If you're a content publisher, are you sure that you're getting paid what you should be for your traffic? Making content is expensive, so making sure that you're getting the most money for your traffic is vital. As it turns out, there's a huge difference...
Friday, March 28, 2014
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Is Seo Really Dead ? [ Infographic from Copyblogger ]
Of course a large and respected site like CopyBlogger can get away with this sort of statement! So is SEO really Dead ? CopyBlogger’s author Sean Jackson seems to think so and goes on about how he hates the term SEO, and I know what he means, because it has been subjected to so much misconstrued treatment of late. Nobody really knows what SEO really stands for any more, it has gained a reputation for generating spam, there seem to be so many variations around and the search engines seem bent on making it more and more difficult to accomplish. So Sean offers an alternative: Optimizing Content for Discovery & Conversion, or OC/DC for short. He has also provided this fabulous infographic to place in our posts to provide a visual explanation of what he means:
OC/DC actually splits the whole process into two, inside and outside your website. Actually that makes perfect sense, rather than trying to be a ‘one size fits all’, there are many things that need to happen to result in optimising success in order to make the search engines take notice of you. Never mind adding appropriate keywords to strategic areas of your posts or pages, what about continuing this exercise externally in the rest of the content you generate elsewhere, such as social networking and bookmarking sites, hosted guest blogging sites and syndicated content sites such as SlideShare and Business Insider, of which I will investigate the latter to see if this is applicable to me. And internally this can be extended to include your website’s layout, how responsive it is to alternative media, what kind of content it contains, how quickly it downloads in your browser, and what your visitors experience in their journey within your site and if they are guided towards an objective that is suitably measurable and provides a valuable return on investment. The whole concept of SEO has moved on from keyword stuffing and backlink farming. Every aspect of how a website functions in relation to its readers as well as succumbing to the tyranny of the search engines needs to be considered, and if you want or need to make a difference, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.
Read More »
Is SEO Really Dead ?
OC/DC actually splits the whole process into two, inside and outside your website. Actually that makes perfect sense, rather than trying to be a ‘one size fits all’, there are many things that need to happen to result in optimising success in order to make the search engines take notice of you. Never mind adding appropriate keywords to strategic areas of your posts or pages, what about continuing this exercise externally in the rest of the content you generate elsewhere, such as social networking and bookmarking sites, hosted guest blogging sites and syndicated content sites such as SlideShare and Business Insider, of which I will investigate the latter to see if this is applicable to me. And internally this can be extended to include your website’s layout, how responsive it is to alternative media, what kind of content it contains, how quickly it downloads in your browser, and what your visitors experience in their journey within your site and if they are guided towards an objective that is suitably measurable and provides a valuable return on investment. The whole concept of SEO has moved on from keyword stuffing and backlink farming. Every aspect of how a website functions in relation to its readers as well as succumbing to the tyranny of the search engines needs to be considered, and if you want or need to make a difference, it’s time to wake up and smell the coffee.Tuesday, March 25, 2014
Top 30 Google Plugins for WordPress
Google offers so much more than just search and email with services like sharing calendars, user management, webmaster tools, analytics, amazing file sharing with collaboration…the list goes on and on.
Google also prides itself on making much of its code open source (except for the search algorithm, of course), and allowing access to its massive API, which lets developers create applications to bring all that googlie goodness to other platforms.
And now WPMU.org brings it directly to you with our list of the top 30 plugins that add Google functionality to WordPress. The plugins are listed in no particular order, but are separated into categories to make for easier browsing.
Top 30 Google Plugins for WordPress
Badges and Social Sharing
The following plugins allow you to display a badge on your blog showing off your circles and allowing people to circle you on the Google + social network. They also allow you to share posts and pages via that network with Google’s own “+1.”
The Google + Plugin
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/google–1/
WPMUdev.org was one of the first plugin developers to put together a plus one sharing box and this one is impressive. It is cross-browser functional, can show or hide +1 counters, allows editing of the button and badge size, and where it shows up, and also works with BuddyPress and WP Multisite.
Google Page Rank
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-rank-badge/
If you are working with advertisers or are trying to solicit free goodies from corporations, like with review sites, the Google Page Rank plugin is a must. This plugin will display your Google Page Rank in a badge on your site and let advertisers know just how much traffic your site gets.
Google PlusBadge
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-plus-badge
Add your Google + profile badge to a widget on your WordPress website. Includes a graphical display of your +1’s and a button for people to add you to their circles.
WordPress Social Login
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-social-login
This handy plugin allows visitors of your site the ability to login and comment on your blog using any one of 20 social networks, including Google, Facebook, Twitter, and even some of the more obscure social sites.
Images, Icons, and Gravatars
The following plugins bring google’s image functionality to your WordPress blog, includingdisplaying favicons, Picasa photo galleries, and more.
Google Plus Favicon
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-plus-favicon/
If you use Google + and have a profile picture there you can use that profile picture as your website avatar and Favicon. This is a great piece of functionality for personal bloggers, and an even better way to make your image consistent across platforms.
Gravatar Google Image
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/baw-gravatar-google-image/
This is a really fun plugin which adds som cool image functionality to your website. When comment areas include images, like Gravatars, it makes the blog more interactive and adds another level of professionalism. When someone enters his or her name and email address (a requirement to post a comment on most blogs) this plugin goes out and searches by that information and adds the first relevant picture it finds from Google search results. But it doesn’t stop there. It also emails the commenter and lets them know the picture that has been chosen for them and gives them the ability to remove that image or to use it permanently through Gravatar, where it will also show up in other sites across the web.
Google Picasa Viewer
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-picasa-albums-viewer
Add your Picasa pictures and photo galleries to WordPress in pages, posts, and even as a widget with this plugin.
Video and Audio
YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world and it’s time you brought some of that functionality to your site. While recent upgrades of WordPress allow auto embedding of YouTube videos, the site still lacks functionality for video galleries. But the following plugins pick up the slack and allow you to embed entire channels or playlists of YouTube videos into your WP powered website.
TubePress
http://tubepress.org/
This plugin allows you to plugin virtually everything from your YouTube page into your WordPress blog, including playlists, favorites, most-viewed for a time period, and more. It allows customization of the player window, setting the number of videos that display per page, whether or not related videos play at the end, and the type of information that shows up next to the video or video thumbnail. Offered in both free and premium versions.
YouTube Simple Gallery
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/youtube-simplegallery/
This easy to use plugin allows you to embed multiple YouTube videos and galleries into your WordPress pages and posts with short codes.
CodeArt Google MP3 Player
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-mp3-audio-player/
There are many MP3 players on the WordPress repository, but few that tap into Google’s own lightweight MP3 player. CodeArt’s plugin does just that. If you use Google Voice you are familiar with the mp3 interface, and this works in a similar fashion, complete with a button to add audio in your video post editor. Great for showcasing podcasts on your blog.
Maps and Location
Displaying a map of or directions to your office personalizes your site and makes it easy for visitors and customers to find your services and products. Google maps also look cool, and sometimes that’s the only reason you need to use one of these plugins:
Google Maps
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/wordpress-google-maps-plugin/
Quickly and easily add Google Maps to any post or page in WordPress, with ability to tap into street view, and also custom CSS to make your map unique. Includes an advanced settings page to fine-tune the display, and custom field options to interact with Google’s geolocation plugin. This is an amazingly clean and functional map plugin.
Convert Address To Google Maps Link
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/convert-address-to-google-maps-link/
If you find yourself using the “address” formatting in the visual post editor of WordPress in an attempt to make your addresses stand out on the page then you’re going to love this plugin which turns all your addresses into links for Google Maps.
Comprehensive Google Map Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/comprehensive-google-map-plugin/
This great plugin brings the full functionality of Google Maps to your WordPress installation, with 250 custom marker icons, help tooltips, driving and walking directions, info windows, shortcode usage, and configuration for KML files. It is widget enabled, and users can use it to get directions to any of the places you have marked on the map.
Google Documents
Google Documents made cloud word processing a reality, and then later made collaboration and document sharing standard. These plugins allow you tap the power of the cloud for document creation, display, sharing, security and storage of Google Docs and Google Drive.
Google Drive for WordPress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-google-drive/
Use this plugin to make backups of your WordPress files and database. They can be stored locally and on Google Drive. For installation instructions, checkout this WordPress backup tutorialusing Google Drive.
Google Doc Embedder
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-document-embedder/
This plugin allows you to embed dozens of document file types into your WordPress posts and pages using the Google Docs viewer. It allows for inline viewing and gives your visitors the option to download the documents as well. Doesn’t require flash or pdf plugins and works with major file types like PDF, Word doc and docx, Powerpoint, Photoshop PSD, archive zip and rar, and many more.
