5 Ways To Understand Twitter’s Power As A Marketing Tool

 

Author:  Rachel Thomas

Source:  http://www.business2community.com/twitter/5-ways-to-understand-twitters-power-as-a-marketing-tool-0515801

 

By its very nature marketeers are naturally attracted to Twitter’s power as a marketing tool because they have long had to distill their key messages into short, punchy phrases. Adapting to make every one of their 140 words pull their weight therefore hasn’t been such a leap.

Speaking recently at #SMWF, Twitter’s UK sales director Bruce Daisley said that Twitter differed from its rival social networks because of its directness, and that brands and businesses could benefit hugely from that. “We see Twitter as an information network, rather than a social network,” he said. He explained how brands can maximise its use as a marketing tool:

1)  Understand how it is being used

Daisley said the three most common uses were on the sofa, on the move and in the moment and that brands had to target their communications to those as applicable. On the sofa he said Twitter was hugely strong as a second screen social media tool, whilst in the UK he said 80% of users access Twitter on their phones compared to 60% globally. Globally Twitter has an audience of 200 million and 10 million across Europe, he said.

2)  It’s what you say not necessarily who’s saying it

There’s no doubt that the ‘who’ in Twitter is important. One of the great beauties of Twitter is how close we can get to the people we admire – be they celebrities or fellow business people—and hear directly what they are thinking. But Daisley also pointed out what he called the “Darwinian environment” of Twitter where the best content surfaces to the top very quickly, regardless of who has said it. As a sharing platform a good Tweet, like a good video, post or website, has the potential to go viral if it’s good enough.

3)  Work out the tone of voice that works best for you

Daisley said it’s easy to assume that the most effective tone of voice on Twitter was a wacky, frivolous one, but said the truth was this was far from the case. He cited research that suggested nearly a quarter of Twitter users thought the most impactful tweets were funny whilst nearly half thought the most impactful ones were those that had information. Companies have to decide whether to offer fun, give information or provide customer help. He said that amongst brands Samsung were good at using Twitter to provide information and help and Innocent Smoothies at providing information and fun.

4)  Engage on Twitter to drive brand sentiment

Although it shouldn’t be used as a sales tool using it to monitor and respond to brand sentiment is key, he said.  Daisley cited the example of the chief executive of 02 who personally monitors what people are saying about his brand on Twitter who found that the average consumer scores a consumer satisfaction rate of 68% compared to 74% for someone exposed to 02’s work on Twitter. “That’s the difference between someone lapsing and renewing their contract on 02. Being exposed to brand messages does have an impact,” said Daisley.

5)  Use hash tags to extend what people are saying about your brand

Daisley championed Adidas’ #takethestage campaign from last year. “One of the things Adidas had thought hard about was how they were capturing that excitement,” he said.  As a result the hash tag was used by customers throughout the Olympics driving stronger engagement with the brand as a result.

There are many ways that Twitter can be used as a marketing tool, as well as a sentiment barometer. The above are just a few -what would you add?

8 E-Commerce SEO Tips Gathered From A Decade Of Consulting

Author:  Search Engine Land

Source:  http://searchengineland.com/8-e-commerce-seo-tips-gathered-from-a-decade-of-consulting-161739

Like most SEO consultants, I am often contacted late in the Web development process, well after information architecture and URL structure have been determined. Generally, the site is almost ready for launch at this point — or, in some cases, already launched!

If so, it is an SEO nightmare. Content has been created. Product catalogs have been imported. Search engines have crawled and indexed the site. Prospective buyers are arriving. And, the internal structure — from an SEO standpoint — is a mess.

Without a proper URL structure, internal pages are competing against each other rather than strengthening the overall site. Duplicate content issues run rampant, thanks to URL parameters, session IDs and printer-friendly versions. Advanced filtering and search functions, intended to enhance user experience, actually end up compounding this problem.

