Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Learning How To Be A Manager'
Posted by caitlin.krumdieck
Introduction from Will Critchlow:
I want to introduce the post that follows for two reasons. First, its a little
different to the majority of posts we write for the SEOmoz blog, and second, its
Caitlins first post here.Caitlin Krumdieck is our Director of Client Development
at Distilled. Until she joined the company (as a sales executive), I had sold
every piece of work that Distilled had done. She (supposedly) joined the company
to assist me in responding to leads and putting together proposals. When she
out-sold me in her third month, it became clear that I should be making way for
her to do her thing and her growth at Distilled has continued from there. Along
the way, shes learned some interesting things about herself and the various
roles shes held in the company. Ihope you enjoy reading about Caitlins growth
and development and take away something useful for your own career and company.
Throwing myself in the deep end (aka learning how to be a manager)
I always thought I wanted to be a manager. Growing up naturally bossy and bit
of a control freak, it just seemed like the natural spot for me to end up. So
when I stepped into my first management position at Distilled, I was surprised
at how hard the transition was. Moving from consultant to manager of a team
required a complete change of mindset and challenged me in ways I never
expected. Today, I'll be sharing the four things I believe are worth thinking
about if you are looking to make the move into management.
Gut check: make sure you actually want to be a manager
About three months after my transition from London Sales Exec into the Head of
Sales role, I had a very frank conversation with Will Critchlow (Distilled's
Co-Founder) about my role. He then asked me point blank if I actually wanted to
be a manager.
For me, this was a career-changing question. At the time, I was having a tough
time letting go of my old responsibilities and moving forward into management
responsibilities. I had been working in sales for over six years. I loved the
buzz of talking to clients and closing deals. I liked the fact that I was
personally responsible for bringing in revenue for Distilled, and I still valued
my contribution to the company by the amount of money I could generate. So
instead of focusing all my time and energy on how to make my team awesome, I was
still spending at least 70% of my time trying to bring in new business. This
meant I was essentially doing two jobs, over working myself, and not giving my
team the management support they needed.
My answer to Will was, Let me think about it. I surprised myself by not going
right back to him with a, Hell yeah, I want to be a manager response. I spent a
few days really thinking about the changes I would need to make if I really
wanted to step into a management position. To help me evaluate both
opportunities, I made a list of the responsibilities for each. I thought about
what it would mean to my day-to-day work, and I asked myself quite frankly, Will
I be happy as a manager?
I think a lot of people make the mistake of skipping this step. They think
that, because management seems like a step up, it is the natural progression
they should strive for. But the truth is that management isnt for everyone. It
is a somewhat thankless job that requires a lot of patience, focus,
determination, and self-motivation. It isnt just a progression from a consulting
role; its a complete job change.
In the end, I decided to challenge myself and devote myself fully to becoming a
great manager. I would love to say that from the moment I made that decision
everything changed, but to be honest, it took about another nine months before I
made the full transition.
So before you eagerly put yourself forward for that management position, ask
yourself, Do I really want to be a manager? If you are currently a consultant
and love working on accounts, would you be happy if your daily responsibilities
shifted from being at the heart of the action to becoming the person setting
team targets, having line manager meetings, and generally solving problems?
Would you miss the thrill of the discovery that only comes from day-in, day-out
work with clients? These aren't easy questions, and it is well worth taking the
time out to really think about what a move into management means.Rand wrotea
great postcovering the management vs contributor conundrum, highlighting how
management isn't everything and shouldn't be the only growth path within a
company.
Transitioning: re-learning how to be a team player
When I was in high school, I was the goalie for my schools water polo team.
This role requires a lot of the same characteristics of a great manager. While
everyone knows that it is the goalies job to stop the ball from going in the
net, it is also the goalies responsibility to set plays into motion. However,
once the ball is in play, they need to get their ass back to the goal and
provide support. From the vantage point in the goal, you can see the whole pool,
so it is your job to let the other members of the team know what's going on, but
you cant actually get involved. A goalie is the ultimate support position. Sure,
you get credit for any major saves, but you never get credit for the goals your
offense scores.
Management is very similar. At Distilled, we subscribe to the belief that good
management means being the support for the whole rest of the team, not the other
way around. We are avid believers of Joel Spolskys support function approach to
management.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2012/02/the-management-team-guest-post-from-joel-spolsky.html
As a manager, you have to be constantly aware of everything happening and make
yourself available to help, but you need to let your team score their own goals.
A good manager doesnt take all the great leads/clients; they share their
experience and knowledge so their team is able to step up and perform on their
own.
Another big mind shift for me in going from a consultant to a manager, was
learning to see my teams success as my success. While I wasnt out there directly
making clients happy, I was supporting a team that was getting results. That is
the management win.
Learning to lead: dont dictate, start a flywheel
We talk about the power of flywheels a lot at Distilled. Building a great team
should be approached with the same ideology and methodology as starting a
flywheel. The goal is the same: ideally, when you push hard in a consistent
direction for a length of time, it seems to get easier and easier to build
momentum. With a small team and big targets, it was essential for me to think
about how, as the manager, I could push my team to get the best possible results
and continued growth for Distilled.
Its easy to assume that you know what all the right answers are and that your
team should do things your way. This was a mistake I made when I first started
managing my team. As the first sales person at Distilled, I created a lot of our
original sales material. I thought the most successful approach would be to get
my team to just use what I built and go out and sell the way I would sell
things. That approach worked OK for a while, but it was short-sighted and didnt
allow us to leverage the talent within our team. It also meant I had to be
involved with every major deal we did, which limited our ability to speak with a
larger number of clients.
So I took a step back. I stopped telling people how I thought they should
approach working with a new client, and I started asking them what they thought
they should do. I forced myself to stop getting involved in every conversation,
and gave my team the space and responsibility to own all the client
relationships, only bringing me in when they really need me. Instead of
bulldozing in when trying to solve problems, I started to refuse to give my team
advice until they told me what they thought a solution looked like.
The results have been amazing. My team has grown in confidence and the work
they are doing now is more than twice as good as it was when I was forcing my
approach on them. We are talking to more clients than ever before, and were able
to double business last year without growing the size of our team.
Getting results: make sure your team knows what is expected of them
As a sales team, it was easy to focus target setting on revenue, but that only
looks at part of the picture. If you only focus on the money coming in, you
might miss some crucial areas of personal development that need to also be
addressed as a manager. While I could use our sales reporting system to see how
my team was performing, I couldnt see if they were happy or achieving what they
wanted to in their roles.
The first step I took was to redefine the roles within our team and to set out
clear responsibilities of the roles my team currently filled and what
progression into more senior roles would look like. I made sure to focus not
just on their sales targets, but also team development responsibilities within
the role. I put in more ownership-based responsibilities so the team could see
how they were a part of the big picture and not just a cog. This helped my team
to see exactly what is expected of them and what they can start working on to
progress to the next level within the team. It also allowed me to open up
conversations with my team on what sideways steps might look like, should
someone on the team choose to move in a new direction.
Once I had the roles clearly defined, I sent out a happiness survey to each
member of my team. Here are the questions I asked my team.
On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best, how happy are you in your roll at the
moment? On a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the best, how do you feel you are
performing in your role?
Do you feel like you know what is expected of you in your role?
On a scale from 1-5 with 5 being the best, do you feel that you are well
supported in your roll?
On a scale of 1-5 with 5 being the best, do you feel you get the support you
need from Caitlin?
What do you feel is your biggest accomplishment in the past 12 months?
Where do you think you have failed or would like to improve?
What do you think of the targets set for 2012/2013 (this past year)?
What are areas you feel like you could use more support in?
What is one thing Caitlin can do for you to support you in your role?
Do you understand what Caitlin's role is?
What is one thing you would like to see improve/change/grow for the Client
Development team for the New Year?
How would you rank the general quality of leads you have received in the past
3 months?
My line manager Duncan Morris (Distilled CEO) had used a similar tactic with me
in our line manager meetings and I found it was a great way to open up
conversations about happiness and personal development. In the past when asking
my team, How are you doing? I tended to get half thought-out answers. Giving
them the space to write at length about it and asking them to assign a number to
how they felt about how things were going, meant I got much more critical
responses. It also allowed me to ask them what I needed to do as their manager
to get them to the next level, which forced them to give me critical feedback.
This really opened up conversations and has led to better personal development,
increased team happiness, and improvements in openness across the team.
Wrapping up
Every company is going to demand different things from its management team, but
I found getting the team management side of things right is one of the most
important steps I took. It wasnt until I got that right that I really started to
feel like a manager. There have been a lot of lessons along the way and I could
probably write another whole post on the challenges of setting targets, managing
difficult consultants and clients, and the importance of communication. However,
I felt these three things really sum up the major lessons I learned as a person
when moving into a management role and are the most transferable, regardless of
the type of manager you are looking to be.
If you would like some more references, I found these resources very helpful:
Good to Great
Anything from Dale Carnegie especially How To Enjoy Your Life and Your Job
Bob Nelsons 1001 Ways to Energize and Empower Employees
One of the great things about being a manager is that you are always learning
and there is always more to think about when trying to help your team grow. I
hope sharing my own learning experinces has helped and I would love to hear from
others who have advice on how to manage a team effectively.
I'll leave you with an aswer I had to give recently, when someone I was
interviewing asked me what I love about my job:For the past four years, I have
found my self doing something brand new and challanging every day. No week is
the same. Finally, while a manager may not get a lot of credit for all the
behind the scenes work you do supporting the team, seeing your team be
successful can be supremely rewarding and fulfilling.
Good luck!
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Monday 27 May 2013
Tuesday 21 May 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] The 7 Most Dangerous Blog Design Mistakes
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The 7 Most Dangerous Blog Design
Mistakes'
There are many millions of blogs on the internet, and probably about 98% of them
are garbage to be honest. And because there is so much choice out there, it is
very hard to stand out - unless you can "WOW" a first time visitor with a great
design, inte...
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Mistakes'
There are many millions of blogs on the internet, and probably about 98% of them
are garbage to be honest. And because there is so much choice out there, it is
very hard to stand out - unless you can "WOW" a first time visitor with a great
design, inte...
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[Build Backlinks Online] 6 Ways to Make More Out of Your Facebook Ad Campaign
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, '6 Ways to Make More Out of Your
Facebook Ad Campaign'
Whatever you think about Facebook, theres one thing thats hard to dispute: Mark
Zuckerberg isnt afraid to mix things up and try new strategies, and thats
especially true when it comes to advertising. If you dont follow the social
network closely, its easy to miss the newest advertising tools and tips. Lets
take a quick [...]6 Ways to Make More Out of Your Facebook Ad Campaign is a post
from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/facebook/6-ways-to-make-more-out-of-your-facebook-ad-campaign/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=6-ways-to-make-more-out-of-your-facebook-ad-campaign
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Facebook Ad Campaign'
Whatever you think about Facebook, theres one thing thats hard to dispute: Mark
Zuckerberg isnt afraid to mix things up and try new strategies, and thats
especially true when it comes to advertising. If you dont follow the social
network closely, its easy to miss the newest advertising tools and tips. Lets
take a quick [...]6 Ways to Make More Out of Your Facebook Ad Campaign is a post
from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/facebook/6-ways-to-make-more-out-of-your-facebook-ad-campaign/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=6-ways-to-make-more-out-of-your-facebook-ad-campaign
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[Build Backlinks Online] The 3 Steps for Success in a Multi-device Search World
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The 3 Steps for Success in a
Multi-device Search World'
Posted by Aleyda Solis
We live in a multi-device world, and if you're still focused on improving your
visibility, traffic, and conversions solely for desktop users, you're losing a
great opportunity. This gap, coupled with the fact that you're probably staying
behind your competitors and unconnected with your audience, is not great for
business. Not convinced? Let's see some data...
Mobile search is booming.
It's already driving important multi-channel conversions.
However, we're still not doing our best for mobile and are losing
opportunities.
Despite the multichannel conversions that mobile search drives, we're still not
making the most out of it. There are people that feel it is still too
complicated and insecure to purchase goods on their smartphones:
Unfortunately, what are now fundamental aspects on our desktop-focused
optimization activities are sometimes still unknown when developing a
mobile-focused presence, even for some very important websites. For example:
A. Some websites don't have a mobile-focused presence
Remember that, despite having an audience that may be using the most advanced
smartphones and tablets, they still need an optimized offer that fulfills their
specific behaviors (not necessarily the same than the one from the desktop
users), providing the best experience according to their device characteristics
(and device-specific restrictions).
For example, can you guess which of these two sites provide me the best
experience, is really optimized for me, will make me stay (as a consequence),
and have a higher chance of conversions from me?
Although I have an iPhone 5 and my fingers are tiny, it's very difficult for me
to browse, interact, and consume information if the site doesn't have a version
well-optimized for the device I'm using.
B. Some sites have a mobile presence, but forget about optimization
fundamentals
On the other hand, other websites have a mobile presence (websites and apps
included), but that doesn't mean they're really optimized. As I mentioned
before, basics from our day-to-day "desktop focused" optimization activities are
for some reason forgotten when we go mobile or tablet.
For example, many websites love promoting their apps with intrusive
interstitials that disrupt the user mobile web flow, requiring interaction from
the user in order to continue:
What about relevant, descriptive titles? This optimization basic is frequently
forgotten, even by big websites when they go mobile (although these are
well-optimized in their desktop versions):
How about businesses that forget to create a landing page on their site for
their own mobile apps? When you search for the app, you get the first results
with iTunes store profiles that may confuse you (which one to choose?) featuring
not-so-great descriptions, along with some posts with negative reviews:
Time to get better control of your own app web results? Yes, please.
Two questions arise from these situations:
Can you blame people for not converting from their mobile devices?
How can you change it?
First, let's acknowledge the challenge of a multi-device ecosystem. Once we get
a handle on it, we'll have an overall vision in order to make the best
decisions, optimize your presence accordingly, and maximize your opportunities.
Mobile, Tablet, Web vs. App: The Segmentation Challenge
Usually, the first question we need to answer when we go mobile (whether
smartphone or tablet focused) is: do I develop a website or an app?
As I shared in this State of Search post, your decision should be based on
certain factors such as your business model; the goals you're trying to achieve;
how important is for your content to have a wider reach, and if it is web
indexable or not; whether or not you need to provide a complex functionality
that requires a higher hardware integration or connection independence; and if
your audience is highly-concentrated in few devices types and platforms. You'll
need to asses these characteristics along with mobile web and apps pros and
cons:
When you're deciding whether going mobile with a website or an app is the best
option for you, use the following visualization to analytze the alternatives:
You'll see that is easier to targetyour mobile audience with less web presence
than to do so with an app that is much more segmented.
However, when you think beyond the development alternatives to target your
mobile audience with the required functionalities and start thinking about how
you can optimize, grow the visibility, and generate conversions,you'll find that
most of the principles and good practices are the same (or can be easily
extrapolated):
Realize that, despite the many segmentation levels a multi-device presence may
have from a development and audience perspective, there are optimization
principles that are the same for any type of approach, platform, and device type
that you should be taking into consideration in order to make the most out of
the organic search channels to connect with your audience.
It's now the time to identify these similar principles and good practices to
make the most out the multi-device search opportunity, instead of focusing on
its complexities as an excuse. Otherwise, you will stay behind.
3 Steps to Improve Your Visibility in a Multi-device Search World
1. Optimize your presence for multi-device search visibility
People not only search for websites through web search, but also for apps
(whether from smartphones, tablets, or desktops, remember we're in a
multi-device world), so it's fundamental that you don't forget about creating
and optimizing a mobile web presence to increase your mobile app visibility
through web search, too.
Take a look at the exact-match local monthly search volume for some mobile apps
related keywordsin the US, from desktop and laptop devices:
And the volume for the searches from mobile devices with full Internet
browsers:
So, if you want to maximize the chances that your mobile presence (web or app)
gets the search visibility, users, and conversions it deserves, then you need to
make sure that it's easily found through the web search results. If you have a
mobile app, you'll also need to take into consideration your visibility in the
app store search. Let's see how!
1.1. Mobile web: select and optimize the best mobile web approach for your
situation
When you're developing a mobile website, the key is to select the best setting
according to your characteristics, restrictions, and needs. These settings
include responsive web, dynamic serving, or parallel mobile sites.
I've posted and presented about these many times, so it may be easier to check
out what I've shared before and avoid repeating myself. You'll see that eachone
of these alternatives have their pros and cons, as well as specific and general
SEO best practices that I discussed in this Moz post andMozinarsome months ago
about mobile SEO:
Nonetheless, beyond specifically optimizing each mobile web alternative
according to their characteristics, there are mobile web optimization
fundamentals that should always be followed:
1.1.1. Reorganize your content to be correctly displayed in mobile devices
Prioritizing the devices used by your audience (that you can identify through
your Google Analytics "Audience > Mobile > Devices" report) gives the
required visibility to the most important elements of your content. Think about
your user's goals as well as your own, and align them to reorganize your web
interface:
Beware of elements (like flash or interstitials) that are not correctly
displayed, dont work, or provide a bad user and search experience. Take a look
at the following Mobile usability resources:
Organizing Mobileby Luke Wroblewski
Nielsen's Mobile Website and Application Usability Report and Mobile Site vs.
