Pimp My Keywords

Stick To Your Marketing Plan: SEO Tactics, Tips & Helpful Advice - No. 182

It seems like something new in social media is released each week and Google announces changes in the way its search engine results will be displayed.

While it is always tempting to run and buy the shiny new toy, you must stick to your marketing plan. If you don't, you'll quickly find your business going in 20 different directions with 20 different messages. Chaos.

Stick to your plan.That's why it's called a plan.

If Google announces an algorithm change, don't panic. Review the information and review your website to make sure you're in compliance.

If Google changes its search results and decides to start including Google+ posts, don't immediately feel the need to rush and open a Google+ account and fill it with your marketing spam. It won't work and, believe me, it won't attract any newbies to your Google+ base.

Currently, there's a mad rush to Pinterest. If you follow the sheep, where are you going to find the time to join the herd? Are you leaving Twitter or Facebook behind to start working in Pinterest? Why?

And, seriously, is letting everyone know you're the Mayor of Taco Tico because you've checked in via Foursquare bringing you any new business?

Stay the course. You have a plan. Make it better. Don't fix what's broken. Don't buy into all the "this-is-what's-new-on-the-Internet-this-week" hype.

Time For More Social Media?

Do you have more time for more social media?

Google hopes so!

Early reviews of Google+ are good, however:

• Will Facebook users try Google+?
• How many Facebook users will abandon ship and move to Google+?
• Is there enough time to utilize Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Foursquare and others?

Stay tuned...

Facebook For Local Businesses

Excellent blog this morning from Jaci Russo on "Creating Facebook Pages For Local Businesses."

Unfortunately, every business thinks they want a Facebook Page, but they don't know why or they don't have a strategy on what to post and share.

Then, their Facebook page dies a sad death and they play the blame game, yada, yada, yada.

Seven SEO Success Tips for 2011

Purple Trout, LLC, a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) consulting firm located in Cincinnati, Ohio, is offering an online webinar to help businesses get a head start on 2011.

“Seven SEO Success Tips For 2011” is set for Wednesday, January 19 from 10 a.m. - 11 a.m. Admission is free, but space is limited.

In this webinar, attendees will learn the landscape for SEO in 2011, including changes in search engines, video, online maps, link building and more.

“Search engine optimization has changed so much in 2010 that some techniques used earlier last year are no longer valid,” says Steve Phillips, president at Purple Trout, LLC. “This webinar will help get your website on the right track for 2011 by creating a simple, yet useful strategy that will earn results for your website and business."

New techniques presented in the webinar include local search engine optimization and how video should become an important part of your SEO and social media efforts. How to earn relevant inbound links to your website and strategies for using Google Places and other online listing websites will also be part of the webinar discussion

This webinar will be presented in a simple, easy-to-understand, non-geek format (with no sales pitch). Webinar registration is required.

For more information, contact Purple Trout, LLC at (866) 837-7095 or visit www.purpletrout.com.

How to Lose Your Blog Readers in 20 Seconds or Less

By Sarah Groneck

SEO/SMO Writer 

I’m picky when it comes to reading blogs: If a blog does something I don’t like, I will leave the page within 20 seconds. Other blog readers I’ve spoken with do the same.

If you’re a blogger and are wondering how to keep your readers’ attention, think about if you:

Rant.

If you enjoy reading a good rant, you’re one of the few. Most readers would sooner stay away from drama than embrace it. As a blog reader, I’ll pass up blogs that even smell like drama: if a blog’s title is “I Hate Everyone,” for instance, I won’t bother clicking on it.

“But, I have the right to say how I feel,” you say.

Yes, you do. However, if you want to skip merrily with your fellow bloggers in a rainbow-filled blogosphere, stay away from the rants. Readers appreciate nice, thought-provoking posts as opposed to angry, finger-pointing remonstrations.

If you still want to express your opinion on politics and on religion, try looking at both sides. Is there anything positive about the other side that you can convey?

Another good idea is to write out your post and walk away from the computer. Then, come back a few hours later to edit what you have written. It might also be helpful to have a friend read your post to get feedback. If he thinks that your post is too overpowering, change it.

Your mother used to tell you that “if you can’t say something nice, don’t say it.” Well, surprise: it’s true in adulthood, too.

Include an insane amount of distracters.

Blog readers used to lament ads, pop-ups, and flashing banners on sites. Now, overused feeds, stickers, buttons, and pictures are starting to replace them.

