. “This investment leaves us well positioned to continue to provide the latest, most effective widgets for our customers.”

I could go on but you get the point. Unfortunately, my imaginary press release above isn’t much of an exaggeration. And admit it, if you write press releases, how many times have you used the terms below?

A Confession

I was in real estate P.R. when the market crashed. As we were shutting down offices, one of our company presidents insisted that I send out press releases attempting to spin the story into a positive. When I couldn’t talk her out of it, that press release above is pretty much what I sent. The idea was to write as bad a press release as possible in hopes that editors would see the fluff and pass it over. Most of the time it worked.

Amazing how easy it is not to get a story placed.

The Most Overused PR Words of 2012

Below are the most overused PR Words of 2012 as reported by Shift Communications. See if you recognize any of them from your press releases.

Even better, give me your worst press release sentence in the comments below.

And when you need a press release that works, contact me at jalodico@bizwritings.com. I can help you get your story placed today.

The post How Not to Write a Press Release (and the Secret to Doing it Right) appeared first on JAL Communication.

Notice tip No. 3: “Provide Useful Content and Keep it Up to Date”
I’ve talked about this many times on this site and I can’t emphasize it enough. Ultimately, Google wants their user to find the content they seek. When you provide useful content that helps the Google user, you are forming a partnership with Google. Make friends with Google and they will return the favor.

If you’re looking for more advanced SEO tips, Google also offers the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide which provides some great tips on XML Sitemaps, Breadcrumbs and other elements of SEO.

And just a head’s up, all of the websites we build here at JAL Communication incorporate the tips provided in the Google Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide. If you have a website that isn’t performing well, need a new website or just want us to take a look at your current site to make sure everything is in pale, contact us here for a free no obligation website review.

Once you’ve checked out the infographic below, here are some other tips to help you move up the search engine returns:

“7 Search Engine Tips to Help You Make Friends With Google”

“Six Simple Things You Can Do to Optimize Your Blog Posts for the Search Engines”

(Click on the image to enlarge and open in a new tab.)

The post Google Offers SEO Cheat Sheet appeared first on JAL Communication.

Businesses new to the world of infographics are often reluctant to allow others to publish and share their beautiful creation on other websites. Why let someone else take all your hard work and use it for their own marketing purposes? However, by giving others the tools to easily publish your info graphic you are encouraging not only the viral spread of your infographic but the powerful backlinks that come with it.

For example, I disocvered the infographic below on Google+. I followed the link to JeffBullas.com, a PR5 website. After reading the helpful information Jeff Bullas provided on creating info graphics I noticed the that graphic itself was created by Graphs.net. I clicked through and sure enough, there was the embed code waiting patiently for me to copy and publish on my website.

Between this post and Jeff Bullas’ article, Graphs.net generated a key word wrapped backlink from a PR 5 site and a PR 4 website. Not too bad. Add in all the other websites who republish the infographic and you’ve got a very powerful tool.

How to Create and Infographic Embed Code the Easy Way
One of the great things about WordPress is that there are plugins for everything. Naturally after writing a fairly long explanation on how to manually write an infographic embed code I discovered a plugin that will do it for you. With the WordPress plugin Embed Code Generator you fill in a couple of fields providing the Source URL, a key word rich title and alt attribute, image height and width (optional) and key word rich sentence giving you credit and linking back to your site.

Once you’ve entered the information, the plugin generates the proper code and places it directly into your post.

If you scroll down under the infographic, I’ll show you how to manually add the code using WordPress.

How to Create an Awesome Infographic

Graphs

How to Manually Create an Infographic Embed Code
If you’re using WordPress, start by creating a new post. You’re not going to publish this post, just use it to generate the code. Upload your infographic to the post just as you would any other graphic. Give it a keyword rich alt title and file name and insert it into your blank post. You could do this in the same post as the infographic but I like to do it in a separate draft post just to keep the original post organized.

The next step is to link the code to the blog post or web page where the infographic will be published. Switch to the “Text” tab in the WordPress editing screen and you will see the code for the image you just uploaded. Highlight the entire code and link it to the URL where the infographic will be published just as you would create any other link.