Full Site article
Brad Frost post about Content Parity
1.1.2. Optimize your mobile pages relevance
Make your titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and, of course, your page's main
content relevant for your mobile web audience. Take your keywords into
consideration, and the visibility limitation of mobile search results in the
different type of devices:
Use mobile emulators and user agent switchers to easily validate by yourself
how your own pages are shown in mobile search results (for smartphones and
tablets, too), along with your competitors.
1.1.3. Enhance your pages visibility with structured markup and Google+
presence
Use structured data markup(reviews, people, businesses, apps, etc.), Google's
authorship,and create a presence in Google+ for your business to enhance your
page's results visibility, not only in desktop results, but also in your mobile
search results (where the visibility provided by these can be even higher in
comparison):
Google has also recently announced content recommendationsfor mobile sites with
a Google+ presence that will make the visibility obtained with it even higher.
1.1.4. Make your mobile site fast
Your mobile site has higher speed restrictions due to mobile networks and CPU
capabilities, which means it's even more important to optimize its speed.
Use your Google Analytics site speed report information to easily identify your
pages load times and analyze them withGoogle's PageSpeed Insights mobile filter
to identify opportunities to improve them:
Follow PageSpeed's mobile best practices and take into consideration what's
explained in this "Make the Mobile Web faster" article.
1.1.5. Serve the right web version according to the used device
It's important to effectively identify the type of device (desktop, tablet,
smartphone) used by your visitors and provide them the right web version by
using different techniques according to the Mobile Web approach you're
following:
With CSS media-queries withresponsive Web
With User agent detection with dynamic serving
With User agent detection and redirects with aparallel mobile site
1.2. Mobile apps: create and optimize landing pages for apps in your site
Give visibility to your app beyond the app store search results by creating a
landing page for each of your mobile apps on your own website. Make the landing
pages relevant, and optimize them to rank for popular searches of users looking
for your apps:
Make sure to feature testimonials and reviews, and add a visible link to your
app store page with call to actions to incentivize downloads:
Integrate your social presence as well, inviting for shares in social networks:
Additionally, Google has recently announced even more integration with Google+
for apps by showingGoogle+ Sign-Inapp activitiesin their results, which would
also give your results more visibility:
1.2. App Store Search
Although app store search optimization is still in early stages when we compare
it with web search and is specific to each app store (Android Market and the
Apple App Store),it's also evolving,aligning each time more with web search type
of factors, with an algorithm that is looking to reward:
Relevance: with the relevant terms in the App name, description, and keywords
Popularity: with download rate, install base, ratings, comments, and even
external review sites
Take these into consideration for your app store presence, by optimizing the
different elements of your profile:
In addition to promoting, gamifying your mobile experience (with profiles,
levels, badges, rewards, lists, etc.) to incentivize your app users activity is
a huge download driver. Take a look at how successful apps do it, like
Foursquare:
You can additionally promote your app through relevant sites in the sector,
such as app review blogs and communities:
On the other hand, take into consideration that sometimes app store preview
pages also rank in web search results and that there's also a specific
"Applications" search feature in Google, listing only application related
presence, for which these optimization best practices would be also beneficial
in order to get a better visibility:
There are also sites and tools like App AnnieandSearchman that provide free app
store statistics about the top apps per store, category, and country, which can
serve you as an input when optimizing your app:
2. Cross promote between your multi-device presence
Create awareness of your multi-device web and app presence through each other.
Promote your mobile app in a non-intrusive way (no interstitials) by inviting
users to download it when accessing the mobile site with a relevant device or to
switch to another web version, as shown in these images:
Make sure you also create awareness about your different multi-device presence
through all of your channels, from email signatures to social profiles to your
home page and emails, with updates and specially targeted mobile offers:
3. Measure to improve your multi-device presence
You cannot improve what you cannot measure, so it's fundamental to track,
continuously analyze, and make improvements not only to your desktop, but also
to your mobile presence based on their analytics data. You can still usingGoogle
Analyticsfor this, which provides anSDK for mobile app analytics.
3.1. For your web presence
You can use Google Analytics mobile reports and default segments along with
your own advanced segments and dashboards to follow-up and verify if you're
advancing as expected with the traffic and conversions volume and trend per
device type, keywords, and pages:
To easily check your Google Analytics campaign tagging and referrers for your
mobile site (or your competitors), you can use user agent switchers along with
Google Analytics debuggers extensions for your browser:
For Firefox: use thisuser agent switcher and Google Analytics debugger
For Chrome: use this user agent switcher and Google Analytics debugger
Unfortunately, there are issues with the search referrer data that are not
passed from the Safari search box in iOS 6,and as a consequence, it's shown as
direct traffic in your analytics platform. Something similar also happens for
Android 4 mobile search traffic. Check outthis post by AJ Khonshowing how we can
create an advanced segment in Google Analytics to calculate the approximate
amount of the lost search traffic.
3.1. For your apps
The mobile app analytics will give you information about the amount of active
users, screen views, sessions to demographic information, used app versions,
goal completions, and in-app revenue:
Additionally, to verify your Google Analytics campaign tagging and referrers
for your mobile app (or your competitors), you can set a proxy on your own
computer, using a software like Charles Proxy(available for Windows and Mac), so
you'll be able to monitor the HTTP traffic that goes through it, even the one
from the apps installed on your mobile (that you'll need to set so it uses your
computer as proxy).
Follow these installation and configuration stepsto set your computer as a
proxy and configure your mobile network settings to use it as an HTTP proxy
(you'll need to add in the manual proxy settings your computer IP as the server
one with the 8888 port):
Now you'll able to monitor the HTTP requests made from your mobile through
Charles, including the ones made by your apps, as it can be seen in the
following example:
You can use this not only with your own apps, but with your competitor's to
check how they're tracking their mobile traffic and with your providers or
partners to see if they're effectively tagging their campaigns.
Be sure to take a look atthis Distilled postwith a complete check-list that
will guide you with the necessary settings and questions to better measure your
mobile presence.
Conclusion: There's no excuse. Start optimizing for multi-device search now.
As you can see, there's no excuse to not optimize for a multi-device search
ecosystem. It's true that the landscape may become more segmented, but many of
the best practices and optimization steps can be aligned between the different
presences, and will give you the chance to connect with an audience that you're
likely already losing.
Remember that search is always evolving, and if you don't catch it now, it
might be even more difficult with new type of device andsearch interactions in a
future that look even more segmented.
Do you have any questions or would like to share your opinions? I look forward
to your comments!
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Multi-device Search World'
Posted by Aleyda Solis
We live in a multi-device world, and if you're still focused on improving your
visibility, traffic, and conversions solely for desktop users, you're losing a
great opportunity. This gap, coupled with the fact that you're probably staying
behind your competitors and unconnected with your audience, is not great for
business. Not convinced? Let's see some data...
Mobile search is booming.
It's already driving important multi-channel conversions.
However, we're still not doing our best for mobile and are losing
opportunities.
Despite the multichannel conversions that mobile search drives, we're still not
making the most out of it. There are people that feel it is still too
complicated and insecure to purchase goods on their smartphones:
Unfortunately, what are now fundamental aspects on our desktop-focused
optimization activities are sometimes still unknown when developing a
mobile-focused presence, even for some very important websites. For example:
A. Some websites don't have a mobile-focused presence
Remember that, despite having an audience that may be using the most advanced
smartphones and tablets, they still need an optimized offer that fulfills their
specific behaviors (not necessarily the same than the one from the desktop
users), providing the best experience according to their device characteristics
(and device-specific restrictions).
For example, can you guess which of these two sites provide me the best
experience, is really optimized for me, will make me stay (as a consequence),
and have a higher chance of conversions from me?
Although I have an iPhone 5 and my fingers are tiny, it's very difficult for me
to browse, interact, and consume information if the site doesn't have a version
well-optimized for the device I'm using.
B. Some sites have a mobile presence, but forget about optimization
fundamentals
On the other hand, other websites have a mobile presence (websites and apps
included), but that doesn't mean they're really optimized. As I mentioned
before, basics from our day-to-day "desktop focused" optimization activities are
for some reason forgotten when we go mobile or tablet.
For example, many websites love promoting their apps with intrusive
interstitials that disrupt the user mobile web flow, requiring interaction from
the user in order to continue:
What about relevant, descriptive titles? This optimization basic is frequently
forgotten, even by big websites when they go mobile (although these are
well-optimized in their desktop versions):
How about businesses that forget to create a landing page on their site for
their own mobile apps? When you search for the app, you get the first results
with iTunes store profiles that may confuse you (which one to choose?) featuring
not-so-great descriptions, along with some posts with negative reviews:
Time to get better control of your own app web results? Yes, please.
Two questions arise from these situations:
Can you blame people for not converting from their mobile devices?
How can you change it?
First, let's acknowledge the challenge of a multi-device ecosystem. Once we get
a handle on it, we'll have an overall vision in order to make the best
decisions, optimize your presence accordingly, and maximize your opportunities.
Mobile, Tablet, Web vs. App: The Segmentation Challenge
Usually, the first question we need to answer when we go mobile (whether
smartphone or tablet focused) is: do I develop a website or an app?
As I shared in this State of Search post, your decision should be based on
certain factors such as your business model; the goals you're trying to achieve;
how important is for your content to have a wider reach, and if it is web
indexable or not; whether or not you need to provide a complex functionality
that requires a higher hardware integration or connection independence; and if
your audience is highly-concentrated in few devices types and platforms. You'll
need to asses these characteristics along with mobile web and apps pros and
cons:
When you're deciding whether going mobile with a website or an app is the best
option for you, use the following visualization to analytze the alternatives:
You'll see that is easier to targetyour mobile audience with less web presence
than to do so with an app that is much more segmented.
However, when you think beyond the development alternatives to target your
mobile audience with the required functionalities and start thinking about how
you can optimize, grow the visibility, and generate conversions,you'll find that
most of the principles and good practices are the same (or can be easily
extrapolated):
Realize that, despite the many segmentation levels a multi-device presence may
have from a development and audience perspective, there are optimization
principles that are the same for any type of approach, platform, and device type
that you should be taking into consideration in order to make the most out of
the organic search channels to connect with your audience.
It's now the time to identify these similar principles and good practices to
make the most out the multi-device search opportunity, instead of focusing on
its complexities as an excuse. Otherwise, you will stay behind.
3 Steps to Improve Your Visibility in a Multi-device Search World
1. Optimize your presence for multi-device search visibility
People not only search for websites through web search, but also for apps
(whether from smartphones, tablets, or desktops, remember we're in a
multi-device world), so it's fundamental that you don't forget about creating
and optimizing a mobile web presence to increase your mobile app visibility
through web search, too.
Take a look at the exact-match local monthly search volume for some mobile apps
related keywordsin the US, from desktop and laptop devices:
And the volume for the searches from mobile devices with full Internet
browsers:
So, if you want to maximize the chances that your mobile presence (web or app)
gets the search visibility, users, and conversions it deserves, then you need to
make sure that it's easily found through the web search results. If you have a
mobile app, you'll also need to take into consideration your visibility in the
app store search. Let's see how!
1.1. Mobile web: select and optimize the best mobile web approach for your
situation
When you're developing a mobile website, the key is to select the best setting
according to your characteristics, restrictions, and needs. These settings
include responsive web, dynamic serving, or parallel mobile sites.
I've posted and presented about these many times, so it may be easier to check
out what I've shared before and avoid repeating myself. You'll see that eachone
of these alternatives have their pros and cons, as well as specific and general
SEO best practices that I discussed in this Moz post andMozinarsome months ago
about mobile SEO:
Nonetheless, beyond specifically optimizing each mobile web alternative
according to their characteristics, there are mobile web optimization
fundamentals that should always be followed:
1.1.1. Reorganize your content to be correctly displayed in mobile devices
Prioritizing the devices used by your audience (that you can identify through
your Google Analytics "Audience > Mobile > Devices" report) gives the
required visibility to the most important elements of your content. Think about
your user's goals as well as your own, and align them to reorganize your web
interface:
Beware of elements (like flash or interstitials) that are not correctly
displayed, dont work, or provide a bad user and search experience. Take a look
at the following Mobile usability resources:
Organizing Mobileby Luke Wroblewski
Nielsen's Mobile Website and Application Usability Report and Mobile Site vs.
Full Site article
Brad Frost post about Content Parity
1.1.2. Optimize your mobile pages relevance
Make your titles, meta descriptions, URLs, and, of course, your page's main
content relevant for your mobile web audience. Take your keywords into
consideration, and the visibility limitation of mobile search results in the
different type of devices:
Use mobile emulators and user agent switchers to easily validate by yourself
how your own pages are shown in mobile search results (for smartphones and
tablets, too), along with your competitors.
1.1.3. Enhance your pages visibility with structured markup and Google+
presence
Use structured data markup(reviews, people, businesses, apps, etc.), Google's
authorship,and create a presence in Google+ for your business to enhance your
page's results visibility, not only in desktop results, but also in your mobile
search results (where the visibility provided by these can be even higher in
comparison):
Google has also recently announced content recommendationsfor mobile sites with
a Google+ presence that will make the visibility obtained with it even higher.
1.1.4. Make your mobile site fast
Your mobile site has higher speed restrictions due to mobile networks and CPU
capabilities, which means it's even more important to optimize its speed.
Use your Google Analytics site speed report information to easily identify your
pages load times and analyze them withGoogle's PageSpeed Insights mobile filter
to identify opportunities to improve them:
Follow PageSpeed's mobile best practices and take into consideration what's
explained in this "Make the Mobile Web faster" article.
1.1.5. Serve the right web version according to the used device
It's important to effectively identify the type of device (desktop, tablet,
smartphone) used by your visitors and provide them the right web version by
using different techniques according to the Mobile Web approach you're
following:
With CSS media-queries withresponsive Web
With User agent detection with dynamic serving
With User agent detection and redirects with aparallel mobile site
1.2. Mobile apps: create and optimize landing pages for apps in your site
Give visibility to your app beyond the app store search results by creating a
landing page for each of your mobile apps on your own website. Make the landing
pages relevant, and optimize them to rank for popular searches of users looking
for your apps:
Make sure to feature testimonials and reviews, and add a visible link to your
app store page with call to actions to incentivize downloads:
Integrate your social presence as well, inviting for shares in social networks:
Additionally, Google has recently announced even more integration with Google+
for apps by showingGoogle+ Sign-Inapp activitiesin their results, which would
also give your results more visibility:
1.2. App Store Search
Although app store search optimization is still in early stages when we compare
it with web search and is specific to each app store (Android Market and the
Apple App Store),it's also evolving,aligning each time more with web search type
of factors, with an algorithm that is looking to reward:
Relevance: with the relevant terms in the App name, description, and keywords
Popularity: with download rate, install base, ratings, comments, and even
external review sites
Take these into consideration for your app store presence, by optimizing the
different elements of your profile:
In addition to promoting, gamifying your mobile experience (with profiles,
levels, badges, rewards, lists, etc.) to incentivize your app users activity is
a huge download driver. Take a look at how successful apps do it, like
Foursquare:
You can additionally promote your app through relevant sites in the sector,
such as app review blogs and communities:
On the other hand, take into consideration that sometimes app store preview
pages also rank in web search results and that there's also a specific
"Applications" search feature in Google, listing only application related
presence, for which these optimization best practices would be also beneficial
in order to get a better visibility:
There are also sites and tools like App AnnieandSearchman that provide free app
store statistics about the top apps per store, category, and country, which can
serve you as an input when optimizing your app:
2. Cross promote between your multi-device presence
Create awareness of your multi-device web and app presence through each other.
Promote your mobile app in a non-intrusive way (no interstitials) by inviting
users to download it when accessing the mobile site with a relevant device or to
switch to another web version, as shown in these images:
Make sure you also create awareness about your different multi-device presence
through all of your channels, from email signatures to social profiles to your
home page and emails, with updates and specially targeted mobile offers:
3. Measure to improve your multi-device presence
You cannot improve what you cannot measure, so it's fundamental to track,
continuously analyze, and make improvements not only to your desktop, but also
to your mobile presence based on their analytics data. You can still usingGoogle
Analyticsfor this, which provides anSDK for mobile app analytics.
3.1. For your web presence
You can use Google Analytics mobile reports and default segments along with
your own advanced segments and dashboards to follow-up and verify if you're
advancing as expected with the traffic and conversions volume and trend per
device type, keywords, and pages:
To easily check your Google Analytics campaign tagging and referrers for your
mobile site (or your competitors), you can use user agent switchers along with
Google Analytics debuggers extensions for your browser:
For Firefox: use thisuser agent switcher and Google Analytics debugger
For Chrome: use this user agent switcher and Google Analytics debugger
Unfortunately, there are issues with the search referrer data that are not
passed from the Safari search box in iOS 6,and as a consequence, it's shown as
direct traffic in your analytics platform. Something similar also happens for
Android 4 mobile search traffic. Check outthis post by AJ Khonshowing how we can
create an advanced segment in Google Analytics to calculate the approximate
amount of the lost search traffic.
