Archive for the ‘Link Popularity’ Category

Four Reasons Haters Are Good for Your Company

December 20th, 2011 admin

 Your company will always have haters—unhappy customers who go out of their way to trash your product, service or customer service at every opportunity. “They often find their way onto social media, thanks to the low barrier of entry and promise that any invisible comment can find its way onto the highly visible first page of Google results,” writes Rohit Bhargava at the Influential Marketing Blog. But they’re actually good for your business. Here’s why:

They highlight points of vulnerability. Look past the vitriol and ask yourself: Do the haters have a point? While they’re reacting in an unconstructive way, a genuine grievance might drive their rage. Addressing that flaw only strengthens your company.

Their minds can be changed. Most of your haters won’t harbor deep-seated animosity. Perhaps they felt slighted by customer service, or misled by a salesperson. “If you can find a way to fix that experience and make it right,” he notes, “that same person can be transformed into your biggest advocate.”

They validate your social media efforts. Let’s say you’ve spent a lot of time building relationships at Facebook and Twitter. If a disgruntled customer starts hating on your brand, there’s a good chance loyal customers will rise to your defense. Observers will see the complaints—but they’ll also see the rebuttals.

They keep people talking about your brand. Bhargava says he doesn’t believe that any publicity is good publicity. But if you find a way to take control of the conversation, you’ll wind up with positive publicity you wouldn’t otherwise have.

The Po!nt: Welcome your company’s haters—and use their agitation to fuel positive change.

by MarketingProfs

Posted in Link Popularity, SEO Tags: , , , , , , , No Comments »

The Four-Step Plan for Word-of-Mouth Lead Generation

November 18th, 2011 admin

“Here’s the big news,” writes Andy Sernovitz in the book Social BOOM! “It’s not social MEDIA. It’s SOCIAL media. It’s about real people and the conversations they have.” In other words, a presence at online networks like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn isn’t enough. To generate word-of-mouth leads, you’ll also need excellent social skills—and here’s how to go on the charm offensive:

Be interesting.  Do you tell friends about dull companies, products or advertisements? Do you arrange introductions for people who bore you silly? Of course not. According to Sernovitz, there’s a good way to gauge your word-of-mouth potential. Simply ask: Would anyone tell a friend about this?

Make it easy.  Word-of-mouth relies on a simple message—a single, memorable line that people are likely to repeat when describing your product or service. “Anything longer than a sentence is too much,” he says. “It’ll get forgotten or mangled.”

Make people happy.  Customers who love your company will enthusiastically share their experiences with friends. “You will get more word of mouth from making people happy than anything else you could possibly do,” he notes.

Earn trust and respect. No one will risk her own reputation by recommending a company with a reputation for iffy business practices. But when you’re known for treating customers, partners and employees with great care, referrals become a no-brainer.

The Point: Like it or not, word-of-mouth marketing is a popularity contest. And you’ll win when you get people can’t resist you, your product or service and your integrity.

Posted in Blog, Copywriting, E-Mail Marketing, Link Popularity, On Page Optimization, Search Engines, SEM No Comments »

Why Both Weíght Loss and Google Rankings are Limited Goals

October 27th, 2011 admin

By Jill Whalen

My husband and I were talking the other night about one of his pet peeves: When people start exercising and eating healthier, they usually measure their success by how much weight they’ve lost (or not) as shown to them by their trusty scale. It annoys him because, while losing weight is one sign that you’re doing things right, after a certain point, it can only tell you so much.

It reminded me of my own pet peeve: how people usually measure the success of their SEO work by checking how well their site ranks in the search engines. Yet, similar to weíght loss being a poor main goal for your health and fitness regime, where your pages rank for specific keyword phrases is also a poor main goal.

Healthier Body – Healthier Website

Your principal goal when eating in moderation and exercising regularly should be to become healthier overall, and ultimately to live a longer and more satisfying life. And your chief goal with an SEO program should be to create a better overall website and make more money from it – which, incidentally, can also make for a more satisfying life!

