Monday, September 30, 2013

How to create a presentation: 10 free tools

An excellent presentation will help you win pitches and influence people. Listed below are 10 free tools to assist you.

Whether you're providing an talk or pitching to some client, attractive presentations are vital in communicating complex info, ideas and concepts to general audiences within a simplified manner. But the secret of how to produce a presentation that engage the audience immediately requires a mixture of different presentation and graphic tools. Here we've shortlisted 10 of the greatest free apps to help you discover how to develop a presentation which will blow them away...

Tools #1: Prezi


How you can create a presentation which will impress - use Prezi

Prezi is really a stylish online presentation creation tool that allows you to use images, videos, objects or simple text, as well as animate them utilizing a wide range of effects. It supports all of the major mobile and desktop platforms and enables you to run your presentations as executable files too.

The finished presentations may also be shared directly from Prezi on all major social support systems. Prezi comes both like a free and paid service, but the particular free version has all the options you will need.

Tools #2: Zoho Shows



Zoho shows you how to produce a presentation 

Zoho Show is a web-based tool that is included with all you should design highly attractive presentations, and is obtainable in both free and paid versions. You can use among the pre-designed templates or import your personal PowerPoint presentations and edit them online.

Zoho Display also provides you with the option to publish your presentations in a number of formats including HTML, PDF and PowerPoint.



Produce awesome, claims EWC Presenter...

This totally free, web-based application has anything that you need to create stunning presentations using easy to use drag-and-drop options. The EWC Presenter comes with a amount of beautiful presentation templates that can be used in a single click.

You can include different data illustration tools for example graphs and charts to present numeric values as easy to comprehend and eye catching objects. To add further colour for your presentations, you can choose from an array of objects like icons, shapes, images, infographics and textual content designs. Simply drag & drop these objects within your presentation slides and adjust their dimensions according your preference.

This tool is notable because of its speed and flexibility. They render files in HTML5 and supports key mobile and desktop devices, and that means you can access your presentations anywhere on any gadget.

Tools #4: Google Drive



Yes, even Google Drive provides solutions with regard to how you can create a presentation 

Google Drive might not be the most wonderful looking presentation tool, but it is certainly probably the most complete and detailed online tools for creating presentations. Whether you would like to import your existing presentations or create entirely new ones, Search engines Drive offers features and tools perfect for both the scenarios.

You are able to import your multimedia files to enhance the potency of your presentations or add different data illustration tools like graphs as well as charts to show numeric data. You can either grant public entry to your presentations or share them with a limited audience of preference.

Tools #5: Empressr


Sounds like a personality from Star Wars but Empressr will create great delivering presentations

Empressr is a powerful online rich media presentation tool in order to you create highly attractive presentations using a broad variety of designing features and options. You may use predesigned presentation templates to ginger up your presentations or import images and audio/video clips from websites such as Flickr and YouTube to include more color to your slides.

Particularly helpful for corporate and business presentations, Empressr presentations could be seamlessly integrated into any website or blog and is shared via social networking for enhanced exposure.

Tools #6: iPresent


How you can create an iPresentation made simple with iPresent

iPresent is really a leading online interactive and rich media presentation tool that not just offers great flexibility when it comes to presentation designing and editing options but also provides a simple interface. It's not entirely free but possesses one month of free service during which you may use up to 500MB of space for the presentations.

You can include images, videos and audio files for your presentations, and integrate them with all the major social networking platforms as well.

Tools #7: Spresent


How to develop a Spresentation made simple with Spresent

Spresent is definitely an online tool for creating presentations based on Flash animations which can be activated from a list of pre-developed effects. Additionally, it enables you to seamlessly integrate your audio, video and visual files to include further colour to presentation. The finished presentation could be shared publicly on different social networking websites too.

Tools #8: Vcasmo


Cool name, cool tool - and how they can create a presentation with ease 

Vacasmo is definitely an online video based tool you can use to produce presentations for online publishing. Whether you have to design a company presentation or an academic training, Vacasmo is a great option. You are able to place your conventional presentation slides and your video clips alongside to create a highly engaging experience for the audience. Vacasmo comes both like a free and paid tool, having a limit of 512MB within the free version.

Tools #9: Knovio


You'll soon Know how you can create a presentation with Knovio

If you wish to add a personal touch to your presentations and have interaction your audience directly, then Knovio is an excellent tool. This online video based presentation tool lets you add your video in a window adjacent to the main presentation. You are able to either read out the whole presentation for the audience or add explanations on selected points to boost the effectiveness of your presentations.

Knovio enables you to import existing PowerPoint presentations or create entirely new ones, and provides you all the basic designing and editing features required to create highly interactive presentations.

Tools #10: Oomfo


How to develop a presentation with oomph - use Oomfo!

Charts, charts along with other data illustration tools play a vital role in creating engaging presentations. Omfoo will help you create almost every type of chart and graph you have to increase the effectiveness of your presentations. You are able to create highly interactive and animated charts like Pareto, Design, Funnel, Marimekko Pyramid and some others, and connect them directly together with your presentations.

Friday, September 27, 2013

6 Reasons Every Small Business Should Be Blogging

We are amazed at the blog-reluctance of many small enterprises. I hear things like “I don’t have time for you to blog”, “blogging doesn't make sense inside my industry”, or even the dreaded “what the heck is really a blog? ”

The reality is in case your company provides unique products or services, you need to be blogging. (And if your company doesn't, you should consider a career change. )

Naturally , the overall return on investment on a blog will be different from business to business. But you will find 6 fundamental benefits to corporate blogging that should not possible be overlooked:


Reasons #1: Gain Visibility Like a Thought Leader 

Each thoughtful post on your blog is really a public demonstration of the thought leadership, personal integrity, humor, and professional ideas. You do not have to refute one of Einstein’s theories to obtain respect. For example, a long list of recent trends in your industry, or a a reaction to a recent news article can be extremely effective blogs.

