Better Content

It’s never a bad time to revisit the subject of better content, which can always be an incredibly powerful  advertising tool. Look guys, no matter what they’re selling out there as a traffic driver your knowledge ‘published as content’ is not only the most sustainable, but the most cost effective means to advertise you!; your expertise!; your product and/ or your service! Google, the other search engines and humans are all always looking for sources of good content… so be one!

The 9 Best Practices: Preparing Content Better For Search Engines!

Here are the practices we’d strongly suggest you get comfortable with in order to improve search engine indexing when publishing new content:

1. Have your 15- 25 target key phrase list ready! Ultimately you want to impress humans, but in order to capture them in the search engines you’ve got to be visible for the phrases you believe they will search in the engines and also in social networks.

2. Create strategic post titles! Search engines and humans typically want different things out of a title; to be successful you must strive to please them both. In technical terms, your page or blog post title is a header tag. This means it’s the first thing a search spider will encounter on a new post or page. Be specific using targeted phrases, so that spiders identify the purpose of the new page, but also impactful so that you attract human attention.

3.  Leverage your content! Search spiders tend to look for phrase consistencies in titles and then high in a page. Random spider crawls also digest more content toward the top of a page or post. Without this, at least during random crawls, they may skip your page leaving you with less potential key word & phrase indexing. Create compelling first paragraphs that include your target key words & phrases, but demonstrate a value proposition for humans too. On the flip side, don’t overuse keywords or use them out of context. The search engines have filters to flag this behavior – often referred to as “keyword stuffing”. And then too much keyword duplication is also just boring for humans.

4. Gather and add good links! When competing for search rank, links remain an important metric, including those you create in text phrases pointing to other content … including your own. Links matter most when relevant to the purpose of a post and also when they come from a trusted source. The best way to generate links organically from others is to create content others will appreciate enough to link back too. Consider notifying news sources that might be interested in your coverage because they just may link to you. Creating links [especially in targeted key phrases] to relevant articles you’ve already written, essentially voting for those pages yourself. That’s right folks, adding ‘anchor text based links’ in your own content to your own content is a proven strategy too. Whether creating or receiving links, it’s always best to have them laid into descriptive anchor text. Search engines prefer anchor text based links! If your page is about widgets and the link comes from text such as ‘the top widgets’ – search engines will recognize and value that more than they would ‘go here’ or go to tomswidgetshop.com.

5. Use Proper Formatting! Most readers give you a few seconds to qualify whether or not they will go deeper into your content. It’s imperative that you make it simple for them to do so. Use simple formatting and a clean layout for every blog post you create. Bold section titles, bullets and numbers are a great way to call attention to your main points and search engines can see certain emphasis too! Fonts should be uniform throughout, with photos and links well placed. If it’s a train wreck for the eye, people will typically not give it a chance AND assume neither will search engine algorithms.

6. Add Images & Video when possible! Search engines place emphasis on alternative image and video content, so use of these forms of content are actually separate competitive visibility opportunities to text based content for you. Use proper tagging, as well as descriptive text, techniques so that your images and video are easily understood and working to generate that indexing for you.

7. Categorize & Tag! Add posts into broader categorization (i.e. a blog post titled, ‘Olive Oil Prevents Alzheimer’s Disease’ should go into the ‘Olive Oil Health’ category) and tags, strictly based upon key phrase emphasis from content itself (they are summarizing bullet points from your article only – not overall descriptors of your site). Summarized, 2- 4 specific tag phrases will typically do and generally one category per post is a good discipline too.

8. Add ‘Call to Action’ & Contact Information! A call to action like, ‘Please, Use Our Complimentary Santa Barbara Online Property Search’, linked to that actual resource can drive greater engagement. And in case visitors are ready, be sure to have your personal contact information easily accessible! Remember, most consumers will NOT comment. Most don’t necessarily want to be a part of the conversation; if they’re interested, most will call or email you – give them what they need!

