Checking out the competition and user reviews, and getting reacquainted with your clients and their objectives can help PPC professionals when writer’s block hurts their ad-creating process.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1KCa2hB via Transformational marketing
Using Google Display Networks, one client saw a massive increase in clicks and impressions, though not many conversions. However, display often has a better impact on search campaigns than they appear to on first glance.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1S6SHEl via Transformational marketing
Too many marketers are too cavalier about checking their PPC campaigns. Click-through rate, conversion rate, and daily and monthly spend are among the most important metrics.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1LFmDC4 via social media strategy
As Search Engine Land announced in early June, the Google Panda refresh is imminent. In case you aren’t sure what I’m referring to, Google carries out a variety of algorithm updates that combat certain activities on the Internet. There are four main Google algorithm updates and these are referred to as, Hummingbird, Penguin, Pigeon and of course, Panda.
So with the Google Panda refresh on the way, what can you do to safeguard your site from being hit by the latest updates?
Before we go any further, it’s important to establish what Panda actually is.
Panda essentially looks for thin, low-quality content and spammy on-page keyword techniques, such as keyword stuffing and hidden content.
In contrast, Penguin is after spammy, unnatural or unethical link-building techniques. We often refer to this as ‘black hat’ link building.
When any of these Google algorithm updates aren’t respected and the rules aren’t followed, Google can hit a website with either a manual penalty or a warning. You can read more about Google’s manual penalties in a previous Koozai blog post.
The main steps we recommend taking to ensure that your site is as safe as it possibly can be prior to the Panda refresh are as follows:
Let’s look at each of these areas in more detail.
One of the best tools to check for external duplicate content is Copyscape. This tool is easy to use and comes in both free and paid versions. It’s an extremely quick way to help you detect any scraped content that features on other websites.
The most effective way to use Copyscape is by combining it with Google Analytics to find the pages on your site with the most page views. I usually work on 200 URLs at a time, and if it’s a larger site I’ll aim to check another 200 URLs each month.
The tool works via a colour-coded system, which uses a scale ranging from yellow to red to indicate the level of risk in accordance with any external duplicate content located.
You can then click into each of the colours and see how many occurrences of duplicate content there are by viewing the amount of URLs in each section. Copyscape then shows you the percentage of words on the page that have been scraped by another site (or, in some cases, inadvertently by your site).
When external duplicate content is found, you can either re-write it on your site, or if it’s been scraped you can contact the site responsible and request that the content is removed.
Internal duplicate content is content within your site that isn’t unique.
Unique content is one of the most important aspects of a website as it improves user experience and site visibility in search engines too.
A good tool to use for detecting internal duplicate content issues is Siteliner. This tool identifies exact matches throughout your website and highlights the percentage of duplicate content found, even down to the individual page this appears on.
Similarly to Copyscape, it colour-codes content by how much unique and duplicate content is on your site. Siteliner can also tell you how the amount of duplicate content compares to other similar sites too.
Upon finding internal duplicate content issues, your options to fix this include:
It’s always important to ensure that every page on your website contains at least 250 words minimum.
The more text there is on a page, the more likely it is that Google will understand what the page is offering.
Screaming Frog can be used to check for thin content by detailing the word count on each page. You can check each of your site pages and if there are below 250 words, the page can then be marked to indicate that the word count should be increased.
If pages do not meet the recommendations of these content guidelines, consider rewriting them or adding more relevant content to them.
‘Above the fold’ refers to the top half of a page which is visible when users click on your site. I’ll use Koozai’s services page as an example:
The image above displays what users will see when clicking on this page without having to scroll down on the right-hand sidebar.
Ideally you want all of your content to appear ‘above the fold’, but you have to consider the user here too. If having all of the content above the fold compromises the design of the page too much, the main thing to keep in this section is the H1 header tag.
In the example above, you can see that Koozai’s H1 tag, ‘Digital Marketing Services’, is there for users to see straight away. Making the H1 tag visible is important: this is relevant to both the user and the search engine, as it helps them understand what the page is about.
If there is lots of unnecessary content below the fold or if the page contains a large number of adverts, this sends negative trust signals to users and search engines so bear this in mind.
Spammy content is any unnatural content on a website. If content is there for any reason other than to enhance user experience, it may be considered as spammy.
The main spammy content that you can check for is keyword stuffing. While keywords are used for relevance, we recommend using two to three keywords spread out across a page of content – but this has to be natural.
The term ‘keyword stuffing’ refers to the unnatural and endless packing of keywords in any given page. This technique is unethical. Search engines recognise this use of keywords as a direct attempt at misconduct for the sole purpose of improving a site’s rankings for particular search terms.
You can check for keyword stuffing with a number of tools, or simply by searching for them in the text and seeing how many times they appear. If this is more than three times, including within the title or H1 header tag, further work needs to be done.
If you’ve found that your site is using these techniques in order to attempt to rank better, then you can rewrite your content in a more natural and ethical way with the user’s experience in mind. When your website is recrawled by search engines, they will pick up on this and notice that the content now meets their guidelines.
Image alt text is used to describe the images used throughout a website. It is important to include this on your site, primarily for search engines. When a search engine crawls your site, it can often struggle to understand images. This is where the alt text comes into play, making the image easier to interpret and providing context for each one used.
By describing your images, you make it easier for search engines to provide users with the relevant information during an image search. Furthermore, if, for whatever reason, an image fails to load on your page, the alt text will be shown in place of it, highlighting to the user what exactly should be visible.
Keywords are important here, especially when they relate to the content of a page, where image alt text could help build keyword relevance for search engines. Missing image alt text can be identified in Screaming Frog and can be easily added to your website in the CMS or WordPress.
It’s important to add image alt text because if there are pages on your site that aren’t described by these tags, your HTML becomes invalid and you aren’t following Google Search Console guidelines.
If you ensure these checks are regularly performed, especially before the refresh of the Panda update, you will help to increase your search rankings and allow more traffic to enter your site and stay on your pages for longer.
Please leave me a comment if there are any other tools you use or checks that you’ve undertaken in preparation for the Panda refresh. If you’d prefer to contact me via Twitter, I can be found at @koozai_sally.
