Tag Archive for Content Equals Money

Is Your Business Ready For Social Search?

January 12, 2013 admin Uncategorized

Is Your Business Ready For Social Search? image google social search 300x1832012 saw a big shift in many search engines towards a more social search. With Google’s search engine integrating more social information from Google+ and other social networks, and Facebook’s plans to introduce new social search features, 2013 should lead to an even more social SEO strategy.

What is Social Search?

Social search uses the social network activity from the person performing the search to deliver more personalized and relevant search results.

Google implements social search by incorporating your Google+ community and its visited and liked pages. Google’s search also integrates statistics from social media networks to rank pages and results.

With Facebook’s massive user base and comparatively active community, its social search has the potential to be incredibly powerful. With all of the likes, shares, and comments on your social network, Facebook could deliver search results that are much more relevant to your likes and your community.

The Importance of Creating Content for Social Searches

Regularly creating and sharing content can make a huge difference for your results in social search. Creating new content to share on social media networks helps establish citations and keywords for your business, and gives your social network more opportunities to like and share your content.

There are many different types of content that should be shared to create better SEO, from social media posts, videos, comments and conversations, blogs, and more. Make sure to use your business’ keywords in your content – this will help build keyword citations and help search engines connect your business with your industry.

Update Content Frequently

It’s also important to update content and social media pages frequently. Regularly updated sites rank better in search results. It’s also good to relate your content to current trends, wherever applicable. Regular keyword research can help you learn what popularly searched keywords can apply to your business. If you can apply these keywords and topics to your content you can pull a lot of traffic from popular search terms.

Build Social Networks

It’s more important than ever to build your business’ profile on social networks. Social networks can help you connect with fans as well as other businesses and professionals in your and related industries. Building a strong and active social network around your business pages has many SEO benefits in social searches.

Will 2013 Be The Year Social Search Takes over SEO?

Search engines are definitely moving in a much more social direction, and I expect to see more social features integrated into search engines over the year. When Facebook introduces the social search features it has been working on, it could have a major impact in how most people search.

With all of the movement towards social search in 2012, and many ways that social search features are likely to arise in 2013, it’s more important than ever for your business to implement a strong social strategy to build stronger SEO performance.

How will your business prepare for social search?

Is Your Business Ready For Social Search? image

This article originally appeared on Content Equals Money and has been republished with permission.

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Article source: http://www.business2community.com/social-media/is-your-business-ready-for-social-search-0375269

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Keyword Research Basics Part 2: Developing Your Keyword List Like a …

October 29, 2012 admin Uncategorized

In my previous post, I mentioned that there’s more to keyword research than just picking some words out of a hat. That doesn’t mean there is no place for brainstorming in the keyword research process. The first step to keyword research is to put together a list of keywords, of course!

SearchEngineLand’s Jenny Halasz has an excellent set of questions on how to research keywords. I’ve turned the tables on these so you can ask yourself these questions and get good results, and I’ve provided a hypothetical example to help step you through the thinking behind each step.

How would you describe what your business does to someone that has never heard of you?

If you sell golf lessons, you might think that it’s a good sales pitch to tell customers that your lessons “will keep players off of the range and on the course,” or that they’ll “sink more birdies and play under par.” How many people seeking golf lessons would search for those terms, though? Wouldn’t a beginner be more likely to search for “improve your golf swing” and “become a better golfer?”

Part of online marketing is appealing to visitors that have no idea who you are and what you do, even if your products and services are specialized for a particular audience. Cut through the jargon and buzzwords in your content development, and focus on keywords that are accurate and universally understood. Building a real-world “elevator pitch” will help you focus on the keywords and phrases that matter the most in your business.

How are your offerings special? What makes your products or services stand out from your competitors?

If you take pride in selling golf lessons that are half the price of competitors’ golf lessons, your keywords can become more focused and more valuable. Instead of focusing on optimizing for “golf lessons,” you can now focus on optimizing for “cheap golf lessons.”

Stating your core values and competitive edge will help you with keyword targeting: getting specific, higher-conversion keywords out of your generic keyword lists. Fewer people may search for “cheap golf lessons,” relative to “golf lessons.” By simply adding “cheap,” it implies that they want to convert on something cost-effective, which is exactly what you offer.