9. If at all possible, maximize the number of places your blog posts and thereby your brand appear! Social Networks typically offer blogs and while they aren’t going to present your brand exclusively, they certainly an opportunity to be visible to people who may be looking for your product or service. Most of these will allow for your blog posts to automatically appear via feed, eliminating the need to duplicate your effort AND saving you valuable time! You should also enable social icons on all your content so that visitors can easily share your content with their own social networks. Focus on as much visibility in as many places as possible, but do it with the intention of bringing prospects back to where you sell best. For instance, Twitter is not your brand… but you can sure use it to get people there

Related Posts:

Business Blogging Refresher Series: General Writing And Content

Business Blogging Refresher Series: Visibility, Then Qualified Users

And don’t forget to be in the habit of saving every so often too so that, in the event your web connection is ever broken – it happens folks!!, you still have all your work in WordPress not to mention in Word on your desktop. Pretty easy to use, so good luck with it… from Kinetic Knowledge!

Why Is The Search Engine Optimization Of Images Important?

With Google’s Universal Search, which places emphasis on alternative sources of content like images, there has been a shift away from the strict use of text based content in search result pages. The great news is, the images you add to content can generate competitive indexing of their own; however, it’s the search optimization and use of descriptive alt’ tags that make it possible!

And let’s not forget – humans really appreciate images too!

Remember, years ago consumers didn’t have an instant means to research products, services OR their future providers. Advertising was actually a source of information; whereas now it can, at times, be ignored as noise. With the web, search engines, social networks & direct subscription they most certainly have the instant means now … and as marketers we have to adjust our thinking towards how we advertise!

Some good news [what many have called disintermediation] is, we marketers can go direct! We have affordable publishing platforms to share our knowledge AND THEN search, social & subscribe [= what consumers use for research] to distribute it!

Visibility & Traffic First

In the beginning it’s about visibility and the development of some traffic. With your posts, THINK LESS about how many and more about the most useful information! Some will argue this, but in my view people aren’t looking for rapid fire posts so much as they are authentic useful knowledge. If it’s really good, visitors may link to, bookmark, subscribe, Re- Tweet, FB’ Like and Share your good knowledge… all good things to get the attention of more humans and search engines, who may send even more humans.

More On Content

1. Consider taking a stance, show the true you. A little controversy isn’t always a bad thing and a true opinion can generate some healthy visibility.  A heads up here to err’ on the side of caution when it comes to controversial subjects: no slander, no personal attacks and no cursing (…this is your business)!
2. If controversy ISN’T your style, you can always borrow ideas from a hot public interest story. Like we alluded to in the first post, popular stories are often highly searched subjects so they’re likely to get you some good visibility. And again, NEVER copy a story outright – introduce ideas from your own perspective. You can support them with excerpts and links to an original online resource, which is recommended practice, but any more than an excerpt and copyright is [of course] an issue. The search engines are mostly sophisticated enough to identify an original source: they don’t necessarily police plagiarism, but their filters will identify & ignore gross duplication…  and that nullifies your effort in terms of a page search engines might use to index & send more traffic.

Give Help; Give Answers; Refine Traffic Into Qualified Users!

They want help; they want answers!  Do you answer client questions? Every day right? Start writing them up! If one person is asking you, there are likely hundreds searching those same answers… so get in the habit! Your accumulated knowledge, including day to day,  is an advantage. In the past many a business kept knowledge close to the vest [i.e. "you must contact me in order to find out"], but in an age of abundant & free information those who share knowledge gain the trust of qualified consumers. Qualified by their intent; by what they’re looking for = your knowledge! And if you’re not educating, you can be assured your competitor is! So, give the folks who are actively researching the very products & services you offer a reason to visit YOU. A free tutorial isn’t a bad idea. How about an E- Book or an Informative Report!

Personal Appeal; Get More Qualified Users!

If you appeal to people, they are much more likely to follow you! Mix in some personal interest allowing you to be yourself. Not to suggest it’s about you because it is always about them, but if you can find clever ways to share some common interest you’ll likely connect with others that have those too. I can’t help but share a story from a conference I attended last year on what’s NOT a way to go. One person argued we should all get a dog, regardless of whether or not we actually cared for dogs. He felt writing about your dog would attract lots of followers and we could then convert them. I’m a dog lover and that’s genuine, but would I have a dog to fool my future clients? Citizen journalism and the democratization of information probably isn’t about fooling people and / or ulterior motives – give some real flesh & blood folks! In fact, anything but genuine behavior and [fair warning] you’re likely to be outed for it! So be true and you will reinforce your appeal with a qualified audience.

Real Life Examples & Proof; Even More Qualified Users!