If you want to turn your WordPress site into a service like Scribd or Screenshare, this plugin will get you there.
WordPress Google Form
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpgform/
This plugin uses a shortcode to fetch a Google form and displays it on your site without the need to make people link away to Google. Allows custom CSS to make your form unique, and fits any WordPress post or Page.
Advertising with Adsense
Google Adsense is still one of the best ways to monetize your blog. You can also checkout another one of our articles for a more thorough listing of ways to add advertising to your blog.
Easy Adsense
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/easy-adsense-lite
Easily add your adsense content to your site in header, footer, pages, posts, or widgets.
Google Adsense Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/adsense-plugin/
Highly customizable plugin to add Adsense to your blog. Change colors, size, and position of ad blocks throughout your site and make the ad placement unique.
Analytics and Authoriship
Google Analytics is the most powerful analytics solution. Period. Most premium analytics programs can’t touch the breadth and depth of metrics offered by GA, and thankfully, there are a few great plugins to bring that functionality to WP.
Multisite Analytics
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/google-analytics-for-wordpress-mu-sitewide-and-single-blog-solution/
This plugin brings Google Analytics to your Multisite installation by allowing bloggers the ability to simply insert their own analytics code to track performance. But what’s different about this plugin is it also allow the site admin to enter his or her own Google analytics code and track performance of the entire multisite network.
Google Analytics Dashboard
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-analytics-dashboard
Bring the power of Google Analytics right to your WordPress dashboard with this plugin. Instead of logging into and out of GA directly, this plugin brings the GA stats into a WordPress admin panel, where you can view base and extended stats, top searches and referrers, and even sparklines right in your post and page management screens – for a quick view of which posts draw the most traffic.
Google XML Sitemaps
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
This is one of the original sitemap plugins and it has been downloaded more than 8 million times. With the click of one button this plugin will create the all-important Google sitemap for your website and make it easier for web crawlers to find and analyze your pages.
Google Site Verification Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/official-google-site-verification-plugin/
Some Google services require you to verify that you own the blog in question before being able to actually use the services. There are several ways to do this including hard coding script into your theme and uploading a file to your site via FTP. For newbie users neither one of these methods is intuitive, or easy to do. But the Google site verification plugin adds the necessary code for you and authenticates your site in just a few clicks.
Google’s addition of the G+ social network also brings authorship to the google search results pages with your mug shot and profile link showing up right next to the articles you’ve authored.
Google Authorship Widget
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-authorship-widget/
To get your photo up in search results next to the articles you write Google requires you to link your G+ profile to your blog, and then add some code to meta tags within each article (or sitewide). Those without coding experience are going to have a problem with this method. And that’s where the authorship Widget plugin really helps. With just a few clicks, you can add your G+ profile information and the plugin does the rest. After a day or two you should automatically see your picture popping up in search. It’s a great way to increase click-through rates to your articles and generate a solid fan following.
Calendars
The ability to create and manage events are some of the most often requested features for new blog creators. Plugins that allow this functionality are in high demand, and the two featured below bring Google’s calendar event options to WordPress.
Google Calendar Event
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-calendar-events/screenshots/
This plugin places Google Calendar feeds into your site, and displays events as a calendar grid on any post or page. It also works as a widget, and features a customized admin panel with advanced settings control.
Stout Google Calender
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stout-google-calendar/screenshots/
This plugin allows for a highly customized version of Google calendar right in your WordPress site. Can also be plugged into pages, posts, and widgets. For installation tutorials.
Other Cool Google WordPress Plugins
These plugins have too much goodness to contain in just one category. They include search, scripts, fonts, and WordPress Multisite.
Google Libraries
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/use-google-libraries/
This plugin improves your website performance by using a number of the javascript libraries hosted on Google’s AJAX Libraries API, rather than serving these files from your WordPress install directly.
WP Google Fonts
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-google-fonts/
Use the free Google fonts directory to bring hundreds of custom fonts to your WordPress website. You can use these fonts in posts, pages, and anywhere you can edit CSS…even assign fonts to visual post editor paragraph formatting elements.
FD Feeburner Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/feedburner-plugin/
This plugin redirects the main feed of your site, and the comments (optionally), without needing to modify your theme templates, setup a new feed, or touch your htaccess file.
WP Google Alerts
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-google-alerts/
If you are into social media monitoring or like to track mentions of specific keywords this plugin is perfect. It gives you the ability to add your google alerts directly into your WordPress dashboard.
Custom Google Search
http://premium.wpmudev.org/project/custom-google-search/
Add a custom Google Search box to your site and improve your built-in search functionality. Allows custom styling to make your search box match your site design perfectly, and a settings panel to customize the way your search bar works. You can choose whether to display the results in a search page, as a pop up, or even in the sidebar. A great way to keep visitors on your site, and give them the ability to find items on your blog and on the blogs of others.
Monday, March 24, 2014
20 High PR DoFollow CommentLuv Enabled Blogs
High Pr backlinks play important role while ranking your blog on Search engines and page rank of your blog totally depand on the Backlinks. If your website is linked to high pr sites, then there are more changes to get High page rank. If you have high PR blog, then there will be a more chances to your articles ranking higher in the search engines.
There are plenty of methods to get backlinks like Guest posting, dofollow Forum posting and commenting on dofollow blogs. But, commenting on dofollow commentluv enabled blogs is the simplest method to get backlinks quickly.
In other Hand, you can attract quality of commentator by installing a commentluv plugin. People always love to comment on commentluv blogs because it gives an option to select the last 10 posts.
So, I have collected a list of High pr blogs where commentluv plugin is installed. Below is the list
1. http://weblogtoolscollection.com/
2. http://comluv.com
3. http://www.famousbloggers.net/
4. http://www.basicblogtips.com
5. http://www.blogussion.com/
6. http://www.probloggingsuccess.com
7. http://blog.2createawebsite.com
8. http://www.smartbloggerz.com
9. http://freebloghelp.com
10. http://www.iblogzone.com
11. http://www.betterbloggingways.com
12. http://kikolani.com
13. http://www.webuildyourblog.com
14. http://weblogbetter.com
15. http://growmap.com
16. http://azblogtips.com
17. http://www.netchunks.com
18. http://www.maxblogtips.com
19. http://wassupblog.com
20. http://hotblogtips.com
This is the list of trusted commentluv enable blogs If you have any blog with high PR feel free to comment, I will try to add soon.
Read More »
There are plenty of methods to get backlinks like Guest posting, dofollow Forum posting and commenting on dofollow blogs. But, commenting on dofollow commentluv enabled blogs is the simplest method to get backlinks quickly.
In other Hand, you can attract quality of commentator by installing a commentluv plugin. People always love to comment on commentluv blogs because it gives an option to select the last 10 posts.
So, I have collected a list of High pr blogs where commentluv plugin is installed. Below is the list
20 High PR DoFollow CommentLuv Enabled Blogs
1. http://weblogtoolscollection.com/
2. http://comluv.com
3. http://www.famousbloggers.net/
4. http://www.basicblogtips.com
5. http://www.blogussion.com/
6. http://www.probloggingsuccess.com
7. http://blog.2createawebsite.com
8. http://www.smartbloggerz.com
9. http://freebloghelp.com
10. http://www.iblogzone.com
11. http://www.betterbloggingways.com
12. http://kikolani.com
13. http://www.webuildyourblog.com
14. http://weblogbetter.com
15. http://growmap.com
16. http://azblogtips.com
17. http://www.netchunks.com
18. http://www.maxblogtips.com
19. http://wassupblog.com
20. http://hotblogtips.com
This is the list of trusted commentluv enable blogs If you have any blog with high PR feel free to comment, I will try to add soon.
21 FREE PPC Tools for Pay Per Click Marketing
Nearly every craft uses tools to get the job done. Carpenters have hammers and saws. Doctors have expensive medical devices like MRI machines and tests. Writers have a computer (or a typewriter, or pen and paper).
PPC is no different. While it's certainly possible to manage PPC using only the AdWords and Bing Ads online interfaces, doing so will be less than optimal.
20 PPC experts were asked to share their must-have PPC tools and below are their answers. Here are their top recommendations for 27 free, must-have tools for PPC success.
When it comes to free tools, Google is king. One-third of the tools on the list are from Google! Enjoy !
A few of us old-timers remember life before AdWords Editor. It wasn't fun. I was doing in-house PPC at the time, and we actually hired an intern to update ad copy for us, it was that arduous to do manually. With Adwords Editor and its many bulk editing features, those days disappeared. Several experts mentioned Editor, most with a comment like "Duh! It's essential."