What are some similar products or services that you don’t see as a competitor?

Your golf lessons would be impossible without a good set of golf clubs and golf balls—suddenly your keyword possibilities open up to include all of the various pieces of equipment your customers will need. You’ll need a venue to boot, so you can optimize your golf lesson keywords to specific local courses, driving ranges and pro shops, as well.

Complimentary products and services make excellent alternative keywords. These will help you pull visitors in from sources you might not normally tap into, and they will give you additional content marketing material to work with.

What are your most profitable products or services? Which services do you focus on the most, when, and why?

If you make the most money from your two-week golf classes, you can optimize your keywords and advertisements to attract people towards that package. You’ve enticed them with your best deal, but if they don’t have the time or money for two weeks, or want something more intensive and longer, you can provide other packages.

Even if you offer other services, you should devote the majority of your resources to promoting your most valuable packages. This ensures that the traffic you attract comes into your website already interested in your best product. Getting new visitors on-site is your biggest challenge. Remember that visitors can browse your other offerings once they arrive.

What are your ten most important keywords?

Are your golf lessons offered to people within a certain distance of you? Which cities do those people live in? Do you want to emphasize your low prices? Do you offer discounts for students? Might you potentially want to rank for golf equipment in the future, or are golf lessons the only product you want to offer in the long-term?

Determining your top ten keywords forces you to prioritize what’s most important to your business, and it will help you determine the keywords you believe will help you achieve your goals most effectively.

Turning Your Keyword List into a Keyword Strategy: Long Tail and Generic Keywords

Now that you’ve got a list of well-planned and thoroughly brainstormed keywords, it’s time to find the ones that will do the most work for your website. Do you have enough long tail keywords?

“Long tail” keywords are longer than your typical one or two word generic keywords, and they help you focus on attracting traffic from customers that are more willing to convert. Fewer people will search for these longer keywords, but long tail keywords help you earn more valuable conversions. The closer a search user is to your exact long tail keyword in their search terms, the closer they are to wanting to convert on your products and services. Long tail keywords make excellent PPC keywords, as they are not only going to cost you less money each month, but the visitors you get from them are more likely to spend money with you.

More people will search for the shorter, generic one or two word keywords, and these will likely attract more traffic, but not necessarily more conversions. They make bad PPC keywords because they’re more commonly searched, meaning they will be way more expensive per click. Optimizing your web content with these broad keywords doesn’t cost anything, however, and helps you rank better in Google.

That’s a lot to take in for today, so in our next segment, we’ll tackle data-driven keyword research. Only the most experienced content writing service could show you how easy keyword research can really be, so stick with us and we’ll help you buff up your keyword development practices.

This article originally appeared on Content Equals Money and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

Article source: http://www.business2community.com/seo/keyword-research-basics-part-2-developing-your-keyword-list-like-a-professional-0312450

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Keywords Matter! Why You Should Care About Keyword Research

October 23, 2012 admin Uncategorized

Bad things are happening to good people all over the internet. Thousands, if not millions of online marketers, businesspeople and retailers are struggling for traffic, performing abysmally in search results, and have no idea where they went wrong. They might have the best web design, or some of the fanciest new site features, but they dropped the ball on one of the first and most important steps. These people are all casualties of bad keyword practices.

Keywords are the fundamental building blocks of any good online marketing campaign. If you have any hopes of making it big on the internet, you’ve got to do your research, and you need to do it right. We’re here to show you how to do it right, from start to finish.

What Are Keywords, and Are They Necessary?

Keywords are more than just the words you describe your website with. Keywords are the words and phrases you anticipate other visitors and customers will use in search engines to find you. Keywords can’t only make sense to you, they have to make sense to everyone else. 90% of internet users will look for information through search engines, and you need to make sure that they can find you by optimizing for the right keywords.

Doing the research and finding the right keywords people will use to find your services is what separates the casual web users from the serious online business people. You have to know where, when, and how to move away from your own short-list of “personal favorite” keywords, and start digging into facts, figures, data points and research on real keywords that perform well. It’s tough, but it’s manageable, and you can do it with the right help.

First Steps: Understanding What Makes A Keyword “Valuable”

Which of these keywords is more valuable? “Cheap golf lessons,” or “golf lessons?”