The post Checks To Undertake In Preparation For The Panda Refresh appeared first on Koozai.com
There’s so much data available that it can be overwhelming. Beyond Google and Facebook, marketers can use that data to develop loyalty, remarketing lapsed customers, and cross-sell.
from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1eb8mzD via small business website design
The simple AdWords Script that has allowed ads to be paused or enabled on certain dates through the engine, without having to create a separate campaign.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1I5rwDd via local SEO company
Cheaper clicks and mobilegeddon are factors in the increased growth on smartphones, despite CPC’s overall decline. CTR, on the other hand, has grown a lot YoY, particularly on Facebook.
from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1I69YbR via local SEO company
We are so excited to announce that we have been shortlisted for two awards at the 2015 UK Agency Awards. The two categories are Best New Business Culture and Best Agency Blog.
Across both categories we will be competing with five other agencies for the chance to take home the awards at the ceremony taking place at The Emirates Stadium in London in September this year.
Being nominated for both these awards is a real achievement for us and is something that we are very proud of.
The Best Agency Blog Award is a real testament to the hard work that the entire Koozai team puts into not only the blog, but also our TV channel and whitepapers too. They work hard to ensure that the content we publish is of a high standard so that our audience really get something out of visiting the site.
When we were looking at what categories to enter this year, the Best New Business Culture Award category really stood out and we just had to put ourselves forward. Over the past two years we have been heavily investing in training and as such, bringing in industry thought leaders to run workshops for the entire team. Internally this has been called The KoozAcademy. We have a written a separate post about the initiative behind the award entry if you want to know more.
In both categories we have some tough competition, so we’ll be keeping our fingers crossed from now until the winners are announced!
The post Koozai Shortlisted for Two UK Agency Awards appeared first on Koozai.com
We are delighted to be shortlisted for The Best New Business Culture Award at The UK Agency Awards, and we wanted to share with you why we believe we have been selected.
At Koozai, we pride ourselves on our relaxed culture, where we put our team and our clients at the heart of everything we do. Like other agencies, we have all the standard benefits, but we also like to do things for the team that really make an impact. Some of these benefits include:
But…
The biggest benefit we feel we offer the team is the invaluable training camps (AKA the KoozAcademy) that we put on throughout the year. This initiative has had a significant impact across the agency which is why we put ourselves forward for the award.
We have always invested heavily in sending the entire team out to conferences around the UK, and when you consider the overall cost of attending – from travel, tickets, accommodation plus time out the office; we were investing almost £70,000 a year!
Although the team were coming back from conferences with some new ideas to try, it is always going to be difficult to tailor talks to a series of different skillsets and knowledge levels. This got us thinking, and in 2014 we started to take a different approach. Rather than sending everyone in the team to all the different conferences, why not get the conference to come to us? We decided to hand-pick some of the best speakers and trainers in our industry and get them to come and spend time at Koozai HQ, instilling their knowledge in our team.
We ask the trainers to pitch at the exact level we need for each person in the team, and naturally get more out of doing it.
This doesn’t mean that we no longer attend conferences, because of course, we do. What we don’t do is send groups of people from the team – instead sending one or two who can then come back to the office and debrief the rest of us on any new skills they have learnt.
Since the beginning of 2014 (and planned for 2015) we have welcomed the following people to our head office to spend time with all departments, including the New Business Team, Content Team, Search Team and Management Team.
Paul was one of the first trainers we had back in 2014, where he delivered an inspiring session on link analysis. The team came away with a greater understanding of how to spot a bad link and the tools that they should and could be using when they are doing their research, analysis and removal. Paul is one of the founders of Kerboo and all the team at Koozai use the platform on a daily basis for link auditing (amongst other things). Since then, Paul has delivered a number of smaller sessions with the team which have been extremely beneficial.
When we announced that Bas was coming to Koozai, the team could not have been more excited. His time was spent with each department helping them to really understand audience profiling. He also hosted a group session on getting the whole Koozai team to work together to achieve great things. We are welcoming Bas back again this year too, but this time he is also the EU Search Personality of the Year 2015, so that is even more exciting!
When you think of Mobile or International SEO, Aleyda’s name is the one that always comes up. After seeing her speak at countless events across the globe, there was no question in our mind that we wanted to get her in to spend some time with the team. Aleyda is joining us at the end of July to deliver two workshops, one on Mobile SEO and one on International SEO. We are all very excited to see what Aleyda has to say on both these subjects.
Matthew Barby was at the top of our list when we were looking for someone to impart their content knowledge on our team.
He has such a relaxed style that everyone in the team was comfortable in his presence and the room was buzzing from start to finish. Matthew covered all aspects of the content strategy, from research right through to promotion.
Having Barry at Koozai was a lot of fun! The SEO team at Koozai have a varied level of skill when it comes to the technical side of SEO so this training camp was split into three sessions, allowing Barry to really invest the time needed to get everyone up to speed.
It has been amazing to see how much the confidence levels have increased since this workshop, and the results for our clients have followed suit!
With Kelvin (UK Search Personality Award Winner) heading up the largest SEO conference in the UK (BrightonSEO), we wanted to get him on board to deliver a link acquisition workshop for the team. Kelvin came to us earlier this year and spent time with the entire company focusing heavily on how to uncover what your competitors are doing when it comes to link acquisition in order to do things better. We now invest a lot more time on competitor analysis for all our clients as a result.
Jackie Hole brings a wealth of knowledge when it comes to paid search. She has delivered multiple PPC training workshops across Europe and was awarded the EU Search Personality of the Year Award back in 2014!
We are all looking forward to having Jackie join us at Koozai HQ later this year.
As anyone who works in Content Marketing will know, there is a huge amount of PR involved in the process, which is why we enlisted the help of Claire Thompson to encourage the team really get to grips with what is involved in Digital PR. Claire has a wealth of knowledge in this subject and she delivered an excellent workshop. All the Content Team are now armed with the skills needed to pitch a story to journalists in a way that get results.
Having such well-known independent industry experts come to the office to spend time with the team has created such a buzz! Everyone in the team is learning and developing their skills, which are then automatically transferred onto our clients’ campaigns. This coupled together means a happy team and happy clients.
