Blogs are a great way to boost traffic and awareness of either your product or just your ideas. But, having a high enough result on the SERP in order to gain a solid readership is a tricky task. So, the developers over at Copyblogger Media have made all of this easier, with their new product Scribe. Basically, Scribe is a WordPress plug-in that can analyze your blog post for keywords, incoming links, general content, and also cross links, and help you optimize for the SERPs. In the following paragraphs, there will be a general summary of the benefits of Scribe, as well as some discussion as to how to utilize this tool correctly.

To start, Scribe is compatible with four different platforms available to bloggers—Wordpress, Joomla, Drupal, and Web v3.0. But for the sake of this blog, WordPress will be discussed (check out the video here to see how it works for the other sites). So, you’ve written your blog—now what? First, you can allow Scribe to analyze your blog post, which happens relatively quickly. The interface will then tell you what it viewed as your “primary” keyword, allowing you to correct if necessary. This is also based on suggestions from the interface, since Scribe will tell you which frequency of a certain keyword (as well as placement) you need in order to make it a “primary” keyword. Then, based on the keywords present in your post as well as the primary keywords, Scribe will give you suggestions for related keywords, as well as show you the search traffic for these terms. Also, it can suggest keyword lists based on your objectives—either to optimize for high traffic keywords, or to optimize for low competition keywords to rank for. Think of this part of Scribe like the Google Keyword Tool, except in the WordPress interface and automated in terms of it’s suggestions.

Easy to use interface.

After keyword suggestions, Scribe will then offer suggestions as to what to how to tag your post, which can be a somewhat trial and error process for bloggers. It does this based on your different keywords and their density within your post, so this can also be rather telling as to how search engines will view your post. If your tags are not in line with what you feel to be your message, consider revising your post.

Following all of these suggestions, Scribe moves on to your links. To continue the Google similarities, consider this part of the Scribe interface like the Google Placement Tool. Basically, you can allow Scribe to suggest websites to link to based on it’s evaluation of your content, or you can search based on keywords of your choosing and browse different relevant websites. Scribe automatically sorts these sites based on their influence and general traffic as well as general relevance to your keyword or blog post. Then, Scribe will analyze your placement of these links throughout your post in order to space them effectively (and not look shady to the search engines). In addition to this, Scribe will also help you to effectively cross-link within your blog between posts, once again helping to optimize for this aspect of optimization.

The last feature, and in my opinion one of the more interesting, is the ability to search Twitter users for those that are pertinent to your topic and keywords. Just like how Scribe organizes websites to link to based on influence and relevance, it will organize these Twitter users based on their Klout, as well as their relevance to your post. You may ask, why is this necessary? Twitter is becoming one of the quickest and easiest ways to alert people to new content, and if you can get an influential Twitter user to Tweet about your blog post, you can quickly see a spike in terms of traffic. Also, if you are trying to get a post to go viral, Twitter is once again a way to get people to spread the message for you, for very little buy in cost. Twitter’s relatively easy use is great for getting your blog’s name out there, and Scribe helps direct you to the right people to contact.

So to conclude, if you are looking for an SEO tool to help out the rankings and overall traffic of your blog, take a look at Scribe. In many respects, it is like having several Google Tools at your disposal within the WordPress interface. It’s intuitive design makes implementing the suggestions it offers easy. Also, the addition of a social media component is a huge advantage for anyone looking to use Twitter to boost traffic and readership. So, if you are looking for some way to easily optimize your blog for SEO, take a long look at Copyblogger Media’s Scribe.

Before I get into the different ways to optimize your blog, I first want to suggest you download the All in One SEO Pack plug-in if you don’t have it installed already. It makes optimizing your blog a much simpler process. You can download the plug-in here and view download instructions here.

Once you have installed and activated the plug-in go to Settings >> All in One SEO. Here is where you can begin changing the SEO settings for blog-wide optimization.

Blog-Wide Optimization

Title Tags

Title tags are one of the most important elements of search engine optimization and effect both user experience and search engine optimization. The title tag of each page should be a clear and concise description of the pages content. In the All in One SEO Pack you can easily create title tags for your home page, posts, and other content pages on your site.

Home Title: When creating a title for your home page, best practice is to include your brand name and a keyword you want to rank for.

For www.seoboy.com we want to rank for the term “search engine optimization.” We also want people to know and remember our blog so we include The Adventures of SEO Boy at the top of every page.

