Author: admin

Creating Killer Content Is A Great Path Towards High Google SEO Rankings In 2015

In the marketing world content is king, it always will be. My first hand experience has shown this to be very true. Once upon a time my content was lacking on my AF sites (affiliate marketing sites) and my niche sites. I struggled with online marketing. I was putting in the time and effort but the sales were lacking. My content I thought was good, it was not. It took a hard look at the content I was producing or hiring others to do for me. In an attempt to save money I outsourced content creation over seas to India. Big mistake. While my Indian writers has decent enough grammar the tone, focus and over all feel of the content was wrong. The delivery failed. Even the headlines were a mess.

Things began to change for me when I began to make videos and pod casts for my website. I began to make humorous pictures and hired out a concept artist for some niche artwork for my website. I reached out to other blogs and websites in related niches and started to accept guest posts as well as guest posting elsewhere. Over the coming weeks my traffic surged as my quality of content slowly began to improve. Sales that were slow picked up pace. Before I knew it I was making decent income.

Now I could have sat with it and used my income to live on saving only 20 or 30% to grow the business. I would not be where I am today had I done so. I invested back 25% into content and 30% more back into the business such as advertising, better hosting packages and more. This amounted to 55% of what I took in being dumped back into the business. You get out of online marketing what you put into it point blank. It is not easy money for most of us, but we do it because it is in our blood.

Content is unique in the fact you leverage every single piece of content you own in multiple different ways and means to get the highest ROI from each piece. Content that engages people can be utilized on a variety of online platforms to keep buyers engaged with you and your brand. You can create an Infographic for example from content you convert to an Infographic to illustrate data and create a strong call to action. Your videos you can create transcripts of to provide another stream for that content. You can hire a writer to convert your articles into an eBook as well.

The takeaway:
Content is king, you need to spend both time and money on top quality content, and you also need to leverage it to the best possible advantage and make the highest return on investment to succeed in your online marketing. You cannot not should not skimp on your content. Content will not only draw visitors but also increase your sales. If your view giving away content as a waste you do not understand the concept of give a little to get something. Giving away content creates trust and authority online as well as a following if your content is relevant and engaging.

Email remains critical to online marketing success in 2015

Many internet marketers and online marketers fail in two areas, building a email list and then capitalizing off of it. Your email list is your most important asset bar none save for the products you sell in which you own 100%. Many online markets feel that RSS, Twitter and Facebook are more important to build a relationship with their customer base, but this is flawed logic. Why? There is still no better way to engage and build your online community and relationships. But why don’t RSS, Twitter, Facebook and other social media tools trump your online list? Lets break it down simply shall we?

RSS feeds:
While this is worth doing, and may be well worth your time, most people do not even know what RSS is today. You are going to reach an older crowd with this tool. There is also the fact that most people subscribing to your feeds do not even read them, most people at best simply scan through your feed. Everyone uses email, how many people actually use RSS? Very few that’s who.

Facebook:
While Facebook is heavily used and is the Goliath of social media you need to ask yourself, how many of the brands that you have liked on Facebook do you actually visit their pages or keep up with their news? Friends of people who like your page or brand may indeed also like it spreading the word about your brand, but as far as getting time sensitive information out Facebook fails for marketers unless you go the paid advertising route via PPC adverts which is another beast altogether, in which case we would be talking PPC and not Facebook.

Twitter:
While people may “follow” plenty of people and brands on Twitter, how many people actually truly “follow” these people or brands on Twitter? You might read the tweets from 20 to 50 people and brands. Some people follow hundreds if not thousands of people and brands. Very few actually read these tweets, I mean we only have so many hours in a day right? If you are deluded into thinking their are legions of hungry people eagerly awaiting your every tweet you fail at online marketing. The chances of anyone reading your tweets even if they “follow” you are pretty low. You can always try services such as Bit.ly too start tracking your clicks on your links if you doubt me, you will be surprised at how low the click through rate actually is.

