GSA Search Engine Ranker REVIEW

Introducing GSA Search Engine Ranker

GSA search engine ranker is an extremely powerful piece of software. It is the only software in the world (publically available) that submits to hundreds of platforms (over 500) on autopilot with just a 30 minute set up. People have been using it a lot for different types of link building and it is very diverse in the ways that you can use it.

GSA Search Engine Ranker Applications

Below are a few of the ways that you are able to use GSA Search Engine Ranker. Each one has their own purpose and some are safer than others. All of them have seen very good results.

Spam rank

To do this you have to have GSA configured to post to most, if not all, the platforms. Import a huge keyword list, get lots of private proxies and set your threads high. Blog comments, trackbacks, guestbooks, articles (xe), and wiki (media wiki) will probably yield a high and fast submission rate with a high verify rate. To execute spam rank even more efficiently, it is best to import huge GSA verified lists. There are some people selling lists, but it is probably best to start with no list and let GSA scrape and post to as many sites as it can for a month or so. Then once you have other projects you can import the links from the global site list you have gathered. From one month constantly running GSA you should have 100,000 – 500,000 verified links in your global site list, depending on how well you have configured GSA and how fast it is going. This method is only effective if you are making thousands and thousands of links everyday.

Of course the higher the competition the more links you will need to be able to rank well. However do not think you can rank for “payday loans” as that niche has been completely re-worked in terms of ranking algorithms as it got abused so much. With this method you do not need quality backlinks so you don’t need to change many settings in GSA SER. The method works on the amount of links you are constantly getting. It’s link velocity that makes you rank. Google will think your site has gone viral, as it will see thousands of new links everyday. People say it’s better to get a small amount of quality links than waste time with spammy links. With GSA it is extremely easy to make lots of low quality links, and the shear number of links gives the same power as a few really high quality ones.

Tier 2 Spamming

You have a few options. You can go down the route of spam rank but on your tier 1 sites, you could make it higher quality but using good quality spun articles and not building links to “bad” sites.  You could also build niche relevant spam or high quality links by importing keywords from your niche to find targeted sites. Your Tier 1 links for this should be beautiful. They should be high quality web 2.0 blogs with hand written content and a few posts of 500+ words. They should look like mini sites. The number of web 2.0s is up to you and will vary from niche to niche. Do not spread it too thin as you will want 100,000+ backlinks to each of these blogs every month. From just 20 days here are the stats from 5 of my web 2.0s:

• PA54, backlinks: 69,000


• PA55, backlinks: 76,000


• PA53, backlinks: 81,000


• PA55, backlinks: 78,000


• PA56, backlinks: 53,000

I would show you the PR but they are still at PRN/A as Google hasn’t yet updated their Page Rank. As you can see the Page authority of these web 2.0 has skyrocketed, and that’s just from setting up a campaign in GSA, which took about 10 minutes. The results from these are awesome; they make your site rank very stable. It’s like building an authority blog network, but instead of old, high authority domains you have to buy (which can cost thousands of dollars for a large network) you make the authority in under a month. This method is preferred by lots of people who use GSA and want stable, safe, rankings.

Niche Related Backlinking

What are the best kind of links you can get? Niche related links!  With GSA you can automate them like never before. But let me be honest with you, I personally haven’t used GSA SER to make niche related backlinks, as I am more into mass spam in order to get lots of link juice.  My sites are in competitive niches, this means I don’t have time to get niche backlinks, as I find high PR blog posts and tier 2 link spamming more effective. However, you might be in a niche where the competition is low and a few niche backlinks are golden.

You see, each niche is different in terms of what you need to rank for it, and in some niches it is extremely effective to get niche related backlinks from blog commenting and forums. However, it is not like that in my niches. To dominate in some niches, all you need is a stream of a few hundred buffer sites and quality tier 1 links to blast the living hell out of, and niche related backlinks would only be good if I were to blast them as well. GSA has the ability to completely automate your niche related backlinks, however as you will need to spin the content it might not be the best quality and it might not be 100% unique.

