There’s a lot of very average content out there that’s published by companies that should know better. Behind this is often a perception that, if it ain’t broke, it don’t need fixing. My opinion is that given the potential ROI of the fix, the CFO might have a different view.
The post 10 Things That Stop Companies From Publishing Winning Content by @gincollette appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Social media can be used to inspire, enrage, amuse or, of course, sell loads of stuff. Here we look at 10 great - and varied - social media campaigns.
The post 10 Outstanding Social Media Campaigns You Need to See by @clarkboyd appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
From revamping its News Feed algorithm and page layouts to rolling out its own version of Snapchat last week, Facebook has been busy adding new features and capabilities over the past few months.
For the average user, these changes are making it easier and more fun to share and engage on the platform. For businesses, the changes are likely overwhelming, with many wondering how they can adapt to these changes, turn them into a marketing advantage and ultimately reach a piece of the platform’s 1.23 billion daily active users.
If you’re part of the latter scenario, we’d like to help you out a bit. Below we highlight some of the latest updates and new features that businesses should take note of, as well as some tips on how to take advantage of them to further your social media marketing efforts.
In an attempt to provide a “richer, more engaging and more flexible” video watching experience, Facebook announced in mid-February that they had made several platform updates including:
Here’s Facebook’s own video overview of the recent updates.
<iframe src=”https://www.facebook.com/plugins/video.php?href=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.facebook.com%2Ffacebook%2Fvideos%2F10155517557066729%2F&show_text=0&width=560″ width=”560″ height=”315″ style=”border:none;overflow:hidden” scrolling=”no” frameborder=”0″ allowTransparency=”true” allowFullScreen=”true”></iframe>
What this means for businesses: Video will continue to be a powerful (and perhaps necessary) engagement tool for businesses, brands and marketers.
How businesses can take advantage: Start dabbling with video if it’s not already part of your social media marketing strategy and makes sense for your business. Compelling video content helps capture attention, encourages engagement and—in some cases—reaches a more prominent position in social media news feeds.
For those that are already using video, compelling imagery is still a top priority for video content, but music and narration should probably get more consideration in light of the new sound feature. Now it’s important to note that users who have their phone on silent mode will not hear the sound. In addition, users do have the ability to disable the feature in their settings. However, at this point it’s safe to say more people will be hearing and seeing your videos in the future—so make everything you do count.
Last summer, Facebook launched both 360 photos and 360 videos, giving users the ability to capture and share a 360-degree, ultra-panoramic photo or video. But in early March, Facebook took the format to the next level by releasing the Facebook 360 app for Samsung Gear VR, powered by Oculus.
“With more than 25 million 360 photos and more than 1 million 360 videos posted on Facebook to date, there’s plenty of great content to discover in Facebook 360,” Facebook said in their announcement post. “The app is a one-stop shop for catching up on what you may have missed from your friends and others you follow, diving into the 360 photos and videos you’ve saved, and finding something new to enjoy.”
(Photo Credit: Facebook)
What this means for businesses: Facebook is bringing virtual reality to their platform, and businesses have the opportunity to truly immerse their audiences in their visual content. Of course, Samsung Gear VR may not be in the hands of every user yet, but virtual reality is certainly gaining relevance and speed in the social world.
How businesses can take advantage: Start experimenting by creating 360 photos using an iPhone or Android on a panoramic setting. Photos don’t require editing or extra equipment purchases, just a steady hand and a keen eye to capture something compelling. Consider giving users a glimpse into your office, store, production facility, or a special event you’re hosting or attending.
Once you’re comfortable with 360 photos and seeing some engagement, consider taking the next step to invest in 360 camera to shoot and edit video.
While the social media giant launched its newly designed Facebook Offers feature in late August 2016, it may not be on the radar of many businesses who are using a social media management tool like Hootsuite to share and schedule posts. The option appears under the native “Write something …” posting box, along with some other customizeable posting options.
Essentially, Facebook Offers allows businesses to share their in-store or online discounts and promotions with their social audience. Offers can be used in two ways: By creating an Offers ad or in a Page post. Here’s a snippet from Facebook’s announcement post with the critical details:
“Offers ads appear in people’s News Feed in the Facebook mobile app and website. Advertisers can reach the right audiences with creative ad formats—like carousel ads. And for online offers, advertisers can optimize the delivery of their ads to people most likely to make a purchase on their site. Advertisers can see how many offers have been claimed in ads reporting.
“The other way for businesses to share Offers is to post them directly on their Page through the Offer Page Composer. All posted Offers will be viewable by anyone visiting the Page. If someone missed a posted Offer, they can click on the new, dedicated Offers tab to see all Offers posted by the business.
What this means for businesses: While social media is largely known as an awareness and engagement tool, Facebook Offers gives you the ability to encourage conversions by showcasing your special promotions. After all, every shopper loves to get a good deal.
How businesses can take advantage: Simply put, add your special promotions and discounts to Facebook. You’re likely advertising your incentives via email, your website and other advertising mediums, so don’t miss out on this easy, accessible opportunity.
What tactics are you using to find success on Facebook? Where are you struggling? Tell us in the comments section below.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2017. | 3 New Facebook Updates, Features Businesses Should Take Advantage Of | http://www.toprankblog.com
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SMS message marketing, or text message marketing, is becoming increasingly popular, and for good reason. Texts are opened more frequently than emails!
