Latest seo tips

In SEO, it's no different. In order to be successful, you must be able to consultatively sell. You must be able to bind your head around the really important "pain points" and goals of a prospect, and speak toward that.

On the flip side, it's very challenging to sell to someone who doesn't have a clue about what SEO really is.

Here are a few tips that you might use to help cut through the techno-babble, relate to a prospect, and close some business.

Tip 1: Listen, With extremely Big Ears

 
I was told once that "the person who speaks the most, loses". If you're one of those guys who tries to out-talk the next guy, you maybe won't find a lot of success.
You must get a view to share with you their experiences:

•    What's vital in their business (how do they make money)?

•    How are they currently staffed?
•    What marketing efforts currently exist?
•    Do they measure their marketing efforts to an effective cost-per-lead/cost-per-sale?

Then, you can start to ask some SEO questions such as:

•    When did they last restore their site?
•    Are they happy with current conversion rates?
•    Have they ever hired an SEO firm before and, if so, what did they do and why aren't they still working with them?
Often times, there is so much information that wants to be gathered that I will ask if the prospect has developed an RFP (request for proposal) for the effort, so that the scope can be defined.

Tip 2: appreciate Their Business genuinely
 

Recently, I met with a prospect that spends $19 million per year on marketing, but not a penny on SEO. Then they proceeded to tell me that usual search is their second most important lead generating source, behind direct traffic to the website.

After gaining access to their Google Analytics, I was able to see that they had lost important traffic, year over year. Part of this was due to the fact that they redesigned their website and had to address this "quickly", so no thought was put into SEO for the newly designed website.
 

Tip 3: Speak in Terms They Understand

When you can tell a CEO that you feel very confident in churning out ROI, and you can share with them the numbers as to why you feel that way, you're making the difficult process of SEO selection much simpler.

Most clients don't understand "robots.txt" or "404s" or any of that stuff. They know "money in, money out". They want to speak in terms of ROI.

You might pull keywords that you know are related for their business, and the search volume, and the client's current ranking, so that you can "show them" why you feel justified in asking them to invest $15,000 per month in SEO. Of course, you have to be able to back that up and really have a project plan in mind that you feel will equate to this success.

Summary

SEO isn't for everyone. So – if in your research you find it doesn't compute – please walk away. Let them know that SEO may not be where they need to spend their income. But, for many, it's a gold mine of chance that has been neglected for far too long.

Guest Blogging 2014

 Google's Matt Cutts, the search engine's chief spam fighter, rallied a call that has many marketers shaking. The days of guest blogging, he said, are above for SEO. If you're just guest blogging to get links, he goes on to say, you're in bad company.

What he's referring to is awkward guest blogging that basically mimics the article marketing of old: bombarding mediocre content at every site on the web in hopes of scoring a link, without a thought to branding, audience, or relevancy.

Even with Google fast down on spammers, not all is lost. But it's dangerous to treat guest blogging deferentially.

Here's a closer look at how guest blogging can be one of your top tools for establishing credibility, authority, and thought leadership.

Recognize Why Thought Leadership Matters

There are many different kinds of writing obtainable to content marketers, from in-depth content like ebooks or white papers to quick blog posts meant to amuse and delight. Thought leadership elevates content formation to new heights by focusing in on quality insights, good writing, and taking a forward-looking position on key issues.

According to the Harvard Business Review, it begins with your brand which is "your personal assure to the market and to the world." They go on to explain that it's not sufficient to be the person that speaks Spanish, the most efficient sales leader, or some other similar skill-based position. These can be eliminated, or someone can come along who does what you do better, faster, or cheaper.

The best way to become exceptional is to build a brand centered on your unique strengths and contributions.

Instead, reframe the question to ask, "So how do you build a reputation as a singular expert – someone who doesn't just contribute in the conversation, but drives it?" You drive the conversation by identifying trends, formulating well thought-out points, and taking them to highly visible venues to begin to share.

Thought Leadership Starts With Defining a location

Thought leadership is about expertise. To move into the realm of writing or speaking for thought leadership purposes, you first have to determine your unique positioning.