Under the infographic create a link giving you credit for your the infographic again linking back to the page where the infographic will be published. This might be a good place for a key word or two. For example, you could write “Key wordinfographic by Your Name Here” placing the link around your keywords.

Clean it up by removing any space between the image code and adding the code < br> (no space) between the link and the image code.

When you are done you should have a blog post that looks like this:

Now that you’ve got the code, again using the text tab copy and paste the code into the post/page with the infographic directly under your infographic. Add “< textarea>” to the front of the infographic code (no space) and “< /textarea>” (no space) at the end of the code. This tells web browsers not to act on this code but to instead display it as a box which can be copied.

Important: Do not switch back to the visual tab once you’ve added this code. Doing so can cause errors in the code you are trying to use.

Here’s what it should look like when published:

<a href="http://jalcommunication.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2502.png"><img src="http://jalcommunication.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/04/2502.png" alt="couple more key words" width="480" height="360" class="alignnone size-full wp-image-1536" /></a></a><br /><a href="http://infographiclink.com" target="_blank">Keyword infographic by Your Name Here.</a>

If you want to get fancy, you can add size dimensions to the text box (as I’ve done above).

The post How to Create and Share an Awesome Infographic appeared first on JAL Communication.

Here are three reasons why you need to claim your Author Rank and how to go about doing it.

1) Author Rank will continue to play a bigger and bigger role in search engine returns

Up until the Google Panda update, websites were moved to the top of the returns based on Page Rank. The problem however, is that it was very easy to manipulate Page Rank. Black Hat SEOs looking to game the system would “spin” the same article over and over again making small changes such as swapping out synonyms, changing basic sentence structure and the like until they had tens or even hundreds of versions of the same article. They would then publish the key word stuffed articles on as many websites that they possibly could with backlinks to the page they wanted to move up the search engine rankings.

Google would see all the incoming links wrapped around the appropriate keywords and think that there must be something important on the page and move it up the search engine returns. It didn’t matter if the actual content on the page sucked. It didn’t matter if it made sense at all. The goal was to get to the top of the rankings and it worked.

Author Rank is one of the ways Google is working to stop such abuse. It helps factor in the quality of the writer and the quality of the content he/she has produced into the search engine returns.

Although it has yet to be seen how much Author Rank will factor into the returns be assured that it will.

2) Everyone Gets to See Your Smiling Face

When you’ve properly claimed your Author Profile, Google will show your smiling mug next to anything you write and publish on the internet. And although this may seem a bit vain, it actually plays a functional role. People are more likely to click through on a search engine return showing the user profile than one that doesn’t. And ultimately that’s the goal isn’t it?

It also helps to protect your content. One of the old black hat SEO tricks was to steal blog posts or other information, often publishing directly from another website’s RSS feed and publish it as your own. The rel=author markup helps Google determine the original author and assign proper credit as credit is due.

Google search returns showing authorship.

3) Connects Your Content Across the Web
Along with your own personal blog or website, you can also include your authorship markup on articles you write for other online publications. This not only provides a way for readers to follow you and find more of your content, it helps Google see your online authority.

For example, say you write an article for a large site such as Huffington Post or the New York Times which receives a number of comments and sharing. If the article includes the proper authorship markup, Google will know that you also publish on your own website (which may not receive the same level of traffic). This in turn could bring other posts you’ve written up the search engine rankings especially for those who have demonstrated an interest in your articles through sharing, following on Google+ on other indicators.

Note the relative nature of that last comment. Google search results are becoming more and more individualized and this trend is only going to continue.

How to Claim Your Google Author Profile

Step 1) Fully complete your G+ profile
You do have a Google+ profile don’t you? If you don’t, stop what you’re doing and create one now. Don’t worry….I’ll wait. Be sure to add a good head shot to your profile picture. That’s what will show up in the Google search results.

Step 2) Connect your Google+ Profile to Content You’ve Created
Under the “About” section of your Google+ profile you will see a section titled “Contributor to.” Link this section to your website and other content you’ve published.

