Social Media Metric Plugin
Measuring your social media traffic is, especially in present times, the most important factor for websites to measure. Installing a social media metric to measure traffic is crucial to understanding how connected your company is with its consumers and how it is fairing with SEO in social media. Google is giving more and more relevance to social media activity with every
day that goes by and the most information one can acquire about what their social media efforts are accomplishing the better. Setting goals of which you would like to achieve with your social media will greatly increase your relevance to Google with today’s current algorithms and rankings.
Josh Hamilton’s Twitter!
Josh Hamilton’s Twitter following explosion in the past days is a prime example of how much positive PR and social activity can have on both your social media SEO efforts and for your brand. Although Josh is a baseball player for the Texas Rangers, he is also a brand and has figured out a way to creatively promote himself and the team through twitter. He has commentators, well commenting, on his twitter following only causing more and more traffic. He was gaining at such a rapid rate that he was gaining thousands of followers per at bat. This is a prime example of how being current and endorsing positive PR can help your image and like-ability and then in effect increase your SEO efforts! 
SEO Timing
Timing is crucial in SEO, just as in all other business actions for your company. Timing is important in “brick and mortar” business actions but is becoming increasingly more important in SEO actions. Being current with times with such mediums as video and Images with catchy titles, is spot on with what current content absorbing users wish to see. Google doesn’t think its too bad to be current with the times either. Being current is becoming more important to Google than almost any other ranking factors in recent times. Our society is becoming faster and faster with every day that goes by and your
website’s content needs to be even a step ahead for both Google’s view and how your consumers perceive how up to date you are in your field! Just AT&T’s advertising campaign expresses, “That was Sooooo 22 seconds ago”, you need to be ahead of the curve with content!
HomePage Attraction
Creating an attractive and creative homepage is, believe it or not, one of the most important factors in increasing your SEO success. The homepage is, most of the time, th
e first page a possible consumers sees when they arrive to your site, and in a attention-less world, if it isn’t instantly attention grabbing, users will leave instantly. It should be easily crawlable, maneuverable, and vision to all ranges of users. It should be targeted towards the exact consumer of which you hope to receive conversion. This is easier than you think! Themes, complexity, and colors should be closely related to the theme and style of the service of product being sold or marketed. This is essential for decreasing consumers from instantly dropping off as soon as they are distasted by what they see. The goal is to drive your potential consumers to crawl the site further and reach final conversion of your product!
Focus
In my opinion search engine optimization is congruent to marketing. Just as in marketing, focus is the key element of operations in seo. All pieces of your seo approach have to align and be focused on the keywords of which are being targeted. Having a niche seo approach is just as important as having a niche product or brand in marketing. The more focused your website, seo, and product or services can be the more relevant you will come across to the buyers or users you are trying to target. Just as in marketing, if you lose your focus you will lose your shirt. The firms thy have narrowed their seo practices to occupy a very unique space are the ones who will become most successful!
Current Activity
Being up to date and current with seo functions on your site is more meaningful today than ever. With how connected the world world is socially today, if you’re not updating something on your site each day, you’re going to fall behind in relevance. Google, as as other major search engine players, understand this fact more than anyone and they are factoring it directly intk their ranking factors. Along with social media activity, constantly adding add new content and current activity to your site will improve your seo ventures dramatically.
Link Baiting
Link baiting is crucial to increasing seo relevance with Google’s current algorithm system. Google weighs inbound links with the most significance when it comes to strong PageRank. Increasing inbound links hold be each firm’s number one priority in today’s ranking factors. There are many possibilities for acquiring inbound links, some black hat and some white hat. Black hat practices should never be exercised in professional, or any, seo operations for that matter. One of the most prevalent and successful ways is the old method of personally asking for links through either email or telephone. Engaging someone or some company on a more personal an individual level can create much better result for an seo effort in terms of link building. There are many workable practices to acquire links in today’s seo world but truth be told, good d personal contracts are still the est methods.
