How Social Media Keeps Leaders Honest

David Jones of Havas and Mashable CEO Pete Cashmore recently sat down to talk about the responsibilities of the leaders of today to respond to social media, and how it holds them accountable.

“Google Clarifies: No, Ads Shouldn’t Help Rankings & No, SEO Isn’t Bad”  Recent comments made by a new Google employee have some SEO’s up in arms.  Apparently his comments included “SEO isn’t good for users” and “It’s a bug that you could rank highly in Google without buying ads.”  Curious to know what else he has to say and what reaction this has caused within the online community?  Via Search Engine Land.

“100 Million Americans Watch Online Video Per Day.  Up 43% Since 2010- comScore”  According to comScore Americans streamed 43.5 billion videos in December 2011 alone.  This is an increase of 44% over the previous year.  With this astronomical jump in online views, is television in trouble?  Via TechCrunch.

“The Next Big Social Network Is You”  Many companies are trying to address the now common social network exhaustion.  Between the constantly shifting policy changes and programming updates many users are getting tired.  This opinion piece shares that in the near future it will be less about your number of followers and more about a smaller group of well-connected individuals.  What do you think?  Via Information Week.

“5 Essential Spreadsheets for Social Media Analytics”  If you are involved in social media, and are a small business this post provides some useful tools for measuring your data.  Want to know the best part?  They’re free, customizable, and easy to use.  Via Mashable.

“Brand Storytelling Lessons You Can Steal from Hollywood”  Innovation, a term we seem to hear quite frequently these days.  As a content marketer innovation is especially important because not only must you attract customers, you must veer them away from your competition.  Paying close attention to Hollywood entertainment and the way that promotion is done in that industry is a great means for discovering new ideas.  Via Content Marketing Institute.

TopRank Team News

Alexis Hall – Report: National Marketers Love Local, Fail At Basic Tactics
This post discusses survey results from late 2011 which revealed that although many marketers have the perception they are highly invested in local advertising, survey results show they are failing when it comes to basic tactics, like management of local directory listings.  Those seemingly small tactics can have a big impact on local results, so if marketers are really invested in their online local presence, they must be diligent when it comes to education on all types of tactics.  Via Search Engine Land.

Ken Horst – Pinterest is quietly generating revenue by modifying user submitted pins
It appears as though Pinterest has found a way to monetize their site, even at this early beta stage.  Most people would say that’s a good thing however the way they are making money has some people crying foul.

Pinterest is using a service called SkimLinks to add an affiliate link wherever there is a link to a product page that has an affiliate program.  It’s not the idea that people are concerned about, it’s the fact that Pinterest is doing this without providing any disclosure to its users.  Via LLsocial.

Brian Larson – Bing Now A Full Point Ahead of Yahoo In Search Share-comScore
According to comScore, Bing is now a full point ahead of Yahoo! in search share. While Google’s search results are highly flavored by Google+, Bing receives streams of information from Facebook and Twitter. With Yahoo! In Bing’s rear view mirror, is Google next?  Via Search Engine Land.

Time to Weigh In:  What do you think of Pinterest’s money making tactics?  Smart move or too far?  With so many American’s consuming video on a daily basis, are you including video in your 2012 online marketing strategy?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Online Marketing News: Pinterest’s Sneaky Tactics, Keeping Leaders Honest, 100 Million Videos Watched Per Day | http://www.toprankblog.com

I’m headed to (hopefully) sunny San Diego today for the annual Online Marketing Summit conference where I’ll get to present on one of my favorite topics: Optimization. Of course, if you read Online Marketing Blog very often, you’ll know my definition of optimization is a bit different than traditional SEO.  My post last Thursday “Are You Optimized?” touched on this.

The competition for attendance during the breakout sessions at OMS is really tough during the time slot I’m scheduled for. SAP, Wider Funnel and SAP are all presenting at the same time as I’m giving the all new “Optimize THIS: Integrating Social, SEO & Content presentation”. This post is a bit of a preview on the presentation so if you’re at OMS this week, make sure you check it out.

In Optimize THIS, I have about 45 minutes (including Q & A) to help attendees learn the principles and best practices of optimizing content and social media participation for better marketing performance.  Most marketers and even consumers face a deluge of information as they look for answers online. Google has morphed itself into an entirely new type of social search engine and the state of flux has many businesses facing new challenges that are difficult to keep up with.

There’s plenty of speculation that businesses like Google that have attracted a huge user base because of their ability to organize and provide useful, relevant information see free or organic information as a problem to the advertising solution. In other words,  SEO is seen as a bug, not a useful way to modify websites so search engines can crawl and index them more effectively to the benefit of all: user, brand, search engine.

Google Dominates search, but should they dominate your online marketing?  What would happen if Google disappeared tomorrow? What if your business disappeared from Google tomorrow? What would that mean to your marketing? What would it mean to your business? There are numerous stories of companies devastated as collateral damage to algorithmic updates.

Google’s market position over-influences SEO practitioners to develop keyword glossaries, create, promote and optimize content solely focused on Google. That’s a reasonable approach, but I for one, am not a big fan of putting all my marketing eggs in one basket. The perceived reward of single stop marketing is also a risk.

Diversification or “Un-Googling” your online marketing isn’t just good for mitigating risk, it’s also a better approach to meeting customer needs, especially when optimization is viewed holistically with the way a business communicates digitally with its customers.

A more customer centric approach to online marketing is the catalyst for integrating content marketing, SEO and Social Media. The icing on the cake of customer centric online marketing diversification is even better organic performance on Google vs. focusing solely on traditional keyword popularity and links.

The road to Social, SEO and Content Marketing integration is through understanding the fundamental shifts in how consumers discover, consume and share information online. Search behaviors are not just inspired by a consumer need, but by paid, owned, earned and share media. The consumer journey online for solutions weaves its way through search and social interactions finding, interacting, reacting, buying and sharing.

Online commerce and content are increasingly a social experience and content is the key to helping companies Attract, Engage and Inspire their target audiences to act: purchase, interact and share with their networks.

What does a customer centric optimize content marketing approach look like? Start by identifying common customer characteristics. Segment that data and develop consumer profiles or personas that describe: Search Keywords, Social Topics, Pain Points, Triggers and Goals. Figure out what information would be most meaningful during the stages of your customer segments’ journey through the buying cycle. Essentially, find out what customers care about and leverage that data in a way that allows you to target your “best” customers as a group.

Translate what you now know about your customers into a content plan that addresses pain points, triggers and consumer goals with brand content optimized for search keywords and social topics. Implement website, blog, social content and engagement marketing to meet your target customers needs with the right context, relevant language and meaningful topics that will inspire them to take action.

Structure your content marketing plan with optimized and socialized channels of distribution. We like the hub and spoke model that can scale to a “constellation” of hub and spokes.

Monitor social channels for community response and engagement with socialized content. Use web analytics to monitor search and user experience impact of your content on engagement, fueling social network growth and of course, inspiring sales.

By formulating a content plan based on consumer segment information needs as they move through the buying cycle, optimization can be more in tune with customer interests than generic keyword popularity. Content is more helpful, usable and likely to be shared socially. For customers prone to use search, you’re visibile. For those that focus on social channels, you’re there too. For those that use both: even better.

There’s a lot more to say on this topic (as I’ve done in Optimize) but you can expect to see plenty of screen shots and some examples in my presentation tomorrow. If your’re ready to get optimized for 2012 and beyond, I hope to see you there.

2/7 OMS – San Diego
Hilton San Diego Bayfront
Optimize This: Integrating Social, SEO & Content
Learn the principles and best practices of optimizing content and social media participation for better marketing performance
11:45 AM–12:30
Room: Sapphire H

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | #Optimize This: Online Marketing Summit 2012 Presentation | http://www.toprankblog.com

Content Marketing Not Performing? Troubleshoot SEO Basics.

This post is a preview of a new downloadable guide I will be offering for those who pre-order Optimize by March 13, 2012. The full guide will have screenshots, examples and more “SEO Deep Dive” advice. If you want the full, illustrated Content Marketing SEO Troubleshooting Guide, visit OptimizeBook.com to pre-order and subscribe to our mailing list for more details.

Content Marketing at its core is about planning information that is thoughtful about the needs and interests of target customer groups as they take the journey through the buying cycle, interacting with content and pulling themselves towards purchase. The role of search engines in making ebooks, white papers, case studies, newsletters, webinars, reports, video, images and many other content marketing tactics is often underestimated or overlooked.

The effect of best practices SEO on content to attract relevant audiences can be substantial. However, search is a dynamic marketing channel requiring ongoing attention. Without proper care and feeding, search traffic can fluctuate, fall victim to more aggressive competitor SEO practices or never get off the ground. Or search engines can simply take away features that make SEO easier to do. Because search can provide such a significant and relevant audience to content, it’s worth investing time to troubleshoot for better performance.

Seeing great SEO, social media and content marketing strategy and tactics being implemented every day, I can’t help but be biased towards having a dedicated agency, consultant or in-house resource for optimization. However, dedicated resources are not very valuable unless there’s some appreciation for what an Optimize and Socialize approach can provide.

To provide some practical and tactical perspective on this essential intersection of SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing, here are a few tips for basic SEO troubleshooting that just about anyone responsible for content in an organization can use. I’ve also included some “SEO Drilldowns” that a pro might explore further and key considerations for content marketers.

Before we get into the Basic SEO Troubleshooting tips, here are a few important things to understand regarding Google and personalization:

Logged out – Google search results when you or other users are not logged in are as close to “generic” as you’ll get, but they are still customized according to your geographic location and your click activity during the session.  The days of generic search results that can be predictably viewed by more than one person in different locations is gone. If you do search while logged out, you’ll get a more generic experience than logged in – so it’s worth noting the difference.

Logged in – Users of Google services who are logged in while searching will almost certainly be presented with unique search results.  Personalization can be influenced by a variety of factors, including the recent social signals integration of Google+ into Google search results – aka Google Search Plus Your World and especially from the universal Google product data sharing that will start March 1st 2012. Other influences include past search history, geographic location and your interaction with search results are factors for Google to adjust search results just for you. Keep in mind, logged in or out, there are over 20o signals used to sort search results.

Google has made SEO troubleshooting increasingly difficult by encrypting search for users who are logged in to Google. Initially at 9%, our “Unknown” keyword referrers to Online Marketing Blog are now at 26%. Through a combination of historical data analysis and extrapolation from other data sources, you can fill in that gap somewhat, but it definitely takes an experienced SEO/Web Analytics person to do so. 

For our purposes, we’re focusing on the basics that can provide insight regardless of logged in or logged out since they are so fundamental to improved visibility of content marketing assets in search engines. Basic troubleshooting often starts by a review of web analytics showing a decrease in traffic from a certain phrase over time or the aspiration to increase search traffic for a particular topic. Keep in mind, there is a difference between business competitors and content competitors in the search results (SERPs). Perform the following troubleshooting actions while not logged in:

1. Benchmark

From your web analytics, log the past 1-3 months of search traffic for the phrase in question (if any) to your website.  

What you’re looking for: How often has the target keyword phrase driven traffic via search engines to your website each month, week and day? What does the trend line look like over time? Which pages are attracting search traffic for this phrase and any obvious variations of it? (singular vs. plural).  If you’ve optimized specific pages for this phrase, look at all search traffic to it, including “Unknown” encrypted phrases. Basically, you’re documenting the performance of the phrase as a starting point.