To sum this up, we have asked a couple of KoozAcademy Tutors and Students to provide a testimonial, which helps to reiterate everything we have said.
Harry Gardiner – Content Marketing Executive @ Koozai
“The KoozAcademy Training Camps have helped me to develop and hone a wide range of skills both online and offline. The techniques I’ve learnt here, including public speaking, press outreach and client management, have helped expand my knowledge and propel my career; making me a stronger, more confident Content Marketer in the process.”
Ali Moghadam – Digital Marketing Executive @ Koozai
“The KoozAcademy Training Camps have been amazing learning experiences. Each training camp has an expert in their field with you, giving you their wealth of experience, teaching you the lessons they’ve learned and letting you get hands-on with tools, scripts and code.
No matter how much you think you know, there’s always someone out there who can teach you something new. Every single course to date has brought something new to the table for me. I’ve already learned so much, and I can’t wait for the next one!”
Bas van den Beld – Founder of State of Digital
“Training a group of professionals is not an easy task. Them having knowledge on their specific areas might mean that they are less open to new viewpoints. The team at Koozai however was different. They took the knowledge they already had and were eager to learn more and were open for different angles.
The team at Koozai was well educated, prepared, but also very open minded, which made for challenging and at the same time exciting sessions. Each member showed what I think is a great virtue: eagerness to learn more and become better.”
Paul Madden – Founder of Kerboo
“Training with the Koozai team was a pleasure; they were prepared, attentive and challenged me to deliver value for them.
Through subsequent training sessions and one on one workshops the team now represent some of the best trained customers we have and are utilising those skills to better serve their customers.”
The initiative has worked really well for us, so we will certainly be continuing with the KoozAcademy in the coming years. Our plan is to reach out to more independent industry experts to diversify the training camps we have held to date and incorporate new topics that we have not yet covered.
Additionally, we will still be attending all the leading conferences from across the UK (albeit with fewer team members) to ensure we are staying ahead of the game with all the latest techniques, updates and initiatives.
The post Koozai Pioneer The KoozAcademy appeared first on Koozai.com
This guest columnist looked at Google Trends around summer barbecues to determine once and for all, how people like their cook: ribeye, medium, with Chimichurri sauce, and at 7 p.m.
from Donald Jarrett digital marketing news http://ift.tt/1Mctkgp via local SEO company
Link building today means something very different to a few years back. There was a time when buying hundreds or thousands of links from spammy link directories would deliver results in the form of search engine rankings. Not any more.
Link building in the modern world of SEO is much more quality over quantity, and finding quality link building opportunities can be difficult and time consuming. However, by spending some time researching your competitors, you can identify strong opportunities and gain a competitive edge.
In this post I’ve explored four elements of competitor research and analysis that will help you understand what is working well for your competitors and what you could also leverage for your own site. I’ve provided some really useful tools and explained how you can use them to gain valuable insight.
Most companies have a good idea of who their main competitors are both online and offline. However it’s important to consider that your search competitors may not be the same as your offline competitors. You need to be aware of what sites Google deems to be a competitor of yours, because it’s those sites you need to gain an edge against through link building.
The most common way to establish who your search competitors are is to simply search for some of your important keywords and see which websites rank above and around you in the Search Engine Results pages (SERPs). This is useful because ultimately they are the sites that you want to climb above for valuable keyword searches.
However, if this is the only way you find competitors, you will likely miss some of the sites who may not be ranking as well yet but who provide a similar product range or service to you and could be a strong competitor in the future. What you really want to find out is what sites Google deems to be similar to yours, and you can do this with a “related:” search operator:
This search returns a list of sites that Google has identified as being “related” to the site, which is a fantastic way to identify competitors you may not have thought about.
When carrying out competitive research, the more competitors you review, the better the information you will find and the more ideas you will generate for your link building or content strategies.
Earning links through quality content is one of the most effective link building techniques in today’s SEO climate. Understanding what your competitors are doing well is a great way to build on your own content strategy.
One useful metric for measuring the success of a piece of content marketing is how much it is shared. Of course, traffic and conversions from content can be more useful (depending on the goals of the specific piece of content) but this information isn’t available to anyone without access to the website analytics platform. Social shares, however, are publicly visible, making it a great way to analyse your competitors’ best-performing content.
One really useful tool for this is the Top Content tool from BuzzSumo, where you can enter a domain and instantly see the pages which were most shared across the main social platforms:
By looking at the most shared content on your competitors’ sites or blogs, you can generate some ideas for what could work well for your own. For example, you might find that list posts such as “Top 10 Ways…” work particularly well, which gives you some reassurance that similar structures could work well for you too.
Or perhaps their best performing content relates to current events or news, suggesting that you too may be able to benefit by jumping on board with something current and relevant, known as “news jacking”.
You can use filters to show the most shared content in a set period of time, in a certain language or country, or even of a certain type such as articles, infographics and videos.
BuzzSumo is a powerful tool for competitor analysis so it’s well worth having a play to see what ideas you can generate for your own website or blog.
It’s important to understand the competition in terms of link quality, to get an understanding of the link climate in your industry. For example, if your competitors have very strong link profiles with lots of high quality links, you need to do the same to compete. On the other hand, if many of your competitors have fewer quality links, you know you can gain a competitive edge by earning trusted links of your own.
One useful tool for analysing backlink profiles by linking domain authority is Tom Anthony’s Link Profile Tool. This is a simple but powerful Google spreadsheet which allows you to input link data and see a normalised view of you and your competitors’ link profiles by Domain Authority (DA).
To use the tool, you need to export linking domain data from Moz’ Open Site Explorer and import it into the spreadsheet. You can then see your link profile and those of your competitors plotted on a graph by the percentage of linking domains of varying Domain Authority.
If one or more of your competitors have more strong links than you (more of higher DA) then you know you have some work to do to catch up. You can then look at their backlinks in more detail to spot the high quality ones and see if there’s a way you too could get links from the quality domains (more on that next).
Tom has put together a guide on how to use the tool here.
If you can identify your competitors’’ strongest backlinks, you may be able to identify sites that you too can build a relationship with and earn links from.
A great tool for doing this is Majestic Site Explorer, where you can export a list of any site’s backlinks that are included within the massive Majestic index.
