I’ve been busy with multiple engagements recently that have kept me from blogging. My schedule has calmed quite a bit and I am ready to jumpstart my local advertising tips and techniques. To start, I have attached my Dallas SEO presentation from a speaking engagement earlier this year.
If you would like a copy to hone to your own needs, please let me know
It was once thought that there were no laws in social media, that anything would due. Well, that is no longer the case. The Internet used to be a lot more open and easier to manage, but it has become more difficult than ever to gain any attention in the social media realm if you starting from scratch. There are most definitely laws and you must know them well in order to succeed.
Law #1: Know Thyself
The main problem with a lot of social media campaigns is that the people running them have not figured out who they are. They do not have a clear objective or a sense of what they are trying to do and who they want to do it for. It sounds really simple, which it is, but it does require some you to stop and think strategically. Sit down for a hour and write down who you are, describe your target audience, and exactly what your goal is in terms of the social media campaign.
Law #2: It’s All About Them, Not You
Social media marketing has nothing to do with you or what you want, at least in the beginning. Constantly posting about new products and services is the fastest way to turn off potential clients and ruin your reputation. No one on social media websites wants to be spammed, they want to here about things that matter to them. Before you start asking them to do anything for you, you need to do something for them whether it means having a giveaway on Twitter, answering questions on Facebook, or providing helpful tips and strategies about your field.
Law #3: Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is easier than ever because you can just go to their profiles and see who is following you. The thing is that you need to be aware of your primary audience is and act in ways that would encourage their support. Once you know who these people are, cater your strategy to fit them. Hang out where they would hang out online, talk about the things that they care about, and show them things that would be of interest to them.
Social media is truly not rocket science. The bottom line is that you need to know who you are, know your target audience, and give them something before you start asking for anything. In short, don’t expect to get a million followers on Twitter or Facebook without putting in the work upfront. If you break any of these laws, then your audience will either never appear and leave right before your eyes.
Ashley Bennett is a writer and marketing consultant. She has recently written a book entitled The 7 Laws of Social Media Marketing that explains the other laws that govern social media marketing. You can read more about her at Ashley-Bennett.com.
I’ve taken the personal responsibility to build a post with various reasons for the Moz Meetup to come to Dallas. Besides the food, people, and great sports teams, Dallas is a great hub of technology and marketing. (20 Fortune 500 companies are in the DFW Metroplex). We are also a very strong center for SEO and PPC companies. We need excuses to meet up and interact.
Here is a list of DFW companies that work with some amazing companies ranging from SMB’s to Fortune 500 Companies. (these are in no order and some great companies are probably left out)
Dallas is also home to some amazing communities that are already meeting and working together. In Fact, Guy Kawasaki came in spoke to SMC Dallas recently! We already have a ton of great people who like to meet up. We would love to combine in a great forum and mozcation could be it!
Dallas is also home to some great gaming and entrepreneurial companies. ID, Gearbox, the words with friends guys, and Shopsavvy all have a presence in dallas. We also have a growing startup culture and have great educational resources in UTD, SMU, TCU, UTA, and other top universities.
Dallas is a fun city. We have lots of culture, food and places to mingle including
Dallas already lost out on something great this year. Deron Williams chose New York over us. Don’t let the Moz meetup make the same mistake… