See The History of Content Marketing [Infographic]

Like this infographic? Get more content marketing information from the Content Marketing Institute.

Search Engines vs. News Sites - Optimizing News for Searchers

While content is central to news publishers’ value proposition, you could say that distribution is a close second. Before the Internet, consumers either got their news from a newspaper, a magazine, or a TV broadcast (and word of mouth, but for our purposes, we’ll stick with the media versions).

These media channels are essentially “push” distribution vehicles delivering, at scale, a produced and edited unit – the news – for mass consumption. Even if consumers wanted to engage with multiple news sources, it's difficult to read five newspapers in a day or watch three separate news broadcasts simultaneously.

This paradigm changed dramatically with the advent of the Internet, as readers could now easily read snippets of news from various sources with a few clicks of the mouse. You could scan the front pages of several newspapers, or even more simply, scan the headlines on a news aggregation site in a matter of seconds to get a quick feel for what is happening in the world. Furthermore, if there was a single big story that day, you could read through dozens of articles on the same subject for different angles and tidbits.

With this paradigm shift, news distribution has evolved into being more of a “pull” mechanism, where consumers are in greater control of what news they consume and how they consume it. News discovery has evolved beyond deciding which TV station to watch; consumers can request information on particular subjects and they’ll come right to your computer screen. Search plays a critical role in this discovery process, and when analyzing the data, some notable patterns emerge.

News Search Optimization – Search Engines vs. News Sites

Keeping up on news search optimization is a daunting task for any news publisher or marketer. With the news business being so dynamic, it's hard enough keeping up on all of the latest news stories, let alone optimizing your search campaigns to capitalize on breaking news at a moment’s notice.

SEO and SEM professionals at these organizations are constantly trying to come up with evergreen architecture and techniques to maximize their exposure as events unfold. Although this is often the most pressing concern with news search, there is an overlooked area worth paying attention to as well:

• Is the way that searchers look for news on search engines any different than the way they look for news on news websites? 
• Is there anything we can learn from this that would allow us to better prioritize our marketing efforts?

News-related searching has ballooned over the past few years, both on search engines and on news sites, but how people search on these different sites and what they search for differs greatly.

For the purposes of this research, search engines are defined as the big 5 web searches – Google web search, Yahoo web search, Bing web search, AOL web search, and Ask web search – while news site search includes the six largest news sites based on their search totals – Yahoo-ABC News Network, Google News, Bing News, NYTimes.com, CNN.com, and MSNBC.com.

In February 2012, U.S. searchers conducted 371 million news related searches on search engines, as defined by comScore’s intent categorization methodology, which accounted for 2.3 percent of all search engines searches performed during the month.

But searches performed on non-search engine news sites actually outdistanced search engines news search, totaling 581 million searches in February. Although search engines play an integral role in the news discovery process, the actual news providers and aggregators are still leading the pack.

Behaviorally speaking, it appears that consumers of news data are still more likely to go directly to a “news” specific search engine than they are to run news searches on search engines themselves. The vertical nature of these sites appears to resonate with the searchers, as news searchers are less interested in extraneous results for their news searches that they may get on the broader search engines (e.g., Whitney Houston CDs being sold right next to the news article they want to read regarding her funeral).

News Search Behavior Reflects Search Context

With a review of the actual terms that news searchers use on these different types of search sites, we can see a distinct difference in the intent of the searchers. Search engine news searches focus heavily on a particular news destination.
Within the top 25 search terms driving traffic to News/Information sites in February, half referred to specific news destinations, such as “CNN”, “TMZ”, “Fox News”, and “MSNBC.” The searchers clearly want to be taken to a news specific destination to consume their news.

Search terms driving traffic to news sites from search engines – February 2012

News site searchers, on the other hand, focus almost exclusively on the content they’re interested in because they are already at their intended news destination. The search term lists pulled from news site search isn’t cluttered with branded news destinations, they are solely about stories and topics of interest.

Celebrity name searching is a particular favorite, dominating the Top 25 list. If this data is any indication, it becomes abundantly clearly why the Paparazzi follow celebrities everywhere they go, U.S. consumers are obsessed with reading about them!

Using Search Intelligence to Win Long Term News Brand Loyalty

Based on the intelligence available, there are opportunities for news publishers and marketers to better allocate their advertising resources that could drive better click-through rates and engagement.

When searchers are on search engines, they focus very heavily on finding a branded news destination first, before searching for a particular news story. So anything that can be done to better brand your news destination site could potentially drive much greater long term value with search engine searchers. This is not to say that optimizing your news stories to be found on search engines isn’t valuable, but the behavioral inference that they rely heavily on branded news destination search terms can impact your broader marketing efforts.

News searchers type in a news destination first, and then search for specific news stories after arriving on those news sites. Being that the branded destinations are key to the way searchers navigate to news stories from search engines, you have to allocate your marketing resources accordingly across search, display, and video. You don’t want to just be their news destination for today’s stories, but for every day’s stories.
Written By: Eli Goodman Source: SearchEngineWatch.com

3 Key Questions & Answers - Small Business Blogging should have Values

Earlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S..  I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not“ debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.

As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.
In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.

Why should small businesses blog?

Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:

1. Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
2. Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
3. Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.

Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:

• Prospects
• Existing customers
• Potential employees
• Marketing partners, investors
• The media: journalists, bloggers

What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?

Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.

The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.