Start by running your competitor’s domain through the tool and you will get a whole host of data on their link profile, including a useful chart that plots the Trust Flow and Citation Flow of their referring domains.
Next, download a raw export of all of their links. This file will be compressed, so you will need to unzip the file using an unpacking software package such as 7-Zip.
Once you have unzipped the file, you will have a CSV that you can open in Excel which includes all of the backlinks the tool found. This could be a very large file depending on the size of the link profile.
If you add filters and sort the data by “Source Trust Flow” high-to-low and you will see your competitors “best” links in terms of the trust of the linking domain. You can then look through and see if any of their strongest links are from sites that might be prepared to link to you too.
It’s important to note that a high Trust Flow doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a strong or natural link, so manual review of the sites and the link is important. If it looks spammy or unnatural, it isn’t a valuable link even if the site has a high Trust Flow.
Some good things to look out for when you’re reviewing your competitors high trust links include:
The tips and tools in this post should help you get started with a comprehensive competitor analysis which will in turn give you invaluable data to shape your own campaigns.
If you’d like more advice on effective link building and comprehensive competitor analysis please feel free to get in touch with us today or leave a comment below.
The post Top Tips and Tools for Finding Link Building Opportunities through Competitor Analysis appeared first on Koozai.com
This is the transcript from our new video so it may not read as well as a normal blog post would.
Hi there. Today I’m going to talk to you about user interaction signals. So first things first, what I’m going to talk about are kind of the four main components that I think are really important in SEO.
So let’s start off with number one. So first things first, technical SEO is obviously really important. You want to make sure that you have a really fast website. You want to make sure that you’ve got no technical issues, no broken links. You want to make sure that you’ve got the right robots.txt file. You want to make sure that there’s no canonical issues in place. So technical is a really important base for SEO and something that shouldn’t be ignored. So number one on your SEO checklist is always to make sure that it’s technically sound.
Number two is relevance. So once you’ve got a really technically sound website, that’s quick and got no duplicate issues, anything like that, you can start making it relevant. So if you want to rank for particular keywords, you would want that keyword to be featured in the meta title and in the meta description, and ideally have relevant headers like an H1 header. Once you’ve done that, you’ll want to make sure that there’s enough body text that’s talking about the keyword that you want to rank for, but obviously not going overkill on the keyword density side of things.
So once you’ve got a technically sound website and a really relevant page, the next thing you want to look at is the authority of the domain you’re trying to rank. So in an ideal world, the domain would have lots of authority. So this means quite an old age domain in an ideal world. You would also want lots of links from reputable websites. So this might be done through PR. It might be done through really good content marketing. It might done through partnerships with other companies. But the main thing to remember is you run a really authoritative domain, and this is obviously done by links pointing to your website. So these could be followed links, no followed links. It doesn’t really matter as long as the domain is passing a good level of trust and it’s from a really authoritative website.
So once you’ve done that, you can start to look at the social side of things. We all know social’s not necessarily the be-all and end-all of an SEO campaign, but it is important and it’s a good way to show Google that you are a big brand. So if you’ve got lots of followers on Facebook and lots of followers on Twitter, or if you’re B2B, if you’ve got lots of followers on LinkedIn, then social is a really good way to show Google that you’re a big brand with lots of followers and lots of activity. If you push your content out on social, that’s a good way of doing that.
So these four things are very important in an SEO campaign — a technically sound website, having really relevant content, then building that authority for getting some good links to the website. Social is obviously important to show that you’re a big brand.
But the fifth one is one that people often forget about. Once they start ranking well, they’re not sure necessarily how to keep their rankings there. So the fifth one I put down as a question mark, and that’s why I’m going to talk about user interaction signals. So UI signals are basically a way of telling Google that the user is having a good post-click experience.
So the way you can tell Google that the user is enjoying the content is by having a good bounce rate. So, obviously, if they’re bouncing off the page really quickly, they’re not liking what they’re seeing.
Click-through rate is another way to show Google that the users are liking what they’re clicking on, and they’re seeing that the meta title or the schema is really relevant.
Then if the user looked at multiple pages, then they obviously like the content and they want to read more about the content on your website.
Time on site is obviously really important as well, because it’s kind of showing that the users stay on the site, they like what they’ve seen, they like the content, and they’re staying there for a good amount of time.
One other thing to think about is obviously return visits. So if Google can see that users are returning to your site time and time again, it’s obviously showing that they trust the site and they like the content on there. So this is another really important factor.
So to give Google the proper user interaction signals, you’ve got to think about how to do this. So to minimise bounce rates, you might provide more internal links on your page. You might increase the speed of the site. You might put a video on there to make them stay on the page longer. You might have other related articles or links to a blog post. So try and think about, once you’ve done all this to get your users to the website, try and think about what you can do to keep them there for longer. This will have a really good impact on showing Google that the user is having a good post-click experience.
So this is the recap. These are the main factors to think about. Have a good technically sound website. Make it relevant. Have a good authoritative domain with lots of good backlinks, and think about social as well. Once you’ve done that, you can start giving Google the right user interaction signals and show that the users are enjoying the content on the website.
So I hope that was helpful. If you want any more information on user interaction or SEO tips in general, then please visit Koozai.com. Thanks.
The post How User Interaction Benefits SEO appeared first on Koozai.com
While a targeted PPC campaign can certainly help boost your traffic, it’s not immune to click fraud, which can waste up to one-fifth of your budget.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1HrOOBL via local SEO company
Your content is only as good as the effort you put into creating it. So if you want to achieve a successful online marketing campaign, dedication is essential. Just providing a fantastic product or service simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
Effective content speaks to the online community and instantly connects with them. It also shows your prospective customers that you’re not solely focussed on revenue. In this post, we discuss the 5 key factors you need to consider in order for your content to be successful.
First of all, it’s important to determine what success means to your business. This will help you define the goals that your content strategy will focus on, which could include driving traffic, gaining conversions through downloads, contact form submissions and calls, or enhancing brand awareness.
Powerful content can bolster your online marketing by generating leads, as well as facilitating SEO.
With this in mind, let’s look at five key factors for successful content.