Post and Page Titles: AIO SEO Pack also lets you format the titles for each content page. If you scroll down a little further you will see a list of other page titles you can edit. The two most important from this list are the Post Title and Page Title:

By default, AIO includes the home title on all other titles, using the vertical bar to separate the two. There is wide debate on whether to include your home title but the choice is up to you. At Hanapin, we include The Adventures of SEO Boy  for branding purposes. Keep in mind though that most search engines show about 70 characters of the meta title. If you have a long post or page title you are likely to exceed your title length. Below is an example of one of SEOBoy’s posts with a long title:

If you want to remove the home title from your post and page titles all you have to do is delete “| %blog_title%” from the boxes. You can leave all other title options as is, since the category and archive pages tend to have short titles.

Meta Tags

The meta description tag is a short description of your pages content that appears underneath your link on search engine result pages. Enter your meta description into the Home Description box:

Think of your meta description as functioning like an advertisement for your blog. Use those 160 characters to entice your audience to click your link. You should also include keywords in your description, but don’t go overboard. Make sure the description still sounds natural.

Permalinks

Permalinks are the URL’s assigned to each post. By default, post URLs in WordPress look like this: http://www.seoboy.com/?p=123.  This is not very pretty nor descriptive. To change the permalink settings go to Settings >> Permalinks.

Select Custom Structure and enter /%postname%/ into the box. Click Save Changes at the bottom of the page and your permalinks will now display the post title after your main URL.

Individual Post Optimization

Now that you’ve optimized SEO for your blog as a whole, it’s time to focus on optimizing each post. When you create a new post, or if you edit an old one, the AIO SEO Pack will appear at the bottom of the page:

Post Title

The first thing you’ll want to do is give your post a title including the main keyword you are targeting in your post. It is important to note that the title of your blog post is NOT the same as the title you assign in the SEO Pack.  The post title in the SEO Pack is what displays on the search engines. To better understand the difference, take a look at the examples below.

This is the blog post the way it appears on the main site www.seoboy.com:

To shorten the title for search engine display, this is what we entered into the SEO Pack…

… and this is how it appears on search engines:

You should use this method for blog posts with long titles. You may want to be more descriptive in titling your actual post so the reader knows what it covers, but shorten it for search engines to ensure the whole title tag is displayed.

Post Description

Follow the same guidelines for writing this description as you did for the home page description. Write something that will grab reader’s attention. If you don’t enter in a post description, the first 160 characters of your blog post will be displayed on the SERP. Since the first paragraph of a post isn’t always the most comprehensive, it is best to write a post description telling users what they can get from reading your blog post and be sure to include a few keywords you’re targeting.

Images

The final method we will cover to optimize blog posts is often one of the most overlooked: image alt tags. Every blog post should include images as it adds excitement to your posts and can often convey ideas better than you can write about them. WordPress generates alt attributes automatically based on the file name.  Because of this, I recommend including a keyword in your file name. I used to title my images based on the order I inserted them into my posts (pic 1, pic 2, …etc). Though it may help you stay organized, this method doesn’t provide any information as to what the image is actually about.

You can add a title and alt text to your image once it is uploaded into WordPress. To access your images go to Media >> Library and click on the image you want to edit. You image page will open up along with this box:

Here you can enter in a title and alt text for your image, along with a caption and description of your image. The title is what will show when a reader mouses over your image and the alt text is what describes the image to the search engine.  Incorporating keywords into your images will help them, and your blog, rank on the SERPs.

These are some basic blog optimization tips for WordPress. Do you have any other ways you optimize your blog or use any SEO plug-ins you can’t live without? Post and share them with us below!

1. Set your goals. As I mentioned before, blogs are a great way to reach your audience, and give them up-to-date information about your industry, company, and even employees (because after all, they are the most important part of your business!).  However, which of these are important to YOU? What do YOU want to accomplish from your blog? Setting your goals up front will save you many headaches later on, because everyone involved will know what you are trying to do with each post. Based on your goal(s), identify the key performance indicators (KPIs) that you want to monitor, and make sure you have accurate tracking from the beginning.
2. Be consistent! Yes, I’m sure you’ve heard this a million times before – be consistent in your posting. However, this truly is important. If you sporadically post, how will your readers know when to check back? If you aren’t consistent you won’t create a solid reader base – no matter how great your articles are.

Solution: Create a calendar. There are a TON of ways to create a calendar (I like to use excel), you just need to make sure it’s functional for everyone involved. A good rule of thumb is to create a calendar one month in advance, and have it finalized about a week before the current month is over. That way your team can review the schedule, and let you know if there are any conflicts well in advance.

If you split the blog writing with your client or another team, don’t be afraid to use some color on the calendar so everyone knows what they are responsible for.