When the blog tries to do too much at once, the viewer can get really confused. I’ve clicked on blogs where I automatically wonder, “Is this what I’m supposed to be reading? No wait, that’s an ad, the text is…here? No…where is it?!”

Don’t do this to your readers. They don’t really appreciate it. Instead, remember:

Less is more.

You might think that a flashing, giant puppy sticker is cute, but your readers might find it kitschy. You want to be easily accessible for your readers; don’t make them jump through hoops to discover your content.

Write haphazardly.

Readers want to view quality work, and that means you might have to brush up on your grammar skills. Even if you have grand ideas for your blog, you won’t get very far if you don’t know how to write well. How can readers understand what you’re trying to say if you don’t know how to say it?

If you decide that, to express your style, you need to write in lower-case and add 14 exclamation marks on the end of each sentence, that’s cool; just be sure that your new style is consistent. 

There is enough bad content floating around cyberspace; don’t add to the trash heap.

Again, these are just a few ideas on how to keep your readers from abandoning ship. If you abide by them, your readers might be more willing to spend long amounts of time perusing your space--or, at least a minute or two.

 

 {Thanks, piratechickan, for use of the photo!}

Discover Your Audience

By: Kristin Bednarski
SEO/SMO Writer

When you post a status on Facebook, tweet or blog as part of your company’s social media plan, your post is immediately visible to your fans and followers. They may click on a link you shared, laugh at something you wrote, or take advantage of a coupon you provided.

But who is your audience? Do you have a mental image of those Facebook friends and twitter followers? What are their interests? Do they enjoy humor or are they more serious?

All of these questions are important for your company’s social media plan and all of them can be answered with a little research.

Why should you research your audience?

The answer to this question is simple. If you want a reaction from your audience, you have to know what makes them tick. Thinking back to my last blog post, a Facebook friendship is supposed to be a relationship. In real life you wouldn’t have a friend that you knew nothing about, so focus on getting to know your friends instead of just adding them.

How do you get to know your audience?

Some traits of your audience will relate to your company: If you sell a product for seniors you would expect your audience to be older. Keep traits like this in mind, but don’t generalize your social media audience based on these traits, and don’t rule out other demographics. For example; the company selling a product to seniors may also want to target younger adults who are taking care of parents or grandparents.

If you already have friends and fans, you can research them through their social media sites. What kind of posts do they respond to? What do they “like” or retweet? How are they using their Facebook page or Twitter page? What kind of people or businesses do they actively interact with? Why do they want to be your friend?

Take notes, make lists and categorize your research. What you will most likely find is that your friends and fans have a variety of interests and personalities. You’ll be able to cater to these differences, (through what and how you post) now that you are aware of them.

If you haven’t started social networking yet (and for those that have, this is the next step), take a look at what your competition is doing. Look at who their friends and fans are. Analyze how well their audience is interacting with the company, and note what the company is doing to encourage interaction. Is it working?

Apply it

Once you’ve done some research you can use it to plan your social media posts, content and voice (see Sarah’s post this week). Be patient. Research is going to take some time, but if it’s done right it can help create a successful social media marketing plan that impacts your company.

The No-No's of Social Media Content

By Sarah Groneck

SEO/SMO Writer

A big part of having a social media strategy is how you portray your company’s persona. Your followers and fans won’t listen to you if the company’s voice does not match up with the company’s purpose statement. So, as you decide on a company persona, remember that how you write is equally as important as what you write.

When it comes to writing voice, keep these no-no's in mind:

Don’t be casual. Remember all those rules you memorized in high school grammar class, such as capitalize at the beginning of a sentence? Implement them, and stay consistent. Your viewers have enough friends who use ten exclamation marks to emphasize a point; they don’t want to see a company doing the same. Stay away from texting jargon such as “lol” or “ttyl.” If you respect grammar rules, you will appear to be a serious, more professional company. That way, when you do implement sarcastic or humorous content, your readers will still take you seriously.

Don’t be corporate. Cut out long-winded, confusing language. Viewers’ attention spans are short in social media; they won’t spend time reading your wordy words. They also do not want to spend time deciphering meaning, especially if content lacks substance to start. Put a little soul into your content. Be straight-forward, be humorous, be human.

Above all, don’t conspire publically. It may seem obvious, but do not rant against your competition on Twitter and Facebook. In fact, it might be better to not mention them at all. Pretend your competition does not exist (while keeping track of them on the sly), and don't create content bragging about your company’s latest gains or making low-blow jabs at your competition. Your readers want to see your company as professional in content and in conveyance.  