At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.

When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.

How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?

The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.

When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.
There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)

Here’s the video version of the interview:

Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.

Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.
Written By: Lee Odden  Source: TopRankBlog.com

Quality Link Building Needed - Its Necessary to Check for Low Quality Links

I’m tired of this conversation:

“We’ve been working with an SEO agency for about 6 months now. We ranked quite well for a few weeks, and then the rankings dropped. We don’t know what they do, exactly, but they send us 4 directory links and 2 article submssions a month. Oh, and they do a PR release for us, once a month”

It’s a starting point in a sales discussion I experience all too often. It’s often a precursor to the part of the conversation where we discover the business is being bled dry by a more-than-substandard SEO product that is completely ineffective and alarmingly expensive. No rankings, gone. No traffic. And, still paying! In some cases being told to pay more!

Crapola. Of the weapons grade kind.

Wil got frustrated with Google, specifically how they make liars out of the good guys. We’ve all done our tests, and, in the past, experienced SEO’s would tell you exactly what types of linkbuilding and SEO practices would (and still might) work. That’s fine – if you’re looking to generate a fast buck on a throwaway domain then I have no issues with that – it can be lucrative, fun and a challenging learning curve. Eventually Google will catch you, and you’ll move on. Noone loses.
If you’re that SEO agency, I don’t know how you can feel good about what you do. If you’re an ordinary, everyday on-line business, and that discussion feels weirdly familiar, fire that SEO company.
Stuff like this does not wash:

Neither does this:

Wait, what?!

It seems that Google are beginning a new wave of attacks on spammy linkbuilding practices, and I’m personally pleased to see it. There, I said it.

Detecting bad link-building practices – it’s extremely easy

Tom Anthony wrote a long post on detecting bad link activity with SEOmoz’s metrics. That’s a reasonable methodology to profile back links according to SEOmoz metrics, but if you really need to weed out the bad stuff, I recommend getting back to the old school and adding Domain PageRank to the mix. Niel’s SEO Tools have a =GooglePageRank function, which works really nicely for backlink weeding:

Which can lead to this with a simple pivot table:

Here’s what I did to make that table (excuse the voice over, I have a *slight* cold):

Please, think about where your links are coming from

Anyway – rant over, I suppose. Bad link building makes our whole industry look bad. Don’t help perpetuate it by casually brushing your due diligence aside. You’ll end up paying to reverse the damage being caused in the long run.
Written By: Richard Baxter Source: SEOGadget.co.uk

The Art Of Content Marketing - Things Need to Know

A few months ago I went to collect a friend from hospital. Arriving early, I entered the waiting room and noticed in-house magazines stacked by the door. I picked one up, grabbed a coffee and took a seat.

The magazine read like a very long press release, blabbering on about patient-centric care and employee awards. I was quickly bored, so I read from my phone instead. The magazine failed in its purpose.
Effective content marketing holds people’s attention. It gives you a distinctive brand, loyal fans and increased sales. You don’t need a big budget to succeed, which is why good content marketing is the single best way to beat bigger competitors online.

Content marketing used to be about customer magazines and mailed newsletters. Now it covers blogs, email newsletters, eBooks, white papers, articles, videos and more. In this article, you will learn about content marketing techniques that you can apply to your business.

[Note: Have you already pre-ordered your copy of our Printed Smashing Book #3? The book is a professional guide on how to redesign websites and it also introduces a whole new mindset for progressive Web design, written by experts for you.]

Prepare

Before creating content, you need to prepare. Think about your tone and style, where to find the best writers and how to organize your workflow.

Tone and Style

Too many companies start writing content before their brand has a defined voice. This leads to inconsistency. It’s like using one logo in your brochure, another on your website and another on your blog.
When speaking with people, you see their expressions and you adjust your tone accordingly. In a meeting, when you see that someone is confused, you clarify meaning, simplify sentences and speak reassuringly. The Web offers no feedback until your content is published, and then it’s too late.
To get the right tone, think of the person who best represents your brand. The person could be fictional or real, and they may or may not work for you. Now think of adjectives that describe them. Once you know what you want, provide clear details and practical examples.
Let’s say you run a travel agency that markets to young independent travelers. You want your representative to sound experienced, helpful and friendly. Try using a table like the one below to delineate what your adjectives do and don’t mean:

	Experienced	Helpful	Friendly
Does mean…	Knowledgeable Write with authority, as though the knowledge was gained first hand.	Efficient Explain things clearly and positively. Make sure all relevant information is obvious and accessible.	Personal Use informal language, and write as though you are talking to one person, rather than a broad customer base.
Does not mean…	Condescending You know a lot but don’t talk down to your customers. They probably know a lot too.	Pushy Promote your company, but not at the expense of good service. Always have your reader’s wants in mind.	Unprofessional Make sure there are no grammar or spelling mistakes. Proofread carefully.

You’ll also need a style guide, so that your authors write consistently. Should you use title case in headings? Are contractions appropriate? Check out The Yahoo! Style Guide ³ for ideas.

Picking Content Creators

Don’t pick the wrong people to create your content. It’s hard for a non-technical person to pick the best Web developer, and it’s the same with content marketing. You need to know about content creation in order to judge other people’s abilities. Some people suggest making everyone in your company a content creator, but this is a bad idea. Not everyone can be a good accountant, secretary or rocket scientist, and the same applies here. To succeed, you should pick the best.
Ask everyone who wants to be a content creator to write a sample blog post. Then you can find the best few people. Some might not be able to write but have interesting ideas. In this case, you’ll need someone to edit their copy. Perhaps you want to raise the profile of a particular staff member. If they can’t write, have someone ghostwrite for them.