So why then does an email list trump the above means of connecting with customers and potential customers? For one when someone signs up to your email list they are giving you consent and permission to contact them, indeed they actually want you to contact them! It is also a huge sign of trust on your customers part, as we are already flooded with emails for the most part and they are asking you to be yet another item in their inbox. People also check their email daily if not hourly, but most people will not visit your website every day. You can easily ignore tweets, status updates and the like, but it is harder to ignore an email with a catchy eye drawing title from someone you opted into.

The last reason to use email marketing is that every single successful online marketer uses it. The ones pulling 6 figures plus per year all use it and would trade their social media in a heartbeat if it meant they could keep their hard earned email lists.

Simple Tips For Managing Social Media In 2015 For Small Business Owners

Social media can be a gamer changer for any marketer, yet it is often misunderstood by the very marketers looking to harness its advantages. Social media (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest), if used correctly can bring remarkable success for your online or brick and motor business. First things first lets examine what SMM or social media marketing is at its core, it is a form of internet marketing communication and brand awareness. Social media marketing almost always entails the sharing of content either articles, images or videos that hopefully the customer or potential customer will find engaging and share with his or her friends or network. The best SSM is accomplished when a piece of your content goes viral, meaning it is viewed, shared and liked by many people spreading via word of mouth.

Now lets discuss what social media is not. First it is often not free, you have to invest in it. That investment could be money or more often than not time, which leads us to the second thing that social media marketing is not, social media marketing is not instant. It can take weeks, months or even years for social media to help build up your brand or your offer but certainly it will not happen over night. Any agency promising you instant results is more likely than not lying. SMM is not complicated, anyone can figure it out, it is not rocket science. Lastly social media can not make up for having a poor website, poor SEO or a bad product or service. For social media marketing to work your website needs to be top notch both looks wise and ease of navigation as your goal will be to get traffic from social media to your website where your products or services are fully detailed. That being said there are some keys to success with social media which we will discuss in greater detail.

Key to Social Media Success #1: Engage and respond to your customers and leads!
Between 60% to 70% of all companies online do not respond to their customers on social media. When you fail to respond to customers and leads comments or questions your brand is now just another faceless brand in a sea of competition. When you respond to your own leads and customers and even in some cases your competitions leads you create a relationship. You can even take a negative and turn it into a positive by responding, such as to a complaint. Now most of us do not like complaints and many of us would get the urge to delete a complaint off of our social media pages, but answering a complaint publicly in a helpful manner can do wonders for your business, it shows you stand by your product or service and put customer satisfaction in the forefront.

Key to Social Media Success #2: Listen!
You can learn a lot about your customer base and even your competition by listening. I once ran a sound streaming service where customers could lunch their own online radio streaming. I thought I had all my customers and potential customers needs served, until I visited a rivals Facebook page and discovered that quite a few people were using the service to stream in online video games and needed a higher stream rate and varying sized streaming packages, which my competitor was ignoring. I went back to the drawing board and relaunched my service and aimed it at the video game crowd and increased my overall ROI, all by listening and then responding to my competitions customers, who became my own customers. Listening to your client base can and does reap dividends!

Key To Social Media Success #3 Leads are there for those who merely look
You can easily use social media to find new customers just using social media engines search tools. For example on twitter if you are a DJ simply do a search for “need a dj”. Your customers are out there asking for your services! You merely need to look then follow through on those leads, the success of landing a new customer depends on your sales skills or pitch and the quality of your service.

Key To Social Media Success #4 Share do not hard sell!
Social media works best when you share. Use it to tell your stories, about you, your customers, even how your product or service helped someone. Make it personal make it human, not bland or faceless or filled with “we are the best blah blah blah in the industry”. You can make use of webinars to reach customers live, you can do fun videos, you can write fun or light hearted stories. Inspire your readers to share your story. The key to a good story or piece of content is to ask yourself “Would I share this content with a friend?” If the answer is yes then you are on the right track.

Key To Social Media Success #5 Highly targeted PPC
Social media networks like Facebook know all the little details about their users thanks to massive data mining. With Facebook it is not about having your add seen by 10,000 people a week or a day but being seen by the right 100 or 1000 a day or week, the people who best fit your demographics. With Facebook you can target your ads using details such as age, location, sex, job title, education level and even interests! This means that you can reach a much higher ROI than traditional PPC advertising. Whats even better is like minded people often associate with like minded people so the chance of your product or service being spread word of mouth to their network of friends and family is also much higher.