To get niche related backlinks, all you need to do is find the “keywords” input when you set up a campaign and import a list of keywords related to your niche. You can generate keywords with Scrapebox or any  similar software. Once the list is imported, make sure to check the box which only posts your backlinks when a keyword is present on the page to make sure you are posting to niche related sites.Because this is building links directly to your money site, I would suggest building links slowly.  Do not generate more than 200 a day to start off with. You can do this by making GSA pause for 86400 seconds after ~400 links have been submitted, as currently I am only getting 50% verified.  It depends on many factors, so you will want to play around with GSA to see how many submitted become verified.

Copy Competitor links

GSA can make nearly any type of link on the net. All you need to do is go on a site, like ahrefs, and download all your competitor’s backlinks (you will need a premium subscription for this), and put them in GSA. GSA SER will try and make as many of them as it can. This is a great way to get a good backlinks profile to beat your competitors. To get all the competitions backlinks you will need to get an ahrefs subscription for $79 per month (it is half price for the first month). From there you can put in your top 10 competitors and export all their backlinks. Of course, it really varies as to how many links GSA would be able to submit to from niche to niche. If you have links from your top 10 competitors then not only will you have links from the #1 site, but you will also have links from all the other sites so you can really dominate. Set up a project and import the links from the file you downloaded from ahrefs to the GSA project. Sit back and watch all your competitors backlinks become yours. Be careful you don’t build too many links at once. Again I suggest you limit it to 200-500 backlinks a day. To be even safer, I would suggest you filter out all the bad links your competitors have that could be holding them back, so you don’t get the same links and thus make the same mistakes.

Tier 2+3

GSA SER didn’t come out with multi-tier options at first, but since its launch everyone begged for it, and the GSA team listened. This way you can make quality tier 2 with spun content submitted to articles directories, wiki’s, web 2.0, and tier 3 the spam rank way. To do this you will need to set up two projects, one for tier 2 and another for tier 3. In the tier 2 project you will want links from sites that offer contextual links, so article, web 2.0, social network, and wiki sites. In tier 3 you can completely spam tier 2 so you can select all the fastest performing platforms. With the tier 3 project there is one small box you have to check which links it to another project.To find out the best performing platforms  go to tools > show stats, then only submit to the top 50% that you have already built the most links to. Import your global site list to your tier 3 project.  This will allow you to get even more links quickly.

How to get high LpM

LpM stands for “links per minute” and is the speed at which GSA is submitting links. The higher the LpM, the faster GSA is making links. There are many ways to optimize for LpM. They include:

• Not submitting to platforms with a low success rate


• Using a fast captcha service


• Not submitting to sites with recaptcha


• Submitting to an already verified list of links


• Using only the best search engines to harvest links to post to


• Using lots of fast private proxies


• Having a fast CPU


• Having enough RAM


• Using the right number of threads


• Using a big keyword list


• High timeout

Not submitting to platforms with a low success rate

By going into your GSA stats you can see which platforms aren’t yielding high results. Remove these from your submissions and you will have a faster GSA.

Using a fast captcha service

Most sites use captchas, so the time spent on each site will increase if it takes long to solve the captchas, thus less sites will be submitted every minute lowering your LpM. I highly recommend either GSA captcha breaker (works great with GSA), or Captcha Sniper for automated captcha solving. For sites that have captchas that cannot be solved by these two services, I use Death By Captcha which is one of the cheapest providers at $1.39 per 1,000 captcha solves.

Not submitting to sites with recaptcha

Recaptcha is very hard to crack and can cost a lot of money. When it normally takes a few seconds to solve a recaptcha rather than milliseconds  it slows down submissions quite a bit. By not posting to sites that use recaptcha or by choosing to skip them in the options  you will yield a higher LpM.

Submitting to an already verified list of links

By doing this GSA you won’t have to spend time searching for targets and then trying to submit to them. It is much quicker  telling GSA to submit to an already tried and tested list. Further down, I have provided a list of 19k verified domains to get you started.