SEO Drill Down: How a SEO professional approaches benchmarking current keyword performance might vary, but here are a few ideas. Expand on all the variations of the target phrase, the distribution of “unknown” vs. identifiable phrases, the split between different search engines as sources of traffic, brand vs. non-brand queries, the distribution of different pages and content objects across your domain that attract search traffic related to the phrase. Also review the appearance of the target keyword phrase(s) in Google Webmaster Tools ranked list of keyword phrases.  What are the trends for this keyword phrase for ranking (iffy), traffic, inquiries and sales over time?

Key Content Marketing questions: For the content assets you’re optimizing, what role does the content play for target customers in the buying cycle? Is it optimized for phrases relevant to awareness, consideration, evaluation or purchase? What is the relationship of your optimized content assets to each other and to a landing page (if used)?  If you’re using a hub and spoke or constellation model for publishing, map out the content and media objects intended to perform for the target phrase in question. Audit them to see what has actually been optimized for the phrase. What new content assets will be created on a go forward relevant to the target phrase?

2. Search Results Landscape

Search for the phrase on Google and/or Bing (logged out) and document the URL, title and description for each of the top 10 search results:

What you’re looking for: Identify the type of websites and content that have high visibility on the target keyword phrase.  Capture information about the pages or digital assets that the search engine finds most relevant. Besides capturing the title, description and web address, note the types of content and sources – commercial, non-commercial, web page vs. media or local. It’s helpful to know what kinds of content as well as which websites/pages the search engine finds most relevant for the phrase and topic. If the search engine favors video content, PDF files and news sources, then it might mean an adjustment in your content marketing media mix for that phrase.

SEO Drill Down: More data about the SERP can be quite useful to log including: Content Type (web page, social, news, image, video thumbnail, local, product, pdf, MS Word doc), Content Category (Business, News, Blog, Media, University). Documenting the search results page over time can reveal trends such as whether the same pages maintain top positions, and what the diversity of content types is. Additional research into social signals is worth tracking as well. All such SERP analysis is performed while logged out.

With the level of personalization now in place with Google, savvy SEOs will have access to user accounts that exemplify the target audience persona’s online behaviors in order to trigger a personalized search experience that is similar to the customer segment.

Key Content Marketing questions:  According to your content plan, what types of content and media are you creating and what’s the difference between those media types and the categories/formats of content presented in search results for your target keyword phrases? It’s useful to know of the content marketing types in place for your efforts have any particular preference in the search results for the target phrase. If not, what other types of content, sources and media are in favor? Having a picture of the logged-out search results landscape for target keyword phrases can influence editorial decisions about formats used.  If blog posts are virtually ignored but press releases are favored, then it may be useful to leverage news story-style press releasees in addition to your blog posts.

This task is also used to collect information about content competitors for use in our other steps below.

3. Keyword Presence

Use the Advanced search option in Google or Bing to check for the presence of the target search phrase anywhere within the pages of your site. Refine that search to look for the exact match presence of the phrase in the title tags of your pages. 

What you’re looking for: Does the target keyword phrase exist within content on your site? If so, where?  It’s simply amazing how many companies expect traffic from certain keyword phrases when the target keywords are either not present in a significant way or not at all on the website.

SEO Drill Down: Further refinements might include looking for exact match of the phrase as well as variations and with modifiers. Look for the phrase in Title Tags, within H1 tags as headings, within body copy, within anchor text links between pages, as image alt text, annotations to images, video or other media, use within breadcrumb and navigation links.

Additional considerations include any page level barriers to a search engine finding or crawling links. Document the presence as well as the lack of presence for keywords in the areas commonly used by search engines to determine page relevancy.

A review of the top ranking pages documented in Step 2 above should also be checked for the presence of the target keyword phrase.

Key Content Marketing questions:  Are keywords being used in your PDF templates used to create eBooks, Reports or White Papers? Are digital assets such as infographics, videos, blog posts, press releases and other content marketing objects using keywords where relevant? Are keywords used in file names, folder names and navigation to content assets?

4. Inbound Link Footprint

Using a link tracking tool such as majesticseo.com or opensiteexplorer.org, check for the total number of links to the content assets that have been optimized for the target keyword phrase. Do the same review with the top 10 competing URLs found in step 1.

What you’re looking for: Links are like electricity for content when it comes to visibility in search results. Links are also important sources of direct traffic. If you expect a page or digital asset to be considered the “best answer” for a query by a search engine, keywords on the page are not enough. A quantity of links to a specific page will make it easy to find and also serves as a ranking signal.

The more topically relevant the content is of the link source, the better. Also the actual text used to link from another web page to your web page matters as well. “Click here” for our White paper and Get “More info” on our Newsletter are not nearly as useful as “Download our Red Widget Whitepaper” or “Sign Up for our Product XYZ Newsletter” when it comes to anchor text.

SEO Drill Down:  Using advanced features of link analysis tools, check for the quantity and diversity characteristics of links to target pages. Also check for the on-topic relevance of the link sources. How authoritative are the link sources? What is the context? Is it a news story in a major industry publication or is it one of 200 links on the same page pulled together by automated software?  Look at the types of links: text, image, follow vs. no follow, redirect, placement on page (high, low), number of links on the page, context for the link, overall topic. How many links use the target keyword phrase as anchor text? How many variations of the target phrase are used? What is the rate of link acquisition over time for your optimized page?

Besides performing this link research on your own optimized pages for target keywords, it can be useful to review this data on the content competition identified in Step 1 for benchmarking and comparison purposes as well as to identify new linking opportunities for your own content.

Key Content Marketing questions: As you craft relevant content in alignment with target customers and their stage in the buying cycle, think about how you’re promoting that content to attract inbound links from relevant websites. Social networks (Step 5) can have a significant impact on the reach of the content you promote, but social isn’t the only channel of distribution. If your white papers, case studies, archived newsletters and webinars get links from other sites that have commenting functionality, be sure to publicly thank them in a relevant comment. Link out from your blog to get on the radar of industry bloggers and they may link to the next press release, infographic or report that you publish.

5. Social Shares

Check for social shares of the target URLs on your site that are most relevant for the search phrase in question. Do the same for the top 10 competing URLs found in step one.

What you’re looking for: Is your content being shared on the social web? It’s not a “nice to have” anymore. Social engagement and sharing of your content is absolutely essential in order to gain advantage within search and social distribution of your content. Social media optimization of your content is essential and includes making it easy for readers to share your content to their social networks as well as having an active social presence that’s focused on building up a community you can promote content to. Documenting the presence of social shares for your own content and that of the top 10 competing URLs form Step 1 can help identify opportunities.

SEO Drill Down: For the content that you’ve created, optimized and built links to, document the presence, frequency and sources of social media shares. Do so at regular intervals in the way you might take snapshots of the SERPs page for your most important target keyword phrases. Social shares means links within public Facebook posts, Tweets, public Google+ shares, Q/A sites like Quora and even bookmarking/news services. Pay attention to the presence of keywords along with those socially shared links and whether they are congruent with your keyword targets.

Beyond link sharing on social sites, look for social engagement with your content where there’s commenting functionality. Cross promotion with different social channels such as blog, video, image, document hosting (Slideshare) as well as social networks like Twitter and Google+ can provide rich signal for both search engines and users.

Key Content Marketing questions: While social network participation for content marketers is often focused on the social channel conversation relevant to the buying cycle and customer segments, it’s also important to consider broader visibility. In other words, when it comes to social promotion and shares as well as network size, bigger is better. As always, a quantity of quality (relevance) is the ideal. At the same time, the size of your network determines the universe of exposure.  In other words, the more Facebook and Google+ fans/friends you have, the greater the likelihood that your shared content will be seen overall. Facebook’s recent report showed on average, you are more than 7 times more likely to share a link on Facebook if you’ve seen the link from one of your friends, so get friendly and grow your network.

Social media and it’s direct influence on search visibility is a reality and content marketers must consider not only the topical relevance of the content they create, the keywords and links but also social promotion, sharing and engagement.

Another consideration for Content Marketers and the Social SEO equation is the importance of Author authority and trust. Officially there may be no such thing as “TrustRank” at Google, but with the forced Google+ accounts, Author Markup and unified user data sharing across Google services, trust associated with a user is clearly important.  An individual who has a significant social network, produces a quantity of quality content that a community actively engages with will have distinct advantages when promoting content over a brand that publishes generically.  Content Marketers should factor in named entities of individuals and/or the brand itself and what it will take to create a relevant presence to be considered authoritative for important topics.

Conclusion:

Clearly the dynamic and increasingly complicated nature of today’s search engines can make the reliability of any one conclusion valuable for an indeterminate period of time. That’s why, if search traffic is important to your business, that your business has an experienced professional analyzing search, social and website performance data on a regular basis. As content marketers, we put a lot of hard work into planning, creating and managing thoughtful content designed to attract, engage and inspire readers to become customers, advocates and participants in the brand community. Keeping tabs on how those community members and customers discover our content is essential for it’s ability to have an impact.

If you like this type of advice, then be sure to pick up a copy of Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing (Wiley) available March 13.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 5 Basic SEO Troubleshooting Tips for Content Marketers | http://www.toprankblog.com

Optimize Your Images for Better Digital Asset Optimization

From Marketing to PR, digital assets are an essential part of the content used to tell stories and communicate brand messages.  For publishers and public relations professionals, optimizing the images used in news stories and press releases can have an important impact on visibility in search engines.  Images not only add flavor to news content, but they are also an opportunity to extend the reach of your message through image specific search.

Images are essential for both search and social media marketing with growing popularity as a social media asset. Long time image hosting and social network Flickr hosts well over 50 billion images and social media image sharing services like Instagram and Pintrest have exploded in popularity:

• Pinterest has grown 4,000% in the past 6 months
• Instagram added over 2 million users in November

Optimize Images for Search

To improve rankings of your images, here are 6 tips to make sure images are search engine ready:

File Name. Keywords used in image file names provide very specific information to people and search engines on the topic of the image.  img05.jpg isn’t nearly as useful as image-optimization.jpg

Text Surrounding Image. The text used to describe your image like a caption can help search engines associate the image with keywords used in the surrounding text.

Image Linking.  Links from other pages to your image or the page your image is embedded on can help search engines find the image for crawling and also pass PageRank.

Alt Text.  Adding descriptive text to the image alt attribute is helpful for search engines as well as a usability best practice in situations where images are not shown in a browser such as when a visually impaired person uses a screen reader. However, do not stuff a long string of keywords in the alt text, that will simply dilute the meaning and usefulness.

Image Sitemaps. If you are having difficulty getting your images into a search engine like Google, or you want to show that some images are less important, you can add image specific tags to a sitemap and provide that information to Google.

Focus Keyword Usage. For example, if you are writing a piece on flowers and have an image of a particular type of flower then your keywords should reflect the name of that specific flower.

Optimize Images for Social Sharing

Inspiring social shares is important to extend the reach and visibility of image content.  A basic first step is make it as easy as possible for your audience to consume and share your images.

Use Inspiring Images.  I am a strong believer that your content and your images should first be relevant to your audience, and then optimized for search engines.  A good example of news images that have received a lot of social sharing are collections of compelling photos. This group of the most powerful photos of 2011 on BuzzFeed has receive over 45,000 Tweets and 862,000 likes on Facebook.

Use Standard Formats.  While there are many types of images formats to choose from .jpg, .gif, and .png are the most common.  Use images that will be easy to display on any device and you’ll avoid any barriers to sharing or viewing.