Writing articles nobody is really interested in about the history of your products is like eating lots of junk food. It’s empty calories. There’s no value in it to anyone (except perhaps the donut store) and it keeps you from eating the good stuff. Writing keyword-filled content just for the sake of search engines works the same way: It keeps you from adding true value to your website. While you can try to cover your big ole body in a floral mu’umu’u, let’s face it, you’re still out of shape underneath it all.

And it’s the same with your website. There’s no sense adding good content on top of bad. If it’s already full of junk (food), it’s time to trim it down and cut out the crap (content).

I’m not saying that weighing yourself and checking up on your rankings are utterly useless. In the beginning, both can be a good way to make sure you’re on the right track. Let’s say you get all into your new health kick because none of your clothes fit and you can barely make it up a flight of stairs without having to stop for a rest. The more you exercise and eat right, the better the numbers on your scale are going to look. This can definitely keep you motivated. But the weíght loss itself is only one result of your success. Other results might be that you look and feel better. In fact, even if you lost only a few pounds, if you’re eating better and exercising regularly, you’re likely a whole lot healthier and may even have a lot more energy and overall focus.

When your rankings for a few key terms move from “nowhere to be found” to being on the first page in Google, it shows you that you’re certainly on the right track. But here’s what is more important: You’re likely seeing not only more visitors to your website, but more targeted visitors. And just as more energy results from a good exercise regimen, more conversions and sales come from more targeted website visitors.

But you can only lose so much weight (and check so many rankings).

If you keep up with your fitness program you’ll probably get to a point where – even though you’re back in your skinny jeans – the needle on the scale has stopped moving in the “right” direction. When you measure your success by how many pounds you’re losing, this can be confusing. You know you’re exercising often and eating correctly, but can’t understand why you’re not still losing weight. And this is where my husband’s pet peeve comes in.

According to him, the more you exercise, the more muscle mass you put on your body. This in turn may even cause you to gain weight because muscle weighs more than fat. At this point, it’s silly to be constantly weighing yourself and worrying why you’re not losing weight anymore. So at this point you can change your goals. After all, you are probably looking fabulous with a whole new body shape. You’re healthy, fit and trim. Your scale isn’t measuring your lost percentage of body fat, nor is it taking into consideration the fact that you’re stronger and no longer short of breath. So why keep looking at the scale?

It’s the same with your website.

Once you know you’re on the right track with your SEO, you no longer need to check your rankings. They simply don’t tell the whole story. Rankings don’t make you money or make your site convert. They don’t show you how healthy (or not) your website is.

After the initial stages of your SEO program, it’s time to put away your rank checking software (or scale) and adopt new goals – start counting how often your phone rings, your contact form gets filled out, and how fabulously your website is converting all those extra targeted search engine visitors. Then sit down and have a healthy fruit smoothie – because you deserve it!

Posted in Blog, E-Mail Marketing, Link Popularity, Marketing, On Page Optimization, SEO, Social Media No Comments »

Nine Steps to Social Networking Success

October 13th, 2011 admin

By Wayne English

Social Networking has taken the world of business by storm. Properly used, it can establish you as an expert in your field, keep you in-touch with customers, sell your products, and market your business or organization. It is an around-the-clock marketing machine that never sleeps.

In our seminars, we are asked how to get started using it. While that is a simple question, it requires detailed understanding of the company, knowledge of business goals, and much more information as well. So, to provide people with meaningful assistance we developed these steps. Be advised that they do not provide answers, but lead you to asking the right questions.

Why? Pertinent questions that apply to your business and situation only are invaluable. And those questions, my friend, are far more valuable to you than their answers. There are people, books, consultants, aplenty to give you answers, but if you don’t answer the right questions, where are you? By developing the high quality questions that apply to your business, you will create a social networking campaign that is customized to your specific needs. To be successful, that is essential because your customers, their needs, your employees, your very business is unique. This is not a one-size-fits-all endeavor.