What is it that you have to say and that you want to say that's diverse than everything else that's already being said? The answer can range from present a radically different position on the key trends and issues of your industry to simply putting a different twist on execution.

For example, if everyone talks about the value of video marketing from a theoretical viewpoint, but you're creating 3,000 word in-depth tutorials that really move people forward, that's your niche.

How you define your place can be based on several things:
 

•    What are your underlying goals for thought leadership activities? Are you promoting a specific business, or building your brand as the foundation for a career in a specific industry?
 

•    Where are your strengths? Are you able to write quickly? Are you comfortable on camera? Can you make people laugh with quirky top 10 lists, or do you have access to unique contacts that could be the foundation for a powerful interview series?
 

•    What series of smaller objectives are you going to tie to your content marketing, such as specific bylines or becoming known for talking about certain issues?
 

•    What unique experience or perspective do you have that's in demand in your industry, but hasn't been claimed by an expert yet?
 

•    From an industry perspective, what are some urgent questions that you and your peers and competitors are facing? What is the hot news or the biggest trend? If you think six months to two years into the future, can you answer the same questions and start talking about them now?
 

Develop Your Content Strategy

Thought leadership has many unusual components. shaping your strategy for "getting your message out" is a critical aspect of a practical thought leadership movement.
Choosing your channels is as weighty a decision as important your message. There are numerous opportunities available to you, for example:
•    Create a blog or website that becomes an authoritative brand in your space.
 

•    Contribute to other publications.

•    Talk at conferences, panels, and other industry events.
 

•    Write articles for trade magazines or convention publications.
 

•    Guest post in a range of online venues.
 

•    Host a podcast, video program, or interview show.
 

•    Invest in writing longer works, such as books, ebooks, and white papers.

If nothing else, remember this one key takeaway: the most efficient thought leadership efforts are systematic, and help you achieve a series of goals that build your brand along the way.
 

Make Some Key Decisions About Brand You

"Thought leadership" is a term that's used and injured to describe a lot of things. Mostly, it refers to having a platform to affect the discussion through your writing, speeches, work, and more.

At another level, thought leadership also means that you're valued for your skill and someone that others consult when they want to hire someone in your space. In extreme cases, "thought leader" becomes almost a job description, describing someone who writes books and travels to conferences for a living.

Expect Part of the Game to be Psychological

It's durable to move from thinking of yourself as an employee to a manager or leader. But stepping outside the idea that you're not just leading a company, but that you're taking a leading role in your industry also requires some major mind shifts.
 

Conclusion

Cutts' call to action is an important chance to look at guest blogging as just one part of building your personal thought leadership table. Thought leadership is about defining your brand, connecting with an audience, and moving the conversation forward. Many tools are at your disposal to make that happen successfully.

 you might also like: How Guest Blogging efficiently Boosts reliability

Google Analytics-URL target Goals

Google Analytics (GA) really has a lot more helpful features than you might think. So many companies use the few tabs  and just put the rest on the back burner.

 URL target Goals is one of the features that isn’t a top precedence for many companies, yet can be very useful. If you’ve seen this option but never taken the time to figure out why it matters or how it works, now is the time to take on the confront!

How URL end Goals Work and How to Set Them Up       

          
The URL Destination Goals choice is a great way to see if your online marketing efforts are really giving you any results. There are many different types of Goals you can include, but URL Destination Goal is maybe the easiest to use. 

This exacting Goal will tell you whenever someone has visited a particular page on your site. This gathers data that you can later track and decide which of your marketing efforts are working and which ones are falling short.

Fully understanding how it all works is probably easiest if you set up a Goal. Here are the steps to make it happen:

Step #1: Go to your GA and click on your aim website. Click on the Admin button.

Step #2: Click the “Create a Goal” button in the upper right hand corner.

Step #3: You will then be able to enter in the Goal Description so you can stay planned in case you want to have more than one Goal. Click “Destination” and then “Next Step.”

Step #4: The next section is goal details, and it will ask for the URL where users will land when they have finished the goal . You should enter whatever comes after your domain name in the full URL. There is also a fall down menu on this same page where you should choose “Equals.” If you don’t have an exact URL, choose “Begins With” or “Regular Expression.”