Post Images on Multiple Social Media Sharing Sites.  The more relevant places you make your images available the better the chances are that they will be shared.  In addition to social networks like Facebook, Google+ and Twitter, popular image hosting and sharing sites include:

• Flickr
• Photobucket
• Pinterest
• Picassa
• Instagram
• TwitPic

Optimize Images for User Experience

The human eye can see things that search engines can’t.  Humans can also associate emotion or take action based on the images used in news stories, press releases and web pages.

High Quality.  People will be more likely to spend additional time on an image that is high quality in terms of composition and image resolution.

Maintain Relevancy.  It is even more essential that your imagery is relevant for your audience.  An image that is disconnected from the text will put people off and they will be discouraged to visit again.  An example would be a photo of a cute dog sleeping when your article is about your clients love for cats, or their rocky relationship with their boyfriend.

Don’t Make Them Work Too Hard. While some journalists or PR representatives may lean toward using abstract images, it is important to always keep the end user in mind. An abstract image may be interesting to look at but does it really help you sell your story? Use your web analytics to determine whether abstract or more literal images result in more pageviews and traffic.

Bonus Tip: Inspire User Generated Content

An interesting way to gain access to new images is to get your network involved.  Try running a contest on your website or social media network page encouraging potential vendors, clients, or those interested in your brand to create an image for an event or as a promotion. The images used in such a promotion can provide content on your site, inspire sharing and links amongst participants as well as a way to recognize your community.

I would recommend that going forward you try to optimize more of your image content and other digital assets.  Many press release distribution services such as PRWeb (a TopRank SEO client) allow users to upload images to their press releases.  If you are a journalist be sure to include optimized images in your column. If you’re a retailer, make sure your product images are easy for Google to access and consider supplying an image sitemap. The next time you upload an image to a social media site, think about using relevant keywords in the file name, in the description and alt text.

The possibilities for image asset optimization are endless and I hope that the tips I have provided show you that some small adjustments to your image optimization can improve search visibility, social sharing and a better user experience for your community.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | 3 Ways to Optimize Images: Search, Social Media & User Experience | http://www.toprankblog.com

I was talking with a small business owner recently who was lamenting not updating his website and also that his competition was showing up “all over the place” online.  The nature of his product requires some education and an effort to dispell common mis-perceptions. The rapid advancements in technology of his particular product category are not very well known amongst his target consumer market. But there’s a substantial amount of search volume and interest in the solutions his product provides.  He’s also a small business with limited time and budget.

To me, this was a classic opportunity for the power of persuasion through storytelling.

My tip for him was to start a blog that answered the most common questions prospects and customers ask. And to do so in a compelling way that his competitors were not:  with video, images and text. Each new blog post would be another potential entry point to his website via Google and social networks where people share links. With 1 post a week, he’d have 52 more pages and videos on his website in a year, each offering interesting, useful content that could position himself above competitors. Along the way, he’d be able to gather insight from web analytics, social shares, comments and interactions with the blog posts to refine message effectiveness.

A few key questions to start with his blog content plan:

• Why do current customers buy your product? This can come from sales people and/or the business owner.
• What are the mis-perceptions & objections? Document the things that are education opportunities.
• What type of information helps them change perception?  What are the tipping points from skepticism to confidence? Is it demonstration, 3rd party data, credibility of the company, word of mouth?
• Where do prospects look for information on this solution? Talk to sales people, look at website stats and any logged information about lead sources.

By answering these fundamental questions, this small business owner can create a blog content plan that specifically addresses the questions, concerns and triggers that will influence prospects to trust, buy and refer.  Understanding the key features of the product most relevant to the target customer as well as prospect tendencies towards finding a solution of this type can literally translate into topics for him to write or talk about on the blog.

Those topics can be run through Google AdWords Keyword Tool to identify the keyword phrases that people are searching for most often. Relevant search phrases can inspire blog post and YouTube video titles, categories, descriptions and tags.

Some basic next steps might include:

• Set up a WordPress Blog, template and hosting (Genesis, StudioPress & Synthesis make this a no-brainer). Plan to write one blog post or publish/upload 1 video per week (2-3 minutes) that answers a key question prospects and customers ask.  The video can be captured using an iPhone  or other smartphone and iMovie can be used for editing. If you’re on PC, you can use Windows Movie Maker to edit the video.  For people not comfortable just talking to a camera, have an employee ask the question(s) and answer them while being captured on video.
• Create a YouTube Channel and start connecting with other channels and video publishers on relevant topics, 5-10 min a day. After uploading a video, embed on the blog, and share on existing social channels like Twitter and Facebook as well as through email to existing customers or opt-in prospect list. Ashley posted some great examples of SMB Twitter promotion yesterday. When embedding the video on the blog, write a description of what is talked about in the video so search engines can make it easy for people to find.

The initial focus for a basic video and photo blog should be on getting used to the habit of creating useful content on a regular basis.  I know many readers might be thinking that more substantial SEO and social media tactics should be setup as well, but without good content, social networking and optimization won’t work to convert prospects to customers anyway.  Time is usually limited for small businesses, so getting a small base of content built is a great starting point.

Creating a cycle of listening for questions, answering them through content and refinement can go a very long way for small business content marketing. Once things are setup, 20-30 minutes per day can be spent interacting with blog comments and social networks. Establishing a feedback loop means you’ll always have ideas to blog or talk about. It also means you’re connecting with real people, interacting with them and providing something of value that they can share and act on.

In time other promotion channels can be added starting with Facebook, Twitter and Google+ as well as SEO best practices with more specific keyword research and link building. If the initial customer research identifies Twitter as a substantial opportunity, a Twitter Marketing strategy might be involved at the same time the blog and YouTube channel are created. The reason I’m keeping these suggestions simple and basic is that I know how much small business owners can get overwhelmed. As needs grow, outside online marketing consultants or training can always be used to speed things up.

What else? An email newsletter that re-purposes blog content and the Q/A that happens on Facebook, the blog and Twitter can be delivered to existing customers. Viewing every channel of participation as an opportunity to interact and share will help grow networks, trust and credibility as the “go to source” for the product category being promoted. It’s important to create value, but also to not lose sight that this is business. Don’t be afraid to suggest solutions or promote offers. Just do so in a relevant way.

Finally, make sure web analytics (Google Analytics is free) and basic social media monitoring (Trackur starts at $18/mo, search.twitter.com is free) are set up to assess how people are finding and interacting with blog content. Watch for trends in network growth like fans, friends and followers but especially with quality of interaction through comments, likes, shares and the effect on blog/website traffic that drives inquiries and sales.

For a lot of small business owners not used to online marketing, SEO or social media, these suggestions might be out of their comfort zone. But with the way consumer behaviors are changing and increased competition, getting out of the comfort zone and into a place where direct customer interactions drive content and inspire business outcomes is an essential investment.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2012. | Social Media Helps Small Business Boost Sales, Keep Customers | http://www.toprankblog.com

[Note from Lee: We didn't include second editions, re-releases in paperback or books that didn't have cover images uploaded yet.]

Mobile, Local, Location Based Marketing

Mobilized Marketing: Drive Sales, Engagement, and Loyalty Through Mobile Marketing (Wiley) by Jeff Hasen

Jeff Hasen, CMO of mobile marketing forerunner Hipcricket, provides timely mobile strategies and tactics leveraging his experience from more than 130,000 past campaigns.  As mobile marketing continues to move to the forefront of the marketing world, the insight Hasen provides into mobile optimization, budgeting, and measurement should prove to be indispensable in 2012.

Go Mobile: Location-Based Marketing, Apps, Mobile Optimized Ad Campaigns, 2D Codes and Other Mobile Strategies to Grow Your Business  (Wiley) by Jeanne Hopkins and Jamie Turner

Go Mobile offers a step by step guide for mobile marketing in 2012.  It includes practical campaign instructions in order to develop a mobile website, deploy SMS for business, utilize QR codes, leverage mobile apps and more. One can also benefit from strategic instructions to use location based marketing in order to build your customers base and how to integrate social media into mobile campaigns.

Search & Social Media Marketing

Social Media Intelligence: Extracting Knowledge from the Fire Hose of Conversations (Que) by  Sally Falkow

Upcoming in June of 2012, Social Media Intelligence illustrates how to use the leading social media analytics tools in order to gauge the effectiveness of social media marketing and make strategic decisions. Sally Falkow will guide you in moving from reactive brand monitoring to proactive information gathering in order to take advantage of business opportunities. This is a great read for those looking to progress from just doing social media to using it as an effective piece of their marketing strategy.

Google+ for Business: How Google’s Social Network Changes Everything  (Que) by Chris Brogan

The much buzzed about Google+ seems likely to have a big impact on search in 2012.  Author, Chris Brogan, discusses how businesses should be taking advantage of the newest social network and defines those strategies and tactics to use for business.

Content Marketing

Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customer by Integrating SEO, Social Media, and Content Marketing (Wiley) by Lee Odden

TopRank Online Marketing CEO Lee Odden helps companies develop an optimized and socialized content marketing strategy to attain new levels of customer acquisition and engagement in 2012.  Balancing the practical with the innovative, Optimize is ideal for those marketers that want a more effective content marketing strategy that wins and retains more customers, builds thought leadership and dominates the competition. Scheduled for release mid-March 2012.

Content is Currency: Developing Powder Content for Web and Mobile (Nicholas Brealey Publishing) by Jon Wuebben

Already receiving great reviews, Content is Currency, by Jon Wuebben delivers practical instructions and step by step guides to manage content through four key phases: Creation, Optimization, Distribution and Curation.  This book is a great opportunity for business owners and marketers to understand how to create content which will engage their audience and drive results.

B2B Marketing

The B2B Social Media Book: Become a Marketing Superstar by Generating Leads with Blogging, LinkedIN, Twitter, Facebook, Email, and More (Wiley) by Kipp Bodnar and Jeffrey L. Cohen

The B2B Social Media Book is the ultimate reference guide for B2B marketers looking to expand their knowledge of social media strategy and contribute to their business growth.  Readers will discover actionable items for leveraging blogs, LinkedIN, Facebook, Twitter and more to form the cornerstone of their B2B marketing strategies.

B2B Digital Marketing: Using the Web to Market Directly to Businesses (Que) by Michael Miler

B2B Digital Marketing looks to be a great resource for B2B marketers interested in learning how to sell directly to other businesses using digital marketing. Leading with a broad summary and then diving into individual channel tactics for strategy, implementation and measurement, B2B Digital Marketing is another good guide for those looking for a B2B marketing overview.

There are many books publishing in 2012 that promise to introduce us to new ways to strategize, develop online marketing plans and deploy campaigns across a variety of channels. What books are you anxiously awaiting in 2012?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Top Online Marketing Books for 2012 | http://www.toprankblog.com

According to a recent release by ComScore, nearly 3 billion search queries contain local terms each month.  For companies that have a local presence, top visibility on local search is essential or that traffic will simply go to competitors.  Google Maps is one of the most frequently used local search destinations and even comes standard on many devices including the iPhone.  Google Places provides a great opportunity to begin marketing on a local level to your potential customers.

A best practice approach to local online marketing will greatly increase your chances of success.  The Google Places optimization tips listed below will help you create or modify your Google Places page to become more relevant to both search engines and potential customers.  I’ve also included suggestions on how this .

Consistency Is Key

It is important that your Google Place profile contains the same information as any other profiles your company may have online. Google Place pages create another opportunity to build trust and consistency as part of your marketing strategy. Be sure to audit your other profiles and answer each question as consistently as you can.  There are some additional ways you can create consistency on your profiles such as:

• Linking: improve searchability by linking your additional profiles together
• Imagery: utilizing the same imagery on multiple place pages will create consistency
• Branding: consistency in naming and referencing your brand is extremely important

*Content Marketing Tip: Go back to basics.