Using the best search engines to harvest links to post to

There are a lot of search engines to choose from, a lot of them are slow and yield little results,  so by only using fast and large search engines  your LpM should be higher.

Using lots of fast private proxies

Proxies are needed, the more you have the more threads you can run, and the more times you can submit to the same site. When using proxies you have to make sure they are fast because if they are not, site loading times will increase and less sites will be posted to. The faster your proxies the faster your submissions and the higher your LpM.  I personally use the semi dedicated proxies fromBuyproxies . You get to chose between USA or European based proxies and do not get the dedicated proxies as you will not need them, only semi dedicated.

Having a fast CPU

By having a fast CPU, you will be able to run more threads therefore more links are made simultaneously. The more links made at once the higher the LpM will be.

Having enough RAM

More ram = more threads you can run. GSA can only use a maximum of 2GB of ram in a 32-bit OS and 4GB of ram in a 64-bit OS. Don’t limit your VPS choice to the amount of ram available, you will also need to run a captcha breaker and possibly some other programs which will take up more ram themselves.

Using the right number of threads

A lot of people think that more threads will result in a faster LpM. This is true up until a certain point. If you run too many threads your VPS/server/PC will slow down because your resources are being taken up.  This  could cause GSA to slow down or even crash. When you are adjusting your threads you have to play around with them a bit to get the right number of threads for you.

Using a big keyword list

The more keywords the more targets GSA can get and the quicker the submissions.  This will give GSA more links to submit to. For example, if you only used 10 keywords GSA would probably use them all up in a few minutes and struggle to find new sites as it would get the same sites again and again.  If you had 100,000 keywords then GSA SER would be able to get lots of different sites without overlap, and would be able to get even more keywords based on the huge number you already have. I have provided my 100k keyword list further down in this article, go check it out!

High timeout

Make sure you have a high timeout when using a lot of threads. If the timeout is too low, GSA will skip too many sites and won’t submit to many.  This will cause your LpM to be very slow as only the fastest sites will be submitted to.

 

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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

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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

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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:

 

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!

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# 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. 

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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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Double Your Facebook Likes in just 5 Minutes per Day (Infographic)

How do I get more likes for my Facebook page?

 

This is a common refrain among brands looking to grow their Facebook presence. They know they should be in the space but they’re not sure whether it’s worth devoting the amount of time and energy required to grow their Facebook audience. For them, the potential for return on investment (ROI) is murky at best and not easily quantifiable. (see infographic below)

 

The psychology of social media sharing

A New York Times study found that:

• 49% of social media users share content that allows them to inform others about things they care about and have the potential to change opinions or encourage action.


• 68% of social media users share content so they can give their friends a better sense of who they are and what they care about.


• 84% of social media users share content that allows them to support causes they care about.

The art and science of Facebook marketing can seem mysterious and daunting, and likes in and of themselves are not a magic bullet for increasing sales. But growing an audience of people who are interested in your products and offering them targeted, useful content on a regular basis should lead to improved Facebook Page engagement. Here are a few daily activities that can make a huge difference in the number of fans drawn to your page and how they engage and interact with your content.

 

7 ways to Double your Facebook likes

in just a few minutes a day

 

1. Make Facebook connections

• Connect with Facebook admins who serve a similar demographic and develop a cross-promotion strategy.


• Use Facebook’ native functionality to invite your email subscribers to like your page by providing incentives for them to do so. Facebook also has an email feature that enables you to engage those who don’t respond to your invitation and further entice them to connect.

2. Share content on your Facebook page

• Share original content and compelling photos that are audience-appropriate to improve engagement.


• Post frequently about newsworthy stories that are relevant to your readers.

3. Be active on Facebook

• Comment on other pages where your target audience is already having conversations.


• Share and tag your business page from your personal Facebook account.


• If you host live events, post lots of photos and encourage your fans to tag themselves.


• Offer your fans discounts or specials.

4. Link your Facebook page to Twitter

• Link your Facebook page to your Twitter account so your Facebook posts will be automatically tweeted in 140 characters or less.