Key To Social Media Success #6 Give stuff away
With social media you can gain customers for life by giving away value. If you give a small discount of say 10% to 20% you are marketing, if you give 50% to 60% off you are giving away true value. If you give your client base something for free, even just good content and information you can gain customers for life. You can give away samples, content, webinars, articles, and ebooks. If you provide good information on a regular basis you will have return visitors that while they may not buy your goods or services today, they may very well convert to paying customers later on. A good thing about return visitors is that your business stays on their mind, even if only in the back of it, waiting for a time when they do need what you offer!

Facebook Posting Tips To Ensure You Are Maximizing Your Opportunities

When it comes to Facebook merely posting is not enough. Many clients ask me when is the right time to post to Facebook? It’s an age-old question dating back to the date marketers first started to make Facebook pages to promote their brands, services or products.

I had one client who had been posting to Facebook like 5 times per day, which was way to much. Especially given the quality of his posts. With Facebook much like Reddit, the quality of the post matters the most. If you focus on quantity you are going to alienate your followers. Guess what no one wants to read 5 posts per day about your business unless perhaps your in the entrainment business and your posts are truly engaging. Focus on quality posts rather than how many posts you can pump out. There is no minimum number of Facebook posts needed as the goal of posting is to draw interest in your products and brand awareness.

Now that we know quality matters more than mere quantity we need to get the most bang for our posts as we can. Did you know that the days on which you post and even the time that you post can have a reaction from your viewers? Engagement rates, or days when viewers view and act on posts the most on Facebook are higher on Thursdays and Fridays than any other day of the week. Those two days of the week will net you the most bang for your posts. The next best day believe it or not is Mondays, due mostly I believe to the Monday blues. No one wants to be in work after the weekend, people log on at work and at school.

The time of the day that you post also matters greatly. For most content the following rule applies: Posts by 1 PM will net you the most shares socially, posts by 3 PM to get you the most clicks and posts generally between 9 AM and 7 PM. Again this also depends on what business you are in and what type of post you are doing. If for example you promote local bands then you could do a post at noon then one more post at say 8 PM reminding your target audience on what time the band is playing, where they are playing and what if any cover they are charging. it all depends on what Niche you are doing.

Lastly did you know that Facebook only shows 5% of your followers your posts? You have to pay for the other 95% of your followers to “see” your posts. The term seeing only means that it shows on their timeline / feed, it does not guarantee that they will even see the post. With that being said you have two options here, you can either pay to play, which in my opinion is a losing proposition as it merely appears in a very off place as compared to where your users focus on when logging in or you can focus on posting something unique and/or interesting once a day. Why the latter? When you post something very interesting people will share that content which is 10x better than paying Facebook for your post to show in a little looked for spot on your target audiences page.

Don Marks has been covering online marketing and lead generation since 2006, do you own a small business in Michigan and need some SEO or Lead Generation assistance, consider MarketingRelationship.com to jump start your 2015 business goals.

Implementing Schema and Analytics To Rank Better In Google

SEO has sure changed over the last year, but that is a given and should come as no surprise given that Google changes its algorithm 500-600 times per year. What worked just one month ago could tank your site today. Yet there are quite a few things that still hold true and there are quite a few things you can count on working over the next year to improve your search rankings.

In today’s SEO climate you need to focus on how people interact and engage with your website. Keeping track of and understanding your website statistics is vital to success. Google provides the tools needed, but many webmasters lack the knowledge and skill to apply it, especially when it comes to evaluating the performance of site content. Google Analytics can help you with your analysis. Yet this same tool so many webmasters under utilize or have difficultly gathering enough information about their content into Google Analytics for a through analysis. Google schema and Google Tag master can easily help you achieve this.