• Are you using the same contact information for each of your social profiles or business pages?
• Do each of your social profiles or business pages reflect your current management team or employees?

Complete All Information (Even if it is Not Required)

Have you ever heard the expression “better off safe than sorry”?  Take the same approach when setting up or editing your Google Places profile.  There may be questions that you consider irrelevent but could ultimately have an impact on how you are found online.  Make sure that you are filling out all standard information including:

• Company Name
• Address
• Phone Number
• Website
• Email Address

Adding additional elements to your page such as photos or videos are also an opportunity to optimize your content and share a little bit more about your company with your prospective clients.

*Content Marketing Tip: Take an audit of your other local and social based marketing initiatives.

• Have you completed each profile to the best of your ability?
• Can you repurpose some of your existing content for your Google Place page?
• Brand focused images used on other social profiles can be repurposed for your company Google Places page.

Encourage Interaction & Reviews

User generated content can be a very powerful optimization tool.  Actual customers may be using additional or different keywords or phrases to describe their experience with you.  Reviews also add validity to your statements and information written by your company.  Nothing speaks higher of a company than the testimonials of it’s customers.  I would recommend encouraging customers or clients to participate or simply urge them to visit your page and see what they think.  Some additional ways that you could encourage interaction would be:

• Posting video testimonials on your Google Places page
• Encourage clients to upload photos of themselves at your establishment or with your team

*Content Marketing Tip: Moderate, moderate, moderate.

• Are you currently moderating comments on your blog, website, or social profiles?
• Are you making a point to interact with your potential customers online?

Keywords

Including relevant and purposeful keywords in your Google Place profile is a strategic way to increase optimization.  However, you will want to avoid over stuffing your description with keywords or utilizing keywords in your business name that are not relevant to your offering. Do your research up front utilizing your analytics account to determine what keywords are appropriate for your business.

*Content Marketing Tip: To create an effective strategy you must research, implement, and adapt.

• Use keywords in your file names to improve optimization
• Update your information frequently to provide fresh content

Focus on Your Specialties

Do not be afraid to add details about your service offering, solutions, or products that will help your customers find you.  A simple analysis of your google analytics account can tell you what keywords users are searching for to find your company.  Do your best to use those descriptions in your company overview and specialities area.

• Think of what your customers will be looking for and provide imagery or documentation that will show your expertise.

The example included above separates this company from their competition.  I would venture to say that of the companies that came up in my search this for “Tire Repair, Minneapolis” their profile was the most consistent and complete.  Instead of having to further investigate on the company on their website I was given adequate information which would led me to contacting them immediately.

An optimized Google Places page is a marketing tactic that does not take a lot of effort but can have a very large impact on your searchability.  As with any online marketing strategy it is important that you present factual and consistent information for your customers or clients.  If you are ready to get started or make some change to your existing profile be sure to visit Google’s Getting Started page which will help you through the process.  Do you have an idea of how many of your customers have found you on Google Places? If so have you encouraged them to interact with your page and share feedback?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Tips for Content Marketers on Google Places Optimization | http://www.toprankblog.com

What I appreciate about Jones’ book is that whether you are a search marketing guru or you work in another marketing/communications field, it paints things in a light that you may not have thought about before.  Besides a deep dive into keyword research and it’s overall impact on SEO, social media and content marketing, there is a little something in this book for everyone ranging from simple explanations of social networking sites to more detailed information on site migration and architecture.  Curious to know what useful tips I found in Ron Jones new book?

“Keyword Research is a Strategic Function”
To most professionals keyword research can seem like a monotonous task. Jones does a good job of really highlighting the importance of keyword research and how it should affect your overall Internet marketing strategy.   The position of the book is that much of your content creation should be based upon a list of tried and tested keywords that are meant to bring people to your site and draw them in.  A point about thinking big picture with keywords that hits home: “Without a strategy, you will become lost in the depths of random pages of web content without a core meaning or focus.”

“Setting up SMART Goals”
Goal setting should not be a new concept to Internet marketers.  An approach that Jones recommends is setting “smart” goals for each online channel you are using to market.  He says that these goals may take more effort to setup but they help to ensure quality.  SMART goals are defined as:

S= Specific
M= Measureable
A= Attainable
R= Realistic
T= Timely

A simple goal may be to increase the number of conversions that your site sees on a monthly basis.  If you are implementing SMART goal setting, you may focus on something more specific as increasing site conversions by 10% each month for the next six months on your contact page, about us page, and solutions page.

“Mind Mapping”
Keyword brainstorming can sometimes seem like an overwhelming task to tackle.  No more!  Jones suggests breaking down your brainstorming tasks into mini assignments which will encourage you to work on one level of keywords at a time.  Mind mapping is a great visual aid for marketers who tend to like to see plans illustrated.  You begin by selecting a seed term, draw a circle around it, and brainstorm additional words related to your seed term.

Below is an example of mind mapping that I started with my seed phrase being “Marketing”.

“Role of Keywords and Social Media”
We know that keywords are an essential part of an SEO or PPC strategy but many overlook the roll of keywords in social media.  An in depth analysis of keywords will help you pinpoint the specific needs and wants of your target audience.  A keyword plan for social media will help you communicate more effectively with your audience.  Jones does note that a strategy created for SEO or PPC may not translate exactly the same for social media so there are some differences to keep in mind. An example would be search query variances between Google and a social networking site.

“Developing a mobile strategy”
This section highlights the importance of considering the entire customer experience not just the optimized content that we provide.  Jones recommends a six step process for outlining your mobile strategy.  That process includes:

1. Define Target Audience & Personas
2. Conduct Your Research
3. Develop Your Mobile Solution
4. Design Your Pricing Model
5. Develop Your Support Model
6. Develop Retention or Loyalty Program

“Defining Metrics for Success”
One recommendation in particular that stuck out to me was his emphasis on the importance of defining success up front with any marketing campaign. Some of the goals that Jones recommends for a successful outcome include:

• Increased overall website visitor traffic
• Increased keyword rankings and top keyword placement
• Increased brand awareness
• Increased generated revenue and ROI
• Specific behavioral insights from your target audience based on keyword usage

In my opinion “Keyword Intelligence” does a great job of getting the reader to think intelligently and strategically about basic keyword choices.  By taking a moment to step back and analyze why keyword research and brainstorming is important, you are better able to see what a large impact it can have on your overall search and online marketing strategy. This is the only book that’s specifically focused on Keywords and for those that really want a deep dive on the subject, it’s worth checking out.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Book Review: Keyword Intelligence by Ron Jones | http://www.toprankblog.com

I attended University a very long time ago, where I started out pursuing Graphic Design and then transitioned to an interdepartmental degree: Sociology, Industrial Psychology and Business. Art was interesting, but I was only mildly talented and there was no digital program (this was pre-internet). As I look at the state of the social web today, I am amazed at what a dynamic and interesting time we live in. I wonder what it would be like, studying social psychology and organizational development now, with the ubiquity of the social web and transformation of internet access from PCs to mobile devices.

One area of interest to me is the impact of persuasion and behaviors. Not just individual behaviors, but that of groups. Since I’m in the business of marketing, it’s an interesting intersection between my past studies and what many companies are in need of today in terms of understanding social technology adoption, social communications, knowledge transfer, community and collaboration.

While many people consider me a “SEO guy” or that in combination with PR, Social and Content, I am and always have been a marketer. My job has always been to connect customers with companies for mutual benefit. Whether that involves optimizing content for discovery through search, social influence or awareness through industry media isn’t as important as knowing the difference between the vehicle and the outcome. And the “why”.

Marketers can get tactically proficient and even scientific about SEO signals, social technologies or information distribution platforms, but in the end it’s an understanding of those customers and what influences them that helps most with the process of persuasion. A lot of channel-specific marketers focus on how communication platforms work vs. how customers understand those platforms or even why they use them.

I’d like to point out that while I am a strong advocate of customer-centric marketing and how that manifests as persona development, it doesn’t mean I think customers should dictate all marketing. There are many, many scenarios where customers don’t know any better, don’t know what they want, or where the perception of need can be created through compelling story. Those situations call for an understanding of customers and then creative efforts to “tell them what they want” for lack of a better phrase. Whether we’re reacting to customers, anticipating their needs or leading them – an understanding of what persuades differente customer groups is essential.

Besides asking what keywords are most relevant and which social platforms customers are using, shouldn’t we wonder why a certain customer uses search in the first place? Why do they use social? What influences them to use both and in what situations? What kinds of content are most persuasive and in what contexts?

The follow-up to those types of questions is, “How can brands better understand the influences that motivate customers to act?” and “What content and signals of credibility do we need to create?”

Let’s say you have an objective of persuading a group of potential customers to change their behavior. It may be a scenario where there are commonly held, yet outdated beliefs and your brand is the solution. It might be as fundamental as a new product that solves an existing problem in a different way.

One of the first steps is to profile those potential customers in terms of preferences and behaviors.

• What do they currently believe to be true?
• What are their objections to doing what you’ll be persuading them to do?
• What are their primary influences?
• What motivates their behaviors?
• What outcomes are most attractive to them?
• What would limit implementation, use and acceptance of your persuasion objective?

Profiling the target audience in this way in combination with translating the information into a content plan can then be transformed into a holistic approach involving a mix of Paid, Owned, Earned and Shared media. One aspect of such a campaign would involve storytelling through content. You know, “Facts Tell, Stories Sell”.

Finding stories that represent examples of customer archetypes that have made the transition from previous behaviors to the desired behaviors and outcomes is a great starting point. This logic is pretty common in advertising where a storyline of, “I used to think this, then I found out that, and that’s why I use/buy from company 123.” is presented.

Those stories that are tailored specifically for the personas for each major segment of the target audience can provide the information and inspiration needed to make fundamental changes in their awareness, perception, acceptance and transition to the desired outcome.

The narrative for each storyline should empathize with the current situation and provide reasonable and practical steps for overcoming objections as well as clear steps for making changes. Motivations for change can vary by persona, so it’s important to identify a structure that allows for such variances. The success stories have to be real of course and not appear so different that outcomes are not attainable.

The format for content in such a situation can run the gamut of text, digital, video, audio, images, events, email and so on – according to what is known about the target customer group. Whenever there’s content, there’s a need for “Optimize and Socialize” to facilitate attraction, engagement and sharing. Additional considerations include how content will move customers through attraction to conclusion.

• Discovery
• Engagement
• Comprehension
• Internalization
• Enhancement
• Engagement
• Conclusion
• Sharing

As stories are told, it’s important to find and promote early successes as well as create a process for engaging with prospects, conversion, implementation and identifying success. Success stories can be small, tactical examples or more strategic and comprehensive. The role of search in such a scenario is to optimize for discovery but also to analyze search data, interactions and conversions for continued efforts at message refinement. Of course, this has been made somewhat more difficult by Google’s decision to encrypt logged-in search referring keywords.  The same attention to social analytics would also apply. In the end, those success stories can become the spokespeople for future growth, engagement and conversion.