Step #5 (Optional): Once you’re finished creating your Goal, you have two elective choices. First, you can change your URL destination goal into a funnel, which works great if you have 3 or 4 steps in your checkout process. This can help you see where most of your conversions are lost in your multi-step process. Second, you can add a monetary value to your Goal so you can see exactly how much money you earn for each conversion. 

 You can make up to 4 sets of Goals for each field you have in your GA and then can add 5 Goals to each of these sets . You can’t delete a Goal once it starts bringing in data, but it is probable to neutralize it. In short, choose your Goals cautiously!

What to Track with a URL Destination Goal

What you should track with Goals all depends upon your company. Where do you want people to change, and what marketing aspects are in question? Are you loosing clients before they convert, but aren’t sure where? Here are some of the most accepted areas to track.
Free Trial Sign Ups & Downloads

Most companies want to make sure their freebies are making a difference. Even more than this, companies wants to know how many people from their free trials really come back and convert. If you have a page that thanks someone for downloading a free EBook or a free trial, consider putting that URL as your goal and then comparing those numbers with the number of people that convert after a 30-day period.
Sales

This is one of the most accepted goals. As discussed above when setting up your goals, you have 2 choices: make a funnel to track your customers through each step, or simply add in a URL of the thank you page that people see after they’ve made a purchase.
 

Content Form Fill-Outs

If your business is all about grabbing those leads, you might want to track if someone fills out a form to get more information about your company. This is a accepted goal for a service oriented businesses. In other words, your site doesn’t really sell product or service, rather customers fill out a form to request a quote or something similar.

Your company might also consider tracking how many people opt-in to your mailing list, fill out sign-up or registration forms, or first time commenters on your blog.  

Check Your Conversion Data: Wait a few days before checking your data. Visit your Explorer tab in GA and then click on the Goal set you formed. You will then see a nice table with all the numbers for your Goal. Track these numbers over a few months before you start making conclusions about what is the most valuable method in your marketing plan and what can go.

Seo Tips and Tricks for Optimizing Time Sensitive Pages

When it comes to content, you always have to worry about something being time responsive. Writing evergreen content, or content that will stay significant throughout time, is a great way to help keep your website solid and applicable to users searching the web. However, time sensitive content is just as significant. This type of content is a great way to keep your blog fresh and give readers what they want. It shows that you’re on top of the news and you’re ready and willing to write something that can be used instantly. It’s more specific and will help your website gain lots of instant clicks.

The question with time sensitive content, however, points back to SEO. Small businesses have to ask themselves: If something is only going to be relevant for a short period of time, what are the correct optimization tactics?

SEO for Time Sensitive Pages: How to Make Sure You’re Content Isn’t Being Wasted

It seems that the majority of companies utilize the same SEO efforts for both evergreen and time sensitive pages. While this isn’t a bad thing, and in some cases it will work just fine, understanding how time sensitive pages differ in terms of SEO is a great way to make sure your website is as successful as possible. Below are a few tips and tricks:

Be Quick. You don’t want to wait until a specific event or announcement gets too close to ramp up SEO efforts and link building (especially if you’re working in a competitive niche). You want to start building links and optimizing right away so that when the story really does go big, you’re already at the top ready to go. It’s also significant to realize that Google bots aren’t going to check out your site every single day, so if you start optimizing right way you might not even see results until the big event.

Always Keep Optimizing. Some companies get rid of an article or even a time responsive website once that time is over; however, in doing so the company loses any SEO value that page earned during that time. Even if you think a holiday season is over or a big announcement is no longer appropriate, keep the page intact in case it ever becomes relevant again. There are also ways that you can slightly change your content to become more evergreen in the future, so be sure to always keep the page optimized so you can pass on that SEO juice if you ever need it.

Anticipate. This is an overlap of the first point. You not only want to be quick when the time sensitive information does occur—you want to be ready for it even before it happens. If you know that something time sensitive is about to happen, whether it be a holiday or a potential Google algorithm update you want to write about, start your link building early. Get an idea of what keywords you may want to use and start to dabble in those when guest blogging and writing content on your own site that you may want to use as an internal link.