At first glance, it’s hard to tell. There’s only one word difference between the two, “cheap.” If you had to value one phrase over the other, surely “cheap golf lessons” would be the better keyword. It conveys intent and purpose. Plus, who doesn’t like a discount?

When you look at the actual data in software like Google’s Keyword Research Tool, you might be surprised. “Golf lessons” is such a widely used keyword, you could spend far too much money on PPC ads with it. Trying to rank for this keyword is too difficult because it sees millions of searches each month—and millions of other sites are competing for those search results. It isn’t worthless, but the alternative is more appealing.

“Cheap golf lessons” is more specific, and sees a fraction of the monthly searches that its more general alternative does. Although it could be a more cost-effective PPC keyword, you might see more conversions from this keyword by using it in your content marketing optimizations. Both of these keywords could be great for on-site blog writing and content generation. If you had to choose one or the other to spend money on in a PPC campaign, the more specific the keyword, the better.

There is a difference between a keyword and a valuable keyword: a valuable keyword sends people that are more willing to convert on your products to your website, pre-qualifies visitors with added context in phrases, and helps you convert more and faster on higher-quality search results. High-value keywords might be longer than the generic keyword you initially thought you would use, but they will produce more conversions and will result in much lower PPC advertising costs overall. A plain old keyword chosen without research or strategy might eventually do all of that. If you’re lucky.

Keyword Research Is Absolutely Vital

When you get down to it, keywords are easily the most important part of your online marketing strategies. They determine how people will find you, how visible you are online, and how relevant you are in related searches. Finding valuable keywords is part scientific exploration and part creative planning, and finding valuable keywords is crucial to SEO success. Knowing how to use keywords is another valuable skill, and overdoing it can get you in trouble.

Over the next few posts, I’ll be exploring these steps further and teaching you how to get started on in-depth keyword research like the pros. After that, we’ll look at best practices for content generation: how you can use those keywords to create effective, organic, search engine optimized content that pulls customers directly to you.

This article originally appeared on Content Equals Money and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/keywords-matter-why-you-should-care-about-keyword-research-0311382

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Web Content Gone Wrong: Rehabilitate Your Site, Stat!

July 26, 2012 admin Uncategorized

Probably the biggest component of my job as a professional writer is blogging for business. Given how popular the blog is these days when it comes to attracting clients and building thesales funnel, it’s not surprising that when most people call upon a professional content marketer, they’re looking for a way to make their blog shine.

However, there is also another component to content marketing that is all-too-often overlooked – website content. To define, website content is the static wordage on your site. Your “about us page,” your “product page” and your “home page” are generally going to be full of static content that won’t update nearly as much as say, a blog or an article bank.

Having web content that counts is incredibly important when it comes to making a watertight content strategy. Consider your blog the way that you interact with people at a cocktail party: it’s timely; it’s always lively; it charms, entertains, and impresses on a regular basis. Your web content, on the other hand, is like your home. If your blog is good enough, oftentimes interested readers will click through to your site to see what your business looks like on the home front.

…and if your business’ content is a mess, it’s going to send those curious lookers right back out again. Your website content needs to work alongside your blog so that when the blog impresses, your home content also shines. If you’d like to read a little more in depth about what to do when it comes to making your web content count, check out the first installment of my content primer here: Content Primer #1: Static Site Content – Like a Little Black Dress.

When you’re back, know that this particular blog is about something more insidious – namely, what not to do with your web content. As much as it’s good to know the rules, it’s also good to know the no-nos. There are several ways that web content can flop, and I’m here to make sure that your site doesn’t turn into an episode of Good Websites Gone Bad.

Beware of Keywords.

Coming up with a competent keyword strategy is a very good way to get the search engines to pay attention to a website. Virtually everybody with three cents and a domain understands that keywords are a part of an overall SEO strategy. But the trouble is that many people don’t understand how to use keywords properly, and the improper use of keywords not only turns off clients, but also could damage your website in the eyes of the search engines.

The proper use of keywords in blogs and site content is actually far more complex than just shoving as many keywords into your content as possible. I’ve written at length about the evils of keyword stuffing – the practice of pushing so many keywords phrases into content that it becomes unreadable.