Reasons #2: Engage Customers in a Conversation 

If you blog utilizing a solid blogging engine, readers will have the choice to comment on each article. Folks who discuss your blog may be sales leads, or they might just challenge or support your views. In either case, comments beget comments, and you may soon be at the center of the industry-relevant dialogue with customers and partners.

Reasons #3: Each and Every Blog Article is Definitely an SEO Opportunity 

The much-discussed “long tail” of search describes highly specialized, low-traffic search terms that represent a substantial amount of total searches. Translation: many of people are searching online for many of random things. You can’t realistically optimize your website for every long tail search term, you could certainly write blog posts targeting niche keyword phrases which are likely to draw highly qualified prospects. Like blog a reaction to a speaker within your vertical at a local tech conference. You might not draw much natural search traffic, but there exists a good chance your blog will rank well in the near future for searches like “vertical + conference + speaker & city”, and the ones visitors may be highly interested in your a reaction to the speech.

Reasons #4: Blogs are Link Lure 

Very few websites or bloggers will url to the “products and services” page on the corporate website. People don’t url to corporate advertisements. On the other hand, a great blog article is an industry-specific insight or perhaps a thoughtful critique. Blog articles garner links as they are interesting, informative, and never overly corporate or sales-focused. The benefit to you is the fact that more links means better search engine rankings and much more site traffic, which translates into more prospects.

Reasons #5: Humanize Your Brand Name 

Blogs offer an opportunity for a company to provide its insightful, helpful, thoughtful side. Via a blog, prospects will get a sense of the company’s people, culture, and vision. Blogs is an opportunity to provide a less antiseptic view of the company that is more personal and fewer “corporate”. Blogs can humanize your brand name.

Reasons #6: Online, Fresher Content = Better Web Site 
Google will periodically crawl websites searching for new and updated content. In general, it is advisable to have Google crawl your site as often as you can. Sites that get crawled more often convey more frequent updates and more authority. Blogging consistently ensures you will see fresh content on the site.

Despite these reasons why companies ought to be blogging, the same 2 objections surface again and again:

Objections #1: I Don’t Have Time for You to Blog 

The truth is you do not have time *not* to blog. You most likely already write blog articles, you simply don’t call them that. Blogs would be the new email newsletters. Most anything that could will end up in your newsletter can go in your blog. You are able to still send the information out via email, and readers can subscribe to your site to obtain posts via email. Portions of white papers may also make excellent blog articles. But a blog is preferable to a newsletter or perhaps a white paper because readers can join the debate and become positioned to respond to other “calls to action” you might place adjacent to or within posts. Additionally , readers will be able to navigate your blog to see older articles that would otherwise maintain a deleted newsletter or white paper. On top of that, each blog article you post will give you lasting benefit because it is a web page which can be optimized, indexed, and drawing natural search traffic for you personally ad infinitum.

Additionally , quality blogging engines support multiple authors, so more than one leader within your organization can post articles. This takes stress off any one individual. And remember that the good blog post might just draw a parallel between 2 or 3 recent articles, or suggest an explanation for any puzzling industry phenomenon. A good article need not be a PhD thesis.

Objections #2: Imagine If My Customers Get Out What I’m Thinking? 
Some professionals don’t such as the idea of blogging since it means relinquishing control over some elements of the organization brand. A blog is less formal than a pr release or an official marketing message, and also the comments left by readers cannot be predicted. The idea here is… bad! In today’s world, consumers have access to a large number of opinions about your brand, and a large number of articles, commentaries, product reviews, etc. which will certainly impact the buying decision. The idea that you are able to control exactly how your brand is going to be perceived or keep consumers at nighttime is outdated. The truth is the best choice is to engage customers within an honest, open dialogue. Be confident that transparency is the greatest policy, and customers will reward your inocencia.

A final thought, get out there and blog!

by Jonah Lupin

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

5 Essential Web Analytics Tips for Smart Online Marketing

During the past, marketers were always searching for useful data—analytics data that could justify the dollars (and time) spent advertising promoting their product or service. But now, there is certainly often an over-abundance of information. It’s everywhere—web, mobile, social, offline and so on So where do you start? What should you do with the data? Listed below are 5 fundamental analytic truths you can follow to help you get where you want to be.

Tips #1: Think People and Process, Not Just Technologies

How do you measure ALL the data you might have coming in? Well, besides the analytics tools (as we all appear to be obsessed with technology), it’s important to possess the people and process in place too. Understand how, and when, to bring in (or build) an electronic analytics team. From there, develop a measurement arrange for each of your marketing initiatives. This plan ought to be outcome-focused, and should include input from the various stakeholders to understand what matters to them. Like your digital marketing manager would be thinking about metrics for example visits by campaign, user interactions (engagement), conversions, and perhaps repeat customer behavior. Your support manager, however, is probably not interested in some of the above. They want to know if those browsing support portal are finding answers for their questions quickly, so KPIs for example issue resolution time would be required for them. Take some time and care to thoroughly understand your stakeholders’ measurement needs. ASSOCIATED TUTORIAL: How you can Create a Data-Driven Culture


Tips #2: Segmentation - Do or Pass Away

Today, there’s more to data than just count pageviews (yes, many organizations unfortunately still report on complete pageviews and overlook all the non-pageview interactions for example video, downloads and rich media). Today’s analytics platforms for example Google Analytics, MixPanel, Flurry and others, are extremely powerful and allow us the ability to exceed simplistic hit collection, and also dive into rich data and patterns. It is simple to report and derive insights with visitor segmentation, have quick presence into buyer or non-buyer behavior, group content by asset kind, measure gated or ungated content consumption, and relatively very easily any cohort analysis. These are just a few views that may be utilized when segmenting your data. There are numerous ways to slice and dice the data to assist you gain the most beneficial insights on the visitors. Just find those that best suit your requirements.