The AdWords and Bing interfaces only go so far. They don't tell you what happens after the ad click. Use Google Analytics to gauge bounce rate, pages visited, and many other analytical gems that will help optimize your marketing efforts.
We've recently started using AdWords Scripts, and it's become obvious they're a must-have. Use them for exception reporting, daily stats, and client reporting – amongst other things.
Leo Sussan recommended this plugin to help develop AdWords Scripts.
Larry Kim of Wordstream suggested Google Docs. I love creating shared docs for internal and external use. It's even possible to have multiple users editing them at once – something you can't do with Microsoft Office.
My coworker Ben Nusekabel likes Google Drive to store Google Docs and other files.
Who wants to update thousands of product listing ads manually? Take Matt Vaillancourt's advice and use FTP to send your merchant feed to Google automatically.
Aaron Levy of SEER Interactive offered Google Suggest as a fun and enlightening way to do keyword research.
Not to be outdone, Bing Ads has some great free tools of its own. While Bing Ads Editor isn't as robust as AdWords Editor, it's still a must-have PPC tool for those using Bing Ads.
I love this Excel plugin for keyword research. It'll show search volume, create ad groups, and provide demographic data – all in Excel.
If you're running more than one simple Facebook Ads campaign, you need to be using Power Editor. It's like AdWords Editor for Facebook. Use it to create audiences, play around with targeting, and create an image bank for your campaigns.
OK, it's free if your computer has Microsoft Office, which 90 percent or so of us do. Excel is necessary to analyze and manipulate PPC data, and many of the experts named it a must-have.
Arianne Donoghue (twitter.com/ArianneDonoghue) likes this plugin to pull Google Analytics data into Excel and make reporting easier. I'm definitely going to check this one out.
Andrew Bethel (twitter.com/@AndrewPPC) mentioned this simple, yet often overlooked, way to streamline tracking of ad copy and landing page tests.
Another free Excel plugin from Leo Sussan. Use Analysis ToolPak to add advanced hypothesis testing to Excel at no cost.
Levy likes Uber Suggest for keyword research. I've even used Uber Suggest for blog topic idea generation.
Mark Kennedy (twitter.com/markkennedysem) of SEOM offered this easy-to-use tool for quickly creating keyword sets in all match types. Build out your keyword list in minutes with this tool.
Another tool from SEOM. Enter a few words, and Phrase Builder will mash them up into keywords.
Yet another keyword tool from Levy, Soovle serves up common searches on a multitude of sites, including YouTube, Answers.com, and Amazon, in addition to the usual search engine subjects.
Convertable is a free lead generation tracking service (in beta). If you aren't ready to give Salesforce a try, check out Convertable.
SplitTester is my favorite free online statistical significance tester. Just plug in clicks and CTR (or conversion rate) for 2 ad variations to see which one is the winner, and at what level of significance.
Read More »
PPC is no different. While it's certainly possible to manage PPC using only the AdWords and Bing Ads online interfaces, doing so will be less than optimal.
20 PPC experts were asked to share their must-have PPC tools and below are their answers. Here are their top recommendations for 27 free, must-have tools for PPC success.
When it comes to free tools, Google is king. One-third of the tools on the list are from Google! Enjoy !
21 FREE PPC Tools for Pay Per Click Marketing
1. AdWords Editor
A few of us old-timers remember life before AdWords Editor. It wasn't fun. I was doing in-house PPC at the time, and we actually hired an intern to update ad copy for us, it was that arduous to do manually. With Adwords Editor and its many bulk editing features, those days disappeared. Several experts mentioned Editor, most with a comment like "Duh! It's essential."
2. Google Analytics
The AdWords and Bing interfaces only go so far. They don't tell you what happens after the ad click. Use Google Analytics to gauge bounce rate, pages visited, and many other analytical gems that will help optimize your marketing efforts.
3. AdWords Scripts
We've recently started using AdWords Scripts, and it's become obvious they're a must-have. Use them for exception reporting, daily stats, and client reporting – amongst other things.
4. Google Plugin for Eclipse
Leo Sussan recommended this plugin to help develop AdWords Scripts.
5. Google Documents
Larry Kim of Wordstream suggested Google Docs. I love creating shared docs for internal and external use. It's even possible to have multiple users editing them at once – something you can't do with Microsoft Office.
6. Google Drive
My coworker Ben Nusekabel likes Google Drive to store Google Docs and other files.
7. FTP for Google Merchant accounts
Who wants to update thousands of product listing ads manually? Take Matt Vaillancourt's advice and use FTP to send your merchant feed to Google automatically.
8. Google Suggest
Aaron Levy of SEER Interactive offered Google Suggest as a fun and enlightening way to do keyword research.
9. Bing Ads Editor
Not to be outdone, Bing Ads has some great free tools of its own. While Bing Ads Editor isn't as robust as AdWords Editor, it's still a must-have PPC tool for those using Bing Ads.
10. Bing Ads Intelligence
I love this Excel plugin for keyword research. It'll show search volume, create ad groups, and provide demographic data – all in Excel.
11. Facebook Power Editor
If you're running more than one simple Facebook Ads campaign, you need to be using Power Editor. It's like AdWords Editor for Facebook. Use it to create audiences, play around with targeting, and create an image bank for your campaigns.
12. Excel
OK, it's free if your computer has Microsoft Office, which 90 percent or so of us do. Excel is necessary to analyze and manipulate PPC data, and many of the experts named it a must-have.
13. Excellent Analytics Plugin for Excel
Arianne Donoghue (twitter.com/ArianneDonoghue) likes this plugin to pull Google Analytics data into Excel and make reporting easier. I'm definitely going to check this one out.
14. Statistical Significance Spreadsheet
Andrew Bethel (twitter.com/@AndrewPPC) mentioned this simple, yet often overlooked, way to streamline tracking of ad copy and landing page tests.
15. Analysis ToolPak for Excel
Another free Excel plugin from Leo Sussan. Use Analysis ToolPak to add advanced hypothesis testing to Excel at no cost.
16. Uber Suggest
Levy likes Uber Suggest for keyword research. I've even used Uber Suggest for blog topic idea generation.
17. Keyword Wrapper
Mark Kennedy (twitter.com/markkennedysem) of SEOM offered this easy-to-use tool for quickly creating keyword sets in all match types. Build out your keyword list in minutes with this tool.
18. Phrase Builder
Another tool from SEOM. Enter a few words, and Phrase Builder will mash them up into keywords.
19. Soovle
Yet another keyword tool from Levy, Soovle serves up common searches on a multitude of sites, including YouTube, Answers.com, and Amazon, in addition to the usual search engine subjects.
20. Convertable
Convertable is a free lead generation tracking service (in beta). If you aren't ready to give Salesforce a try, check out Convertable.
21. SplitTester
SplitTester is my favorite free online statistical significance tester. Just plug in clicks and CTR (or conversion rate) for 2 ad variations to see which one is the winner, and at what level of significance.
Friday, March 21, 2014
Attention Bloggers - 4 Spring 2014 Marketing Trends You Need To Know About
“And if you don’t know, now you know…”
4 Spring 2014 Marketing Trends
You Need to Know About
Earlier this year, the 2014 marketing “predictions” and “resolutions” rolled out (including this 6-times-fabulous list).
It’s March now. The dust has settled, and we’ve picked through it. Three of these trends, we wouldn’t have guessed a year ago, but all of them are absolutely making an impact:
1) SOCIAL CONSCIENCE
Trendy Selling Point: The Blog With A Social Conscience
Job creation, joining up with local charities, waste-free product packaging, even weight management – any way your blog does good, show it off.
Consumption’s damaging effects are well-known, but consumers are still addicted to little indulgences, which means they prefer purchases with guilt-free status attached, as explained on Trendwatching.
Glimpse in the real world:
Starbucks has this one down. Recyclable cups, Fair Trade blends and trash cans labeled “Landfill” are the old news. This year, they’ll add a store made of shipping containers, and I guarantee the response will be:
“Oh, my goodness, look how eco-conscious (and also clever!) Starbucks is!”
The story you choose to tell should become part of your branding. But think twice before spinning off a bunch of related marketing content, because…
2) OVERCROWDING EFFECT
The Overcrowded Trend: Content Marketing
…there’s a heck of a lot of marketing content already out there.
“Too many marketing shops will have pursued content marketing…brands are competing with, well, everything else for attention,” says Patrick Spenner of Forbes here.
This means ordinary blog posts and articles won’t cut it. Your content needs to be absolutely unique.