Usually, the store owner hires a company to flesh out a design, implement and code special functions, and upload the finished site — all before the project itself has been finalized. Things then go in many different directions; and at some stage in the process, they decide to call in a consultant to slap on “SEO magic.” They’ve heard that SEO is very effective at driving more traffic and want to try “every little bit that may help.”

This is the most frustrating part of being an SEO consultant. We’re called in too late. A lot of adjustment and re-coding is required. Even then, some online stores won’t be able to meet the market’s needs without a complete make-over of the website. This is time consuming and expensive.

E-commerce SEO Tip #1: Get your Web designer, information architect and SEO consultant working together right from the beginning. The result will be a more effective, better-optimized website that is easy for prospective buyers to use.

My fellow columnist Tom Schmitz offers some great advice about Web structure and internal linking in his recent post. I delved deep into this in one of my previous columns, with practical suggestions on how to structure content for e-commerce sites.

2. Recognize Causes For Duplicate Content & Find Solutions

When I analyze sites for new SEO clients, they often have serious duplicate content issues. Fixing this can be complicated without modifying the entire design and code.

Duplicate content issues are usually the result of poor planning, careless information architecture and non-intuitive website structure.

The use of URL parameters, session IDs and printer-friendly content versions are common culprits in e-commerce store websites. The situation gets muddied even further when identical content is published under multiple categories such as [campaign] or [offers] in addition to their regular place in the content hierarchy. These unique scenarios must be recognized and prevented proactively in the planning phase itself.

E-commerce SEO Tip #2: Before they start coding, make sure that developers are aware of the potential for duplicate content and how to resolve these issues.

Both designers and developers must be familiar with the pitfalls of related issues such as advanced search and filtering, the robots.txt file, and the relative merits and risks of meta directives or robot exclusion (including when not to use them!). Pagination is another potential quagmire; and, it is especially important to ensure correct implementation of pagination attributes for Google.

3. Don’t Waste Link Authority On Ineffective Link Structure

Effective link structure for an e-commerce SEO project depends upon information architecture, URL structure, and the manner in which products are categorized and organized in your e-commerce store. If your structure is poor, with products arranged in a haphazard manner instead of being in logical categories or sub-topics, your link architecture will be ineffective from an SEO standpoint.

E-commerce SEO Tip #3: Organize products in an e-commerce store by category and sub-category, based on topics and sub-topics, in a way that is reflected in your URL hierarchy.

Doing this enhances your e-commerce website’s optimization and improves usability for human visitors. Whenever new products are added to a sub-category, your breadcrumb navigation trail ensures new links to each level in the URL hierarchy, all the way back up to the category page and home page. By employing sub-navigation menus within specific categories, you can link to other relevant categories higher up in the structure.

With good keyword analysis and by planning exact match anchor texts, you will practically set your internal link building on auto-pilot. Each time you add a new product page (e.g., for a new pair of running shoes) to your site, you’ll not only boost the [shoes/running-shoes] level of the URL, but simultaneously pass along link juice upward in the hierarchy to the [shoes] category, as well.

Section/category level menus that link to relevant categories ensure that Google’s crawlers can find their way to all sections of the site and see pages in context with other content to easily decide how to rank them.

It is best to avoid mega-menus and drop-down menus which cause a flat URL structure and sometimes link to less relevant parts of the site, thereby leaking authority, power and Page Rank.

4. SEO Automation Can Be A Good Thing (Sometimes)

The word “automation,” when associated with SEO, produces negative connotations. Typically, I would shun anything to do with “automation” of SEO; but, there are some exceptions where it is important to facilitate automation. One such exception is a situation in which you have programmers who can automate on-site elements (such as title tags) based on a format determined by the SEO consultant.

In e-commerce stores with thousands of products, this practice will come in handy. Elements like title tags can be automated to present extremely user-friendly information while including the right target keywords.

E-commerce SEO Tip #4: While working with large e-commerce sites, provide developers with information about how to automate the creation of SEO-friendly title tags and meta descriptions for new pages.

This will save everyone time in the long run — so getting it right is important, even if it takes longer than you would typically spend on title tags. Remember, this deployment will be site-wide. Your instructions must clearly tell the developer how the title tags and meta descriptions should be worded, based on the content displayed on a product page of the e-commerce site.