3.1. For your apps
The mobile app analytics will give you information about the amount of active
users, screen views, sessions to demographic information, used app versions,
goal completions, and in-app revenue:
Additionally, to verify your Google Analytics campaign tagging and referrers
for your mobile app (or your competitors), you can set a proxy on your own
computer, using a software like Charles Proxy(available for Windows and Mac), so
you'll be able to monitor the HTTP traffic that goes through it, even the one
from the apps installed on your mobile (that you'll need to set so it uses your
computer as proxy).
Follow these installation and configuration stepsto set your computer as a
proxy and configure your mobile network settings to use it as an HTTP proxy
(you'll need to add in the manual proxy settings your computer IP as the server
one with the 8888 port):
Now you'll able to monitor the HTTP requests made from your mobile through
Charles, including the ones made by your apps, as it can be seen in the
following example:
You can use this not only with your own apps, but with your competitor's to
check how they're tracking their mobile traffic and with your providers or
partners to see if they're effectively tagging their campaigns.
Be sure to take a look atthis Distilled postwith a complete check-list that
will guide you with the necessary settings and questions to better measure your
mobile presence.
Conclusion: There's no excuse. Start optimizing for multi-device search now.
As you can see, there's no excuse to not optimize for a multi-device search
ecosystem. It's true that the landscape may become more segmented, but many of
the best practices and optimization steps can be aligned between the different
presences, and will give you the chance to connect with an audience that you're
likely already losing.
Remember that search is always evolving, and if you don't catch it now, it
might be even more difficult with new type of device andsearch interactions in a
future that look even more segmented.
Do you have any questions or would like to share your opinions? I look forward
to your comments!
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Monday 20 May 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] APIs for Data-Driven Marketers
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'APIs for Data-Driven Marketers'
Posted by Dr. Pete
Data is everywhere, and companies are virtually climbing over each other to
give it away. If youre a data-driven content marketer, data is opportunity, but
accessing that data can take some technical know-how. This is a guide to APIs,
one of the key methods for accessing 3rd-party data, and also a mini-directory
of some of the most useful APIs currently available to marketers.
What Is an API?
Lets start with the official definition API stands for Application Programming
Interface. Sorry, Im not the one who lets engineers name things. Put simply, an
API is a way to let you talk to a 3rd-party application, usually either to
retrieve data or update that application. Were going to focus primarily on the
first use (retrieving data), and it looks something like this:
The API itself isnt really a box floating in space, so much as a chunk of code
that acts as a gatekeeper. That code helps translate the third partys data into
something you can read, and it makes sure that only authorized users can access
the data (a process called authentication).
Why Should I Care?
There are hundreds of applications on the market that collect useful data, and
many of them are making that data available for free or very cheaply. You can
use that data to do original research, create unique content or even build your
own applications. If youd rather stick to beet farming, well then thats cool,
too.
Where Do I Start?
Heres the bad news APIs are far from standardized, and youre going to have to
understand data structures and write some code. This is not a how-to manual so
much as an overview of whats out there that can help you decide if the world of
APIs is right for you. There are some bright spots on the horizon tools and
sites that make programming APIs easier and Ill cover some of those at the end.
Following is a list of hand-selected APIs (Ill do my best not to play
favorites, and our competitors are on the list), broken down into a few industry
categories, and alphabetical within each category. For each API, Ill provide a
main link, a documentation link (documentation can be way too hard to find), a
brief description of whats available in that API, and whether or not theres a
free version. APIs are split into five sections:
APIs for SEO
APIs for PPC
APIs for Social
Miscellaneous APIs
API Support Tools
The last section covers sites and tools that can help you if you're new to
APIs, new to programming, or just are hunting for something that's not on this
list.
(1) APIs for SEO
This section contains APIs for organic SEO data, including keyword research and
link profiling.
Bing Search(Docs)
The Bing search API allows you to integrate Bing search results and search data
directly into your applications, including web search, images, news, videos,
related search, and spelling suggestions.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Majestic SEO(Docs)
The Majestic API includes a wide range of link metrics, including full
back-link lists, discovery dates for links, anchor text, redirection
information, and ACRank. Some features are limited to the paid version.
Free Version?YES, but limited functionality.
Raven Tools(Docs)
The Raven Tools API lets customers access and update account and campaign
information. It can also be used to access link data from your Raven campaigns.
Free Version?NO, paid accounts only.
SEOmoz Mozscape(Docs)
SEOmoz's API has access to proprietary metrics, including MozRank, Domain
Authority, and Page Authority, as well as link metrics such as linking root
domains and anchor text data.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
WordStream Keyword Tool(Docs)
WordStream's Keyword Tool API lets you access WordStream's keyword volume
metrics, along with related keywords and structured keyword suggestions.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(2) APIs for PPC
The following APIs provide access to major ad platforms, including Google,
Bing, and Facebook.
Bing Ads API (Docs)
While primarily a campaign management platform, the Bing Ads API does have
access to useful data, including keword volume and keyword
suggestions/opportunities.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Facebook Ads API (Docs)
The Facebook Ads API provides access to managing Facebook campaigns, as well
as statistics about Facebook keyword searches and audience segments.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Google AdWords API (Docs)
Like Bing, the Google AdWords API is mainly for campaign management and
building AdWords apps, but it also the only portal to Google keyword volume
data. Getting authorized can be a long process.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
SEMRush API (Docs)
The SEMRush API has a number of tools for both organic and paid search
campaigns, but where it really shines is in competitive analysis, especially for
paid search.
Free Version?NO, starts at $15/month.
(3) APIs for Social
These APIs can access a wealth of information from major social networks and
social aggregators.
Facebook Graph(Docs)
Facebook's "Graph" API is the primariy interface to building Facebook-based
apps, updating Facebook accounts, and accessing Facebook social graph data.
There are other, secondary Facebook APIs.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
FollowerWonk (Docs)
FollowerWonk's Social Authority API scores Twitter users on a 1-100 scale, for
simple influence scoring and comparisons (Note: FollowerWonk is a part of
SEOmoz).
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Gnip (Docs)
Gnip provides an enterprise-level API with "firehose" and filtered streams for
Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and more. Pricing is custom and is aimed at
large-scale applications.
Free Version?YES, but trial only.
Google+ (Docs)
The official Google+ API allows you to manage accounts, build apps, and access
to data from user profiles, posts, and comments. It includes some limited search
capability.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Klout(Docs)
The Klout API provides access to Klout's aggregate social metrics, including
Klout score, influencers, influence graphs, and topics of influence.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
PeerIndex(Docs)
PeerIndex is another social aggregator, and their API provides data on multiple
influence metrics, including activity, authority, and audience scores.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
SharedCount (Docs)
The SharedCount API lets you access sharing stats on a number of platforms,
including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Reddit, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious,
StumbleUpon, and Pinterest.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Topsy (Docs)
The Topsy Otter API is an alternative source for Twitter data, including a
number of useful search functions - search by keyword, by links mentioned, by
popluar stories on a domain, etc.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Twitter (Docs)
The official Twitter RESTful API includes many tools for account management and
data gathering, including individual tweet and user data, follower stats, and a
variety of search options.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(4) Miscellaneous APIs
Here are some other useful APIs, including Google products, analytics, and text
processing.
AlchemyAPI(Docs)
AlchemyAPI provides a Natural Language Processing engine to perform tasks such
as sentiment analysis, named entity extraction, author extraction, and topic
categorization.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Google Analytics API (Docs)
The Google Analytics API is a full-featured system to manage GA accounts and
profiles, customize tracking codes, and to access and export analytics data.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Google Places API (Docs)
The Google Places API allows you to access the entire family of Google local
data, including Google Maps, Google+ Local, and Google Places search.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
PageSpeed Insights(Docs)
PageSpeed Insights is a Google Developer tool for website performance
analysis. The PageSpeed API allows access to PageSpeed scores and
recommendations.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Repustate(Docs)
The Repustate API provides access to a number of advanced algorithms,
including sentiment analysis, social media monitioring, and predictive
analytics.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(5) API Support Tools
If you're new to APIs, this section can help get you started or find APIs
outside the scope of this post.
CodeAcademy API Track
CodeAcademy is a resource for learning programming concepts and languages. The
API track has specific online courses designed to help you learn API coding.
Free Version?YES.
Mashape (Docs)
Mashape is an API marketplace that allows you to access over 2,000 APIs from a
single account. Mashape also lets you distribute and monetize your own APIs.
Free Version?YES, depending on the API.
ProgrammableWeb
ProgrammableWeb is a directory of over 9,000 APIs on a wide variety of topics.
ProgrammableWeb has its own API, that allows you to access their search
database.
Free Version?YES.
SEER Interactive SEO Toolbox (Docs)
SEER's all-in-one interactive toolbox lets you access multple APIs via Excel,
including Google Analytics, SEOmoz, Majestic, Raven, Twitter, and Klout.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
SEOGadget Excel API Extensions (Docs)
The SEOGadget API extension for Excel allows you to easily call link data from
Excel spreadsheets, including SEOmoz, Majestic, and additional SEOGadget data.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
What Are Your Favorites?
While I don't intend this to be an exhaustive list of APIs, I'll try to keep
the post up to date with the most useful APIs for marketers (assuming that
people are interested). So, feel free to share your favorite data-collection
APIs in the comments.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/OYIVR1mq-Q4/apis-for-datadriven-marketers
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by Dr. Pete
Data is everywhere, and companies are virtually climbing over each other to
give it away. If youre a data-driven content marketer, data is opportunity, but
accessing that data can take some technical know-how. This is a guide to APIs,
one of the key methods for accessing 3rd-party data, and also a mini-directory
of some of the most useful APIs currently available to marketers.
What Is an API?
Lets start with the official definition API stands for Application Programming
Interface. Sorry, Im not the one who lets engineers name things. Put simply, an
API is a way to let you talk to a 3rd-party application, usually either to
retrieve data or update that application. Were going to focus primarily on the
first use (retrieving data), and it looks something like this:
The API itself isnt really a box floating in space, so much as a chunk of code
that acts as a gatekeeper. That code helps translate the third partys data into
something you can read, and it makes sure that only authorized users can access
the data (a process called authentication).
Why Should I Care?
There are hundreds of applications on the market that collect useful data, and
many of them are making that data available for free or very cheaply. You can
use that data to do original research, create unique content or even build your
own applications. If youd rather stick to beet farming, well then thats cool,
too.
Where Do I Start?
Heres the bad news APIs are far from standardized, and youre going to have to
understand data structures and write some code. This is not a how-to manual so
much as an overview of whats out there that can help you decide if the world of
APIs is right for you. There are some bright spots on the horizon tools and
sites that make programming APIs easier and Ill cover some of those at the end.
Following is a list of hand-selected APIs (Ill do my best not to play
favorites, and our competitors are on the list), broken down into a few industry
categories, and alphabetical within each category. For each API, Ill provide a
main link, a documentation link (documentation can be way too hard to find), a
brief description of whats available in that API, and whether or not theres a
free version. APIs are split into five sections:
APIs for SEO
APIs for PPC
APIs for Social
Miscellaneous APIs
API Support Tools
The last section covers sites and tools that can help you if you're new to
APIs, new to programming, or just are hunting for something that's not on this
list.
(1) APIs for SEO
This section contains APIs for organic SEO data, including keyword research and
link profiling.
Bing Search(Docs)
The Bing search API allows you to integrate Bing search results and search data
directly into your applications, including web search, images, news, videos,
related search, and spelling suggestions.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Majestic SEO(Docs)
The Majestic API includes a wide range of link metrics, including full
back-link lists, discovery dates for links, anchor text, redirection
information, and ACRank. Some features are limited to the paid version.
Free Version?YES, but limited functionality.
Raven Tools(Docs)
The Raven Tools API lets customers access and update account and campaign
information. It can also be used to access link data from your Raven campaigns.
Free Version?NO, paid accounts only.
SEOmoz Mozscape(Docs)
SEOmoz's API has access to proprietary metrics, including MozRank, Domain
Authority, and Page Authority, as well as link metrics such as linking root
domains and anchor text data.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
WordStream Keyword Tool(Docs)
WordStream's Keyword Tool API lets you access WordStream's keyword volume
metrics, along with related keywords and structured keyword suggestions.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(2) APIs for PPC
The following APIs provide access to major ad platforms, including Google,
Bing, and Facebook.
Bing Ads API (Docs)
While primarily a campaign management platform, the Bing Ads API does have
access to useful data, including keword volume and keyword
suggestions/opportunities.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Facebook Ads API (Docs)
The Facebook Ads API provides access to managing Facebook campaigns, as well
as statistics about Facebook keyword searches and audience segments.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Google AdWords API (Docs)
Like Bing, the Google AdWords API is mainly for campaign management and
building AdWords apps, but it also the only portal to Google keyword volume
data. Getting authorized can be a long process.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
SEMRush API (Docs)
The SEMRush API has a number of tools for both organic and paid search
campaigns, but where it really shines is in competitive analysis, especially for
paid search.
Free Version?NO, starts at $15/month.
(3) APIs for Social
These APIs can access a wealth of information from major social networks and
social aggregators.
Facebook Graph(Docs)
Facebook's "Graph" API is the primariy interface to building Facebook-based
apps, updating Facebook accounts, and accessing Facebook social graph data.
There are other, secondary Facebook APIs.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
FollowerWonk (Docs)
FollowerWonk's Social Authority API scores Twitter users on a 1-100 scale, for
simple influence scoring and comparisons (Note: FollowerWonk is a part of
SEOmoz).
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Gnip (Docs)
Gnip provides an enterprise-level API with "firehose" and filtered streams for
Twitter, Facebook, Google+, YouTube, and more. Pricing is custom and is aimed at
large-scale applications.
Free Version?YES, but trial only.
Google+ (Docs)
The official Google+ API allows you to manage accounts, build apps, and access
to data from user profiles, posts, and comments. It includes some limited search
capability.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Klout(Docs)
The Klout API provides access to Klout's aggregate social metrics, including
Klout score, influencers, influence graphs, and topics of influence.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
PeerIndex(Docs)
PeerIndex is another social aggregator, and their API provides data on multiple
influence metrics, including activity, authority, and audience scores.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
SharedCount (Docs)
The SharedCount API lets you access sharing stats on a number of platforms,
including Facebook, Twitter, Google+, Reddit, LinkedIn, Digg, Delicious,
StumbleUpon, and Pinterest.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Topsy (Docs)
The Topsy Otter API is an alternative source for Twitter data, including a
number of useful search functions - search by keyword, by links mentioned, by
popluar stories on a domain, etc.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Twitter (Docs)
The official Twitter RESTful API includes many tools for account management and
data gathering, including individual tweet and user data, follower stats, and a
variety of search options.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(4) Miscellaneous APIs
Here are some other useful APIs, including Google products, analytics, and text
processing.
AlchemyAPI(Docs)
AlchemyAPI provides a Natural Language Processing engine to perform tasks such
as sentiment analysis, named entity extraction, author extraction, and topic
categorization.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
Google Analytics API (Docs)
The Google Analytics API is a full-featured system to manage GA accounts and
profiles, customize tracking codes, and to access and export analytics data.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Google Places API (Docs)
The Google Places API allows you to access the entire family of Google local
data, including Google Maps, Google+ Local, and Google Places search.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
PageSpeed Insights(Docs)
PageSpeed Insights is a Google Developer tool for website performance
analysis. The PageSpeed API allows access to PageSpeed scores and
recommendations.
Free Version?YES,but authorization required.
Repustate(Docs)
The Repustate API provides access to a number of advanced algorithms,
including sentiment analysis, social media monitioring, and predictive
analytics.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
(5) API Support Tools
If you're new to APIs, this section can help get you started or find APIs
outside the scope of this post.
CodeAcademy API Track
CodeAcademy is a resource for learning programming concepts and languages. The
API track has specific online courses designed to help you learn API coding.
Free Version?YES.
Mashape (Docs)
Mashape is an API marketplace that allows you to access over 2,000 APIs from a
single account. Mashape also lets you distribute and monetize your own APIs.
Free Version?YES, depending on the API.
ProgrammableWeb
ProgrammableWeb is a directory of over 9,000 APIs on a wide variety of topics.
ProgrammableWeb has its own API, that allows you to access their search
database.
Free Version?YES.
SEER Interactive SEO Toolbox (Docs)
SEER's all-in-one interactive toolbox lets you access multple APIs via Excel,
including Google Analytics, SEOmoz, Majestic, Raven, Twitter, and Klout.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
SEOGadget Excel API Extensions (Docs)
The SEOGadget API extension for Excel allows you to easily call link data from
Excel spreadsheets, including SEOmoz, Majestic, and additional SEOGadget data.
Free Version?YES, but rate-limited.
What Are Your Favorites?
