If you and your company struggle to find fresh, new content that you can not only frequently post to your website, but also optimize for search engines, it might serve well you to look right below your nose at your eNewsletter strategy for help.
eNewsletters already contain valuable information that you share with your email lists on a weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc., basis. Well, this information can and should be leveraged on your website to help increase the quantity and frequency of new content. Here are a few, simple suggestions on how you can incorporate this one piece of content into your search engine optimization plan:
- Archived eNewsletters: Once you send your eNewsletter, what happens to the content? Create an “Archived eNewsletter” section on your website and post it in PDF format (including all live links) or as text. Depending on your distribution frequency, you could easily add new content on a monthly basis to your website, and we all know Google loves refreshed content.
- Potential Blog Posts: Chances are, your eNewsletter has great content whether it’s a featured offer such as an eBook, a news headline, an interview, etc., that could potentially be used on your blog. Break up your eNewsletter content into a blog post format and suddenly you’ll find you have a handful of potential posts.
- Link Building: And last, but not least, now that you have all this great content on your website, you now have stronger potential to build your link popularity. Submit your new blog posts to social bookmarking sites, start talking about them on social media, and build the number of links that point back to your site.
And remember, for all of this new site content, follow your standard SEO strategy by including your target keywords, tagging all key page elements, and leveraging your internal linking strategy to turn this easy to follow plan into a successful optimization program.
Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas from Nowspeed! It’s been a challenging year for businesses. Hopefully, the web, email, search and social media marketing information and resources that Nowspeed has shared with you in webinars and whitepapers have helped you weather this years’ economy with reasonable success.
As the CEO of Nowspeed, I am thankful that although we are in tough economic times, we, our co-workers, and our families do not personally face the greatest humanitarian crises of our time: The AIDS pandemic.
This is why I am committed to helping this humanitarian crises by donating $1.00 to Boston AIDS Africa for every person who becomes a Facebook fan of Boston AIDS Africa and/or follows them on Twitter between today and December 31st, 2009. Boston AIDS Africa is a Boston-based initiative to respond to the AIDS pandemic in Africa by providing essential supplies to care for those suffering with HIV/AIDS in Africa.
It’s that easy. Nothing to donate or give. Just follow Boston AIDS Africa and we’ll give up to $1,000 to this important cause. You can help support a worthy cause and Nowspeed will pay for it! Simply go to the Boston AIDS Africa Fan Page on Facebook, and/or follow them on Twitter.
Feel free to spread the word to any of your friends to help us donate as much as possible. Of course you can learn more about Boston Aids Africa at http://www.bostonaidsafrica.org.
Thanks and Happy Holidays,
David Reske,
CEO, Nowspeed Inc.
Boston AIDS Africa Fan Page
Boston AIDS Africa Twitter Page
About Boston AIDS Africa
Boston AIDS Africa is a non-profit initiative to mobilize the Boston community to respond to the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Africa by providing compassionate care to those suffering from AIDS. In partnership with World Vision, an NGO committed to AIDS care in Africa, Boston AIDS Africa is leading a community-wide effort to fund, assemble and ship Caregiver Kits to an affected region in Africa. Learn more at: http://www.bostonaidsafrica.org.
The team over at Google has been busy these last few weeks. Google has been adding new features and functionality into its free Analytics platform. The latest announcement adds 7 new features which data geeks, marketers and business intelligence folks would agree will help provide more insight and answer more of those pesky ” so what is really happening on our website” questions.
More Goals
Finally Google heard us, and have provided the ability to track more goals - 20 to be exact. Google is also allowing profiles to track new goals as well as engagement metrics that include time spent on site and pages viewed per a visit.
Intelligence Alerts
The analytics team has also expanded its intelligence alert function and will send an automatic email when a predefined milestone is achieved. These alerts can also be displayed within the intelligence section.
Unique Visitor Reporting
Google segmentation is becoming more refined and now you can apply a unique visitors segmentation (by cookies) to any dimension and have a true account of the actual visitors to a website.
Mobile Reporting
More and more mobile browsers are visiting websites and performing searches, and Google wants webmaster and business owners to know how their sites are performing. By adding server side code to your PHP, JSP, PERL, or ASPX mobile websites, analytics now provides a solution for you to track non-Java-Script enabled phones.
More Custom Variables
With the new custom variables feature, Analytics is now more flexible and allows for more customization to site usage data that is applicable to your core business. You can more easily define and track visitors according to attributes be it visitor attributes (member or non-member), session attributes (logged in or out), or even page-level attributes (website section viewed).
Advanced Analysis
Wanna take a deeper look at your data? Just add a secondary dimension to the data you are looking at and gain even more insight. See which keywords are used to drive visits by city or use the advanced filtering functionality to see which of those visits lasted more than 1 minute.
Share Segments and Custom Reports
And the last new feature from Google Analytics… you can now share the custom reports and advanced filters you create with the world. By sharing a link, any Google Analytics profile can import the pre-formatted template and apply the same custom report and to their own data.