Nothing garners more trust and staying power with a qualified audience than proof ! It’s OK to share stories, but use examples of others you have helped. Have clients said great things about your products or services? Share the story! Consumers will connect emotionally; they will identify you as someone they trust! Have you saved someone time? Have you saved someone money? Have you solved a problem? Have you made people happy? Have you helped grow someone’s business?

Visibility, Then Qualified Users!

Sure you need to get started with visibility and traffic, but always strive to satisfy the most qualified visitors possible. They’re the ones… ‘most likely to buy!’

Click here  for access to the Business Blogger’s Bible, a complete resource for business blogging practices brought to you by Kinetic Knowledge.

When business blogging, it’s crucial to remember that quality, and not necessarily quantity, gains the trust of ‘qualified people’ … or BETTER YET those most likely to buy! Minimum one current relevant post a week should be a goal … BUT MORE will certainly help!

Educate [and in doing so advertise] yourself by staying on top of current issues related to your business so that you can cover relevant topics and have an opinion about them for your audience! In the post ‘The Key Is To Stay In Contact, My blog Is Instrumental In That Strategy’ – Malone Hodges, Carmel / Pebble Beach CA documents his experience when covering a local school related matter. He explains, that not only was he immediately indexed high atop the search engines for the subject matter, but he was also quoted as a result in the local newspaper. Forwarding the material to the local school authorities, who appreciated his accuracy, they then sent his coverage out to even more people.

Write in your own voice. Don’t copy another’s writing or story; better to reference good material in a piece that shares your own point of view. If you have read a relevant article certainly link and refer to it, but never copy it. Per Connor T. MacIVOR Santa Clarita CA - “My advice to others is to be real and not plastic. The visibility in search engines is only part of the equation. People want flesh and blood – not someone else’s ideas or bland reporting on the Real Estate market and trends.”

Ghost content: You’re busy so you can look for good content support! While it’s important to write in your own voice, it doesn’t hurt to mix in some ghost writing so long as it is carefully directed by you! Even trusted guest authors can be useful to your visibility.

FREE Tools Save You Time: If you’re short on time and local subject material, subscribe to Google News Alerts. It’s a FREE service that perpetually searches key phrases you set up for sought after news and events. When ’Alerts’ identifies material it sends you an email with links to the source. General Google News Alerts for your particular area are also a great resource, offering the latest links to pertinent articles.

Related Information:

13 fresh content ideas for your Real Estate Blog!

What Are The Best Practices for Business Blogging?

Question Of The Day: Why Do I Need To Be Current?

What’s Going On Locally Has Everything to Do With Your Real Estate Brand!

Click here to read the Business Blogger’s Bible.

It’s a question many ask and for the most part we’ve always answered with another question, “what is the purpose or goal of your site?” If the answer is to drive more leads, subscribers or to sell more products and services, BUT NOT to sell advertising…. than we have the answer to the question.

Often people under value their own brand, not to mention the value of being a current & knowledgeable authority on a subject. And if we can be the current & knowledgeable authority that future buyers are looking for, then why do anything but center visitor attention on our brand? Better yet, why not convert them to a direct subscriber or even a buyer?

DailyBlogTips.com Post Titled ‘ Why I Will Never Use Adsense on a Blog Again’

Ironically DailyBlogTips.com post actually has competitive Google Adsense Ads’ directly beneath the title, but we felt ‘ Why I Will Never Use Adsense on a Blog Again’  did a nice job of summing up why the practice can be counter productive. And by the way, no reason to blame the author about the Adsense Ads. He’s a guest author and unlikely to be aware of DailyBlogTips.com’s Ad’ management. See the image here, which if you think about it ONLY PROVES THE GUEST AUTHOR’S THEORY - ADSENSE CAN BE VERY COUNTER PRODUCTIVE to the purpose of publishing a blog!

In any event, less than 1 click per 100 visitors on average means only ’critical mass’ will generate enough click through activity to make meaningful money. And while the author didn’t quite get into how competitive it is for traffic these days, nor that to make money with Adsense you’ll need significant traffic, he did make great points about a site’s purpose including:

1. Your Purpose Should Be To Get Readers – We’d add: focus less on quantity, more on quality!
2. Each [Adsense] Click Represents A Lost Reader
3. It [Adsense] Dilutes Your Brand equity
4. Passes Equity To The Advertiser That Gets A Visitors Click
5. You Do Not Have Complete Control Over What Ads Surface
6. You Compromise Your Brand With The Wrong Ads
7. The Money is In The Mailing List
8. Subscribers Eventually Buy!
9. If You Must Have Ads, Look Into Complimentary Affiliates

Summary

What is the mission of your blogsite?  Is it to drive traffic? Subscribers? Brand? Product & Service Sales? Do you want to grow your business…. or someone elses?