Step 3) Add the “rel=author” markup to your website.
This is where it can get a little tricky. If you are using WordPress there are a number of plugins that can make the process much easier. I personally use the Genesis theme which now includes a field in the User Profile for setting up your G+ authorship. Just copy and paste a link to your G+ profile and link G+ to your website and you are all set.

Your G+ profile link can be found in the address bar when looking at your G+ profile. It should read “plus.google.com/u/0/xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx/” where “x” equals a series of numbers specific to your profile.

If you are not using WordPress, Genesis or a WP Plugin, you can also manually add the code “<rel=author> href=”http://www.plus.google.com/u/o/xxxxxxxxxx/” “to the header on on your website and link your Google+ “Contributor to” your site. By placing the link in the header, Google will see it on every page of your site.

However, this won’t work on a multiple author site as Google will see the link in the header and not recognize individual links different author pages. For a multiple author website you need to either directly add the G+ link into the blog post or create an author bio box with the link that will automatically show on any post written by that author. Again, if using WordPress there are a number of plugins available to do this.

Step 3) Link Content on Other Sites to Your G+ Profile
Most websites that accept guest blog posts or other content will provide a short author box along with a link to your website and possible a second social media profile. Ask the site to include a “rel=author” link to your G+ profile. Be sure to add your author profile or the article under the “Contributor to” portion of your G+ profile.

Step 4) Test the Markup
Once everything is in place, Google provides the Rich Snippit tool to test that everything is working properly. When all is good, the Rich Snippits tool will show a sample search engine return with your smiling mug looking out proudly from the page.

Another Piece of the SEO Puzzle
There is still a great deal of speculation as to how Google will use “Author Rank” there are other advantages to claiming authorship than just search engine rankings. Authorship helps you claim your content, increases click through rates and provides adds social recognition to the search engine results (note the number of people in my Google circles in the profile above).

And of course, now that you’ve got a Google+ profile, you can add me to your circles. Drop me a note that you read this post and I’ll be sure to add you back.

The post Three Reasons Why You Need to Claim Your Google Author Profile and How to Do It Now appeared first on JAL Communication.

The idea is that Facebook graph search places such a huge emphasis on finding information “liked” by connections that the more likes you have, the better chance you have in showing up in someone’s search results. It’s sort of like playing Kevin Bacon’s two steps of separation. The more people that like your page, the better chance you have of showing up in a search like, “Restaurants in Chicago, Illinois liked by friends of my friends.”

As I demonstrated last week, although still in beta my early testing with Facebook Graph Search was anything but successful. Along Facebook’s somewhat surprising and completely inappropriate suggestions as to my lunch-time needs (go back and read it if you haven’t) the prevailing strategy of increased page engagement didn’t pan out.

I personally believe that Facebook Graph search is about to have a huge impact on Facebook marketing but not for the reasons commonly suggested. I actually believe that once Facebook graph search rolls out in full force, it has the potential to turn Facebook marketing on it’s head.

How you ask? Sorry, you’ll have to wait. I’ve been working on demonstrating the coming shift in Facebook marketing and pitching it around to some other websites but haven’t had any takers yet. Chances are I’ll post it here next week.

The infographic below by Advantage Capital Funds outlines the basic strategy for being found in Facebook Graph Search.

A couple of key points I notice in the infographic that open further disucssion (Please add to my thoughs in the comments below):

1) Personal Searches
This is where Facebook is the strongest but I have yet to be convinced of the value from a user perspective. In an attempt to convince myself, I tried the infographic’s suggested searches:

Apparently none of my friends have “liked” restaurants in L.A.

Alright. I live on the East Coast so maybe not the best example. Let’s try Chicago. This brought up eight restaurants. The top choice might make for some interesting awkwardness for the unsuspecting but who knows, maybe the food is good.

Personal Search No. 2 “Setting up a date”

I’m sorry but this is just creepy Although happily married, for the sake of experimentation I searched, “Who are single women in (my home town) who like theatre”

In order to protect the innocent, I’m not going to show you the results but not only did Facebook provide a list of local single women who like theatre every one of them had a photo of their smiling face right next to information such as where they work (ie. waitress at ___), where they go to school (_____ high school…more than concerning) and although I didn’t push it, the opportunity to dig in deeper to their likes and interests.

