Social and Search for Marketing and Communications

March 19, 2012 By Leave a Comment

Area 224 Webinar

If you’re new here, you can scroll down on the right hand side and sign up for our periodic newsletter. We’d love to keep the dialogue going with you…

What’s really interesting to me about where we are in modern marketing, communications and social media is this:

If you asked the experts what ONE thing to focus on…you’d get dozens of answers.

This is one reason we’re pleased to announce our next big (HUGE) webinar (that we’re doing TWICE), coming up on March 22nd and March 29th (plus you get a copy of our updated e-book).

Social Search Webinar

We don’t want to give away everything – this is a paid webinar and, even though the price is VERY affordable, we HAVE to save some of what we’ll talk about for the day(s) of the event. BUT, in the spirit of whetting your appetite:

1. There is no silver bullet

That’s a given – if there WERE a silver bullet, everyone would have purchased it. (The price of silver would have gone way up, too, supply and demand being what they are.)

But, and back to our point from earlier, there is no one thing experts can agree on when it comes to where to focus. For every one person who says “Google+ is a vast wasteland” there’s someone else who says “it’s from Google, and it allows you to laser-focus on your niche.” And so on, and so forth.

2. Getting Found, Findability, Inbound Marketing, etc., are still vital

Part of the problem here – and we struggle with it, too – is that you could conceivably focus all your time on the SEO basics – and forget why you’re doing it all in the first place.

I know a guy who’s writing a book, and he’s using the traditional publishing route. The opportunity for him is to leverage all of the time he spent as a blogger of note – and turn that into cachet with publishers. And those publishers are sniffing around on the Internet ANYWAY, looking for the next big thing (topic, author, trend) to turn into a publishable book.

SO…this guy has a nice problem to have in that he’s getting found, but he may not be found for the right things for his book project. Hmmm. See the next point:

3. “Integrated” is the word

Content. Convergence. Whatever you want to call it, all this stuff working together is making this the “Integrated” generation. This means you can’t put out a press release and get a billion hits without telling the rest of the company what the heck you’re up to. And so on, and so forth…

So there’s your 1-2-3 sneak peek. Will we see you on the webinar?

Here’s a clever signup button, too. Again, affordable price, tons of value. We’re here to help you get Social and Search for Marketing and Communications just right.

 
Eventbrite - Social and Search for Communications and Marketing

Filed Under: SEO, smm, Webinars Tagged With:

Why SEO Isn’t Dead

December 14, 2011 By 5 Comments

SEO Isn’t Dead. Search Engine Optimization Wasn’t Killed By The Content Revolution.

Not. So. Fast.

SEO Tweet

Pulled from Twitter

There are days when you might think that every single website on the planet is focusing on Content, and Content Alone, as its strategy. Social Media Gurus will tell you that you need to be posting on every single platform at all hours of the day and night just to have a chance of being found by the search engines.

Content Farms and Content Creation Engines will tell you that it’s all about fresh, relevant, really good content: and you don’t need  to write for the search engines if your stuff is awesome. Because people share awesome, right?

Right?

In one of our 12 Minute Marketing lessons, we talk about Search Engine Optimization. It’s not a deep study of the science – it’s enough so that you can cover the basics for your business (not so that you can turn yourself into an SEO Ninja). And yes, we’ll admit that we do say “Content, good content, is important.” Relevant content is important. But a couple other takeaways to complete our study here…

Links are just as important as Content.

It’s one thing to say “I’m going to link to a similar website, like that of Spin Sucks, just because it will help me.” But it’s entirely another thing to link somewhere (1) with authority and (2) with relevance to what you are talking about.

For instance: in the photo we use on this post, there’s an article on Read Write Web on SEO and the Google algorithm changes. This is what started us down the path of posting on the value of SEO – the article made it seem as if Content trumps SEO, and SEO is, thus, not important. WRONG.

As you see, we are linking to the article in a post about a similar bit of content. It’s not a trick, it’s not gaming the system. It is an SEO basic: Link to what you’re talking about. Bringing us to our second SEO takeaway:

Try owning long-tail terms of 3 or more words.