Remember, your company is what it says (or writes). Make sure that when you speak through social media, you speak well and with class.

{Picture by Horia Varlan}

Keep Your Holidays Happy with Social Media Monitoring Tools

By Sarah Groneck
SEO/SMO Writer

As the holiday season draws near, you might be worried about staying current on your business’s social media. You want to enjoy Thanksgiving Day without having to remind yourself to update the Facebook page’s status or to post a “Happy Turkey Day!” tweet on the Twitter feed.

That is where social media monitoring tools come in. They allow you to view multiple social media venues through one feed. You can also schedule all of your Twitter and Facebook posts ahead of time so that you won’t have to post at random hours of the night.

There are many social media monitoring tools to choose from, which makes selecting one as the go-to gadget an arduous task for you as a businessperson. But, first things first: As no two platforms are exactly alike, you might want to think about what you want to accomplish by having one even before you begin researching.  Do you want to view analytics and track clicks, or do you simply prefer a tool that schedules and sends your posts? Do you have many different social media venues that you want to track, or are you hoping to view only one or two? Know what you want before you choose a platform.

Now that you’ve decided on criteria that your platform must meet, you need to start researching social media tools. Here are a few popular platforms that will get your search started:

TweetDeck is a simple, free monitoring tool. TweetDeck has all the capabilities a regular Twit could ask for: Easy scheduling, simplified HTML shrinkage, and Twitter photo posting. It is equipped not only for Twitter but for Facebook, LinkedIn, Buzz, Foursquare, and MySpace, meaning that you can keep track of multiple venues through this single monitoring tool. The tool even has a fun translator which allows you to translate posts into Arabic, Irish, and many other languages, potentially opening doors for multi-lingual communication.

However, if you work for a larger-sized firm, TweetDeck might not be for you. Since the platform is geared more toward a personal account, TweetDeck does not track analytics or clicks. The translating feature is awesome, but who knows how accurate the translations are. It is streamlined and straight-forward, but it is also a simplified version of a social media platform.

HootSuite, like TweetDeck, can help your company keep track of its many social media venues. You can add Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Wordpress, and more streams to your account; you can even include a Facebook Page capability on your feed. HootSuite supplies you with site statistics and analytics, keeping you up-to-date on your social media’s activity.

However, HootSuite is not always reliable. Although the first five social media sites are free, you will have to upgrade to HootSuite Pro for a fee if you want to add more. You can also only include one administrator if you are not on HootSuite Pro. HootSuite also has quite a bit of technical issues: The program’s latest debacle is its inability to access Facebook Pages due to Facebook’s API struggles with third party services (like HootSuite). Also, HootSuite easily gets bogged down when processing and scheduling your information.

If you are part of a larger company and want to thoroughly examine the science of social, Radian6 is the social monitoring tool you’re looking for. This tool does a lot of the work for you: It analyzes social media trends in relation to your company, examines the top online influencers of your brand to create a plan of engagement, has a very easy-to-use dashboard, and more. Radian6 has the capacity to go the distance, mainly because it gives you everything you could ask for in a social monitoring tool.

Of course, in order to monitor every minute aspect of your social media, Radian6 charges a significant sum (please refer to their website to see more exact amounts). A number of their tools might seem unnecessary for your company, depending on exactly what you are looking for in a social monitoring tool.

In short, social media monitoring tools can be great time savers. They can keep your social media work on task and punctual. Save your posts and forget about them during the holiday season.

How To Survive "Un-Fanning"

By Kristin Bednarski
SEO/SMO Writer

November 17 marked a new national holiday. The announcement was made by none other than Jimmy Kimmel. The holiday: National UnFriend Day:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sc5bbz5SB7M&feature=player_embedded

I will admit, I laughed out loud at the video, where Kimmel analyzes a true friend and wonders how people have hundreds of friends on the most popular social networking site. But, working in what I like to call “Social Media Land,” I am trying to help businesses accomplish the exact opposite. And while they are really “fanships” rather than friendships for companies with Facebook pages, the point is….you don’t want to be un-fanned!

There is hope. Let’s take a look at some of the things that businesses can do to help drive traffic to their Facebook pages, and surprisingly, we can learn a thing or two from Jimmy Kimmel.

