Month: October 2012

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Guest Blogging for Links

What does Google (Matt Cutts) think about guest blogging and the links that are generated from doing it? This excellent video answers the question.

This is the bottom line. If you did not sweat in creating the guest blog post Google will typically not give you link juice for it. That’s the hard cold fact. Write a light weight blog post of about 250 words, post it on a variety of sites, and maybe even use article spinning software in an effort to create unique content for each site and you really will not be getting link benefits.

Create a well written, informative, insightful blog post for a site that supports your industry and yes Google does like this approach. It’s all about the time you take and the insight you provide. Do not do guest blogging just for links with minimal effort on your part Matt and Google pretty much say in this video that it is wasted effort.

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Facebook Cleaning Tips

I am using Facebook less and less and in part due to the clutter but this article may just turn that around for me. I recently read an article called “How To Reclaim Your Facebook News Feed – 20 Spring Cleaning Tips” and it was filled with some really great tips. It is definitely worth a read.

Here are some of my own tips on how you can clean your Facebook page to add to the articles 20 tips.

1. If you don’t like the language in a post on your wall by one of the young people you follow (family members or extended family), just hide it by right clicking on the right top of the post. This way you won’t have others see bad language on your page.

2. If you want to unfriend a person, they won’t know you did so, just click the hyperlink on their name to go to their Facebook page and then click the starred friends button on the top right just under the cover photo. The drop down that appears allows you to select how much information to see from this friend as well as a link to unfriend them.

3. Know that every time you like a page, you are allowing them to spam your wall and the wall of your friends if they are following your information – they may or may not see these posts depending on how much information they have subscribed to on following you. But know if they get all your updates if you like the Giant Grocery Store page and they follow all your updates they’ll see Giant’s wall posts on their wall too. Review who you like and purge accordingly. I have found that sometimes I have more posts from page likes in my news feed than I would like. Plus know that if you allow the like and app installation, you are agreeing to share your personal information with this business. Be aware!

4. Don’t Friend people instead choose to subscribe to their updates for greater control. If you have a person who does a lot of gaming on Facebook when you start to get game updates, click into their profile, go to the starred friend button and tick off the things you want to get updates on. You may want to choose only life events.

When it comes to Facebook you are now really in control, but it does take a little tweaking to set the amount of information you want to see.

 

 

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Great AdWords Landing Page Tips

Not getting the conversions you think you should with Google AdWords? If you are getting clicks, have a good click through rate, but no leads or sales, the first place to really look is at your ad group and even keyword landing pages.

What makes a landing page great for creating sales and leads? Here are my top tips to consider as you design your own.

  1. Skin the page with your regular website look and feel and include your full website navigation. You are reinforcing your brand when you do this. I am not an advocate of having a landing page that does not look like your website or is just a big graphic  with bullet points.l I like the legitimacy a fully skinned website page affords.
  2. Keep your page load speed snappy! You’ve got 5 to 6 seconds to make an impression, don’t have those precious seconds be in loading images or superfluous content.
  3. If you have a site search function, include it in the landing page or at the very minimum supply a link to your site map.
  4. Bulletize your content and condense your sales pitch. Most readers will scan your page – put that to work for you by creating bullets, visual graphics that are appealing, and white space that opens up the content.
  5. Include a path to the action you want the reader to take. I will typically encourage the introduction of a contact form at the bottom of the landing page content. I want to lead the reader into getting more information or a price fast with one click. I do  not require any information on the form and usually just ask for first name, last name, email, phone, and comments. Again I do not require any fields I want to make the information request form process friendly and fast.
  6. Make sure your phone number is prominently featured on the landing page top and bottom. Many people will sit on that page and pick up the phone right then to chat with you.
  7. Do not include and excessive amount of content. Identify what your buyer wants to know and link to content that provides more information.
  8. Add graphics to break of the content or to reinforce your message. One page of text looks dull and if the paragraphs are too long, the reader may simply loose interest and surf off.
  9. Make sure you have a link to your privacy policy on your AdWords landing page. AdWords is scanning for this so make sure to have a policy in place and have it linked from your landing page.
  10. Keep all your important information above the fold of the page, that means visible so that someone does not have to scroll to read it.

Creating a landing page is like creating a marketing piece. Give the prospect the information they want fast and entice them to contact you to find out more. Give a sense of urgency to act on the information by offering a promotion with an ending date that encourages interaction to receive the incentive typically within the next week or 30 days.

Even after you have a great landing page, continue to test and refine your message. Find out what resonates with your clients and closes the deal by asking them and then build those items into your new landing page test.

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Google is Changing the Game

“Google has me in its grip. With every new day, I am subjected to some new persecution for which there seems to be no escape.”  Read her full article at SiteProNews

Do you feel like this? That website organic placement, placement on Google Places (now Google Local) is a moving target. You’ll want to read the story of Marilyn’s travel so you can feel her pain. But does it have to be so complicated?

Here’s my short list of things that you should do for your website to garner organic placement (that means unpaid placement) on Google.com. Don’t get spun up on things that won’t help or hurt you if you simply don’t have the time or know how.

  1. Make sure you are blogging with the blog posts archived and posted using your own domain name so that you build consistent interesting and fresh content.
  2. Do make sure that your website is linked to your personal Google+ account and that you do have a Google+ account for your business.
  3. Do verify your Google+ Local page so Google knows that you are the business owner.
  4. Do get on a plan to build great website content and write regular new informational pages for your website.
  5. Do implement rich snippets with your website reviews if you have the know how.

I don’t feel that making yourself crazy of what Google picks up and doesn’t pick up will help or hurt you. Do the best you can if you are updating your own website.

The real key to placement on Google.com is to have great content first and foremost that people will want to link to in a natural manner. Google is not going to drop your placement if you don’t have your website connected to Google+, but they will drop you if you have duplicate or poor content.

Stay focused on the things that make sense for your business and if you have the budget, hire an expert to help with the rest.