Social Marketing Part 3 – Building On-site Content and Links
In the first article we covered Social Bookmarking to help increase your websites presence in alternate search portals, and boost your rankings in the search engines. In the second article we discussed how to use outside Social Content Sites to create content and links that drive customers back to your website and increase your search positioning. This month we discuss ways to position new content on your website and create additional links.
Everyone has heard the key to front page search engine rankings is good content, “Content is King!” When it comes to attracting links (especially from social media sites) your content needs to be GREAT! There is one big problem – what makes great content from the perspective of the average web surfer?
The average web reader wants brief, informative, easy to read text that answers or addresses the concerns they have. In addition, for a web page to receive links back from other web sites it must fit a specific niche of a generalized subject. The best formats to accomplish this are; Top Lists, Best of; Favorites; Local or Insiders Tips; Consider This; How To. Lets looks a some sample titles to understand these popular formats:
Top List example - Top Apres Ski Spots in Breckenridge
Best of example - Best Day Hikes in Steamboat Springs
Favorites example - Favorite Sightseeing Tours in Alaska
Local or Insiders tip example – Locals Tips - Must Play Golf Courses in Seattle
Consider example - 10 Things to Consider when Hiring a Wedding Photographer.
How To example – How to Backup Your Home Computer Online
These are attractive formats for two reasons, they are easy to read, and easy to write! In addition, anyone writing a broad or general article would be happy to cite (link) to your very specific subject matter. Everyone is an expert on something, the key is to keep the content relevant to your website. The articles should be brief, 400 to 500 words is the perfect length. Look at the del.icio.us Popular Page to find some good examples - http://del.icio.us/popular/
This is content that is designed to go directly on your website. The goal is to build content and links that drive traffic back to your business address on the web. If you do not have an article area, blog, or local news section on your website, you need one this year. Sites without this type of constantly updating fresh content are finding it harder to maintain top spots in the search engines because the search engines like growth and progress. They will spider web sites making “progress” with new webpages more often. If you do not have a spot for content on your site currently, check with the Netrafic team for ideas on placement and development.
So you have an article, and a place to put it on your web site. What is the next step? Contact Chris or myself to help tweak the article so that you get the most out of the search engines. This is a critical step, without it your writing piece could vanish into the web, never to be found again.
Next step, promote. There are dozens of locations that you can use to promote your article. They act as news posting sources. The most popular services are:
Digg – www.digg.com
Reddit – www.reddit.com
Propeller - www.propeller.com
Mixx - www.mixx.com
These services are simple to use. You sign up for an account, and then post your article URL plus write a brief description and title for your article. This creates instant links back to your site, and anyone that reads the article is reading it ON YOUR SITE. We are happy to coach you, or your PR person through this process. After adding your content, you will want to go back and bookmark the article using the techniques described in article 1 of this series.
Find a Writer – If you do not have someone on staff that can write this type of material, fear not! There are many resources to find qualified writers. You can contact Netrafic for a possible referral, we come in contact with writers often.
Craigslist – You can find someone local by looking on Craigslist in the Services, Writing / Editing section. You can also post a “help wanted” in the Jobs, Writing / Editing section.
ProBlogger – You can post and find individuals with writing skills on this site. It costs $50 to post a job for 30 days. You will receive a large number of responses. The overall quality of the writers is outstanding.
Regardless of where you locate your writer, always get writing samples first before hiring anyone—and eliminate anyone whose grammar and spelling skills aren't in top shape. Plan to write 2-3 articles per month, and before you know it you will have dozens of pages with sticky content attracting web searchers to your site.
In last months article we covered Social Bookmarking to help increase your websites presence in alternate search portals, and boost your rankings in the search engines. Hopefully you organized your team, family and friends to go out a vote for your site. If not, the polls are still open 24/7 so make a plan to get it done!
This month we will cover Social Content websites that let you create a web page on your company, subject or better yet, both! Social Content websites are similar to an off-site blog. They allow you to sign-up for free, create web pages, add content and media, rss feeds from your site or blog, and socialized media from other networks like YouTube and Flickr.
Understand that these Social Content sites are in business to make money. When you create a page they add some advertising units such a Google Ads to your page. To make the relationship work, they share the revenue generated from the pages you create with you, the publisher. Some sites will let you set the number of advertising modules that appear on your page.
So, thats the bad news! The good news is this; These pages can perform in the search engines and deliver traffic, displace weak competitors for your target search terms, and provide another link back to your site helping your overall search rankings.
Participants in the Netrafic Linking Program already have pages on these Social Networks being created that benefit them. My primary motivation is for the linking value these pages generate, and if any traffic floats your way – great! I create the pages by subject matter, so that I can add several links back to different websites.
Lets take a look at one of these pages so that you can understand the value of Social Content pages. The following page http://www.squidoo.com/cabo-pulmo is about a vacation destination in Mexico.