3. Be unique. When choosing your topic, keeping it fresh will also (more than likely) keep it interesting. Would you want to read a blog post about the same exact thing that 20 other industry blogs have covered….all this month? Nope. And neither would your audience. And if you find yourself in a position where you do have to cover the same topic as everyone else – find a new angle. Play devils advocate, and stir up some conversation – what better way is there to not only get people to read your post, but get them to interact with you? (Disclaimer – please do this with moderation, I’m not recommending you start a huge controversy!)
4. Length matters. Make sure your word count is exactly….well, exactly what you need it to be. There are multiple posts from respectable blogs out there that give a standard of anywhere from 250-600 (this number varies by industry). But instead of being focused on an exact length, it should be much more important that your posts are thorough and of high quality. If you are reaching to hit a minimum, you’ll more than likely add fluff words, and let’s face it – that’s really just wasting the valuable time of your readers.

On the other hand, each post should answer the questions of your readers. A great way to keep an eye on this is to review the comments. If you find that there are quite a few questions coming through asking for clarification or additional information, you should really try to challenge yourself to be more thorough in their research and writing. Before writing each post, write out a list of the questions you originally had, and be sure to answer them. You can also review other posts on the topic, and see what those comments were.

5. Make your English teacher proud. You don’t want people asking “who learned her to spoke?” so keep your grammar, spelling and punctuation in check.  We have all been in a place where you are up against a deadline, and you have to crank out a post. Though you may typically have plenty of time to review your article before posting, it’s always a good idea to get a fresh pair of eyes on it first. Set up a final review system with your team, and share the responsibility of reviewing each post.
6. Easy reading, please! Blog readers decide in the first minute if they are going to continue reading or not, so you need to format your blog post in a way that is easy to skim, and also easy to read. Keep your thoughts in a well-organized layout, being sure to use headlines, paragraphs and bullets.
7. Comments welcome! I know it’s hard to believe, but not everyone will agree with you on everything – and that’s ok! But before you begin blogging, you need to have a clearly defined plan for handling comments. First and foremost, you need to decide if you will allow them. If you decide to let them in, what guidelines will your internal team need to follow before approving them? And how will you handle less than positive comments? Having a plan of action in place BEFORE a negative comment happens will help your team be sure to respond in a timely manner.
8. Be social. Do you have an RSS feed set up? Can people request to be on your email list? Do you tweet about your latest and greatest posts? Can people like you on Facebook? You better hope so! It’s important to let your readers have options when they share your content, as they will more than likely all have a different favorite. Keep this in mind when writing too; a few tweetable phrases here and there never hurt anyone!
9. Be mindful of SEO. Yes, I saved this for last for a reason. A blog is a perfect way to enhance your SEO efforts. You are creating fresh, unique, highly relevant content, so why would you miss the opportunity to optimize each article? Before posting, be sure you create a catchy title that contains your core/target keyword, and an optimized meta description under 160 characters long. You should also be sure to crosslink throughout the post, using optimized anchor text for each. And if you include images, be sure to give them good alt tags.

One of the great benefits of blogging is increased link building, which makes sense. Each piece of content you create has the chance of being linked to, which in turn gives you more credibility with the search engines, and increases your ranking. In fact, Hubspot did a study about blogging for small businesses which showed the following pretty cool stats:

Whether you are planning on starting a blog in the coming year, or you want to dust the cobwebs off the one you forgot about long ago, I hope these 9 steps were a good recap for you of past posts of tips for bloggers new and old, and gets you off to a good start. We’re always looking for ways to stay organized and efficient, so please send along any other suggestions you have!

While a blog sounds like a great idea, before you get started there are a couple key things to consider.

1. Why do you want a blog? This is the most important piece, and shouldn’t be taken lightly if you want to see success. Do you have an important message you want to get out? Are you looking to attract more visitors to your website? Looking to enhance your SEO efforts? It is important that you establish the ultimate reason the blog should exist before you start, as that will help set your path.
2. What metrics will determine success? If the reason you are creating a blog is to attract more visitors to your website, then your main goal should be traffic – but don’t just stop there.  What about time on site, page views, links, rankings, etc. It is also important to  go beyond standard website metrics. What about customer engagement? Count how many comments or questions you get.  New business or client leads? Use these to determine if you blog is helping build your reputation and get you noticed.
3. Will you (and your team) be able to post information on a regular basis? Whether that is twice a week or once a month, it doesn’t matter, as long as you are consistent.
4. Finally, do you have something to say that is of value to others? Defining value is the tough part, but truly think about if you are giving information, opinions, or entertainment that is worth reading. We have all read the few blogs out there where you scratch your head and go why, so be sure what you put out there is worth people’s time.