Using the individual product name or title in H1 tags, as well as in the title tag, is one simple way to achieve this, and your developer can program it quickly and easily. You can also dynamically create meta descriptions for each product page by gathering text from the page’s content itself.

This is a good beginning, but there’s more to do. Rich snippets help increase CTR on search results pages, and with your help, a developer can provide excellent titles and meta descriptions even without any SEO knowledge.

5. Smaller Iterative Processes Are Super Effective

Fail to plan, and you plan to fail. Your SEO strategy is all-important. But, when working on tactics and implementation, one factor matters more than anything else — and that is “starting small.”

Too often, e-commerce site owners want to change everything at once. Transform the site. Make all pages rank high on Google. That involves doing too much, and taking too big a risk without knowing if it will work at all.

E-commerce SEO Tip #5: It is infinitely more effective to run smaller processes that focus on a limited portion of the site.

Test the change. See if it works. When you know what to do and how to do it, roll out the change across the site. Start with the most important things first. Most developers and designers have limited time. If the work is outsourced to a third party, they most likely use scrum or similar systems and timing is important. Handing them one task at a time usually results in quicker progress.

6. Implement E-Commerce Tracking

Many website owners look at traffic growth as a good sign that they are moving in the right direction and that they are doing something smart and effective. But, what if the traffic doesn’t convert into sales?

E-commerce SEO Tip #6: Turn on e-commerce tracking with Google Analytics to show exactly how much money you are helping clients make.

Most of my clients are already using Google Analytics. As one of my first actions as a consultant, I ensure e-commerce tracking is configured and implemented. This will reveal the profit boosts generated with my SEO improvements. Showing results in dollars is much more effective than increasing pageviews, rankings or clicks. Cash is king.

Dealing with clients is much easier when you don’t have to keep on selling them on the value of your services — after all, your client is better served when your energy and attention are focused on higher priority activities. E-commerce tracking is also a great way to quickly identify areas where the client’s online (or offline) marketing is not effective or adding enough value to the business.

Armed with data, I can position myself as being more valuable to the e-commerce business’ bottom line, instead of being perceived as just a “Google-fixer.” I get more billable hours, and the client stops worrying about how many hours I spend — because each of them brings in a high ROI. It’s a win-win situation.

When you outline a plan to increase revenue by 100% over the next 12 months, and then implement it while sharing your progress in Google Analytics, you will get the support and buy-in necessary to execute your proposed plan and carry it through to completion. Your budget will be sanctioned without protest, because who doesn’t like the idea of earning $10 million for an investment of a mere $100,000.

7. Traditional SEO Is Still Relevant To E-Commerce SEO

Yes, old is gold. E-commerce sites often under-perform on product pages. This might be traced to problems with coding, text, and other content. There may be too little product information, or a lack of unique content, or duplicates of material found elsewhere on the site.

E-commerce SEO Tip #7: Without product text, it is almost impossible to rank and drive organic search traffic to e-commerce websites.

You need content. Without images, video and proper keyword targeting, it is next to impossible for your client to compete in a tough niche. There are many guides to help you and checklists to follow to ensure you’ll get it right.

For starters, avoid re-publishing content from elsewhere on your site or from other online resources (including competitor and vendor websites). Google frowns on duplicate content, and your e-commerce site will not rank well.

8. Create Dashboards — And Report In Cash

It is hard to convince clients with just flashy pictures and showy graphs or charts. You can talk about visits, clicks and views till you’re blue in the face and not make an impact on hard-nosed business owners. Many of them won’t even understand what you’re saying, and this means you’ll have to work hard to win credibility — and retain your budget.

E-commerce SEO Tip #8: Make a dashboard in Google Analytics, and show them how much money you have helped them earn through your SEO efforts.

Compare it against earnings from other elements of their marketing mix. Proving that your SEO efforts are bringing in the dollars is key to winning repeat business. Construct your dashboard to report the most important numbers.