Not so sure how a search like this fits into a business use but the results open big ‘ole can of concerns.

I’m not going to get into the details of my results for “Music my friends like” but apparently one of my old high school classmates is in a band and a lot of my friends don’t like the same music I do.

Business Searches
I’m not going to go into too much detail regarding business searches but I think this is where the power in Facebook Graph search may lie (more on this in my coming post). I did try searching “People who have graduated from college and like SEO” but it didn’t work. Apparently, there isn’t a Facebook page titled “SEO” for people to like (quick, grab it).

Mobile Search
I believe that Mobile will make or break Facebook search. If the recommendations of friends are so important it is mobile where they will be needed most. The search for a restaurant your friends “like” becomes a completely different thing when you are in an unknown city and need a good place to eat.

Three problems standing in the way:

1) Will mobile devices integrate Facebook Graph Search on the same level they have integrated Google search?
For example, I can speak into my cell phone and say “Find a good restaurant nearby” and get a list of restaurants near me sorted by Google reviewer ratings. If I’m in the mood for Mexican or Italian food, I can refine the search even further.

Facebook’s partnership with Bing may make this possible on Window’s powered devices but I believe this is a long way coming.

2) Have Facebook search results been distorted by easy “likes.”
In other words, what does it really mean when I see a restaurant a friend has “liked” in the search results. Did he eat there once and “like” the page in order to get a free drink? Has he never been there but saw something of interest in their Facebook page and “liked” it? Is it his all time favorite restaurant?

At this point at least, I don’t know. All I know is that at some point in his history on Facebook, he clicked the “like” button on their page.

3) Will Facebook Graph Search do better with local based search results.
Facebook Graph Search does not yet appear to be available on mobile devices (at least not mine) so I haven’t been able to test this in the wild. However, my laptop based attempts were pretty much a failure. (Results here.) The problem with Facebook Graph Search for mobile/local as I see it is that instead of basing results on geographic location first, they appear to be based on Facebook Page engagement first and as my earlier results demonstrated even that appears to be suspect.

“Facebook Has Little or No Competition”
Although the infographic below states that Facebook has little or no competition. In terms of social networks, yes. In terms of search however, they have big, big competition. Google processes something like 2 million searches per second. That’s a lot of searching. Even if Facebook does have billions more users than Google, can they pull them away from Google search to Facebook instead?

So Will Facebook Search Make You Money?
Although I see huge potential in Facebook search, it’s not necessarily in the methods I’m seeing in the infographic below and elsewhere when it comes to advice in Facebook Search Marketing. It’s going to make someone money but I’m not convinced this is how it will happen.

So you tell me, is Facebook Graph Search going to be the game changer so many say it will and will the old ways of Facebook Marketing still apply to search? Let me know in the comments below.



Infographic by Advantage Capital Funds

The post Will Facebook Graph Search Make You Money? [Infographic & Open Thread] appeared first on JAL Communication.

I have to honestly say that at this point I’m not impressed. After experimenting with a number of both my own search terms and those suggested by Facebook, other then making it much easier to stalk my Facebook connections (I mean “friends”) I have yet to find value in Graph Search. Especially in comparison with the post I recently wrote on the importance of Google+/Places on local internet marketing.

Most of the talk around the impact of Graph Search on Facebook Marketing has discussed the need to beef up engagement on the Facebook page. My quick test of the search results did not bear this out. As you will see in the discussion below, there appears to be little rhyme or reason to some of my search results. It also appears that it will be harder and harder for to compete without a significant Facebook ad spend. Finally, the personal implications and privacy issues related to Facebook search do present cause for concern.

I Just Want a Cup of Coffee!

In my earlier post on the importance of Google+/Places on local internet marketing, I used the search for a good coffee shop as an example. As I demonstrated in the post, Google was able to direct me to a number of coffee shops both near my current location and in downtown Annapolis, Maryland. As I quickly discovered, Facebook could not do the same.

I started out with a search for “Coffee Shop” which was a complete failure. Apparently “Coffee Shop” is a game on Facebook and as I quickly discovered, unless I choose one of the Facebook recommendations, I get a search for the top recommendation, “Coffee Shop” the game (which for some reason couldn’t load on my browser resulting in a blank screen).