“Quality content” is so much more than a catchy buzzword for marketers. It’s one of the factors that search engines use to determine your rankings, so it’s imperative that your content is up to scratch. Spelling mistakes, typos and broken links are not acceptable in the digital age.
Introducing an auditing process for your content is a great way of ensuring that your message remains consistent, keywords and key themes are targeted and quality is maintained.
At this year’s SMX, Google’s Gary Illyes announced that their Panda algorithm update would be launched in June 2015, though this is yet to be introduced. However, the looming update provides even more reason to make sure that your content is unique and first-rate.
Sites with irrelevant, low-quality content will suffer the consequences of the algorithmic shift. The update aims to eradicate thin and duplicated content, both internally and externally.
At the ideation phase, it’s important to establish your predominant target audience and research what your competitors are producing. This way, you can create content on topics that will resonate with the right people.
Once you’ve got your ideas, you also need to make your titles targeted and as engaging as possible. If you’re uninspired when writing a title, how do you think your audience are going to feel? Optimise your content by ensuring that you always include relevant keywords and phrases in your titles and within the copy.
For further information on this, watch Content Marketing Executive, Harry Gardiner’s video on how to create catchy headlines.
Put yourself in your audience’s shoes. What do they want to see? Get to know them and you will soon discover what content appeals to them the most. You can then create tailored and targeted online campaigns for your desired audience from the off.
There isn’t a secret formula for making your content shareable, but a great place to start is to make it useful. Content that benefits the end user stands a better chance of being shared online and acquiring quality links too.
Examples of useful content include:
However, this will ultimately depend on your target audience, so remember that it’s important to do your research first before you start creating your content.
Let’s be honest: no one likes to feel like they’re being sold to. Instead, we like to be educated and entertained through quality, creative and inspiring content.
So get creative. Don’t rely on your tried-and-tested method. Just because that’s the way you’ve always done things doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right approach.
Make the most of relevant, upcoming events and breaking news stories to make your copy instantly connect with your audience.
If you create content for the sake of it, your audience will be able to tell and over-optimised content screams “sell, sell, sell”. So explain what’s in it for the reader and why they should continue to read on. Remember we’re all guilty of skimming online copy when it’s in front of us, so get to the point straight away.
Provide creative content, not a pitch – Ruth Walker @Koozai_Ruth
Tweet thisTo learn more about how to overcome content marketing challenges, take a look at Jenny William’s latest post.
With 3.17 billion Internet users browsing the web every day, it’s never been more important to keep active online on different channels, whether that’s social media, webinars or blogging. This will help increase brand awareness and traffic and will also improve your rankings and conversions in the long run.
So how often should you post on social media for example? Well it’s all about balance. Too little and you might as well not bother, too much and it becomes spammy. The key is to predict, measure and then repeat.
Below is a brief guide to get you started:
A comprehensive content marketing plan can help you target the key areas that you’ve identified and scheduled in promotional activity to share your content.
That said, bear in mind that you don’t always have to stick to your original plan. If you find that a marketing method or content type is performing better than others, it may be time to reassess your approach. Your plan needs to be fluid so that you’re able to adapt to new content ideas.
Let me know your thoughts on the factors for successful content. Do you have any good examples to share? If so, leave a comment below or tweet me @Koozai_Ruth.
For more information on content marketing strategies that deliver results, get in touch today.
The post 5 Key Factors For Successful Content appeared first on Koozai.com
Google AdWords and Bing Ads tools like Auction Insights, Ad Preview Tool and Keyword Planner keep search marketers ahead of the curve with regard to their pay-per-click campaigns.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1JRf5gu via local SEO company
Used for things like reporting and recurring tasks, PPC automation helps retailers manage their channels, particularly those retailers with extensive catalogs.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1UE2xw1 via local SEO company
Social Media is the king of the Internet. It’s the genesis point of every viral video, meme, every fail and every win witnessed online. It’s where people go to vent frustration, share joy and brag. It’s a very human thing – even though the human element seems masked behind a digital wall.
It’s hard to believe that in the age of social, so many are lagging behind or not even trying. What are the tell-tale signs that you need to give your Social Media presence some more love?
I couldn’t do this post without mentioning the “Social Media isn’t for us” myth. “We’re not really a Social Media business” is one of the most common things I hear or read. It seems like everyone would rather leave it all to brands like Coca-Cola.
Someone tell me – what’s so exciting about fizzy black water? Nothing! All that hype and buzz, all those “open happy!” ads (where people too good looking to be addicted to Coke are swilling the stuff and giggling in slow motion) – that’s what makes it exciting. Global brand or not, the purveyors of ambiguously flavoured black water are Social Media fiends. It’s a sign of the power it holds.
Now think about your industry. Are you too boring for Social Media? Are you actually so unhappy with your business that you don’t want to let any of the approximately 2 billion social network users in the world know who you are?
Of course not.
It’s time for all business owners to acknowledge the truth; social is here to stay – and it gets bigger and better every day. With super accurate targeting, it’s even more useful than ever too.
So – what are the signs that you should be investing more in your social endeavours?
Okay so maybe not YOU – but maybe your boss. If this is the case then your organisation probably doesn’t have accounts on any social platforms either. Maybe the best investment here is some time – time to explore, learn and educate people in your organisation on the many platforms out there, how they work and what benefits they can bring.
Social isn’t just going to blow over because it’s new (and all new things are fads according to my dad). Convincing the people in charge to take on Social Media projects and allocate time to it is all about education. Don’t be shy – learn what you need to, then strut your stuff.
Imagine you are the Social Media Executive at your company. You have 7 social accounts to manage. Complaints are coming through Twitter. There’s a ton of content to schedule. There are a million customer questions to respond to on Facebook. One of your campaigns isn’t going too well and your manager wants a few solutions before the end of the day or the company might pull its budget. That budget includes your pay. Welcome to STRESS CITY.
That’s no way to live and sooner or later, you’re going to lose that employee. In the meantime, the whole campaign and Internet-facing side of the company suffers when the only person running the show is a little stressed out. Typos, lack of care and off-brand ranting may ensue. So make sure your Social Media Executives are treated as well as your PR people. Make sure you have enough staff and that workload is planned and shared appropriately.