Who likes to visit a site and hunt for hours and hours because the site doesn’t have a search tab? Ideally, our sites will have such a logical flow that no one will need to use a search box. However, it’s always a helpful tool to add to your site, making it a little more user-friendly. Google Analytics can allow you to track searches and monitor what visitors do after they search your site. Use this tool to your advantage. Notice what they’re searching, adjust your site so they don’t have to search for it. Put special offers related to certain keywords into the search. Add images to give it some flavor. Whatever you do, make navigating your site as fun and easy as possible!
The Value of Q&A
Q: How can Q&A sections benefit an E-commerce site?
A: Q&A pages give the manager of an ecommerce site a direct opportunity to address a visitor’s pain. What information are they looking for? What don’t they understand? These pages help you to help your visitor. When a visitor feels helped and informed he is so much more likely to return for another visit!
Q: Can Q&A pages be spiced up and made more interesting?
A: Of course they can! For exmaple, Q&A pages can be created to allow for customer interactions. Customers can post questions in a blog-style format and visitors to the site can address them with their own opinions!
Q: Where can I learn more?
A: Visit SEOmoz!
404 – Not an Error, But an Opportunity!
Many websites have bland, boring and impersonal redirect messages that can sometimes turn away potential customers. Instead, SEO and Sales experts explain a huge opportunity that businesses have to create fun, warm, personal redirect messages! View your server log and validate that the 404 pages are not being crawled by search engines. The other option is that you can delete this page entirely, or you can even change it to a 301 direct, which would be a permanent redirect. If you decide to keep the 404 page, make it a good customer experience, leading them directly to sales pages! This page is often one of the most commonly forgotten pages on a company’s website, and can often cost them a lot of business. You can also lead your 404 error page to a direct response page, that causes customers to act immediately. Or another idea is to have a split testing to see which redirects lead to the most traffic and sales. Here are some fun, personal examples of 404 redirect pages.
Social Media – Not just for Socializers
The amount of highly successful start-ups that embrace social media is significantly increasing. Social media is not just a tool used for connecting to friends from high school or distant family members. Companies value the significance that social media brings by adding a personal and connecting element to customers and potential customers. Not only does social media add a personal aspect to the company, but a reporter Ben Rooney stated that it also can “unlock corporate knowledge, enhance internal communication and drive bottom-line growth.” 81% of companies that experienced high growth in 2010 were already using social media. The companies showed that it had a big impact on their success. It doesn’t necessarily mean that there is causation between the use of social media and a spike in success, but there is definitely correlation. Social media connects companies directly with their customers and eliminates the middle man. The primary benefit of using social media is that it increases business exposure. Using social media will also cause increased traffic and improved search rankings. Marketers who use social media and have success and results from doing so average about 6 hours a week using social media. According to Social Media Examiner, the primary groups that are reached using social media marketing are the 20-29 year olds. The second largest demographic that uses social media is middle aged women. In order to reach a large and growing markets, you must learn to integrate social media into your business marketing strategy. The returns that you will get will just depend on how much effort you put into social media and connecting directly with your customers.
This video provides a couple reminders when using social media. TIPS WHEN USING SOCIAL MEDIA
Analyzing Google Analytics
SO what exactly is Google Analytics? It’s a tool that enables you to track user behavior to see the current trends of viewers on your website, where they are going, and how long they are staying. GA enables you to see what you are doing well, and what areas need improvement. You can see what parts of your website need work. In order to get the most out of your GA, track these elements that give you further and fuller insight into what your users are doing. Make sure you track the clicks on links – this enables you to see where your visitors are going and what interests them the most. You can check the visits to see the number of people who are coming to your site during a given period. The other part of GA is seeing the pageview, which enables you to track how many pages a visitor is checking each time they visit your website. The bounce rate tells you how many people visited your site, then bounced or left within the first 10 seconds. Don’t be disappointed if this number is high, because it’s fairly common to have a high bounce rate. There can be a lot of factors that play into the high bounce rate %. The average time on the site shows you on average, how long visitors are spending on the different pages of your site. The % of new visits, of course, just shows you what percentage of the people who are visiting are actually first time visitors. Google automatically shows the last 30 days of activity, but if you want to compare one date of activity to another, that’s possible by changing the settings. So for example, if you want to check how your analytics were in April 2010 compared to June of 2011, you can adjust the settings to show that information. On every page in GA, you can check the left hand side for “about this report” overview which gives in-depth analysis about all the different sections and reports that were given. GA is an insighful tool that can be used to see what you’re doing wrong, and where the changes need to be.