Maybe what I’m suggesting in this post doesn’t seem so different from what content marketers are already doing. What I do know is that there’s a lot of opportunity to bring in customer insight and brand storytelling into optimization and social media marketing communications. I think digging into a lot of the “why” customers are motivated and influenced as well as the “why” they use search and social technologies will help online marketers better understand how to use content and persuasive storytelling to attract, engage and inspire customers to buy.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | The Power of Persuasion: Storytelling & Personas in Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

Thousands if not tens of thousands of new companies are formed every month in the U.S. and one of the most common problems to be solved relates to creating awareness, interest and motivation to buy.  Is buying Google AdWords, throwing up a blog and a Facebook Fan page the answer? What about sending out Tweets, press releases and investing in SEO?  If your start-up is executing content marketing tactics without first hand insight into the market and target customers, those tactics are a crapshoot. The irony is that most start-ups don’t have a lot of money to waste on marketing and advertising. But they do, every day. And so do many of the people reading this blog post.

Never fear, that’s why Optimize is here.

Start with What’s Important: While there’s plenty of great marketing advice out there, it will never solve the problems of an imperfect product. Creating great products and customer experience is probably one of the most important marketing investments a company can make. Outside of that, identifying compelling stories about how the product or service solves problems, meets a need or adds value for customers are essential steps for start-ups and established companies alike.

A great example of a company that inspires marketing by it’s fans and customers because the product quality and experience is so good, is Evernote.

There are over 76 million references to Evernote on Google.com and over 8 1/2 million references on blogs. On Twitter there are positive references every hour like “oh wow! I love Evernote and use it everyday” and “Evernote ftw. it’s not just about the list, it’s about the sync as well – smile”. That steady stream of unsolicited endorsement (and social content) is a tremendous marketing asset.

You Can’t Score Sales Without A Goal.  The framework for implementing a holistic and strategic approach to Content Marketing starts by answering key questions including establishing goals ranging from overall revenue to cost efficiency of marketing and advertising tactics.  Then identify what methods of measurement you’ll use as well as Key Performance Indicators to track progress towards your goals. Forecast or hypothesize what measurable impact on the business there will be and how to track progress over time.

BTW, some great people and resources on measurement for search and social media marketing as well as online media and communications on Twitter include: Katie Payne, Chuck Hemann, Shonali Burke, Jim Sterne, Marshall Sponder, Eric Peterson, Avinash Kaushik. There are more I know, so please share your faves in the comments.

With that foundation of establishing goals and identifying an approach to measurement, follow through these steps:

Get to Know Your Customers:
It’s one thing to optimize content using specific keywords researched for SEO purposes. But rather than start with keywords, what about starting with customers? In the advertising, content and direct marketing worlds (even web development and user experience) there’s specific attention paid to understanding customer segments and creating profiles or personas to guide the most successful approach. By empathizing with customer categories of interest, pain points and behaviors, a qualitative picture emerges of what kind of content, topics and optimization can be focused on in order to achieve business goals.

That insight into what customers care about can be translated into search keywords and social topics used for specific content optimization on a start-up’s website. It can also be used to inspire social content creation for sharing on sites like Facebook, Twitter or Reddit where customers spend time and are influenced. Which keywords to use and which social channels to spend time on depends on your research. And that research is ongoing – something that is iteratively and continuously refined.

David Meerman Scott has explored buyer personas quite well in his book, New Rules of Marketing and PR. Vanessa Fox has some great advice on searcher personas in her book, Marketing in the Age of Google.

Where Does The Money Come From: Keywords or Customers?  Most SEO practitioners focus solely on keywords, popularity and relevance to the brand’s website content and rely on the brand to figure out relevance to customer needs.  The problem is, many companies simply don’t do that homework. They decide internally what content to publish online without consideration of specific customer-centric perceptions of the problem that the brand’s product and services are to solve. That causes a disconnect and performance issues when the SEO practitioner achieves top keyword visibility but corresponding increases in sales don’t follow.

Few things are more frustrating for a SEO consultant (and the client) than to deliver top keyword visibility and traffic as promised, but only to be deemed a failed program because there was no corresponding increase in sales. That’s a conversion optimization issue in many cases, but also a disconnect in how keyword research was conducted relevant to actual customer needs.

Identify Search Keywords & Social Topics:
Understanding the drivers for why customers seek information online will help marketers identify what topics are the best reflection of meeting those needs. From a SEO and content marketing perspective, that means keywords. Keywords are a reflection of what customers care about and should serve as a guide for on-page optimization and link building efforts. At the same time, customers are not just influenced by search in their journey from discovery to purchase. Social media influences are increasingly a part of the buying cycle.

Another way to manifest what customers care about into actionable marketing is to understand what social topics are relevant for your business. Find out what people are “talking about” on the social web through comments, blog posts, tags, updates and tweets as it relates to your business and the customers you’re after.

As search keywords are managed with a keyword glossary, social topics can be managed or tracked as well. See this post on fixed list keywords and dynamic social topics for more.  The combination of search keywords and social topics can keep start-up marketers on track and efficient with their editorial plans and proactive efforts towards ongoing optimization and social content creation. The tie-in to social media monitoring and web analytics will help refine messaging to be more effective at generating leads, sales or whatever your objectives might be.

Ron Jones just came out with a book dedicated to the task of keyword research called Keyword Intelligence that is worth checking out. Also, Bill Hunt has an awesome presentation on Advanced Keyword Modeling that he’s given at SES events.

Create a Content and Promotion Plan:
Once you have a solid keyword glossary, a next step is to create an editorial plan to identify and manage what content you’ll create when and for what topics, customer segments and intended outcomes.  Sprinkling keywords in the right places on existing content is technically SEO, but it’s simply not enough to be competitive. Becoming the most relevant answer for a search query means ongoing creation and optimization of content that supports the topic. This extends to social content and networking/sharing channels as well.

Think of it in terms of signals of credibility. Wherever your customers can be influenced along their journey from awareness to decision to advocacy is where you’ll want to create optimized and socialized content.  A content promotion plan includes dates, topics, keywords, categories, tags, media types, promotion channels and where the content will be re-purposed in the future.  Here are two work horses for such a task: keyword glossary and editorial plan (blog).

Implement Optimization, Socialization & Promotion:
This is where the rubber hits the road and content is created, optimized and socialized.  If you think of each piece of content as having a purpose for a particular audience segment, then it follows that you’ll want that content to be relevant at communicating your brand’s unique selling proposition (USP) as well as relevant for keywords customers are searching on.  Unfortunately, creating really fantastic and relevant content isn’t enough. Promotion of that content is important in order to gain the visibility that results in broad based sharing.  You know: tell 2 friends who tell 2 friends, and so on.

When it comes to great resources for SEO Copywriting and Content Marketing, I have to mention: Heather Lloyd Martin’s SEO Copywriting class, Joe Pulizzi’s Content Marketing Institute, Content Rules by Ann Handley & CC Chapman, Content Marketing by Rebecca Lieb and Accelerate by Arnie Kuenn. Last, but not least, is my own book about Content Marketing, SEO and Social Media Marketing that’s coming out in March of next year called, Optimize (Wiley).

Not all content is created equal when it comes to promotion, so be realistic about expectations and the resources you’ll need.  Also, don’t treat your promotable content like a one-night stand.  For most start-ups, the goal isn’t just to get a sale here and there, but to build a successful business. That means a persistent effort to stay top of mind and relevant amongst a growing community of customers and fans. Feed that community with themes of social content and participation and they will reward your start-up by interacting and sharing to networks beyond your reach. Interacting with a growing community will also supply an infinite number of relevant topics for future content.

Limited resources and a rush to revenue can cause many start-ups to make rash decisions about their online marketing mix. When it comes to content and better connections with customers, making an effort to develop customer-centric content with an optimize and socialize approach to promotion will help grow momentum, sales and referrals for short and long term success.

If you work with a start-up on marketing, what are some of the most common challenges you’ve faced with regard to content? What about social media and SEO?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 4 Step Content Marketing Framework for Start-Ups | http://www.toprankblog.com

According to Hashtracking, that #socialchat was quite active, with 523 tweets, 76 contributors, a reach of 291,000 and 3.2 million impressions. It’s amazing how much potential reach is possible through a well attended chat on Twitter.  I did a #blogchat with @mackcollier before BlogWorld LA and we posted huge numbers: 4k tweets, 800+ contributors, reach of 3+ million and over 29 million impressions.  Twitter chats are growing in popularity and such scheduled gatherings have extended to other platforms like Facebook and Google+.

Julio Ojeda-Zapata of the St. Paul Pioneer Press newspaper recently covered the topic giving some great examples of how locally focused Twitter Chats are bridging online social media with real world connections. And that brings me back to the topic of this post – Social Media, Content and SEO: What do marketers need to know to bring those disciplines together and why?

I’ll dig into the topic in a Q/A format as used in #socialchat which I think is a great, practical example of this intersection.

In simple terms what is the connection between social content & SEO?

The simple answer is customers. People use search & social to discover content. Search engines & social platforms like content because it creates the basis for advertising opportunity. My favorite metaphor is Content = Bread, SEO = Peanut Butter, Social = Jelly. PBJ marketing.

Customer-focused content is created w/ purpose. SEO & social are manifestations of what people care about to attract & engage. Customer needs, interests, pain points, motivations + brand goals feed an Optimize & Socialize content strategy. Anyone, heck everyone is a publisher now. Brands and consumers can easily create & share media 24/7. Search & social optimized content with a purpose attracts & engages customers to buy and share with other buyers. That’s in contrast to keyword list optimization that’s focused on top of funnel traffic to a website.

Stats:

• 53% of time on the internet is content consumption. (AOL Nielsen)
• 27 million pieces of content are shared per day (AOL Nielsen)
• Content Creation was cited as the most effective SEO tactic (& the hardest) in MarketingSherpa’s 2011 SEM Benchmark Report

Do specific types of social content have a bigger impact on SEO?

Types of content that are good for SEO need to be good for people first (in my opinion).   Content & media that gets shared, linked & acted on most, has a bigger impact. People are savvier about what’s “good” vs. what’s mechanical. That’s the problem with how many companies are approaching their social participation. They’re focused on on scale with the least amount of resources. That often results in a more “mechanical” approach when it’s a “meaningful” approach that matters more in terms of building community, growing a network and engagement.

Here’s a thought for you as you’re reading this post: What’s social content? Content that exists on social platforms or websites with social features?  I’ve always said great content isn’t great unless it gets consumed, shared & linked to. It’s the old, tree falls in the forest and no one’s there to hear it, does it make a sound? If a great infographic, video, blog post etc is created but no one (substantially) sees or shares it – is the content really great? I say no. Promotion is essential along with thoughtful creation.

What writing styles should copywriters implement to ensure maximum impact on SEO?

Always test what works with the community you’re trying to engage: Hypothesis, test, refine, repeat. If you’re optimizing for customers and outcomes, then that should influence your style first and foremost with SEO a close second. Keep in mind the potential impact of a social share vs. a link from another site as well as the relevance to different audiences. If your objective is thought leadership, then your audience for the content will be influencers in the industry. If your objective is lead nurturing or customer acquisition, then your audience will be buyers. Style of content should follow the objective and audience accordingly.

Attention spans online are short & even shorter with social content. Write scannable content, headlines, bold, bullets. Your reader should be able to discern the key points of your content in just a few seconds, then dig in for more if they want to.  Also, headlines are gold. Make sure your headlines are compelling to read AND share.

Create modular messages from short to long and media specific for a diversity of options that you can use in different situations and on different platforms. By ”modular” I mean: Short (like tweets, Facebook or G+ updates), Long (blogs, articles, press release) or something more media specific (video, infographic, audio).

What’s the most common mistake made when preparing copy for social & SEO?

Not understanding what motivates people to search & share & what that means for content style, format & promotion.  Another mistake is over emphasizing popular keywords straight from Google AdWords keyword tool – basically crappy writing. Yet another mistake is poor quality messaging, irrelevant incorporation of keyword targets in body copy and “filler” pages to look big.