Two ways to counter this:
1. Type your intended content topic into a search engine, hit enter and absorb the current listings already out there. If your angle isn’t fresh, find a new one.
2. Try something bigger. “Live events, case studies and (if companies can afford it), branded content tools,” suggests Sherice Jacob on Kissmetrics. “These things deliver much more value, brand awareness, backlinks and discussion than a simple social share.”
Now, as for where to put the content you do create…
3) TIMEOUT ON NEWS TRENDS
Jumping On New Marketing Channels Too Quickly
Forbes reported a pattern of larger companies shunning new marketing channels until they master and get the most from their current channels.
“In short, they aren’t getting all the way up to the productive part of the learning curves before they get sucked into new ones,” Spenner explains. “During their 2014 timeout, they plan to get their you-know-what together on all the technology changes from the last five years, before they introduce any new ones.”
Why it’s okay to catch your breath:
Social media is a market, too, and its near-saturation of already existing channels means your followers and fans are less likely to jump on these new ones.
So take a bit of time to make sure you’re proficient in the channels you’re already on before dipping your toes in elsewhere.
4) KEYWORDS ARE NOT EVERYTHING
Trend Over (But Not Quite Out): Keywords As The SEO Mainstay
Since Google and other search engines must continually combat efforts to game the search system, they update their algorithms often.
Keyword usage and density are receiving much less attention of late, Nicole Fallon of BusinessNewsDaily reports.
What’s in? “Unique content and social media signals [likes and shares].”
What to focus on instead:
We’ve been saying it forever, but Fallon recommends “…[aiming] efforts toward creating content that is tailored and useful for their target audience.
For example, create more lifestyle-oriented content in the form of blog posts, videos and other types of media that encourage sharing by readers.” (And of course, those less-traditional content formats mentioned above.)
So. Who’s In?
We had a lot of “Ohh, that makes sense,” moments when we dug up these trends.
Are any of you feeling the same way? Can you get on board with any of these ideas in particular?
Originally posted on aweber.com
7 Things to Avoid Doing in Wordpress
Did you know that 19% of the web is run by WordPress? It’s a fantastic content management system, but it is possible to make mistakes, some of which could even be damaging to your business.
We use WordPress on our site because it’s reliable and we’ve had very few problems. I love the plugin architecture where you can easily extend the basic functionality through paid or free plugins. This saves us going out getting developers to build new features, which can be very costly.
But this flexibility comes with a price, and you can really get yourself into a sticky situation and end up with your website not accessible, hackers hacking into your site, poor performance and more.
If you or any of your team are logging in as an admin user you need to stop this! You should replace the ‘admin’ user login with a different name.
If a hacker is trying to get in to your system, their very first attempt will be to log in as the ‘admin’ user. After that, they will just need to figure out the password so they have half the job done. Plus, if you still have an admin user they will also think that you haven’t secured your system so will hang around longer.
Make sure never to allow this!
Action: You need to create a user account with full permissions to the site, but which doesn’t have the ‘admin’ username. Then, delete the existing admin user. Let’s not make the hackers’ jobs easy!
The ability to add plugins in order to gain a wide range of additional functionality is great. But every time you install a plugin, you are taking a risk:
a). Plugin Bugs: All Plugins have bugs and this can affect your site. There is no perfect piece of software on the planet!
b). Plugin compatibility issues: This is a very common one. You can install a plugin that normally works perfectly, but causes problems on the version of WordPress that you have installed, or that clashes with other your plugins.
c). Security issues: Poor quality plugins can open up security risks to your system.
d). Performance: The more plugins you install, the poorer your website’s performance will be, because each one uses additional resources that have to be loaded when your website loads up.
The more you have, the more potential compatibility issues can arise, so even though there are some that offer really useful tweaks, show some restraint before installing them all!
So what is the best number of plugins you should have installed? The minimum amount possible do to the work you need.
Action: Review the plugins you are no longer using, and uninstall them. There’s always a couple floating around!
A staging server is a test server that is a replica of your live environment. It’s absolutely essential that you never try out updates on your live server without having thoroughly tested them: a staging server is the place to do this.
For example, if you are installing a new plugin, never ever do this on your live server without testing. 9 times out of 10, if you pick a reputable well known plugin, you will be ok, but for that remaining 1 time out of 10, the plugin will cause problems. It will clash with other plugins, slow down the performance of your site or crash it. The same applies to new themes, layouts etc.
This is Razorsocial’s staging service which is an exact copy of the live environment
Removing the plugin doesn’t always solve the problem, so you could find yourself in big trouble! You’ll end up with hours of pain and stress and lost visitors, and how much is it going to cost you to fix?
Action: Make sure your development team provides you with a duplicate copy of your live server where you can test things out.
If you are running your business through your website, it’s so important that it’s safe from hackers. Every day of the week there are hackers trying to get access to your website. Yes, every day! If they do get access to your website you might come in one morning to find that your website has been replaced with another one: I remember coming in to work one day years ago to find out my Digital Agency was now a Russian agency (but nothing to do with digital!).
Security is complex so you need to ensure that you bring in experts to help you. I use a managed hosting service called WPEngine.
WPEngine ensures my site is super fast, it checks that it doesn’t have any dodgy plugins and it protects me from me from hackers. And if, somehow, hackers do get in, they will solve the issue not me! (WPEngine also provides a staging server where I can test out my updates). And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, unless you have lots of traffic (then it becomes too expensive).
The costing structure is very attractive if your traffic is not that high – this is for a full managed hosting solution
Action: Get a security expert to tighten up your security, or consider a management hosting service such as WPEngine.
Are you backing up all your data on WordPress? Are you sure everything is backed up? When was the last time you tried to restore files from your backup?
My background is working in software companies and I’ve seen so many instances where people thought they had everything backed up but they didn’t. Important data was lost, and sometimes it was impossible to retrieve it. So don’t just assume your backups work, so check it. It’s highly likely that less is backed up than you expected!
Action: Assume your site is gone and, every 3 to 6 months, try to restore a backup to another server. This will give you peace of mind and protect you if this ever really does happen.
The speed of your website is incredibly important: it is one of the factors that Google considers when ranking your site but – more significantly – if your website is slow your visitors won’t come back.
This problem is now worse than ever before, because of the number of people browsing your website on a mobile device. Typically, on a mobile device, you are out and about and you may not have a high-speed connection, which means that a website download is even going to be slower.
So, how do you know if your website is loading too slowly? Is your home page taking 10 seconds or more to download? If so, then changes are needed, because that is too slow. You should certainly be under 5 seconds. You can test the speed of the download using a tool called Web page test (very original name!).
Try out your website and compare with your competitor
From this tool alone we found that our home page is super fast, but because of all the images in our blog posts, our posts load more slowly. This means that we need to optimize our images more.
Action: Review the performance of a selection of pages on your website. There are some caching plugins available, which help to reduce the speed by storing pages in memory. This means you don’t have to go back to the hard disk to retrieve them (which makes it slower). These plugins generally require some technical help to optimize: some examples are WP Total Cache and WP Super Cache.
After you have been running your website for a while, you start making assumptions. You assume that everything works correctly, when, over time, things are actually inclined to change. So although you may have had good security, for example, that may not still be the case.
Action: Consider a regular audit on your blog even every 6 months. This should cover things like:
a) Speed of your site – Has your site performance gone down since the last audit? The speed of your website is vital, so you need to make sure that it is kept low.
b) Security – Are there any new security risks that were not there before? Perhaps you have upgraded a plugin which opened up a new security risk?
c) Backups – Is everything backed up as expected?
d) Content – Is there any duplication of content? Are there issues related to optimization of content?
WordPress is a really powerful and flexible system, but having that flexibility means we’re open to many more issues. If you’re not having any WordPress problems at the moment that doesn’t mean to say that you won’t have problems in the future, so it’s important to protect yourself.
Read More »
We use WordPress on our site because it’s reliable and we’ve had very few problems. I love the plugin architecture where you can easily extend the basic functionality through paid or free plugins. This saves us going out getting developers to build new features, which can be very costly.
But this flexibility comes with a price, and you can really get yourself into a sticky situation and end up with your website not accessible, hackers hacking into your site, poor performance and more.
7 Things to Avoid Doing in Wordpress
1. Login as ‘Admin’
If you or any of your team are logging in as an admin user you need to stop this! You should replace the ‘admin’ user login with a different name.
If a hacker is trying to get in to your system, their very first attempt will be to log in as the ‘admin’ user. After that, they will just need to figure out the password so they have half the job done. Plus, if you still have an admin user they will also think that you haven’t secured your system so will hang around longer.