Here are the three value centers:
Traffic – This page comes up for the search term “Cabo Pulmo Baja Mexico” on the front page of Google, leading potential visitors back to the client. Notice that the clients site, and a YouTube video come up for the search term also, covering 3 front page positions in Google – that's good Socialization on the web!
Link Value – The links inside this page helps the main website perform for their intended search terms, like “cabo pulmo vacation rentals”
Displacement – If you look on the second page of Google for the search term “Cabo Pulmo Baja Mexico” you will see qualified websites that have been “displaced” - natural search is “survival of the fittest!”
Here is a quick “how to” guide to create your own Social Content sites.
Creation – create your free account, and decide if you want to write on your general subject, or specific business. It is good practice to do both. Any Netrafic customers can contact me for help regardless of participation in the Linking Program.
Content – you must develop around 1000 words of unique content to populate your first page. For subsequent pages, you can re-write the content and reorganize.
Media – Add any/all of the videos you have on YouTube to your page. You can drop you Flickr photo stream directly into these pages. You can also upload directly to the site, but if you have been paying attention to my advice, you surly have a Flickr and YouTube account with some media...
SEO – Each Content website is unique in the way it needs to be optimized. If you have a page up, feel free to contact us to help groom the page.
Good Places to start:
Real Estate - http://activerain.com/
Travel - http://www.travelblog.org/
The goal is to get multiple web resources working for your business that lead searchers back to your site, in addition to supporting your main site in search. Go out and get some!
Popcorn Gifts is my new best friend!
Have you voted for your web site yet?
You can help your sites performance in the major search engines by getting involved via the social bookmarking sites. The major players in search (Google, Yahoo) count the links from these popular communities as “back links” to your website. These links tend to improve your sites ranking because they are viewed as “natural” and are “keyword rich” with descriptive text.
Participants in the Netrafic link building program have a head start on this, as we add your website to over 20 social bookmarking, social news and and social search sites. This is a great start, but with social bookmarking, more IS better! Think of “bookmarks” as “votes” - Netrafic can only vote for your site a few times.
Here is a homework assignment to help your site become a social butterfly. Assign this task to your team members and employees – it takes 15-20 minutes to complete.
Do not have your group create accounts with the company email. Do not have your group bookmark from the company computer network. Choose the most relevant Category for your site. Use 4-7 keywords (tags) for each submission. Your description only needs to be 1-2 sentences. Some sites offer to make your bookmark either “private” or “public” - always choose public! Some sites ask you to rate the site (1-5 stars) Rate It!
Here are the sites we are going to use. Go to each one and sign-up for an account, then bookmark your website.
This is a great start! If you are need assistance, find someone under the age of 25 to walk you through the process.
Extra Credit Assignment:
Attack the social scene by hitting every site on the net. This Social Marker service http://www.socialmarker.com/ lets you work through all social sites. Grab a bottle of wine!
Greetings and a Happy New Year to all. Now that the gifts are in the closet, the leftovers have been tossed, and your spirits have been consumed by your thirsty relatives, we all move together into the business of getting down to business.
Before we move on, I wanted to share a holiday experience. During the break I tasked myself with the redesign of our own little company web site, netrafic.com – the old site was more feeble than poor Tiny Tim. I worked late into the cold night, working by the flicker of candle light, until I could no longer keep my eyes open.... Bah, Humbug!
I was visited that night by the ghosts of Internet marketing mistakes. I awoke, determined not to repeat them and embrace web 2.0. Oh, its a wonderful life – but that's a different story.
A WEBSITE CAROL:
I HAVE endeavored in this Ghostly little article, to raise the Ghost of an Idea, which shall not put my readers out of humor with themselves, with each other, with the season, or with me. May it haunt their websites pleasantly, and no one wish to lay it.
The First of the Three Spirits: Ghost of WebSite Past – These elements must be included in any successful web marketing business. They collect historical data that will help your business make more money in the future.
* Visitor Metrics – If you do not have program that tracks visitors, you are missing the boat. A statistical analysis program that is installed correctly (on every page of your site) will tell your web team exactly what is working, converting, selling and where you are losing visitors. Budget is not an excuse in this area, Google offers Analytics for free - http://www.google.com/analytics/
* Site SEO Compatibility – Is your website search engine friendly? There are a number of design and linking items that can trip up a search engine spider. This can cause parts of your site to be excluded from search results. Clients that are participating in the Linking Program can sleep easy on this issue, as internal linking is one of the major elements of the program. Those that have all kinds of free time can visit Googles webmaster service that includes site crawl data - http://www.google.com/webmasters/start/
* Email Marketing – Retail businesses count on loyal repeat customers. Internet businesses leverage email to create repeat business. If you do not offer a simple and compelling way for each visitor to sign up for “updates” via email, you are missing out on revenue. Get thousands of site visitors to re-visit your site with a single email every month.
The Second of the Three Spirits: Ghost of WebSite Present – What are web visitors looking for today? There are some simple tweaks that can assure this ghost wont haunt you in the future.
* About Us – People want to deal with people, not some anonymous web entity. A prominent “About Us” page with pictures of you, your business and key staff members will help bridge the gap between you and potential customers.
* You News – Create a way to post news, articles, product or service updates and information about your businesses or region. A great way to do this is with a blog, but there are several other approaches. This has the SEO benefit of creating updated and increasing content, something Chris has been asking you to do for years! Let Netrafic guide you through the process of adding SEO friendly web content.
* Home and Landing Page Analysis – Your web designer is not necessarily the best sales person. Does your front page sell your product or service? More importantly, does it give the visitor a clear path to act, purchase or request a quote? Seek many opinions on your site, from both web savvy users and infrequent web travelers. Chris is a great place to start, as he has a mound of marketing experience.
The Last of the Spirits: Ghost of WebSite Future – I know we are all busy just keeping up with today, but the web of the future is here. The ghost of the future warned me of events to come should I not act now.
* Video – People tend to skim your web text, but will sit glued to your video message if its done right. Think action packed 45 second commercials. You will be amazed what this technology will do to your visitor “time on site” and retention. Deploy your video so that people can grab it and place it on another web site or save it on their computer.
* Mobile – What does your site look like on an iPhone? Time to think mobile market friends, its here. Google is actively developing a mobile device that according to some sources, “will replace the cell phone.”
* Capture Social URLs – Most social networks like MySpace, YouTube, Google Pages and Flickr create a custom url based on the users name. Finding that someone already registered wwww.youtube.com/yourcompanyname can be very frustrating and come back to haunt your during next years visit from the Ghost of WebSite Past.
We have received a number of calls and emails recently regarding results that appear in Google's Local Search. Google does not announce changes in it search methods, but it appears that Local Search has changed recently. In the past, traditional “brick and mortar” type business saw the most benefit from optimizing Local Search.
Local Search Explained: Local Search was originally designed for consumers to find products, services and business in their own backyard. The average consumer would type in “appliance repair” and Google would display local listings (based on your IP address) at the top of the page. The data was mostly compiled from online Yellow-Page listings. If you paid for the online listing in your phone directory, your business was automatically listed in Local Search. As Google perfected Google Maps, these listings appeared next to a local map with a marker showing your location.
Recent Changes: I have noticed that searches that are obviously local are no longer automatically delivering Local Search results. A Google search for “appliance repair” no longer automatically displays the Google Map with Local Search results. Instead, you have to force Local Search by including a modifier like “appliance repair Denver” or “appliance repair 90210” I suspect that Google was losing zillions of advertising dollars by people clicking on Local Search instead of Paid Adwords placements and this is why they have changed the search model.
How to Leverage These Changes: List your business in Local Search following the guidelines and terms you and your SEO have developed. Examples: Follow along here please – search “hotels” in Google, you get web results for all the big players in the travel market. In the past, you used to get Local Search results listing “hotels” near your location. Now search “breckenridge hotels” and you get a mixture of big travel players, well optimized websites. Then search, “breckenridge colorado hotels” and Local Search pops its ugly head in the results at the top of the page.
Local Search and Your Business: If you are reading this, it is more likely that you rent condos or sell real estate. The terms that trigger Local Search are most likely search terms you and your SEO are already working on.
What should you do? Your business model can take advantage of this if you get creative. The key is to tie your location to the most important search term for you business. This can be difficult if your website is a pure online venture, but there are still ways to leverage Local Search. There are provisions for businesses with multiple locations, so it may be worth it to add a mailing address in your target area if you are not actually located there – hint, hint.
Getting Started: Visit the Google hub for adding your business to Local Search - www.google.com/local/add
Account Creation Tips:
Business Name – make sure to include your business “type” in your name. If your proper business name is “ABC Photography”, list it with your primary business target included in the name, “ABC Wedding Photography” for example.
Description – Get your key search term in the first sentence, make sure the text is original (not copy/paste) and use all 200 characters: Using a robust ad copy style description will deliver more conversion.
Categories – use as many as are applicable.
Photos – Add the maximum allowed, ten photos. Name the photos with your business type, example denver-wedding.jpg, aspen-condo.jpg or baja-real-estate.jpg
Under Custom – If you look at the Custom page in the account creation process there is the ability to create custom categories. This can be a rich source for adding more information for the search engines and consumers to consume.
Confirm - Make sure to use the phone confirmation method for faster results.
Coupons - There is the ability to add a coupon or discounts at the end of the account creation process, create one! People use coupons and discounts so add “savings offers” in as many locations on the internet as you can find. Websites like hotelcoupons.com and skicoupons.com get mammoth amounts of traffic.
Need Help with all of this? Linking clients give Dave a call and he can walk you through the process.
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