"Search Engine Journal" - 5 new articles
- The 5 Fools You Meet In Social Media
- Google Wave Now Available for Everyone, Are You Still Interested?
- Is Your Website A Cash Generating Sales Machine? Probably Not!
- An Alternative "Related Posts" Wordpress Plugin – Where Did They Go From Here
- Why Being an SEO Is So Awesome!
- More Recent Articles
- Search Search Engine Journal
The 5 Fools You Meet In Social Media
I've been very busy, up to my knees in Social Media lately.
In addition to regular client work and developing my Social Media teaching materials, I started an interview series, talking to many of the luminaries in Social Media. I've been interviewing them via phone and recording mp3's of it.
OH THESE are not the fools I refer to in the title! Oops. That's a separate topic I'm leading into; I made a video about The 5 Fools You Meet In Social Media and how not to be one… but more on that later.
The awesome experts I've talked to include Carrie Wilkerson (The Barefoot Executive), Perry Lawrence (Ask Mr. Video), Michael Martine (Remarkablogger), Warren Whitlock, Simon Salt, and Steve Gaither. Coming up are David Armano, Brian Solis, Dan Zarrella, Alison Driscoll, Wayne Sutton, Jordan Kasteler, Danny Brown, Andy Beal, and others. There are even more that I've contacted and am waiting to hear back on.
It's already been incredible and has changed me. I love this interviewing thing.
Here's why interviews are cool for social media especially:Interviewing Teaches You A Lot
Social media is still VERY new relative to other forms of marketing, and no one knows everything. The industry's experience is considerable all together, but thin in any one person.
How do you find any particular expert's major insights? The ROI on interview time is a lot higher than in reading blogs. Books take a long time to read. In 45-60 minutes of interview, I hear a lot of profound stuff, and in particular, one interviewee gave me a tip that is so effective – it's the best Facebook fan growing technique I've heard, and we're testing it out ASAP.
Interviewing Makes Connections
Social networking is networking. Interviewing makes a connection, and I get to connect these people to other people. I get to expose them to lots of people as well (this is all going to go into a website full of Social Media Expert Interviews). And interviewees suggest other interviewees. Love it!
Interviewing is Social
It would be particularly ironic to be antisocial and introverted about Social Media. I think a lot of us in SM are both introverted and extroverted, perhaps selectively. Introversion is sitting around your computer writing a lot, which makes you effective online; extroversion teaches you to care about others and understand others. You need both skills to start relationships online and solidify them offline.
Interviewing Changes You
It's one thing to learn tactics, but when an expert throws out a phrase like "I'm not a social media expert. I'm a people expert," and makes compelling arguments for just being a good person that cares about others, it makes you think about whether you've gotten lost in the numbers and the conversion optimization. Especially when that person is followed by tens of thousands of people, has email lists that big, and makes 7 figures online.
We all have strengths and weaknesses, and hearing an expert's mind, heart, and experience in depth just plain and simple makes you better. The power of experts is in their perspective and wisdom, and it has a strong impact- let me tell you, as the interviewer, I feel like I'm bearing the full force of their insight. I love it- the part of me that knows introversion isn't healthy, and knows you're wrong when you think you're the end-all-be-all expert LOVES It.
I look forward to being able to share that with everyone!
Ok the Five Fools You Meet In Social Media.
Are you familiar with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? It shows how people evolve from survival to self-actualization.
I created something for social media marketing I call Brazlow's Hierarchy of Awesomeness. It describes
- 6 Stages of Social Marketing Evolution, and then
- Tells you how it's foolish to get stuck in the lower 5 stages, and
- How not to get stuck there
Here's the infographic:
If you want more, I created a free 33 minute video teaching that system and tips on mastering social media.
Enjoy, and let me know what you think!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
The 5 Fools You Meet In Social Media
Google Wave Now Available for Everyone, Are You Still Interested?
Google has taken off the exclusivity of Google Wave and has just made it available to everyone. So, starting today, you can just go to wave.google.com and start using Google Wave. No more hunting and waiting for that "precious" Google Wave invite folks. Everyone is now free to use Google Wave. The question is, are we still interested with Google Wave?
It took six months before Google finally decided to release Google Wave for public consumption and it is now part of Google Labs. In addition, Google is also making Google Wave available to Google Apps account holders at no extra costs. Google Apps administrator can easily enable Google Wave for all their users.
The official Google Blog also says that Google Wave is now much faster and more stable than it was six months ago. And there are some useful features that were introduced as well during the past six months including – email notifications when wave changes, easier navigation to unread parts of a wave, and more.
So, are you still using Google Wave or have you ditched it a long time ago, especially when Google Buzz came out?
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Google Wave Now Available for Everyone, Are You Still Interested?