• Remember that Twitter is completely different from Facebook and requires a different form of management.

5. Host a Facebook contest

• Facebook contest apps are an inexpensive and easy way to have fun with promoting your products.


• Most apps can be configured to require contestants to like your page before entering the contest.


• The most popular prize categories for Facebook contests are travel, entertainment, music, technology, and fashion gifts.

6. Use Facebook advertising to your best advantage

• Facebook’s targeting feature allows you to choose the demographic you want to reach.


• Sponsored stories enable you to advertise your business’s page to friends of those who already like your page.


• Upload your email subscriber list and include members in your advertising campaigns.


• Split-test your ads because conversion rates can drop by 50% after the first 24 hours.

7. Promote your Facebook page online and offline

• Display a sign in your store window encouraging customers to like your page.


• Add links or info on your Facebook page to your other types of advertising.


• Include your Facebook page address on all promotional materials, including your business cards.


• Use your Facebook page info in all of your marketing materials — brochures, posters, media kits, collateral, and other promotional items.


• Mention your Facebook page to people you meet and encourage them to like it.

These tips should go a long way toward growing your Facebook fan base!

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2014 Marketing Resolutions and Goals to Live Up To

The time has come. It's 2014. You've likely considered a number of resolutions you want to follow through with in the New Year. Maybe it's to spend more time with family, or run more on the weekends, or try to cut pizza and other greasy foods out of your diet for a while (that's one of mine -- I doubt it'll last long, but I digress).

2014 Marketing Resolutions and Goals

Take a second to think about what you've resolved to accomplish in 2014. Are any of your resolutions marketing-related? Maybe you've thought of ways to better manage your time or come up with fun ideas for team outings, but if you don't have a list of resolutions to take your marketing to that next level, it's time to start developing one -- and we can help.

The one thing the resolutions listed below have in common is, they all revolve around the inbound marketing methodology, which means they require some in-depth data analysis to ensure you make the right adjustments and alterations to your marketing strategy.

So take the time to crunch the numbers, discover what is and isn't already working for you, modify your campaigns accordingly, and your 2014 is bound to be just as -- if not more -- successful than 2013.

1) Focus on mobile.

As Google Chairman Eric Schmidt outlined in this recent Bloomberg TV video, 2014 is going to be all about mobile. Don't believe him? Well, believe this: As of February 2013, there were 6.8 billion mobile subscriptions, the International Telecommunication Union reported. (I'll give you a minute to drink that one in.) Now, just imagine how much that figure has grown since then.

Smartphones and tablets are increasing in popularity by the day -- and we don't just mean in terms of sales. Consumers are using mobile devices more and more to conduct transactions, research brands, visit their favorite sites, and read and reply to emails.

So, if you're still under the impression that it's absolutely fine not to worry about optimizing your email campaigns and websites for mobile, it's time to modernize and make some headway in improving your mobile presence. This free mobile marketing guide should help you get started.

2) Make your website responsive.

While we're on the topic of mobile, this is as good a time as any to talk about responsive design.

Making the look and functionality of your site the same on both desktops and mobile devices can go a long way in bringing in new visitors and leads and bettering your bottom line. And with 17% of global web traffic coming from mobile, as Statista reports, you'll want to make your site is completely optimized for smartphones and tablets.

Given how relatively new the concept of responsive design is, we totally get it if you're not up to speed on exactly how to get your site fixed up properly. That's why we created this guide about what you'll need for your website, including tips to make it responsive. And good news if you're a HubSpot customer, since our new Content Optimization System has built-in responsive design, right out of the box!

3) Ditch a lot of those outbound efforts.

Our stance that inbound is the present and future of marketing only strengthens when we continually see the ineffectiveness outbound tactics have for brands and the incredible benefits inbound strategies bring marketers. Case in point: 54% more leads are generated from inbound than outbound efforts.

That stat is bound to grow more each year from here on out, so if you've still got precious budget invested in billboards, print, radio, and the like, it's time to consider reallocating those funds for better use.