Click here to read the Daily Blog Tips post and decide for yourself what is important to you and your blog mission.

Like with traditional advertising, if blogging & social media don’t eventually convert then why do we bother? I’m not knocking hobbies, passions or  relationships, but Kinetic Knowledge means to discuss the use of content, organic advertising methods and doing more business!

One of the more important points I’ll address here is that conversion isn’t likely to happen, or at least improve at all, unless we look to assign metrics or dollar values to it.

We’ve really got to execute our methods of conversion or, again, why invest our valuable time? Recently, in posts titled ‘Sure, You Have A Blogsite & Social Network Accounts, But What is Your Plan To Succeed?‘ AND ‘You Cannot Optimize What You Do Not Analyze!’ we looked at a series of steps proven to help develop a successful organic advertising campaign, including:

1.Become a Content Networker … have your content go everywhere!
2.Meet Consumer Intent With Answers & Relevant Information …good information reaches those looking for it!
3.Expose Them To A Current, Authoritative & Appealing Brand … present the most useful site possible!
4.Measure Past To Optimize Future Content … you cannot improve what you don’t evaluate!

5.Conversion! … getting to more sign ups, subscribers and sales!

For Starters, What’s The Goal?

For starters, what is the conversion goal? Is it simply raw traffic? I hope not! Used correctly the web makes qualification possible so why develop a site that tries to please everyone? Is the goal registrations for an e- book or an ongoing stream of answers & information via your blogsite? For those who believe sales are about pipeline and getting to the next step, this method positions you nicely because you’re directly connected for repeat touches! Or is it immediate sales? A tougher task with savvy consumers these days, but when so many are online with an ‘intent to buy’ it is possible!

We’ve talked about it a great deal in previous posts, so let’s assume that you’ve figured out what makes your site special and worth visiting; you have a feel for what prospective clients want and you provide it!? For Realtors, qualified traffic is likely interested in property search, home appraisal and current market data. These days support with Tax Assessment, Foreclosure, Short Sale and REO information may be the call. For Executive Recruiters & Staffing firms, it may be jobs, market salary comparison calculators, resume and career support. With Food Companies there  may be an interest in recipes, health and  ingredient oriented information. Would targeting mothers by sharing ingredients and health tips drive more subscription & loyalty? Whatever the hook is, you’re driving some qualified traffic and they’re not just bouncing off your site. They’re digging for real answers & information. The more they’re finding, the more likely it is they’re willing to trust you. Now, you’ve got to convert!

How Do You Convert?

Ultimately, whether it’s sign ups or immediate sales, conversion requires a compelling offer. What is your compelling offer and how can they sign up for it? Does your blogsite offer RSS subscription? Better yet, and because most people don’t use RSS, does it offer direct & voluntary email subscription? Do you have sign up forms readily available on your site? Is buying something easy to do, with shopping carts and simple credit card processing? Examples might include:

- Lead Capture Form: ‘Reduce Your Learning Curve by Years! Register for our eBook.’
- Blogsite Subscription: ‘Get Detailed Weekly Data FREE! Register Here.’
- Forms: ‘Get Our Coupons and Special Offers. Register Here.’
- Blogsite Subscription: ‘Be a Member of This Network – Get Smarter! Subscribe.’
- Shopping: ‘Shopping Made Simple!’ OR ‘Get 10% off your order 1st time you BUY with us’

Raising The Bar For Conversion

Conversion isn’t likely to happen, or at least improve at all, unless we look to assign metrics or a dollar value to what happens. Why?, you ask. Because it’s the metrics and/or the dollars that help us to crystalize or visualize an actual result. For simplicity’ sake, let’s say we’re looking to convert subscribers. We see 1,000 unique users visit our site in the month and 100 register a subscription. Great!, that’s 10%. Now the simple objective becomes improvement: how can we improve that by 10% or to 110 new subscriptions [assuming we have same unique user traffic] next month? At Kinetic Knowledge we just changed ‘Subscribe To Our Email Newsletter’ to ‘Become a Member of Our Organic Advertisng Education Network’. Why? Because we’re not satisfied and we’re trying to improve our monthly direct subscription registrations!