Workflow

Some companies have a simple workflow: one person does everything. The person researches, writes and publishes without any input from others. This model can work, but you’ll see more success with a workflow that enables other people to take part. Have different people write, edit and proofread. It’s a good way to catch mistakes and to bring more ideas into the process. Think about the best process for each type of content. One person might be enough for a tweet, whereas four to six people might be ideal for an eBook.
Imagine you’ve got a well-staffed company that is putting together a B2B white paper. You could organize your workflow like this:

An example of how to organize your workflow in a well-staffed company.

Persuade

Your content should be persuasive. Pay close attention to how you speak and what you say.

Use Simple Language

Take the question below on Yahoo! Answers. To “sound intelligent,” this person would like to know “big words that replace everyday small words.”

Many people make this mistake. They use language that is unnecessarily complicated, usually to show off or to sound corporate and professional.

“Short words are best and the old words when short are best of all,” said Winston Churchill. So, don’t talk about “taking a holistic view of a company’s marketing strategy to deliver strategic insights, precise analysis and out-of-the-box thinking.”

Prefer “make” to “manufacture,” and “use” to “utilize.” While “quantitative easing” offers precision to economists, your personal finance audience would prefer “print money.”

Lauren Keating has studied the effect of scientific language on the persuasiveness of copy. She found that most people respond best to advertisements that contain no scientific language. People found them more readable and persuasive, and they felt more willing to buy the product. Lauren’s conclusion was clear: copy needs to be plain and simple.

Have Opinions

Interesting people have opinions, and interesting brands are the same. Look at the amazing work of new search engine DuckDuckGo ⁴. It has positioned itself as the antithesis of Google, launching websites that criticize how the search giant tracks you ⁵ and puts you in a bubble ⁶. The strategy is paying off: DuckDuckGo is seeing explosive growth ⁷.
⁸
DuckDuckGo ⁹ is an alternative search engine that breaks you out of your Filter Bubble.
While this strategy is perfect for defeating a big incumbent, you don’t have to be openly hostile to your competitors. You can say what you think without mentioning their names.

Bear in mind that people are ideologically motivated. Brendan Nyhan and Jason Reifler’s study, “When Corrections Fail”, describes the “backfire effect” of trying to correct people’s deeply held beliefs. The authors found that contradicting people’s misconceptions actually strengthened those opinions. If people see you as an ideological ally (like a political party), they are more likely to agree with you on other issues — even ideologically inconsistent or non-ideological ones. You can use your opinions to attract people to your company: converting the agnostic or validating the views of allies.

As a small-scale brewer, for example, you might have a strong opinion on ale, believing in craft over mass production. You might think the market is dominated by big businesses that sacrifice quality for quantity. In this situation, you could use content marketing to talk about the best way to make beer. By stressing how seriously you take the development of your product, you communicate your opinion to those who share it without directly criticizing your competitors.

Think politically: consider the popularity of your views and whether they will attract media coverage. Ideally, your opinions should be bold and popular.

Sell the Benefits

In the same way that you sell your products and services, tell your audience the benefits of your content. This technique is essential if your audience doesn’t know what it wants.

PaperlessPipeline ¹⁰ is a transaction management and document storage app for real estate brokers. Its founder, Dane Maxwell, had a creative idea to sell his product. The biggest problem for real estate brokers is recruiting. So, Dane invited them to a webinar titled “Recruiting Secrets of the 200-Plus Agent Office in Tennessee.” Brokers didn’t even know they needed to manage transactions, so he didn’t mention it in the invitation.
¹¹
Paperless Pipeline takes your real estate transactions and related documents online—without changing how you work.
In the webinar, he introduced PaperlessPipeline and explained how it enables brokers to recruit more agents. The webinar attracted 120 guests, and “16 ended up buying at the end,” said Dane in an interview with Mixergy ¹².

Imagine you run a company that develops technology for mobile phones, and you want to promote a new femtocell that boosts mobile reception in public spaces and rural areas. This technology could be valuable to people who want to improve mobile reception, but those people might not have heard of it.

So, instead of promoting the technology directly, offer content that focuses on the benefits. By using benefit-focused copy, you immediately tell the reader what’s in it for them.

Teach

Think about what your audience wants. People want to hear answers and to learn something new, so give them what they want.

Give Answers

Content marketing needs to offer practical advice that people can use. Readers have been trained to expect answers on the Web, and yet so much content fails to deliver.
Consider FeeFighters, a comparison website for credit card processing. One of its blog posts, Do You Know What Makes Up Your Credit Score? ¹³, talks about the factors that affect your credit score. Instead of offering abstract advice and concepts, the post provides practical tips for improving your credit score:

Area #2: Your Credit Utilization Ratio
The second largest determining factor in what makes up your score is the amount of credit that you have available to you in relationship to how much of that credit you’ve used. This accounts for 30 percent of your credit score. The optimal rate is 30 percent, which means that if you have $10,000 in credit available to you, you should only be using about $3,000 of it. One trap that some people fall into is believing that if they max out their credit cards every month and then pay them off at the end of the month, they’ll build their credit. But since that gives them a 100 percent credit utilization ratio, and that ratio accounts for 30 percent of their overall credit score, they’re really doing more harm than good.

Say or Do Something New

Most content is boring and unoriginal, which is good for you. It makes it easier to beat your competitors.
You can make your content interesting by doing something new, without necessarily saying something new. For instance, you could write a comprehensive article on a topic that has only piecemeal information scattered across the Web. Or you could use a different format for a topic that gets the same treatment; rather than writing the fiftieth blog post on a topic, shoot the first video.

You can also make your content interesting by saying something new. An infographic by Rate Rush ¹⁴ compares the popularity of Digg to Reddit, creatively combining a bar graph and clock to present the data. Although Rate Rush is a personal finance website, with little connection to social news, its staff researched a topic they were interested in and drew attention by putting it to imaginative use.


Our agency also researches things that we find interesting, and this has been a great source of content. In 2010, we polled around 1000 iPad owners ¹⁵ to find out how consumers use the device. It led to a slew of media attention.

You can do the same. Come up with an original idea to research, and then undertake a study. Also look into studies that your business has done in the past, because interesting stuff might be lying around. One of our clients looked through her company’s research archive and found amazing material. She didn’t spend any money on research but got a lot of great content, links and media coverage.

Captivate

Give your content more personality. Captivate your audience with stories and characters that will draw them in and keep them coming back.

Tell a Story

Telling a story is a great way to connect with readers. According to a number of studies summed up by Rob Gill of Swinburne University of Technology, telling stories can be useful in corporate communication. Storytelling is fundamental to human interaction, and it can make your content more compelling and your brand more engaging.

Citing Annette Simmons’ The Story Factor, Rob says this: “It is believed people receiving the narration often come to the same conclusion as the narrator, but through using their own decision-making processes.” Told through a story, a message becomes more personal and relevant. The reader is also more likely to remember what was said.

Rand Fishkin is the co-founder and CEO of SEOmoz ¹⁶. Instead of sharing only positive accounts of his business, he also writes about difficulties such as his failed attempt to raise capital ¹⁷:

Michelle was the first to note that something was “odd.” In a phone call with Neil, she heard him comment that they “needed to do more digging into the market.” In her opinion, this was very peculiar.… Tuesday morning we got the call; no deal.

An email shared by Rand Fishkin in his post ¹⁸ about SEOmoz’s attempt to raise funding.
Brands need stories, and stories need people, suspense, conflicts and crises. By reading SEOmoz’s content, and seeing both the positive and negative, you become immersed in its story.

Ikea is another example of a brand that tells stories that generate opinions about its company. For instance, it plays up its Swedish roots ¹⁹ and paints a romantic image of a wholesome and natural society. Its website is full of stories that contribute to this effect.

A survey conducted by the B2B Technology Marketing Community showed that around 82% of LinkedIn users found that telling a story through case studies was the most effective form of content marketing.
Sometimes you’ll want to use anecdotes to make a point, and sometimes you’ll write a post or tweet to build a narrative. When you’re cultivating a story, keep the information simple, and don’t be afraid to repeat points here and there; some readers might have missed what you said before.

Always mix interesting stories with useful information; fail to do this and your audience will feel you’re wasting their time.

Use Real People

Think of your favorite writers. You’ve probably seen their photos and heard them speak. Likewise, people need to see and hear your employees, so use pictures, audio and video. This will bring your audience closer to your brand.
Jakob Nielsen has studied ²⁰ people’s reactions to images online. He used eye-tracking software to discover that people ignore images that seem decorative, random or generic. They even ignore generic images of people. But when they come across a photo of a “real” person, they engage with it for a longer time.
People prefer to get involved with a company with which they feel a personal connection. But introduce your employees gradually; as with any story, introduce too many characters too early and you’ll confuse your audience.

Summary

Develop a compelling tone of voice. Don’t assume that anyone can write amazing copy, because they can’t. If you want the best content, then you need the best writers and thinkers.
Produce something informative that people will want to read. Give your brand a personality and your business will benefit across the board, from recruitment to sales. Warren Buffett looks for businesses protected by “unbreachable moats,” and no moat is more unbreachable than a brand with a story, ideas and opinions.
Written By: Craig Anderson Source: SmashingMagazine.com

How Google Panda has Turned Our SEO Strategies

Google Panda has made life hard for a large number of SEO specialists and websites and so they are now looking forward to solutions in order to fight against the Google Panda algorithm. Actually, the main idea is about countering the strategies of Google Panda. In all, the primary focus of Google is to push the websites which the average user enjoys visiting higher in rankings. At the same time, it wants to push the unnecessary and boring websites to the low rankings.

What should you do?

The main objective of the search engine giant is to offer the users better quality and top page results. Indeed, Google quoted once that its objective is to low rank sites that are of bad quality and so ensure that the good sites get the change to be at top of the search engine results.
Earlier the webmasters needed to focus on getting the sites indexed in any way. This in turn meant that higher is the number of pages which are being indexed, more keywords will thus remain in the Google Index for the particular site. And so, this would then facilitate traffic which the site earned to it. But, now there has been considerable change in the manner the search engine indexes different pages and has thus put pressure on webmasters because they need to work hard and make the sites get observed in top search engine results. Link Wheel Service is one of the Seo Strategy which still works like charm so you can use it for boost in your SERPs.

Times have changed now

It can thus be said that Google Panda has changed the strategies that we earlier used for SEO. Now, you need to optimize the site in a way that it takes less loading time. Never give the chance to users to go away from your site even for a second. Ensure that you put sufficient efforts as well as time to structure your site, optimize the images, videos that take much time to get uploaded. Google indeed prefers the sites that are efficient and fast.

Points to keep in mind

Also, now, you need to focus on good quality content if you really wish to fight against the Google Panda algorithm. Ensure that your content is both original and useful and is written by the ones who actually know the topic and have interest in it.
After the Google Panda, now you even have to measure your site carefully and thus modify it for the better. Surely, you will have to modify the site if you wish to fight against Panda. It is crucial that you measure overall performance of the site first and analyze it in perfect way. Ensure that you even make changes in site accordingly and make it come in line with requirements and guidelines of Google Panda.

Give preference to users

While you optimize the site, ensure that you do it for the users first and then for search engines. So, let the users come first and focus later on the search engine as this is where you will be able to match the thinking of Google. The design needs to be compelling and impactful. Even the navigational structure needs to be user friendly and easy to use.
When you keep these points in mind, you will see that you site will enjoy amazing results even after the Google Panda effect.

Summary: Google Panda has changed a lot of SEO strategies that were used earlier for one’s benefit. Now you need to keep in mind some important points to beat the Panda and have your site at top.
Written By: Ankit Pandey Source: Skotgat.com

Top 10 SEO Key Points for Small Business Owners

Small business owners who have just begun their SEO campaign will find that there is no end to the depth and complexity inherent in search engine optimization. Many companies try to take a do-it-yourself mentality to SEO implementation that ends with them sloppily stringing together popular search terms or stuffing keywords on contextually irrelevant web pages. Some businesses implement SEO so poorly that, in some instances, Google may disregard their website as a spam site. The result is a significantly low ranking that will make the business show up in only the most specific term searches.

Starting or running a start up company presents many challenges for entrepreneurs no matter what the service or product.  The last thing CEO’s may consider is their Internet marketing strategies or Brand management.  In addition, most likely that is not their area of expertise nor do they have the time to implement the tasks required to gain the valuable exposure required.

Improperly-handled SEO campaigns are increasingly common these days, but it is not a fate that need befall all small businesses. It is always recommended that a company turns to a top SEO agency when approaching any search engine optimization project. Once a marketing firm has been selected, then the business will be able to run a successful SEO campaign. However, it’s important to bear in mind that there are several key points that should always be kept in mind when approaching SEO.

1) Identify your Intended Audience

The first step in any SEO campaign should always be determining who the intended audience of your good or service is. While it’s easy to simply focus on your business as the driving force behind your SEO operations, it always helps to be a more specific in your approach. By selecting a certain product as the core keyword of your campaign, you will be able to attract more traffic than otherwise.

2) Expand your Keyword Focus

Although your focused keyword may not have a hundred and one uses, you should always try to be as forward thinking as possible when considering other optional keywords. Sometimes the search term that Google looks for may not be the same one that you would have typed when looking for it yourself. You should always do research to find other ways that web surfers may try to look up your product or service.

3) Refine your Website’s Page-to-Page Connectivity

A well-designed website is one that funnels users from page to page effortlessly. By interlinking your site so that relevant pages connect to one another, you’ll find that even the less visited branches of your website will see more traffic. As a result, you can expect your website to have better domain authority and, as a result, a higher place among the search engine rankings.

4) Keep your Keywords Dynamic

Even if a particular keyword has generated a lot of traffic during the course of your SEO campaign, don’t let that prevent you from cycling your keyword focus. Search trends change as much as social ones do, so there’s never a guarantee that one term will consistently prove fruitful. Always be on the lookout for other applicable keywords that may bring traffic to your website.

5) Establish your Business on Social Media

Social media work has become an increasingly popular way to generate long term website traffic. These days, many SEO agencies focus a lot of their attention on establishing a follower base for their clients. As the number of people following your company continues to increase, so too will the potential customers that may frequent your business’ site. No matter how big or small your organization may be, you can never have enough Facebook or Google+ followers.

6) Go Where the Competition Isn’t

While it is important that your company builds a significant social presence on the more popular networks, it’s always a smart move to look for alternative sites on which to make your business known. As anyone in the SEO community can tell you, there are several up-and-coming social networks that have yet to be capitalized on. In addition to establishing yourself on Facebook or Twitter, consider also extending your social media campaign to sites like Pinterest as they become available.

7) Constantly Create Original Content

Increasing your company’s web traffic and domain authority is only the first step in your SEO campaign. While some SEO agencies may focus entirely on getting potential customers to your site, giving users a reason to stay on your website is going to be vitally important. Original content, such as a weekly blog or community activities, can go a long way towards capturing an audience and convincing them to continue interacting with your site until a sale is made.

8) Consider Pay-Per-Click as a Way to Create Site Traffic

While the service that PPC companies provide may not be as attractive as the long term solutions of most SEO practices, that doesn’t mean they aren’t useful. PPC advertisements have been a decent way to drive site traffic volume for over a decade. Should you feel your monthly analytics aren’t showing the numbers you want to see, consider supplementing them with PPC work.

9) Patience is Key

Even when employing the most methodical and well-run SEO or social media campaign, one has to keep expectations manageable. Yes, search engine optimization and other SEO practices can lead to dramatically improved site traffic and search engine rankings, but they do take time. After having built up momentum and established your company as a significant online presence, your website’s analytics will rise sharply. However, getting there may sometimes take a month or two. One should always keep this in mind throughout the duration of the campaign.

10) Always Stay in Contact with your SEO Firm

By keeping a close working relationship with your SEO agency, you and your business will be able to reap a number of benefits. Aside from having a greater degree of control over the details of your campaign, you will also be briefed on any setbacks or major developments as they occur. As a result, your optimization and social media work will go without a hitch, and you’ll be able to fine tune the particulars  of the campaign as you see fit.
Written By: Todd Bailey Source: SearchEngineJournal.com

Best SEO Link Building Practices You Really Want

Link building is the practice of having other websites direct traffic to your site. Good quality links help you get the right type of traffic and help you get good rankings on search engines. Link building is not something you do short-term. It takes quite a bit of time not only to research how and where to get good quality links but also takes constant attention and something that needs to be done consistently.

So where do you start and get good quality links from?

Business Contacts and Customers
Just finished a project for a client? Ask them to link their website to yours with their recommendation. This will get traffic to your site that are most likely to be a potential customer too.

Guest Posts and Content
Offer to write content on other people’s blogs that are related in the same industry you’re in. This is a great way to get great links and network at the same time.

High Quality Resource Links
These would be things like having a link in Better Business Bureau directory sites. Or even get some visibility in Wikipedia.

News Media & Blogs
Get on with the press. Have someone write an article about you on their blog and introduce your business.

Relevant Social Industry & App Account Links
If you contribute to someone in your related social sphere, have them link your website to their site.

Social Media Link Acquisition and Content Marketing
One of my favorites. Engaging and building relationships in social media is a sure way to get people to like you and your content. If they like you, they’ll visit your site. If you’re content is compelling, they’ll comment on it.

Hope you found some of these link building suggestions helpful. Good luck
By: Jocelyn Wilhelm Source: JWSocialMedia.com

Content Strategy for SEO and Social Media: Tips to Ensure Success

An effective SEO strategy involves much more than content strategy. However, the content strategy takes the center place of the overall SEO strategy and makes up the major factor of SEO success. In this article, you will find important tips to maximize the effectiveness of your content and to ensure the SEO success in return.

Realizing the Importance of Benchmarking

Before building your content strategy, you should be aware of what is happening in your niche especially on your competitors’ websites. You should not only follow their rankings but also know where they position themselves in the market. The benchmarking strategy is important to be relevant to your customers’ needs and expectations. Also, it allows you to assess the results of your marketing strategies including the content strategy.

Understanding the 5 W’s of the Content Strategy

Creating unique and fresh content based on a keyword strategy is a must have aspect of a successful content strategy. But before going that far, you should base your gatherings from benchmarking studies on the 5 W’s strategy. The 5 W’s strategy involves the questions of “why”, “who”, “what”, “when and how” and “where”. More clearly, you should find the best answers of why do you want to create content, who is your content for, what are you trying to achieve with your content, when and how are you going to create the content and where will your content be posted. The answers to these questions are extremely important to refine and build a successful content strategy.

Following Search Trends

A successful content strategy for SEO purposes requires you to follow the search trends to find current search terms relevant to your content. You can achieve this by using Google alerts, Google AdWords Keyword Tool or some social media monitoring tools. By using this strategy, you can create new content with current search terms and also update your existing content according to current search trends. Your efforts of updating your content will surely be rewarded by Google and other search engines and will help increase your search rankings.

Creating Keyword Focused Pages

It is imperative to focus on one keyword for each main page to get the best SEO results. For the best practices of keyword focused pages, you should divide up your content on the main product or service pages to cover a specific topic. For example, if you are selling discount kitchen cabinets online, you can divide your content up into custom kitchen cabinets, contemporary kitchen cabinets, wood kitchen cabinets, wall kitchen cabinets, base kitchen cabinets, etc. You should be as specific as you can in order to focus on more keywords which will increase the chance that your customers find what they are looking for.
Another important strategy is to use the keywords properly and in the right places. In fact, you should use the main keyword in your title, first 50 words of your article, last sentences and H1 tag. These are the most essential places, but you can surely use your keyword in other places too as long as you do it naturally and without overdoing it.

Using LSI (Latent Semantic Index) Keywords

While it is extremely important to focus on your main keyword during your content creation, using LSI keywords in your content shouldn’t be skipped either. This is a powerful strategy and can boost your page rank right away.
LSI keywords help search engines associate your main keyword with the actual topic your content is about. For example, if your keyword is “dinner plates”, you wouldn’t want search engines to relate your content to unrelated terms such as “license plates” or “collector plates”. With the LSI technology, search engines look at your content and try to find other terms to associate your main keyword with the appropriate topic of your content. Therefore, if you have food related terms in your content such as knives, steaks, recipes, etc., then the search engines will index your content for the term “dinner plates".

The important tip in this matter is to use your main keyword 1 to 4% of the time while using LSI keywords 1 to 2% of the time. Another tip is to use Google Keyword Tool to find LSI keywords. You should search for terms that are relevant to your main keyword. When you have a list of terms, sort them by their relevancy to your main keyword and choose the most relevant ones as your LSI keywords.