While I don't intend this to be an exhaustive list of APIs, I'll try to keep
the post up to date with the most useful APIs for marketers (assuming that
people are interested). So, feel free to share your favorite data-collection
APIs in the comments.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/OYIVR1mq-Q4/apis-for-datadriven-marketers
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Monday 13 May 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] How To Find The Best ClickBank Products To Promote
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How To Find The Best ClickBank
Products To Promote'
This article is for those of you who have already signed up for ClickBank but
you failed to find the right products to promote or perhaps you want to increase
the number of sales you're getting. Maybe you are someone who actually stopped
promoting Clic...
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BasicBlogTips/~3/yu6BhaVPQVQ/best-clickbank-products.html
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posted.
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Products To Promote'
This article is for those of you who have already signed up for ClickBank but
you failed to find the right products to promote or perhaps you want to increase
the number of sales you're getting. Maybe you are someone who actually stopped
promoting Clic...
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BasicBlogTips/~3/yu6BhaVPQVQ/best-clickbank-products.html
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
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[Build Backlinks Online] #MozCon 2013 Agenda
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, '#MozCon 2013 Agenda'
Posted by Erica McGillivray
Holy cannoli, it's MozCon 2013 Agenda time! July 8th-July 10th here in Seattle
are going to be out-of-this-world.
I know many of you have been asking for the complete MozCon schedule, and we've
been working hard with all our 2013 speakers to find those perfect words to
express how awesome MozCon's going to be. I'm thrilled for the variety of
programming we'll have from local SEO and mobile content strategy to video and
marketing analytics. There will be plenty of amazingess to fill your brain.
You'll see that we have some MozCon favorites returning like Avinash Kaushik,
Wil Reynolds, and Joanna Lord, and we've invited some great new folks like Kyle
Rush, Karen McGrane, and Dana DiTomaso. Those are some insanely smart industry
experts! You'll learn a ton of actionable info to take home and start
implementing on your site(s) right after MozCon.
And for those of you wanting to know about the party... This year we're raising
the roof of the EMP Museum. That's right, we wanted to meet and greet our
community while hiding from Daleks. We've listened to your needs, and the EMP's
amazing space works for those who want to rock out to karaoke as well as those
interested in quieter conversations with a new friend.
Sing your heart out if you choose.
If that hasn't got you purchasing your ticket yet...
MozCon 2013 Agenda
Monday
8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00 am - 9:30am Intro: The Year in SEO, Marketing, and Moz with Rand Fishkin
9:30am - 10:00am Really Targeted Outreach with Richard Baxter
Weve all sent guest post pitches and "link building requests" and begged for
precious links any way and anywhere we can. But, that simply isnt marketing. We
have all the tools for a better way of finding our audience and determining what
they love. Richard will show you a data-driven approach to marketing your brand
to your target audience. No more guesswork, youll know exactly how to get the
right eyeballs on your content.
10:00am - 10:30am International SEO and the Future of Your ROI with Aleyda
Solis
Take a bold step into the international market. Aleya will walk you through how
to calculate the possible ROI of international sales, how to sell it to your
boss or client, and the practical how-to's of international implementation on
your site.
10:30am - 10:50am Break
10:50am - 11:50am Simplifying Complexity: Three Ideas For Higher ROI with
Avinash Kaushik
One of the awesome realities of our existence is that we have to deal with a
lot of complexity. Often the natural response to that is to try and overpower
that with even more complexity. In this session, we'll apply the Occam's Razor
to three user cases and learn practical tips.
11:50am - 1:20pm Lunch
1:20pm - 1:50pm Wordless Wednesdays: How to Swaggerjack the Power of Visual
Memes with Lena West
Image-heavy, responsive websites are all the rage, but can be problematic for
SEO, load times, and other inbound marketing concerns. But how does this balance
out with the popularity of images-based memes like "Wordless Wednesday"? Lena
will examine these visual memes and their impact on traffic, and she'll talk
about how you can parlay the power of visual memes into serious search and
traffic results.
1:50pm - 2:20pm Rapid Fire Link Building Tips for Your Content with Ross
Hudgens
You've built your content and made it King. Now what? Ross teaches you how to
take your content and turn it into links for your site. Whether you're just
hunting for backlinks or building up social shares, you'll find all the tips to
get your community engaged and building those links for you.
2:20pm - 3:00pm Hot Off the Press: 2013 Ranking Factors with Matt Peters
Moz's data scientist Dr. Matt walks you through the 2013 Ranking Factors. He'll
be breaking down Google's cutting-edge ways of how they figure out if your pages
are relevant beyond keywords. You'll walk away with an understanding of the data
and the knowledge to craft a sound SEO strategy.
3:00pm - 3:30pm Strings to Things: Entities and SEO with Matthew Brown
In the last year, Google and Bing have both indicated a shift to entity-based
search results as part of their evolution. Google has unscored this point with
rich snippets and Knowledge Graph, and Bing has now upped the ante on personal
search results with Bing Snapshots. Find out how you can adopt strategies to
stay ahead of the curve in the new world of semantic search results.
3:30pm - 3:50pm Break
3:50pm - 4:20pm The Mobile Content Mandate with Karen McGrane
Do you think "no one will ever want to do that on mobile"? Chances are, someone
already wants to. Karen will discuss why you need to deliver content wherever
your customer wants to consume it and the risks of ignoring mobile users.
She'll also explain how to start your mobile content strategy, define what you
want to publish, construct the relationship between your mobile and desktop
site, and evolve your editorial workflow and content management tools.
4:20pm - 4:50pm Building a Better Business with Digital Marketing with
Mackenzie Fogelson
Extraordinary businesses and communities are built with a higher purpose than
just making money. Mack will walk you through how you can achieve bigger
objectives for your clients or for your own business. Using the power of digital
marketing tools (along with passion and hard work), you'll learn how to shape
and foster your company and the community around it.
4:50 - 5:20pm The 7 Heavenly Habits of Inspired Inbound Marketers with Dharmesh
Shah
Curious about how some of the world's best inbound marketers work? How do they
come up with ideas for content? What's their policy on handling Twitter
mentions? How much do they really spend on A/B testing? Dharmesh will walk you
through these habits and more.
Tuesday
8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00am - 9:30am Building a Winning Video Marketing Strategy with Phil
Nottingham
Phil's going to guide to you through the process of building a video content
strategy from inception to launch. He'll explain the creative and technical
tactics required to win the internet with video. By the end of this session,
you'll know where to host your video, how to optimize it, what kind of content
you should be creating, and how to get professional quality returns without
spending a fortune.
9:30am - 9:45am The Next Generation of Mozscape with Phil Smith
As we crawl the web, collecting data, our Mozscape has run into a few pitfalls
as we've grown. Phil's been working on an incremental indexing for the next
generation of Mozscape, and he'll give you insights on how this faster, fresher,
and scalable index will be useful to you.
9:45am - 10:00am How to Moz Lingo: Cross-Team Communication When Crisis Hits
with Carin Overturf
Mozzy does not alway mean bright and shiny. Sometimes things go south, and it's
these times when good communication across all teams, technical and
not-so-technical, is critical. Carin brings the tactics she's learned about
effective crisis management after surviving a few storms as a technical manager
on the Mozscape team.
10:00am - 10:15am Empower Your Customers to Become Your Evangelists with Aaron
Wheeler
You have the power to turn customers into one of your strongest, most
cost-effective marketing teams. By creating great experiences for customers
during good times and bad, they'll share their successes and demonstrate the
value you've given them to a broader audience, much to the delight of your
marketing and customer service teams.
10:15am - 10:30am Engineer Your Life: Agile for Work and Play with Miranda
Rensch
Agile development, it's not just for software companies anymore. Miranda will
show us how you can use an agile process to plan anything from side-projects,
marketing launches, and personal improvement goals. You'll come away with
templates and processes to try in your own team or at home!
10:30am - 10:50am Break
10:50am - 11:20am Let's Play for Keeps: Building Customer Loyalty with Joanna
Lord
We all know that customer loyalty is a key ingredient in building brands,
hitting revenue goals, and cultivating a community. Joanna will walk you through
how the landscape has changed, and she'll leave you with tools and tips on how
to build customer loyalty that lasts.
11:20am - 11:50pm Ecommerce SEO: Cutting Edge Tactics That Scale with Adam
Audette
Fight Panda and other modern SEO realities by using the best on-page techniques
and content strategies for your ecommerce site. Adam teaches you how to
sustainably improve your click-through-rates as SERPs become noisier and
properly prepare for G+ and Graph Search. Then he'll round things out be giving
practical advice on how to build your ecommerce team and work flows.
11:50pm - 1:20pm Lunch
1:20pm - 1:50pm Building Your Business: Relationship and Other Critical "Soft"
Skills with Brittan Bright
Ever dealt with a difficult client or a boss who just didn't understand?
Brittan teaches you essential relationship building skills and tips and tricks
for making your business interactions smooth and easy. Whether you're always
putting out fires or pitching new ideas, you won't want to miss this.
1:50pm - 2:20pm Win Through Optimization and Testing with Kyle Rush
Kyle shares his knowledge from the front lines of the most intense web campaign
to date: the 2012 US presidential election. His team won big for Obama with a
data-driven approach. Kyle will explore tactics like how they increased
donations by 49% and help you implement these wins for your site.
2:20pm - 2:50pm How Gender and Cultural Differences in Web Psychology Affect
the Customer Experience with Nathalie Nahai
Are you missing half your audience? Your site may be giving off the wrong
psychology signals and causing potential customers to click away. Nathalie
covers how gender and cultural differences impact your business and winning
tactics to change the message and convert more customers.
2:50pm - 3:20pm Breaking Up with Your Keyword-Based KPIs with Annie Cushing
Raise your hand if you hate (not provided)? Annie shows you how to raise your
battle cry by finding your keyword data elsewhere. By changing your focus from
(not provided) to what your landing pages can tell you, you'll be able to audit
your site even better than before.
3:20pm - 3:40pm Break
3:40pm - 4:10pm Next Level Local Tactics: Making Your SEO Stand Out with Dana
DiTomaso
Competing against giant brands in the Local SEO space can be daunting, but
Dana's here to turn your epic battle into an epic win. She'll show you how to
put personality into your local search efforts so that local searchers want to
know who you are. Dana's practical tactics and advice for thinking around the
problem will crank your creativity up to 120%.
4:10pm - 4:40pm End-to-End Local Optimization with David Mihm
The paradox of Local Search has always been that it's one of SEO's most
time-consuming areas, and yet, the businesses who stand to gain the most have
the smallest budgets and limited internal resources. Whether you're an agency
serving SMB clients or a large brand with hundreds of locations, scaling your
efforts is critical. Learn how to increase the efficiency of your Local
optimization process with these tips and tools from David.
4:40pm - 5:10pm Cater to Your Audience via UX with Allison Urban
User experience is critical to making your audience feel your site, services,
or products are for them. Allison will use case studies to show why UX matters
and how it conveys respect for your customers. Then she'll deliver tactics and
advice she learned while working on MailChimp's redesign.
5:10pm - 5:40pm Living in the Future of User Behavior with Will Critchlow
As the technology space constantly changes, users and their behavior adjust
with the tide. But what should we do? Will takes a look at where the trends are
going and gives you the tactics and tips to keep up and maybe get ahead of the
game.
7:30pm - 11:00pm Party at the EMP
Wednesday
08:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00am - 9:40am Beyond 10 Blue Links: The Future of Ranking with Pete Meyers
In the year since we launched MozCast, the face of Google has changed
dramatically. Weve seen the roll-out of 7-result SERPs, the rapid expansion of
Knowledge Graph, mass-adoption of authorship, and dozens of new features, rich
snippets, and widgets. Ranking is no longer just a number, and achieving it is a
moving target. Find out how to think like a brand and carve out a place in the
SERP of the future.
9:40am - 10:10am Using Metrics to Build Social Media Engagement with Carrie
Gouldin
Between Edgerank, noise, and upcoming networks, social metics are daunting.
Carrie will show you what makes interesting content, how to track links, read
metrics, and keep your followers hungry for more. By testing and trying new
things, she's built up a 25-50% engagement rate for ThinkGeek's Facebook and you
can too for your brand.
10:10am - 10:30am Break
10:30am - 11:00am The Search for Company Culture and Why It Matters with Sarah
Bird
Whether you realize it or not, your company has a culture. Is it helping you or
holding you back? Learn how to identify your company culture, foster the culture
you want, and avoid common pitfalls. Sarah will share what she's learned at Moz,
and why what works for one company might not work for yours.
11:00am - 12:00pm Why the Internet Hates Us and Can #RCS Change That
Perception? with Wil Reynolds
Post-MozCon 2012, Wil has been focused on helping you get things done by using
#RCS paired with facts and figures from his own company, his clients, and
insights from 30 members of top US design agencies. He's also been reviewing the
successes, the failures, and the steps his team put into place for change. Wil
wants to get the word out that it's time to stop chasing all the shiny SEO
shortcuts!
12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm - 2:00pm Building Your Community From the Ground Up with Jen Lopez
What if we had to start over and rebuild the Moz community from scratch? Jen
walks us through the steps, from how to start building an audience all the way
through to how she'd build her team. Learn actionable tactics and deep insights
that you can apply to building your community, both internally and externally,
for your business.
2:00pm - 3:20pm Community Speakers!
This could be you! We're having four community speakers. Have you tossed your
hat in the ring? Applications due Tuesday, May 14th at 5pm PDT.
3:20pm - 3:40pm Break
3:40pm - 4:40pm The Secret Ingredients of Better Marketing with Rand Fishkin
Content bombards our online experience. Ads and salespeople interrupt us. But
every now and then, marketing is truly remarkable and its message transforms
from unwelcome to irresistible What makes it stand out? Why do some companies
inspire us to take action and to share them? The ingredients have been hidden
too long. It's time we discovered the what, why, and how behind crafting better
marketing.
4:40pm - 5:10pm Ultimate Q&A
Get your questions answered by our amazing speakers. Unlike the traditional
give-it-up, Ultimate Q&A gives you the opportunity to pinpoint what amazing tips
you'd like to know and gives you the actionable and inspirational information
you crave.
Wowzers, that's a lot of crazy amazing stuff. See you there!
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/BPF3Q-JlYKc/mozcon-2013-agenda
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by Erica McGillivray
Holy cannoli, it's MozCon 2013 Agenda time! July 8th-July 10th here in Seattle
are going to be out-of-this-world.
I know many of you have been asking for the complete MozCon schedule, and we've
been working hard with all our 2013 speakers to find those perfect words to
express how awesome MozCon's going to be. I'm thrilled for the variety of
programming we'll have from local SEO and mobile content strategy to video and
marketing analytics. There will be plenty of amazingess to fill your brain.
You'll see that we have some MozCon favorites returning like Avinash Kaushik,
Wil Reynolds, and Joanna Lord, and we've invited some great new folks like Kyle
Rush, Karen McGrane, and Dana DiTomaso. Those are some insanely smart industry
experts! You'll learn a ton of actionable info to take home and start
implementing on your site(s) right after MozCon.
And for those of you wanting to know about the party... This year we're raising
the roof of the EMP Museum. That's right, we wanted to meet and greet our
community while hiding from Daleks. We've listened to your needs, and the EMP's
amazing space works for those who want to rock out to karaoke as well as those
interested in quieter conversations with a new friend.
Sing your heart out if you choose.
If that hasn't got you purchasing your ticket yet...
MozCon 2013 Agenda
Monday
8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00 am - 9:30am Intro: The Year in SEO, Marketing, and Moz with Rand Fishkin
9:30am - 10:00am Really Targeted Outreach with Richard Baxter
Weve all sent guest post pitches and "link building requests" and begged for
precious links any way and anywhere we can. But, that simply isnt marketing. We
have all the tools for a better way of finding our audience and determining what
they love. Richard will show you a data-driven approach to marketing your brand
to your target audience. No more guesswork, youll know exactly how to get the
right eyeballs on your content.
10:00am - 10:30am International SEO and the Future of Your ROI with Aleyda
Solis
Take a bold step into the international market. Aleya will walk you through how
to calculate the possible ROI of international sales, how to sell it to your
boss or client, and the practical how-to's of international implementation on
your site.
10:30am - 10:50am Break
10:50am - 11:50am Simplifying Complexity: Three Ideas For Higher ROI with
Avinash Kaushik
One of the awesome realities of our existence is that we have to deal with a
lot of complexity. Often the natural response to that is to try and overpower
that with even more complexity. In this session, we'll apply the Occam's Razor
to three user cases and learn practical tips.
11:50am - 1:20pm Lunch
1:20pm - 1:50pm Wordless Wednesdays: How to Swaggerjack the Power of Visual
Memes with Lena West
Image-heavy, responsive websites are all the rage, but can be problematic for
SEO, load times, and other inbound marketing concerns. But how does this balance
out with the popularity of images-based memes like "Wordless Wednesday"? Lena
will examine these visual memes and their impact on traffic, and she'll talk
about how you can parlay the power of visual memes into serious search and
traffic results.