How to Work from Home
Although there are numerous possibilities for jobs that could be started out of the home, a few have been proven to be most successful.
- Create an affiliate marketing on E-bay business. You could take a commission for selling stuff online. This is a low cost job, and can be financially rewarding, especially if you enjoy writing blogs and reviews for people.
- Personal training – either train them in their own home, your home, or make videos that could be sold online in the youtube fitness channels.
- Blogging – this is definitely a rising business. People are making huge profits off of doing lifestyle product reviews, or writing consistently about a specific topic. You can get Google Ads on your site if you have a large enough following. Also, companies could potentially pay to have their products reviewed honestly.
- Providing technical support. This is only possible IF you are a computer wizz and have the ability to assist others when they are experiencing technical difficulties. Since this business would be based out of the home, the overhead costs would be extremely low. You could even do screen shots of a step-by-step process of fixing problems, that could be turned into programs that are sold on-line.
- Tutoring is another option for creating a home based business.
- Business mentoring or coaching is another great choice for starting a home-based business. But once again, this is something that you must be skilled in. You have to provide whoever you are tutoring with insightful and wisdom-filled advice on business or whatever area you are providing mentoring in.
Whatever avenue you decide to take for creating an in-home business, make sure you love doing it. Pick something that fuels your fire and gets you motivated to wake up in the morning.
Looking to Start-Up?
When starting any company, it can be a daunting series of overwhelming tasks. However, when starting an internet-based company, it can be even more overwhelming because there might be a lack of understanding of how to go about creating a website and working mostly through the web. The market available to buy products from an internet-based company has no location limitations. They can provide service/goods to customers all around the world. When starting an internet business, all the same steps are required for a traditional brick and mortar company. More competition exists for internet businesses, however. While you do have more customers worldwide, there is also more competition around the world that can provide the same service, and sometimes have an advantage of a lower price that what you are offering. A few steps will help you in the process of starting your business, and making sure that you have all the components in place to take off and succeed. You will fly or flop – follow these steps to make sure you don’t fall among the latter category.
- The first step is just the same as any brick and mortar company – come up with an idea of a product/service or even information that you can provide. Focus on a specific target market that would be really interested in what you offer, and make sure it satisfies a need or want.
- Create your business plan! This cannot be emphasized enough. Make sure that you have included all possible details/costs/risks. Have friends or mentors review it and poke holes, then work on refining those problems. Be sure to include researched costs of domain purchasing, hosting, advertising, web development, and how much you will be spending and how much your revenue stream will give In return. These details are vital to run a business.
- Go seek the finances – if you only have a small amount of business filing fees, then you can probably cover the expenses yourself. But if there are more incurred expenses that could total thousands and thousands, then approaching venture capitalists would be a good option. Your local small business administration office would also have information that could further assist you in getting the funds to start-up.
- Establish the business entity. This involves legal work, and could be a long process, but needs to be done before moving forward and actually running the company.
- Go to a domain registrar and buy your website domain under that business entity that you created in step 4.
- Develop the website – this might require some hiring if you need any programming done, or do not feel confident in your own skills and ability to teach yourself to create the website.
- Now, go ahead and market your business, based on the strategic marketing plan you creating in step 2.
These steps should help in creating a general process for developing your online company. Remember though, a website always needs optimization, and is NEVER a 
finished job.
What you Get from WordPress
Although there are many content management systems out there, wordpress is beneficial for a multitude of reasons.
- It’s free
- It’s easy to use – if you have ANY experience with the computer, then you can easily pick up on WordPress and teach yourself.
