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Why Are Major Marketers Moving Toward Google+?

March 20, 2012 By

Recently I had the pleasure of reading an interview of Guy Kawasaki regarding his new e-book, What the Plus! Google+ For the Rest of Us, as well as his general thoughts on the exploding new social network.

In just under a year since it was rolled out, Google+ has grown to over 100 million users.

And while it hasn’t reached the stature of Facebook, Kawasaki thinks now is the time to start focusing on the new social network. As of now, it’s still the “wild west” – meaning, you can stake your claim now before the competition. With Facebook and Twitter, you have to cut through a lot of noise to reach your audience.

Another reason is search traffic. According to Guy, Google “…owns the river called search traffic” and it can “…point that river any way it wants.”

What makes Google+ desirable over Facebook and Twitter?

According to Guy, it’s the ease at which he can edit posts, the more elegant user interface as well as the quality of comments.

What kind of content does Guy put on Google+?

We’ll get into a couple of his suggestions in a minute. But one thing from the interview that really caught my attention is the content he uses. My thinking has always been to only include content we produce.

After reading this interview though, I’ve changed my mind.

Including any kind of content your readers may find interesting will keep them coming back. Guy uses a site called AllTop to find leading topics his readers may find interesting.

In fact when it comes to content, Guy suggests adopting the NPR model.

National Public Radio – both on the radio and online – provides great content 365 days a year. This content is so good that we tolerate their periodic fundraising appeals.

Content you share should provide value – information, analysis and/or assistance.

It should be valuable to the point that you earn the right to also promote your product(s) and service(s) – usually about 5% of the time. NPR for example spends the vast majority of its time providing content but there is that 5% of the time they’re promoting their services and asking for donations from listeners.

Another tip from Guy – make sure people think they’re interacting with a real person on your Google+ profile. Respond to comments quickly and be a real person behind the profile, not a “…hoity-toity brand.”

Should I focus on a business profile or a personal page?

According to Guy, it really depends on your situation. If you plan for your business to outlast you, then go for a business profile. If you’re a sole proprietorship or individual brand, then a personal page is just fine.

Regardless of which route you choose, be sure you interact directly and reassure followers that there’s a real person on the other end. Doing so will ensure they come back for more.

Guy Kawasaki was best known as being one of the original Macintosh “evangelists” back in the 1980s. Much of what drove him back then re: Macintosh is what’s driving his passion about Google+ today.

His new book is very inexpensive (…$2.99 for Kindle edition). I plan to pick up a copy and review it.

Tune back again for a quick review…

In the meantime, read Guy’s interview on Social Media Examiner for more.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Google and the Merging of Search and Social Media

Google + – What is it and how will it integrate into your marketing strategy?

Google+ Now Open for Businesses and Brands

Filed Under: Online Marketing, Social Media, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , , , ,

Hooking your Readers – 7 Approaches to Great Headlines

January 24, 2012 By

We spend a lot of time talking about content and its necessity. Your landing pages, site pages, blogs and knowledge center content are there to not only tell your story, inform and motivate readers, it’s there to build search rankings as well.

But search engine optimization and building search rankings go well beyond just keywords, an arbitrary amount of content and so on. It also has to be informative and interesting enough to be shared either through linking or the increasingly important social media mentions.

Simply writing generic content that doesn’t grab the reader’s attention won’t exactly yield a whole lot of benefit for your firm.

Headlines are how you grab this attention, which should intrigue the reader into continuing on for more.

Time is valuable….

Since we’re bombarded with so much information all the time, we’re only going to look at what really intrigues us and think will benefit us. Seeing a boring headline limits your content’s potential in this regard. And if it doesn’t see much in the way of traffic, links and mentions in social media, it won’t have the impact it can.

That’s why taking a few minutes to craft a headline that grabs your reader’s attention is so valuable. Headlines are an invaluable part of print media (…think about when you’re in the checkout line looking at the magazines). In the online world, headlines are doubly important due to the sheer magnitude of content that’s out there.

Nick Usborne has outlined 7 approaches to headlines that can grab readers’ attention and ignite their curiosity to keep reading. Using one of these will help you maximize the impact your content has on your bottom line.

