The Single Most Important Step to Getting Good Conversion from your Visitors

I have for the past couple of months been posting here about an ongoing MBA class on content marketing called Marketing with Social Media. The class is being taught by me, Bill Belew, at a university in San Jose (Yes, I know the way).

I don’t know of anybody who has been able to gather a lot (73 MBA students) of bloggers and put them in a controlled setting (controlled inasmuch as they do what I tell them to, which they don’t always) in an academic environment. The students pass or fail based on whether they do the work or not. It is an international university and many of the students’ immigration status is dependent on their final grade. In other words, they are motivated. If they fail, they literally get deported.

Are You Overwhelmed By Your SEO Responsibilities?

SEO is a necessary component of a marketing strategy today.
People are searching for the products or services that you have in the search engines, which means that you need to improve upon your search engine presence.  Businesses have options when it comes to how SEO will be executed.  A large corporation typically has the resources to get it done in house by hiring an SEO Specialist but smaller companies simply can’t afford the extra salary.  Hiring an SEO firm is an alternative option, but in order to really get the most out of that investment the website should already be a few years old.  For small businesses that are just getting their online activity going, SEO is typically done in house by the existing marketing team.  Since the marketing team already has additional responsibilities on their plate, it’s important to do everything possible to avoid procrastinating when it comes to SEO.  Doing some SEO work is better than doing none at all.

Here are three ways to make SEO activities less overwhelming: 

Is LinkBuilding dead? Absolutely not say the experts at SMX West 2013

Is Link Building still important for SEO?

Link BuildingAt SMX West 2013 session titled “ Is Link Building Still Crucial, Or A Waste Of Time & Money?”, the experts opened up about linkbuilding.  The question was just that: Is linkbuilding still relevant? Overall, the resounding answer was “yes”.

Linkbuilding is not dead as long as you are doing it correctly stated Rae Hoffman with PushFire. You must have a business strategy and focus on growing traffic with your links in addition to authority. Always keep in mind that SEO begins with a well optimized, high value site that is link worthy. The focus should not only be on building links.

How Web Site Usability and Conversions Are Different: Comparison

The terms "usability" and "conversions" are often used loosely or in combination with each other. Neither is very descriptive and both are open to interpretation. In truth, they are two separate web design practices, with different goals. When brought together for a site design, the potential for web site success is explosive.

The Biggest Difference

Web site usability is the art of designing web pages that are easy to use. Web accessibility is design so that everybody can use the site. The goal of conversions design is creating web pages that people will want to use. Conversions, which are nothing more than helping visitors complete a task, depend on usability, accessibility and knowing exactly what your customers need and want. Persuasive design, emotional design, and human factors design create opportunities to conversions.

The more site owners and their staffs know about their target visitors, the better their conversions analytics data will look. Of course there are other factors that play a role, such as having a solid online business plan, a clear set of requirements, site goals such as generating revenue, getting subscriptions or getting people to use your Internet application and your marketing strategy. Let's say you have all that and someone has tossed you the usability and conversions balls to play with but you're not sure how they're different or why they're lumped together. 

5 Ways to Get Links Through Content Marketing

Unless you have been hiding under a rock, you know that content marketing is an absolutely necessary addition to your online marketing strategy in 2013. If your primary goal is to boost your rankings, you’re in luck because content marketing done correctly can lead to many great links back to your website. Here are five types of content you can use to build backlinks for your website.

Lists

Lists are one of the easiest types of content you can create on your blog or website. They tend to get a lot of traction on social media and ultimately attention from other bloggers and website owners in your niche or industry who are happy to share your list with their audience on their blogs.

Top 3 Search Secrets for Maximizing Results

Search marketers are a breed of their own.  They know things about websites that most people glaze over at the beginning of the conversation.  They get as excited about new strategies as others may get at the new deal on Groupon.  So what are their secrets?  We’ve come up with a list of three top tips to help you maximize your results.

First, does your website have natural search visibility?

Πως οι χρήστες αλληλεπιδρούν με τις μηχανές αναζήτησης στο διαδίκτυο;

 Επιτυχημένες στρατηγικές διαδικτυακού μάρκετινγκ

 Ένα από τα σημαντικότερα στοιχεία για την οικοδόμηση μιας επιτυχημένης στρατηγικής διαδικτυακού μάρκετινγκ γύρω από το SEO (Search Engine Optimization) και κατά συνέπεια την υψηλότερη κατάταξη της ιστοσελίδας σας  στις μηχανές αναζήτησης (Search Engines), είναι η ενσυναίσθηση για το κοινό σας.