- Many Users can access it – you don’t have to be in charge of creating the website yourself. You can get help from others who also have access and login information for the site.
- Easily Optimizable – you can optimize your site much more easily using wordpress.
- Make the changes yourself – you don’t have to instruct a computer programmer on all the changes and the vision you have for your site. You can simply make the changes yourself!
WordPress is an easy content management system that doesn’t require experience. Watch this video to get a basic understanding of how it works. Basics of WordPress
What’s So Great about Google Analytics?
So why is it important for businesses to use Google Analytics? They are helpful for a multitude of reasons. This tool shows people how others came to their website and how they found it. Not only can you see how people found your site, but also where they spend the majority of their time on your site and where they are going on your site. After you see what pages they spend lots of time on, you can see which ones are neglected and what parts on your site need to be improved. Google Analytics is extremely useful for achieving goals. GA enables you to track visitor activity and conversions, which are when you reach one of four different goals. Tracking customer behavior through this tool will provide insight to surprising things that your customers do, which may be contrary to how you THINK they would behave. A great way to track their behavior is to use funnels on GA. Funnels are when you set a goal for where visitors will land first, then which pages they will go to after that. The funnel ends with the last page that you set as a goal for them to land on, and typically is affirming that they took some kind of action. The end page can be a thank you for contacting us page, or a thank you for ordering page.
How to Customize your 404 Page
Now that we’ve seen some examples of great 404 Error pages, you’d probably like to know how to edit your 404 page in WordPress.
Custom error pages make the user experience nicer, and it’s even better if they’re a little funny. This is your chance to be creative and have fun with your site!
This tutorial is courtesty of Justin Tadlock’s blog. It requires a little bit of playing with code. You can do it!
Fun 404s
404 Error pages appear when the link requested cannot be found on the server.
They can be awful and boring, like this:
Or, they can be a whole lot of fun. In fact, 404 Error pages are the perfect place to showcase brand personality.
Mashable has a gallery of favorite 404 pages.
Here are a few of my personal favorites:
Zappos
HootSuite
NPR – this is my favorite, featuring other missing people and items…
Linking with Bloggers
Links are the lifeblood of SEO.
Like high rankings on the SERP, links direct consumers to your website. Traffic leads to conversions which leads to $$$ for your business.
Links matter, but they can be hard to get. Here’s a strategy for getting links that takes advantage of the blogger explosion.
These days, everyone seems to be blogging on every issue imaginable. Foody bloggers and mommy bloggers are especially ubiquitous.
Many of these bloggers run reviews and giveaways of their favorite product. If you are producing a tangible product, consider sending bloggers free samples.
If you have a successful company, it’s not unlikely that blogger requests are already pouring into your email inbox. Take advantage of these! The cost is low, and the PR exposure you’ll receive can be invaluable.
Here are some tips for choosing blogs to work with:
1. Check for Interaction – How many readers comment on each post? I usually like to see 30, as a general rule of thumb.
2. Check their Social Media – Do they have a large and lively following?
3. Read a Few Posts – Are their posts literate, useful, and interesting? I avoid working with sites that run nothing but giveaways or are very poorly written.
Don’t be afraid to contact bloggers directly via email. Explain that you would be happy to provide them with free samples of your product to try.
Also, don’t be afraid to work with small or new blogs. Even a few readers can make a difference. The cost is low, and lots of little blogs add up to a big impact!
Optimize That Image!
Here’s a quick tutorial on optimizing images in WordPress.
Pages can be optimized with the WordPress SEO by Yoast plugin. However, images are different.
All you need is WordPress and your picture. Let’s get started:
1. Click Upload/Insert
2. Pick and Upload a Picture
3. Enter Optimized Keywords in the “Title” and “Alt Tag” boxes
4. Click Insert
Make Your Infographic Sizzle!
I discovered a wonderful article from Spyre Studios with advice for creating a really good infographic.