So, treat these steps as guidelines. Reorder them, combine them, delete any that you care to, but please read them all. Number nine you will find particularly interesting as it combines the online world and the offline world. Social networking has been around for hundreds of years. Don’t think that it only takes place from your keyboard. Nothing could be further from the truth.

1. Goals are not Wants and Wishes. List the goals of your social networking campaign and verify that they are achievable. As one goal approaches completion have the next goal ready to implement.

2. Who Will Conduct Your Social Networking Campaign? Creating your own content takes time. If you hire someone to create your content, provide information on your company and approve the material before it’s published. If you give the job to an employee, provide the time and resources necessary to carry out the work.

3. How will you Motivate Your Audience to Tell You What They Want in Your Social Networking Campaign? Ask, and offer a premium. For example, a free report, a discount coupon, entrance in a contest, a gift, or something else of unquestioned value for the time they spend responding to your query.

4. Determine What Social Media Sites are Best for Your Needs. Look for ways to distribute your social networking campaign into every niche. Visit the major social networking sites and determine which are best for your needs. A blog requires writing, a micro-blog requires you to write tight headlines, video requires you to make, edit, and upload them. Choose the site(s) that fit your needs and create your accounts.

5. Your Web Site is the Crown Jewel of Your Social Media Campaign. Bring your Web site up-to-date and be sure that it supports your social networking campaign by providing the pertinent information your audience is looking for. Integrate your site into your social networking campaign.

6. Create Your Content, Place it Online, and Implement Your Ongoing Content Creation Plan. Only create content of unquestioned value that your audience wants. There is no point spending time and dollars to create material that no one will view. Remember, you are selling your social networking campaign for something more valuable than money, someone’s time.

7. Go Live and Tell the World. E-mail your audience to notify them that your social media campaign is online. If you have an over-the-counter business, place signs in the store, include an insert in bags, put your online information on all company paperwork including business cards, invoices, and billing statements.

8. Determining the Effectiveness of Your Social Networking Campaign. Look for increased activity on your Web site. Have your Web master provide you data on where your visitors are coming from. Look for traffic from your social networking sites.

9. Offline Activities to Assist Making Your Social Networking Campaign Successful.

  • Attend conferences in your field and those related to your target audience.
  • Become an acknowledged expert in your field by publishing in Twitter and on a blog. Publish articles in industry magazines, newsletters, and blogs.
  • Collaborate with cause marketing. The old saying, “Two heads are better than one,” is true.
  • E-mail marketing, use it as a marketing tool and to keep-in-touch.
  • Engage your employees in your social networking campaign. Publish a social networking policy that tells them what they can do, not what they can’t do.
  • Give a free seminar at your place of business. Promote it online and with a press release.
  • Host free seminars at your place of business.
  • Join Chambers of Commerce, networking, and business groups.
  • Paper magazines. Don’t throw them away, cut them up and send pertinent articles to your clients. Find the article(s) online and use e-mail to send a link your clients.
  • LinkedIn is perfect for your needs. Use it.
  • Market to those who can refer business to you, and to those who do business with you.
  • Publish a Newsletter. Include trivia, winter driving tips, a crossword puzzle, Windows and Mac tips, new products with links to independent reviews, gift ideas, etceteras. Do not use your newsletter for selling. Do keep it informative, timely, and fun.
  • Send hand written Christmas cards, and thank you notes to your clients. Begin writing them in October, if that’s what it takes.
  • Quality content provides unquestioned value. Customers want answers. Provide them.
  • Speak at conferences and industry events.
  • Subscribe to industry magazines, blogs, and newsletters that your customers read.
  • Take every opportunity to get together with customers, and potential customers.
  • Throw a party.
  • Use both sides of any handout. The space you waste could be marketing for you.
  • Video. Create your YouTube channel and place your videos there.
  • Your Web site is the crown jewel of your social networking campaign. See that its design supports your business needs.
Posted in E-Mail Marketing, Link Popularity, On Page Optimization, Search Engines, SEO, Social Media, Web Analytics No Comments »

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