Facebook recently gave advertisers the option of where to place their ads. The options, including desktop newsfeed and sidebar, desktop newsfeed only or mobile newsfeed, create many possibilities, but the best value has quickly become evident. For the highest click-through-rate and second highest conversion rate, John Constine, of TechCrunch, reports using those dollars on mobile ads is the way to go.
CEO of BLiNQ Media, Dave Williams, says their numbers suggest “that mobile beats desktop placement by a 3 to 1 ratio.”
The one drawback is a positive for users. Facebook limits the number of ads for mobile users in order to keep their experience enjoyable. This means advertisers won’t be able to overload any group with their ads. So, those advertisers will have to be more clever in how they gameplan.
Also, companies are finding that mobile users that ‘Like’ their page are “worth” less than their desktop counterparts. This is because the mobile users are less likely to view photos and videos and also because desktop users are generally more active on a company’s page since they may have to do more work to seek them out.
Though fans of a business’s page only see about 16-percent of their posts on average, Facebook certainly seems to be worth the effort. Once a company has gained that ‘Like’, they are essentially marketing to interested consumers for free.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-11 10:15:032012-10-11 10:15:03Facebook Mobile Ads Are a Huge Hit
The overlap between SEO and content strategy often ends up turning content creation into a marketing ploy, and little more. The blogs cite industry folks and data, and offer tips that are either glaringly obvious or recycled to the point of redundancy.
Guillaume Bouchard from Search Engine Watch has another idea for content creation. Think about what people want, not what “works” within the market. What works changes as fast as the industry can, while what people want stays relatively consistent. Long term success comes from reading what your visitors want.
For SEO professionals, you can follow the 70/20/10 model for a simple model for content creation.
The 70/20/10 model goes like this:
70 percent of content should be low-risk
20 percent should try to improve on what already works
10 percent should be high-risk experimentation
The model comes from Coca-Cola, and can be transferred to SEO pretty easily. Link baiting is low-risk. Optimizing and trying to capitalize on some newer trends in the market covers trying to improve on what works, and that leaves 10 percent experimentation.
70 Percent: The Link Bait – Link baiting certainly has its pros and drawbacks, but for this model just think of it as content made with a purpose. It informs audiences, communicates complicated ideas, and establishes your reputation as an expert. This helps establish your brand in the industry. This acts as the mainstay of your content. Always available, but it can’t be all you have.
20 Percent: Optimize and Sharpen – For optimizing, look at what content is doing the best and what people are saying about your content. Try to improve upon what is doing best, and reinvigorating old debates with new information. Stay aware of trends and ideas in your industry, and react to them with content. This type of content creation helps keep you tuned to the changes in your industry, and keep you relevant, which will always translate to your audience.
10 Percent: Proactive and Reactive Experimentation – Time to have some fun. Experimentation requires really understanding your audience, and being confident enough to have an opinion. Think about fashion trendsetters. They see what is popular now, and act on their impulses in response. Content creation experimentation is all about seeing what is popular in the field, and making new content that people have never seen before.
This model isn’t something to keep set in stone, but it will help keep you relevant and interesting. Those are two things audiences always want.
It’s no secret that Facebook is searching for new ways to monetize their site and improve their IPO. In doing so, they are bound to take some missteps. Perhaps, like their latest venture, ‘Promoted Posts’.
As Adi Gaskell reports for Technorati, users now have the opportunity to pay for a better chance for their friends to see their posts. ‘Promoted Posts’ was already available in 20 countries, but it wasn’t until last week that American users were included.
To use the new feature, users simply update their status as usual, then click a button to promote it. That luxury will cost about $7 for now. That post will then appear with a ‘Sponsored’ tag, which allows the user to keep tabs on how helpful promoting has been.
For you next community event, party or insightful political post, maybe ‘Promoted Posts’ will be worth the money.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-10 14:45:032012-10-10 14:45:03Facebook Introduces ‘Promoted Posts’ to U.S.
It’s hard to keep up with Google’s constant adjustments, and AuthorRank is a future feature that isn’t as understood as it probably should be. Its history dates back to August of 2005 when Google filed a patent for “Agent Rank”.
This patent included ranking “agents” and using the public reception to the content they create to determine their rank. Basically, the more popular websites with positive responses would be higher in rankings than less-authoritive “agents”.
After the patent, “AgentRank” disappeared for a while, until in 2011 Eric Schmidt made references to identifying agents in order to improve search quality. A month later, they filed a patent for what is assumed to have become Google+, which acts as a digital signature system for identification, which can be tied to content. And that content can be ranked. Hello, AuthorRank.
It has yet to be officially implemented, but there have been rumors all year that AuthorRank is under development, and AJ Kohn has stated it could completely change the search engine game. It would act as a factor in PageRank, which makes high-quality content higher ranked.
Mike Arnesen at SEOmoz says it’s not a matter of “if Google rolls out AuthorRank, but when.” He also has some great suggestions of how to be prepared for when AuthorRank arrives. I highly suggest reading his extensive article, because I agree strongly with the idea AuthorRank will be here sooner rather than later.