Tips #3: Gone Would be the Visits - It’s All About the Visitors

System this data readily available, we have to look beyond visit-based (or session-based) analytics to some more user-centric view. Again, the analytics platforms today supply the means to examine the whole visitor experience and user cycle. Explore data for example where visitors originated from, what course they took between pages while on your site, and where they spent probably the most (or least) time during their visit and then in two or three visits later they converted and become customers. With this particular information, you’re able to gain increased understanding of visitors and how they interact with your content through the entire buying cycle. And, for the marketing ninja’s available, bringing offline visitor interaction into the mix is not really beyond reach nowadays.

Tips #4: Optimize The Most Important

As we mentioned earlier, it’s beyond the time of just tracking click-thrus or pageviews. You now want to optimize conversions on the everything digital. Take it one notch higher and optimize within the Lifetime Value of a customer. Put into place a method that gives you the capability to measure behavior and interaction across multi-devices and multiple channels with regard to (most) users which come from mobile, web, etc. By tracking by doing this, you’ll have a more complete view showing how each visitor interacts with your business an entire.

Tips #5: Deriving Insights Can not be Done in Vacuum

You’ll maximize the return on gathering, reporting as well as analyzing data, if you choose so consistently. Commit to the process and create a list of priorities along with a measurement “roadmap. ” Audit whatever you have periodically. Websites and mobile apps are constantly growing, so ensure your analytics implementation is in-line with such modifications. Then, save time (and frustration), and move through manual to automated reporting. Or else testing, it’s never too late! Pursue some quick wins and shine just like a star! Leverage data visualization tools such as Tableau and allow your stakeholders to have a clear road to insights.

Monday, September 23, 2013

5 Steps for Successful Social Media Marketing

Parenthetically you've gotten the approval to get your company associated with social media marketing and are ready to launch your time and efforts. How will you define success?
It is really an important question, because a large numbers of companies have jumped into social media with no clear business strategy. Before the financial meltdown from the last few weeks, some companies had the resources to realize social media without worrying about financial accountability. Great, most businesses must demonstrate an ROI on any new work.

Actually the lack of good metrics is cited since the biggest barrier to marketers' adoption of social networking. Particularly within this shaky financial climate, measuring impact is among the definitive measures of the marketing strategy's value. If you wish to skip the blind experimentation, particularly consideringg our current global financial crisis, we've assembled a listing of 5 tips to help you start leveraging social networking with minimal investment and with strong systems in position to measure success.

Steps #1: Identify Your Own Target Audience and Listen to Them

The initial step to measuring success in social internet marketing is proper scope. There are new social support systems popping up each week. From the waste of resources to join every new social network just to find you have no time to manage them. Discover where your most active customers & influencers spend some time online - then listen and take notes.

Here is some tools you may use to tune in to the conversation: Technorati, Google Blog Search, Ice Explode, Bloglines, Twitter Search, AideRSS as well as HubSpot's HubFeed. More complex social networking monitoring tools include Radian6 and Techrigy.

Steps #2: Get Involved with Conversations

The second thing you want to do when success is consistently utilizing social media to engage potential customers. When you start listening to conversations, you may hear some things with regards to your company that aren't very complimentary. That's ok. Your work now is to engage these customers and find a method to help. Be willing to acknowledge mistakes once they happen. Customers are surprisingly forgiving if a company partcipates in an honest and egoless manner.

If you're among the lucky companies who only has enthusiastic and happy customers, identify their wish to interact with you and be generous together with your time. Be open to engaging with them on the turf. They'll reward your brand with greater enthusiasm - that is a message that spreads through social support systems like wildfire, and solidifies your brand.

For example, on Twitter both Starbucks and Whole Foods share customer remarks, local specials, and inquire customers what their favorite goods are. It's casual and open, yet subtly attracts the attractiveness of the brand. Check out a few of the brands on Twitter, and implement a selection of their conversation techniques.

Steps #3: Give! Provide! Give!

How involved is the team in communicating with potential customers, influencers and current customers on online communities? How often are you publishing great content in order to your prospects do their jobs? How often would you blog, Tweet, post photos on Flickr, discuss other blogs, Podcast, upload videos, etc? The greater content that you produce and publish on online communities, the more traffic you can attract returning to your website. If your site is designed well for converting visitors into leads, these activities can help you increase sales.

Steps #4: Learn the Various Tools of the Industry

"Social media strategy should tie to business and conversation strategy, instead of being based on the available tools. But it is not really possible to develop a social media strategy without a minimum of having an understanding of the various tools that are offered, their functionality and purposes, and the types of audiences and conversations for which they might be suitable. " - Joel Postman, Principal Socialized PUBLIC RELATIONS

It's critical to tie your business technique to your social media strategy. However, without a understanding of what social media and social networking sites allow you to do, it's hard to know how to do this. It's important to establish a blog as the home base. Then, learn the capabilities of every site to help you interact. Like Twitter provides an almost unfettered ability to interact with your prospective clients. But, it only enables you to type 140 characters at a time. Therefore maybe a video posted to youtube might be a better way to build a "how-to". Linkedin & Facebook allow you to see who your contacts know. But, facebook can make it much easier to connect with them. LinkedIn Answers is really a much better place to answer business focussed questions than every other social network.

It's important to learn to use these sites to get business value out of your social networking activity. Talk to an expert to determine where you can spend your time for the most powerful return.

Steps #5: Use Website Analytics Software Program to Measure Leads and Sales

Many experts concur that social networking will affect the next generation of seo techniques as search engines start to make use of the signals we collectively leave once we network and share media online. Even today, social networking activity affects the success of a number of other inbound marketing techniques:


  • Website positioning
  • Social bookmarking action
  • Social networking cable connections
  • Video/podcast views/listens
  • Backlinks
  • RSS subscriptions
  • Comments on the blog
  • Mentions of your brand name
  • Number of times people search for your own brand name
  • Visitors (first-time and repeat)
  • Prospects & Customers!

The finish goals is lead generation and sales. But, there are many leading indicators as you ramp improve efforts.