So, you thought about a blog, set your goals and decided that yes, you are in fact ready to commit to a blog. Now what? Take a gander through these best practices to make sure you put your best foot forward from the start. Already have a blog? Use this as a checklist to make sure you are on the right path.

• Don’t forget about SEO basic principles when putting together your blog. You have keywords defined – now use them! Choose one or two keywords and center your post on those terms. Beyond this, every single post should be optimized with relevant keywords, page titles and meta descriptions. If you include video or images, don’t forget to optimize those as well to make sure people find you.
• Internal linking is important too. Make it easier for readers to hop between articles by including internal links within your blog that reference either other posts previously written or pages within your actual website. This can help improve page views as well as time on site.
• Consider sharing responsibility among a team of bloggers to add personality and share the involvement. If you determined you want to post once a week, that might be a lot to take on for one person, especially if you are just starting out. Share it, and allow members of your team to get involved.
• If you decide to share responsibility for blogging, be sure you are organized. Put together a calendar of when posts are due and who is responsible. Maybe even determine the content or keywords to focus on for each post. If people know ahead of time when they need to have their post ready, it might help them prep in advance.
• Each post should truly be from you and have some element of your character in it. Take things from everyday life and weave your personality into your writing style. While a blog should have a benefit to the reader (information, entertainment, etc.) it also shouldn’t sound like it is coming from your college history professor either. ZZZzzzzz
• Spell check and a quick read-through for grammar and punctuation is wise. No one wants to read something that is filled with errors. Be sure you take care of the basics taught back in elementary school.
• There is no rule of how long or short posts should be. It just needs to be long enough that you answer all the questions that a reader might have. Maybe that means your post is 200 words or maybe it is 1,500.  Building on this, you should also vary your posts. If you tend to write short blubs, make it a goal that at least once a quarter you write on an in-depth, researched topic.
• In order to help gain exposure as well as help build links, submit your blog to prominent blog directories and RSS feeds. Also, use your business cards and email signatures to help spread the word.
• Use the blog as a way to better understand your customers. Try a FAQ post and ask people to submit questions they have. Request questions or comments within every post to try and get a conversation started. Thinking about expanding or changing your business in some way? Ask your readers what they think; you might be surprised how easily people offer up their thoughts.

Keep in mind that a blog is a communication tool. You still have to provide interesting content that is well organized, includes images or videos once in a while and that is written in a thoughtful manner meant for the audience targeting. While blogging can be time consuming, if you make it part of your overall strategy and carve out time for it – it can be rewarding.

In October 2009, Google announced “Google Social Search,” an innovative idea that collects a Google users public digital data to form personal social circles that influence search results. In the Google model, Google users opt-in by connecting their online social profiles (Twitter, Picasa, Blogger) to their Google account. Then, Google uses this information (along with Gmail contacts and Google Reader subscriptions) to return search results that are personalized, relevant, and most useful to the searcher.

In October 2010, one year after Google’s experimental search feature, Microsoft Bing made the full leap into social search. Not to be outdone by their longtime adversary, Microsoft played a $240 million trump card by the name of Facebook. Facebook, home to over 500 million users and a plethora of personalized user information, partnered with Microsoft Bing to provide search engine results based on the “likes” of Facebook friends.

Cue social search. Begin thinking about it, begin saying it, and be prepared for your clients and co-workers to begin asking about it. The fight hasn’t quite started, but both of the proverbial heavyweights are in the ring and the bell is about to ring.

SEO & Social Search

With each advancement in search engine technology, SEO detractors start to predict the imminent decline, or even worse, death of SEO. In 2010 alone, both Google Caffeine and Google Instant caused heated discourse about the future of the search engine optimization industry. Social search is no different and while some see it as a sign of SEO’s demise, most see it as the next logical step in search modernization.

However, while I believe we are by no means seeing the end of SEO, we are quickly approaching a time where SEO experts need to vastly expand their digital expertise and online reach. To elaborate, for SEO professionals to keep up with this model of real-time, personalized search results, the role of the search engine consultant must evolve, adapt, and ultimately, delve into more intricate realms of digital content creation and distribution.

At Hanapin Marketing, we are challenging traditional expectations of SEO agencies and leading the way in integrated social media and SEO campaign strategies.  The following steps will help prepare you for the future of social search, especially in light of the most recent Microsoft and Facebook partnership.

1. Build a Community Around Your Brand

Traditional search optimization practices are not going anywhere anytime soon, but the presence of social search trends will increasingly emerge as social media outlets control more and more of the Internet market share. Therefore, it is essential that brands play an active role within social communities.

Most brands (not all) should be persistently extending their social graph, encouraging digital participation and collaboration from potential consumers. Whether you represent a B2B or B2C company, incorporating social components into marketing campaigns will provide a distinct advantage over competitors as social search becomes more expansive.