With Google’s recent focus on social media, and the natural concept that people want to see quality content in their results, it is just a matter of time before AuthorRank is a serious concern to the SEO industry.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-10 11:00:022012-10-10 11:00:02What Is AuthorRank and Why Does It Matter?
The United Kingdom plans to unveil a method of logging on to government run sites with one’s social media account information. The idea is that by logging on through Facebook, users will authenticate their identity without having to remember multiple usernames and passwords.
John-Paul Ford Rojas, of The Telegraph in London, reports this plan has been met with immediate criticism and concerns over privacy. Afterall, you make life easy on cyber-criminals if you use the same password for every site you join.
Some counter measures will be taken. For example, for those accessing government sites on a mobile phone, there will be verification that the phone being used is also the phone number assigned to the person logging in. There will also be a check of GPS and additional security questions.
The plan would allow users to access services such as applying for licenses, tax credits and presumably signing up for utilities. Though it is expected that users will be able to start the application process for a passport online, physical ID would still be required at another stage of the process.
Still, the security measures are certainly not infallible and critics of the proposed plan have been numerous and vocal. For those of us in other countries, it’s nice to know the UK will beta test this idea for the rest of us.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-10 10:15:042012-10-10 10:15:04Access Public Services Online with Facebook Log-In
I’ve spoken a bit in the past about why your own preferences should often be ignored when designing. Logos are the embodiment of your entire business and they communicate a lot to the audience. Logos can build trust by making your brand appear credible and legitimate.
Logos are also the essence of “professionalism”. Bad logo design can make your business seem unstable, not credible, or worst of all, forgettable. Logos are an important part of creating a positive brand reputation, especially when done correctly.
This is why many designers create logos based on their own preferances. It is natural to think that making a logo that is attractive to you will result in a logo that works in the market. And that is why you are wrong.
Jitu Purohit over at ArtAtm has a list of reasons why your own aesthetic tastes shouldn’t be a factor in your logo design, and it can be broken down to a few key points.
Logos are designed to attract and please customers, not you. Try to think like your clients and understand what they see when they look at logos.
If you can define your brand and what your goals are within a simple logo, you probably have a great one. Still be sure to highlight what makes you better than your competitors. The design should be able to stand on its own, while including the key aspects of the business.
Of course, there is a field of designers that specialize in Logo Design, and they will often be your best bet. They are well aware of what makes an attention grabbing and interesting logo. There are also lots of opportunities in that area for designers, and working as a logo design reseller can help get you decent rates on logo designs.
There are lots of opportunities for designers creating logos, but you have to understand the business aspect before you can be successful. As with all design, you always want to make something that looks good to you, but you can never forget that the customer is the target.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-10 08:45:032012-10-10 08:45:03Why You Should Keep Your Preferences Out Of Logo Design
Starting on Monday of this week, small business owners in the UK became eligible for Google’s newest service, AdWords Business Credit. Essentially, Google created a credit card that can only be used for paying for a businesses AdWords account.
As Ingrid Lunden reports for TechCrunch, the program launched in beta 1400 U.S. companies last year and nearly three-quarters of those companies now use AdWords Business Credit as their “primary form of payment.”
Now, Google shifts its focus to the UK, where revenue in the 2nd quarter made up about 11-percent of the companies total revenue.
The card will carry an 11.9-percent APR in the UK, which is up from 8.99-percent in the U.S. during the pilot program. No annual fees will be included. You may note that this is lower than major credit cards. This is likely because Google intends to make an increase in profits by driving more businesses to AdWords and increasing the investment their, not from interest rates.
The internet is awash with tips and suggestions for SEO, but there aren’t many articles that clear up those pesky rumors and myths of the industries of optimization and blogging. So I’m here to help tear down those lies people hear and tell themselves about building an audience.
1) Making good content before you have an audience is a waste of good content – This is totally untrue. First impressions are all you get online, and if you are “reserving” all your good stuff for when you have a bunch of visitors, you will never get popular.
It is like selling a product before you’ve made the actual product. If you have just a few people coming to your site but they see good content, they will keep coming back as well as spreading the word. If you have a large amount of people visiting because you are advertising widely, but your content is worthless, they’re all going to leave and never look back.
Yeah, it isn’t fun to make great stuff that only a few are reading, but you have to keep an eye on the future. Great content attracts people eventually, as long as you put in the extra work to promote it. Plus, once you have an audience, they can always still find that great content no one was reading a month ago.
2) Great content will bring an audience – I emphasized that quality content will help attract an audience above and that still rings true, but there is other important work to be done before you’ll gain a crowd. You have to “pound the pavement” so to speak. Neglecting to actually promote the content can end up costing you links in the end.
Rae Hoffman at CopyPress has a full list of strategies for promoting great content, but the biggest emphasis is only push your awesome content. Spending energy on mediocre content won’t go anywhere, but if you can back up your promotion with quality content, you will get the launch you need.
3) Having a unique voice isn’t always possible – If you can’t find your specific voice, then you are doing the wrong type of work for you. Your site will never gain traction if you can’t have your own identity. You need a point of difference, or POD.