1:50pm - 2:20pm Rapid Fire Link Building Tips for Your Content with Ross
Hudgens
You've built your content and made it King. Now what? Ross teaches you how to
take your content and turn it into links for your site. Whether you're just
hunting for backlinks or building up social shares, you'll find all the tips to
get your community engaged and building those links for you.
2:20pm - 3:00pm Hot Off the Press: 2013 Ranking Factors with Matt Peters
Moz's data scientist Dr. Matt walks you through the 2013 Ranking Factors. He'll
be breaking down Google's cutting-edge ways of how they figure out if your pages
are relevant beyond keywords. You'll walk away with an understanding of the data
and the knowledge to craft a sound SEO strategy.
3:00pm - 3:30pm Strings to Things: Entities and SEO with Matthew Brown
In the last year, Google and Bing have both indicated a shift to entity-based
search results as part of their evolution. Google has unscored this point with
rich snippets and Knowledge Graph, and Bing has now upped the ante on personal
search results with Bing Snapshots. Find out how you can adopt strategies to
stay ahead of the curve in the new world of semantic search results.
3:30pm - 3:50pm Break
3:50pm - 4:20pm The Mobile Content Mandate with Karen McGrane
Do you think "no one will ever want to do that on mobile"? Chances are, someone
already wants to. Karen will discuss why you need to deliver content wherever
your customer wants to consume it and the risks of ignoring mobile users.
She'll also explain how to start your mobile content strategy, define what you
want to publish, construct the relationship between your mobile and desktop
site, and evolve your editorial workflow and content management tools.
4:20pm - 4:50pm Building a Better Business with Digital Marketing with
Mackenzie Fogelson
Extraordinary businesses and communities are built with a higher purpose than
just making money. Mack will walk you through how you can achieve bigger
objectives for your clients or for your own business. Using the power of digital
marketing tools (along with passion and hard work), you'll learn how to shape
and foster your company and the community around it.
4:50 - 5:20pm The 7 Heavenly Habits of Inspired Inbound Marketers with Dharmesh
Shah
Curious about how some of the world's best inbound marketers work? How do they
come up with ideas for content? What's their policy on handling Twitter
mentions? How much do they really spend on A/B testing? Dharmesh will walk you
through these habits and more.
Tuesday
8:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00am - 9:30am Building a Winning Video Marketing Strategy with Phil
Nottingham
Phil's going to guide to you through the process of building a video content
strategy from inception to launch. He'll explain the creative and technical
tactics required to win the internet with video. By the end of this session,
you'll know where to host your video, how to optimize it, what kind of content
you should be creating, and how to get professional quality returns without
spending a fortune.
9:30am - 9:45am The Next Generation of Mozscape with Phil Smith
As we crawl the web, collecting data, our Mozscape has run into a few pitfalls
as we've grown. Phil's been working on an incremental indexing for the next
generation of Mozscape, and he'll give you insights on how this faster, fresher,
and scalable index will be useful to you.
9:45am - 10:00am How to Moz Lingo: Cross-Team Communication When Crisis Hits
with Carin Overturf
Mozzy does not alway mean bright and shiny. Sometimes things go south, and it's
these times when good communication across all teams, technical and
not-so-technical, is critical. Carin brings the tactics she's learned about
effective crisis management after surviving a few storms as a technical manager
on the Mozscape team.
10:00am - 10:15am Empower Your Customers to Become Your Evangelists with Aaron
Wheeler
You have the power to turn customers into one of your strongest, most
cost-effective marketing teams. By creating great experiences for customers
during good times and bad, they'll share their successes and demonstrate the
value you've given them to a broader audience, much to the delight of your
marketing and customer service teams.
10:15am - 10:30am Engineer Your Life: Agile for Work and Play with Miranda
Rensch
Agile development, it's not just for software companies anymore. Miranda will
show us how you can use an agile process to plan anything from side-projects,
marketing launches, and personal improvement goals. You'll come away with
templates and processes to try in your own team or at home!
10:30am - 10:50am Break
10:50am - 11:20am Let's Play for Keeps: Building Customer Loyalty with Joanna
Lord
We all know that customer loyalty is a key ingredient in building brands,
hitting revenue goals, and cultivating a community. Joanna will walk you through
how the landscape has changed, and she'll leave you with tools and tips on how
to build customer loyalty that lasts.
11:20am - 11:50pm Ecommerce SEO: Cutting Edge Tactics That Scale with Adam
Audette
Fight Panda and other modern SEO realities by using the best on-page techniques
and content strategies for your ecommerce site. Adam teaches you how to
sustainably improve your click-through-rates as SERPs become noisier and
properly prepare for G+ and Graph Search. Then he'll round things out be giving
practical advice on how to build your ecommerce team and work flows.
11:50pm - 1:20pm Lunch
1:20pm - 1:50pm Building Your Business: Relationship and Other Critical "Soft"
Skills with Brittan Bright
Ever dealt with a difficult client or a boss who just didn't understand?
Brittan teaches you essential relationship building skills and tips and tricks
for making your business interactions smooth and easy. Whether you're always
putting out fires or pitching new ideas, you won't want to miss this.
1:50pm - 2:20pm Win Through Optimization and Testing with Kyle Rush
Kyle shares his knowledge from the front lines of the most intense web campaign
to date: the 2012 US presidential election. His team won big for Obama with a
data-driven approach. Kyle will explore tactics like how they increased
donations by 49% and help you implement these wins for your site.
2:20pm - 2:50pm How Gender and Cultural Differences in Web Psychology Affect
the Customer Experience with Nathalie Nahai
Are you missing half your audience? Your site may be giving off the wrong
psychology signals and causing potential customers to click away. Nathalie
covers how gender and cultural differences impact your business and winning
tactics to change the message and convert more customers.
2:50pm - 3:20pm Breaking Up with Your Keyword-Based KPIs with Annie Cushing
Raise your hand if you hate (not provided)? Annie shows you how to raise your
battle cry by finding your keyword data elsewhere. By changing your focus from
(not provided) to what your landing pages can tell you, you'll be able to audit
your site even better than before.
3:20pm - 3:40pm Break
3:40pm - 4:10pm Next Level Local Tactics: Making Your SEO Stand Out with Dana
DiTomaso
Competing against giant brands in the Local SEO space can be daunting, but
Dana's here to turn your epic battle into an epic win. She'll show you how to
put personality into your local search efforts so that local searchers want to
know who you are. Dana's practical tactics and advice for thinking around the
problem will crank your creativity up to 120%.
4:10pm - 4:40pm End-to-End Local Optimization with David Mihm
The paradox of Local Search has always been that it's one of SEO's most
time-consuming areas, and yet, the businesses who stand to gain the most have
the smallest budgets and limited internal resources. Whether you're an agency
serving SMB clients or a large brand with hundreds of locations, scaling your
efforts is critical. Learn how to increase the efficiency of your Local
optimization process with these tips and tools from David.
4:40pm - 5:10pm Cater to Your Audience via UX with Allison Urban
User experience is critical to making your audience feel your site, services,
or products are for them. Allison will use case studies to show why UX matters
and how it conveys respect for your customers. Then she'll deliver tactics and
advice she learned while working on MailChimp's redesign.
5:10pm - 5:40pm Living in the Future of User Behavior with Will Critchlow
As the technology space constantly changes, users and their behavior adjust
with the tide. But what should we do? Will takes a look at where the trends are
going and gives you the tactics and tips to keep up and maybe get ahead of the
game.
7:30pm - 11:00pm Party at the EMP
Wednesday
08:00am - 9:00am Breakfast
9:00am - 9:40am Beyond 10 Blue Links: The Future of Ranking with Pete Meyers
In the year since we launched MozCast, the face of Google has changed
dramatically. Weve seen the roll-out of 7-result SERPs, the rapid expansion of
Knowledge Graph, mass-adoption of authorship, and dozens of new features, rich
snippets, and widgets. Ranking is no longer just a number, and achieving it is a
moving target. Find out how to think like a brand and carve out a place in the
SERP of the future.
9:40am - 10:10am Using Metrics to Build Social Media Engagement with Carrie
Gouldin
Between Edgerank, noise, and upcoming networks, social metics are daunting.
Carrie will show you what makes interesting content, how to track links, read
metrics, and keep your followers hungry for more. By testing and trying new
things, she's built up a 25-50% engagement rate for ThinkGeek's Facebook and you
can too for your brand.
10:10am - 10:30am Break
10:30am - 11:00am The Search for Company Culture and Why It Matters with Sarah
Bird
Whether you realize it or not, your company has a culture. Is it helping you or
holding you back? Learn how to identify your company culture, foster the culture
you want, and avoid common pitfalls. Sarah will share what she's learned at Moz,
and why what works for one company might not work for yours.
11:00am - 12:00pm Why the Internet Hates Us and Can #RCS Change That
Perception? with Wil Reynolds
Post-MozCon 2012, Wil has been focused on helping you get things done by using
#RCS paired with facts and figures from his own company, his clients, and
insights from 30 members of top US design agencies. He's also been reviewing the
successes, the failures, and the steps his team put into place for change. Wil
wants to get the word out that it's time to stop chasing all the shiny SEO
shortcuts!
12:00pm - 1:30pm Lunch
1:30pm - 2:00pm Building Your Community From the Ground Up with Jen Lopez
What if we had to start over and rebuild the Moz community from scratch? Jen
walks us through the steps, from how to start building an audience all the way
through to how she'd build her team. Learn actionable tactics and deep insights
that you can apply to building your community, both internally and externally,
for your business.
2:00pm - 3:20pm Community Speakers!
This could be you! We're having four community speakers. Have you tossed your
hat in the ring? Applications due Tuesday, May 14th at 5pm PDT.
3:20pm - 3:40pm Break
3:40pm - 4:40pm The Secret Ingredients of Better Marketing with Rand Fishkin
Content bombards our online experience. Ads and salespeople interrupt us. But
every now and then, marketing is truly remarkable and its message transforms
from unwelcome to irresistible What makes it stand out? Why do some companies
inspire us to take action and to share them? The ingredients have been hidden
too long. It's time we discovered the what, why, and how behind crafting better
marketing.
4:40pm - 5:10pm Ultimate Q&A
Get your questions answered by our amazing speakers. Unlike the traditional
give-it-up, Ultimate Q&A gives you the opportunity to pinpoint what amazing tips
you'd like to know and gives you the actionable and inspirational information
you crave.
Wowzers, that's a lot of crazy amazing stuff. See you there!
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[Build Backlinks Online] The Calgary Zoo Shares its Annual Report on Instagram
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Calgary Zoo Shares its Annual
Report on Instagram'
When preparing its 2012 Annual Report, The Calgary Zoo traded its traditional
PDF for Instagram. Proclaiming the 2012 Annual Report The Year of the Penguins,
55 photos and captions serve as the report pages and content. Packed full of the
stats, financial figures and even a welcome note from their President & Chief
Executive Officer, [...]The Calgary Zoo Shares its Annual Report on Instagram is
a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing
Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-image-of-the-week/the-calgary-zoo-shares-its-annual-report-on-instagram/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-calgary-zoo-shares-its-annual-report-on-instagram
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Report on Instagram'
When preparing its 2012 Annual Report, The Calgary Zoo traded its traditional
PDF for Instagram. Proclaiming the 2012 Annual Report The Year of the Penguins,
55 photos and captions serve as the report pages and content. Packed full of the
stats, financial figures and even a welcome note from their President & Chief
Executive Officer, [...]The Calgary Zoo Shares its Annual Report on Instagram is
a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing
Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-image-of-the-week/the-calgary-zoo-shares-its-annual-report-on-instagram/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-calgary-zoo-shares-its-annual-report-on-instagram
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posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] How H&R Block Activated 90,000 Seasonal Tax Pros in Social Media
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How H&R Block Activated 90,000
Seasonal Tax Pros in Social Media'
Scott Gulbransen, Director of Social Business Strategy at H&R Block, joins the
Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the structure of social that allowed
90,000 H&R tax professionals to mobilize in unison earlier this year, driving
engagement at a local level, and dealing with federal regulations as a financial
services company in social media. [...]How H&R Block Activated 90,000 Seasonal
Tax Pros in Social Media is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media
Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-hr-block-activated-90000-seasonal-tax-pros-in-social-media/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-hr-block-activated-90000-seasonal-tax-pros-in-social-media
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Seasonal Tax Pros in Social Media'
Scott Gulbransen, Director of Social Business Strategy at H&R Block, joins the
Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss the structure of social that allowed
90,000 H&R tax professionals to mobilize in unison earlier this year, driving
engagement at a local level, and dealing with federal regulations as a financial
services company in social media. [...]How H&R Block Activated 90,000 Seasonal
Tax Pros in Social Media is a post from: Convince and Convert: Social Media
Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/how-hr-block-activated-90000-seasonal-tax-pros-in-social-media/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-hr-block-activated-90000-seasonal-tax-pros-in-social-media
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] How You Make a Customer Smarter in 6 Seconds
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How You Make a Customer Smarter
in 6 Seconds'
Ive been critical in the past of Vine, and brands often clumsy attempts to turn
it into the next venue for clever real-time marketing. But with a new series of
10 inherently useful Vines, Lowes demonstrates that six seconds is plenty of
time to create Youtility. We try to provide content that has as much [...]How
You Make a Customer Smarter in 6 Seconds is a post from: Convince and Convert:
Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing-2/how-you-make-a-customer-smarter-in-6-seconds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-you-make-a-customer-smarter-in-6-seconds
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
in 6 Seconds'
Ive been critical in the past of Vine, and brands often clumsy attempts to turn
it into the next venue for clever real-time marketing. But with a new series of
10 inherently useful Vines, Lowes demonstrates that six seconds is plenty of
time to create Youtility. We try to provide content that has as much [...]How
You Make a Customer Smarter in 6 Seconds is a post from: Convince and Convert:
Social Media Strategy and Content Marketing Strategy
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/content-marketing-2/how-you-make-a-customer-smarter-in-6-seconds/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=how-you-make-a-customer-smarter-in-6-seconds
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Build Backlinks Online
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Friday 10 May 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] The Clients I Can't Afford To Take
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Clients I Can't Afford To
Take'
Posted by Bill Sebald
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
Creating demand where none currently exists is the expertise of a bullshit
artist. Some in sales would take offense to that statement; some would agree.
Where I believe this talent fails is with a particular kind of recurring revenue
service consulting and agency work. Inevitably you run out of steam and alibis.
If you cant produce what you promise, you either have to pack up your wagon and
flee to another dusty town (which, lets face it, is how some SEOs and digital
marketers practice), or suffer sleepless nights worrying about facing your
clients in the morning.
Personally, I dont like traveling. I also really like my sleep.
This is a post about how I choose better clients. It starts with introspection,
and ends with a connection. For each of these tips, Im thinking specifically of
a client I let walk away. If a strong partnership is what you seek, then you
have to be able to decline potential clients. The customer is not always right.
Sometimes theyre downright dangerous.
Now, I know this isnt possible in every company. An agency I worked with rarely
says no to work. Bad clients pile on and contribute to driving away employees in
routine mass departures. When I was worked there relationships got contentious,
and frankly, I didnt see a lot of flawless consulting happening. The phrase we
used around the office to convince ourselves this was normal was, thats agency
life.
I came to learn that wasnt agency life.
To remind ourselves of some of the marketing ideologies we learned in college;
most retailers employ the marketing department philosophy, whereas search fits
the marketing concept. In SEO marketing we want to answer the searches being
made more often than any other task, which may not fit nicely into a clients ROI
demands. Luckily, this is something we can get ahead of with early, open
communication with the prospect. Sometimes you're able to reset expectations,
sometimes not (where I kindly refer them to someone more of their mindset). It's
important to ask goal-oriented questions here, and give a real thought to what
you're positioned to achieve. What do they consider success? Does it match your
beliefs? Have they had SEO before, and what were their frustrations? Are you
better for them? Can you help them help you help them?
If you can truly embrace what you are as a service provider, and nurture deals
accordingly, youre in a very fortunate position. If you can perform SEO under
the auspice of what is required for the client, instead of what the client
thinks needs to be done, youre well on your way to a successful partnership.
Clients I Avoid
Sometimes you need to cut the line before you reel in the catch. Once the catch
breaks the water line, do you see a snagged horseshoe crab? Cut it. Did you pull
in flounder? Invite me over for dinner. Im a student of psychology and naturally
think I size people up pretty well. There are basically three traits (or
character flaws) that I am on high-alert for. As soon as I hit one, not only do
I feel compelled to be reserved, but I close up sometimes prematurely. Here are
some of the personality types I avoid, and some tips on uncovering their true
identities.
(Caveat: First impressions arent always accurate. First impressions should not
the last chance to make a good impression. Its very easy to misread people. I do
keep that in the back of my head, just to balance me out.)
The Egomaniac
Some prospects may want to impress you. Sometimes they routinely impress
themselves. Personally, I find them awfully hard to communicate with. You know
the traits they ask you questions only to cut you off and answer themselves.
They are micro-managers. They brag incessantly about their past experiences.
They believe theyre the only one that can truly defeat Superman.