Additionally, with a thorough and well-developed social strategy, integrating social media communications into small business marketing and branding plans can be completed with few financial resources. On the other hand, time does need to be set out to develop a solid social media action plan and to keep accounts up-to-date from day to day.

2. Accumulate a fan base (likes, followers, subscribers)

In any social media action plan, there should be three primary goals:

1. Like – The first call to action for a potential fan is to simply “like” or “follow” your brand on the social network. Having a fan socially connect to your brand is a key step to being exposed to the consumer’s social graph.
2. Participate – After the initial “like” call to action, it is important to entice more participation from users. Daily questions, giveaways, and customer care and support are fantastic ways to keep the community fresh and interesting.
3. Share – The final action for a social media fan to take is to share (retweet, link, etc) the content distributed from your page. Thus, the text, images, and video need to be rich, entertaining, and informative for the respective audience. In other words, the content should deviate from traditional marketing efforts. In regards to SEO, think of social content as link bait 2.0.

3. Social Link Building

The most important component of an effective social SEO campaign is to obtain links outside of the social media realm (ideally, non-no follow links). One area that provides ample opportunity for legitimate link building as well as larger social development is blogger outreach. Links from authoritative blogs and news sources can have a significant impact on organic search listings. At the same time, bloggers are often very willing to promote coupons and discounts that will resonate well with their readers. Make sure to do your research and be informed, gracious, and professional when approaching bloggers. If you are reaching out to the right types of bloggers, they probably see a lot of promotional pitches during the course of the month.

Occasionally, consider hosting a promotional campaign from a social media platform like Facebook or Twitter. Directing blog readers to a branded social profile, rather than a corporate website, has the potential to provide a longer and more beneficial relationship.

Case Study In-Brief: Sweet Peaches Bedding, Making it Attractive

Sweet Peaches Bedding, an online baby and children’s bedding distributor, recently launched the “Share the Warmth” initiative, a promotion designed to give baby blankets to children in need while also increasing Sweet Peaches social reach. The passionate campaign is a great example of how small business can best prepare for social search trends. The “Share the Warmth” campaign blends SEO best practices with an actionable social media strategy. Below is a brief strategy summary:

a)    Social SEO Link Building – Niche Mom and Dad bloggers were contacted to spread the word for the campaign. The blogger outreach program encouraged links back to the Sweet Peaches website as well as to the Sweet Peaches Facebook page.

b)   Holiday Giving (Social Good) – Utilizing the giving spirits of the holiday season, the Sweet Peaches Social SEO campaign delivers one blanket to a charitable organization for every 12 likes on their Facebook page. The initiative encourages the cooperation and collective action from the online Sweet Peaches community to help give blankets to children in need this holiday season.

c)    Simple Call to Action – As an introductory social media campaign, the call to action for Sweet peaches is nothing more than liking the page.

d)   Additional Incentive – To sweeten the deal, each person who likes the Sweet Peaches fan page is also given a 10% off coupon to use on any item in the Sweet Peaches online store.

Ultimately, to succeed in the future of search engine optimization, digital brand managers (a future title for today’s search engine consultants) must be well versed in search engine optimization fundamentals, social media engagement and monitoring, and dynamic content distribution. Social search is a great area for innovative exploration, so let me know what your plans are for social search this next year!

How will press releases do this, you ask? Well, good press releases on your site are also crawled by search engines, ultimately affecting your page rank. Also, these articles that you release can (and will) be noticed by your consumers and other journalists. It’s important to have good releases for your potential customers, but it’s more important to be noticed by other media outlets, as they may mention you and/or link to your press release. This will help your page rank, as to be discussed in the strategies below.

To start, here are a few strategies to both write great press releases, and also get noticed by search engines, customers, and other media outlets.

• Writ somethin well Write something worth reading.

This goes without saying—write something worth reading. An interesting article is the first step to getting your press releases noticed. More people will mention your article, it will have more people linking to it (which is discussed some in point three), and basically it will help to get more traffic to your site. And please, make sure that your writing is error free, as grammatical errors will make you look unprofessional—like this.

• Don’t trash old content!

Always be sure to keep an archive of all your previous press releases, unless of course you have some embarrassing misprint. All joking aside, this archive can serve as a valuable resource to both you and anyone else looking to cover/interview your company. It gives a substantial background of your company, it establishes a brand history, it keeps you from reprinting old stories as you know what you have discussed already, and also it serves as a way to monitor responses to your news as people comment on your site about the releases. Also, if your company has any substantial accomplishments or awards, this is a great way to share them with the world, even if they happened years ago. Make these milestone archives much easier to access.