Really, the entire goal of keywords is to write them in such a way that they do not become the main feature of the text. Essentially, if your reader can sit back and pick out the keywords from your text, you’re probably using too many of them.

If you really have no idea where to start, I highly, highly recommend checking out this mind-blowing post from SEOmoz about Perfecting Keyword Targeting On-Page Optimization. It’s a bit of an old post and a bit of a read, but it’s so incredibly relevant to the proper use of keywords I could jump up and down and write a haiku about it. If you’ll notice, even back in 2009, on-page keyword usage only accounted for about 15% of Google’s algorithm.

Once you’ve read the original post, skip over to SEOmoz’s 2011 rendition of the same thing. Keyword use dropped to 11% of the algorithm.

This isn’t meant to say that keywords are entirely useless when it comes to optimizing your web content. In fact, keywords do indeed matter, but the important thing to remember is that they should be used organically. If you’re sitting around thinking how to work the word “widget” into your writing, you’re using keywords improperly.

Don’t fall into the trap of “the more I repeat word X, the more attention Google will pay to me.” It isn’t true. Google has come out and said that keyword stuffing is bad, and it will penalize sites that do it.

So, yes, use keywords. But be natural about it, man!

Grammar, please.

Of course, this seems obvious, but it’s actually something that really needs to be paid attention to. Bad grammar makes the writer look uneducated at worst and untrustworthy at best. After all, if you can’t take the time to know the difference between “affect” and “effect,” how detail-oriented will you be with the customer?

To be honest, I’d say that the occasional grammar or spelling error is forgivable in a blog. Mostly because, well, blogs are constantly updated and while they should be proofread, sometimes mistakes happen. It’s the internet.

But your web content? Your static web content is static, and you really should take the time to go through it with a fine-toothed comb and make sure that the wordage that stays on your page is completely and 100% grammatically correct. It’s worth it to pay an outside pair of eyes to go over it if you can.

For those who might want to learn a little more about grammar, you should definitely check out Grammar Girl. It’s a wonderful website that’s chock full of grammar tips and explanations which are presented in a consumable format. If I might toot my own horn a little more, I have a post called 37 Grammar Rules You Ain’t Got which can get you started.

Don’t be bland.

I do seem to be referencing myself a lot in this post, but as I’ve said before bland is bad. Since web content is pretty uniform across the board – I mean, most companies have an “about us” page, right? – lots of people fall into a rut when it comes to explaining the same stuff that is always explained.

Make sure that your web content has something unique to say. Yes, an “about us” page isn’t unique in its own right, but your company is, isn’t it? What differentiates your company from the myriad of other companies that are selling the same thing?

It’s important to take time and distill your own company’s uniqueness before tackling site content. Spend some time with yourself and figure out your company’s voice. Are you small and scrappy? Dignified? Innovative?

When you figure out how your company talks, you’ll have a much easier time making things unique. A good way to do this is to sit down with a voice document and answer questions. If your company was a car, what would it drive? If it went out to dinner, what would it eat? If it went on a date, where would it go?

These questions might seem entirely fanciful, but remember that it’s important for your company to “speak” through your web content. Since your online customers can’t meet the business owner and employees directly as they might in a brick-and-mortar store, the web content is going to speak for you. If you could say anything to the client, what would you say?

There are many ways that website content can go wrong, and most of the time it’s more due to an oversight rather than an outright desire to make good websites go bad. If you pay a little more attention to your static web content, it’ll come back to you in spades – I promise!

What tips do you have to make your static web content shine?

This article originally appeared on Content Equals Money and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

Article source: http://www.business2community.com/content-marketing/web-content-gone-wrong-rehabilitate-your-site-stat-0228745

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Fixing Your Website’s Blind Spots: Looking beyond Analytics

July 22, 2012 admin Uncategorized

We’re a big fan of website analytics at Content Equals Money. We keep a careful eye on our website performance, and our analytics data helps us dig up specific details that we need to make profitable decisions. We know just how important it is to keep good data that provides actionable insights into how customers interact with our website. Our successes in the past and the decisions we make for our future depend heavily on our website analytics; and as our company grows more robust, so will our data.