Theyre the type of person to say, I didnt get to where I am by not speaking up.
While on paper that sounds like a good trait, these can also be the people who
have trouble accepting someone elses expertise. They may not see the value of
your otherwise salient recommendations. They tend to only respect other
egomaniacs
But sometimes this is a front. Sometimes the egomaniac is socially awkward. A
good skill in business is recognizing emotions, character flaws, and humanity
when it really exists. Sometimes the egomaniac thinks he needs to be a killer. I
have seen this disguise many, many times in my career.
I remember a client who managed to take down an entire marketing department
with a previous agency. He was a product of a big name business advisor firm
(name left out to prevent lawsuits) and drove some of my co-workers into therapy
honestly. There may have been no pleasing him, but the powers that be refused
to cut ties. We werent able to do what we knew was best; we ultimately became an
order taker for someone who wasnt an expert in our field, but thought he was.
This guy may truly be a serial killer at large.
Alternatively, I recall meeting with a prospect that ran an unimpressive
ecommerce business. During the initial meeting I found myself listening to an
hour long diatribe about him and how he shaped the company into what they are
today. Interesting and something worth knowing in detail down the line, but I
was there to talk about how I could help with their SEO. After finally asking
two questions, in which I maybe got three words out, it was pretty clear this
wasnt going to be a productive meeting. Still, I stayed with the pitch process.
Fortunately I made the right move, as this marketing director turned out to be
more bark than bite. Weve had a pretty successful three year run together, once
the pretences went away.
I need a point person I want to spend time with. If the real soul of the point
person and company cant be lured out quickly, it may be a dead deal for me.
What to Do
Embrace the company culture and teams personality. Try to be yourself, not who
you think they want you to be. Ultimately you want a partner and a friend, not
just a client and paycheck. If you dont have an egomaniac account manager, this
relationship could go down in flames.
Make it personal, but dont take it personally. I always try finding something
in common with the prospects. Its a sales tactic for sure, and an ice breaker,
but I find it useful to quickly peel back the personality layers. I try to see
who they really are. I remember a client pitch where I learned the CMO was in a
Philly band. Knowing the band, and playing music myself, we were able to connect
on a non-business level. I know this is a crazy concept for some agencies that
prefer to be more formal, but It really helps you understand the personality and
temperament of the people youre going to be working with.
Maybe its not your call to accept or deny the egomaniac, micro-managing client.
In some cases you can still make it work. Communication (and some good habits)
can go a long way in getting the client to bond with you, without you throwing
away any integrity. Weve all had a micro-managing boss at one time in our lives.
Take some learnings from that experience. There are plenty of great tips online
for that problem that can be leveraged with a micromanaging client:
http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2011/09/stop-being-micromanaged.html
http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-a-micromanaging-boss
http://michaelhyatt.com/micromanager.html
http://nahidc.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-deal-with-micromanaging-boss.html
The Dictator
Some clients (think they) know exactly what they want. That can be a good
thing. Sometimes though, they dont want it the way you deliver it. Its vital to
know when you simply cant deliver. How can you under-promise and over-deliver if
you arent structured to meet their simplest expectations? Have you ever gotten a
hamburger right at McDonalds when you told them to make it special? No its
impossible. The employees have panic attacks behind the grill. Its not how
McDonalds is built.
I had one prospect reach out to me about six months ago. We had worked together
in a small capacity before. He told me precisely what he was looking for he
required someone to manage a department that needed to communicate with the
Sydney office at 6 am, and required I hit a certain goal each month. This was a
goal I not only didnt believe was reasonable, but probably impossible (not to
mention the only time Im up at 6 am is when I havent fallen asleep yet).
My services arent excessively flexible by design I simply cant answer all the
demands of most dictators. My services have a specific design with defined
specialties. I know my teams strengths and weaknesses. I know my plan in and
out, and would have struck out with his needs. I had to face the facts and let
that prospect go, even though it was a nice payday.
What to Do
Try to break the well take anything model. Thats how people get hurt including
your employees. A clients SEO and digital marketing need has become ubiquitous.
Maybe theyll be open to your specialized take on their business?
Never over-promise. Never wear a hat you dont own. Stay calm. SEOs are in a
great position already, with a great inherent value. Sometimes there are other
providers who can do a better job than you in a certain area, so why not let
them? Build some relationships between other service providers and create
friendly-competition. When a client says "I want this," say "we do this." Keep
it professional and offer to help them find someone who fits their model.
This may create serendipity and good karma. Ive actually gotten referrals from
prospects Ive turned down. Not often, but its the magic of networking,
relationships, and good deeds. Never underestimate the power of serendipity:
http://moz.com/rand/manufacturing-serendipity/
http://www.openforum.com/articles/8-ways-to-cultivate-serendipity-in-business-and-life/
http://www.greenlaneseo.com/blog/2012/09/creating-your-own-seo-serendipity/
The Negotiator
Its great to be on the payer side of negotiation. I find negotiating deals
quite fun. But when the tables are turned, and Im the service provider, I flex
very little in price. Its less because Im a jerk and more because of my respect
for my work and values.
Wharton grads are taught to believe in what theyre worth; anything less and
youre potentially softening the product. When a client tells me his budget is X,
and I need it to by upwards around Y, the negotiation needs to stop. This was a
huge lesson I learned after years of thinking about cash flow, and not quality
of life.
I recently had a prospect that came to me and asked if I was available for
consulting. As I always do, I brought up the budget question early on. He said,
I can spend about $300 a month. Now I know some SEOs can stretch that and get
rankings. Im always impressed by these guys, but at that rate, I would fall on
my face (and my sword). Id fail at providing the only values I know how to
create. Id be scrambling to get good work done, and in the end, it would
probably not be worth the aggravation after taxes.
Still, I tried to help him find someone who was better suited, while advising
that his monthly fee was more likely to attract amateurs that might cost him
more in the end. He was able to come up a little and I was able to refer him to
another local SEO who fit his needs much better. Again, investing in
serendipity.
I cant say this enough - Take a bad deal financially and you will pay for it.
Ive never seen a need to pad the price for negotiation in our industry. Were not
selling used cars here.
What to Do
Dont budge unless youve priced yourself out of the market. Also, dont risk
putting yourself in a bad relationship because you settled. It doesnt tend to
work out in marriage, government, or business.
Clearly display all the items a client could be getting in an engagement with
you and encourage the prospect to see the value if they pay up instead of going
with an amateur. If you have a price youre proud of, then you should also have
results and confidence to stand behind.
Some agencies find it very difficult to talk about money, as it gets slipped in
as a line item at the back of a proposal. These proposals are often written
after hours of conversations. I propose you bring the money conversation early
to qualify your prospects. I go so far as put my rates and packages right on my
website and always encourage my prospects to review those pages in an
introductory email. I dont like wasting hours on a deal that was never meant to
be. Ive found this to be a very positive technique to getting deals signed
quickly, as some clients prefer the openness and honesty. Not everyone likes
haggling, and will happily pay a price when they know its fair.
Conclusion
Sometimes a bad client can teach you how to be a better consultant, but I dont
wish a bad client upon anyone. In my 10+ years of consulting, Id like to think
the lessons I learned (some of which Im sharing here) can really be learned
through some tough and common sense.
Agencies are busy places, but you need to take time (off-sites work nicely) to
really figure out what your service model is. Whether its from the top down, or
just your specific department, having a thought out manifesto on the clients
youre not going to take could be transformational to the success of your
consulting business.
Oh, and if by chance you encounter a hybrid of all these client-types above,
the only tip I have is flee. Ive yet to find any way to tame this three-headed
egotistical, dictating, negotiating creature. Thats schizophrenia on a level I
cant even comprehend.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
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Take'
Posted by Bill Sebald
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
Creating demand where none currently exists is the expertise of a bullshit
artist. Some in sales would take offense to that statement; some would agree.
Where I believe this talent fails is with a particular kind of recurring revenue
service consulting and agency work. Inevitably you run out of steam and alibis.
If you cant produce what you promise, you either have to pack up your wagon and
flee to another dusty town (which, lets face it, is how some SEOs and digital
marketers practice), or suffer sleepless nights worrying about facing your
clients in the morning.
Personally, I dont like traveling. I also really like my sleep.
This is a post about how I choose better clients. It starts with introspection,
and ends with a connection. For each of these tips, Im thinking specifically of
a client I let walk away. If a strong partnership is what you seek, then you
have to be able to decline potential clients. The customer is not always right.
Sometimes theyre downright dangerous.
Now, I know this isnt possible in every company. An agency I worked with rarely
says no to work. Bad clients pile on and contribute to driving away employees in
routine mass departures. When I was worked there relationships got contentious,
and frankly, I didnt see a lot of flawless consulting happening. The phrase we
used around the office to convince ourselves this was normal was, thats agency
life.
I came to learn that wasnt agency life.
To remind ourselves of some of the marketing ideologies we learned in college;
most retailers employ the marketing department philosophy, whereas search fits
the marketing concept. In SEO marketing we want to answer the searches being
made more often than any other task, which may not fit nicely into a clients ROI
demands. Luckily, this is something we can get ahead of with early, open
communication with the prospect. Sometimes you're able to reset expectations,
sometimes not (where I kindly refer them to someone more of their mindset). It's
important to ask goal-oriented questions here, and give a real thought to what
you're positioned to achieve. What do they consider success? Does it match your
beliefs? Have they had SEO before, and what were their frustrations? Are you
better for them? Can you help them help you help them?
If you can truly embrace what you are as a service provider, and nurture deals
accordingly, youre in a very fortunate position. If you can perform SEO under
the auspice of what is required for the client, instead of what the client
thinks needs to be done, youre well on your way to a successful partnership.
Clients I Avoid
Sometimes you need to cut the line before you reel in the catch. Once the catch
breaks the water line, do you see a snagged horseshoe crab? Cut it. Did you pull
in flounder? Invite me over for dinner. Im a student of psychology and naturally
think I size people up pretty well. There are basically three traits (or
character flaws) that I am on high-alert for. As soon as I hit one, not only do
I feel compelled to be reserved, but I close up sometimes prematurely. Here are
some of the personality types I avoid, and some tips on uncovering their true
identities.
(Caveat: First impressions arent always accurate. First impressions should not
the last chance to make a good impression. Its very easy to misread people. I do
keep that in the back of my head, just to balance me out.)
The Egomaniac
Some prospects may want to impress you. Sometimes they routinely impress
themselves. Personally, I find them awfully hard to communicate with. You know
the traits they ask you questions only to cut you off and answer themselves.
They are micro-managers. They brag incessantly about their past experiences.
They believe theyre the only one that can truly defeat Superman.
Theyre the type of person to say, I didnt get to where I am by not speaking up.
While on paper that sounds like a good trait, these can also be the people who
have trouble accepting someone elses expertise. They may not see the value of
your otherwise salient recommendations. They tend to only respect other
egomaniacs
But sometimes this is a front. Sometimes the egomaniac is socially awkward. A
good skill in business is recognizing emotions, character flaws, and humanity
when it really exists. Sometimes the egomaniac thinks he needs to be a killer. I
have seen this disguise many, many times in my career.
I remember a client who managed to take down an entire marketing department
with a previous agency. He was a product of a big name business advisor firm
(name left out to prevent lawsuits) and drove some of my co-workers into therapy
honestly. There may have been no pleasing him, but the powers that be refused
to cut ties. We werent able to do what we knew was best; we ultimately became an
order taker for someone who wasnt an expert in our field, but thought he was.
This guy may truly be a serial killer at large.
Alternatively, I recall meeting with a prospect that ran an unimpressive
ecommerce business. During the initial meeting I found myself listening to an
hour long diatribe about him and how he shaped the company into what they are
today. Interesting and something worth knowing in detail down the line, but I
was there to talk about how I could help with their SEO. After finally asking
two questions, in which I maybe got three words out, it was pretty clear this
wasnt going to be a productive meeting. Still, I stayed with the pitch process.
Fortunately I made the right move, as this marketing director turned out to be
more bark than bite. Weve had a pretty successful three year run together, once
the pretences went away.
I need a point person I want to spend time with. If the real soul of the point
person and company cant be lured out quickly, it may be a dead deal for me.
What to Do
Embrace the company culture and teams personality. Try to be yourself, not who
you think they want you to be. Ultimately you want a partner and a friend, not
just a client and paycheck. If you dont have an egomaniac account manager, this
relationship could go down in flames.
Make it personal, but dont take it personally. I always try finding something
in common with the prospects. Its a sales tactic for sure, and an ice breaker,
but I find it useful to quickly peel back the personality layers. I try to see
who they really are. I remember a client pitch where I learned the CMO was in a
Philly band. Knowing the band, and playing music myself, we were able to connect
on a non-business level. I know this is a crazy concept for some agencies that
prefer to be more formal, but It really helps you understand the personality and
temperament of the people youre going to be working with.
Maybe its not your call to accept or deny the egomaniac, micro-managing client.
In some cases you can still make it work. Communication (and some good habits)
can go a long way in getting the client to bond with you, without you throwing
away any integrity. Weve all had a micro-managing boss at one time in our lives.
Take some learnings from that experience. There are plenty of great tips online
for that problem that can be leveraged with a micromanaging client:
http://blogs.hbr.org/hmu/2011/09/stop-being-micromanaged.html
http://www.thedailymuse.com/career/how-to-manage-a-micromanaging-boss
http://michaelhyatt.com/micromanager.html
http://nahidc.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-deal-with-micromanaging-boss.html
The Dictator
Some clients (think they) know exactly what they want. That can be a good
thing. Sometimes though, they dont want it the way you deliver it. Its vital to
know when you simply cant deliver. How can you under-promise and over-deliver if
you arent structured to meet their simplest expectations? Have you ever gotten a
hamburger right at McDonalds when you told them to make it special? No its
impossible. The employees have panic attacks behind the grill. Its not how
McDonalds is built.
I had one prospect reach out to me about six months ago. We had worked together
in a small capacity before. He told me precisely what he was looking for he
required someone to manage a department that needed to communicate with the
Sydney office at 6 am, and required I hit a certain goal each month. This was a
goal I not only didnt believe was reasonable, but probably impossible (not to
mention the only time Im up at 6 am is when I havent fallen asleep yet).
My services arent excessively flexible by design I simply cant answer all the
demands of most dictators. My services have a specific design with defined
specialties. I know my teams strengths and weaknesses. I know my plan in and
out, and would have struck out with his needs. I had to face the facts and let
that prospect go, even though it was a nice payday.
What to Do
Try to break the well take anything model. Thats how people get hurt including
your employees. A clients SEO and digital marketing need has become ubiquitous.
Maybe theyll be open to your specialized take on their business?
Never over-promise. Never wear a hat you dont own. Stay calm. SEOs are in a
great position already, with a great inherent value. Sometimes there are other
providers who can do a better job than you in a certain area, so why not let
them? Build some relationships between other service providers and create
friendly-competition. When a client says "I want this," say "we do this." Keep
it professional and offer to help them find someone who fits their model.
This may create serendipity and good karma. Ive actually gotten referrals from
prospects Ive turned down. Not often, but its the magic of networking,
relationships, and good deeds. Never underestimate the power of serendipity:
http://moz.com/rand/manufacturing-serendipity/
http://www.openforum.com/articles/8-ways-to-cultivate-serendipity-in-business-and-life/
http://www.greenlaneseo.com/blog/2012/09/creating-your-own-seo-serendipity/
The Negotiator
Its great to be on the payer side of negotiation. I find negotiating deals
quite fun. But when the tables are turned, and Im the service provider, I flex
very little in price. Its less because Im a jerk and more because of my respect
for my work and values.
Wharton grads are taught to believe in what theyre worth; anything less and
youre potentially softening the product. When a client tells me his budget is X,
and I need it to by upwards around Y, the negotiation needs to stop. This was a
huge lesson I learned after years of thinking about cash flow, and not quality
of life.
I recently had a prospect that came to me and asked if I was available for
consulting. As I always do, I brought up the budget question early on. He said,
I can spend about $300 a month. Now I know some SEOs can stretch that and get
rankings. Im always impressed by these guys, but at that rate, I would fall on
my face (and my sword). Id fail at providing the only values I know how to
create. Id be scrambling to get good work done, and in the end, it would
probably not be worth the aggravation after taxes.
Still, I tried to help him find someone who was better suited, while advising
that his monthly fee was more likely to attract amateurs that might cost him
more in the end. He was able to come up a little and I was able to refer him to
another local SEO who fit his needs much better. Again, investing in
serendipity.
I cant say this enough - Take a bad deal financially and you will pay for it.
Ive never seen a need to pad the price for negotiation in our industry. Were not
selling used cars here.
What to Do
Dont budge unless youve priced yourself out of the market. Also, dont risk
putting yourself in a bad relationship because you settled. It doesnt tend to
work out in marriage, government, or business.
Clearly display all the items a client could be getting in an engagement with
you and encourage the prospect to see the value if they pay up instead of going
with an amateur. If you have a price youre proud of, then you should also have
results and confidence to stand behind.