Use tracking codes, a good analytics package and closed loop marketing to be able to track the visits, leads and sales that occur due to your social media activities.

by Peter Caputa

Sunday, September 22, 2013

Content Marketing VS SEO

Recently, I’ve written many posts about how exactly creating effective content is a great way to boost the traffic on a website and boost sales. Still as content marketing becomes very popular among web marketers, there appears to be some confusion about whether or not SEO could be ignored with a good content marketing strategy. I needed to take the time to add my opinion within the matter and maybe clarify any misconceptions.

There seems to be a growing contingent who believe that Content Advertising SEO may be like the Lannisters and Starks from Game of Thrones—two rival sides which force individuals to choose one or the other. Fortunately, which is completely untrue; it is not just choosing one or the other. Each goes together like peanut butter and jelly.


Regardless of how popular content marketing becomes, because of the way the two concepts intertwine, SEO is not really going away. SEO and content marketing are simply the same thing. A good content marketing plan requires most of the same concepts and practices that are associated with SEO. In fact, you could declare content marketing really is SEO.

When fashioning any sort of marketing piece, be sure to maintain the SEO practices in mind. Having this content get high ranking in search results will help bring in potential customers along with any efforts you make internally to market the information.

Think about it, exactly how effective/relevant is the content if the potential audience isn’t seeing it? This is where SEO makes the picture. The most obvious example of this really is with keywords. The keywords utilized in content marketing are essential to both the target audience and to search engines like Google. Remember this when you’re putting together blogs, videos, reviews or any other kind of content designed for your customers. All these pieces possess some sort of text associated with them. Are the appropriate keywords in the title and any description from the content. A nice trick would be to insert some links pointing at the website. High-quality websites like YouTube along with other industry-focused websites will help improve the search rankings of the website.

In order for a content marketing strategy to be successful, it should contain a few of the same basic principles of SEO. Such as the appropriate keywords and backlinks ensure that these two essential areas of an online marketing campaign will help make a website to its highest potential.

Perhaps you have integrated content marketing into your SEO plan? Inform us in the comments section below.

Friday, September 20, 2013

Home Page is the Most Vital Part of Your Website

Almost everyone’s got a website these days, and one of the most important parts of yours is the homepage – It serves as the virtual front door to your business and gets the lion’s share of your visitors. To help roll out the welcome mat, here’s an infographic breakdown of the elements every successful business homepage should include.


Sunday, September 15, 2013

Organic Traffic is the Mother of All Web Traffic

The biggest share by far of website visits come from search.

Enterprise level SEO company Conductor recently conducted research of 30 large websites across six industries to judge the sources of their inbound web traffic over the 1 year period. They analyzed over 310 million visits and located that, overall, organic search was responsible for nearly half of all visits.

Traffic Resources
The sources of traffic tenderize into six categories:

Organic search - the primary, natural search results, as distinct from PPC (pay per click) advertisements Direct visits - where visitors typed in the web site domain address in the address bar of their web browsers Referral visits - where visitors followed links from other sites Paid search - from PPC ads in the internet search engine Social media visits - from posts in online communities like Facebook, Youtube, Twitter, Google+ etc.

Here’s the Breakdown:
Search: 47%
Direct visits: 29%
Referral appointments: 15%
Paid search (PPC) visits: 6%
Social networking visits: 2%


Tricks

There are a few reasons to consider when it comes to what this means for the business.
1 – They are large company websites. The small companies the proportion of social networking visits is likely to be larger, but is extremely dependent on how active a given company is in social networking.
2 – Organic searches done on mobile phones running iOS6 and higher and Android 4 and higher could hardly be captured. If they happen to have been included, the organic search share would most definitely have been greater than 50%.
3 – There have been some quite significant differences by industry therefore the overall proportions may well be different for the business. See the report by Conductor to have an industry breakdown.

How does traffic to your website compare with this? Let us know within the comments below.

Saturday, September 14, 2013

SEO Basic Knowledge for Social Media

Social networking SEO has become an important factor with changes to internet search engine algorithms. SEO has been a fundamental portion of digital marketing for a long period now. However, internet search engine algorithms now look for pages and blogs shared on different social media networks and the amount of shares that they get.


Basics #1: What is Social Networking SEO

Social media SEO integrates your activities on the website with those on the networking communities. This integrated activity provides search engines for example Google Search a holistic view of the business and allows these to judge your credibility. Shares, Tweets, Likes, as well as Clicks all equal to pushing your blog posts higher up the search engine results.

Basics #2: Why You Require It

The Panda and Penguin updates now give much more weight age to social signals associated towards the page than traditional SEO techniques. Similarly, the brand new Google Search features rank higher the pages which are shared by people in your Google Plus circles. However it is not only about search engine algorithms. Individuals are spending more time on social networks and thus search for information using social search interfaces for example Facebook Search and Twitter Hashtags. In addition , the voluntary connection between friends and acquaintances also the actual suggestions by connections more believable and honest than the usual sponsored ad on the page. You need to create a strong social presence that will give you the exposure you will need and drive traffic to your website to profit from these new dynamics.

Basics #3: Create Profiles and Make a Network

To ensure that search engines like Google receive your post signals from social media, you first have to have personal and business profiles across different networks. Your company sector should guide your decision to select the right networking communities. However, you should have profiles on the search engines Plus, LinkedIn, and Facebook to begin your social networking SEO campaign. Participate in groups and communities to create a network, which in turn will share you with other members.

Basics #4: Share Topics

Although Facebook and Linkedin tend to be more popular, Google Search is still the leader in the major search engines and the driving force behind many other search engines like Google. Google Plus, obviously, is considered the most important network for Google Search. Share you on your Plus profile and also on the Google business page. The same goes for search with Facebook. Facebook’s Graph Search shows results that the friends have liked. Sharing posts on these networks can help them rank your posts and pages up in search engine results. Your website is crawled in a predetermined rate by Search engines, still a Twitter feed is crawled a lot more frequently than websites. Make sure that you share you on Twitter regularly.