Approach #1: Ubiquitous List

People love seeing lists, which are easy to scan and read. They are a lot of times a hit on social media. Lists can be especially valuable if you include some sort of benefit like “5 Ways to save on your Vacation,” or whatever is applicable to your business.

Approach #2: “How To”

Always a winner too…explaining how to do something will always draw a lot of attention. Be sure you say that in your headline (ex: “How to save 15% on your heating bill) so people will clearly see the benefit of reading further. Millions of people go online each day to find out how to do something – buy a car, pick a stereo, fix a flat, whatever.

Approach #3: Challenge

Another thing that compels people to read is a challenge. Do I know the answers or not? What don’t I know or what am I missing? Good example from Nick – “5 Things you don’t know about your teenagers.”

Approach #4: Intrigue

This approach is kind of like a brain-twister where the reader has to keep going to find the answer. “Body Found, Man Still Missing” is an actual headline from a newspaper. While searching for a missing person, someone else’s body was found.

Approach #5: Conspiracy

We all love a good conspiracy involving anyone in a position of authority (doctors, lawyers, politicians, etc.). Giving any indication they’ve hidden the truth will certainly entice readers for more. (Ex:  The truth about raw food diets)

Approach #6: Secrets of the Opposite Sex

People love delving into the mystery of what makes the opposite sex tick. If you’re targeting a specific gender, you will grab a lot of attention this way. (Ex: Why women love to shop or Why men love to watch sports)

Approach #7: Scarcity

Indicating scarcity of an offer or a closing window of time to do something will indeed motivate people to read further. People don’t like to miss out on something so their attention will be drawn by the prospect of a last chance. (Ex: “Last chance to get tickets” or “Deadline for applications soon”)

Examples of headlines are mainly from Nick with a few more thrown in there by me.

These 7 approaches to headlines will garner much more attention than regular, descriptive headlines. The result will be a much higher number of social media mentions, likes and shares.

Nick Usborne has an e-book on crafting killer headlines that I hope to obtain and read here soon. When I do, I’ll come back and share what I learned.

Have you taken one of these approaches in crafting a headline?

If so, did you see more conversions, shares and so forth?

Other Posts You May be Interested In

How Minor Tweaks to your Headlines Can Boost Conversions

Test Headlines with the ‘Breath’ Test

Beware of your Page’s Primary Purpose When Writing Content

10 Steps for Optimizing Web Content and Landing Page Copy

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Google and the Merging of Search and Social Media

January 12, 2012 By

In our last post prognosticating what lies ahead for search in 2012, we explained how search engine optimization was going to be increasingly tied in with social media.

It’s commonly known in the search marketing world that Bing has partnerships with Facebook and Twitter and integrates them into relevant search results.

Starting this week though, Google is rolling out a transformative switch that will integrate pictures and posts from Google+ in with search results. Those of us signed into Google will be able to simultaneously search the broader web and our own Google+ networks at the same time.

This latest update from Google is dubbed “Search Across your World.” Jack Menzel, Google’s product management director, explains that members will be able to “…search across information that is private and only shared to you, not just the public web.”

While they will be clearly noted, Google+ results will be blended in with traditional ‘authoritative results.’

Let’s say you’re researching your next vacation to the Grand Canyon and type that into a search. Besides sites showcasing the park, any tours and attractions, you will also see a post one of your friends wrote in Google+ about their trip. However, it will only appear if the post or picture has been shared with you or if it’s public (…in order to alleviate privacy concerns).

And that’s an important thing to remember – this new integration with Google+ and regular search will include images as well. Therefore, if you use Google Image search, pictures from your friends will appear alongside results from the broader web.

From Google’s perspective, this integration of personal, private, public and social will ensure you’re getting more relevant results because this is the information and the people you choose to connect with.

These new features will only work if you’re signed into Google though (…another move to allay privacy concerns). And to allow more flexibility, icons will appear at the top of the page – one allowing you to include social results and the other allowing you to strictly see standard, non-personalized results.

Amit Singhal, who oversees Google’s algorithms, comments that “The social search algorithm, and the personal search algorithm, and the personalized search algorithm are actually one algorithm now, and we are merging it in a way that is very pleasant and useful.”

Think of this is as another integration of different searches into one place. In the good ol’ days, you had to do separate searches for news, images and so forth. For a while now though, these results have been integrated with regular searches. Google is now simply including social in that mix as well.