Google has made their free tool even better - thanks Google for listening.
For more information about incorporating analytics data into your marketing optimization strategies, download our eBook, “Is your Website Optimized for Demand Generation?“
Developing great content is one of the most important aspects of marketing today and our recent survey results support this fully. Participants were asked to rate the success of the content they use in lead generation activities on a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being the worst, 5 the best). The top contenders were white papers (3.43), case studies (3.41), and webinars (3.31). Falling to the bottom were free trials (3.16) and eBooks (2.15). Providing excellent and relevant content to potential buyers establishes you as an expert and authority. In turn, this creates brand loyalty, improves retention, focuses attention, and generates leads. Engaging new and existing customers by educating them is a great way to build relationships- you become a thought leader and industry expert. Each type of content marketing has its own pros and cons, as well as specific uses. One rule: be sure to keep content fresh and vital.
Here are several great ways to use each of these types of content:
- White papers. The purpose of white papers is to provide customers with information about, or solutions to, problems they might have. They serve in establishing thought leadership and expertise by showing how you can help. Some believe that providing too much information can be detrimental, others that it can be a way to capture attention and draw in audiences.
- Case studies. Using case studies, you are giving valuable content about your company and it shows customers the potential your company has to help. It exemplifies your problem solving skills and the impact you’ve had on customers.
- Webinars. Like white papers, webinars provide information that promotes thought leadership. Unlike white papers, webinars can offer a valuable chance at interaction with, and feedback from, potential and existing customers as well as others in your field.
We would love to hear more feedback about your successful-or unsuccessful- use of content in your marketing campaigns.
David Reske
According to our recent survey of 150 marketing professionals - 65% responded that they are using social media as a marketing tool. While social media is a broad area, the survey showed us that the three most popular social media sites used for marketing are tied at (surprise!) Facebook and Twitter with 54%, and LinkedIn followed at a close third with 49%. The survey also indicated that these sites are used mainly for purposes of branding, PR and in generating website traffic. Because of their straightforward nature, convenience, and accessibility these tools have become essential for social media marketing purposes. Unfortunately, with the ease of use comes a hidden potential for failure. The most challenging aspects of keeping up a social media campaign, according to those surveyed, are content creation (20%)and measurement of results and ROI (30%).
Content
Success in social media does not lie in quantity of blog posts, tweets, and status updates, but rather in their quality. Overwhelming sites with an excess of information can even have a negative effect- turning off potential clients. Staying away from spam-type updates can be hard, especially when the most frequent complaints about social media relate to creating content. A challenge at best, keeping up a social media campaign requires frequently updating without becoming redundant.
Content is second to presence, and is irrelevant if the right audience is not being reached. Begin by working on establishing this presence, and content will follow. Comment on existing posts, recycle information, and make your opinions known. Once this audience is established, creating content may seem less daunting. Interact with your audience through interviews, lists, stories, and questions.
Measuring Results
The best way to measure traffic, SEO, and sales is with tools available for this very purpose. Sites such as Google Analytics, AideRSS, Feedburner, and Xinu are all handy tools. Many social network managing and blogging platforms also offer their users access to statistics, such as Hootsuite and Wordpress. Most marketers agree that by having specific goals and programs when creating the campaign, the results are more easily measured.
I would love to hear your comments about taking on the challenges of social media marketing and about any tools you use to measure results.
David Reske
At my last webinar I presented 10 ways to integrate search and social media marketing methods to make each program more powerful. At the end of the event, we surveyed the audience to get their thoughts on which techniques they expect will deliver the best results, and which techniques they are using now. Here are the results.
The top four techniques that marketers felt would deliver the best results are:
• Integrate SEO and social media tracking and measurement - 57%
• Leverage social media sharing on search landing pages - 45%
• Search engine optimize social media content on web site - 43%
• Leverage video on search landing pages - 40%
Clearly, marketers felt that tracking and measurement is the most important. Additionally, marketers felt that social media sharing on landing pages, optimization of social media content on the web site and video on landing pages all promise to deliver strong results.
The top four techniques that markets were already using are:
• Search engine optimize social media content on web site - 45%
• Embed keywords into video posts and other content posts - 40%
• Write keyword filled content for social media sites with links - 33%
• Integrate SEO and social media tracking and measurement - 33%
One interesting observation here is that on average only 27% of marketers are using any of these techniques, clearly leaving marketers with a lot of work to do to integrate social media and search effectively.
So, Are They Practicing What They Preach?
This survey also showed what markets believe vs. what they are actually doing. On the following four items there was a large gap between what marketers felt would deliver great results, and what they were actually doing.
• Leverage video on search landing pages - 26% - Gap
• Integrate SEO and social media tracking and measurement - 24% Gap
• Leverage social media sharing on landing pages - 21% - Gap
• Build links from social media optimized press releases - 19% - Gap
In other words, marketers felt that these things would deliver a strong ROI, but they were not getting them done as effectively as they want to.