Back in September, when we guest posted on the Social Mouths blog, we didn’t plan on owning the term “Social Media.” Too short, too many searches. We DID plan on pwning “Holistic Social Media.” It worked: our SocialMouths Holistic Social Media post is still number one for that term – and our own posts, on Area 224 and 12 Minute Marketing, are in the top 5.

It didn’t hurt that it was a well-written post (IMHO) and had great content in it. But it focused on an actual term that made sense in the post and it was explained well in the post.

This means you’re more likely to own terms that you can actually say something about: Tallahassee Real Estate Trends, for instance, if you are a Realtor in Tallahassee.

What does this all tell you?

SEO isn’t THIS simple. But it isn’t dead, either. You can focus on great content, sure, but you also need to make sure you are linking to other relevant content and not trying to jump into the pool for short keywords.

Go. Search Engine Optimize!

 

Filed Under: 12 Minutes, SEO Tagged With: ,

What You’ll Learn on the SEO Webinar

February 15, 2011 By 6 Comments

SEO Process

Thanks, seo4vancouver.com

What will you learn on the Area 224 SEO Webinar?…

 

Well, let’s start with that graphic over there. That’s actually a pretty good one – thanks to our pals at SEO4Vancouver. Simple, and shows a continuous process. In other words, you’re never really done.

The big problem we’ve seen in the SEO business probably comes at it from two directions – either of which could be correct for you, but neither of which is where you should jump in.

Option 1: SEO is too complex, so I shouldn’t even bother doing it myself.

Like hiring an electrician, or someone to work on your car, it’s often the way to go: get a qualified outsider, make sure they have their credentials, and give them the keys.

But the sad fact is this: as you see in the diagram above, a lot of what you’re already doing fits into your SEO program.

See steps 1, 2, 3, 6, 7, 8 as examples of things you probably do on a regular basis – no matter what your business is – that help with your on-site search engine optimization.

Option 2: SEO services are too expensive, I can’t afford to hire an outsider.

Maybe, maybe not. You may learn what SEO entails and say “no way in Heck I want to do this myself.”

You may also learn what SEO entails and say “I can do EVERYTHING myself.”

Or the answer could be somewhere in the middle – outsource some, do some as part of your everyday routine.

You see the crunch that some people find themselves in? One side: too complex. The other side: too expensive. Result: no action at all.

The parallels between SEO and traditional PR are almost eerie.

We’ll walk you through all this – and give you a copy of the HUGE SEO E-book – on February 24.

Here’s the link, young SEO Jedi.

 

 

Filed Under: SEO

CPA = Crappy Product Avoidance

February 11, 2011 By 10 Comments

Buy Now

Before you buy...

Even Crappy Products Sell.

 

Hanging out at the intersection of Internet Marketing, Social Media and Communications. It’s a great place to be – watching things unfold as marketing types tell you that “this is the thing you need,” and social media types push certain people as gurus, and communications folks try to make sense of it all for their company.

And smack-dab in the middle of one such “thing” of late. A piece of software. $39. Perhaps life-changing. No risk trial.

Oh, and it’s a crappy product.

What is the product really worth?

 

Here’s where the mistake often gets made. Let’s assume that this particular product really can drive tens of thousands of dollars of revenue to your personal or company bottom line.

Then, dare I ask, why IS IT $39?

Chris Brogan had a tremendous post on price and value. Take a look here and figure out if the stuff you’re looking at, or considering, is worth the money.

How to do product value math

Software can be an easy question: what does it cost to buy, what does it cost to implement, and what value does it potentially bring? Even online tools that are free or freemium have a cost associated with them – but spending the $20 for an annual subscription to a service that allows you to do in 5 minutes what you would have to ask someone else to do for hours of time = probably worth it.

But information products are really interesting: did my investment of $39 in this “software” that is REALLY an information product disguised as software make sense?

No. Here’s why:

How do you value your time?

Rough math alert: a six-figure marketer who works a 40 hour week values his time at $50 an hour.