This links in well with the above point, but imagine in this scenario, there is no Social Media Executive – only you. In addition, on top of emails, taking care of customers and sorting out your finances, the last thing you want to do is have a back and forth social update session with a customer on Twitter.
This is where a Social Media management agency might fit your needs better than an in-house executive. You won’t get the same round the clock, 24/7 approach, but you’ll get some very cool content and ideas thrown your way to help encourage success where it matters.
What’s more, it’s all off your hands and you don’t have to worry about answering questions and enquiries by yourself – you’ve got it covered and can concentrate on doing what you do best.
That post of a cute cat got one like – from your mum. And her friend who uses Facebook every once in a while commented “lol”. Your tweets NEVER get retweeted. What’s going on?
This can be a sign that you’re spreading yourself too thin, or that your content isn’t resonating with the right audience. If cat pictures get the engagement – then great. But even if it does, you’re not going to get too far with that unless you’re an animal charity, a veterinary clinic or some other cat related organisation.
Your content is the most important part of the deal here – but timing, understanding events and your niche’s social calendar is equally important too.
Another killer to any social account is a very clear lack of posts, with vast voids of time between each one. Even a day is too long to leave it in some cases. If you’re worried about annoying your audience, maybe you should think about your content. If it’s going to annoy people, it’s probably not very good.
This can be hard, because you need lots of good content available to be able to share often. With time, this will get easier because you can repurpose old content and take advantage of annual events. But in the beginning, you’ll need to plan well and prep in advance before you get started.
The key isn’t how often you post, but what you post. You also need a certain frequency to make it valuable and to measure impact. Try following other accounts you admire or are interested in and get a feel for how often they post.
If so far you think I’ve only been talking about Facebook, then you may have another problem. Facebook isn’t the only place to achieve a social following and get your name out there. It might not even be the best. Twitter is fast and furious, Pinterest is engaging and stimulating, Instagram, YouTube, Vine – they all have their own advantages. Tumblr is a vast ecosystem all of its own that is insanely popular and easy to start communities within too.
There’s so much more to Social Media than Facebook, but everyone seems to have their default Social Media mentality set to it. I’m not saying this is wrong – I’m just saying there’s so much more. Not every platform will work for you. If you’re not doing B2B or professional services, LinkedIn might not be your bag, but you should still have a profile ready to use if anything were to come up. You never know.
Diversity is important. Yeah sure it’s time consuming, but you can automate! Right?!
Automation is awesome. Let the ‘bot do the legwork. With IFTTT, Buffer and Feedly, you can make an endless stream of content that gets tweeted, posted and spread all over the land.
Awesome right?
Wrong. It’s so obvious. People can see right through this tactic. It can be done well and I’ve seen some excellent examples of this kind of automation. But things get messy when you try employing sentiment matching (which can’t detect sarcasm it would seem), automatic replies and do the whole inbox blasting thing (thanks for your follow!) that was rife on Twitter for a while.
I’m all for making your job easier and automating the bits that require no human interaction. But when you have humans talking to a (very, very stupid) machine, they get annoyed. Those automated phone lines that tell you to “press one for billing, press two for new accounts” and so on? Nobody has ever got off of one of those calls and thought “that was nice. What a lovely machine.”
People are what make social work, so invest in them. Invest in a team and real people to do the talking. Yes, technology is excellent. But only a fool trusts their livelihood to a machine.
Are you on top of your Social Media campaigns or have you neglected your accounts? Why not grab our free Social Media whitepapers, fill your brain with knowledge and get your social on?!
If you need more advice on how Koozai can help you with your Social Media strategy and campaigns then contact us today.
The post 7 Signs You Should Invest More In Social Media appeared first on Koozai.com
Having a standard of practice demonstrates quality and consistency, both for clients and employees. At the same time, too-stringent guidelines can stifle creativity and passion.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1KNnKR3 via local SEO company
Link to Overcoming 10 Content Marketing Challenges blog post.
This is the transcript from our new video so it may not read as well as a normal blog post would.
Hi, I’m Jen, and I’m a Content Marketing Executive at Koozai. Content marketers are faced with challenges on a daily basis, and this video looks at a few of the obstacles and how best to overcome them.
The role of a content marketer has got some different elements. It not only involves research, ideation, it’s creating content that works, promoting and outreach, and ensuring this content gets seen by the right pairs of eyes. So let’s break it down in a bit more detail.
Being an effective brand ambassador. Content marketers are passed a very privileged and powerful responsibility of becoming an extension of a particular brand, so to help with this, it’s important to know the brand inside out. Within this you have: the ethos; the history of the brand; any publicity, both negative or positive can help when it comes to your content marketing efforts; then about the founders of the brand, the trustees, where that brand’s heading. All of this will help you become an effective brand voice and create content marketing goals which not only fit in with the brand, but they facilitate the entire SEO process. So knowing your brand inside out is really crucial.
Strategising. It’s really easy when a client comes on board to get really excited about a particular content marketing idea, a piece of content and what you’re going to do with it, and get completely blinkered on that and not really think more of the overall goals and the overall picture. So strategy is really, really important. Whilst it’s really, really important to come up with these creative ideas, it does need to have a tailored strategy behind it.
So when coming up with a tailored content marketing strategy, address which content type will be created, whether this is an infographic, a survey, a quiz. Depending on your client’s overall goals, it’s important to consider all the different types of content and which one you think would best suit those aims.
What is the goal for that content? Again, looking at the tailored content marketing plan and considering the client’s overall goals. Who is the intended audience for that content? That works for content and outreach, so it’s important to see, to identify, who you’re targeting and who you’re also looking to outreach to.
How will this content be produced? Will it be a one page infographic? Will it be a quiz? Will it be a big blog post? How will it actually work? How will this be promoted? Is it owned, earned, paid media? How are you actually going to get this content out there and seen by the right pairs of eyes? And again, where will it be marketed and where do you see this being published?
These questions need to be answered right at the get-go. So it’s important to kind of identify these, get those answered, as a way to put together your tailored content marketing strategy.