For instance, given the importance of content marketing, you could double-down on content production and hire a full-time writer or some freelancers to develop blog posts, ebooks, whitepapers, and other viable types of content for you.

What you'll see from this modification to your marketing is tangible data in your marketing analytics that shows your efforts' effectiveness. It's a lot better than having to guess if those newspaper ads did the trick, wouldn't you say?

4) Revitalize your content strategy.

Speaking of content, it's only going to become more important over the course of 2014, given Google's assertion that quality content will gradually have a bigger impact on SEO.

Because of this, it may be smart to evaluate a variety of types of content that could work for your inbound campaigns. You can determine what's best for your efforts in several ways -- chiefly, going over your analytics from the past several months and engaging in continual A/B testing.This post will help you get started with the former, and this one, the latter.

If you're planning on taking on a bunch of content types and need some help organizing and structuring them, these numerous templates can come in handy.

5) Adjust your social and email strategies as needed.

Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, Pinterest, Instagram -- these are the undisputed kings of social (at least for the moment).

While new, flashy social sites are bound to pop up over the course of the New Year, you'll first want to ensure you master these aforementioned platforms that have proven to bring substantial ROI for marketers worldwide before putting all of your eggs in a new-and-unproven social media basket.

In other words, we advise you resolve to fine-tune your prospecting on these sites before diverting efforts to the "next big thing."

Similarly, it may be wise to make one of your first priorities in 2014 to comb over your email marketing metrics to see what may need to be adapted or revised. For instance, if your workflows are out-of-date, set up new ones with the help of this lead nurturing ebook. Of course, to know which workflows to update, you may need to ...

6) Take a look at your buyer personas, too.

What good are all of the resolutions above if you don't know for whom you should be creating inbound campaigns in the first place? There's likely no better time than the start of the year to reexamine your buyer personas.

Be sure you don't put the horse before the cart in 2014. Truly understand your audience by conducting thorough research on them. Heck, you could even do some online surveys or focus groups to get a better, updated grasp on who they are and what they want (old school, perhaps, but still effective even in this day and age).

The bottom line is, you'll need to comprehend as much about your target demographic(s) as possible to know how to develop your content production, offers, and email and social strategies, among many other efforts.

Complete this resolution effectively by utilizing this free comprehensive guide and template that will assist you in creating your new persona(s) for the New Year.

7) BONUS: Consider a homepage revamp.

Although you may have already put in a great deal of time, effort, and resources to making a top-tier homepage, a change in buyer persona could mean it's time to give it a facelift.

Even if you haven't altered your persona, it may have been a while since the last time you made sufficient changes to your homepage to account for marketing new products or services, or even rebranding your company.

Whatever the reason for your update, you can fulfill this resolution using the resources in this detailed kit, which can help you plan your redesign from start to finish.

This article was originally featured on HubSpot blog.

What are some marketing resolutions you've come up with for this year? Tell us about one or more of them below!

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Digital Minds: 12 Things Every Business Needs to Know About Digital Marketing

Digital Minds: 12 Things Every Business Needs to Know About Digital Marketing

Technology and the Internet are in flux. Giants like Apple, Google and Facebook are changing the way we interact with each other. Technologies move so quickly that jumping on the train can be daunting for businesses. But the route hasn't always been clear; social media, mobile marketing and search marketing campaigns are always changing. Luckily, digital marketing is still in its infancy and there's plenty of time to get on track. Written by WSI, Digital Minds brings industry-proven expertise to

List Price: $ 21.99

Price: $ 13.41

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Internet Marketing An Hour a Day

Internet Marketing: An Hour a Day

Proven, task-based approach to developing winning internet marketing campaignsIf you've been seeking a practical, day-by-day, do-it-yourself plan for success in your Internet marketing, this is the book for you. The latest in the very popular Hour a Day series, this book gives you step-by-step instruction and clear action plans for all crucial aspects of successful internet marketing:  SEO, website optimization, integration of social media and blogs, and pay-per-click strategies.  Above all, i

Price:

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