Is Your Website A Cash Generating Sales Machine? Probably Not!
While there are countless sites on the web that are making good money, more often than not sites are not performing as well as they could/should. They aren't living up to their potential. If these websites were employees, we'd probably fire them.
So, what do you do when your website isn't living up to its potential? Give up? That is one option. But a better option is to sit back and do an honest assessment of your site.
So what are some of the things you should look at? I'm glad you asked. :)
Here are some key things to look at if you feel your site isn't being all that it can be.
Start by analyzing your web stats.
- Figure out how long people are staying on your site.
- See which pages they are leaving from most often.
- Look at the keywords they are using to find the site – if they aren't coming in on targeted keywords that it isn't that surprising that they aren't converting.
Identify a few actions you want people to take on your site (place an order, sign for your newsletter etc) and go to your site yourself and go through the steps it takes for people to complete those actions.
- Was it easy?
- How many clicks did it take?
- Did the text compel and guide you along?
It's sometimes hard to determine this for yourself since you are so familiar with your site, so ask a few friends or colleagues to go through the exercise and give you honest feedback.
Your most important info should not be more than a click or two from the homepage.
But don't forget, people could be entering from pages other than your homepage – so if your special offers and newsletter sign up aren't on every page, people may miss them.
You may want to find a way to list your special offers (or at least a banner mentioning that you have special offers) as well as your opt-in on every page of your site. Not everyone wants to do this and sometimes it's an intentional strategic decision not to (maybe you want to keep the pages simpler and not have anything to detract from the particular call to action on that page) – and that's OK. As long as you understand and knowingly decide that.
What can you do to get people to come back to your site?
Create a plan for content addition – keeping your site current with fresh content is good for the engines and your site visitors. People need to see your site as a resource so they have a reason to keep coming back. Give them interesting, important, funny, newsworthy info and you'll see your repeat visitors start to increase. The more times someone visits your site, the more likely they are to buy.
Beware of Broken Links…
Test your site for broken links and errors – nothing scares site visitors off like a site that isn't well maintained. Check for typos and spelling mistakes. Look for broken images. Remember people will make snap judgments about you and the quality of your product or service based on how your site looks.
Test your shopping cart often to make sure there are no errors that are causing you to lose sales. Make sure it is easy to use and if possible, keep reminding people of the benefits as they go through the sales process. You don't have the sale until they click the final submit button. If your cart has a lot of steps, you could lose people along the way so keep them engaged and wanting the product.
Wasted Space?
Don't waste your thank you page – make an up-sell offer on your thank you page. People have already bought from you and should be open to other offers, plus they already have their credit card out and ready!
School may be finished, but you aren't done with testing!
Test, test, test. You should be split testing or multivariate testing your pages to improve results. The littlest things – a blue header versus a red one, the word girl versus woman can make a BIG difference (I know this because I split test everything!). So get testing – test colors, headline text, calls to action, different photos. With Google Website Optimizer testing is so easy.
Prominence is key.
Make your opt-in box prominent and compelling. Building a list is vitally important to your business. If your site converts 4% of your site's visitors into sales, then the other 96% of your traffic is wasted – but if you capture their contact info and can market to them on an on-going basis, you will very likely get more sales!
Blah, Blah, Blah and other Common Copy mistakes
You don't want to be boring and drab. You need to excite and compel people. You also need to guide them by the hand and get them to take the action you want.
Don't use too much jargon or confusing language. Talk to your site visitors in a language they will understand and relate to.
Website copy is truly an art and the right words make a big difference. Make sure you have compelling headlines and strong calls to action. Don't assume because your product is good people will want to buy it. They don't know it's good yet – you need to convince them!
Speed Matters.
Check out load time on your site. No one has the time or patience to wait for a slow loading site, so they may be outta there if it's too slow.
Busy, Busy, Busy.
Make sure there is enough white space to make the eye comfortable. Too much text and graphics can be very busy looking and it makes people uncomfortable.
There is a lot more we could talk about – including some specifics on how to write more compelling text but a girl can't reveal everything right away! So, for now, I've given you some stuff to think about and a place to start. Stay tuned for next month, I'll talk about some copy tips and give samples of good copy and bad copy.
As always, I welcome questions, comments and anything you want to share! :)
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Is Your Website A Cash Generating Sales Machine? Probably Not!
An Alternative "Related Posts" Wordpress Plugin – Where Did They Go From Here
I have once looked at the three ways to display related posts in Wordpress. I have also described that will help your site performance by leveraging your old content and increasing:
- Click-through;
- Crawl depth;
- Possibly, rankings.
Today I am sharing another Wordpress plugin that may be used for that: "Where did they go from there".