• Link to the good stuff

Not to imply that your site isn’t the “good stuff,” but let’s face it—if you are reading this blog you need advice on how to get noticed, so like the cool kid at prom we’ll let you in on a secret or two. If your article is talking about a trending topic, link back to where you heard it first. A lot of news sites or bloggers check to see where their clicks are coming from, and if they notice that you are driving a lot of traffic their way, you might be able to gain a link out of it. This will help your “authority” in the eyes of the search engines, and up your page rank. More people will read your release, and if all goes well, this will drive more traffic and potential customers to your site. So remember—its all in the links.

• If you get noticed, let everyone know!

No, this doesn’t involve being a braggart in the conventional way, but if a large media outlet links to your article or website, make note of it. This can be as simple as a headline or banner on your website, to as substantial as a “Featured on” section with its own distinct web page. This garners considerably more legitimacy in the eyes of a consumer or journalist, and could either get you more conversions/clicks, or could influence some other sites to link to you or mention your site as well. And as mentioned earlier, the more links coming in to your site, the higher you will rank in the search engines.

• This is one more page to optimize

Press releases aren’t granted a free pass in the eyes of the search engines—they are ranked like all others. That being said, you can optimize this page to rank highly like any other page.  But, there are a few things to consider that are unique to the press page. First, your article headlines are not like ordinary newspaper headlines. Yes, they must be descriptive, but you must keep in mind that this headline is mainly for the search engines, so write as such. For instance, keep your headlines eighty characters or less, and try to put some of your important keywords in the headline as well as the corresponding body text, so as to rank better in the SERPs.  And keep in mind the short attention span of a human being—the first paragraph should be the most important, with the most keywords, your brand name, your topic, and your product all discussed.  Otherwise, you may lose that potential journalist/customer.

A Good Tool to Gauge your Press Release’s SEO Grade

At www.pressreleasegrader.com, you can enter in your press release into a copy and paste box, give the URL of your company website, supply them with an email, and the site will grade how effective your press release is in terms of SEO.  It goes without saying that the better the grade, the higher the chance of your press release being ranked in the top of the SERPs.  It’s worth a look, and can be a helpful tool in evaluating how effective your press release really is.

So, to conclude, a solid press release can help your ranking on the SERPs in a number of ways, but you must do it right. All of these strategies can and will help to boost sales, brand awareness, and also can help you get noticed (and linked to) by major media players, driving up your “authority” and your rankings on SERPs.  So utilize these strategies, and the tool provided you in www.pressreleasegrader.com/, and you can see great results in the way of clicks and conversions!

I have an e-commerce client that I do this for and so far it’s worked great. Just about every month of the year we run a sale or promotion that we then advertise with a banner on the homepage of the site. We try and keep it seasonal and current. For instance this month’s sale was related to Mother’s Day, and the month before was related to Spring Cleaning. The client and I sat down last year and worked out a twelve-month calendar for 2010. I came up with the concepts and she was able to tell us what the final discount would be. Each month, we both know what is coming up and the calendar has really helped keep us organized.

At this point you might be wondering, what does running a sale have to do with SEO? Well, if you start early enough you can plan and create new content for the site based upon the sale concept. For instance, if I am running a mother’s day sale, instead of just putting up a banner that says “Mother’s Day Sale”, I can ask customers to write in and tell me their favorite mother’s day memory while also letting them know about our sale.

Another mother’s day idea is a cute baby photo contest. The lucky winner would receive a gift card to my site and all visitors would reap benefits of the sale. The photo contest will engage visitors to the site, while the sale will help turn them into a customer. I could also incorporate this promo into my SEO blogging strategy and post the photos on my blog – what mom wouldn’t want to show off her cute, chubby cheeked child?

Another idea is a Halloween sale with a best costume contest, or a Winter Holiday sale with the Best Holiday Recipe contest. But, you don’t have to rely on just contests. Let’s say your website sells house ware, you could run a Holiday sale and then update your website with recipe tricks or tips on how to survive the Holiday season. If your sale relates to one specific item on your site, like lamps, you can write an article with tips for changing the look of a room using only lamps, or an article with the ‘top ten things to think about when purchasing a lamp’.

When brainstorming your promotional ideas be sure to remember the following:

• Relevancy – stay as close to your good or service as possible. Your sale should relate to your customers. If you sell tennis shoes and most of your clientele is high school athletes, they’re probably not going to relate to a Mother’s Day Sale and photo contest.
• Keep things simple – the idea is to run these promotions throughout the year so you don’t want to complicate things too much. If you opt for a contest or submission based promotion, keep the instructions clear and the time frame for entries short.