Here’s what I learned:
1. Use a Skeleton – organize your data in a clear and understandable format
2. Stick to a Color Scheme
3. Use good graphics – your visual elements should cue readers about what you’re trying to say…and they need to be pretty too
4. Research – do your homework so that you have interesting data to report to users.
5. Create – make it all into a clear and communicative infographic
Create an Effective Infographic
Anatomy of a SERP Result: Part IV
Want more SERP real estate? Optimize your site links, and your listing will take up twice the space in no time!
Site links help consumers to find the precise page they want without digging through your site.
Here’s how to optimize your site links:
1. Google Webmaster Tools – will allow you to choose which pages appear as your site links
2. Your Top Pages – feature the most-visited pages as your optimized site links
3. Optimized Descriptions – each link description should be optimized using WordPress SEO by Yoast.
Anatomy of a SERP Result: Part III
Google Places are a must, especially for capturing local search traffic.
To add your business to Google Place, use Google Websmaster tools, or visit this link:
Anatomy of a SERP Result: Part II
Optimize your Meta Description Tag with these simple steps:
1. Keep it Succinct
2. Make it Sizzle – this is your sales pitch to the searching consumer!
3. Include your Keyword
4. Keep it all Honest
Anatomy of a SERP Result: Part I
In this series, I’ll give you visual directions for optimizing every part of your SERP result.
WordPress SEO by Yoast is the best tool for this.
Here’s how to optimize your Title Tag:
1. Keyword Proximity – get that keyword as close to the beginning as you can!
2. Divider – use the pipe (above the backslash) to divide up content in the title
3. 65 Characters – this is the limit of what Google will look at.
Writing Good Content
Obviously when you create a site, you want to attract customers. Marketing is a huge part of this, but what about organic and viral advertising? We’ve all gotten videos or article links from others, and found new sites – it’s a fairly common thing on the Internet.
So leverage it!
Write content that appeals to user needs and wants. Directories, top 10 lists, and infographics have huge viral potential. Pair them with easy share buttons & good keywords, and you’ve created a free marketing mechanism. Cool right?
So just remember this: keep the customer in mind, solve their needs, and make it easy to share.
That is the secret to good content writing. You now have the keys to the content kingdom.
Optimizing Videos for Search Engines
A rapidly-growing section of the Internet is videos. Google owns YouTube and also has its own video search, so obviously they’ve caught onto this trend. Because of this, it’s pretty easy to figure they use videos in the ranking algorithm – and they do.
But how can I optimize a video for search?? It’s easier than you think… For example, YouTube already provides a way to add a title, keywords, and a description to your video when you upload them, so simply take advantage of those in the same way you take advantage of headings and content on your pages. Simply by doing this, you will help your videos be found on both YouTube and Google.
But what should I put in my video description? Well, a simple summary of the content and maybe a quick site promo would be a good start. The next step would be a transcription of the video. If your video is a lesson or promo, it probably has tons of relevant keywords already in it. Simply harness that in your description.
What about videos embedded on-site, not just YouTube?
Optimizing Videos for Search Engines, pt. 2
Optimizing for videos on YouTube was pretty simple… but what about when I embed them on my site?
Believe it or not, this is even simpler. All you have to do is follow the same guidelines as for the video on YouTube. Embed the video in a page full of keyword-rich content and a transcription (if relevant). The fact that the video on the page exists and has been optimized on YouTube, is an automatic bonus to SEO. Simply write normal keyword-rich content on the rest of the page and you’re done!
Using Error Pages to your Advantage
We’ve all run into error pages in our travels through the internet – some good, some bad. What made the good ones good and the bad ones bad? Many sites simply tell you the page your requested isn’t found and they’re sorry. Sure, that gets the point across, but what about being nice to users?
It’s easy to customize 404 error pages on your site, and you should! Here are some approaches to take and why they’re good:
- Humor: post a graphic or joke to keep the mistake lighthearted and turn a bad thing into a fun time
- Features: give the user a list of current features on the site, or other pages you think they should visit
- Search: with a little coding, you can get the title of the link that brought them to the page. Use that to search your site and try to provide them with links to relevant articles
There are countless other things you could do with them. Feel free to post ideas and screen shots below!