First let’s pretend you don’t have any fans yet, and you’re building your Facebook page. Bear with me, because this is important. You MUST have an engaging and interesting page. Keep the self-advertising to a minimum and let fans see some personality. Pictures and videos are a must, and not boring office building pictures, but instead, pictures of cool things customers don’t normally see, funny interactions at the office etc. But remember what Kimmel said, too much info is a bad thing. A couple of posts a day are plenty.

After the page is built, one of the hardest steps is getting those first few fans. You don’t just want your brother Joe and your sister Sue to be fans, you want your real non-family customers to be fans. Some great ways to achieve this:

• Tell customers and existing prospects you have a Facebook page, and train your employees to make this a habit when they interact with new or existing customers.
• Give them a reason to come to your page. Build exclusive offers or coupons into your page that are available to Facebook fans only. This is a big one!
• Allow them to write reviews, complete quizzes or access tips or advice from your page.
• Repeat. Keep offering new coupons or specials and post about it to let fans know that it wasn’t a one-time deal.

Once you have fans, know that each fan represents a relationship. Kimmel joked that to be Facebook friends with someone you actually have to interact with them. This applies to fans. The relationship between a business and a fan cannot be one sided. If a fan writes on your company’s wall…write back. If a fan has says something interesting and it pops up on your news feed…comment. Interaction lets a fan know you care and keeps them interested in you.

So take a look at how many fans you have, are they really your fans? And how can you better your fanship with them

Breaking Down Facebook’s Messaging Changes

By Sarah Groneck
SEO/SMO Writer

Facebook is overhauling its messaging, insinuating that the face of communication should change drastically.

“The problems are bigger than just Facebook,” says Andrew Bosworth, Facebook engineer, in a live webstream on Monday. “Sharing information should be simpler than it is.”

Bosworth, Mark Zuckerberg and the Facebook staff are thrilled about the changes, but what could the changes mean for businesses?

Here is a breakdown of the new concept. The team’s goal has been to combine the content of email, instant messaging, text messaging, and more into a single conversation. That way, users no longer have to remember that their grandmothers prefer email while their younger cousins like texting.

“I’m keeping this lookup table in my head of how to reach out to each person. Why do I have to do that?” said Bosworth. “Why can’t these technologies work together?”

The concept of new messaging contains 3 parts:

Seamless messaging. As a Facebook user, you will have the option of adding @facebook.com email address to their account so that people “who do use email to connect with the rest of us,” says Bosworth.

The new messaging is not email, though. It does not contain a subject line or carbon copy/blind copy capability. It is, as the strategy hopes, just the message and you. Think of the new messaging as a private chat but with the capacity to attach files.

Conversation history. You know how it can be frustrating to lose Facebook chat content and old messages. This new capability halts any chance of that happening. It becomes a drawer of sorts where all past conversation—be it through Facebook messaging, chat, texting—are stored for future use. Bosworth likened it to the box of letters his grandma kept. Same concept, but in digital form.

Social inbox. When you log into Facebook, you will only see messages from friends and family at the top. The people you talked to the most will be listed higher than those you rarely address. You’ll still have bank statements and e-newsletters, but those will be in the “Other” folder. Also, if someone you love does not have Facebook, you can add them to your Friends section so that they too can receive messages from you.

These changes raise many questions. Will this be the death sentence for email? Will e-newsletters be worth sending if users will not immediately be able to see them? Will people begin to turn only to Facebook for their communications needs?

Not yet.

First of all, email is still an important part of the business world. No matter how many changes they make, Facebook is still viewed primarily as a social media tool and, as Facebook executives pointed out, the revamped inbox is an informal version of email. Since the new messaging is more along the lines of Facebook chat, businesses especially should not switch to Facebook messaging as sole means of communication. There is still need for the formality of subject line, carbon copy, and blind copy.

Second, even if clients have a Facebook email account, businesses can still use e-newsletters and other online mailers. They just have to make sure that the e-newsletters have content of high quality that makes the user want to receive it. The material will appear in the “Other” folder on the account, but at least they can still receive it.

Third, the Facebook staff may believe that the new messaging will be transformative, but users should slowly ease into the phenom. As with other Facebook applications, the new messaging will most likely have its fair share of glitches and errors. Perhaps the public won’t respond as well as the Facebook staff thinks, or perhaps the fact that all of your previous conversations are on file will scare off some users.

Whatever the result, it could take months before the application becomes a well-oiled machine to catalyze such widespread communication change. Standing advice is to proceed with caution as you look into using the new Facebook messaging.