• Relate back to the sale! The point of this is to entice visitors and turn them into customers so when you’re writing about those lamps, be sure to refer to the Lamp Sale that is going on.

• Remember SEO basics – When you’re writing your promotional content remember to think about internal linking and keyword optimization.
• Include any exemptions – Some manufacturers will not allow you to discount their items. Include those on your calendar so they do not get left off of the sales banner.

• Details! – Make your calendar as detailed as possible, as early as possible. This will allow for quick promo changes throughout the year. In your initial calendar include the tagline, the discount, and the run date for the sale.

• Incremental discounts work well – from personal experience, I’ve seen success with incremental percentage discounts. For instance, spend $150 and get 10% off, spend $250 and get 15% off, etc.

At the end of each promotion take good notes on what worked well and what you would change. When it comes time to work on next year’s calendar you’ll be in a better position to improve the necessary features.

In 2010, Gatorade released a new commercial line called “Gatorade has Evolved.” The commercial features a catchy new song by the same title. The jingle even stirred a buzz and a little confusion. The confusion started to make me mad. I was running into what I confirmed where misconceptions about the song:

“It was written by Bo Diddley.”
“It’s an Otis Redding Song.”
“It’s not available for commercial release.”

I discovered the song was written by David Banner and was sung not by Otis Redding, (though I can hear why people thought that) but by Kermit Quinn. And, sure, sites like the AOL Radio Blog were right that the song wasn’t available for commercial release (yet), but what they didn’t point out that the MP3 was sitting on the Gatorade site.

I took my findings,  posted it on my poor, neglected site 11 days ago on a Sunday night at 6pm. By midnight I had close to 300 hits.

After that I was I was getting about 600 hits a day off that post. More importantly, I was hovering around the top 3 for “Gatorade Has Evolved,” and many other variations of the term. Especially any variation of the search term with “MP3,” “David Banner,” “Kermit Quinn,” and even “Otis Redding” in it.

Now people who pay more attention to their site have jumped in. Especially those with MP3 sites that are offering the song now. And they NBA playoffs have less games a night / week so the commercial airs less. My rankings have fallen in some spots and I dunno how much I want to fight to keep the rankings…or have the time.

But the most shocking to me was that Gatorade didn’t appear in the search terms for “Gatorade Has Evolved” or “Gatorade Evolve” until the last couple days. They can thank bloggers for linking to their page because their onsite SEO isn’t doing anything. Heavy flash, hidden content…

by the way, Gatorade, running the same lines of content between P tags and behind your Flash animation on every page of your site isn’t helpful. In fact, some might think it to be hidden text and, gasp, duplicate content. Oh yeah, UNIQUE META DATA per page wouldn’t hurt. And are you really trying to put the same Google verification tag on every page of the site? 2002 called. They’re glad you’re keeping the faith.

Unless you expect people to be able to type the easy-to-remember:

http://www.gatorade.com/default.aspx#program?s=g-evolve

The point is my poor, neglected blog shouldn’t be kicking an international brand’s a** on their own keywords. I know I’ve taken close to 4 thousand hits they should have had and I didn’t jump in til the second round of the NBA playoffs. I can’t imagine the 10s of thousands of visitors they could have had. And though, yes, I sent my fair share of traffic to them and played my part in their World Wide Rave, my point is their site should be right along with us collecting and converting that traffic from the moment that commercial first aired.

That traffic should lead to conversions. For an international brand site with Gatorade’s age, history, backlinks, and promotion machine, that’s leaving money on the table.

It’s almost inexcusable.

Are you letting these kinds of golden SEO opportunities slip through your fingers? Oh I hope not.

And Gatorade (PepsiCo), Thank You.

(photo credit: 1)  wynk and 2) me via Flickr)

1. You don’t have to be your brand, but you have to respect your brand.
Blogging in a cold corporate voice isn’t fun- for you, or for your readers. There’s a reason people like blogs, and it’s because at their best, they’re both interesting and informative. They connect us on a level that feels more personal than your average professional interaction. But we can’t all just be exactly who we are when we’re on the couch in sweatpants when writing for a professional blog. When writing for your own company, or writing for another company blog, there’s an appropriate balance of personality and professionalism that you need to strike. Where that balance falls is going to depend on the company’s culture and corporate personality and your own, but ideally the person who writes for a blog needs to have a solid grasp of the company’s ideals and voice and needs to be able to translate that voice into writing. If you’re not doing that, you run the risk of either losing your audience because you’re boring them, or because you’re offending them.