Which brings us to the topic of Google Schema. So many webmasters do not even know what this is. Schema is a way of marking up your content for not only Google, but also other search engine providers. When you use Schema you are helping the search engines to better understand not only your content but also it’s context, which helps the search engine to better deliver your pages to people searching for the content in the search engines. Schema helps you to deliver targeted organic web traffic to your website. If you do not have Schema consider hiring a coder to add it, or if you have a word press site there are plugins that can have you up and running in minutes. Schema is pretty much the modern day equivalent of meta data tags of yesteryear’s gone by. Why is Schema important for Google Analytics? Simple it can break down content by Author, date updated, keywords, categories, genre, article id the publish date, and more. With this tool we can look at for example all articles on say SEO written by Jack Smith in Google Analytics.

Inside of Google Tag Manager you can set up custom macros to grab all itemprop schema by creating a single macro.

function() {
var metas = document.getElementsByTagName(‘meta’);
for (i=0; iExamples of custom dimensions to enter into Google Analytics:

By entering this into Google Analytics you can pull up tons of valuable data about your website with the click of a button.

Steps:

1) Add Schema
2) Create custom Macros via Google Tag manager
3) Port them to Google Analytics as Custom Dimensions or as Content Groups
4) Pull any needed information in Google Analytics via the custom macros we created.

So not only will this help your search rankings it can also help you to pull up any information about your websites content in an instant that you want to take an in depth look at.

Google Adjusts Algorithm To Favor Mobile Friendly Websites

The Impact On Google Ranking For Mobile Friendly Websites

Keeping up with with all of the nuances associated with Google’s ranking system can be quite tricky. However, staying updated is a must and knowing what changes are coming will impact your website significantly. One of the latest additions to Google’s algorithms is the implementation of potential boosts in rank for websites that are mobile friendly. This latest modification does make sense and serves a good purpose for many reasons. If your website is not up to speed with the latest responsive web designs and technology, you should definitely start making the transition to a mobile friendly site, and here are a few reasons why.

Going Mobile
In the past few years, mobile browsing has become increasingly popular and accounts for roughly 15% of all internet traffic. Smartphones and other mobile devices are a quick and easy way for consumers to get more information about products or services online. To support the recent changes in Google’s ranking algorithm, statistics show that almost 60% of people who have smartphones will not recommend doing business online with website that are not responsive or compatible with mobile devices. Therefore, not only is it a good idea to make sure your website is mobile friendly to avoid issues with Google ranking, but it is needed to stay current with the latest consumer trends.

Search Engine Optimization
Getting your website ranked higher among major search engines can be a very complicated task, especially if you are new to the world of internet marketing and SEO. With so many elements that go into determining how well your site ranks, not following search engine guidelines can be detrimental and result in losing so much potential traffic. Ease of use, access and navigation have always been a major factor in SEO. Making sure the content has a logical flow and pattern for easy navigation is very important, and is even more important on mobile devices. Response time has also played a significant role, as user tend to stray away from slow sites, and choosing a mobile responsive design that does not require large amounts of data will run much faster. Optimizing your website for peak performance, as well as, user friendliness is nothing new and if your site supports mobile browsing, you are one step ahead of the game.

Predicting the potential outcome in not having a website that is fit for mobile device users can be hard to assess. As mentioned, it is best to start making the transition in an effort to avoid potential penalties in your site rank. Most important, the new update will give your website rank a boost just for being mobile friendly, so it is only to your benefit.

You can check to see if you have a Mobile Friendly Website, using this free tool from Google: Google Mobile Friendly Test.

Google Penguin 3 Update: How Will Small Businesses Be Impacted?

Google Penguin has recently updated this month. This update is meant to capture and penalize sites that are using newer ways to spam their sites with anchor texts and links that lead to poor sites. These newer ways include buying these links to be put on their websites or obtaining these links through link networks. Many websites do this in order to manipulate the Google rankings system. These links would help them be able to boost their Google rankings and, in turn, increase their website traffic. For the websites of small businesses, this can either be a good thing or a bad thing.

Sometimes websites do not put these types of links on their websites themselves. Other people have other ways of posting such links on other websites in the forms of blog comments, forum postings, and many other ways. Webmasters try to get rid of all of this spam and posted links using methods like the Google Disavow Tool. Webmasters who do this also get rewarded by Penguin, which helps to increase the Google rankings of their websites.