The post 6 Tips for Success in SMS Marketing by @seocompanymiami appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
Rankings are the holy grail of every SEO professional. It's no wonder then when your site experiences a loss in rankings, you do everything possible to solve the problem. In this article, I will let you in on the process I implement to recover from an SEO rankings drop. Enjoy!
The post How to Get Your SERPs Back After an SEO Rankings Drop by @grybniak appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
The pressure of understanding the ins and outs of developing and implementing an integrated digital marketing strategy has many marketers searching for a better way. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is just as integral to a successful marketing strategy as it was in previous years. That’s right, SEO is not dead but it has changed.
If you’re still struggling to develop a successful SEO strategy, you’re not alone. Search engine optimization experts are still faced with the constant struggle to provide the right results, but the all too often, expectations are focused on vanity metrics or outdated tactics.
Google is making hundreds of algorithm updates each year and they continue to alter the layout of the search engine results pages (SERP). There is constant change that marketers need to stay on top of, which then leads to new tactics that are required to continue to increase visibility online. These changes align directly with the SEO industry. In this post, we outline common SEO situations that brands struggle with including:
As marketers, we need to adapt and focus on the right tactics to increase the search visibility for each website. Technology has allowed us to reach more people in our targeted audience than before and it is our job to take best advantage of this opportunity. It’s time to dive in.
One the first blunders that we see brands make is focusing on the wrong KPIs and search metrics. Often times, companies are only focusing on sessions, pageviews, bounce rate, and other vanity metrics. Those metrics are great to monitor each month to track overall website health, but smart marketers should push to analyze more valuable metrics. Valuable metrics are metrics that prove value and show both internal or external clients what return of investment the SEO campaign is bringing back in.
Optimizing a page is a great search tactic but what we need to question what the outcome of that effort is. We need to try to quantify the amount of effort that goes into each tactic for the potential outcome. For example, if we optimize one webpage and drive more traffic to it, but the converting traffic doesn’t increase, was it worth it? In short, probably not. We want to optimize pages that will bring in more converting traffic to the site so we can make money. Showing an internal or external client an increase in traffic is great, but at the end of the campaign the most important metric is how much return on investment the campaign brought back to the company.
TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Use vanity metrics as a gage of how well the website or SEO campaign is doing, but show key stakeholders how much revenue the campaign brings back.
Another common SEO opportunity is showing some love to high-performing historic content and saying goodbye to the clutter. Years ago, marketers created a mass amount of content for search purposes. That method of content creation worked too, until search engine algorithms got more sostificated. Now, companies need to complete content audits of the historic content to identify what content is worth keeping and/or editing. Most companies that have been writing content for a while have quality content that needs to be refreshed to stay current.
Historic content should be either updated or removed from the search index (deleted or noindexed). By removing the content that is no longer relevant, you can turn focus to the pages that you want to get traffic too. Most websites get the majority of their traffic from only a select amount of pages instead of traffic being evenly spread out. Focus on those pages that bring in qualified traffic and either refresh the content or implement some new SEO recommendations.
TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Refresh historic content that contains priority keyword rankings that are on the second or third page of Google. To identify those pages, use tools like SEMrush or Google Search Console to see how individual pages are performing with keyword rankings and impressions. Those pages of content contain a high amount of potential to increase search visibility quickly.
Believe it or not, strategic linking is still incredibly important for SEO. Too often, companies are forgetting to add internal links to other related content within their site. Internal links help search engines crawl and index pages, as well as pass authority throughout your site. Internal links are an essential part of your website ecosystem and there needs to be a strategic plan on how to link to related pages with the correct type of anchor text.
Additionally, make a habit of linking to related sites that can be used as references. External links to sites help provide credibility for your content and can help search engines understand more context of the content.
TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: After conducting a content audit on a website and identifying what historic content needs to be updated, develop a strategic internal linking plan to link to and from historic content to new content.
Marketers often forget that there are additional optimization opportunities outside of Google. YouTube, Amazon, and other third-party sites are great places to optimize for in addition to Google. SEO team members should conduct a thorough analysis of where the brand’s audience is spending time online. Google stated in a recent report that “how to” searches have increased by 70% year-over-year. That growth is a great opportunity for marketers to create videos for your audience in another location to maximize visibility.
Besides YouTube, Amazon is another great channel to optimize for ecommerce sites. Adding products to Amazon and optimizing each listing helps put your product in front of your audience besides your website. Focus on getting positive reviews for your listings to help with search visibility. Speaking of reviews, don’t forget about your local listings as another mean of search reach. Optimizing your search listings with positive reviews and local citations to increase local search traffic.
TopRank Marketing Pro Tip: Optimize your current YouTube videos by adding a description, transcript, correct tags, optimizing the title of the video. Also, embed videos to your pages with a transcript to the video right under it and add video schema to the page.
These tips only scratch the surface as there are even more common SEO mistakes that brands should for a healthy SEO program. However, if you’re ready to get started start by incorporating these four strategies to achieve the best results for your website. If you need help developing or implementing a Search Engine Optimization program, contact us for a free consultation.
TopRank® Online Marketing Newsletter.
© Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®, 2017. | Still Struggling with Your SEO Strategy? Focus on These 4 Best Practices for Improved Results | http://www.toprankblog.com
The post Still Struggling with Your SEO Strategy? Focus on These 4 Best Practices for Improved Results appeared first on Online Marketing Blog - TopRank®.
Instagram is a goldmine of sales waiting to be tapped. However, you still have to put in the effort to mine it; these 10 tips will help!
The post 10 Tips to Increase Sales on Instagram by @TheBillWidmer appeared first on Search Engine Journal.