Know When to Change Emphasis. This works in the much the same way as anticipating an event. If you know that you have two events you want to cover, know when to focus on one and when to focus on the other. The best example here has to do with sports. As soon as the World Series gets underway, start optimizing your pages for your NFL playoff articles. Once the NFL playoffs get underway, start optimizing for baseball season.

Do you optimize your time sensitive pages differently than your other pages? What are some of the optimization tricks you use to make sure you’re getting the most from that content? Let us know your story and your thoughts in the comments below.

Expand Your Sitelinks

Google has released an update to Adwords, more specially sitelink extensions. There is now the opportunity to express your sitelinks with an extra 70 characters. It’s essentially like having ads within an ad.

What Does It Look Like

This is what sitelinks are going to look like from now on and I must say it is certainly a step in the right direction, there is much more information and as a user, I can click on a page that is most applicable to me. As an advertiser, it gives me the opportunity to list more USPs and help reduce unrelated clicks.

Tech Specs

As before, the link name remains at 25 characters. What has now been introduced is description line 1 and 2, both allowing up to 35 characters. This means that we can now use up to 95 characters per sitelink extension.

Besides the added characters, there are still a few rules that we must abide by, luckily, Google hasn’t added any more rules to sitelink extensions but they are as follows: Sitelinks cannot violate the duplicate sitelink URL policy, Sitelink text cannot use DKIs, Sitelink text cannot be the same as other sitelinks in the same ad group/campaign or the main ad that’s serving.

Why Is This Happening?

Firstly, this feature is only obtainable when you upgrade your campaigns from legacy to improved, a gentle push from Google to jump on the band wagon. Google also seem to be bringing out a lot of extensions to get better Adwords ads, such as image extensions and even call extensions. This is more than likely an attempt to attract more and more people to utilize PPC over SEO.

What I find interesting is that they have added 70 characters to sitelink extensions, not that I am complaining. However, I do recall Google reducing the sitelink name from 35 characters to 25. Their reasoning for this was that they had data to establish that sitelinks of a shorter length received a higher click through rate, so why are they undoing this? Perhaps Google was wrong about reducing the character length, although it may have resulted in a higher CTR, the bounce rate may have increased. In this case, I think it is likely that Google want to offer its users with more information to enlist pre click confidence. This will help to enlarge the quality of traffic that advertisers receive.

How to Use It

We can now use up to 4 sitelinks within a text ad. So essentially, we have 5 text ads in 1 that we can display to our potential customers. There are a few dissimilar ways you can make the most of this feature and this will depend on your type of business and what goals you hope to attain.

Since Google love examples of pizza, it would seem fitting to go after the trend. As previously explained by Google’s wonderful video explaining enhanced campaigns, for pizza there are 2 types of customers. On the move collection customers, and stay at home delivery customers. You can use one sitelink to display information like wait times and deliveries times. Another idea would be to display offers and deals that are for collection and delivery. You can actually get inventive with your descriptions and give the user 5 reasons to choose our company instead of others.

What Can We Expect

If we make the most of these extensions then we can more than likely wait for a higher CTR but what I would really count on is a higher quality of traffic from your Adwords campaign which will hopefully translate into an increase in conversions.

How to get ready For Google’s Summer Algorithm Plans

On Monday, May 13, 2013, Matt Cutts released a very interesting video to the Google Webmaster Help YouTube channel. The video, titled What should we wait for in the next few months in terms of SEO for Google?, covered a lot of ground, including upcoming changes to Penguin, Panda, SERP clustering, hacked sites, and Author Authority.

Give a look to the video for yourself below:

With so many areas being affected, let’s look at the best ways for you to protect against the upcoming changes.

Audit Your Links

The original Google Penguin update hammered sites that had insistently built links in the past. Most of those websites have not yet recovered, and some of them never will. By labeling the next major update as Penguin 2.0, Matt is purposely refusing to split hairs. This has the look of a significant upheaval for anyone still trying to game the system with any link they can get. He alludes to going “a little deeper” and it “having a little more impact.” Don’t let the word “little” fool you – this is “a little” deeper than something that caused ripples across the internet.