Basics #5: Expert Talk

Cheryl Conner of Snapp Conner PR shares some fascinating tips about how you can ease into using social media to enhance your SEO efforts. However, she rightly warns it won’t happen overnight and that you need to view it as a long-term, continuous activity. Integrated marketing also needs a large amount of tweaks to your website. Things can be very easy if you are a WordPress user and also have SEO by Yoast attached to your WordPress website. Joost de Valk explains ways to make use of the WordPress plugin’s features to optimize your WordPress site for social search engine optimization.

Thursday, September 12, 2013

Content Marketing Game: The True Challenge

The era of content marketing is here now as companies understand the need to be located online, effectively communicate their message and engage using their target market(s).

However after content is generated, do you know how you can market it effectively to your audience? The truth is, for content generation to be effective, you will need people to see your content. If you create value for your target market, they are going to return the favor and without hesitation, spread the term.

Brands should position themselves as knowledgeable and professional sources. It’s about building trust and positioning your brand being an leader in the market, saying something unique/of value and sharing other relevant information (and not only your own).

For additional advice, take a look at 5 Tools to Help with Social networking Management.

The Content Marketing infographic below was developed by Fisher Vista for SocialEars.


Tuesday, September 10, 2013

9 Important Tips: How You Shouldn't Use Google+ Button

I’ve been spending a substantial amount of time on Google Plus lately. I understand, I’m geeking out. But it’s quickly becoming the best social media platform these days. It’s an incredible method to meet new people, connect with potential customers, and deepen relationships with your consumers – and much more than on most social sites.



I understand a lot of businesses don’t quite get it. This is a huge site, and there’s always news being added (hey, it’s Google). The particular features that are on it have a lot depth, lots of businesses just don’t have you a chance to learn them all – and actually make use of them.

That said, I keep seeing plenty of mistakes by companies – large and small, being created over and over again. I thought I’d provide you with a rundown of these – so you won’t need to make them!

Listed below are 9 top mistakes on Google+

Mistakes #1: Not Completing Your User profile

Set up a business page in case you using Google+ for your company. It will help your SEO!

It’s really easy to setup a company page on Google+. It’s much like making a business Page on Facebook in that you must have a personal G+ to create a business site, you categorize your business, provide a location (ah – VERY important for Google Places) and so forth.

It’s ok to publish as yourself too, but make sure your company increased on the site. Otherwise, you miss the chance to link back to it, reference it, is to do all those kinds of things to raise your company profile, and SERP (search engine results page) position.

When you’re making your company profile:

  • Don’t miss the chance the business keywords within your tagline and introduction.
  • Google gives you the chance to include all your other social site links. Utilize it.
  • Include your website, and location (particularly for those who have a bricks and mortar store).

All this works to give you better SEO, available, and it makes you more marketable for your customers, as you describe your company.

Here’s an example of an organization on GooglePlus that have messed this up. They didn’t complete their introduction, or even location. Their tagline does clue you in as to of their business -but they missed the opportunity to communicate trust with their market, and give information on many (with those lovely searchable keywords).



They have to include who they are, the actual provide, buying their wares, and where they are (particularly when they don’t have online sales).

Occurs profile to market your company. Describe your products or service. The location. You’ll get available on both G+ and – Search engines.

Don’t mess this up!

Mistakes #2: Keyword Stuffing Your User profile

Do you hate this as much a I actually do? Don’t stuff your G+ profile with keywords only. This can not enable you to get ranked higher for SEO.

Keyword stuffing is really a really old marketing trick. But it just doesn’t is not the best way to go with Google’s semantic search anymore.

Google’s semantic lookup is really a super huge, complex technical process. (Like, I could imagine a large number of super brilliant math and tech people dedicating their every waking moment in order to search increasingly better for you and me. ) However in a nutshell, Google’s semantic search is attempting to rank pages for his or her consumers (yes, Google has customers too – me and you – and everyone), based on the highest quality, and relevant content. Google’s current (and ever evolving) lookup, type of ‘reads’ your articles, and sorts it for search.

Stuffing your own profile with keywords like: “wedding dresses, bridal gowns, wedding dresses” is not really cool anymore. Google reads this like those would. It’s spam.

Write for the customers, using your natural descriptions. Take notice of the details you provide, and include an array of your product names, or services. Your consumers will be thankful – and Google will too.

Mistakes #3: Utilizing a Bad Cover Image

Ever before, Google+ had a design makeover. Among the significant changes included a bigger cover image.

You can’t load a protective cover image that’s under the minimum 480 pixels wide by 270 pixels high. It is far better to use something closer to the utmost 2120 x 1192 pixels, so your image is going to be clear. Also, make sure your image scales towards the right dimensions, and you take the location of the profile image into account.

Don’t choose a cover image grainy. Don’t make use of a poorly proportioned image. Don’t make use of a badly placed image. Don’t use a cover like here:


Have got the talent in-house, as well as money to outsource it – get creative and create your cover image something to talk about. Take a look at cool examples like GE.

Mistakes #4: Not Using Groups

Google plus allows you to segment the folks you follow. For businesses, this means you are able to send out targeted posts to targets circles of connections you might have. Yes, pretty cool.

You are able to, like generate Circles for: in-store customers; online customers; spouses; industry leaders; business friends; peers; and so on


Make sure you use them. After which, make sure you make use of them well.

Write targeted updates to send in order to targeted groups. Like Whole Foods frequently posts different updates linking towards the same blog post on their website. If they happen to have their Circles set up, they could obtain a bit more clever. They might actually direct their various G+ posts specific, targeted markets.

This update for their blog post about strawberry recipes, could be specific for a ‘Customer’ circle, for instance:


This update with “Got strawberries? ” might be given to ‘Public’ and ‘Extended Circles’ (‘Extended Circles’ gets your updates posted in order to Circles of the Circles).



They might make other updates too, to send in order to ‘Suppliers’, and every other targeted groups.

Using Circles can extend the life span of your updates (and blog posts), and may your them to resonate better with all of your segmented connections.

Mistakes #5: Spamming Your Groups

Circles are a great way to target you to achieve your targeted consumers. Don’t overuse or abuse all of them.