Being an effective storyteller. The ability to outreach out to key industry influencers, publishers, and people relevant within that industry or niche is really crucial when it comes to content marketing. You need to be able to have the confidence to pick up the phone, sell an idea to a journalist, a PR professional, or an industry influencer with confidence. So be excited about the content that you’re producing. After all, this is your end product. It’s backed up by strategy. It’s all of your work, so sell it. Be excited. Sell the content’s offering to whoever’s on the end of the phone. Talk about the positives, how the content’s unique. Those kinds of approaches are what’s going to make the difference when it comes to outreach and promoting the content that you produce.
Flexibility. Whilst content marketing plans are backed up by an overall strategy and tie in with the client’s goals, it’s inevitable that change will happen. This could be for lots of different reasons. It could be a breaking news story. It could be it’s hype on social media within that industry. It could be an amendment to a press release at last minute. It could be a world event that happens to reflect the client and reflect the content that you’re producing. So content marketers need to be able to react to these changes. Change is inevitable, and content marketers need to react to given scenarios, sometimes at the last minute. So being completely flexible and wide open to these potential changes is really important when it comes to content marketing.
So there you have it, a few content marketing challenges and how best to overcome them. For more information about any of these and some more tips, check out my blog post, which is below this video, and yeah, I hope you found this very useful.
The post Common Content Marketing Challenges And How To Overcome Them appeared first on Koozai.com
When you think of “good content” it’s likely that you think of something that’s text or visual based, such as blog posts, Infographics and interactive pieces.
However, alongside these excellent forms of content we often neglect audio, and in particular podcasts, as a valuable tool for enhancing your brand and getting your message out to your audience.
According to the BBC there have been 1.1 billion UK downloads of their own podcasts since they started offering them back in 2004. Content from the BBC via this medium is also being downloaded in record numbers and it’s believed this trend will continue to grow in the coming years.
So if this is the potential reach of this form of content, why don’t you create and use podcasts as part of your own marketing campaigns?
Take a look at the benefits of podcasts, how you can use this medium in your own content strategy, and how you can create them with little or no previous experience.
First of all, if you’re not familiar with the term podcast, this form of content relates to a radio style audio file that users can download via the Internet and listen back to as an MP3.
Podcasts are usually released episodically and can be listened to on a computer, mobile, tablet, or portable media device.
The podcast itself usually involves one person or a group of people and guests discussing current events and affairs or a repeat of an online radio show that users can download and listen to again after it’s been on air.
The Internet plays host to a large volume of content and as a business you need to find unique ways to stand out from the competition in your industry.
Audio based content and podcasts in particular are one way to achieve this and using this medium has plenty of advantages, including:
With all of these areas combined it’s easy to see why some businesses are already devoting their time to creating podcasts for their target audience.
This content can end up being a worthy investment for enhancing your own marketing campaigns and improving the results of your organic search results too.
If you’re not using podcasts now, then think about using them in your next marketing strategy.
Over time, if you build on the amount of podcasts you release, it’s possible to rank for them in the search engines.
Although the audio content won’t be readable by the search engines, you can always use other tactics to help them appear in the results pages.
This includes using a targeted and optimised title and page URL for each episode and creating a short 200 plus text introduction before giving users the chance to play or download the content. This introduction can include keywords and key themes related to the subject you’re discussing too.
Once you’re a regular podcaster, it’s also likely that other sites will link out to you as a credible resource – again resulting in a positive shift in your rankings if the sites are targeted and of a decent quality. You may wish to host a separate page on your site too which displays all of the podcasts historically to date.
In addition, if you host your content on podcast directories, such as iTunes, this will help it to appear when someone conducts a search via the specific directory or platform they’re using.
Ultimately, podcasts and the pages they’re hosted on can end up achieving their own search rankings, which will have a positive impact on your site.
One common misconception about content of this nature is that you’ll need big budgets to pay for recording equipment and editing software when this is not actually the case.
The biggest investment you’ll require is your own time, although like any form of content, the more you put in, the more you’ll get back in return.
Here’s a look at what you’ll need:
Don’t panic if you haven’t got any audio software on your computer, Macs usually come with GarageBand installed or you may have access to Adobe Audition.
If you don’t have any of these then you can always download Audacity, which is free.
In a previous Koozai post Dean Marsden lists a number of free audio editing tools that you can use to record, cut, edit and convert your project, so take a look.
It won’t cost much to purchase a microphone or headset and once you’re set up, you and your team will be ready to enter the world of podcasting.
With your equipment set up, you might only have a few ideas with regards to what you can talk about.
So to inspire you and help you get started, take a look at some of these examples:
Don’t be afraid when it comes to recording, you don’t need to get everything right in one take as you can always edit sections together later on.
You’ll also become more comfortable with recording and editing the more you do it, so press record and refine the process as you go.
Once your podcast is recorded there are a number of options when it comes to hosting your content.
Placing all recorded podcasts on your own site would be a good start, but you can also place them on the following external platforms:
If you’re going to use external sites then it’s best to build your own branded profile and once podcasts are live you can promote them on your blog and social channels for additional exposure.
Now that you’ve learnt about the benefits and value in adding audio content to your marketing campaigns, it’s over to you to start recording your podcasts.Don’t be put off by the fear of recording your own voice and editing your shows, it’s a simple process to grasp and it will become much easier over time the more you do it too.
Once you get going, the podcasts you create will help to build your brand and if you put the work in, there’s no reason why you can’t become an established market leader for podcasting in your field.
If you’d like help with your own marketing campaigns or you have any questions regarding content marketing, contact Koozai today to see how we can help.
The post The Power of Podcasts for Content Marketing appeared first on Koozai.com
Besides the holidays, back-to-school shopping is when people spend the most money. For retailers, the first day of school, which varies by region, is one helpful bit of third-party data.
from Yong Johnson’s DM blog http://ift.tt/1glb4nX via local SEO company
Whether you serve B2B or B2C, your customers are on social because EVERYONE is on social!
However, even after about eight years now of social media integrating more and more into the business world, companies are still missing the mark with their social marketing strategy.
Our featured article this week reveals seven mistakes that need addressing in order to improve your online marketing results.
You’ll be relieved to know that Mistake #2 is that you should not try to be everywhere! Mistake #5 is one I’m sure you see in your Facebook news feed (and other social sites) on a regular basis – treating social like television with one-way advertising and no engagement. Not good!