Paid link schemes are clearly a goal for the next round. Google showed a modicum of constraint in the first wave by only penalizing obvious schemes such as BuildMyRank (recently renamed as HP Backlinks).

Now, they have had over a year to root out anyone else playing the same game. Common sense suggests that they will set their sights on a much wider range of paid link services this go around.

The smart webmaster is pausing any paid link gaining efforts and doing a detailed audit of their existing link inventory.

Will this slow momentum? Yes, temporarily.

But will it help avoid further headaches? Probably, but it’s best to be safe.

Most of all hold your SEO provider’s feet to the fire. If you don’t already know how they are acquiring links on your behalf, have them share and defend their link acquisition strategy. Be sure you are both comfortable that this strategy is in line with white hat SEO practices and Google’s quality guidelines. As Matt says in the video, the best way to keep away from penalty is to play by the rules.

Get Off Spammy Directories and Blog Networks

Although it was not overtly stated, we can be pretty convinced that Google will penalize or deindex more blog networks and low quality directories. This is not a tidal wave you want to be caught up in. Keep in mind that this piece of the original update was a manual penalty. I don’t know how long they had been working on it before it went live, but we do know that they have now had at least 13 months to recognize additional sites to penalize.

When auditing your links, pay special attention to directories and blog networks. Start the procedure of removing links from low authority, spammy sites that have no vetting process at time of submission.

If you find one that charges a fee for being listed but has no approval process, move them to the top of the list for removal request, and later disavow if needed. This is the correct profile that Google went after last April.

Change Your Link Building Practices

With Penguin 2.0 looking like a very big deal, force the issue on link building practices today. As Matt advises, follow the rules and you should be fine. We have seen many columns about Link Earning rather than Link Building. This approach takes much more effort and time, but it also insulates you against surprises such as a major slap from Google.

Once your domain is penalized, it is likely too late. The best course of action is to stay away from it altogether.

Embrace Quality Content Marketing

The backbone of Link Earning is a hot topic today: Content Marketing.

Yes, you need site authority. But that is nowhere near the end of the story. Google is extending authority to authors and even publishers, both of which go beyond the website to the entity.

In preparing to kick off a content campaign, be sure to have the necessary markup in place to establish yourself as an author or publisher.

When starting to produce original content, hold yourself to the highest standards. Look at what keywords might drive good traffic. Take time to brainstorm high interest and engaging topics.

Write with passion and tell a story. Make us want to read your work!

If you put back old school link building with content marketing, there are multiple benefits.

Avoidance of penalties and surprises.

Increase in the number of pages indexed with the search engines.

Rapid expanded keyword coverage, which will add to search queries for which you will earn impressions.

You establish yourself and your brand as experts in your chosen topic or field.

Clean Up Any Existing Problems

Just to be safe, be sure you are aware of any problems on your site that need to be addressed. Google never outlines every single feature of their algorithm updates and penalties in advance. The safe way to go is to get everything in order before the updates hit.

Review every segment of your Google Webmaster Tools account. If there are issues, take care of them now just to be safe.

How many pages are indexed?

Is your XML sitemap working right?

How many crawl errors are the spiders logging?

What keywords are you ranking for now?

Who links to you? Are they applicable and reputable?

What content is receiving these links?

Is your page load time and overall site performance acceptable?

Is there a list of HTML improvements that you should be fixing?

These are problems we should all be addressing anyway. It never hurts to have the technical SEO aspects all in order. This shows the search engines that you take your site, its code, and the overall performance seriously.

Small Businesses Can Still Have Big SEO Success

Many small business owners feel like they can’t compete with the “big” brands simply since they don’t have the money or the manpower to attain real SEO success. But comparing your SEO success against those bigger brands might in fact be selling your own campaign short! Small businesses can have just as much SEO success as any other company; the key knows where to focus your limited resources to get the most bangs for your buck.