Some agencies find it very difficult to talk about money, as it gets slipped in
as a line item at the back of a proposal. These proposals are often written
after hours of conversations. I propose you bring the money conversation early
to qualify your prospects. I go so far as put my rates and packages right on my
website and always encourage my prospects to review those pages in an
introductory email. I dont like wasting hours on a deal that was never meant to
be. Ive found this to be a very positive technique to getting deals signed
quickly, as some clients prefer the openness and honesty. Not everyone likes
haggling, and will happily pay a price when they know its fair.
Conclusion
Sometimes a bad client can teach you how to be a better consultant, but I dont
wish a bad client upon anyone. In my 10+ years of consulting, Id like to think
the lessons I learned (some of which Im sharing here) can really be learned
through some tough and common sense.
Agencies are busy places, but you need to take time (off-sites work nicely) to
really figure out what your service model is. Whether its from the top down, or
just your specific department, having a thought out manifesto on the clients
youre not going to take could be transformational to the success of your
consulting business.
Oh, and if by chance you encounter a hybrid of all these client-types above,
the only tip I have is flee. Ive yet to find any way to tame this three-headed
egotistical, dictating, negotiating creature. Thats schizophrenia on a level I
cant even comprehend.
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[Build Backlinks Online] How to Build an Online Directory of Luxury Listings Using WordPress
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How to Build an Online Directory
of Luxury Listings Using WordPress'
A few months ago I was approached by an existing client to build a 5-year old
brain child of his, an online directory of user uploaded Luxury Rental Listings
(exotic rental cars, yachts charters, mansions, private jet charters, limos),
dubbed Luxury Re...
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of Luxury Listings Using WordPress'
A few months ago I was approached by an existing client to build a 5-year old
brain child of his, an online directory of user uploaded Luxury Rental Listings
(exotic rental cars, yachts charters, mansions, private jet charters, limos),
dubbed Luxury Re...
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/BasicBlogTips/~3/F9FsofJwYCk/wordpress-online-directory-listings.html
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Thursday 9 May 2013
[Build Backlinks Online] Content Isn't King. Trust Is King.
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Content Isn't King. Trust Is
King.'
Posted by becole
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
As you likely already know, the goal of content marketing is to build up
familiarity and trust with your prospective customers. In this case, the content
isn't designed to sell a specific product or service, but rather to sell you,
and to interested potential customers.
People buy from people that they know, like, and trust. And if you haven't
heard it yet, let me be the first to tell you that "familiarity" breeds trust.
Content marketing certainly isn't new, but it's been getting a lot of new
attention online lately (and for good reason). Small business owners across the
globe are re-discovering these tried and true marketing practices, and using
them to get a big leg up on the competition.
One of the really big advantages small business owners have over the titans of
industry is thatyou can get much more personal with your target audience than
they can. You have a face and a voice. You can be human with your audience. And,
as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that is by talking to your
customers. One of the best ways to get a feel for some of the best-practices
around the industry is to follow and watch how others are succeeding. As such,
I've cherry-picked some of my favorite content marketing tips from experts
around the web.
1. Don't build on rented land
Publish your best content on web properties that you personally own (i.e., your
own self-hosted website). Social media has hit the business world like a freight
train, and there is great value in spreading your message far and wide via these
cheap media channels. The point of all that chatter, though, is to get all those
eyeballs back to your own site. Once they're there, it's time to convert them,
either into customers or, at the very least, into email list subscribers. Social
media is for mingling and chatting (and, obviously, marketing). Your own site is
where the magic should happen. That's where you answer your potential clients'
questions in depth. That's where you create loyalty.
Social media is great. Use it aggressively, but never forget what you're using
it for: to get all those eyeballs back to your own site for conversion.
"Before you create a single piece of content, think about where that content
will live and how audiences willget to it. Effective content marketing takes
work. You'll need energy, thought, and time to create goodcontent. This means
that nearly all of the content you create needs to live on a domain you control,
using a platform you can do as you please with. That means you're not producing
the bulk of your creative content for Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, and you're
not publishing on a "website in 20 minutes" solution that forces you to use
someone else's domain. If your domain isn'twww.YourWebsiteName.com, you don't
own your platform. If you can't publish what you please, with the wording, sales
messages, and images you please, you don't own your platform."
-Sonia Simonevia copyblogger.com
2. Help, not hype, your customer
The goal of content marketing is to allow the potential customer to develop a
trusting relationship with you. One of the best ways to develop that trust is by
answering customer questions and offering information in a clear, honest, and
transparent way.
If the product or service that you offer is part of that message, then feel
free to reference it. But if your content comes across more like an
advertisement or a sales letter, then you're not doing content marketing; you're
doing sales and advertising.
Trust is not built by pushing sales. Trust is built by selflessly helping
people looking for help. In fact, anything but hard selling will probably do
just fine. Some people tell personal stories. Some people seek to entertain.
Some people seek to inform. It all depends on your target audience. What are
they interested in? What do they care about? As long as you're not selling, the
possibilities are pretty much endless.
"Content marketing is not just about amplifying your message to your customer,
it is about helping them find what they are looking for. Discover your customer
needs by searching what they are looking for online and what they are saying
about your category/sector. Provide them with a program to meet these needs,
whether it directly impacts your business or not. Your audience will find the
help useful and you will become top of mind when they are looking for someone in
your sector.And don't forget the power of the face to face contact or 'just
asking' the question."
-Kaitlin Walshvia bluechipcommunication.com.au
3. Write what people want to read, not what you want to write
If you're planning to succeed in your content marketing efforts, there is one
big thing that you have to understand right from the start: it's not about you.
It's never about you. It's not about your company. It's not about your product.
It's not about your service. It's not about how great your company/product is.
It's not about the amazing charity work your president does. It's not about how
fun it is to work at your company. It's NEVER about you. And the minute you try
to make it about you, that's when you lose their trust, and that's when you lose
another potential customer.
Repeat after me: It's ALWAYS about them, never about you. This is content
marketing. It's not sales, and it's not advertising. If you want to do sales and
advertising, that's perfectly fine, but just don't do it in your content
marketing. Write for the reader, always.
"Your content should always have an audience in mind. That means you should
have their needs in mind, too, not your own. Remember, content marketing should
provide something valuable to people. So although you may want to write about
how terrible your day was or how someone should do something about the lines at
delis in grocery stores, that's not the kind of thing people will want to read.
They want to read something that's written about the things they're thinking
about. So ask yourself what concerns and delights your audience, then go from
there."
-Blaise Luceyvia constantcontact.com
4. Reference industry influencers
Even if you are the undisputed thought leader in your specific niche or areas
of expertise, it doesn't mean that you are the only person with something
valuable to add to the conversation. In fact, you make yourself seem more
trustworthy and confident when you reference other players in the marketplace.
I'm not saying that you have to specifically cite your direct competition
(although sometimes that's a great idea) but people are way better informed
these days than you might think they are. Customers are savvy. They know that
you're not the only expert, so if you try to pretend that you, are guess what?
Say it with me this time: they start trusting you less.
Referencing other experts is also a great way to show that there are others
that agree with what you're saying. This is huge. Guess what else? Search
engines love it, too. And just in case you're not fully convinced yet, try this
one. The people that you reference will be thrilled that you mentioned them, and
will likely help promote your content for you for free! Ahhh, viral marketing,
sharing...everybody wins!
"When discussing a specific topic within your content marketing piece, it can
be helpful to reference and cite individuals who are known to the audience and
have authority on the topic. People love to see their own names published and
will likely promote the content on their own for free, thus further spreading
the exposure and influence of your brand and its expertise."
-Marc Purtellvia searchenginejournal.com
5. Create content for all types of readers
Branch out from your normal niche and target readers in a wider variety of
related niche. This doesn't mean that you go way off on a huge tangent from your
core demographics, but people do have other interests. For example, accountants
aren't just interested in accounting.
Let's say you're a real estate broker. What things, other than buying a house,
are people moving to a new city interested in? People with houses often have
pets. Where are the best dog parks in your area? People with houses often have
kids. Where are the best schools in your area? Best restaurants in the area?
Best home improvement contractors in the area? Best landscapers in the area?
Best doctors in the area?
Let's also revisit #4 here for a minute. How thrilled do you think the local
contractor/doctor/restaurateur will be with you and your company if you
reference and link to them in a piece of your marketing content? Especially if
it's a 'best of' type post, you'll come out ahead.
That may have been an easy example, but use your imagination for your specific
industry/niche. What other things are your target customers interested in? You
know your customers better than I do (right?).
Another point is that people have friends, and you never know who will see your
content and pass it on to a friend that they think it will be more useful for. I
do this all the time, and I'll bet you do, too. I may not care about buying a
house, but if I happen to see a post entitled 'Best Pizza Shops in Yourtown,
USA' written by a local real estate agent, I may just tell my friends that are
looking for a new house how cool I think your real estate agency is for writing
such a post.
These actions go a long way toward showing your customers that you care about
them and that you're trying to help them, not just trying to sell them on your
company. That, more than anything else (arguably), builds massive trust.
"The cardinal rule of content marketing says that you need to create content
for your ideal reader in order toattract the right leads and customers. Most
companies follow this to the T, no matter how niche theirindustry is. So even
though their content is excellent, it does not get seen by too many people.
Contentmarketing success takes time and I suggest that you create content for
readers other than your ideal reader sothat it attract more traffic to your
website and social media pages. Instead of focusing on creating just one type of
content for your target audience, create some popular content to service other
readers."
-Jessica Davisvia socialmediatoday.com
6. There is more to content than links
Content marketing is so far above and beyond the classic SEO link building
tactics of the past. These days, it is likely better to think of links in terms
of the direct traffic you'll get from them, rather than any SEO benefits they
may or may not contribute. I'm not suggesting that backlinks are no longer
important for SEO. What I'm suggesting is a change in mindset. Links that will
actually get clicked through to your site are the better ones for SEO, anyway.
That being said, if you think of content marketing as a way to get link juice,
you're doing it wrong. Content creation is all about engagement building and
trust building. Let the SEO benefits work themselves out. What's good for
engagement and trust is also good for search engine optimization.
A link from a reputable site is valuable because of the number of people that
will click on it and come learn more about you and your company. And it just so
happens that the search engines will love it for that exact reason too; win-win.
"Content Marketing is so much more than getting links. It's the glue that holds
your funnel together. It's the reason a prospect visits your site, it's the
reason they choose to move further down the purchase path, buy a product and
return to your site time and again."
-Kieran Flanagan via seomoz.org
7. Don't forget the "marketing" in content marketing
Until now, I've talked mostly about content creation, but there is one other
huge piece to this content marketing puzzle: content promotion.
It's incredibly shocking, but one of the biggest problems I see is that small
business owners seem to be embarrassed about promoting their content. None of
them seem to have any trouble trying to promote their products and services
within their content, but once the content has been created, they're timid about
telling people it exists.
My best guess is that they're not proud of their content. Maybe that they don't
think their writing is very good, or that their content is boring, or something
along that vein. If that's the case, let me try to help you a bit with that.
In general, if you're being helpful, people don't really care if your writing
is a little rough around the edges. If you're getting people the information and
answers that they're looking for, they will very easily forgive non-perfect
writing. In fact, very often it can make you seem even more human to them.
Furthermore, the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. Nobody starts out
being a great writer, a great blogger, or a great content marketer, but the
sooner you start 'practicing,' the sooner you'll get better at it. I promise, it
gets a lot easier very, very quickly. As a matter of fact, read my I Hate
Bloggingpost here and you will see I am in the same shoes as many people who
struggle with writing.
You don't ever have to be perfect; you just have to help and/or entertain your
readers. If you do that and keep working at it, you'll be fine. But you must
promote your content. If you don't promote it, then no one will ever read it, in
which case, it's useless. The days are long gone where you could just post a new
piece of content and hope that people would find it via search (or because you
had built boatloads of spam links to it).
As discussed in point #1 above, this is where social media and your social
media connections come in. Use your social channels to guide traffic back to
your freshly minted content. If people like you on social media, they'll want to
learn more about you. Give them a way to do that.
If you're just starting out on sharing your content through social media,
here's an example of what you can say:
"Hey there folks, I just wrote up a quick post about some cool local resources
I've been working on recently. If you have a moment, take a quick peek and let
me know what you think. I'm just getting started with this whole content
marketing thing, so any feedback you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Here's the link, thanks!"
This may be the one piece of advice I can give you that will determine your
fate in content marketing more than any other. If you are too embarrassed to
promote your content, then you may as well give up on the whole idea of content
marketing right now. Go do PPC instead.
"Do you know why your content marketing campaign is going to fail? It's not
because you can't write great content it's actually because you don't know how
to promote it. You can learn how to write great content, but if no one reads
your content and links to it, there's no point in putting it out there."
-Neil Patelvia quicksprout.com
8. It's all about relationships
If people can see you actively participating and being a team-player, then they
will treat you accordingly; as a member of the team. [ Insider Tip:That's the
goal!] The bottom line with social is this: you have to be an active member of
the team. It's not enough to just stop in and share a few things here and there,
a day or two before you're going to need those same people to share your stuff
for you. You have to be active. You have to be part of the team; a member of the
community. It's not a wishy-washy kind of thing. It's a commitment; a commitment
to your community. Your network depends on you to be there for them, just like
they are there for you.
This doesn't mean that you have to be on social sites all day long. This also
doesn't mean that you have to promote every piece of content that every member
of your social network produces. It does mean however, that you stay involved
and engaged consistently.
If people see you actively sharing and promoting other people, they will be
that much more likely to share and promote your stuff when the time comes.The
time to make friends on social media channels is way before you need them.
"I've heard this mantra a lot, but it wasn't until my first crack at this that
I really understood how crucial relationships were. The people who were
ultimately the ones to contribute something to the post were the ones I built
the best relationships with. They were the ones that (for whatever reasons)
responded to comments I left on their blog posts or replied to my tweets in the
initial weeks. They were the ones who I was able to engage with in a personal
way over email. And now they're the ones who are appreciative of the opportunity
and exposure and are interested in working with me again in the future."
-Mike Arnesenvia mikearnesen.com
9. Think like a publisher
Whatever business you're in, your website and/or blog is now a venue for that
industry/niche. That's just pure fact; no way around it. The trick, though, is
learning to re-train your brain to treat it as such. Go down to your local book
store and grab a few magazines that catch your eye, and then study them. Study
their format, study their layout, study their focus. Whether you like it or not,
you are in the "online magazine" publishing business now. The fun part is that
you get to talk about stuff you're already an expert in.
Use your site to engage, entertain, and inform. That's all you really have to
do. The hardest part is remembering to do that every time you sit down to write
another piece of content. One of the quickest/easiest ways to do that is to
write content that answers common customer questions. That sounds simplistic,
but it's incredibly useful and engaging for people seeking answers. And if you
can do that in a fun interesting way; all the better.
"You are not an advertiser[emphasis added]. An advertiser disrupts but a
publisher educates and connects in a two way communication. Don't put too much
emphasis on your brand. The goal is to engage your visitors and in due time,
your brand will get the proper recognition. Always put value in your content. To
be accurate, content is not king but value is. It's not enough to have content
that is readable and no grammar mistakes. What matters is the substance of the
content. What's in it for your visitors? What value will they get?"
-Mark Acsay IIIvia webbythoughts.com
10. Use other sites to find out what kind of content people want
I saved this one for last because it always seems to be a major sticking point
with small business owners, and I wanted it to be fresh in your mind as you
finish up this post. Small business owners oftentimes think that they have
nothing to say, and nothing to write about.
We started this conversation in #2 above, and then again in #9 talking about
answering customer questions in a fun, interesting way (and that should get you
started in a big way), but eventually, you'll probably want to start branching
out a bit with your topic ideas. The best way to do that is to watch what your
competition is writing about, and also what other industries closely related to
yours are writing about.
Read other good blogs on your topic and then just write similar articles with
your own opinions and insights on the same topic, and try to make it better. I'm
not suggesting that you copy anything from them obviously; just that you get
inspired from them. This is also a great way to incorporate #4 and #8 above.
Everyone does this. Everyone gets inspiration from things that they see (and
read) elsewhere; it's how the world works. Inspiration comes from building on
top of what has come before.
This very post is a perfect example. I was inspired by the people that I quoted
here. I read their posts, I picked my favorite tips from each of them, and then
I added my own thoughts on the topics. I didn't have to quote and cite them,
this post would have been perfectly fine on its own, but I did quote and cite
them because it makes for a more interesting and engaging article. Plus it helps
with a bunch of the other tips mentioned above.
"Sometimes it's hard to know what people want to read about. One way to find
this out is to visit sites within your industry. Check their blogs and see what
posts get the most tweets and shares. In the internet marketing niche, social
media is all the rage. If you write a post about Facebook or Twitter, it's
guaranteed to get more shares. Do some research to find out what kind of post
are popular in your industry and write that type of content. You don't want to
write these types of posts every time, but it's a great way to boost traffic
when it fits into your publishing schedule."