How can an organization best leverage social & onsite content from maximum SEO effect?

Of course the Content Management System, web page templates, code, tags, feeds and other similar aspects of the site need to be optimized right along with content. A lot of SEO is about making things easy: For search engines & crawling.  Ease of sharing is also important: “social media friendly”. Connect the site with sharing features into Facebook, G+, Twitter & where the target audience shares. Leverage resources to create fresh (as in new and updated) content that’s sharable and promote to social networks and other channels of distribution.

How are you incorporating SEO, Social Media and Content in your online marketing mix?  If you are, what are is driving the effort? Is it Marketing, PR, Sales?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 5 Key Questions on Social Media, Content & SEO | http://www.toprankblog.com

There are a number of additional studies that have supported the notion that Search Marketing (PPC and SEO) are the most effective and efficient practices for improving website traffic, leads and sales. In fact, Google has compiled a number of case studies and examples of how online search has driven substantial offline sales. Earned, Owned, Paid and Shared Media all drive search as search drives both online and offline outcomes for business.

Different companies and industries may find some variation with the role of search optimization in their mix, but there’s no mistaking that optimizing content and social media for relevant visibility where customers are actively looking has tremendous benefits and cost efficiencies. But despite the benefits, many companies neglect to engage a proactive content optimization strategy and even fewer optimize social media and overall website content holistically.

For a better picture of how to think about holistic optimization (An Optimized State of Mind), I’m going to share one of the key models from the book I’m currently writing, Optimize: How to Attract and Engage More Customers by Integrating SEO, Social Media and Content Marketing to be published by Wiley in 2012.

For effective optimization as a state of mind, I believe there are three key components of brand and customer interaction to optimize for. Focusing on these three areas can help companies become more relevant and effective in their ability provide meaningful customer experiences that inspire action.

Optimize for Discovery

Customers arrive at the act of searching for a variety of reasons ranging from longer term research for larger or more complex purchases to solving an immediate problem or need.  People search for more reasons than to buy a product or service and companies publish more content online than things for sale. Any content brands publish online is an opportunity for optimization to make it easier and more relevant to connect with intended audiences whether they are prospective customers, existing customers, industry media, job candidates or company employees.

Optimizing for discovery goes beyond search though, since consumers use a variety of channels to find information online.  According to Cross Channel Commerce (pdf), a report from Oracle, “When purchasing a product or service, more than three-quarters of consumers use two or more channels to research and complete the transaction. Nearly one-third of consumers said they use three or more channels.” Optimizing for customer discovery means a 360 degree view of how people prefer to find content.  For search, it means keywords, content and links. For social media it means topics, networks and communities. Knowing how your audience prefers to find information relevant to your business will provide valuable insight for your content marketing, optimization and social media strategy.

Companies can get a good start on finding consumer discovery preferences by using a combination of CRM, web analytics, social media monitoring tools and competitive research tools. Data from those sources relevant to your desired audience and outcomes can fuel a more effective approach to Social SEO & Content Marketing. Monitoring and revisiting those sources can provide an ongoing source of insight for iterative improvements as you implement tactics that are more thoughtful about consumer behaviors.

Optimize for Consumption

Search is just a start. Appearing high in search results or being mentioned as a resource within social media and networks is only part of the journey for customers as they navigate the kind of information that leads to a conclusion. It’s important to understand what content formats and media types a target audience prefers. There’s a lot of “one size fits all” when it comes to content creation and promotion because it’s tough to scale or be efficient otherwise.  But how useful is the exact same content format online as mobile or email? Congruency of message and branding can be important, but it’s not the same thing as using the exact same content in every channel.

Content needs to deliver on the search and social promise. In the way that we research how our customers and target audience prefer to discover content, it’s also effective to identify what formats they prefer for content consumption.  Do they respond best to long form articles (like this one) or a series of shorter form tips? Do they like images or video? Do they respond better to infographics or tabular data?  Are they inspired more by case studies and white papers or demos and webinars? What combination of these content formats and user experiences are most likely to resonate with your audience?

Make the case for better user experience as a content marketing tactic. Web developers and interactive media designers often create personas and use case scenarios for the applications and designs they create. Some of that same insight is appropriate with content marketing. If a brand expects the most effective and efficient outcomes form their online marketing investment, then some understanding of content formats and types is essential.

Optimize for Engagement

High visibility in search is just an initial step in the consumer journey for a solution.  Consumers might perform multiple queries on a search engine as they refine their search and possible solutions. With the increase in consumer use of social media, customers increasingly expect to interact with what they find in search results. Most marketers are focused on the shortest route from discovery to revenue. In the SEO world that means optimizing content for keywords most likely to convert. Of course this assumes you’ve solved the attribution problem and then we have the whole Google encrypted search referrers issue.

Is this a date or the honeymoon? There’s nothing wrong with that but website marketing efforts that are solely focused on converting every visitor to a sale without realizing other consumer needs in the purchasing decision may very well be leaving a lot of money and goodwill for referrals on the table. Social engagement is an increasing influence on the decision to buy. eMarketer has reported that over 50% of Twitter followers are more likely to purchase from brands they follow and Coca-Cola has shared that Facebook fans are 2 times as likely to consume & 10 times more likely to purchase than non-fans.

Not every consumer that finds brand product and service content is ready to buy, but if there’s useful content provided to help them appreciate the value of the product/service, they might bookmark or share it. Some sales cycles involve a bit more “content romance” and education.  In the way that consumers expect to find a way to contact the company for a sales or customer service inquiry, they expect to find things like a company blog or social media presence. Engagement runs the spectrum from a Google+ share or blog comment to making a purchase, writing a review or making a specific social network recommendation about a product that was just purchased.

Be wise and optimize for great customer experience. Optimizing for engagement means conversion optimization as much as it means optimizing for a great user experience and social sharing. Engaging and useful content that tells brand stories about customer use of products and services is the kind of content that inspire both sharing and conversion outcomes.

A key question for marketers that want to better optimize for engagement is: What messages, topics and contexts motivate your community to interact, share and convert?

What Next?

Holistic optimization of content is relevant across the brand and customer relationship and lifecycle.  Most companies focus on content marketing optimization solely for customer acquisition and sales, which makes sense because the focus is on revenue and marketing departments are most likely to fund and implement such tactics. But it’s entirely possible for companies to realize additional revenue goals as well as improved reach, brand awareness and thought leadership with a holistic content optimization approach.  Additionally, companies can improve efficiency and effectiveness of other content publishing entities in the organization ranging from Public Relations to Customer Service to Human Resources by making sure their content is optimized for the target audiences that are looking (searching and socializing).

I’ve briefly mentioned the notion of optimizing for consumer content when it comes to Discovery, Consumption and Engagement in the past, through blog posts and industry conference presentations without having a dedicated post to link to. Now I’ve solved that problem and also provided more specific insight into these opportunities for readers to evolve their online marketing.

I know from first hand experience, the temptation to focus solely on popular keywords and popular social channels as a means to drive online sales and engagement is more the norm than an “old way” of doing things. But as more marketers realize the importance of content marketing and a more customer centric approach to connecting holistically to brand audiences, I think an effort to extend the notion of what can be optimized will broaden. At the same time, it will become more focused on customer lifecycle and not just the buying cycle.

What are you doing to optimize more holistically in your search, social media and content marketing mix?

Next Monday I will be publishing another glimpse at Optimize, focusing on a framework for Content Marketing and Social Media Optimization that carries through these principles of Discovery, Consumption and Engagement.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Optimize & Prosper: Discovery, Consumption & Engagement | http://www.toprankblog.com

Most marketers and bloggers understand the basics of a good business blog and the notion of search engine optimization but often focus more on keywords than the customers that are actually searching.  Adding keywords to blog posts is a common SEO tactic but developing a blog content plan around both search keywords and social topics that represent what customers care about can result in content that is inherently more search, social and customer media friendly.

The Business of Optimizing Social Media

Social Media Optimization involves optimizing social content for topics of interest to both the brand and the communities they seek to engage. SMO also focuses on the ability for social communities to share links and media they find interesting.  Links to content shared on social networks and media sites can drive direct traffic to blog content and serve as a signal that search engines use for ranking blog web pages.

Essentially, socialized and optimized blog content can drive traffic through search and those visitors can share that content through social channels, driving even more traffic. Social sharing can also impact better search visibility, providing  more relevant visitors that are actively looking.

Search and Social Media Friendly

As Internet marketers have emphasized making websites search engine friendly over the past 10 years, the importance of making websites and blogs social media friendly is also important. Great blog content isn’t really great until it’s consumed and shared, so consider how your customers find information online that is most likely to inspire them to do what you want them to do.

A Better Business Blog Strategy

To get more out of the opportunity to improve online discovery of business blog content, here are a few key questions to ask for an “Optimize and Socialize” blog strategy:

• Who is the blog intended to influence? Prospects, customers, employees, industry analysts, reporters, bloggers.
• What content will your blog offer that will meet target audience needs?
• How will addressing those customer needs and telling the brand story manifest as a blog content plan?
• What search keywords and social topics are relevant to your target audience?
• Where does your blog content fit in the customer lifecycle of communication with the brand?
• If the blog content is properly optimized and socialized, how will it influence (directly or indirectly) measurable business outcomes?

Interest In Your Blog Is Related to Your Blog’s Interest in Readers

One of the reasons business blogs fail as being optimized and socialized, is that their content tends to be very brand-centric. Most business blog posts talk about the brand, it’s products and services without a lot of consideration for customer perspectives and language.

A self-centered business blogging approach tends to push ideas out, hoping to get a reaction in the form of search engine rankings, fans, friends and followers.  Many SEO centric blogs share these characteristics.

The problem with a mostly brand content focus is that there usually isn’t as much sharing, engagement or direct influence on business outcomes because the content is all about the brand, vs. empathizing with customers and the language customers use.

To Be Great, Your Business Blog Must Participate

Conversely, a search and social optimized business blog develops and participates in social communities online, offline, internally and externally. To do that, blog editors need to figure out where the great ideas and stories are in the company.

All this said, it’s not enough simply to have an optimized and socialized blog content plan that aligns brand solutions and ideas with those of your target audience. To tap into a high quality stream of customer-centric content ideas for your business blog, it’s essential to engage relevant social communities. Ask them questions, crowdsource content ideas, give those who participate recognition and repeat.

By shining a light on the awesome within your community, you’ll provide the fuel of positive reinforcement to motivate fans and customers to partake in both content creation and promotion.

Walk the talk by telling your brand stories and those of your community. Lead by example and your community will start to tell your stories for you. And so will their friends, and their friends’ friends. That’s the benefit of optimizing your business blog beyond search to include social media, networks and communities.

A version of this post was originally published on my ClickZ Social Media Smarts column.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | The Dynamic Duo of Business Blog Marketing: Optimize & Socialize | http://www.toprankblog.com

Believe it or not, competitive pursuit after a Thanksgiving turkey’s wishbone is a perfect metaphor for understanding better customer centric content marketing.  Prepare yourself for a Thanksgiving themed post without the tryptophan side effects.

5 Steps of A Wishbone Strategy Applied to Content Marketing
Here’s how the wishbone strategy works and how you can apply it to your content marketing strategy.

Step 1: Lobby Mom to ensure turkey is on the Thanksgiving menu. Every year, there are Moms across the country who set their sights on trying some new tradition without any input from the people who will be eating the meal. To avoid a holiday dining catastrophe, kids start begging said Moms to get a Thanksgiving turkey as soon as Halloween is over. Content marketers need to listen to and understand prospect and customer interests to ensure they provide the information that matters most. To this end, consider the content your target audience needs at every point in the purchase cycle from awareness through post purchase support.