 Here are 3 ways small businesses can still attain big SEO success:

1. Build one quality link at a time.

Links are still the bread and butter of SEO. And although the Google Penguin update has many small business owners running scared from link building you can’t afford to ignore this crucial component of SEO for too long. They key to link building is to build one quality link at a time and to vary up the link sources as much as you can. This helps keep your link profile looking normal and can protect your website from future algorithm updates. Don’t set arbitrary link count goals for yourself as this can often lead to last minute scrambling at the end of the month, which usually means you’re building links you would have otherwise passed over. If it wasn’t a good link then why is it now that a deadline in hanging over your head?

Remember that no quality link needs to be justified! The minute you have to look at it through rose colored glasses to make a link look like a good thought is the moment you know it’s time to walk away. Relevancy and authority decide a quality link, not how easy it is to build!

2. Create content that serves your audience’s needs, not your ego’s.

Small businesses that connect with their most loyal customers on a regular basis, through simple connections can be more agile and responsive to customer needs. Content marketing doesn’t have to be a huge investment of time or even intense amounts of writing. Just quick announcements on G+ or pictures/comments on Facebook might be sufficient for their audience.

Your content marketing campaign has to be about your audience and what they need; it should not be about how awesome your company is. What kind of information is your target audience looking for? What problems are they trying to solve? Your content should become a resource for your audience and over time your authority and online brand presence will grow. Great content can also earn you high quality links, which is like killing two birds with one stone! The key is to figure out what your audience needs and to give it to them. A company blog, a strong social media presence, and an ear to the ground can help your small business build its online presence over time.

Just remember that building authority through content marketing takes time. It might be months or even longer before your company blog starts getting much traffic. But you have to be committed to the long haul for your SEO program to work.

3. Focus on the niches your competition has overlooked.

If you run a small floral shop in Boston chances are you will never have the same online brand presence that 1-800-Flowers does. But that doesn’t mean you can’t control your own local market with a strong SEO program! Your shop can cater to wedding parties, high-end hotels that throw events, gardening enthusiasts, local restaurants and more. The key is to figure out what niches your competition isn’t in or has overlooked and claim that space for yourself. SEO is about positioning your website so that when visitors come looking your site is ready to go! The goal is to not interrupt their online experience with ads and banners, but create enough touch points so that when they need you they can easily find you and do business with your brand.

Google Doodle Celebrates 'Where the Wild Things Are' Author Maurice Sendak

Maurice Sendak was born on this date 85 years ago. A Google Doodle today pays compliment to the author and illustrator known for such children's books as "Where the Wild Things Are," "In the Night Kitchen", and "Outside over There."

Sendak captured the imagination and hearts of children and adults alike through his imaginative storytelling and colorful illustrations. If you aren't well-known with his books, you may remember the 2009 screen adaptation of the 1963 classic children's book, "Where the Wild Things Are."

Today's Google Doodle takes visitors on an animated journey through Sendak's alternate storybook worlds, and ends with a gathering of the creatures from his tales in celebration of the author.

Explains Doodler Jennifer Hom:

To honor such a cherished cultural icon is no small task. How can anyone sing the praises of Maurice Sendak with enough affection? The doodlers and I decided to let Sendak's characters do the talking, or the walking rather. The doodle is a kind of parade-- sixteen of his characters march through their stories and gathers around a birthday cake decked with candles that read "85." Even his dog, Herman, makes an appearance to wish Maurice a warm happy birthday.

Google gave us a sneak peek into the development of the artistic process that made today's Doodle come to life. Here, you can see how one piece developed over time:

 A Look into the Mind and motivation Behind Sendak's Books

Sendak had a somewhat difficult past. Born to immigrants, he lost family members in the Holocaust, and said he drew inspiration for his stories – stories that many believed were too dark for children – from his own life.

In a 2004 interview with PBS, Sendak talked about how his storytelling style was dissimilar than others in his genre. He told it like it was. He painted a less-than-perfect picture, and says that really resonated with some.

On the creation of "Where the Wild Things Are," Sendak said he was "talking about kids I knew and me. A book, an American book, where the child actually daunts his mother and threatens her. No way. No way."

But the children who did connect with the storyline would write him fan mail, asking him difficult questions about life that he says they were too afraid to ask their parents. "I've known many children, many unhappy and many troubled children who don't know how to talk about it," Sendak said.