It’s the results we really want and with actual numbers we can easily visualize what, for instance, a 10 percent improvement means. Jamie Steven VP Marketing at SEOmoz wrote a really great post titled, ‘How to Convince your Boss that CRO is a Win’ centered on metrics and dollars. To uses Jamie’s words, “OMFG. Improving the conversion rate of our checkout page by 10% will result in an additional 63 conversions each month, or 756 per year!”

Now that’s conversion! – Now that’s impact for your business!
Now we are beginning to build a successful organic online presence!

Related Posts:
1. Organic Advertising I: What’s Your Plan to Succeed?
2. Organic Advertising II: You Must Analyze In Order To Optimize!

1.Become a Content Networker
2.Meet Consumer Intent With Answers & Relevant Information
3.Expose Them To A Current, Authoritative & Appealing Brand
4.Measure Past To Optimize Future Content
5.Convert!

Measure Past To Optimize Future Content

Something we’ve been focused on lately, namely because it’s proven,  is “you cannot optimize what you do not measure and analyze!” In this post we’re taking a look at ‘data mining’ analysis and the success it brings. I’ll add that we all understand the power of great data, but often we accept generic information, at best. We settle for spreadsheets and default reports. Yes, it’s important to understand how much traffic has increased, but is that what’s truly actionable? No it’s not! What sites referred traffic and how can we leverage that information to further reach that audience… is actionable! This is just one basic example of data mining! This is the game changer!

It’s certainly been successful in California Olive Ranch’s [COR] 1.5 year content networking campaign. On a monthly basis COR leverages quantitative traffic data to gauge growth for a number of different data points and that’s certainly very important, but they take it a step further by  leveraging qualitative ‘data mining’ analysis as well. By ‘data mining’ they’re able to sniff out the clues that truly drive growth and conversion on a networked web.

Does an 8,000 % increase in total page views, 6,000 % increase in unique new visitors and a 2,750 % increase in subscribers sound like something is working to you?

Featuring California Olive Ranch:

On the Goal With Blogging & Social Networking: [COR] intends to maximize highly targeted traffic; to answer all EVOO consumer and chef questions; to drive direct COR subscriber conversion and to maximize COR EVOO brand recognition.

On Data Mining and Traffic Analysis: “Analysis is the only way to truly optimize what you do month over month. It tells us what topics attract visitors to our blogs, either directly or via Google and other search engines. Believe it or not, a post we did last year on rotisserie-grilled pork ribs [using our extra virgin olive oil] has been extremely popular in web searches. Again, we know that from our traffic analysis. So we made sure to showcase that recipe in a post we did about a Labor Day menu this year. In the month of September, searches surrounding the subject of rotisserie ribs labor day were a leading driver of traffic.”

On Social Network Traffic Identification & Furthering the Commitment: “We’ve seen that our new Facebook page has been an important traffic driver for our blogs. Thanks to Kinetic Knowledge we set up an automated system that posts our blogs to the California Olive Ranch Facebook page. That, in turn, attracts Facebook readers to our blogs. Because of the positive results we’ve had we always aim to integrate our social media —blogs, Facebook, eNewsletter, Twitter — as much as possible. In the end it benefits the California Olive Ranch web site and the company’s brand.”

On Modern Versus Versus Traditional Forms of Advertising AND Sales Conversion: It’s by far the lowest cost per impression of anything we do! Our blogs are outpacing PPC advertising for traffic and at fraction of the cost, approximately 30%. Blogs also seem to drive more engaging visitors than advertising and PPC. People come and read the blogs because they want to. We can also quickly see what people are reading and fashion our topics accordingly. Blogging also lets us maintain a relationship with our readers [via subscription] month over month. We found blogging attracts very loyal readers who are engaged with our brand. After 6 months, 97.3% of our subscribers remain subscribers. It eventually drives those readers to buy our product on the site or at their local grocery or retailer. Speaking of retailers, a blog we did about our new COR EVOO store locator – which lets people see if a local store sells our EVOO – was very popular and no doubt helped our store sales. We are actually getting individual retail outlets emailing us that we inadvertently omitted them and asking us to add them to the locator. Ultimately, we can reward our most loyal readers with things like free shipping or complementary product. That just makes every $1 spent on blogging remarkably cost-effective for us.”