As you can see in the image below, the top two searches are Facebook apps.

Since “coffee shop’ didn’t work, I searched the recommended “coffee shops” in hopes of finding an actual coffee shop as opposed to a game to play. Along with suggesting that I search for coffee shops in the town where I grew up (about 500 miles away) as you can see in the image below, the results didn’t leave much choice.

Believe it or not, I wasn’t actually near a Starbucks at the time of this search. Although there are a number of coffee shops much closer, Facebook offered a full page of Starbucks listings, none closer than five or so miles. Of course, the search results don’t actually show me how far away they are nor did I get directions. Clicking on the map only zooms in on the location. Nowhere on the Facebook search results did I find directions to get me there.

Also interesting to note which Starbucks comes up first. The top result doesn’t appear to be closest nor does it have the most “likes” or check ins. Scrolling further down the results, coffee shops not named Starbucks do start to appear in the results but again, there is no apparent rhyme or reason as to why they didn’t come up higher. One of the shops has a Facebook page with more than 1,400 likes (many more than any of the Starbucks listed) yet unlike Starbucks the number of likes does not show in the search results. The local coffee shop  is also the same distance or closer than the Starbucks listed.

The local coffee shop with more than 1,400 likes also came up below another coffee shop with a grand total of 69 “likes.”

The only explanation I can give for the multiple Starbucks listings is to speculate that unlike the local shops, Starbucks is making a significant investment in sponsored posts while the local shops are not.

I also tried searching “coffee shops near me” which brought up the exact same results even though I wouldn’t consider any of the Starbucks listed as “near me.”

Also interesting to note that it is not possible to search for a term unless it comes up as a suggested search.

Recommendations and potentially offensive content

Finding myself somewhat frustrated in my efforts to find a coffee shop on Facebook, I turned to Facebook for recommended search topics–one of which was restaurants. I figured that since Facebook was suggesting I use it’s search engines to find a restaurant the results would have to be better. As you can see Facebook’s suggested searches for “Restaurant” are even worse than the suggestions for “coffee shop” (unless I’m really into Facebook restaurant games).

Since that didn’t work I thought I’d try speaking in Facebook terms and look for restaurants recommended by my friends. I tried a search “good place to eat.” Now this is where it get’s interesting. By the second word “place” Facebook suggested I was looking for something much different than a restaurant. As you can see in the image below, the results are not only inappropriate but potentially offensive or worse.

This of course left me wondering what I did to get that sort of result. Guessing that somewhere, somehow I “liked”  a page that would suggest that I was actively seeking something much different than a local restaurant, using Facebook Graph Search (wait, a practical use) I dug through everything I’ve “liked” since originally joining Facebook but there was nothing there. No Victoria’s Secret, Sports Illustrated Swimsuit or anything else that might have prompted the suggestion above.

This of course leads to even more concerns. Did I at some time in the life of my Facebook history click on something that would suggest I was looking for much more than a place for lunch? Possibly but I doubt it. I’ve always been fairly careful with what I post and follow on Facebook. Possibly my interest in college sports? Who knows but the implications are huge.

Either Facebook is not screening it’s results for adult content or something in my behavior on Facebook has told Facebook that I am looking for adult content — something I assure I am not. What other implied interests is Facebook sharing with anyone who wants access to my data?

Impact on Facebook Marketing
The potential impact of Graph Search on Facebook Marketing is huge. It appears that even for those that have invested heavily in building their Facebook page, engaging with the followers and doing everything else that used work on Facebook it may not matter. As the coffee shop example above demonstrates, even with seven times more “likes” the local coffee shop was buried under the corporate giant in the search results. Does this mean the local business is going to have to compete with a Starbucks sized ad buy if they want to be found on Facebook?

Maybe it’s the fact that Graph Search is still in beta and it will get better. At the same time, it might be the final nail in the coffin for those that have put extensive resources, both time and financial, into Facebook marketing.

The post Is Facebook Search The End of Facebook Marketing as We Know It? appeared first on JAL Communication.