"They have to know its possible things are bad. But, they are surrounded by people who love them and will defend them, but cannot hide the fact that there is something bad."

Facebook Simplifies Advertising Options

Facebook has decided to streamline its ad options so that over time, advertisers can simply “come to Facebook and tell us what they are trying to attain, and our ads tools will automatically suggest the right mixture of products to help them achieve it.”

Facebook says its goal is to decrease the number of ad units from 27 to fewer than half that number, while at the same time “mapping all of our ads to the business objectives marketers care about – be it in-store sales, online conversions, app installs” and so on.

The move will make simpler many areas of its ad options over the next six months, including:

• Removing the Questions product for Pages.
• Removing the online Offer product.
• Comprise the best of sponsored stories in all ads.
• Making ads look more reliable.

Here’s an example of the consistent look and feel Facebook is referring to:

Facebook said the decision is based on feedback from marketers collected during the past year, and that the insight helped to make a decision what should stay and what should go.

“While each product may be good on its own, we realized that many of them accomplish the same goals,” Facebook said in its announcement.

5 Ways Social Media Supports All Critical Areas of Any Company

Making social media work for your company is not a matter of "if". It's a question of "how".

Social media marketing affects and supports all critical areas of the organization – from sales and marketing to HR and client services.

Here's how you can show those pesky, stubborn, decision-makers that social is a key investment for the growth of their organization and has multiple benefits to each discipline.

How Social Media Supports Sales

This is my favorite subject. Social media is the place where online relationship development happens.

Your salespeople need to know how to use social media as their primary sales tool. Salespeople have a tremendous advantage to find out everything about a prospect via social and use social as a relationship management tool (CRM and connect with prospects via warm introductions and networking).

This is obvious in LinkedIn, but there are also less obvious, but worthy sales opportunities in Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. In all social networks, salespeople can find, connect, engage, build relationships, and sell. Sales are the key to success of any company and social media is the key to business development in a mobile-social world.

How Social Media Supports HR

Just as in sales, HR professionals can utilize social media to find top talent. Again, LinkedIn, my tool of choice, clearly illustrates this. Ninety-three percent of all recruiters use LinkedIn to find their next client.

In fact, social media has become a place where HR people have truly taken the lead. Understanding the high demand for great talent as a competitive edge, HR pros have taken to social media sites like LinkedIn almost like teenagers to texting.

How Social Media Supports PR

This is the where social media truly rocks. PR professionals and those managing the reputation of companies know well that social media is the core tool for building rabid fans around a brand and then protecting that brand.

Social media is the place to post and promote events (before, during and after), whether they are for B2C or B2B purposes. Reaching reporters and driving community relations can be done on sites like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Tools such as Social Mention, Google Alerts, and fancier tools like Viral Heat, HootSuite, and others provide those managing the brand with immediate visibility into target brand perception. Commenting and sharing stories on sites like Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit and others allow PR pros to control the online brand.

Any company that engages in PR needs a substantial social media program. Period.

How Social Media Supports Marketing

In marketing, we're looking to build traffic and visibility to enable qualified lead generation. Where else but in social media can original content be shared to drive interest around your company brand?

Sites like the Google+, Digg, Reddit, Stumbleupon, YouTube, Flickr, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, to name a few can help marketing teams get their content out to influencers and buyers alike. Social can take the marketing message deeper and with more engagement than most other marketing vehicles because social is just that, social.

Social signals impact SEO as well, so social content sharing and authorship of valuable optimized content assist marketing teams in gaining organic search visibility. The blog as the cornerstone for the delivery of the marketing content is a social tool that provides various marketing opportunities from viral sharing of posts to engagement by commenting.

How Social Media Supports the Big Boss

Finally, the head-honcho, the CEO, C-suite or board member who wants to share his or her thought-leadership. Social media sites like LinkedIn, Twitter, and YouTube give way for executives to build and grow visibility around their personal brands (with the help of their PR and marketing teams).

