WebSite Marketing Strategy

With so many blogs out there it seems more and more difficult to keep with them all. Blogs pop up everyday discussing various new things and touching upon old news topics that from a different angle than its competitor. With so many blogs what do you do to stand out?

You can get up on your desk and kick and scream to get people to see your blog but you can creative with your writing. It is no surprise that search engines read words. They don’t care about how great your design is or how pretty those photos on your layout are. It doesn’t matter to a search engine that your blog is severely outdated design wise. A search engine is kind of like Pac Man, they run around eating and feeding off words. The better your copy and text is within your writing the better chance you have of being found by some searching. When I say this I don’t mean you have to be an English major for search engines to find you but rather tie in keywords and phrases specific to your industry in the title and body of your blog post. I know for many this creates a road block for creativity but unless you have a following you will find that you are the only one reading your blog and that doesn’t do anybody any good. When introducing your industry keywords and phrases into your writing style it is important to continue writing for humans first and search engines second other it will be difficult for readers to read through your posts. If readers have a hard time reading through your blog posts they will simply not return to read anymore. You have to take a quality approach when trying to optimize blog posts.

Remember that it doesn’t matter how pretty your blog looks in order to get traffic. It comes down to the writing and use of keywords to get search engines to find your posts. Once you have built up a following you can go back to getting creative with blog post titles and copy.

I was asked by my previous professor to come and speak to her class of graduate students at Golden Gate University about social media.  I spent about an hour talking through some basic definitions and also included more advanced topics like Forrester’s Social Technographic Ladder of Participation, the POST method, Robert Scoble’s Social Media Starfish and Rohit Bhargava’s 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization. The presentation was well received and some students even joined twitter; and I take full credit for that! I hope you enjoy the preso.

I was asked by my previous professor to come and speak to her class of graduate students at Golden Gate University about social media.  I spent about an hour talking through some basic definitions and also included more advanced topics like Forrester’s Social Technographic Ladder of Participation, the POST method, Robert Scoble’s Social Media Starfish and Rohit Bhargava’s 5 Rules of Social Media Optimization. The presentation was well received and some students even joined twitter; and I take full credit for that! I hope you enjoy the preso.

It’s different in every company and in my experience; the term “ownership” has negative connotations and is the cause for organizational conflict, hurt feelings and a decline in productivity.  This is one of the downfalls in working for a large company.

So, back to ownership … is it marketing, PR or the business units who are out there building community? I really don’t know and I really don’t care.  Implementing social media within in an organization requires a paradigm shift.  It requires employees at all levels – starting at the very top – to change their thinking and embrace online relationships; as well as the conversations that blossom.  It requires those who touch social media to communicate and share what they are doing internally. Working in organizational silos only harms the effort.

Maybe even asking this ownership question just fuels the fire; and maybe no one but those who actually participate in social media own the relationship.

More to come on this topic.  : )

With online marketing efforts it is important to remember that most things you do online will require patience and time. No matter what industry your are venturing into it is important to remember that online marketing is a building process and it will require more than just slapping up a blog post here and there to generate income or even traffic. Remember you need traffic to your blog before you can even think about monetizing your blog.

You have launched your blog and now you must create roads for your visitors to make it to your blog, aka links. It is just as important to link build your blog as it is your main website. You have to treat your blog like an entirely separate website sometimes in order for people to start landing on it. It is always important to use your industry’s keywords in your text and your titles in order for the search engines to get them ranking for your traffic to find you. It is important to realize that the launch of blog doesn’t equal the success of a blog. A blog is like a brand and it takes time and lots of hard work to really generate a true following. Unless you are an expert in your field or you have an established company and organization it will take some time for people to find you. Starting off by submitting your blog into directories like blog catalog will help you increase awareness and traffic but it will not be your final stop. Websites like this are only the beginning. It is important to write in your blog frequently and keep your material fresh, unique and witty. Nobody wants to feel like they are reading last week’s newspaper. I know that sometimes it gets difficult to reach for new editorial that will peak people’s interests but dig deep and brainstorm. Often times it is easy to resort to brainstorming on paper and trying to put together topics ahead of sitting in front of the computer and jotting down ideas for blog posts. This will keep you from stalling in front of the keyboard and staring aimlessly at your monitor trying to figure out what to write when it comes time to sitting down at your desk.