Like let’s say one of your Circles is relatively small , and close-knit. It may be an business association (like the Chamber of Commerce) you are part of, or even co-workers. Don’t post your update for them AND send them an email to notify those within your Circle with regards to your recent post:



Like on Facebook, Google offers algorithms so that posts get seen in your People’s news feed. The e-mail option lets you make sure an essential post will reach the Circles you will need it to (like to customers, if you’re posting in regards to a social contest marketing strategy, for example).

(Another cool thing about delivering your G+ via email is you can select individuals in your Circles to send a message to. If, for example, you +mention a market leader in your blog post, you can send a message to them directly, and to several of your coworkers or good customers.)

However – don’t over-use this function! It’s particularly annoying in case your Circles never have asked you for continual updates! It’s junk e-mail.

Mistakes #6: Posting No More than Your Product

If you’re using Google+, and you also understand enough to be onto it regularly – you’ll know not to do this social networking faux pas.

Social media is about getting together with your customers, networks and clients. People despise to hangout with people who only discuss themselves. The same holds true about getting updates from companies that are only posting about themselves.

Remember the 80/20 guideline in social networking? 80% of your posts ought to be about lifestyle, customers and stuff besides you; 20% should be about you as well as your products.

This really is called engagement.

I enjoy pick on real estate agents with this one. They are kind of notoriously bad at social internet marketing. Here’s a great example of how to not post:


I would really think realtors knows better, given the emotional sale involved in purchasing a home. Why don’t they get that social online is similar to social offline? They’re still selling for their clients when they’re using social networking.

This posting could have been written something similar to:

“Have you ever wanted the luxurious lifestyle associated with having a cool dip in your luscious backyard pool between the privacy of full grown palms?

With 7 bedrooms and 3 full bathrooms, this might be the one for you.

Set me loose on your this Sunday, July 28 to have an exclusive look…. 598 Northeast 56 Saint., Miami”

(Instead of tagging it along with “pool” tag it with “Miami” “luxuryhomes”, and so on )

It’s social media, as well as your customers want more of your mouth. Don’t just post your product on Google+, after which be disappointed whenever you haven’t sold anything.

Mistakes #7: Ignoring Negative Remarks

Another big no-no is not addressing negative comments on the posts. Bad comments will happen. It’s a forum, and not everyone is going to accept you, or even like what you are.

As a business, it’s essential that you keep monitoring all of your social sites. You have to judge how to respond to comments on the updates. It’s important to pay attention to your customer, right? You need to show which you do this. Address of great importance to your negative commentators quickly and smartly to prevent an escalation of negative feelings communicate business.

For example, if it is

  • a complaint about a product, keep these things email you so you can consider their specifics.
  • a negative comment with regards to your company, try to address their particular issues, to show it into a positive.
  • a nasty comment with regards to your post, try to communicate.

Ultimately, you may not have the ability to please the commenter, also it may go unresolved. That’s ok – so long as you’ve actually attempted to listen. (If it’s an inappropriate comment – delete this, but I’d attempt to tell the commenter first – not doing so can result in even more PR trouble for you…)

Mistakes #8: Not Joining Interests

Communities are a huge part of why is G+ great. Find communities that match your business niche, and join in.

Communities were introduced on Google+ at the end of 2012. They were kind of a reply to Facebook groups, and also to Twitter #hashtag communities, and perhaps LinkedIn groups. Google+ Communities are growing quickly, and is incredibly engaging. Basically, they are a method to find your niche interests online, and connect to them.

To find Communities, click “Communities” in the left drop box:


Google will give you tips about Communities to join (based on your G+ updates), you might as well search for relevant groups.

You will find Communities from Accountants on G+ to Z’s Proxy Factory, as well as everything between.


Oh yeah, and if you actually can’t find your niche community yet – you may make your own and invite followers to join. There are a great number of commercial enterprise groups, though (like Entrepreneurs, Self-Employed & Commercial enterprise, Small Business, and Social networking Trends for Small Business). So even though you’re not finding your customers, join several business related ones – start to network, and you also never truly know where those connections will lead you.

Should you be not using Communities, you’re missing out on an incredible way to connect with your customer online. Make use of them!

But do not abuse them by only posting spam, in support of about yourself. Engage, share others’ posts, opinion. Treat Communities just like a networking breakfast, or trade show. These will be your customers! Give them respect and interest, and they'll likely reciprocate!

Mistakes #9: Posting Without Remarks

Last, but not least, I must mention this pet peeve! Do not post a hyperlink – and not include at least a short comment!

Not only does this cause you to look thoughtless, these posts have low engagement. Posting a fix with no introduction gives no motivation to see it, let alone +, share or discuss.


To be successful in social networking, you need to make the effort. Post with something interesting to express!

**Bonus Mistake: Without Having a G +1 Button

Performs this one go without saying!?! Make sure that your product pages, blog post pages, website along with other other relevant landing pages have an simple to click G +1 button!


If you do not have one, get the +1 Button now.

Make it prominent within the pages you want shared on this massive social network site.

Conclusion

Very good reading. Now you don’t have to create these mistakes yourself, right?

Exactly what do you think? Do you use Google+ for the business? What mistakes perhaps you have seen? Share them in the comments.

Sunday, September 8, 2013

Saturday, September 7, 2013

23 Proven Content Marketing Strategy to Explode Your Blog/Website with Organic Traffic

“If jots down great content, people will discover it." 

While that’s certainly an idyllic considered a world in which marketers can just concentrate on creating outstanding content, it’s simply not accurate anymore.

Over 2 million blogs are published to the web every day. Call it a time of abundance, information obesity, as well as content arms race, however that it’s much harder than it was once to build a group.

Start-up expert Neil Patel recently stated that article marketing is only half the battle – the remainder is gaining notice. Because of the increasing weight of social signals in SEO rankings, social submission can also be a precursor to gaining the search rankings you will need for organic traffic. That being said, there’s an even finer line between effective content promotion and alienating your potential audience when you are a spammer.