Finding your own POD can be as simple as combining seemingly seperate interests into your blogging, such as the girl who runs SkinnyTaste. She was just another amateur photographer who also loved making tasty low fat recipes. Both of those areas are flooded with contributors, but by combining the two into a blog with great recipes and enticing high quality pictures of the food, SkinnyTaste became a contender.
4) I’m not a great writer, so I’ll never be a great blogger – If you have found your own voice or POD, being a technically great writer is irrelevant. Many bloggers would have not gotten great grades in school if they turned in work in the style they blog in because they often make grammatical errors. Readers don’t care however, as long as the writer has a unique voice and interesting information.
5) Once I’ve got an audience, the rest will be easy – Rae Hoffman’s article earlier mentions Perez Hilton in this situation, and I can’t imagine a better blogger to express this point. Perez Hilton became a cultural figure for a short period because of his strong opinions and voice. So where is Perez Hilton now? Still blogging, but his television appearances have fizzled out, and you rarely hear his name brought up anymore. This is because Perez’s blogging became less celebrity journalism filtered through Perez’s voice, and more about why being Perez Hilton is wonderful. His focus left the gossip people were craving, and moved to the benign stories of a psuedo-celebrity.
The point of Perez’s story is once you gain popularity, you can’t rest or slack off. People are coming to you for whatever special information or content you are offering, and if you start slipping that audience will be gone faster than you could ever dream of.
Most of these myths are the type that people tell themselves when they are scared of making the leap into blogging, or the lies people give for why their site is floundering. Don’t let them keep you from getting started making a name for yourself, and if you are struggling, consider whether you’ve found your voice or POD or not.
00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-09 15:30:012012-10-09 15:30:01Dispelling the 5 Lies About Building an Audience
A recent study on the way youths around the world use mobile devices found that college students use their phones to text and interact over social media much more than any other use, such as surfing the web or gaming. The study, conducted by Prof. Paul Mihailidis of Emerson College in Boston, tracked 800 students of 52 nationalities attending universities in eight countries across three continents for a 24-hour period.
As Susan Moeller reports for Huffington Post, Mihailidis made five key conclusions:
Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms are the dominant form of communication and new sharing.
The content that is most shared is not thought-provoking articles, but rather viral videos and music.
There is an addiction to mobile phones and these phones are tied in to a student’s identitiy.
Connecting with friends online through a mobile device has become “more real than the real world.”
Students demand a large number of options when it comes to apps, but only utilize a select few.
The upside to the study’s findings is that these mobile devices allow students to comment and share content more readily, making them better informed and feel more a part of issues.
The downside, of course, is the issue of privacy. With so much of a student’s life online, there’s a significant risk that somone other than a friend could collect and use their information.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-09 14:45:022012-10-09 14:45:02Study Finds Students And Phones Joined at the Hip
It is way too common for people in SEO to forget to align their SEO strategy with social media activity. Often, the two teams work completely disconnected from the other. This is in no way a comprehensive, efficient marketing plan.
SEO must be integrated into social media activity. Here are some suggestions for specific strategies you can take to bump up the effect your social media activites have on SEO performance.
1) Using Social Media for Link Development – Since search engines have begun incorporating social signals into their ranking algorithm, it has become essential for SEOs to pay attention to social media. Now Google+ has become a part of Google search, and Bing uses Facebook data to personalize what people see in their search results.
While all of that is practically common knowledge, Ray Comstock at Search Engine Watch believes “link development is the most important benefit that social media can bring to the SEO table.” Google’s Panda and Penguin updates has made using social media to foster relevant link connectivity has become as important as they could be. The most effective way to market content online is through social media.
It is critical for SEO professionals take advantage of the activities of their social media team to gain relevant links through marketing quality content.
2) Aligning You Blog for SEO and Social Media – If you can create consistently quality content, blogging is easily one of the more efficient ways to build links and authority. It attracts links within your industry, but it also becomes keyword focused content that tends to rank highly in the long-term. Most often, bloggers forget to create relating internal links from a company’s blog to their main website content. Blog posts are an opportunity to direct people to other relevant content, especially your own.
3) Aligning Your Blogging Team for SEO & Social Media – Blogging is an important part of an SEO strategy, so you want to make sure your blogging team is trained on the best SEO policies and practices, as well as giving them the most important keywords and landing pages on your site. If you do that, your team will be more likely to create content based around those keywords, and creating internal links within the blog assists with your SEO goals. Plus, it is always nice for visitors to be able to find more content on your site.
Bloggers should also be interacting with the authoritative blogs in your area of expertise by contributing in intelligent and thoughtful ways which will build relationships with other experts in your field. It builds your reputation as well as making valuable connections that can lead to guest blogging.
By making sure your SEO and social media efforts are alligned, you both streamline the process in an effective way, as well as boosting SEO performance from a link building perspective.
https://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.png00TMOhttps://www.tulsamarketingonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/TMO-Logo.pngTMO2012-10-09 11:00:012012-10-09 11:00:01How Aligning SEO Strategy and Social Media Builds Backlinks