‘Data Mining’ and Traffic Analysis Summarized

The environment for advertising has changed. Each day 21% of all US- based adult consumers research their future purchases, so ultimately you have to invest in methods of advertising that meet the consumer intent online. It’s one thing to leverage a blogsite, content, search, subscription and social  networking: COR not only dedicates resources to these very things, but they take that effort a step further and analyze the effects of their past work in order to optimize their future effort.

At 30% of the cost with giant month over month increases in traffic and subscription COR is demonstrating how to successfully operate in a modern advertising environment. Clearly!

See Kinetic Knowledge Data Mining, Strategic Analysis & Guidance Services

Related Posts:

• Want More Sales? It’s Time We Get Serious And Analyze Traffic Data!
• Sure, You Have A Blogsite & Social Network Accounts, But What is Your Plan To Succeed?

Search Engine Optimization is a very complicated & liquid process, but in simplified terms it consists of 1. well formed consistent content, 2. easily crawled [content on] pages and a 3. measurable reaction to content. What is a measurable reaction to content? Well, it’s many things and not all necessarily known, but you can assume that if your pages are getting bookmarked and back linked that you are much more likely to get competitive positioning [= more visibility] in the search engine result pages!

Use Caution With Back Link Strategies

Now I’d caution that certain back link strategies can hurt more than they help, including what Google refers to as ‘spammy methods’. Methods that might include too much linking between two or more sites or excessive & unrelated reciprocal linking are detectable as spam! 

Google Search Quality Strategist Kaspar Szymanski, “It’s important to clarify that any legitimate link building strategy is a long-term effort. There are those who advocate for short-lived, often spammy methods, but these are not advisable if you care for your site’s reputation. Buying PageRank-passing links or randomly exchanging links are the worst ways of attempting to gather links and they’re likely to have no positive impact on your site’s performance over time. If your site’s visibility in the Google index is important to you it’s best to avoid them.”

Former Search Engineer turned SEO John Glick, “It’s certainly a red flag if a site gains too many links too quickly. The same is true if the profile of the links looks unnatural. At Yahoo! sites that got a sudden upsurge in inlinks were classed as “spike” sites. Legit spike sites (ex. the website of some unknown who wins an Olympic medal) have typical hallmarks like temporally-linked mentions in media sites that you can’t buy access to (AP, NYT, Time, etc.). The spikes that are blackhatted look totally different.”

What Can You Do To Get Good Back Links?

1. Create Useful Current Content!

If you’re helping people to answer questions or to solve problems you are much more likely to have some percentage of your visitors back link! Be authoritative; be knowledgeable and be appealing. I also feel being current is of paramount importance in a world where buyers can research their suppliers at will. Use new data the audience will appreciate. Polls & Surveys are great. Research is novel. And videos are proven to be very popular these days too.

2. Get Into Directories

What are the meaningful directories for your trade? Do your local newspapers have them? How about any local news sites? If not already, identify them and do your best to create back links from your profile. Not all will allow links and some will ‘no crawl’ them, but the worst case scenario is directory traffic might see you & visit. If you’re lucky, they will back link! Also, look for good article directories. They need content and will often give you back links for use of your content. 

3. Ask Business Acquaintances & Friends

You know other people who have sites. Great! if they have relevant business sites with like subject matter or regional focus. Having good page rank can help too, depending upon how meticulous you’re willing to be. Have you asked them to back link? And note, search engines have back link filters, valuing some more than others. For instance, it’s well documented that back links in-content or maybe in a blog post, as opposed to say a sidebar or footer, hold more relevance. If you can get the back link buried into a descriptive, even sought after, key phrase that’s really going to help too! 

4. Use Social Media

Start by registering your social media accounts. A second step might be to get your content into them regularly. Don’t fret, you can typically your blog’s feed configured to automatically push content into your social media accounts, making it visible in those environments. Make your posts re- tweetable and also Facebook like- able because when a visitor chooses one of these your content becomes visible to their circle of influence in those environments. We’d also recommend going further by participating and contributing in social network forums and on other like blogs.. and remember to back link to yourself when you do. The intent is usually not business, but try and find clever ways to make your circle of friends aware of what’s going on with your business. And folks, Google acknowledges that it measures social media engagement and back links!