Make sure never to allow this!
Action: You need to create a user account with full permissions to the site, but which doesn’t have the ‘admin’ username. Then, delete the existing admin user. Let’s not make the hackers’ jobs easy!
2. Install too many plugins
The ability to add plugins in order to gain a wide range of additional functionality is great. But every time you install a plugin, you are taking a risk:
a). Plugin Bugs: All Plugins have bugs and this can affect your site. There is no perfect piece of software on the planet!
b). Plugin compatibility issues: This is a very common one. You can install a plugin that normally works perfectly, but causes problems on the version of WordPress that you have installed, or that clashes with other your plugins.
c). Security issues: Poor quality plugins can open up security risks to your system.
d). Performance: The more plugins you install, the poorer your website’s performance will be, because each one uses additional resources that have to be loaded when your website loads up.
The more you have, the more potential compatibility issues can arise, so even though there are some that offer really useful tweaks, show some restraint before installing them all!
So what is the best number of plugins you should have installed? The minimum amount possible do to the work you need.
Action: Review the plugins you are no longer using, and uninstall them. There’s always a couple floating around!
3. Not using a staging server
A staging server is a test server that is a replica of your live environment. It’s absolutely essential that you never try out updates on your live server without having thoroughly tested them: a staging server is the place to do this.
For example, if you are installing a new plugin, never ever do this on your live server without testing. 9 times out of 10, if you pick a reputable well known plugin, you will be ok, but for that remaining 1 time out of 10, the plugin will cause problems. It will clash with other plugins, slow down the performance of your site or crash it. The same applies to new themes, layouts etc.
This is Razorsocial’s staging service which is an exact copy of the live environment
Removing the plugin doesn’t always solve the problem, so you could find yourself in big trouble! You’ll end up with hours of pain and stress and lost visitors, and how much is it going to cost you to fix?
Action: Make sure your development team provides you with a duplicate copy of your live server where you can test things out.
4. Manage security yourself
If you are running your business through your website, it’s so important that it’s safe from hackers. Every day of the week there are hackers trying to get access to your website. Yes, every day! If they do get access to your website you might come in one morning to find that your website has been replaced with another one: I remember coming in to work one day years ago to find out my Digital Agency was now a Russian agency (but nothing to do with digital!).
Security is complex so you need to ensure that you bring in experts to help you. I use a managed hosting service called WPEngine.
WPEngine ensures my site is super fast, it checks that it doesn’t have any dodgy plugins and it protects me from me from hackers. And if, somehow, hackers do get in, they will solve the issue not me! (WPEngine also provides a staging server where I can test out my updates). And it doesn’t cost an arm and a leg, unless you have lots of traffic (then it becomes too expensive).
The costing structure is very attractive if your traffic is not that high – this is for a full managed hosting solution
Action: Get a security expert to tighten up your security, or consider a management hosting service such as WPEngine.
5. Assume your backups are working
Are you backing up all your data on WordPress? Are you sure everything is backed up? When was the last time you tried to restore files from your backup?
My background is working in software companies and I’ve seen so many instances where people thought they had everything backed up but they didn’t. Important data was lost, and sometimes it was impossible to retrieve it. So don’t just assume your backups work, so check it. It’s highly likely that less is backed up than you expected!
Action: Assume your site is gone and, every 3 to 6 months, try to restore a backup to another server. This will give you peace of mind and protect you if this ever really does happen.
6. Not Considering Performance
The speed of your website is incredibly important: it is one of the factors that Google considers when ranking your site but – more significantly – if your website is slow your visitors won’t come back.
This problem is now worse than ever before, because of the number of people browsing your website on a mobile device. Typically, on a mobile device, you are out and about and you may not have a high-speed connection, which means that a website download is even going to be slower.
So, how do you know if your website is loading too slowly? Is your home page taking 10 seconds or more to download? If so, then changes are needed, because that is too slow. You should certainly be under 5 seconds. You can test the speed of the download using a tool called Web page test (very original name!).
Try out your website and compare with your competitor
From this tool alone we found that our home page is super fast, but because of all the images in our blog posts, our posts load more slowly. This means that we need to optimize our images more.
Action: Review the performance of a selection of pages on your website. There are some caching plugins available, which help to reduce the speed by storing pages in memory. This means you don’t have to go back to the hard disk to retrieve them (which makes it slower). These plugins generally require some technical help to optimize: some examples are WP Total Cache and WP Super Cache.
7. Not performing a regular audit
After you have been running your website for a while, you start making assumptions. You assume that everything works correctly, when, over time, things are actually inclined to change. So although you may have had good security, for example, that may not still be the case.
Action: Consider a regular audit on your blog even every 6 months. This should cover things like:
a) Speed of your site – Has your site performance gone down since the last audit? The speed of your website is vital, so you need to make sure that it is kept low.
b) Security – Are there any new security risks that were not there before? Perhaps you have upgraded a plugin which opened up a new security risk?
c) Backups – Is everything backed up as expected?
d) Content – Is there any duplication of content? Are there issues related to optimization of content?
Summary
WordPress is a really powerful and flexible system, but having that flexibility means we’re open to many more issues. If you’re not having any WordPress problems at the moment that doesn’t mean to say that you won’t have problems in the future, so it’s important to protect yourself.
Monday, March 17, 2014
15 St Patrick's Day Marketing Lessons (from the Irish)
I'm not of Irish blood but after a couple pints of beer on St Patty's Day we all feel a lil' Irish so I thought I’d offer you dear reader, my 15 Marketing Lessons of St. Patrick’s Day to help you find your little pot ‘o gold at the end of a rainbow! So here you go!15 St Patrick's Day Marketing Lessons
1. Green Marketing Lesson One – Making Money.
Always keep money (making it or saving it) front and center of any marketing campaign. If you know anything about the Irish (and I do growing up in a large extended family), the majority have experienced challenging economic times and know the value of a dollar. So, incorporating zero based budgeting into your marketing processes will help you become more creative and help you do a lot more for less.
2. Green Marketing Lesson Two – Sustainability.
These days when you hear brands talk about sustainability, it’s related to the environment, but the basic pure definition of sustainability is “the capacity to endure.” Using the same color in your marketing communications reinforces your brand, makes your marketing work harder for you and enables your marketing to endure.
3. Green Marketing Lesson Two – Color.
Design and color can help you communicate a great deal. Red – hot, stop; Blue – cool. etc., Keep in mind that all colors also come in a great deal of shades so don’t be boring and predictable. Green has about 50 unique shades.
4. Create Multi-Sensory Emotional Appeals
(e.g., appeal to people’s five senses of sight, sound, touch, taste, smell).
In a prior post about, “Marketing with Sound,” I discussed the awesome power of sound, but you should also consider all of the ways you can appeal to your customer’s five senses. St. Patrick’s Day appeals them all with color, strong visuals of parades, people having fun; taste of ethnic foods like corned beef and cabbage and drink (pints of Guinness and shots of Jameson) etc.,
5. Appeal to One’s Ethnic Heritage.
There’s nothing wrong with appealing to people’s ethnic heritage – net, different strokes for different folks. In fact, it’s a growing and popular strategy due to our mobile society, immigration, single parent households etc.
Some of this strategy’s keys to success include knowing your market well, being aware of unique cultural nuances, being respectful etc. Disney’s Epcot Theme Park’s World Showcase is a great example of ethnic marketing, but Denny’s Restaurants’ old Pancake promotion is not.
6. Be Inclusive with Your Marketing.
As much of an Irish heritage appeal the holiday provides, St. Patrick’s Day is all-inclusive and welcomes everyone to celebrate – everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!
7. Special Event/Thematic/Celebration/Holiday Marketing.
Giving a unique thematic association to your marketing messages makes it easier for your customers to understand you and more immediately recognize you too. Tie-ing in to a major holiday celebration gives your promotion authenticity and a “reason why” you’re holding a sales event.
8. Limited Time Appeal.
Having a hard date against a campaign creates urgency, excitement and traffic. Pretty obvious statement, but many marketers leave far too many campaigns without a clear end date and a sense of urgent appeal.
9. Spokesperson/figurehead/celebrity/image appeal.
Having a Saint as your celebrity figurehead ain’t too shabby, but it’s the consistency of using the same appealing celebrity with a unique story is what works.
10. Iconic Marketing – Shamrock – brand, sell, profit.
Mickey Mouse’s Ears, Ronald McDonald’s big red shoes, McDonald’s Arches and more.
Shamrocks do the same for today’s holiday – it’s the day’s badge of honor and identification. What’s your badge ID?