Creating Engaging and Likable Content

The readability of your content may not be assessed by the search engines but this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t pay attention to it for SEO purposes. Search engines measure visitors’ behaviors during their visits to websites. If you have unique, relevant and smooth flowing content, your visitors will spend more time on your pages and may possibly want to visit other pages linked to the page they have enjoyed reading. Even if your content is a technical or fact based topic, you should make your content engaging and likable to your readers.

Adding and Updating Content Continuously

There are great benefits to adding new and updating existing content. Top search engines including Google, Yahoo and Bing like fresh content. By adding new and updating existing content, you show search engines that you care about your readers. To achieve favorable SEO results, you should update at least a few times a week. Some of the effective ways of updating your content includes adding fresh blog posts and using Twitter syndication and Facebook integration. You can also update the existing content manually with current information.
Speaking of adding new and updating existing content continuously, you can use an editorial calendar for your updates or new content. More clearly, you can target new keywords related to specific events or certain times relevant to your product or service. For example, an outdoor gear seller can benefit from adding new or updating existing content just before winter regarding snowshoe models and prices.

Creating Successful Calls to Action

Many people would agree that having successful calls to action in your content is extremely important to achieve business objectives. However, some of those people overlook its importance for SEO purposes. Successful calls to action improve positive user experience and increase your customer base. All these help you reach your SEO objectives in return.
For successful calls to action, tell your visitors what action to take and direct them to the link they should click. Also, your calls to action should be simple, offer benefits and have a positive approach.
Building Internal and External Linking Structures
For the best SEO results, you should build internal and external linking structures as part of your content strategy. Your pages should have quality links from relevant sources to your homepage and also deep links to the other relevant pages. These links help search engines determine the relevance of your content and the rankings of your pages. On the other hand, internal linking emphasizes the important pages and help search engines determine what your website is about.
The important tip here is to use proper anchor texts for your links. In your anchor texts, you should use relevant keywords to the page you are linking to and avoid using invaluable terms like “click here” or “read more”.
To sum up, to ensure SEO success, you should have a carefully planned and well applied content strategy. Your strategy should include using benchmarking, answering 5 W’s, updating your content with current search terms, creating keyword focused pages, using LSI keywords, creating engaging and likable content, adding new and updating existing content continuously, creating successful calls to action and building internal and external.
By: Anthony Saladino Source: NoobPreneur.com

How to Make a Google+ Page for Your Businesses

Google+ has opened the doors for business and brand pages.
In this article I show you how to set up your Google+ page and provide examples.
If you haven’t already created a personal Google+ profile for yourself, you’ll need to do that first (you cannot simply sign up a business page from the main Google+ signup screen).
Check out the How to Get Started With Google+ for more on personal Google+ profiles.
If you do have a personal profile, here’s how to create a page for your business.
Visit Create a Page on Google+ to begin, and follow the steps below to get started with Google+ pages.

Pick a category

Pick a category for your Google+ page to fall under.

The first step in getting started creating your Google+ page is to choose from the following five main categories.
#1: Local Business or Place
Local Business or Place includes any local business—hotels, restaurants, places, stores or services. If you choose this category, you will be asked for the country in which your business is located and the primary phone number.
If Google finds a matching result in Google Places with your phone number, it will use this information for your Google+ profile. If not, you can add your business info to Google and continue.

Add your local business information to Google+.

#2: Product or Brand
Examples given by Google+ of pages that would fit under Product or Brand include apparel, cars, electronics and financial services.

Add your Product or Brand info and choose the most applicable category.

Here, you would enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category which includes anything from Aerospace and Defense to a Website, or you can simply choose Brand, Other, Product or Service.
#3: Company, Institution or Organization
The next category, Company, Institution or Organization includes pages for companies, institutions, organizations and non-profits or similar entities. Here you also enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category with the same options as a Product or Brand page, or you can simply choose Company, Institution, Organization or Other.
#4: Arts, Entertainment or Sports
Pages for movies, TV, music, books, sports and shows are considered a good fit for the Arts, Entertainment or Sports section. Again, you will enter your page name and website, and choose an applicable category—this time with options ranging from Album to Website, or you can simply choose Entertainment, Other or Sports.
#5: Other
If you don’t feel your page fits in any of the above-mentioned categories, you can simply select Other, where you can enter your page name and website without any additional narrowing of category selection.
For pages in any category, you must also choose whether your page’s content is suitable for any Google+ user, users 18 or older, users 21 or older or specifically note that the content will be alcohol-related. Then you will tick boxes to opt-in to updates for Google+ pages and agree to terms and conditions to continue.

Determine the appropriate age group for your page to be visible to based on content.

Be sure to actually check out the Google+ Additional Terms of Service to see their notes on Authority, Access, Content, Data, Contests and Suspension & Termination.

Customize Your Page’s Public Profile

Once you’ve selected your page’s category, you can start customizing your page’s public profile.
#1: Add Your Profile Photo and Tagline
First, you will be asked to add your tagline (the 10 words that best describe your page) and your page’s profile photo.

Add your Google+ page’s tagline and profile photo.

After you have added these items and clicked on Continue, you will be asked to spread the word about your new page through your personal Google+ profile. If you’re not ready yet (which you probably aren’t, since you haven’t completed your profile), click on Finish to be taken to your new page.
#2: Editing Your Page Information
Once you’ve perused your page’s welcome screen, you will want to edit your page’s information. Go to your page’s profile by clicking on the Profile icon at the top, left of the Search Google+ box. Then go to your About tab and Edit Profile.