In essence, while the three plugins I listed in my previous post are based on thematic relevance, this one relies on "behavioral" relevance:
When a visitor views a blog post, the plugin checks to see if the referrer is another blog post on your site. If this is the case, then the referring post is updated with a reference to this post. And, the process continues as the visitor moves through the blog.
So after some time of this plugin being installed, each of your posts will have a list of blog posts that people tend to click to after reading the current one.
From the tool settings you are able to:
- Set the number of posts to display;
- Add the list to posts or any other page types;
- Add the list of posts to the blog feed;
- Display list of posts in Edit Posts / Pages;
- Give credit to the creator;
- Set the heading for the list of posts;
- Exclude pages from the list;
- Show post excerpt in the list;
- Customize the output look;
- Add each post thumbnail;
After using this plugin for a few days I found it is really great for:
- Giving your readers an alternative option to go further to (along with thematically related posts);
- Analyzing your readers behavior;
- Analyzing your internal linking strategy (which links seem the most attention grabbing).
It doesn't seem to affect the site speed dramatically either, so you may give it a go!
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
An Alternative "Related Posts" Wordpress Plugin – Where Did They Go From Here
Why Being an SEO Is So Awesome!
I recently read an article by Sarah Carling entitled "The Best Job In The World." and found it so compelling that I wanted to add to what she started. As Sarah states, there are so many aspects of this job that are exciting and it's a profession that will require you to always be on the top of your game. This "game" doesn't guarantee much but it will always keep you on the tips of your toes. Now on to why being an SEO is so awesome!
Getting Paid To "Play" On Social Media
More and more companies are blocking their employee's access to social media these days. Even if access isn't revoked getting caught by the boss or by monitoring software isn't any fun. As an SEO I get to use social media on a daily basis. Yup, the boss is fully aware of it and he understands the value it brings to our company AND our clients. So while other companies punish their employees for participating on Twitter and Facebook I am getting paid! How cool is that!?
Techniques Vary But Results Rule The SERPS!
One of my favorite parts of Search Engine Optimization is that you could have five different SEO's that all use unique techniques and all of them can still be successful! SEO isn't cookie cutter, we all more or less follow the same rules but we have our own successful twists. These "twists" are what makes each SEO professional unique.
Discussions, Rants, and Debates.
As Sarah mentions, the discussions, rants and debates are top notch. I mentioned earlier that every SEO has their own "twists" to their craft and most of them swear by these techniques. Ask a group of SEO's about the value of a forum link or a "No Follow" link (especially from a top authority domain such as Wikipedia). This and many more debates have been circulating for quite a while. They often get pretty heated as well.
Many fantastic discussions are brought up on a daily basis too. Due to SEO being applicable to almost every niche and website ever made we don't always have to worry about hiding our techniques from each other. In fact the SEO community is very generous and is always willing to help if you are willing to listen. With that said if your going to walk in as the "new guy" and tell everyone how it's done (incorrectly that is) you better watch out the SEO crowd sure can tear you a new one.
Only Google Knows Best!
Ok, Bing and Yahoo too… There isn't an SEO alive that knows the exact algorithm that the search engines use to rank sites in the search results. It's been estimated that over 200 factors contribute to this algorithm. With this said, nobody can master the craft of SEO. Hard work, testing and experience play a large role in the success someone achieves.
No Barrier To Entry Here.
To become a Doctor or Lawyer you need countless years of schooling and in addition you need to pass brutal state examinations. SEO on the other hand requires no formal training. Some SEO professionals have four year college degrees; some have high school diplomas and many with much more or less. SEO is a battle of will, do you want to succeed? Do you have what it takes to keep up in this game? SEO is constantly changing and if you're willing to work hard you too can succeed in this niche. A basic knowledge of html will do you wonders too but isn't necessary to start learning.
The Never Ending Competition and Results!
Every SEO needs to be competitive. I have yet to talk to an SEO that is ok with a second place ranking let alone a second page listing. Very frequently SEO's can see the results of their hard work. Write some new content, build a couple links and see the results in your traffic and or conversions. The more creative you are the quicker you can see the results. If you get lazy or do something "illegal" you will see the consequences in your results. Everything you do has an effect. This is why it's exciting to wake up every morning; you just don't know what that day of work will net you.
Don't let me fool you; SEO isn't all fun and games. It's hard work! Take a wrong step and your website can get banned from the search engines. Not too many people get second chances either. SEO's always need to be on their toes; we're always researching the newest techniques, talking to one another and testing our new theories. Search Engine Optimization is a job that gets a bad wrap, there is no formal education and at any moment the search engines can flip your site upside down. Even with all that said being an SEO is awesome and I continue to welcome all future challenges.
Check out the SEO Tools guide at Search Engine Journal.
Why Being an SEO Is So Awesome!
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jueves, 20 de mayo de 2010
5 new articles
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