5. Be Entertaining & Fun

Admittedly, I probably fail in this area … being very matter of fact and even dry; however, someone I respect very much [Stephen Fells, CEO Agency Logic] leverages super entertaining posts quite regularly. It’s all surrounding his firms focus on high quality real estate tools & applications , but very successful for him. Let’s face it folks, humor wins hearts and minds … and back links!

It’s important to gain every incremental advantage you can online. Your site’s crawler friendliness [i.e. markup, URL structures, categorization, tags] and consistent well formed content are huge!, but don’t ever underestimate the value of good back links. Follow the above advice and you should see your pages rise in the search engines, gaining you more visibility and traffic!

Related Posts:

• Confused By Search Engine Optimization? Try This ‘Laypersons Guide To Understanding SEO’
• What is the Approach to Link Building for a Business Blogger in 2009?
• The 10 Best Overall Factors Influencing Your Page Rank!
• The 5 Most Negative Factors Influencing Your Search Engine Page Rank

If we want to generate business with our blogsites and social media marketing, we’ve got to find the discipline to analyze our traffic data!

California Olive Ranch DOM Claude Weiller, for whom we provide in depth traffic data analysis, has been ecstatic about the effort claiming, “We’ve adjusted our marketing strategies in response to the data we get from our blogs. The [traffic] analytics are a gold mine!“

Marketing Tactics

Search Engine Optimization and Social Media Marketing are tactics. If tactics don’t eventually translate to business then they’re a waste of time! And don’t be misled by those who’d have us believe raw traffic volume is the win. It’s not - lead conversion is!

Performance Indicators

We’ve got to identify the performance indicators that help measure the effectiveness of our tactics. Once we have those  indicators, we can actually begin to translate tactics into more and more new business. Having traffic convert is a process and it’s also about getting the right message across. With Social Network Marketing the message may be more about creating buzz & conversation to get attention because people’s intent for being there isn’t really business; whereas, with search they have very specific intent so that activity can & should be targeted as business. In either case performance indicators might help us to understand that ‘Denver Real Estate’ is a popular target phrase that gets us lots of traffic & visibility, but maybe it’s the phrase ‘Denver Neighborhoods’  that’s really converting.

Conversions

It starts with capturing anyone who’s looking for something specific and that identifies our content [somewhere, anywhere] as potentially useful. If they visit, then we need to be current, knowledgeable and appealing. Are they subscribing, signing up, filling out forms or even buying something? To make it happen, we have to understand what makes them tick. And the answers are in our traffic data!

Data Points

Some of the data you should be analyzing, or at least outsourcing, for valuable interpretation [See Our Traffic Analysis Services ] might include:

Key Data Points:

•Bounce Rate – What percentage looked at one page and left?
•Unique Visitors – Do we have new visitor growth?
•Return Visitors – Are we building visitor loyalty?
•Total Page Views – Do we have page view growth?
•Avg Page Views Per Visitor – How is our overall stickiness or brand engagement?

Interpretive Data Points:

•Most Popular Pages – what are our most popular subjects and can we expand on them?
•Referral Websites – Where are we getting traffic from and are Twitter, Facebook, etc. driving traffic?
•Search Phrases – What do we have traffic from; what do we not have traffic from and what should we target more often?

Key Performance Indicators:

• Percentage of Traffic Subscribing To Our Blogsite
• Percentage of Traffic Driven To Specific Area of Our Blogsite [e.g. Search The MLS]
• Percentage of Traffic Completing Lead Capture Forms
• Percentage of Traffic Converted to Sales

What works for one company may be different for the next, but let’s think bigger than just pure numbers. Personally, I cringe when someone says “so and so has X thousand page views per month.” There are lots of tricks that can drive traffic, but what’s happening when the visitors arrive?  Tell me about what it’s doing for their business!

The interpretation aspect of traffic analysis cannot be underestimated! It can’t be automated and it takes time, but leveraging what the numbers say to identify trends and solve problems is what leads to improved performance. Once you understand it, you can begin to improve your focus for giving visitors what they truly want. Do that and we’ll begin to convert more!

Related Posts:

1. Overcome the Google Analytics Learning Curve in 20 Minutes
2. When Does Traffic Analysis Improve Lead Flow And New Business?
3. Get Over How Much: Get Into Attracting High Quality Traffic!