Reach Your Tipping Stage

If you’re facing the challenge of building a brand new site’s authority and audience from the ground up, initial weeks of content promotion can feel positively pointless and annoying. Be assured, you will gain momentum, but it does take time and a willingness to pay for your dues. Leading author Malcolm Gladwell wrote concerning the idea of a tipping point: “the levels where the momentum for change become unstoppable. ” When correctly carried out, your articles promotion will reach a tipping point where your audience starts to do the legwork for you. Visitors will share on the social channels and link to your content on the blog, you’ll become more good at converting subscribers, as well as your social influence will grow:


Once your site gains momentum, you’ll become a lean machine that is able to utilize your content assets to generate social networking followers, email subscribers, and high search engine rankings. In order to help you turn your company blog into an authoritative website, we've curated content promotion tips to boost your strategy:

Strategy #1: Earn Your Right to Distribute

The initial step toward any content promotion strategy ought to be gaining the respect of the audience. Marketer Steve Weller recommends delaying the promotion of the content, to instead focus on curating excellent stuff. Once you've built a group who’s listening, begin sharing your personal work, but avoid exceeding more than 20-30% of your content as posts.

Inbound marketing agency Click Brand names does a superb job of balancing their own content promotion having a high ratio of sharing other people’s work, and wedding:


Strategy #2: Post Often

Simply Tweeting several times daily can cause your messages getting lost among others, while posting 24 / 7 can alienate followers. Leo Widrich advises posting 5-10 Twitter posts, and 1-4 Facebook posts daily, primarily between 8am as well as 8pm.

While guidelines indicate that the majority of engagement occurs throughout the day, it’s critical to do your own research within the best times for content promotion. Numerous factors can affect what works optimally for the company, including the schedules and social networking usage habits of your followers. Do not post a lot more than every 1-2 hours to prevent overwhelming your followers’ feeds. Digital marketing agency Couch will do a congrats of spreading their Tweets out:



To switch on your content promotion efforts, explore our blog article within the Best Twitter Scheduling Tools.

Strategy #3: Get Interesting Excerpts

Don’t solely depend on sharing titles to promote your content on social networking. Jay Baer recommends using interesting excerpts to improve your re-tweets and shares, for example quotations and statistics. Social Media Today recently promoted a piece from their network with a power stat, rather than the full title:


Stats and quotes really are a powerful and effective way to earn more re-tweets simply because they work as a self-contained message. You’re effectively offering value to followers without requiring them to click through, that makes them more receptive for your content promotion.

Strategy #4: Post Pictures Individually

Upload images separately when posting content to Myspace, that can be proven to increase engagement by 46%. When sharing info-graphics, consider showing some of the image. The anatomy from the perfect Facebook post is illustrated below:


Our brain processes images 60, 000 times faster than textual content. Targeted and attention-grabbing images, or pictures with text overlaid, can be noticeable and capture attention within a busy Facebook page.

Strategy #5: Depends on Social Insights

Your content promotion strategy should depend on feedback, and adjust according to metrics. Not every data will inform, but Douglas Karr writes that this following measures can allow you to definitely reach your tipping point:

  • Keep a detailed Eye on Real-Time Market Mood to Identify Content Promotion Possibilities 
  • Determine the Interests of the Followers, Customers and Potential customers 
  • Monitor Your Competition’s Social Strategy to Improve Your Own Strategy 

Strategy #6: Have Real Dialogue

People could be more receptive to your content promotion efforts when they see you’re willing to engage with these questions way that’s a little deeper than “Thanks for your share! ” Include commentary whenever you promote other’s content, and take time to ask thoughtful questions on other people’s blogs. We couldn’t assist but like it when content marketer Michael Campos didn’t just state “thanks! ” but took you a chance to share his ideas on the Writtent blog:


Strategy #7: Limelight the Folks Who Make Your Content Possible

In case you quote someone, be sure to inform them, and provide opportunities for the readers to follow-up, too. Our blog article, Innovative Marketing Ideas from 10 Great Thought Leaders, includes the Tweet handle for every amazing marketer who we spotlighted, that is shown below:


Strategy #8: Try Really Market Systems

Gentlemint, a Pinterest-style website focused on “manly things? ” CafeMom, a residential area for Mothers? As social expert Rachel Sprung highlights, the right niche network could remove any have to target your content promotion efforts. To discover the networks which could become a potential goldmine for content promotion, interview your present customers about their social networking usage. Whether they’re using Quora or Meetup. net, begin a profile and begin posting updates within the niche network.

Strategy #9: Curate Considerately

People love being promoted by others, which explains why curation can be among the most effective types of content promotion. Weekly news posts have grown to be a highly-effective tool for driving traffic, generating interest, as well as connecting with new readers.

To start creating your own round-up posts, keep a detailed eye on your The rss feeds and favorite blogs to curate probably the most interesting and relevant content published each week. Give a clear link to the information and short commentary on why it’s worth the read. Make sure to notify each blog you spotlight having a Tweet or email to maximize your possibility of content promotion.


Strategy #10: Take Advantage of Hashtags

When used properly, hashtags aren’t a way for spammy content promotion. They’re a tool to focus on the right people by allowing your content to become categorized. As Steve Cooper highlights in Forbes, using hashtags like a tool for joining and participating in conversations (as in opposition to trying to boost the chances your links is going to be clicked) can be a powerful maneuver.

A newly released Tweet from marketing automation specialists Kuno Creative displayed an ideal balance of readability and Twitter search optimization:


Their own content promotion can gain more exposure when you are primed for search by individuals looking for insights on social networking or Facebook marketing. By limiting their hashtag use for two tags, and capitalizing the first letter of every word in the hashtags (a concept referred to as camel case), the content continues to be easy-to-read for followers.

Strategy #11: Become To Need to Be

Did you know the typical social networking user only maintains two profiles? Or that, based on Mashable, many just stick to one? In case your brand’s ideal buyer persona isn’t especially tech-savvy or thinking about much besides Facebook, it may be much wiser to really focus your efforts on the right network. Discover which network your clients prefer spending time on, and ensure your presence on that platform is as robust as you can.