The moral of this story is to stay patient, keep your eye on the prize and keep writing witty and interesting optimized posts. Over time you will generate visitors and traffic but often times it takes months if not years.

And walk through life with their heads down as if those who participate in social media don’t really exist? I don’t get it. 

A few months back, Burson-Marsteller conducted a study that found that 15% of Fortune 500 companies communicate with people via corporate blogs.  Only 74 Fortune 500 companies actively maintain a blog! It’s almost criminal. Now of course, a corporate blog is just one tool in the overall social universe; but I wonder how many of the other 426 companies have some presence in social media. It doesn’t have to be a blog. It could be a twitter account, Facebook page or a community hosted on/off domain.  In my opinion, companies, brands, products – whatever you want to call it – have to participate in some way. And I am not just talking about the Fortune 500 either.

Here’s why:

A study back in June showed that 55% of consumers want ongoing conversations with companies and brands. The study investigated how brands and consumers interact and how consumers want brands to engage with them. And the results were awesome. In addition to the 55% wanting an ongoing interaction, 89% of respondents said they would feel more loyal to a brand if they were invited to take part in a feedback group.

A more recent study (you can download here) found that 85% of Americans using social media think companies should have an active presence in the social media universe. What’s even more interesting is that those users actually want interaction with these companies. Here are some other nuggets that might be useful.

Out of the 85% of people who want companies to be present in social media:

• 34% want companies to actively interact with them
• 51% want companies to interact with them as needed or by request
• 8% think companies should only be passively involved on social media
• 7% think companies should not be involved at all

More on customer service via social media:

• 43% would like to see companies offering customer service through social media
• 41% would like companies to solicit feedback
• 37% would like companies to provide new ways to interact with the brand via social media

While valid, these are just two studies with a bunch of numbers and percentages and don’t really mean anything.  I have experienced real situations in social media where, as a customer, I have had great interactions with companies and brands looking to build community and/or address customer support questions (see Twitter / Geek Squad case study). And even though they couldn’t fix my laptop, I have used their services since then and more importantly, I have told others about my positive experience.

And this is not an isolated incident. Savvy companies today are using social media to listen, talk, energize and build strong relationships with people. It’s happening everyday with companies like Dell and Zappos to name a few.

Companies cannot and should not be introverted and walk through life with their heads down.  They need to seek out every opportunity and every touch point to interact with their customers, especially in this new channel that we call social media.

My good friend and social media strategist, Reem Abeidoh, just interviewed me and my colleagues Tac Anderson (HP) and LaSandra Brill (Cisco) for a post she wrote on Pro Blogger. Here is an excerpt from the intro paragraph:

In order to maintain a competitive edge, corporations are increasingly looking for opportunities to make them stand out. Although traditional media serves as a solid medium that disperses company messaging to the world, the trends of information consumption are evolving. After some initial hesitancy, corporations are slowly starting to realize that it is important to jump on the virtual bandwagon of blogging. This medium represents the missing ingredient that traditional media lacks: the ability to directly connect a company to its customers.

I encourage you to read to entire article, as I am often quoted of course; and it is also well written, thorough and comprehensive. Reem does an excellent job articulating her words of wisdom with our interview answers.  Both Tac and LaSandra are also fellow contributors to Conversations Matter.

Many people start off conducting massive amounts of research online before doing anything. Launching a blog is definitely no exception to this rule. Conduct a search and you will find 50 self proclaimed “gurus” telling you what to do and what not to do. If you are new to this industry and are not sure who is real and who is sitting in their grandmothers basement stuck in one giant pipe dream you are not alone.