Depending on your product or services, this can translate to a variety of different types of content. Here’s an extensive list to choose from, and don’t forget to serve seasonally appropriate content which resonates with your audience. To carry on with our Thanksgiving theme, an example could be links to cool Turkey carving apps, Thanksgiving recipes or instructions for how to make paper decorations look like turkeys.

Photo Credit: carbonated via Flickr

Step 2: Beg Dad to carve the turkey. While this seems like pandering, in our house, Dad was a surgeon when it came to carving the bird and, unlike Mom, he carefully preserved the wishbone for a fair battle. As a marketer, it’s important to go beyond just defining your target audience to understanding what various segments want and need to attract and maintain their attention. Just as many of us play up to Dad’s carving skills, our content must also tightly synch with the needs of prospective readers.

Photo Credit: lapstrake via Flickr

Step 3: Be chosen a wishbone contender. Again, this requires advance planning. It helps to go that extra step with regard to chores and homework as well as positioning yourself nearest to the turkey when it appears fresh from the kitchen. Depending on your family, getting the wishbone can be a situation where, if you snooze, you loose. Similarly, content marketing must be available where prospects are searching for it. We all know there is a dizzying array of apps, ads, channels, widgets (and so on…) vying for our prospects’ attention.

Think strategically in terms of your communication channels such as campaign-oriented website landing pages and emails, seasonally appropriate blog posts from your CEO and instructional videos from product development. Of course don’t just duplicate, rather integrate the appropriate versions of your content on social media networks such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+. Depending on your audience, consider third party media placement such as providing articles for other media or sponsored content. Make it easy and compelling for your prospects to choose you through relevant content.

Photo Credit: Roger Smith via Flickr

Step 4: Assess your wishbone stance. When you’re ready to wrestle for wishbone bragging rights, it’s essential to realize that an effective strategy is all about positioning. You must get your thumb as close as possible to the tip of the wishbone. Further, it helps to let your competitor take a first try since this weakens the bone on his side. In terms of content marketing, asses your messaging stance and ensure your tailored content is integrated with the rest of your marketing. This includes linking to the appropriate products in your blog posts, providing commerce on channels like Facebook where your prospects are engaging with you, or sending a post-purchase emails with helpful product usage tips. To help inspire you, check out this Clutter Control Freak post that links to the specific product, a holiday card keeper.

Step 5: Make a good wish. Of course, all of this work is for naught if you don’t have a really good wish. In marketing terms, (I know this is a reach, but bear with me) this means having a contextually relevant call-to-action for your prospect to take the next step in the purchase process. A problem for many marketers is that once you’ve primed your prospect and they leave without buying, they still have an unmet need. Therefore they’ll probably purchase from another firm and, as long as they’re somewhat satisfied, they may not return to your firm – ever.

The one content marketing element missing from this wishbone list is ensuring you’ve got great information that, like the smell of your mother’s fresh cooked turkey, will lure people in. Without quality content, it’s difficult to get your prospects, customers and the public to return for seconds and thirds. You may get them once, but after that you’ll find yourself searching for new customers. Therefore, pack your content with real protein and nutrition to engage your readers over and over again.

What else would you add to this wishbone strategy? How are you ensuring your content marketing remains focused on your target audience’s needs while working to get them to close the deal?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Thanksgiving Wishbone Competitiveness & Content Marketing Tips – Who Knew? | http://www.toprankblog.com

A Best Practices Approach with Gregg Stewart

Did you know that roughly 20% of all Google searches have local intent?  When you look at mobile data that number is even higher.  These statistics alone should show us as marketers how important a online local strategy is for improving engagement.

Checking the Box Won’t Work

While website All Facebook says that 96% of small businesses are on Facebook, Mashable.com says that 64% of small businesses think that social media is unnecessary.  Part of what this data tells us that many companies are simply checking the box, but aren’t sure how to properly utilize social media marketing channels.

Caution: Mistakes Ahead

Stewart stated that the biggest mistake that advertisers trying to go local make is focusing on the wrong data.  Often advertisers will say that the number of clicks on the website are not improving, or the e-commerce on the website isn’t that great.  Consumers are looking for your business in a variety of places and they expect that information to be readily available and accurate.

Local + Social Best Practices

When implementing a local and social media strategy there are some key factors that are part of a best practices approach including:

• Accuracy
• Distribution
• Signal Strength
• Enrichment

A “SoLoMo” Strategy by Benu Aggarwal

Presenter Benu Aggarwal did a great job of highlighting the importance of of a social, local, and mobile strategy and the importance of integration between the three.  A common theme for both presenters was the emphasis on consistency across multiple channels.  In addition to remaining consistent what else should you know about a social and local strategy?

The Why, Who, & How of Social + Local

Successful local and social strategies are built upon a strong foundation.  What questions should be taken into consideration when building a strategy?

• Why should you connect with your audience?
• Who should you be connected with?
• How are you going to connect with them?
• What is your audience talking about?
• Where are they socializing?

Participate in Active Conversations

Relevant and active participation in online conversations can go a long way.  What are some examples of this interaction?

• Connect with brand evangelists in your area
• Respond to direct questions about great places to stay before your competition does
• Connect with users who have the power to influence others

Exploring Local Trends on Twitter

Twitter’s search capacity is better than you may think.  What are some ways you can better utilize twitter from a local perspective?

• Reach out to users instead of waiting for them to come to you
• Explore discussions that are happening in your target markets
• Insert yourself into existing conversations in a productive manner

5 Ways to Enhance your Foursquare Business Page 

Foursquare Business Pages can be tricky.  Aggarwal recommends the following enhancements:

• Optimize your banner
• Use keywords and bullet points
• Link to other key online channels
• Create list of local interest categories
• Leave compelling and engaging tips on local businesses

Local + Social Media Key Takeaways

• Manage your listings effectively
• Continue to place importance on UGC (user generated content)
• Users like both search and social media
• Define your goals, target audience, and know where they are
• Leverage the most popular channels
• Optimize across all channels
• Integrate social, local, offline, and online channels

If executed correctly a local and social media marketing strategy can work wonders for gaining popularity, improving brand awareness, and increasing revenue.  A main focus of this session was on consistency across channels.  Are you incorporating local and social in your online marketing mix? What are some of your best tips?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Hello Local, Meet Social – Learning the Basics at SES Chicago | http://www.toprankblog.com

• Aaron Kahlow, Chairman & Founder, Online Marketing Summit & SES Advisory Board (@omconnect)
• Arnie Kuenn, President, Vertical Measures (@arniek)
• Lee Odden, SES Advisory Board & CEO, TopRank Online Marketing & SES Advisory Board (@leeodden)

Kahlow Presents the What, Why, How, and Who of Search, Social, and Content

Aaron Kahlow focused on some very basic but essential areas that all marketers should focus on when creating a campaign either online or offline. In regards to search, social, and content he had this to share:

What is Convergence?
According to Kahlow what convergence really means is that it’ is important to understand how these disciplines work together and how they impact each other.

Why is it Important?
If marketers are able to figure out how to leverage search, social, and content efforts the return on investment can be so much greater.

How Does Convergence Make A Difference?
By incorporating search, social, and content in multiple locations you are able to set next steps for prospects. An example would be leading users to a landing page that also allows them to like your Facebook page, follow you on twitter, get a link to a free white paper or fulfillment piece.

Who Should Be Participating?
Each and every one of us as marketers has an opportunity to participate and should take the next steps necessary to get involved.

Research & Idea Generation for Content with Arnie Kuen

One of the biggest stumbling blocks for clients is trying to come up with ideas for content that will engage customers. If a prospect is searching online one of two things will happen. They will find you, or they will find your competitors.

Why Should You Focus On Content?
A study conducted by GroupM Search found the following:

• 93% of all buyers online or in stores use search prior to making a purchase
• 86% of searchers conduct non-branded queries.
• 94% of buyers click on organic links versus 6% on paid links for branded queries.

What is the Path to Success?
Kuen provided a series of steps that will not only build foundational success but allow for killer implementation. Included were:

• Start with keyword research
• Do online research
• Determine types of content to create
• List the possibilities
• Put together a calendar

If Peanut Butter & Jelly Could Talk with Lee Odden

Marketers often get in the habit of optimizing strictly for keywords. What marketers should focus on is optimizing for customers and optimizing for outcomes. Odden went on to compare search, social, and content to a PB&J sandwich. It simply wouldn’t be the same without all of the ingredients. According to Odden Peanut Butter is the SEO, Jelly is the social media, and Bread is the content.

Optimized State of Mind
The evolution of SEO will continue to keep marketers on their toes. It is important that marketers understand that anything that can be displayed in search results can be optimized. By making sure that your content is optimized for keywords related to the audience you are trying to reach will put you on the path towards success.

Optimize For Consumer Behavior & Engagement
Knowing what it is that influences your customers is key in determining an content marketing strategy. Some examples of optimizing for consumer consumption would include determining the following:

• What devices do your consumers use?
• What format of information do they prefer?
• What different types of media can be used?
• What types of information would be useful?
• What time of day and frequency would they prefer?
• What topics and keywords are important to them?

Search, Social, and Content Takeaways

• Always know what, why, how, and who of creating a search, social, and content strategy.
• Research is essential in creating an educated marketing plan.
• Build the foundation for success.
• Take a customer centric approach
• Practice proactive optimization

Trying to find the forest through the trees can prove very difficult as it relates to marketing search, social, and content planning. However, what we learned from the speakers today was that doing your homework and building your plan the right way can produce enormous return on investment. I’m curious to know what process you as marketers have found works for creating an integrated online marketing strategy?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Search, Social, & Content Work Together at SES Chicago 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com

Earlier this year the amazing Melanie Mitchell, SVP of Search at Digitas, was serving as a conference Marketing Master for the Search Engine Marketing track and she asked me to speak at my first ad:tech in San Francisco.  When I was asked to perform those same SEM track programming duties for the ad:tech New York show, I had to say yes!

ad:tech New York features some very impressive keynote presentations including: Christian Oestlien, Head of Social Advertising Products at Google; David Fischer,VP Advertising & Global Operations at Facebook; Wendy Clark, Sr. VP of Integrated MarketingCommunications & Capabilities at The Coca-Cola Company and many others.  Our roundup of pay per click and search engine optimization expertise is also impressive. You can check out two of the planned sessions below that I’ll be introducing and moderating:

Search Marketing: Integrating Search with the Rest of Your Marketing
Thursday, Nov 10 at 10:15 AM

Lauren Vaccarello – Director of Search, Display and Social Advertising, Salesforce.com
Title: Better Event Marketing With Integrated Search & Social Media
Presentation: Online marketing can be used for more than driving online demand. See how you can use search and social media marketing in every phase of offline event marketing from pre event registration to post event follow up.

Sara Devine – Manager Digital Media Integration, VW Marketing, Volkswagen of America, Inc
Title: Utilizing Search in Integrated Product Launch Campaigns
Presentation: As the announcement to launch journey unfolds, search is instrumental in capturing hand raisers and prospects leading up to the actual product launch where search maximizes the reach of what is often a large advertiser presence.  At this point, search is not only utilized as the “catcher’s mitt” for the other advertising efforts, but also becomes a barometer of those efforts – measuring in real time consumer awareness and interest in the product.