Edit information for your profile’s About section.

Here you will be able to click on everything from your page name to your links to enter relevant information about your page within Introduction, Hours (for local businesses or places), Website and Contact Info (phone, email, Skype, etc.). Also be sure to enter additional links to your page in the Introduction section using the Link button and under Recommended Links to link to your other social profiles, blog, blog posts and so on. Keep in mind important keywords for your business – if you are a digital marketing agency, be sure to include digital marketing in your profile.
#3: Adding Your Photostrip
Last but not least when it comes to your Google+ page design is filling in your photostrip. These five photos will be displayed underneath your page’s name and tagline.

Add photos that best represent your page in your photostrip beneath your page name and tagline.

It’s similar to the five photos you can have on your Facebook page. While editing your profile, click on the photo area where it says “add photos here” and upload a photo in each of the five photo spots. You can use different photos that represent your business or creatively cut one photo into five pieces and spread it across the area.
Congratulations! Your Google+ Page Is Ready.
Once your profile is ready, you can start posting to your profile by adding status updates, links, photos and videos just like you do on your personal Google+ profile. I would suggest writing a post or two before you use the “Spread the word” option in your right sidebar to announce your page to your personal profile connections.

Following and Engaging With Your Fans

So what’s the difference between a Google+ page and a Facebook page? The big one I’ve noticed so far is the fact that you can follow your page’s fans back and add them to Circles.
To find out who has added your page to their Circle, you can check your Notifications under Stream in the left sidebar. You can also look under your Circles > People who’ve added you area by clicking on the Circles icon.

Follow your Google+ page’s fans by moving them into Circles.

In this screen, you can drag your fans into one or more of the four default circles.

• Team Members—The people you will share the inside scoop with. This could be a great way to share company news with only the people you want to see it.
• VIPs—Your most loyal customers and closest partners.
• Customers—All the people or organizations you want to build deeper relationships with. You could possibly use this Circle to send out special discounts and promotions!
• Following—People you don’t know personally but whose posts you find interesting.

Just as you can with your personal profile, you can also create new Circles.
There are a lot of ways you can successfully use your custom Circles for marketing and messaging, such as creating Circles of fans in a specific location and sharing updates with them about geo-specific offers.
Universities can create Circles for professors, alumni, undergraduate, graduate and prospective students and then share updates with them about news related to their current status with the university. The possibilities are endless.
This also means you can follow your fans’ updates, comment on your fans’ status messages, and +1 their updates as your page. The functionality for a Facebook fan page to interact with a personal profile on Facebook isn’t there, but it is in Google+. Your fans will even see your interaction with their updates in their notifications!

Google+ users will see your page’s interactions with their profiles in their notifications.

This, in my opinion, is going to be a very powerful way for businesses or brands to communicate with their audiences.
For example, if there is a complaint, the Google+ page can reply publicly on their page, and then privately to the Google+ user by sending a status update directly to them. With Facebook pages, the page can only reply on the wall update but not directly communicate with the Facebook user.

Connecting Your Google+ Page to Your Website

You can connect your website to your Google+ page using the Google+ badge configuration tool. Currently only the icons are available, but official badges are coming soon.

Connecting your Google+ page to your website.

Regardless of whether you want to add a badge to your website, you will want to connect your Google+ page to your website simply for the search benefits.
Google+ Direct Connect will allow visitors to find your Google+ page and add it to their Circles, directly from Google search results. To do this, simply add the following code between the <head> </head> tags on your website.
<link href="{plusPageUrl}" rel="publisher" />
Replace {plusPageUrl} with your Google+ page URL. Then visitors will be able to add your Google+ page to Circles simply through their search results.

7 Google+ Page Examples

If you’re in need of some creative inspiration, here are a few established Google+ pages for social media enthusiasts.
#1: Social Media Examiner

Social Media Examiner’s page gains instant popularity on Google+.

A list of great Google+ pages would be incomplete without Social Media Examiner!
#2: Social Media Explorer

Social Media Explorer’s Google+ page uses photostrip images to convey education.

Social Media Explorer‘s page marries its tagline of education and information perfectly with its photostrip images.
#3: Mashable

Mashable was one of the first brands to put its presence on Google+.

Mashable appeared, then shortly disappeared in the early days of Google+, but has once again emerged.
#4: Search Engine Land

Search Engine Land breaks the latest news about Google+.

Although its focus may be search marketing, Search Engine Land also offers extensive social media coverage, especially when Google+ is concerned.
#5: HootSuite

HootSuite uses its Google+ photostrip to represent a worldwide user base.

HootSuite displays its diversity through a variety of expressive icons in the photostrip.
#6: Google+

Google+ positions its page as an authority for its own network.

Another page that is a must-have for any list of Google+ pages is that of Google+ itself.
#7: Twitter

Twitter is just starting up its presence on Google+.

Although it isn’t active yet, Twitter is on the ball by creating a brand page on Google+.

What Are Your Thoughts on Google+ Pages?

Have you begun experimenting with Google+ pages for your website, brand or business? Please let us know your experience so far, additional tips you would like to share with those getting started and the best Google+ pages you’ve seen thus far!
By: Kristi Hines Source: SocialMediaExaminer.com