Same marketer that spends $39 on a product that he has to (1) learn and (2) implement and (3) monitor for roughly 10 hours a week…now we’re one week into what has turned into a $539 experiment.

But what if it’s something you HAVE to know? Or something you “think” you need to know. (Like, for instance, SEO for the Corporate Communications person: here’s a link to an Area 224 webinar we’re doing on 2.24.)

Maybe we’re talking ourselves out of some business here, but this comes back to your investment in your own time, or your company’s investment in you.

If you’re a $100K a year Corporate Communications person, it might actually be a sensible investment to spend the additional $40 or so bucks, on top of your hourly rate of $50, to get to a decision point:

Is this something that will make my life easier, my job better, or my company more findable if I invest more time on it?

OR…

Is this going to always be way too complicated – so maybe I should hire a professional?

As for Crappy Product Avoidance…

Make sure there’s an airtight, easy-peasy guarantee. Protects everybody. We had a tough time finding the Crappy Product’s refund policy, or who to contact, or how to uninstall the software in exchange for a refund.

 

Filed Under: Information Products, SEO Tagged With:

Two Easy Tips for Gathering Web Intel

December 9, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Gathering Intelligence – Intel – On Your Site, Your Competitors and Your Clients? Easy with this 1-2 punch – we just shared it with attendees on our “Underground Strategies” webinar…

Thanks, Compete.com1. Compete.com. You can, admittedly, drown in analytics. Google Analytics can tell you a ton about your own site – and, with all the monitoring tools out there, it’s possible to over-analyzed.

Compete.com provides a quick traffic snapshot – over there is ours from the month of October – and you can compare a couple sites at the same time.

Plus, you can do this with a free account – if you want to dig deeper, you can pay for the “Pro” service.

Even though the numbers are from US traffic, you can still get a sense of whether someone is actually making any noise.

FOR INSTANCE: we saw a site promoted on Twitter that claimed they were getting 1000 visitors a day. Quick search on Compete, took us about 1 minute, and we learned that these folks weren’t getting enough visitors to even register.

Hubspot Grade for DecorMyEyes2. Grader.com. Another fave – specifically the Website Grader. Hubspot provides this tool and it’s powerful. Also, it’s free.

We have been critical of some of the components of Grader’s score, but now is not the time for that. This is, without a doubt, one of the most powerful tools you’ll find for finding out whether or not you are doing things right on the web. And for finding out whether your competitors are doing things right on the web.

FOR INSTANCE: We have an old domain and were trying to gauge what it would take to give it the spice it needs to make a dent. (It’s in, get this, a niche market.) So we ran the domain through the Grader and learned that we might not have that much work to do. Since it scored in the 80s, well, we’re ahead of the game.

By the way, if you missed the webinar, you can still get all the materials – $49 for the slides, audio, and the Underground Strategies report.


Filed Under: SEO, smm Tagged With: ,

Grader.com – We Have Some Questions…

December 3, 2010 By 6 Comments

For the most part, we find the tools from Grader.com indispensable. BUT…

If you’ve read the New York Times piece on Decor My Eyes – here’s a link to this frightening SEO tale – you know that there’s an eyewear provider who was able to leverage bad publicity into good search juice.

And, if you’ve been following the developments, you’ll know that Google has made some changes to account for how negative reviews help or hinder SEO results. You can read about those in this article, entitled “What Google’s Search Change Means for Your Website.”

So, why are we picking on Grader.com?

Hubspot Grade for DecorMyEyesThis is why. A 98. Out of 100.

This means that the site still ranks in the top 3 percent of all the sites that Grader has graded based on “Marketing Effectiveness.”

This, despite an MOZ “Page Rank” score of 2, out of 10.

This, despite a “Blog Not Found” listing on the Grader report.

This, despite a “No Twitter Grade” for the site.

One of two things is true: (1) “Marketing Effectiveness” does truly equal “number of indexed pages” (which, in this case, is in excess of 423,000) or “number of inbound links” (more than 14,000; a good chunk probably from the bad reviews), or (2) Grader has yet to update its scoring – since Google just made the change this week.

Thoughts?

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