How will this affect business’ search engine optimization efforts?

Only time will tell. One thing is absolutely certain though – we will report on these effects as they become available to us.

In the meantime, see this quick summary from Google below and take a look at these expert reviews from Mashable and Search Engine Land to learn more about these revolutionary changes.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

Google+ Now Open for Businesses and Brands

Google+ – What is it and how will it integrate into your marketing strategy?

Getting Wisdom from the True Masters of Social Media

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , ,

Outlook for Search – Building High Rankings in 2012

January 5, 2012 By

Well, a New Year has passed and we bid farewell to 2011. It was certainly an exciting year, especially in search and online marketing which saw changes occur at warp speed.

Over the last few weeks of 2011, we took a break to assess the state of search engine optimization and where things were headed going into 2012. We do this in order to help our clients (…and readers of this blog) better understand where they should focus their online marketing efforts.

After reflecting on where we’ve been and where we’re going, we quickly realized that the lines between different types of search – namely organic, local, mobile and social – are now being blurred more than ever. Rather than web search strictly being the center of activity online, social is increasingly becoming the focus.

According to an exclusive web tutorial from Planet Ocean, web search was the sun and other types of search (…or planets) revolved around it. Now, instead of web search being the sun, social is quickly becoming the center of the universe with other types of search (…or planets) revolving around it.

As we’ve said here many times over the last year, being social is a critical strategy to being successful online – this will become even more critical in the coming year. A cursory review of search results for a variety of terms shows social mentions and engagement alongside traditional webpages.

Social is being aggressively integrated in Bing, who has partnerships with Facebook, Skype and Twitter. Google has basically bet the farm on its new social network Google +.

From these arrangements and others, we can ascertain that social sharing will increasingly integrate with web search. Going forward, social shares or votes will increasingly be the new links.

How many have liked, +1’d or otherwise made a comment regarding content on your site?

So how can I ensure my site continues to rank high in 2012?

Dominating your market online in the new year will require some tried and true methods mixed with some new ways of engaging your audience online.

Since the web has become increasingly social, it’s become increasingly democratized as well. Users will more and more be the driving force in determining which social networking platforms you ultimately adopt.

The key to all of this though is content – as in years past, successful online marketing will be driven by your ability to create reference grade content that helps the reader. In turn, this can lead to true engagement that builds trust and value.

Rather than a few pages earning links, success online will hinge more on how socially engaging your content is.

The more likes, +1s and buzz your content has, the better your business will do.

Besides content itself, freshness will also be a driving factor in maintaining and building high search rankings. It’s increasingly become clear that Google and others are placing a high value on ‘fresh’ content. Just in the last two months, we’ve seen Google make updates to its algorithms to reward sites with fresh content, especially in areas that are always changing.

This update though has sadly penalized some sites with great ‘evergreen’ content that’s been around awhile but still valuable. Repurposing this content will help you get around this ‘freshness’ problem, especially if you experienced a drop in rankings due to this latest update.

Also in 2012, expect to see more firms using social media tools for product development and testing as well as technical support.

What about mobile-based search? Will it continue to grow in 2012?

An emphatic yes!! It’s projected that by 2015, more users in the U.S. will access the Internet through their smartphones or tablets than a regular computer.

Mobile search is deeply tied into local search with over 40% of searches on a mobile device being for something local like a restaurant, doctor’s office or brick and mortar store. According to Google, 44% of searches from a mobile device in the 2011 holiday shopping season were for store locations and last-minute gifts.

With mobile devices, users can seamlessly float between mobile, local and product search as well as their social media activities.

In 2012, it’s imperative that local business establish their presence on places like Bing Local, Google Places, Foursquare and others. Don’t be hesitant to allow reviews – customer reviews give you an opportunity to address grievances and open yourself up to new ways of engaging customers.

So there you have it – things will continue to move at wharp speed in this new year – social and mobile is most certainly revolutionizing how people interact and find things they need.

Stay tuned to our search engine optimization blog as we slice and dice the trends and developments in the search marketing world. Most of all relax and have fun with the possibilities the online sphere will bring in 2012.