Matt Lawson - VP Marketing, Marin Software
Title: Taking Paid Search to the Next Level, Tips for Advanced Marketers
Presentation: As paid search advertising becomes increasingly competitive and complex, search marketers are constantly looking for the next trick to squeeze additional volume and ROI out of their campaigns.  In this informative session, Marin Software will reveal new professional tips to help sophisticated marketers improve the financial performance of their paid search programs.

After our first session that focuses on paid search, we’ll transition to a session that’s more focused on Search Engine Optimization:

Search Marketing: Cases and Best Practices for Maximizing SEO 
Thursday, NOV 10 at 11:30 AM

Corey Carrillo - Global Media Worldwide Search & Online Programs, Intel Corporation
Title: One is the Loneliest Number: SEM, SEO, Social Integration and Insights
Presentation: The role of Search Engine Marketing at Intel with specific examples, consumer and business about applied best practices/insights and programs for SEM campaigns/data to help bolster results in SEO, Social and PPC Social.

Jonathon Colman – Internet Marketing Program Manager, REI
Title: A Case Study on How to Increase Search Engine Crawling and Online Conversion
Presentation:  A discussion of the “silver bullet” when it comes to SEO and user experience (UX): Site speed and performance. A faster site reduces the costs of both infrastructure and releases by 50% or more.  Efficient sites simply cost less to run and provide for a better user experience. This presentation provides 4 site speed optimization steps and a case study on how REI saw a significant increase in site speed and overall conversions after optimization was implemented.

Michael DeHaven - Bazaarvoice
Title:  Social SEO: Strategic Optimization of User Reviews
Presentation: For many top online retailers, user-generated review content comprises 80 to 90% their site’s total rich content.  Michael DeHaven of Bazaarvoice will outline a proven strategy to organize and leverage review content to drive substantial increases in traffic from search.  This talk will open your eyes to a valuable, new segment of search traffic that often goes unnoticed when developing a search optimization strategy.

As you can see, this is going to be a fantastic set of sessions and a great group of speakers.  I’ll also be moderating an Exhibit Hall session of several speakers from Local.com, ideaLaunch, Brafton and  a few other companies serving the search marketing industry. If you’re attending ad:tech New York, I hope you’ll stop by Room 13, Hall 1E, Level 1 at the Javits Center.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | ad:tech New York Search Marketing Masters | http://www.toprankblog.com

Amazing sunset outside of the TopRank office.

The agency (TopRank Online Marketing) that I started with Susan Misukanis celebrated it’s 10th Birthday this year and in all my time as an Internet Marketer, no other combination of marketing tactics has yielded results like Search Engine Optimization and Content. Over the past 5 years Social Media has entered the mix as an even more powerful amplifier to the effect of optimized content.

But there’s a key problem with how content marketing is implemented by many SEO-focused agencies and practitioners. Creation of “content” has escalated to amazing levels but there is a lot of that content fails to achieve the desired objective. In the midst of keywords, links, rankings and search algorithms there are several important pieces missing.

SEO tends to be viewed as very tactical when it’s actually not only an important piece of a business internet marketing strategy, but it’s a compelling way to view online marketing overall. I’m talking about an “Optimized” state of mind that focuses on customers more than keywords and outcomes more than the trendiest online platforms.

Part of solving this problem is for those who employ SEO and Content Creation, Optimization and Promotion to think of optimization as a strategy. What can be searched can be optimized for better performance. That’s a holistic approach beyond keywords in title tags, Page Rank and inbound links. Not only is there benefit to view any electronic file that an be published online as a potential marketing asset, but understanding how they can work together is something that can elevate and scale a company’s content marketing effectiveness.

So, what does this mean at the individual content tactic creation and optimization level?  I recommend Internet Marketers ask a few key questions for every content object they create. Whether it’s an email, blog post, press release or article for a publication, it’s essential to think about the answers to these questions:

• What is this article’s key message and how does it relate to the brand?
• Where does this content fit within the mix of brand content created on the same/similar topic?
• What target search keywords is this content focused on?
• What are the compelling social sharing motivations for this content?
• What media can support this content (video, audio, images, interactive)?
• What is the first level, second level audience?
• What need or pain point does this content solve?
• What’s the hook? (creative angle, metaphor,
• What’s the punchline (revelation and call to action)?
• How will this content inspire the reader to the next step, to action?
• How can this content be repurposed and/or reposted in the future?
• What promotion channels will be used to automate distribution?
• How will the content be promoted, pitched, shared at large and with relevant influencers?
• What are the target key performance indicators for this individual content object and for it’s category?

Answer those questions and think about the flow of the content. Does it identify a need or opportunity? Does it empathize with an audience or a problem?  Does it suggest a solution or conclusion? Is there a compelling call to action? Does it inspire the reader to do what you want them to do? (act, share, feel, experience). Does it have a purpose relevant to customers and the brand that stands alone outside of SEO and Social Media?

Regardless of the type, format or length of content, these are important questions to answer in order to produce relevant and compelling content that drives business as key components of a Search Engine and Social Media Optimization strategy. In the context of content marketing, an “optimized” approach is holistic and adaptable at making content easy to discover by the right audience, meaningful to consume and motivating to engage and act on.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Key SEO Questions For Better Content Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

True or false? You never seem to have enough time in the day to get your job done.

If you answered “true”, then lets explore some tools/services that will maximize your time and effectiveness. Marshall McLuhan said “We shape our tools and afterwards our tools shape us.” If the explosion of tools to improve your website and marketing efforts over the last 3 years is any indication of how we are being shaped then there may be hope for the time and resource starved.

If you agree that content is king then we should serve a feast that uses our customers’ own words.  All we have to do is leverage all the  social and search data that uses our customers’ words. I offer that as a common sense recommendation. However, all too often I see people (even experienced SEMs) failing to leverage this data in their everyday workflow. Don’t you think that access to search and social intelligence while writing content that it would make you a more effective writer?

A recent study I co-authored helped prove that it provided:  a significant and consistent impact on search engine results, an increase in reader engagement. and an increase in conversion. It did all that and  improved content relevance across a variety of writers and online content types who used a new content coaching tool called Inbound Writer. It’s free for up to 8 documents and month and costs only $19.95 for unlimited documents.

Never write an ad your landing page can’t cash! Do you know who the most successful PPC advertiser of all time is? Amazon! That is because they built their PPC program opposite of the way most people do it. They built and continuously optimize each of their product and category pages to convert at maximum efficiency. They have loads of content to help customers make a buying decision. Only then do they focus on what ads would drive you to that page and then what keywords should trigger that ad. Most advertisers start at the keyword first. One way to avoid that mistake is using a tool like TagCrowd.

TagCrowd will make a word cloud from any text you paste in (i.e. a press release), a plain text file you can upload or a web page url. The larger that words appear on the tag cloud the more times those words appear on the page (tweak the setting for a minimum frequency of 2 or 3 to filter out some noise). One quick look at the tag cloud should give you a good clue about what your landing page is about. Use those words in your ads and as starting points for the keywords you’ll target.

Example of TopRank Newsroom Tag Cloud

What if you could get an army of writers who would compete on a regular basis to improve the effectiveness of your PPC and FaceBook ads and the only time you ever paid them was when they beat your best effort? Well thanks to crowd-sourcing company BoostCTR you can take advantage of that opportunity today. While this company is relatively new,  they have been producing guaranteed lifts in click through rates (CTRs) and conversions (by around 30%) for their clients. In fact, they are so confident about their service you can get started with a free trial. You pick the ad group you want their network to optimize, then they will start a contest where their writers compete in an A/B test against your best “control” ad (you pick which of the variations you choose to be included in the contest) and you only pay when you have a winner.

I hope these tool recommendations were useful to you. As an online tool junkie I review tons of other great online marketing tools you can leverage to improve your website and marketing efforts but hopefully these 3 will give you a good head start over your competition.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | 3 Tools To Instantly Boost Your Online Marketing | http://www.toprankblog.com

#1 – Winning! Measuring Social Media Success

While I doubt that Eli Goodman and Tami Dalley will be channelling Charlie Sheen I am still very interested to hear their take on measuring the success of social campaigns.  I would recommend having your social media metrics handy if possible ( I know I will), so that you can apply the speakers instruction on estimating the value of your fans and followers in real time.  Who knows, we may find that we score better than anticipated.

#2 – Information Architecture for the Modern Website

This session featuring Shari Thurow really caught my attention.  Why?  As marketers and SEO professionals we are mostly aware of best practices for optimizing a site and making it search friendly.  But what about the site structure and content flow?  Is it user friendly? Does it allow my audience to get to where they want to go as hassle free as possible?  As the online landscape evolves I for one intend to learn as much as I can to help my company engage our audience.

#3 – Conversion Tools of the Master Crafstman

Having the right tools in your arsenal can quantify a companies social media strategy.  However, when shopping around the question always arises: do I use the tools that are free and might have limited capabilities, or go for the Ferrari that may be outside of the current budget?  Author Bryan Eisenberg will be providing the audience with the lowdown on tools (free and paid) that assist with identifying and fixing web conversions.  Also, be sure not to miss Bryan’s guest post on the TopRank Online Blog next week which will have a preview of some of the tools he recommends.

#4 – The Convergence of Search, Social, and Content Marketing

Working with Lee Odden I’ve come to realize just how important the combination of search, social, and content really is.  I am curious to hear the methods that the panel moderated by Anne Kennedy and featuring Aaron Kahlow and Arnie Kuenn recommends for combining the three to target and engage an audience.  I am also very interested in the step-by-step case studies that will be provided as examples for compiling a list of our own successes for our clients.

#5 – Keynote – Search: Where to Next?

I have my own ideas on where search will be within the next year or two, but five to ten years?  No clue!  Thursday morning’s keynote moderated by Anne Kennedy and featuring speakers Eli Goodman, Zephrin Lasker, Alan Osetek, and Dana Todd will provide insight into the next generation of search and what it means for marketers.  I would be prepared to take great notes during this session so that you can begin dialing in your strategy for not only 2012 but what you should be on the lookout for in the years to follow.

#6 – Content Marketing Optimization

If it can be searched it can be optimized.  Makes sense right?  So much of the social web has become focused on content creation, promotion, and optimization.  What is the point of creating all of this useful content if your audience can’t find it?  This session by Lee Odden will provide strategies and tactics for executing on a successful content strategy while keeping optimization and search in mind.

And Don’t Forget To Network

As a conference attendee I’ve found that I often learn just as much while networking as I do during the sessions.  While I wouldn’t recommend charging at the presenters from across the room when you spot them I would ask that you keep a couple things in mind:

1. If you have a question that you would really like answered be sure to write it down during the session so that if you do catch the attention of a presenter you have a clear and concise question to ask.
2. Attend the conference organized meals if possible.  This is a great opportunity to get to know other people within your industry and learn from their experiences.

I hope to see all of you at SES Chicago in a few weeks.  Be sure to follow the conference buzz on twitter under hashtag #SESCHI.  Check out SES Chicago’s information page for a full schedule of sessions and training.  TopRank will also be live blogging and tweeting at the event @toprank, @leeodden, and @azeckman for those of you who don’t already follow us.

Are there some great sessions you’ll be attending that I didn’t include?  Feel free to share your top picks for SES Chicago by commenting on my post.  Also, if you’re a foodie like me and you have an opportunity to explore the city, Chicago Magazine recently released a list of the 22 best new restaurants in Chicago.

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TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.

© Online Marketing Blog, 2011. | Grab Your Jacket – The Windy City Blows In Big Talent For SES Chicago 2011 | http://www.toprankblog.com