This article provides plenty tips on making the right social media moves so you get better results.
Plus, our pick #2 for this week is by the one-and-only Neil Patel and features a fabulous infographic – embedded below:
The blog version of this week’s edition of THE SOCIAL SCOOP weekly newsletter follows below! If you’re already subscribed, you’ll continue to receive The Social Scoop via email on Fridays. If you’re not yet signed up and would like to be, please enter your name and email in the box to the right (desktop) or below the post (mobile). Thank you!
Greetings! Please enjoy this week’s top articles we’ve hand-picked for you!
via TheNextWeb.com
We are typically motivated by one of two reasons: away from pain or towards pleasure. Interestingly, it’s often the pain-based motivated that piques our interest more. I’m sure you’ll enjoy reviewing the social media mistakes revealed in this article and comparing how you’re doing with your own efforts!
via QuickSprout.com
Neil Patel is one of my favorite thought leaders out there! Check out this awesome infographic – Neil says, “Have you ever wondered why people enjoy liking, commenting, and sharing on Facebook? If you haven’t, you should. Why? Because understanding why people enjoy doing these things will help you generate more Facebook traffic.” Amen to that!
via WebProNews.com
Have you seen the latest updates to Instagram? They’ve added some really awesome search features that make it easier for users to find the right posts. Good news for businesses: your content just got easier to find!
Here’s Why It’s Getting Harder To Ignore Instagram For Marketing http://t.co/BXwMZPk7dg via @webpronews | Agreed!
— Mari Smith (@MariSmith) June 29, 2015
That’s all for this week’s issue of The Social Scoop. Here’s wishing you a wonderful weekend and a super enjoyable week ahead. And, for all my US friends – HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY! (And, belated Happy Canada Day for all my fellow Canucks around the world.)
On a personal note, oh my goodness, the time has finally arrived! My partner and I are jetting off to the UK on Monday, July 6th for two weeks. Whee! I’m super excited to keynote The Big Social Media Conference in Manchester, England and to meet so many of my fabulous peeps. After that, we’ll buzz up to Edinburgh and beyond to connect with family, friends and clients, too. Hopefully even a wee side trip to Ireland.
Of course, I’ll be sharing fun updates on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and maybe even Periscope! Btw, I did my first Periscope broadcast at the Social Media Day San Diego event. Shoutout and thanks to Brian Fanzo, Natalie Jill, Tyler Anderson, Sue Zimmerman at al. (The video saves to your camera roll and you can then post to Facebook – wow, over 5,800 views. What a blast!)
Cheers!
Mari
P.S. There’s still time to join my amazingly talented friend Jeanine Blackwell in her Create Six-Figure Courses Virtual Bootcamp! The doors only just opened a few days ago so you can easily catch up. The course comprises 7 weekly learning modules + live Q&A sessions + a bonus session with myself on Facebook marketing! Creating just one powerful course that produces results can leverage your time and talents, and instantly establish you as the industry expert in your field. This is *the* program that you can leverage right away in your business!
The post 7 Social Media Marketing Mistakes You May Be Making (And How To Fix Them) appeared first on MariSmith.com.
In March 2015, YouTube announced YouTube Cards, a flexible new way add interactivity to your videos. What’s more, they look great across all devices, particularly mobile. With more than half of YouTube views now from mobile devices, YouTube Cards make a lot of sense. Let’s take a closer look at how they can be used in your campaigns.
As a YouTube publisher you may have used or been aware of the annotations tool in YouTube. This allows you to overlay important information and links over the top of your video content throughout the video. This was useful for generating engagement with your channel, other videos, and sending traffic to external websites i.e. your own website pages.
YouTube Annotations do the job, but they are rather ugly and until recently did not work on mobile devices. Despite the upgrades over the years, and finally allowing them to work on mobile, something new was needed to better perform on all devices through which we can now access YouTube.
Cue YouTube Cards.
Designed to be contextual to the video, certain cards will ‘surface’ based on video performance and user behaviour. They are very much still a new tool and not perfect, but you can add cards to your videos now and analyse the performance of them in YouTube analytics.
YouTube cards allow you to create and promote a number of different things within your video. Let’s take a look in more detail.
These will simply link to another video. Use this to encourage viewers to continue watching a related video and elongate the engagement time they have from your channel. It shows a thumbnail of the video along with the relevant length, creator information and view count, much like in YouTube video results.
A playlist card is a great way to inform users of a set of related videos and keep them on your channel for much longer. If you want them to perform another action such as visiting your website and buying from you then this might not come until they have watched several of your videos. Use playlist cards to keep them engaged with your content for longer.
Direct viewers to your website or another associated URL with your account and convert them to a website customer. Unfortunately you can’t just link to any website. To prevent any misuse of this feature, YouTube has rules that the links must comply with AdWords policies, YouTube ads policies and YouTube community guidelines. The card can include a thumbnail picture, custom title and call-to-action to better encourage click throughs.
Link to a specific product that you or someone else sells using a picture, title and call-to-action. This can drive valuable merchandise sales that can financially support your YouTube channel production. See the list of approved retailers for examples of shops and products.
The fundraising YouTube Card allows you to directly link to a supported fundraising page using a thumbnail image and title. Ideal if you are promoting a fundraising project.
This is another fundraising style YouTube card, however this time it links to an in-built system that allows you collect donations directly (by enabling Fan Funding). This is ideal for users who have an audience that would like to contribute to directly with the minimum of fuss.
Adding YouTube Cards to your videos is simple and the card interface allows you to quickly add your cards of choice. You can add up to five cards on one video and this is when YouTube decides which one(s) are most relevant to show.
At the moment there are a few things that annotations can do which cards don’t, so you should consider combining the two to achieve your video interaction goals. YouTube Cards do however present the future of interaction on YouTube across many devices.
As with any new tools, the best way to see what works for you is to try them out. It does appear at the moment that YouTube Cards are designed to support the independent video creator, but with the use of video, playlist and associated website cards a business can make the most of this functionality to increase views and direct website traffic.
The post Using YouTube Cards In Your Digital Marketing Campaigns appeared first on Koozai.com