Strategy #12: Put in Doubt

Your content promotion strategy will quickly fizzle in case your fans figure out you aren’t willing to listen, tend to be just hoping to be heard. Dedicate posts asking questions, along with sharing links. Belinda Little defined three following kinds of queries:

  • Pure Fan Engagement: Which sports group are you currently cheering for within this weekend’s big match? What New Year’s resolutions did you choose or break this year? Inquire about sports, career, weekend plans, or everything else to simply spark conversation.
  • Market Research: Could you try a Peppermint Cappuccino? How often do you purchase a new pair of shoes? Being strategic about what anyone asks can yield insights on the prospects.
  • Company Assessment: What do you believe of our own website redesign? Should our next flavor be caramel or chocolates the sea salt? Be direct with your prospects, and ask for his or her feedback about your cool product, Facebook cover photo, or idea.

Starbucks started some serious engagement (while promoting their goodies products) within a recent question to Facebook fans:


Strategy #13: Guest Post More Regularly

You don’t have to land a guest post on Social networking Examiner or Eloqua to see noticeable leads to SEO and referral traffic. A HubSpot example revealed 60, 000 new visitors from search within six months of publishing 28 quality guest posts, simply by targeting medium-sized blogs.

Identify websites having a mission and audience that closely match your personal, and pen a thoughtful pitch towards the blog manager. Include several ideas for content which will add value to their website, along with a short description of the concepts you aspire to cover in each article. For more insights approach take full advantage of the information promotion opportunity, check out our Exhaustive Instructions on Exceptional Guest Blogging.

Strategy #14: Write Much Better Article Titles

If you think like you’re stuck entirely, your titles would be to blame. In an analysis of two. 7 million blog articles, HubSpot’s social networking scientist Dan Zarrella found that 16.7% of webpages obtain more social shares than clicks; indicating that individuals don’t always read the actual Tweet, and great titles are critical. Using Portent’s totally free title generator could offer an amazing boost.

Strategy #15: Integrate Spreading Possibilities

The chance for receiving content promotion from readers may increase exponentially in case you integrate sharing opportunities. Optimization Group is only one of several brands who do period round-ups of “Tweetable stats” along with one-click social sharing for every statistic spotlighted, that is illustrated below:


Strategy #16: Buy a Few Hyperlinks

We’re definitely not suggesting you head to Fiverr and buy a boatload of irrelevant links to your website, that will probably get you banned from appearing online search entirely. Sponsoring local sports teams, events as well as non-profit organizations can generate links and media attention which aren’t naturally sketchy. Feeling unsure? Rand Fishkin of SEOMoz condones the technique.

Strategy #17: Provide a Reward for Signing-Up

Building an army of engaged subscribers could make content promotion significantly easier. Carolyn Edgecomb of Impact Branding and Design advises content marketers to provide an exclusive offer just like a whitepaper or eBook to entice people to convert into subscribers.

Personal finance blogger Stacy Can make Cents provides a free eBook on budgeting and debt-free residing in exchange for subscribing to her updates, that is clearly displayed within the sidebar of her website:


Strategy #18: Develop and Utilize Your Email Listing

Patel’s research at QuickSprout and KissMetrics finds that email is the single most-effective channel to get readers to return to your website. Occurs email list sparingly, and consider offering the choice of a weekly blog digest to spotlight your very best new developments. Other ways to promote your articles via email could include:

  • Sending buyers guides as well as competitive comparisons to prospects.
  • Providing exclusive content offers in order to email subscribers.
  • Sharing tutorials approach get the most from your service or product with new clients.

Strategy #19: Create Pinnable Pictures

Pinterest is too big of a social networking network for almost any company to ignore. Should you be offering a tutorial, guide, or other helpful content which could thrive on the network, create images which are pin-ready by including descriptive text along with a branded watermark.

As well as lifestyle blog Six Sisters Stuff perfectly enhanced a recipe post with regard to Pinterest by including bold, easy-to-read text primed to be noticeable within a busy feed:


Strategy #20: Don’t Disregard Reddit

It’s controversial and naturally includes content that’s unsafe for work, but Reddit is an underutilized source of content promotion. Averaging around 71 million unique visitors month-to-month, it’s crucial for marketers to become engaged on the network instead of just posting links, due to the role a user’s “reputation” score plays within the network. At last count, there have been around 5,400 unique forums (known as “subreddits”), therefore select the arenas that are the most highly relevant to your topic. Choose the option to “submit a brand new link. ”


Fresh content is the best on Reddit, so it’s best to curb your content promotion to highly relevant and interesting topics. Enroll in the Subreddit community and comment on other’s posts create  your reputation points.

Strategy #21: Syndicate Your Articles

Handing over rights for networks to republish and disperse your articles can be a free, easy method to achieve some serious content promotion, so long as you’re particular about where you’re prepared to syndicate. For an in-depth look at the benefits and drawbacks of syndication and networks accepting contributors, take a look at our article How to Triple Your Audience and Leads With Content Syndication.

Strategy #22: Utilize Interests

LinkedIn Groups and Google+ Communities could be a powerful tool for highly targeted content promotion. Remember that several groups have strict rules against spamming or just posting links, and focus on as being a community-member, not a marketer while you’re within their space.

For both LinkedIn and Google+ group marketing, remember to find groups that best suit your niche. Join town, and carefully read guidelines to find out any rules about content promotion. Begin a new discussion by asking questions, attach the hyperlink, and invite people to participate in the topic. In the following example through the Milwaukee HubSpot User Group, the poster outlines clear value for their group members to spark engagement:



Strategy #23: Sign up for HARO

“Help a reporter out” is really a subscription-based online newsletter which connects experts with content marketers, reporters along with other media opportunities seeking sources. A fresh free resource, and thoughtful pitches often yield remarkable results which could range from significant media attention to links back to your articles.

How much time did your company dedicate to content promotion? Which methods perhaps you have found the most successful?
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