Today, we’d like to share with you one of the most valuable and most difficult lessons we’ve learned about website analytics. This elusive secret to success when it comes to website analytics sounds simple, but it is immensely powerful. Are you ready? Drumroll please…

Don’t take your analytics too seriously.

Analytics Don’t Decide Conversion Tactics, They Assist Them

Okay, that may be a little misleading. By all means, you should take your analytics seriously. The data your website produces is immensely valuable in helping you make decisions for your business. That’s all they should be used for, though: helping you make decisions.

You might be surprised by how many businesses get so tied up in their analytics. It’s too easy for your data to take over the decision process, instead of intelligent conclusions made by experienced businesspeople. Businesses that let analytics data take control of their company’s direction end up serving only their immediate online needs, and not their whole business.

If you pay too much attention to analytics from your website or business blog, you may lose sight of your ultimate goals and aspirations. Opportunities for growth and new, radical ideas are also harder to see and act on when you have your nose buried in site data.

Your Analytics Have “Blind Spots” That Can’t Be Fixed

Offline conversions are often the victim of analytics blind spots. Here’s a perfect example illustrating just how it happens.

Let’s say that your art supply company has a PPC ad campaign for the keyword “art supplies” and “acrylic paint.” Your “acrylic paint” keyword has fewer clicks, but ultimately leads to higher conversions. Your “art supplies” ad has far more clicks than “acrylic paint,” but doesn’t produce nearly as many conversions. Your data is telling you to eliminate “art supplies” if you have to choose only one PPC ad to continue running.

But what happens if you remove the “art supplies” PPC ad? Your website will lose the source of more numerous clicks and visits, and your competitors will more than likely move into that online ad space when you exit, meaning you’re essentially handing over more exposure to your competitors. Furthermore, have you looked at your call-in and in-store sales? An increase in offline sales and conversions could be the result of your online efforts—“art supplies” is a major keyword that people often use to find more information about a store; like its hours, its product line, and its location. Those offline conversions are obviously not going to be tracked in your analytics.

If I were in this situation, keeping both up is optimal. I may not realize that a broad keyword that underperforms online may be driving sales through my front door. With some creative customer research, I could probably measure offline sales as a function of online marketing. Understanding the results that aren’t tracked by your website analytics will protect you from making any decisions that accidentally do more harm than good to your business.

Real-World Example: Here Lies BlackBerry, Done In By Their Own Data

If I had to pick an example of any company that paid too much attention to data and too little attention to the real world, my first choice would have to be Research In Motion. RIM produces the iconic BlackBerry line of smartphones and mobile devices, and if you’ve paid attention to tech news at all over the past six months, you’ve probably heard that they aren’t doing so hot lately.

For almost a decade, RIM did one thing very well: BlackBerry handsets with luxurious, full keyboards and mobile devices that could simply get more done than competing mobile phones. For years, RIM produced some of the most advanced mobile phones on the market. Market dominance made RIM believe that nothing could beat their products…until smartphones came along. The iPhone and Android phones made the BlackBerry look like a cheap toy, and even RIM’s most trusted clients bailed on them for shiny new technology.

RIM is attempting to revitalize their brand with a new operating system, but the entire handset division of their company may be sold off to the highest bidder before that new OS can even come out, and they’re already facing thousands of layoffs and major budget cuts to make ends meet. RIM was so focused on their own data that they weren’t paying enough attention to the rest of the market and their new competition; and now there’s a good chance they may not survive their mistakes.

Don’t Let Your Analytics Distract You

Smart business owners know that even if their entire business is online-only, their analytics aren’t the answer to the decisions they need to make for their company. Analytics don’t magically spell out a path to success for your company. They provide justifiable data that supports larger decisions made on instinct, research, and experience.

We understand this perfectly—even though our business is online-only, we get plenty of calls and emails that aren’t through our “official” conversion paths, and those leads aren’t reflected in our analytics. If you’re looking for the right service that can help you get a grip on your data with content that attracts more customers and drives more conversions, drop us a line!

This article originally appeared on Content Equals Money and has been republished with permission.

Find out how to syndicate your content with Business 2 Community.

Article source: http://www.business2community.com/online-marketing/fixing-your-websites-blind-spots-looking-beyond-analytics-0220882

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