11. Rule of Threes.
Legend has it that St. Patrick used the common Shamrock to teach the Celtic Pagans about the unique Holy Trinity of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – 3 in 1 Godhead.
However, the “rule of three” symbolism in the good man’s teaching is relevant today as well because people’s minds are noisy and limited. Using the rule of three enables you to get them to remember you and buy-in a presentation or product mix selection. Small, medium, large; gold, silver, bronze; 3 bears; 3 blind mice; 3 Stooges (see more examples/proof here) – trust me – the rule of three rocks.
12. Be Positive.
You won’t find a more positive group of people that the Irish. Despite all of their“Troubles” who else tells you that you can find a pot ‘o gold at the end of a rainbow? At Pittsburgh’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade this past Saturday, people throughout the day referred to the cold constant rain as nothing more, “a little Irish mist!”
13. Be Nice.
You’d be hard pressed to find a nicer bunch of people than the Irish on St. Patrick’s Day too.
14. Have fun and don’t take yourself so seriously.
In this age of “political correctness” the Irish are for the most part a happy and fun bunch and most Irish demeaning jokes bounce of them like water on a duck.
15. Plan Your Luck by Working Hard.
In my opinion, “the luck of the Irish” is based on hard work – simple as that. You’ve probably heard the saying, the harder you work the luckier you get!” Well, its true. The majority of Irish are no strangers to hard work and I believe – all things being equal – people that work harder and smarter than their peers will meet with more profitable success in a shorter period of time.
Got to run, my pint is getting warm.
Slan (Gaelic for “farewell for now”)!
This post originally appeared on brandmill.com
21 Content Marketing Tools to Use in 2014
What if a marketer was only as good as their content marketing tools?
I believe there’s actually much more truth to that statement than many of us realize. The brands that succeed at content marketing are those that take an agile stance. Not only should you constantly evaluate and re-evaluate your approach, you should take a long, hard look at how you’re getting there.
While some of the content marketing tools trending in 2014 are familiar, many of the rest are brand-new and probably worth adding to your program.
Much like our recent blog on tools and apps for rapid visual content creation, I personally believe that everything on this list has immense value to offer brands of any size. Here are the very best:
Image credit: evernote
I’m well aware that pretty much every list of content marketing tools ever includes Evernote, but did you know you can use it to record audio and turn it into text? Yes, that’s right – and it’s free. Who knows, perhaps even your most writing-averse colleague could be convinced to blog.
For an explanation of how to accomplish this, I recommend Here’s How I Wrote this 1,000 Word Blog Post in 10 Minutes.
Image credit: fastco
To be clear, this isn’t a cheap tool. However, it’s part of the genius behind the content marketing at some brands you’ve definitely heard of, like Redbull, General Electric, and Pandora. In a nutshell, it’s a hub for creating socially-relevant content for multiple channels, from Tumblr to WordPress, and keeping everything organized and measured along the way.
There are a few blog title generators out there, and I love and use each and every one of them. ContentForest’s Title Tool is an excellent sidekick for content calendar creation. All you need to do is add a keyword, and it will suggest relevant and engaging topics to match.
Image credit: semrush
When it comes to paid tools for keyword research, SEMRush is pretty much the best of the best. Not only are you able to check your own keywords, you can gain insights into the terms your competitors are currently optimizing around. With the help of their platform, you can perform competitive analysis and determine the highest potential keywords in one easy swoop.
For a sneak peek into how we approach our keyword research process from start to finish at Writtent, I recommend Keyword Strategy the Right Way. Here’s How to Do it.
Image credit: WordPress
While it’s certainly questionable just how efficient it would be to create content on a mobile device, you definitely need the WordPress App if you’re using this CMS and own an Apple device. You’ll be able to respond to comments, check your metrics, or save ideas directly into your drafts, even if you’re not right in front of your computer.
You’ll never forget an amazing idea again!
Image credit: focusbooster
Productivity and focus are immensely important aspects of creating effective content, which is why everyone needs at least one or more content marketing tools to help them buckle down when necessary.
FocusBooster is a free app that relies on the Pomodoro technique, which is based on 25-minute sessions of working. While you can adjust your focus periods, the point of these content marketing tools is to help you develop periods of intense focus with intermittent breaks.
Image credit: allthingsd
Answering customer FAQ in your blogs is crucial, but what if you’re a brand new startup? Or you haven’t been keeping close tabs on your customer questions? That’s where these content marketing tools come in, by helping you discover the right questions to answer even if you don’t have much customer data to go on.
InboxQ is one heck of a smart search engine, which takes your industry keywords and connects them to questions that are being asked in real-time on Twitter.
I’m a firm believer that writers can never do too much research on the conversations that are currently shaping their industry. There’s currently reports that Google Alerts aren’t working as well as they used to, which is why SocialMention is an incredible search engine for getting a quick glimpse into trends, breaking news, and important stories to shape your content.
Image credit: toprankblog
A free, open source tool for capturing and recording audio files? Yes, please! Audacity is sufficiently robust for fantastic-sounding auditory content, and simple enough for sound editing newbies to pick it up in just minutes. It’s undoubtedly one of the best-respected platforms of its kind, and a powerful place for you to start if you’re considering a podcast.
Image credit: mailchimp
This is among the most well-respected and best-known tools for creating socially integrated blog posts. Adding the right Tweets to your articles is as easy as doing a search within the platform, and clicking-and-dragging your selected Tweets to embed the content right in your blog.
Most of the tool’s functionality is free, but the paid version allows you to create content on breaking stories that’s updated in real-time.
Many experienced content marketers prefer drafting their articles in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and for good reason. The spelling and grammar check capacities on many major content management systems (CMS) exist, but not all are up to par. However, it’s rare to get a clean copy and paste off a word document.
One of my favorite tools for simplifying your blog formatting process is Word2CleanHTML, an easy-to-use editor for rapid-fire formatting, even if you can’t code.
I firmly believe that every content marketer needs an easy-to-use mind mapping app in their arsenal of content marketing tools. Bubbl.us is a fantastic platform for outlining blogs, illustrating a marketing campaign, or simply breaking through your writer’s block.
If you’re staring at a blank document, it’s certainly worth moving to another format, and seeing where that takes you. Plus, you can’t argue with the fact it’s free!
Image credit: unspace
Want to turn your articles into a visual feast? Look no further than these content marketing tools, which allow you to assemble collections of curated and native content, which can be shared across social media. It’s like being able to promote a custom-designed Pinterest board across multiple platforms, including directly in your blog articles.
Image credit: eloqua
If your content promotion strategy doesn’t include your own employees, it’s time to start! GaggleAMP is a platform where brands can centralize their content promotion efforts, but allowing interested employees to sign up for simple social sharing of their latest articles.
Image credit: angel
Brands of all sizes can benefit from Influitive’s “advocate marketing” approach to content marketing tools. With the help of their platform, it’s easy to recognize and reward your brand’s biggest promoters, who are sharing your articles and singing your praises. It even includes gamification features!
Image credit: optimizely
It’s easy to make the plunge into A/B testing your content with Optimizely, which is one of the most straightforward platforms for testing on-page elements. You can optimize your headlines, calls-to-action, and much more – and it even integrates with WordPress!
If you’ve been scared to begin conducting marketing experiments, it offers a fantastic introduction to this invaluable practice.
It’s easy – and free – to create engaging, interactive presentations in this program, even if your graphic design skills are minimal at best. While some templates and functionalities are paid, you’ll be amazed what you can accomplish (fast) without spending a dime.
You can promote your final product on Slideshare, or even publish it as an eBook!
Image credit: content marketing experience
What if you could have a customized list of content topics delivered straight to your inbox every morning? Not only is it possible, it’s free with ContentGems, a service which provides custom suggestions around your keywords in response to web trends.
You can also import the suggestions directly into your HootSuite or Buffer account for social sharing.
Image credit: springwise
This brand-new, remarkable app does the legwork on analyzing your metrics on your behalf. You’ll receive alerts on your content performance, and more importantly, actionable tips on how you can optimize your existing content assets’ performance.
This product has only been on the market for a few weeks, so you may need to wait a few days to receive your official invite.
This paid, remarkable website plug-in provides automated suggestions to your website visitors on which content they should read next, based on their historic usage of your website – a concept not unlike Amazon’s product recommendation engine.
Be warned, however – it’s still in Beta, and memberships are still being rolled out.
Image credit: buzzsumo
Find your tribe, credible sources, and digital influencers to work with by signing up for BuzzSumo. It’s like a really sharp search engine that provides outstanding suggestions on topics or key phrases of your choice, including the option to filter by freshness of the content and social sharing data.