Conducting a search online on how to market your blog for someone new to online marketing could be disastrous to their health. If they turn their back with fright and run in the other direction I really don’t blame them. We all know how opinions go and everyone seems to have one these days. Feel free to take the names of the authors and do a search for them. What do you come up with? I bet more than half of them will come up with nothing worth talking about. A true guru will bring many years of experience and a great deal of information connected to their name. If you are launching a blog for the first time don’t worry and just take baby steps. You don’t need to sell your blog to Google in the first 6 months of launch. There is so much information out there on how you can monetize your blog but what it really comes down is bringing something unique to the table. Every topic has been written over and over so find a new twist. Take the information you find online in batches and try not to overwhelm yourself in the beginning. Create a folder and bookmark the posts that you feel you will benefit from. Slowly dissect this information pulling out pieces of information and then start to implement into your blog writing. If you try to learn it all too quickly you will drive yourself crazy, especially of online marketing has not been your cup of tea in the past. At least you have taken the first steps to people hearing you.

The emergence of blogs has allowed many individuals who have not been able to project their voice through their competition to quickly have a voice and also be heard. With the rise of the blog came an entire new industry along with it. Many people have different reasons for launching their blog. Someone just have way too much they want to get off their chest, some have a passion to talk about something they enjoy and some want to make money, quickly.

Many people are starting to realize that it has become much harder than expected to monetize their blogs. Launching a blog and offering some advertising space just doesn’t cut it. Even with massive amounts of traffic coming to your website it is still sometimes difficult to make money from your blog. When you launch a blog you have to keep in mind your goals. Blogs have become amazing tools of communication to stay in front of your audience through product announcements and other company information and news. If you are planning on launching a blog in an industry make sure you hold a special place in your heart for that industry and you plan on bringing some passion to your writing. If you lack the passion for your topic you WILL lose focus on your writing and your blog will end up suffering due to lack of interest in that field. This often times happens to individuals looking to launch a blog and make enough money to pay their mortgage by month’s end with it. It’s not going to happen so pick something you enjoy typing about.

You have to treat your blog like any other website. It takes time to mature and grow. You need to write and write and build a following of loyal clientele who will come to your website and read it daily. Watching your blog grow requires a tremendous amount of patience. I think many people looked at blogs like get rich quick schemes. They do not work that way. With so many blogs being created everyday you have to do the most to stay creative and active by writing in your blog daily if possible and targeting keywords in your blog posts. Always keep in mind the goal of your site and stay focused otherwise you might find yourself blowing the dust off your blog.

Many bloggers us Adsense ad units to generate their blogging income. Some do very well, others struggle to make a few cents per day. There are however several traps when running Adsense ad units.

What many bloggers fail to understand is how Google handle their advertising and their advertisers. Google of course wants to make money. They want you to make money as well since their income is, to a certain extent, based on yours.  At the same time, they want to be able to deliver to advertisers ads in situations that will deliver not just clicks, but clicks that convert to sales.

It’s basic common sense. If the advertiser is able to increase sales by advertising with Goolge, they will come back. If they run a campaign that chews up their dollars yet produces zero sales, chances are they will stop the advertising. No advertising  - no income for Google.

With this in mine, Google tend to like sites that have a reasonably click-through-rate (CTR). Between 5-10% is considered to be a good CTR. If your CTR drops to below 5% for an extended period of time, your site will lose favor with Google.  As a response, your Adsense ad units will earn a reduced per click rate. I have seen sites where their click rate is below 2c per click. There is not a lot of blogging income to come in that sort of scenario.

The real downside is that if one ad unit is performing poorly, all your ad units across all your sites will be reduced to a low per click payment. You can restore your sites income potential by making a few changes.

Each ad unit you run should have a separte channel. This enables you to measure how well they are performing. If you have poorly performing ad units, remove them or make changes to their size, color and placement.

Google Adsense ad units can be a big problem on home pages. The home page often has the highest bounce rate so this alone can affect your overall CTR.  if this is the case, remove the Adsense unit from your home/landing pages. Instead, use the ads on dedicated pages only.

By removing those ads, you are removing from the stats a high impression rate with a low CTR. The impressions are made on dedicated pages with traffic either clicking through from the home page, coming from a search engine or from another link source. The impressions are lower and the CTR rate highe.  This will be reflected in a higher blogging income share.