2. Keyword research
We are blogging for SEO, right? Not for fun to share our mom’s recipes with our neighbors. An important goal is to rank for keywords that will bring relevant traffic to your site; so identify rankable, reasonably high-traffic keywords for topic areas you’re writing about, and use them wisely in your posts. No keyword stuffing necessary: just use smart keywords instead of any old phrase when writing.

3. Link your stuff.
One of the nicest things about blogging, from a strictly SEO perspective, is that it gives you lots of great keyword-optimized content to link to other great keyword-optimized content. Link articles within the same content category/topic area, and you’re demonstrating to search engines that you have expertise in that area. Very good. Don’t forget to use anchor text that contains the keywords you’re targeting, of course.

4. Know your audience.
You already have some idea where your customers’ interests lie. What questions do they ask you via email? What problems have they been using your product or service to solve? What industries are you targeting? Why do people choose you over your competitors? The answers to these questions can help determine appropriate content to write about. To offer the most value for your site, your blog should both be keyword optimized and linked up, and: helpful to your customers. It makes people happy when the answer is waiting there for them as soon as the question pops into their head. Use your understanding about what your clients want and need to know to develop useful content.

5. And then know them better.
It’s the age of analytics. There are so many tools you can use (including Google Analytics, cost: zero) to determine how people arrive on your site and what they do when they get there that there’s really no excuse to not use them to determine areas in which you’re meeting visitor needs, and areas in which you could add content or improve navigation to clear their path to the information you want them to see.

6. If you’re an expert, great. If you’re not, you’re not.
This is especially important if you’re writing for a company that is not your own. You have to be aware of what you know and what you don’t. You want to avoid saying something completely incorrect or that just sounds “off” to anyone knowledgeable about the industry, both so you don’t cause legal problems for your company and so you don’t lose trustworthiness with potential clients by sounding silly. Focus on what you know and can demonstrate expertise in. If you’re blogging for another industry, you can use your contact in that industry to fact check and edit your blog posts to ensure accuracy and appropriateness, and to help with topic development.

7. Host your blog on your site.
In addition to the PageRank the blog can collect and distribute, it’s nice to have people who visit the blog right there in with your conversion-generating pages, and the most important info you’ve decided to focus on with your main content pages. You lose an important connection (and make Analytics tracking more complicated) if you host your blog off-site.

8. Write regularly.
Having an outdated blog with three posts is going to make your site look poorly-maintained to a site visitor, no matter how often you update your main pages’ content, so creating a blog without committing to continuing to use it has the potential to create more harm than good.

Before creating a blog, develop a strategy and make sure you’re committed to sticking to it. It’s a great tool if well-managed, but as with so many of our activities in SEO, it can’t be done haphazardly, or you’ll end up punishing your site’s rankings and your ROI.

Were you one of those retailers who benefited from the day? Were your efforts targeted to only that one day? If you said, “yes,” WHY?

Cyber Monday has already become the starter’s gun for savvy online retailers looking to finish the year with a strong kick. Experts are already blogging, vlogging, and tweeting about extending your momentum from Cyber Monday and stretching it to New Years. Take a look at the Chris Brogan video below as he recommends the practice.

Now is not the time to relax. You can do that when the kids are unwrapping presents. Make your content schedule hectic. Keep those posts coming. Your employees can hate you now for it so long as they love you come January when your doors stay open.

Post Ideas for the Holiday Season 2009

Using Your keyword research as a foundation, below are some Holiday blog post ideas that can keep your blog content fresh, readers interested, and Search Engine Spiders coming to your site. My old boss and I would use these types of topics not only as posts but as outlines for additional posts…

1. Top Ten (insert your industry name here) Holiday Gifts Under $35 (pending industry prices)
2. Top Ten Best Selling (insert your products) of 2009 – and Why They Were So Popular
3. Why Your (spouse, mate, family, children…) Will Enjoy Seeing (enter your product here) Wrapped p With a Bow and Given to Them

We also had the luxury of having products to cover all aspects of the Holiday season, from children’s toys to traveling products to cleaning tools that could be used to get the home ready for Holiday company so we were never at a loss for ideas.

Maybe your company is more targeted with products and services. You can still find a niche that makes your product / services. Turn that niche into a series of posts. And if you’re stuck for ideas, feel free to leave us a comment and we’ll see what we can come up with.

The only thing I wouldn’t recommend for the upcoming Holiday season is sending out as many emails as you are publishing posts. People come to your site for posts. They go to their RSS readers and get an update to show there’s more content. With email, it’s more obtrusive. Oh yeah, send more email, but only with slightly more frequency.

And before you know, the season will be over. Will you be able to say you did everything you could to make it as successful as possible?