-Joseph Putnam via kissmetrics.com
Conclusion
Its a wonderful time to be a small business owner. The Internet and content
marketing has made it possible for us to stop chasing the media, and instead,
become the media. You are now a magazine publisher for your own industry (and/or
a local niche). Your voice can be as big or as small as you want it to be. It
can start small and then grow. Or it can just stay small and that's okay too.
You are in total control here. There's no reason to ever feel intimidated by the
process because you control the process.
Just remember, the goal of content marketing and its sidekick social media
marketing is to inform and entertain prospective customers in a way that
inspires them to trust you for the right reasons; authentic, legitimate,
deserving and well-earned trust. When the time comes for them to buy something,
they buy from people they trust: you. Which, as I may have mentioned once or
twice already, is the whole point of all this stuff. Trust, trust, trust; burn
that into your brain. Content isn't king. Trust is king. Content is just how you
get there.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/VHxawNm6O_k/content-isnt-king-trust-is-king
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peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
King.'
Posted by becole
This post was originally in YouMoz, and was promoted to the main blog because it
provides great value and interest to our community. The author's views are
entirely his or her own and may not reflect the views of SEOmoz, Inc.
As you likely already know, the goal of content marketing is to build up
familiarity and trust with your prospective customers. In this case, the content
isn't designed to sell a specific product or service, but rather to sell you,
and to interested potential customers.
People buy from people that they know, like, and trust. And if you haven't
heard it yet, let me be the first to tell you that "familiarity" breeds trust.
Content marketing certainly isn't new, but it's been getting a lot of new
attention online lately (and for good reason). Small business owners across the
globe are re-discovering these tried and true marketing practices, and using
them to get a big leg up on the competition.
One of the really big advantages small business owners have over the titans of
industry is thatyou can get much more personal with your target audience than
they can. You have a face and a voice. You can be human with your audience. And,
as it turns out, one of the best ways to do that is by talking to your
customers. One of the best ways to get a feel for some of the best-practices
around the industry is to follow and watch how others are succeeding. As such,
I've cherry-picked some of my favorite content marketing tips from experts
around the web.
1. Don't build on rented land
Publish your best content on web properties that you personally own (i.e., your
own self-hosted website). Social media has hit the business world like a freight
train, and there is great value in spreading your message far and wide via these
cheap media channels. The point of all that chatter, though, is to get all those
eyeballs back to your own site. Once they're there, it's time to convert them,
either into customers or, at the very least, into email list subscribers. Social
media is for mingling and chatting (and, obviously, marketing). Your own site is
where the magic should happen. That's where you answer your potential clients'
questions in depth. That's where you create loyalty.
Social media is great. Use it aggressively, but never forget what you're using
it for: to get all those eyeballs back to your own site for conversion.
"Before you create a single piece of content, think about where that content
will live and how audiences willget to it. Effective content marketing takes
work. You'll need energy, thought, and time to create goodcontent. This means
that nearly all of the content you create needs to live on a domain you control,
using a platform you can do as you please with. That means you're not producing
the bulk of your creative content for Facebook, Twitter, or Google+, and you're
not publishing on a "website in 20 minutes" solution that forces you to use
someone else's domain. If your domain isn'twww.YourWebsiteName.com, you don't
own your platform. If you can't publish what you please, with the wording, sales
messages, and images you please, you don't own your platform."
-Sonia Simonevia copyblogger.com
2. Help, not hype, your customer
The goal of content marketing is to allow the potential customer to develop a
trusting relationship with you. One of the best ways to develop that trust is by
answering customer questions and offering information in a clear, honest, and
transparent way.
If the product or service that you offer is part of that message, then feel
free to reference it. But if your content comes across more like an
advertisement or a sales letter, then you're not doing content marketing; you're
doing sales and advertising.
Trust is not built by pushing sales. Trust is built by selflessly helping
people looking for help. In fact, anything but hard selling will probably do
just fine. Some people tell personal stories. Some people seek to entertain.
Some people seek to inform. It all depends on your target audience. What are
they interested in? What do they care about? As long as you're not selling, the
possibilities are pretty much endless.
"Content marketing is not just about amplifying your message to your customer,
it is about helping them find what they are looking for. Discover your customer
needs by searching what they are looking for online and what they are saying
about your category/sector. Provide them with a program to meet these needs,
whether it directly impacts your business or not. Your audience will find the
help useful and you will become top of mind when they are looking for someone in
your sector.And don't forget the power of the face to face contact or 'just
asking' the question."
-Kaitlin Walshvia bluechipcommunication.com.au
3. Write what people want to read, not what you want to write
If you're planning to succeed in your content marketing efforts, there is one
big thing that you have to understand right from the start: it's not about you.
It's never about you. It's not about your company. It's not about your product.
It's not about your service. It's not about how great your company/product is.
It's not about the amazing charity work your president does. It's not about how
fun it is to work at your company. It's NEVER about you. And the minute you try
to make it about you, that's when you lose their trust, and that's when you lose
another potential customer.
Repeat after me: It's ALWAYS about them, never about you. This is content
marketing. It's not sales, and it's not advertising. If you want to do sales and
advertising, that's perfectly fine, but just don't do it in your content
marketing. Write for the reader, always.
"Your content should always have an audience in mind. That means you should
have their needs in mind, too, not your own. Remember, content marketing should
provide something valuable to people. So although you may want to write about
how terrible your day was or how someone should do something about the lines at
delis in grocery stores, that's not the kind of thing people will want to read.
They want to read something that's written about the things they're thinking
about. So ask yourself what concerns and delights your audience, then go from
there."
-Blaise Luceyvia constantcontact.com
4. Reference industry influencers
Even if you are the undisputed thought leader in your specific niche or areas
of expertise, it doesn't mean that you are the only person with something
valuable to add to the conversation. In fact, you make yourself seem more
trustworthy and confident when you reference other players in the marketplace.
I'm not saying that you have to specifically cite your direct competition
(although sometimes that's a great idea) but people are way better informed
these days than you might think they are. Customers are savvy. They know that
you're not the only expert, so if you try to pretend that you, are guess what?
Say it with me this time: they start trusting you less.
Referencing other experts is also a great way to show that there are others
that agree with what you're saying. This is huge. Guess what else? Search
engines love it, too. And just in case you're not fully convinced yet, try this
one. The people that you reference will be thrilled that you mentioned them, and
will likely help promote your content for you for free! Ahhh, viral marketing,
sharing...everybody wins!
"When discussing a specific topic within your content marketing piece, it can
be helpful to reference and cite individuals who are known to the audience and
have authority on the topic. People love to see their own names published and
will likely promote the content on their own for free, thus further spreading
the exposure and influence of your brand and its expertise."
-Marc Purtellvia searchenginejournal.com
5. Create content for all types of readers
Branch out from your normal niche and target readers in a wider variety of
related niche. This doesn't mean that you go way off on a huge tangent from your
core demographics, but people do have other interests. For example, accountants
aren't just interested in accounting.
Let's say you're a real estate broker. What things, other than buying a house,
are people moving to a new city interested in? People with houses often have
pets. Where are the best dog parks in your area? People with houses often have
kids. Where are the best schools in your area? Best restaurants in the area?
Best home improvement contractors in the area? Best landscapers in the area?
Best doctors in the area?
Let's also revisit #4 here for a minute. How thrilled do you think the local
contractor/doctor/restaurateur will be with you and your company if you
reference and link to them in a piece of your marketing content? Especially if
it's a 'best of' type post, you'll come out ahead.
That may have been an easy example, but use your imagination for your specific
industry/niche. What other things are your target customers interested in? You
know your customers better than I do (right?).
Another point is that people have friends, and you never know who will see your
content and pass it on to a friend that they think it will be more useful for. I
do this all the time, and I'll bet you do, too. I may not care about buying a
house, but if I happen to see a post entitled 'Best Pizza Shops in Yourtown,
USA' written by a local real estate agent, I may just tell my friends that are
looking for a new house how cool I think your real estate agency is for writing
such a post.
These actions go a long way toward showing your customers that you care about
them and that you're trying to help them, not just trying to sell them on your
company. That, more than anything else (arguably), builds massive trust.
"The cardinal rule of content marketing says that you need to create content
for your ideal reader in order toattract the right leads and customers. Most
companies follow this to the T, no matter how niche theirindustry is. So even
though their content is excellent, it does not get seen by too many people.
Contentmarketing success takes time and I suggest that you create content for
readers other than your ideal reader sothat it attract more traffic to your
website and social media pages. Instead of focusing on creating just one type of
content for your target audience, create some popular content to service other
readers."
-Jessica Davisvia socialmediatoday.com
6. There is more to content than links
Content marketing is so far above and beyond the classic SEO link building
tactics of the past. These days, it is likely better to think of links in terms
of the direct traffic you'll get from them, rather than any SEO benefits they
may or may not contribute. I'm not suggesting that backlinks are no longer
important for SEO. What I'm suggesting is a change in mindset. Links that will
actually get clicked through to your site are the better ones for SEO, anyway.
That being said, if you think of content marketing as a way to get link juice,
you're doing it wrong. Content creation is all about engagement building and
trust building. Let the SEO benefits work themselves out. What's good for
engagement and trust is also good for search engine optimization.
A link from a reputable site is valuable because of the number of people that
will click on it and come learn more about you and your company. And it just so
happens that the search engines will love it for that exact reason too; win-win.
"Content Marketing is so much more than getting links. It's the glue that holds
your funnel together. It's the reason a prospect visits your site, it's the
reason they choose to move further down the purchase path, buy a product and
return to your site time and again."
-Kieran Flanagan via seomoz.org
7. Don't forget the "marketing" in content marketing
Until now, I've talked mostly about content creation, but there is one other
huge piece to this content marketing puzzle: content promotion.
It's incredibly shocking, but one of the biggest problems I see is that small
business owners seem to be embarrassed about promoting their content. None of
them seem to have any trouble trying to promote their products and services
within their content, but once the content has been created, they're timid about
telling people it exists.
My best guess is that they're not proud of their content. Maybe that they don't
think their writing is very good, or that their content is boring, or something
along that vein. If that's the case, let me try to help you a bit with that.
In general, if you're being helpful, people don't really care if your writing
is a little rough around the edges. If you're getting people the information and
answers that they're looking for, they will very easily forgive non-perfect
writing. In fact, very often it can make you seem even more human to them.
Furthermore, the more you do it, the better you'll get at it. Nobody starts out
being a great writer, a great blogger, or a great content marketer, but the
sooner you start 'practicing,' the sooner you'll get better at it. I promise, it
gets a lot easier very, very quickly. As a matter of fact, read my I Hate
Bloggingpost here and you will see I am in the same shoes as many people who
struggle with writing.
You don't ever have to be perfect; you just have to help and/or entertain your
readers. If you do that and keep working at it, you'll be fine. But you must
promote your content. If you don't promote it, then no one will ever read it, in
which case, it's useless. The days are long gone where you could just post a new
piece of content and hope that people would find it via search (or because you
had built boatloads of spam links to it).
As discussed in point #1 above, this is where social media and your social
media connections come in. Use your social channels to guide traffic back to
your freshly minted content. If people like you on social media, they'll want to
learn more about you. Give them a way to do that.
If you're just starting out on sharing your content through social media,
here's an example of what you can say:
"Hey there folks, I just wrote up a quick post about some cool local resources
I've been working on recently. If you have a moment, take a quick peek and let
me know what you think. I'm just getting started with this whole content
marketing thing, so any feedback you can give me will be greatly appreciated.
Here's the link, thanks!"
This may be the one piece of advice I can give you that will determine your
fate in content marketing more than any other. If you are too embarrassed to
promote your content, then you may as well give up on the whole idea of content
marketing right now. Go do PPC instead.
"Do you know why your content marketing campaign is going to fail? It's not
because you can't write great content it's actually because you don't know how
to promote it. You can learn how to write great content, but if no one reads
your content and links to it, there's no point in putting it out there."
-Neil Patelvia quicksprout.com
8. It's all about relationships
If people can see you actively participating and being a team-player, then they
will treat you accordingly; as a member of the team. [ Insider Tip:That's the
goal!] The bottom line with social is this: you have to be an active member of
the team. It's not enough to just stop in and share a few things here and there,
a day or two before you're going to need those same people to share your stuff
for you. You have to be active. You have to be part of the team; a member of the
community. It's not a wishy-washy kind of thing. It's a commitment; a commitment
to your community. Your network depends on you to be there for them, just like
they are there for you.
This doesn't mean that you have to be on social sites all day long. This also
doesn't mean that you have to promote every piece of content that every member
of your social network produces. It does mean however, that you stay involved
and engaged consistently.
If people see you actively sharing and promoting other people, they will be
that much more likely to share and promote your stuff when the time comes.The
time to make friends on social media channels is way before you need them.
"I've heard this mantra a lot, but it wasn't until my first crack at this that
I really understood how crucial relationships were. The people who were
ultimately the ones to contribute something to the post were the ones I built
the best relationships with. They were the ones that (for whatever reasons)
responded to comments I left on their blog posts or replied to my tweets in the
initial weeks. They were the ones who I was able to engage with in a personal
way over email. And now they're the ones who are appreciative of the opportunity
and exposure and are interested in working with me again in the future."
-Mike Arnesenvia mikearnesen.com
9. Think like a publisher
Whatever business you're in, your website and/or blog is now a venue for that
industry/niche. That's just pure fact; no way around it. The trick, though, is
learning to re-train your brain to treat it as such. Go down to your local book
store and grab a few magazines that catch your eye, and then study them. Study
their format, study their layout, study their focus. Whether you like it or not,
you are in the "online magazine" publishing business now. The fun part is that
you get to talk about stuff you're already an expert in.
Use your site to engage, entertain, and inform. That's all you really have to
do. The hardest part is remembering to do that every time you sit down to write
another piece of content. One of the quickest/easiest ways to do that is to
write content that answers common customer questions. That sounds simplistic,
but it's incredibly useful and engaging for people seeking answers. And if you
can do that in a fun interesting way; all the better.
"You are not an advertiser[emphasis added]. An advertiser disrupts but a
publisher educates and connects in a two way communication. Don't put too much
emphasis on your brand. The goal is to engage your visitors and in due time,
your brand will get the proper recognition. Always put value in your content. To
be accurate, content is not king but value is. It's not enough to have content
that is readable and no grammar mistakes. What matters is the substance of the
content. What's in it for your visitors? What value will they get?"
-Mark Acsay IIIvia webbythoughts.com
10. Use other sites to find out what kind of content people want
I saved this one for last because it always seems to be a major sticking point
with small business owners, and I wanted it to be fresh in your mind as you
finish up this post. Small business owners oftentimes think that they have
nothing to say, and nothing to write about.
We started this conversation in #2 above, and then again in #9 talking about
answering customer questions in a fun, interesting way (and that should get you
started in a big way), but eventually, you'll probably want to start branching
out a bit with your topic ideas. The best way to do that is to watch what your
competition is writing about, and also what other industries closely related to
yours are writing about.
Read other good blogs on your topic and then just write similar articles with
your own opinions and insights on the same topic, and try to make it better. I'm
not suggesting that you copy anything from them obviously; just that you get
inspired from them. This is also a great way to incorporate #4 and #8 above.
Everyone does this. Everyone gets inspiration from things that they see (and
read) elsewhere; it's how the world works. Inspiration comes from building on
top of what has come before.
This very post is a perfect example. I was inspired by the people that I quoted
here. I read their posts, I picked my favorite tips from each of them, and then
I added my own thoughts on the topics. I didn't have to quote and cite them,
this post would have been perfectly fine on its own, but I did quote and cite
them because it makes for a more interesting and engaging article. Plus it helps
with a bunch of the other tips mentioned above.
"Sometimes it's hard to know what people want to read about. One way to find
this out is to visit sites within your industry. Check their blogs and see what
posts get the most tweets and shares. In the internet marketing niche, social
media is all the rage. If you write a post about Facebook or Twitter, it's
guaranteed to get more shares. Do some research to find out what kind of post
are popular in your industry and write that type of content. You don't want to
write these types of posts every time, but it's a great way to boost traffic
when it fits into your publishing schedule."
-Joseph Putnam via kissmetrics.com
Conclusion
Its a wonderful time to be a small business owner. The Internet and content
marketing has made it possible for us to stop chasing the media, and instead,
become the media. You are now a magazine publisher for your own industry (and/or
a local niche). Your voice can be as big or as small as you want it to be. It
can start small and then grow. Or it can just stay small and that's okay too.
You are in total control here. There's no reason to ever feel intimidated by the
process because you control the process.
Just remember, the goal of content marketing and its sidekick social media
marketing is to inform and entertain prospective customers in a way that
inspires them to trust you for the right reasons; authentic, legitimate,
deserving and well-earned trust. When the time comes for them to buy something,
they buy from people they trust: you. Which, as I may have mentioned once or
twice already, is the whole point of all this stuff. Trust, trust, trust; burn
that into your brain. Content isn't king. Trust is king. Content is just how you
get there.
Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten
hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think
of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but
want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/VHxawNm6O_k/content-isnt-king-trust-is-king
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
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