How to Optimize Your Facebook Page for Mobile Facebook Nearby Users

A recent global update to Facebook’s Nearby mobile check-in made it possible for iOS and Android users to discover business information and reviews they may previously have asked a search engine.

Remember when Google+ pulled their existing local listings and paired them with Zagat reviews, in order to share social endorsements, maps and business info with people on the go, giving them an edge for local search? Facebook is now able to offer mobile users the same information within their far more widely adopted network.

The team from Gowalla, acquired by Facebook late in 2011, are responsible for the new Nearby functionality. Here are a few important details for marketers and tips to help you optimize your Page to appear in Nearby results.  

SEO For Niche Search

Niche search is an under-appreciated area of Web marketing. If you look for advice on how to manage niche search in today’s SEO blogosphere you will find plenty of articles that tell you have to explore niche topics for keywords and links but no one seems to be thinking about niche search.

“Be the resource” is the most important fundamental principle of search marketing. When you are the resource everyone comes to you.

In other words, to optimize for niche search you need to create the tools to search niches. That doesn’t mean investing a quarter million dollars in crawling the Web. It means creating a resource that people will use and talk about.

How to Blog For SEO Benefits

In our previous post, “Top 5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog,” we outlined the basic benefits of blogging on your company website. Among them, the fact that businesses who blog see 55% more traffic to their site. We didn’t go into much detail, however, about why it’s a necessary component in your SEO strategy, because that deserves its own post!

Before delving into how to incorporate SEO, it must first be acknowledged that content quality is always a priority. SEO benefits will wean if the writing you’re producing is low-quality and not worth anyone’s time. A business blog should be interesting, authoritative and educational – a reflection of your company and the ideas and products/services you have to offer.

LinkedIn SEO: How to Increase the Visibility of Your Business Profile

Editor's note: Google isn't the only way for your business to be discovered online. This is the fourth in a five-part series looking at alternate sources for search.
In today's corporate world, you aren't somebody until you can be found on professional networking site LinkedIn. But as more individuals and businesses add their profiles, it's becoming more challenging to turn up in searches.

What most LinkedIn users aren't aware of is that the results displayed for these searches aren't random. LinkedIn uses an internal set of algorithms to prioritize certain profiles over others, giving the businesses and individuals who have optimized their accounts correctly a leg up in using the service to find jobs, clients and more.

7 In-House SEO Initiatives for 2013

As we look forward to 2013, the New Year provides limitless opportunities and the chance to nail down our SEO to-do lists. As we go through our lists, it's important to remember that there are short-term SEO tasks that we undertake on an almost daily basis, as well as bigger picture SEO initiatives that may not be implemented overnight and will take time and solid effort.

The seven initiatives listed below are among the most critical to undertake in 2013 for in-house SEOs. If you’re already working on some of them, then it's worth your effort to go all in to reap the maximum SEO rewards.

1. Rel=Author Tag

SEO for Ecommerce Websites – Managing the Duplicate Content Beast

The rise of ecommerce websites has heralded a new era of convenience for consumers, as well as the most powerful tool for retailers since electricity. However, ecommerce sites bring with them a host of SEO challenges that can quash any hopes of being found in organic search.

Fortunately, with a little foresight and a bit of technical knowledge, ecommerce retailers can maximize their SEO potential and literally rise above the competition (in the search results), resulting in more customers and increased sales.

Duplicate Content

3 Easy SEO Tools to Improve Your Website

These companies can help take the mystery out of SEO and get your site on its way to ranking higher in Google.

When it comes to marketing, search engine optimization, or SEO, is probably the most mysterious undertaking of them all. And yet, it's one of the most important things you need to get online visibility.

The challenge with SEO is that search engines--like the almighty Google--make adjustments to their algorithms all the time. A shining example is the Penguin update late last year, which had marketing folks everywhere clutching their pearls. These algorithms determine how high you rank naturally on a search engine results page, or SERP, when someone types in a search term. They're based on lots of constantly changing factors that are more heavily guarded than the crown jewels.

Evolving Your SEO: Moving Toward a Content Marketing Approach

The search industry is booming. Competition for keywords – organic or paid – has never been higher. All forms of digital content multiply and prosper.

Underneath it all, however, tectonic plates are shifting. Slowly but surely, almost everything that used to constitute search engine optimization (SEO) has become ineffective, risky, or inappropriate for most brands.

SEO tactics are being taken off the table and a gap has begun to arise between what is needed – digital visibility – and the tactics, tools, and business processes needed to achieve it. Brands that learn how to evolve their approach to SEO and content to fit this new world will emerge on top.