If a small business website hasn’t taken action to get rid of links like these, however, then their website will be caught and penalized by Google Penguin. The same goes for the links embedded within the site. This is bad because a lower ranking means less traffic to that small business website. With this new Penguin update and the newer ways of adding links to websites just to increase rankings, websites not caught before this new update may actually get caught now.

There may be websites out there that did not even know about Google Penguin or the problems that the links on their sites were adding. They may start to receive less traffic and may want to know how to recover their website from this sudden penalization. Before they know how to recover, however, they must first know what Google Penguin is as well as its function. Google Penguin is a special Google algorithm made to track down websites who are being spammed by links just to increase their rankings. This is not to be confused with another Google algorithm known as Google Panda. This is an algorithm used to make sure that higher quality sites do not get outranked by lower quality sites. In order to prevent certain websites from working around this rule, Google has created their newer Google algorithm, Penguin.

If a small business website has been badly struck by this new Google Penguin update, then they may be able to help recover their website. They can start by using the Google Disavow Links Tool. This tool can help them get rid of the links that have caused their penalization. With enough monitoring of links being put on a small business website that has been penalized, that website may end up getting rewarded by Penguin with higher rankings.

Panda 4.1 Roll Out A Good Reminder To Small Business Owners About Content

The News Of A Change In The Google Algorithm Was First Posted on 9-25 by Pierre Far The Google Panda Algorithm Has Updated Again

The latest update of the Panda algorithm has caused a major shift for millions of websites, most of which would be described as medium to larger in size and scope. In general the Panda algorithm does not impact small business owners and is generally designed to help small business owners get a bump in impressions and traffic. Panda was brought to market by Google as a way to help reward good content and identify websites that are using low quality, auto generated or content that is not deemed as beneficial to the searching audience.

For small business owners the impact of Panda is most likely negligible at best, most experts are anticipating another major algorithm update by Google in 2014, the Penguin updated, which is much more likely to have a larger impact on the small business community. The first penguin update occurred in April of 2012 and was aimed at business owners who were aggressively pursuing links relating to key search terms, often from low quality websites (free directories, bookmarking sites, etc). This update had a dramatic impact on the search landscape and brought a heightened awareness to SEO and linking building, with a new emphasis on quality versus quantity.

The magic formula to rank well on Google will always be changing, but one key constant has remained the same, you need to write great content and update your website on a regular basis to provide a compelling reason to have visitors return on a regular basis. With great content you have a huge advantage over your competition as your content is more likely to be shared on the web, posted and share on social media platforms and create citations for your business, all of which can be beneficially in helping to get your website to rank and retain customers when they visit your website.

The Hidden Dangers To Your Website Rankings By Aggressive Link Building

Having a website is critical for a business, but it is not enough to merely have a website and great content, you also have to be found in the search engines. Searches are done via key words and search terms and the websites at the top of any search have done their link building correctly, usually with the help of SEO experts. In today’s world nearly everyone looks for services and goods online and very few people go past 20 results in a web search, so you need to get on top of the search rankings. Getting on top of the search rankings however requires great link building practices. Top search engine rankings result in organic website traffic, which is basically ad free advertising.

Trying to do your own SEO link building can be down right dangerous for small business owners to try on their own. Your website is an investment in time, money and your brand name, the first point of contact many times between you and your potential customers. The major search engines use what is called an algorithm to determine how to value links, and every year Google pushes out changes to this algorithm between 500 and 600 times. While many of these are small adjustments, some are rather huge updates such as Google Panda and Google Penguin. Google Panda and Google Penguin each caused tens of thousands of websites to loose massive search engine rankings, and quite a few thousand more were entirely removed from the search engine. Not all of these sites were bad, in fact many were top notch websites, but their SEO and link campaigns were somewhat sketchy.