Focus on cash. That will strengthen your position in the client’s eyes. They will see you as someone higher up on the food chain, one who deserves higher priority. No longer will they see you as “just that SEO guy (or gal).”

Good SEO consultants are decent Web analysts, as well. But, clients don’t know it. Using dashboards, I can reduce (or even eliminate) time wasted on creating slides or spreadsheet presentations to convince clients of my value. This frees up time to spend on more valuable activities that further increase the profit I can generate for clients.

More Big Lessons & Takeaways

• SEO is not icing on the cake to be slapped on at the very end. It must be baked into the makings, because it’s an essential ingredient.
• There are no out-of-the-box, ready-made SEO optimized e-commerce platforms. The “SEO-friendly” ones just allow tweaking and optimization by SEO experts after they are installed and configured.
• SEO is not a quick fix. Clinging to this belief can cost you many lost sales.

Now that I’ve shared some e-commerce SEO tips gathered over my experience working with many large clients, I’d love to hear from you on this issue, as well.

• What do you think about these tips?
• What are your most effective e-commerce SEO tips?
• What are your biggest challenges in working as an SEO consultant with e-commerce clients?
• And finally, are there any other questions you’d like to have answered?

Please share your thoughts, suggestions and comments below, and let’s have a spirited discussion about effective e-commerce SEO.

Opinions expressed in the article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land.

21 Reasons You Must Become an Expert

Author:  Copy Blogger

Source:  http://www.copyblogger.com/become-an-expert-now/

For years the search economy built by Google (and others) allowed many people to make decent money by simply executing on certain SEO tactics more efficiently than their competition — even if they didn’t necessarily know the business they were writing about.

This led to poor quality web sites that ranked highly for valuable search terms, with the need to deliver quality products or services coming in a distant second.

Now that Google is making great progress in their effort to marginalize questionable SEO tactics, this approach to producing online content is finally going extinct.

The next 2 years will see an even more dramatic shakeout, and all forms of marketing on the Internet will be affected. What’s the best way to survive this continuing transformation?

Become an expert.

Here are twenty-one reasons why this is a critical pursuit:

1. Search engines are making a clear shift in favor of quality — The changes are (and will continue to be) big, but they’re going in a consistent direction — that of better quality content. Search engines will continue to improve the quality game, and only high quality content will win.
2. No one cares what you think if you aren’t an expert — I know that sounds harsh, but I’m not talking about your friends or social conversations here.
3. You will understand your business better — Knowing the subject matter of your business cold is the first step in creating a business that runs efficiently. Of course, other skills are needed, but it starts here.
4. Creating great content is much easier (you will actually know something!)— The key to great content is sharing information or perspectives that are new to the reader. If you know far more than the reader, this becomes relatively easy.

Experts generate more ideas

5. Building a lean content marketing team is easier — An expert perspective on the subject matter will help you understand what help you need.
6. Determining the scope of your content marketing opportunity is easier too, because you know the market so well.
7. You can predict upcoming changes to your market better — With expertise comes more knowledge of the major players in your industry, and the things they’re likely to do. No, you can’t predict everything, but expertise can help you get ready for change.
8. Communities will form around you — This one’s simple. Genuine experts attract attention.

People want to meet experts

9. People trust experts — People are more likely to believe your opinion when you know more.
10. People will want to work for you — Being known as an expert tends to attract the smart, motivated employees who can make a tremendous difference in your business.
11. People will want to buy from you — A deep understanding of your topic makes you more trustworthy, and that makes you the more inviting choice when it comes time to purchase a product or service. This is particularly true if you combine being an expert with a strong sense of ethics.
12. The media will want to interview you — Both traditional and new media depend on experts to flesh out stories. Being a visible expert on your topic makes you an attractive person for the media to interview.
13. Other media will want you to write for them — Looking for guest posting opportunities on major sites? This is so much easier when you’re recognized for being exceptionally well-informed in your topic.
14. Other experts will want to meet you — Experts are drawn to other experts. And that can open out to an introduction to their audience.
15. Other experts will want to collaborate with you — No expert is looking for a collaboration with a publisher of thin, weakly researched content.
16. Growing a social media following is easier — This eventually happens, even if you don’t work at it. People will figure out where your social profiles are and want to connect with you. Of course, this goes much faster if you dowork at it.
17. Your posts will get more comments — People will want to share their thoughts with you and develop a connection with you.