Other Posts You May Be Interested In

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part I

Preparing for the Mobile Revolution – Part II

3 Ways Social Media, SEO and Content Marketing Work Together

Reputation Management – Maintaining & Enhancing your Company’s Good Name

Filed Under: Online Marketing, SEO Technology, Social Media Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

7 Strategies for Maintaining ‘Fresh’ Content

December 13, 2011 By

Just over a month ago, Google announced an update to its Caffeine indexing system known as the “freshness update.” As you know, Caffeine was rolled out last year and changed the way the search engine crawls and indexes pages.

This latest update is known as the ‘freshness update’ because of its stated goal – rank newer content higher in search results.

The search giant says these changes should affect around 35% of searches, mainly in areas where the most recent content matters – current events, hot topics, celebrity gossip, product/movie reviews and breaking news are examples of where this principal would apply. See further explanation and a list of the winners & losers in this great post from TechCrunch.

Here are a few searches you can look at for an example – “Black Friday 2011,” “Penn State scandal” or “NBA lock-out”

One thing you will notice is how top results are time-stamped and annotated more visually than before. Some of these annotations are in days while others are notated in minutes or even seconds. From these ‘time-stamps,’ we can tell that date-specific content is being served now more than ever.

Considering this emphasis on placing newer content higher in search results, consider the following 7 strategies to ‘evergreen’ your content and increase your chances of a ‘freshness’ boost in search results.

1) Start and maintain a blog

It’s clear from this update that more timely content is better. Therefore, one of the best ways to accomplish this ‘timely’ requirement is to publish content on a variety of topics on a regular, even daily basis. A blog is one of the best ways to easily get this content online.

2) Generate ‘Link Bait’ pieces

Content pieces that are informative and entertaining sometimes bring in thousands of visitors, hundreds of social media impressions and dozens of links each day. When these types of pieces are published on your blog, you will certainly see higher rankings. Seeing the popularity and relevancy for so many people will be a strong signal to Google.

3) Use Time Stamps to your advantage

Take a look at the top results in our sample searches and you’ll notice that each one has a time stamp. Each ‘freshness’ result has a clear publication date pulled by Google from the piece. Time stamping is easy to do and automatic on many blog platforms like WordPress. Google recommends the YYYY-MM-DD format (…2011-12-12).

4) Maximize Your Use of Social Media

Make sure you’re using social media tools to ‘push out’ new content as well as ‘pull in’ traffic     and social signals to that same content. Nothing says ‘fresh’ like a Tweet, Facebook comment or a +1 on Google’s new social network. Also, you can tap into your social networks to help write more content for you. If that isn’t possible, getting your friends to simply promote your content or leave comments will dramatically boost your ‘freshness quotient’ with Google.

5) Dynamically Update XML Sitemaps

By default, XML sitemaps include time stamps for each crawled URL within the sitemap.      Making sure these time stamps are updated regularly when new content is posted is now a pretty big deal. Blogging platforms like WordPress do this automatically but for your regular site content, it’s recommended you install a standalone XML sitemap generator that will automatically update your pages when you do.

6) Publish more Press Releases

Press releases scream ‘fresh’ and timely. In this new era of freshness though, press releases just may be the best and fastest way to feed the search engine a steady stream of the type of content they’re displaying high in search results. However, a press release will only remain fresh for a couple days up to a week so think about ways you can ‘update’ a prior press release with new, more detailed information when possible.

7) Get into Google News

Although it’s extremely difficult for a lone blogger to get into Google News, doing so can have a tremendous influence in how/if your content will find its way to the top of these ‘freshness’ results.

After reading about Google’s new fascination with freshness, you may be thinking that you can simply make changes to a previously published piece of content. According to Google’s statements though, one of the more important factors affecting which content they serve is when they first crawled a page. Making changes to your content in the hope of getting a ‘freshness boost’ will not work.

Therefore, be sure your content is correct the first time!!

One observation about these changes that we and others like our friends at Search Engine News have noticed – freshness doesn’t always equate to ‘most relevant’ in terms of returned search results. Down the road, this distinction may cause problems for Google…we’ll see of course.

Related Posts

Google “Caffeine” Goes Completely Live

Press Release Optimization – Why Your Press Release May Not Be Ranking

5 Common Mistakes that Stop Press Releases Cold

Getting Wisdom from the True Masters of Social Media

Filed Under: Copywriting/SEO Content Development, SEO Technology, Tip of the Day Tagged With: , , ,
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