I hope this data helps you see where you stand vs. your peers. Please leave me a comment on whether you agree or disagree with these survey results.
David Reske
Tomorrow I’m presenting a webinar on how to integrate social media into your search marketing programs. It’s always exciting to find ways to make marketing programs work harder by leveraging two elements together to get more effective results.
Search Marketing is critical to the success of any social media marketing program, since you must get found in order for your content to have an impact. And social media can be a powerful accelerator to any paid or organic search marketing program.
My top 10 techniques for integrating Social Media into your Search Marketing Program are:
1. Leverage video on search landing pages
2. Leverage offer comments and ratings on search landing pages
3. Advertise on Facebook and other social media sites
4. Leverage social media sharing on landing pages
5. Embed keywords into video posts and other content posts
6. Write keyword filled content for social media sites with links
7. Build links from social media optimized press releases
8. Build links from articles, blog comments and content distribution
9. SEO optimize social media content on web site
10. Integrate SEO and social media tracking and measurement
If you want to sign up for the webinar, click here.
I’m looking forward to your thoughts on these techniques and the event.
David Reske
When clients want to know the most important things they can do to improve their Lead Generation Program results, I tell them to do the ones that are most effective first, and keep doing them until they can’t produce anymore. Then add activities to the marketing mix in order from the best to the worst performers.
To do this you need to start by getting common metrics on all of your marketing activities, such as the cost per lead or the cost per qualified lead and the number of leads produced. Then sort the activities from best to worst. When we do this exercise for clients, we typically find that their web site is the top performer followed by organic search, paid search and house email list programs. This is consistent with research we’ve seen from Marketing Sherpa and other researchers.
Of course, you need to execute these programs well in order to get good results, but that’s the subject of another post. You also can’t ignore up and coming marketing techniques such as Social Media Marketing. It’s critical to build testing into your budget to find new techniques that can turn question marks into stars.
Back in the early 1970s the Boston Consulting Group came up with a concept for helping clients determine which product lines a company should put its resources behind. Markets were identified as high growth or low growth, and products were classified by whether they used cash or generated cash. “Stars” were promoted, “dogs” were divested, “cash cows” were harvested to support other initiatives, and “problem children” were monitored carefully in the hope they would become “stars.” But obviously the risk remained that they would turn out to be dogs.
You can use this same approach to managing your portfolio of marketing programs. Build a 2X2 matrix with cost/lead on the horizontal axis and lead production on the vertical axis.
When you get your programs organized this way, you’ll quickly realize where you’ll need to focus your efforts. First, invest in the stars to see if these can pull in all of the leads you need. Second, work on the cows. If you can find a way to get these low cost techniques to build volume, you can turn them into stars. Next, focus on your problem children. These might be high producers that are expensive but if you can bring the cost/lead down they can also turn into stars. Finally, think hard about the dogs. Do you really need them in your mix?
If you are interested in learning more, feel free to read this Lead Gen Planning guide. http://www.nowspeed.com/resources/white-papers/marketing-mandates
I’d be very interested in your thoughts on this approach and which techniques are Stars, Cows, Problem Children or Dogs for you.
David Reske
On October 7-8 Nowspeed will be offering free 15-minute consultations at the Inbound Marketing Summit being held at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, MA. Our team of directors will be on-site to provide strategic advice and specific recommendations on how you can optimize your website, landing pages, search engine marketing and social media to improve effectiveness, maximize lead generation and improve ROI.
To schedule your free consultation visit:
http://www.nowspeed.com/resources/request-free-consultation-boston-inbound-marketing-summit
If you are not attending the Inbound Marketing Summit and would still like to schedule a free consultation by phone, please email your request to dreske@nowspeed.com.
I’ve been a Google Reader fan and advocate for quite some time now here at Nowspeed and thought I’d share with our readers the benefits that I enjoy. Google Reader is more than just an information aggregator – it’s a great way to keep tabs on my client’s in the news, the blogosphere, and on Twitter and helps me stay up-to-date on marketing news… Here’s how I use my Google Reader account:
- Subscribe to client’s keywords in Google News, Blogs, and Twitter
- I can monitor my client’s branded keywords across key sites to see if people are talking about them and what they’re saying. This information helps me to better understand any dips or increases in their website analytics data and gives me new ideas for SEO and pay per click keywords.
- Subscribe to industry leader’s blogs and Twitter accounts
- To stay on top of my clients’ industry and the marketing industry, I follow industry leader’s blogs and Twitter accounts. It’s a quick and easy way to find out any new trends or interesting findings, without requiring much research.
- Share with coworkers and friends
- Setting up Google Reader can take some time, so I follow my coworkers and friends Google Reader accounts and read their subscriptions. I’ll often find new topics of interest and new industry leaders this way.
Do you have a Google Reader account or use a different information aggregator? We’re always looking for new and fresh tools!