You know you need links, and you know you need your website to stay competitive. But trying to build your own links and understanding which links are good for your site is something best left to a SEO professional. Years worth of work can go up in smoke with a single Google update. The better professionals also know which links to take down following major updates to the search engines. Google is constantly pushing out algorithm changes, and these changes can take weeks and months for the everyday person to figure out, figuring out what effect the have takes someone who does this as a full time job, which it is. The reason Google and the other search engines do not tell people the exact workings of the algorithm is to prevent spammy sites from dominating the rankings. Yes link building will cost you money, but it is a cost of doing good business online. It does not mean it has to break bank, far from it, good link builders can do great work over time that will see your website thriving in organic search without breaking your bank account.

One piece of advice when hiring a SEO firm or link builder, stay as far away from foreign entities. Besides Simply Google India/Pakistan/Etc SEO + scam and read thousands of complaints, its truly epidemic. While they charge less than an American company, and certainly a few do good work, many are bad actors in the SEO field, they talk a good game, have a great sales pitch and the price seems right but when it comes to delivering a good service that is where it all falls apart.

If you are going to hire a professional link builder, and you should go with a professional, look for one with a portfolio of clients they currently work for. You want a professional that can show you the results of their work, not simply throw you a great sales pitch and have a nice looking website. You also want a professional that has been doing link building for more then just a few years. In SEO duration means they have tackled major changes in the industry and not only survived but also thrived, in an industry where many simply fold after 2 years.

Lastly you want a link builder who understand the entire SEO process not just links. A link builder who understands the entire process can better design a link campaign to help your website succeed, taking into account on site and off site factors, relevancy of content to sites linked to, changes with the SERPs, and exciting changes happening such as Google’s new “In-depth articles searches and how to capitalize on it with your website and incoming links. In short if you value your website, and you rely on organic traffic invest back into your website by hiring a professional to take care of you offsite link building needs to protect your investment.

Small Business Should Use Google Authorship to Increase Web Visibility and Trust

Any small business that wants to get more website traffic and exposure should be claiming Google authorship for its content. This is not a difficult process, but it can make a big difference in the way Google ranks your blog, website, images and other online content. Doing this can not only help you get ranked better by Google, but it also gives you more credibility in the eyes of your visitors and customers.
What is Google Authorship?

Google authorship is the process in which you prove to Google that you are the owner of your content. If you’re not familiar with the way the large search engines operate, this may sound strange. However, if you’ve been keeping track of how Google has been making it tougher to rank websites in recent years you know that the rules of SEO are rapidly changing.
Google authorship works in conjunction with Google+, the search engine giant’s own social media platform. If you don’t have a Google+ account, your first step is to sign up for one. This is something that every business and website owner should have. It’s a way for you to network with potential customers and other people in your industry with whom you might want to do business.
When Google is satisfied that you are indeed the author of your content, it will display the thumbnail that you’ve provided them next to your content in the search engine listings. This is a powerful branding tool, as it identifies you before people even reach your website.

How to Establish Google Authorship

Establishing Google authorship is not difficult. Let’s take a look at how it’s done.
First, set Up Your Google+ Profile. This includes verifying your email address, uploading a photo and filling in your name, bio and location. The latter is especially important for physical businesses that want to be found in the search engines.
You can then start linking your content to your Google+ account. When you write blog posts, make sure you link them to Google+. If you have a WordPress blog, you might want to get a plugin such as Author Box Reloaded. This makes it simple to link your posts to Google+ as well as other social media accounts such as Facebook, LinkIn and others.

The Benefits of Google Authorship

Google authorship helps to make you and your business more recognizable on the internet. It makes it easier for you to rank your content. People are also more likely to click on your content when they see a snippet of you. This is Google’s way of telling the world that your content is important.

This gives people a chance to find more of your content. When they click on your name or picture, they will immediately see other content that you’ve published. While people initially are looking at one particular post, they may eventually check out other things you’ve done. This helps you get more exposure for your content. It also reassures people that you have a strong presence online and that Google recognizes your content.

Like it or not, Google is currently the most powerful authority on the web. Whether you are trying to get more customers to your local business or more visitors from around the world to your website, search engine traffic is vital. Establishing Google authorship is a way to get better rankings for your content and build your brand and credibility online.
Learn more how to position your small business for online success, schedule a free lead generation analysis with our team today.