Have you tried any of the content marketing tools on this list? Share your current favorites in the comments!
Read More »
I believe there’s actually much more truth to that statement than many of us realize. The brands that succeed at content marketing are those that take an agile stance. Not only should you constantly evaluate and re-evaluate your approach, you should take a long, hard look at how you’re getting there.
While some of the content marketing tools trending in 2014 are familiar, many of the rest are brand-new and probably worth adding to your program.
Much like our recent blog on tools and apps for rapid visual content creation, I personally believe that everything on this list has immense value to offer brands of any size. Here are the very best:
21 Content Marketing Tools to Use in 2014
1. Evernote
Image credit: evernote
I’m well aware that pretty much every list of content marketing tools ever includes Evernote, but did you know you can use it to record audio and turn it into text? Yes, that’s right – and it’s free. Who knows, perhaps even your most writing-averse colleague could be convinced to blog.
For an explanation of how to accomplish this, I recommend Here’s How I Wrote this 1,000 Word Blog Post in 10 Minutes.
2. Percolate
Image credit: fastco
To be clear, this isn’t a cheap tool. However, it’s part of the genius behind the content marketing at some brands you’ve definitely heard of, like Redbull, General Electric, and Pandora. In a nutshell, it’s a hub for creating socially-relevant content for multiple channels, from Tumblr to WordPress, and keeping everything organized and measured along the way.
3. Blog Post Ideas
There are a few blog title generators out there, and I love and use each and every one of them. ContentForest’s Title Tool is an excellent sidekick for content calendar creation. All you need to do is add a keyword, and it will suggest relevant and engaging topics to match.
4. SEMRush
Image credit: semrush
When it comes to paid tools for keyword research, SEMRush is pretty much the best of the best. Not only are you able to check your own keywords, you can gain insights into the terms your competitors are currently optimizing around. With the help of their platform, you can perform competitive analysis and determine the highest potential keywords in one easy swoop.
For a sneak peek into how we approach our keyword research process from start to finish at Writtent, I recommend Keyword Strategy the Right Way. Here’s How to Do it.
5. The WordPress App
Image credit: WordPress
While it’s certainly questionable just how efficient it would be to create content on a mobile device, you definitely need the WordPress App if you’re using this CMS and own an Apple device. You’ll be able to respond to comments, check your metrics, or save ideas directly into your drafts, even if you’re not right in front of your computer.
You’ll never forget an amazing idea again!
6. FocusBooster
Image credit: focusbooster
Productivity and focus are immensely important aspects of creating effective content, which is why everyone needs at least one or more content marketing tools to help them buckle down when necessary.
FocusBooster is a free app that relies on the Pomodoro technique, which is based on 25-minute sessions of working. While you can adjust your focus periods, the point of these content marketing tools is to help you develop periods of intense focus with intermittent breaks.
7. InboxQ
Image credit: allthingsd
Answering customer FAQ in your blogs is crucial, but what if you’re a brand new startup? Or you haven’t been keeping close tabs on your customer questions? That’s where these content marketing tools come in, by helping you discover the right questions to answer even if you don’t have much customer data to go on.
InboxQ is one heck of a smart search engine, which takes your industry keywords and connects them to questions that are being asked in real-time on Twitter.
8. SocialMention
I’m a firm believer that writers can never do too much research on the conversations that are currently shaping their industry. There’s currently reports that Google Alerts aren’t working as well as they used to, which is why SocialMention is an incredible search engine for getting a quick glimpse into trends, breaking news, and important stories to shape your content.
9. Audacity
Image credit: toprankblog
A free, open source tool for capturing and recording audio files? Yes, please! Audacity is sufficiently robust for fantastic-sounding auditory content, and simple enough for sound editing newbies to pick it up in just minutes. It’s undoubtedly one of the best-respected platforms of its kind, and a powerful place for you to start if you’re considering a podcast.
10. Storify
Image credit: mailchimp
This is among the most well-respected and best-known tools for creating socially integrated blog posts. Adding the right Tweets to your articles is as easy as doing a search within the platform, and clicking-and-dragging your selected Tweets to embed the content right in your blog.
Most of the tool’s functionality is free, but the paid version allows you to create content on breaking stories that’s updated in real-time.
11. Word2CleanHTML
Many experienced content marketers prefer drafting their articles in Microsoft Word or Google Docs, and for good reason. The spelling and grammar check capacities on many major content management systems (CMS) exist, but not all are up to par. However, it’s rare to get a clean copy and paste off a word document.
One of my favorite tools for simplifying your blog formatting process is Word2CleanHTML, an easy-to-use editor for rapid-fire formatting, even if you can’t code.
12. bubbl.us
I firmly believe that every content marketer needs an easy-to-use mind mapping app in their arsenal of content marketing tools. Bubbl.us is a fantastic platform for outlining blogs, illustrating a marketing campaign, or simply breaking through your writer’s block.
If you’re staring at a blank document, it’s certainly worth moving to another format, and seeing where that takes you. Plus, you can’t argue with the fact it’s free!
13. LookBookHQ
Image credit: unspace
Want to turn your articles into a visual feast? Look no further than these content marketing tools, which allow you to assemble collections of curated and native content, which can be shared across social media. It’s like being able to promote a custom-designed Pinterest board across multiple platforms, including directly in your blog articles.
14. GaggleAMP
Image credit: eloqua
If your content promotion strategy doesn’t include your own employees, it’s time to start! GaggleAMP is a platform where brands can centralize their content promotion efforts, but allowing interested employees to sign up for simple social sharing of their latest articles.
15. Influitive
Image credit: angel
Brands of all sizes can benefit from Influitive’s “advocate marketing” approach to content marketing tools. With the help of their platform, it’s easy to recognize and reward your brand’s biggest promoters, who are sharing your articles and singing your praises. It even includes gamification features!
16. Optimizely
Image credit: optimizely
It’s easy to make the plunge into A/B testing your content with Optimizely, which is one of the most straightforward platforms for testing on-page elements. You can optimize your headlines, calls-to-action, and much more – and it even integrates with WordPress!
If you’ve been scared to begin conducting marketing experiments, it offers a fantastic introduction to this invaluable practice.
17. Prezi
It’s easy – and free – to create engaging, interactive presentations in this program, even if your graphic design skills are minimal at best. While some templates and functionalities are paid, you’ll be amazed what you can accomplish (fast) without spending a dime.
You can promote your final product on Slideshare, or even publish it as an eBook!
18. ContentGems
Image credit: content marketing experience
What if you could have a customized list of content topics delivered straight to your inbox every morning? Not only is it possible, it’s free with ContentGems, a service which provides custom suggestions around your keywords in response to web trends.
You can also import the suggestions directly into your HootSuite or Buffer account for social sharing.
19. Echobox
Image credit: springwise
This brand-new, remarkable app does the legwork on analyzing your metrics on your behalf. You’ll receive alerts on your content performance, and more importantly, actionable tips on how you can optimize your existing content assets’ performance.
This product has only been on the market for a few weeks, so you may need to wait a few days to receive your official invite.
20. Resonance
This paid, remarkable website plug-in provides automated suggestions to your website visitors on which content they should read next, based on their historic usage of your website – a concept not unlike Amazon’s product recommendation engine.
Be warned, however – it’s still in Beta, and memberships are still being rolled out.
21. BuzzSumo
Image credit: buzzsumo
Find your tribe, credible sources, and digital influencers to work with by signing up for BuzzSumo. It’s like a really sharp search engine that provides outstanding suggestions on topics or key phrases of your choice, including the option to filter by freshness of the content and social sharing data.
Have you tried any of the content marketing tools on this list? Share your current favorites in the comments!
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Facebook Fraud
Are Facebook Ads a waste of Money ? Watch this video to find out if it's fraud or not
# Hashtagology 101: How to Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Content
It took a while, but Facebook finally succumbed to the hashtag in June 2013. Now this humble little symbol can connect conversations on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Instagram, Google+ and Pinterest.
Its impact on modern culture — even on our language — is so large that the American Dialect Society declared “hashtag” as Word of the Year in 2012.
But try explaining hashtags to someone who has never used them — it isn’t as easy as you might think. So welcome, class, to #Hashtagology 101. Settle down and open your textbooks. Please stop talking in the back — after all, that’s what the hashtag is for.
# Hashtagology 101: How to Use Hashtags in Your Social Media Content
A Hashtag History
In 2007, Twitter was a fast-moving stream of disconnected 140-character comments. It was possible for anyone to search Twitter for keywords, but whereas many tweets may contain the same keyword, not every tweet was about that keyword.