The Art Of Link Building 2013

As most of you will know, the Panda and Penguin updates were implemented by Google as a means to reduce webspam – and it worked, mostly. While Panda targeted ‘thin’ webpage content, the dreaded Penguin targeted ‘linkspam’ and, due to also ensnaring some perfectly legitimate sites, caused panic within the SEO community. It was a clear word from Google that the days of high volume low quality link tactics were over, and that only natural links from good domains would cut the mustard here on in. The following points highlight how you should approach your link-building in 2013 to achieve that future proof link profile.
Easy On The Anchor

Since the introduction of Penguin in April of this year, and based on much analysis, the link building world came to the conclusion that anchor text as a ranking signal is slowly changing and becoming less important, and even problematic if overdone. With AuthorRank waiting in the wings it seems the ever increasing power of social influence and authorship spell bleak times ahead for anchor text influence with some even debating whether or not it has already ran its course.

    “Anchor text is actually diminishing as a signal and being replaced by something else, something Google has gotten very clever about.” – Rand Fishkin, 16/11/2012

The above quote is taken from a recent whiteboard Friday post by Rand Fishkin; he refers to co-citation as being the next big influencer within the industry. In short, co-citation is the relationship between a key phrase and website but with little or no optimisation for that key phrase. He suggests that any time you see a website that doesn’t have the anchor texts for the particular phrase you are searching, the reason it is performing so well is due to co-citation. He has since come to the conclusion that this may not be what is impacting the SERPs and it may in turn be the result of Google ignoring more signals as opposed to applying new ones. So what does this mean? Well, as anchor text becomes less of an influence, it means we need to focus more on AuthorRank, brand citation and the quality of our content in order to build reputable, highly authoritative websites. 

Top Link Building Strategies for New Sites

Building links to a new website is never easy. It requires a lot of dedication to increase the website’s visibility to quality links. So how do you go about building links to a brand new site? Let’s take a look at some of the effective linking strategies to help you accomplish this.

1. Using your own personal network

Getting links from family, friends, colleagues and clients with online presence is one very accepted way of beginning link building campaign. All you have to do is call up or email your family and friends and ask them to put a link to your new site on theirs. Tell them, how important it is to build links and they will certainly ask for a link on your website as well. Since you have already fostered a relationship with your family and friends, they will probably voice their support for you in their own websites. You can try the same strategy with other social media sites such as Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, etc.

10 SEO Tactics to Avoid in 2013

We live in a very different search marketing world going into 2013 than we did at the end of 2011. Just think about all the changes that have happened in 2012. Google’s changes alone are enough to make your head spin.

• Google launches Penguin to fight web spam link building tactics and over optimization
• Google launches Panda updates #10 through #23 to their core algorithm in 2012, one of the most active years ever in search
• Google’s 7 result SERP (search engine result page)
• Mobile search advertising click growth of 339% year over year (2012 Q3 State of Paid Search Report)
• Google’s average CPC or cost-per-click fell 10% (Adobe 2012 report)
• Mobile clicks will account for roughly 25% of all visits from Google in 2013 (Searchenginewatch.com)
• Google’s Venice update which localized organic results on broad search queries

New Year, Same Old Tactics?
It’s clear that we need to rethink how we approach search marketing in 2013. The same old tactics and the same approach simply will not work. After some thought, I’ve put together a list of the top 10 tactics to avoid going into the new year.

SEO Tactics to Avoid in 2013

5 New Year’s Resolutions Every SEO Should Make

New Year’s Eve is upon us and for some of us that means it’s time to make some resolutions. For many of us that involves writing down things like losing weight, doing more service, and trying to get a girlfriend. Once you make your list of resolutions you know won’t happen, take some time and make a list of some real SEO resolutions. Odds are there are some things you should stop doing and some things you should start doing. I’ve put together five items that definitely need to be on that list.

8 Ways To Boost Traffic With Meaningful Links

During the last year, there have been well over two billion people surfing the web. This number shows an incredible amount of growth since previous years. With so many new websites being created every day and billions of internet users out there, it can be difficult to know how to direct traffic towards a website. Search Engine Optimization companies have seen enormous momentum as more and more people need help in order to find success on the web.

Perhaps you have already started adding new SEO content to your site in order to boost your internet rankings. But, are you seeing the results you want? The thing that many people don't realize is that content is only one piece of the SEO puzzle. Another key part in gaining internet traffic is to make your website "linkable". The more meaningful links that are directed towards your site, the better off you will be.

Take it from someone who knows; links are a fundamental part of internet success. If you are looking for a way to increase traffic to your site, here are some helpful tips about link building.