Influence drives your sharing rate

18. Your articles will draw more links — No matter what anyone may tell you, incoming links are still the key driver in SEO rankings. Attracting high-quality natural links more easily is pure gold.
19. The distribution of your content on social networks will grow exponentially. More tweets, plus ones, and likes will spread your message further every day.
20. Your conference presentations will draw more people — Doing presentations is one of the most underestimated parts of a content marketing strategy.
21. Experts make more money — For a business owner, this is the bottom line. People will pay more for your products or services if you are a recognized authority in your topic.

Marketing Through Teaching

Author: Under30CEO

Source: http://under30ceo.com/marketing-through-teaching/

The world of marketing is a rather strange beast. For centuries business owners around the world have utilized many different marketing methods to pull in potential customers. Between them all, there seems to be a common component missing throughout, and that’s the education about your product, service or trade.

Being an expert

Teaching and sharing knowledge is the future of marketing. It allows us as business owners to play the role of “expert in our field” and helps us proceed towards a sale at the same time. One of the most important things to keep in mind is that people buy from people they know, like and trust. What does that mean? It means that we should be teaching our customers, building relationships and offering them valuable tools, info, and experiences with our brands. This pulls people into our circles, creates a following, and ultimately positions them towards the sale that we’re aimed towards.

Sharing Our Knowledge

So how do we position ourselves as an “expert in our field”? We do so by teaching and sharing with our customers. When you teach people, It becomes so much more valuable for you and your business as they begin to develop a much higher level of trust. This is at the fundamental core of building trust with your customers. For example, if you own a restaurant, teach people about eating healthy. Blog about what it’s like to own a restaurant. Give away free recipes for amazing dishes. Offer cooking tips and new dinner ideas.

You can do this through several different marketing outlets including:

• Email Newsletters
• Facebook Posts
• SMS Marketing Campaings
• Twitter Posts
• Blog Articles
• Pinterest Boards

The possibilities are endless and should be geared specifically towards your target audience. The important thing is that these all position you and your business as subject matter experts and builds an amazing amount of rapport at the same time.

Forgetting Your Competition

Traditionally, some businesses are rather nervous about teaching and sharing for fear that they’ll be giving away secrets to their competitors. The reality is that you can’t really worry about them. They’re not going away, and they’re too busy to be watching your every step. You should be aware of them but cannot be discouraged about progression for fear that they’ll steal your ideas and secrets.

Teaching and sharing breaks down that invisible barrier that stands between the salesperson and the customer, allowing the connection with your customers to grow stronger than ever before. Not only does it position you and your company as the expert, but it helps you establish a long lasting relationship with your customers. This automatically earns their trust and will bring can them into your circle on a more permanent basis.

You will find that adding a solid layer of education as a core component of your marketing mix will greatly increase your company’s number of followers and overall level of trust with each of them. When that level of trust reaches a certain point, not only will you earn that sale you’re looking for but will have gained a new lifelong customer in the process.

Matt Baglia is the CEO of SlickText.com, a leader in the SMS marketing industry. They provide businesses and organizations all over the United States with an easy and affordable platform for sending targeted, opt-in text message marketing.

Image Credit: Shutterstock.com

The Top 10 Mistakes of Entrepreneurs

Author:  Innovation Excellence

Source: http://www.innovationexcellence.com/blog/2013/05/04/the-top-10-mistakes-of-entrepreneurs/

The UC Berkeley Startup Competition proudly welcomed Guy Kawasaki to the Haas School of Business. Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple and co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures, explained the top ten mistakes that entrepreneurs make. His talk covered all stages of a startup from inception to exit.

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