Some users brought order to this chaos by adopting a system from Internet Relay Chat networks — the hashtag. This began merely as a way for users to label tweets with a particular theme, group or topic.
In 2009, Twitter updated its system to make hashtags clickable, returning a search for all tweets containing the term. What started as an informal work-around among users became an integral part of the platform.
However, the hashtag has evolved into far more than a labeling system.
The Hashtag and Language
When someone tags a tweet as #FirstWorldProblems, is she making it easy for you to find all the whining, post-modern middle classers in one click? Or is she using the hashtag as a self-referential comment on her own tweet?
Ending a tweet with #FTW (“for the win”) is far more about adding a shorthand punch to the air than it is about grouping celebratory tweets into a single conversation.
And people intentionally create new hashtags every day that make no sense beyond that one specific update. These are not mistakes. People are using hashtags to add extra layers of meaning to their messages.
A hashtag can convey irony or sarcasm, suggest emotion or mood, pose an answer to an implied or rhetorical question, or even directly contradict the actual tweet. The effect can be humorous, provocative, informative, or mysterious. And it can do some or all of these simultaneously.
Just think about that for a moment. A new form of punctuation has joined our language, the use of which can enhance or transform the meaning of a sentence. That’s pretty mind-blowing.
The hashtag packs so much extra information and implied meaning into so few characters that it’s easy to see how it could only have risen to prominence on Twitter.
Social media word games are a great example of this multi-layered meaning. For example, #OneLetterMissingTV serves not only to label the conversation for people to follow, but provides the instructions for the game: Suggest a TV show that would be quite different if just one letter were missing. (My favorite is “Tar Trek: The ongoing adventures of a group of council roadmen” from @LeeAHarris.)
No wonder some people can be confused by the various nuances of this linguistic marvel. However, if your marketing involves social media content, you need to be fluent in the language. Misinterpreting a message or using hashtags incorrectly can make your brand seem as out of place as your uncle’s inappropriate dancing at a wedding.
When Hashtags go bad
Just like domain names, hashtags suffer from the same problems that arise when any sequence of words is run together without spaces.
Margaret Thatcher’s death in April 2013 provoked a huge amount of online discussion. She was a highly controversial and polarizing figure in British politics, so it wasn’t surprising for one of the most popular hashtags to become a trending topic:
#nowthatchersdead
If you live in the United States and read that sequence of letters, Margaret Thatcher may not pop into your head. You certainly wouldn’t be alone if you thought it actually read “#Now That Cher’s Dead.”
Confusion for many fans, and I’m sure a pretty weird day for the superstar singer.
Choosing the right hashtag is crucial if you don’t want to lose control of the message or, worse, invite ridicule.
Someone in British singer Susan Boyle’s PR agency obviously thought a hashtag promoting her new album launch would be a good idea, and #SusanAlbumParty would seem to make sense.
That is, until the lewd bum jokes started under the hashtag #susanalbumparty.
Always run your hashtag ideas past fresh eyes to spot these traps.
Marketers and Hashtags
Hashtags present a fantastic opportunity for content marketers to identify social media conversations relevant to their business and get their content in front of the right people.
Always check the hashtag first to see how much activity it receives, the sorts of content people share, and how well (or otherwise) such content is received. Not every conversation is welcoming to marketers. Is brand content shared or ignored? Or criticized? It’s advisable to only use a couple of hashtags in a post, so choose wisely.
However, resist the temptation to intrude too heavily on any conversation. It’s no more appropriate to spam hashtag followers with offers or self-serving content than it is anywhere else. Interaction still matters, so don’t post and run either. Posting to a single group too often or repetitively can turn a community against you, so it’s best to avoid using hashtags with bots and automated systems.
Hashtags are also the glue that holds many cross-platform competitions and campaigns together, making it easy for followers to submit content to be aggregated and displayed elsewhere.
However, always remember that the hashtag belongs to the community, even if you created it yourself. You can’t censor or control how others will use it, so be sensitive to situations that could fuel a hashtag backlash.
Qantas discovered this in 2011 when it launched a social media competition with the hashtag #QantasLuxury in the middle of a controversial union dispute. At its height, 51 tweets per minute were sent containing the hashtag. The vast majority ridiculed or criticized the airline, creating a highly visible and wide-reaching PR disaster.
Hashtags #FTW!
Used well, hashtags can be immensely powerful marketing tools. But as the wise uncle of Peter Parker once said, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Like any tool, we should treat them with respect, care, and plenty of consideration. Above all, the power of the hashtag should never be underestimated. This once rarely used character on the keyboard is rapidly becoming one of the mightiest punctuation marks in history.
This article originally appeared in the February 2014 issue of Chief Content Officer.
Are Facebook Ads a Waste of Money ?
If you run Facebook ads, you’ve most likely come across the video below titled “Facebook Fraud” by Veritasium. If you haven’t, I encourage you to find 9 minutes to watch it in its entirety, as it is very well done and poses some eye-opening stats about the potential dark side of Facebook advertising.
Are Facebook Ads a Waste of Money ?
Response:
First and foremost, I applaud Veritasium for their very well thought out video on Facebook fraud. They enlightened many to the perils and power of click farms both internationally and right here in the US. I do however feel they came up unfortunately short in their conclusion by stating, “Wherever you are targeting, advertising your Facebook page is a waste of money” and likely gave the wrong conclusion to an otherwise outstanding editorial.
Jumping to the conclusion that advertising your Facebook page is a waste of money is broad, untrue, and most likely included in the video just to stir up a response (job well done if that’s the case!). As Jon Loomer correctly states, “If you still use Facebook ads as if it’s 2012, you deserve the results you get.”
Approaching Facebook advertising for your business like Veritasium did may very well result in a waste of money. Any ad campaign, regardless of the ad network, is only as good as its strategy. While a holistic strategy has many variables, we’re going to focus on just two: measurement and targeting.
Measurement
With so much data available it is easy to get lost in a sea of big numbers and confusing terminology. Measurement really has two distinct parts, both equally as important.
1. Selecting the most effective KPIs to measures success
What Veritasium did so well was point out the potential for fraudulent activity on Facebook and showed why your businesses ‘Likes’ may not be as great as you think they are. What they failed to point out is that ‘likes’ are not, and never were, a good metric for measuring the success of an ad campaign.
Measuring Facebook ads solely on ‘likes’ is similar to a big box store measuring success only by counting how many people walk within 100 yards of their main entrance. While it may correlate with an improvement, it also may not.
The closer to the end of the funnel measurement is the better. Like the big box store, better measurements may be how many people come into the store, how long they stay, or what percentage make a purchase. For Facebook ads, this may mean website engagement, leads, or sales. While every metric may not be 100% tied to revenue, taking the time to use thoughtful KPIs that highlight direct business impact will make ad campaigns significantly more successful.
2. Actually measuring your performance to provide actionable insights for optimization
Even if Veritasium thought that targeting those developing countries was a good idea from the start, had they used some measure of engagement instead of ‘likes’ to measure success, they would have realized almost instantly that there was an issue with their ad campaign.
They still may have accumulated a few 1,000 ‘likes’ from those countries but could have significantly reduced their wasted advertising dollars by eliminating campaigns targeting countries with low-engagement levels. This leads us to the 2nd area where you can improve your own campaigns, right from the get-go. Targeting.
Targeting
In many ways the Veritasium video showed us exactly how NOT to target ads, which is just as valuable as showing how to target ads. While it may seem simple, knowing your audience and targeting them properly may be the single most important facet of running successful Facebook ads.
In the video, Veritasium targeted their ads to countries already well known for spammy click farms (Egypt, Indonesia, Philippines, etc). They received about 75% of their total ‘likes’ from these countries and then discovered that those users engaged just as like you’d expect them to. Not at all.
A better strategy for Veritasium would have been to do a bit of research prior to launching their campaigns and targeting ads based on their current target audience’s demographics. In Veritasium’s case, their YouTube Analytics could have been used to gain a better understanding of where their most valuable users come from, and then used that data to target specific demographics (age, gender, location, etc.) with their Facebook Ads.
For your business, you may find this demographic information in your Google Analytics account by navigating to ‘Audience’ in the left navigation. From there, you can gain insights about your site visitor’s age, gender, interests, location, language, and much more.
Targeting your campaigns correctly from the start using your own readily available demographic data and effectively measuring your Facebook campaigns using metrics that you fully understand will undoubtedly result in success.
To be perfectly clear, Facebook advertising is not a waste of money. Like any advertising, approaching your campaign with a quality, strategic plan for targeting, measurement, and optimization will result in outstanding results.
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