Online events such as webinars, webcasts, and Google Hangouts can be driven by social networking efforts. Executives who commit to driving thought-leadership can do so easily with the use and consistent creation of content via a blog. Content can take the forms of live audio, video capture and creation, and editorial on topics that matter to the target industry.

Guidelines to Save Your Site from Getting Penalized By Google Penguin Update

Yesterday, I read a post about future Google penguin update by Berry Schwartz. In that article he talked about the release of new penguin update soon. I thought Google had slowed down its back to back updates chain from 24 January 2013, but this update made me to rethink about ways to stay safe from the impacts of the approaching Google updates.

As Google is trying to get better the quality of search results, many previous techniques do not work now. After research I found some techniques which can be successful to avoid penalty from Google penguin updates:

Content Marketing

Creating and sharing an informative content to get the attention of people to market business online is all about Content Marketing. Sometimes people think that blogging is the only way of content marketing, but they are wrong. Here I am explaining all possible ways of online content promotion:

Promote your content socially amongst your friends and colleagues on different sites like Facebook, twitter, Google plus etc.

Promoting the content in the form of videos on different quality sites like YouTube, Vimeo,Viddler etc.

Documents, slides and PDF are also good ways to share content on dissimilar websites like, Docstoc, SlideShare and AuthorStream.

“By creating almost 50 infographics, we were able to make over 2 million visitors and 41,000 backlinks for under $30,000”- as quoted by Neil Patel (Co-founder of Kissmetrics). So it is excellent idea to use blog content in the form of an infographic and post it on different sites.

Guest posting is also one of the best promotion techniques to increase awareness about your products and services. It helps to construct more links for your blog or site. Interviews posting is also a possible way to engage users on your blog or site.

Podcast is another good way to use your content in audio form and then share it on other sites.

Content on a blog alone is like “a tree falling in a forest and no one is around to hear it”-Wikipedia. So you should know the mediums that people are using to share their contents.

Social Media

Social media sharing is the finest practice to connect or attract users through social media sites. Social media sites allow people to like, share, update and join activities & gain traffic from people that are using the social sites.

Why people are connected with different brands and businesses publicly? What people find in those brands”? The answer is simple. People are connected with a brand in social media due to three basic factors:

For enjoyment like “Barack Obama”, people are encouraged of his personality and people enjoy updated information on their Social Media pages.

35M Facebook likes

2792315 Google plus ones

139K Twitter Followers

For interest like “Ford Motor Company”, people love cars and are interested to know more about the advanced features and quality design of new cars.

1.8M Facebook likes

2,068,190 Google plus ones

199K Twitter Followers

For information, a good example is “SEOmoz.org”. It is an organization which provides information linked to internet marketing.

109K Facebook likes

33,133 Google plus ones

208K Twitter Followers

I read one article on Mashable about “Social Media Lessons from a Successful Food Truck” and I learned some very good things about social media promotion:

Linking of social media sites makes it easy to endorse content from one site to another automatically.

Social media is not only about engaging people but is also about encouraging them to vote, like and share your information among their friends too.

One thing I like the most is sharing “the story’s behind your brands”. It inspires users to follow you and grow your business in a cost efficient manner.

Site Structure and Navigation:

Site structure and navigation is a very significant factor as it influences SEO authority of a website. An organized navigation structure not only help visitor to locate about what he is searching for, but also encourage the people to search other sections of the site also. An optimized web page structure is a good practice to make your website SEO friendly. It is also significant to direct the course of link equity throughout the site.

I will not talk much about the patterns of site structure as you can easily find several examples on internet. I just want to share the significant factors to design the site structure and navigation properly.

It is always necessary to connect each page of website to the home page so that when visitors go deep in the site, they can get back to home page with just one click.

A breadcrumb trail is helpful to navigate visitor within the site. It enables user to know at what page they are and also helps them to get back on parent page easily.

Internal linking of web pages is very significant to control and decrease the depth of website.

Internal linking also allows the usage of anchor text around the site and improves the visitor’s experience as well. Site structure and navigation are the crucial elements for an outstanding SEO practice. It makes the content easily findable within the website for both users and search engines. Effective changes in site structure can present solid SEO benefits to your site and moreover, the spiders will also think your site as a high quality one.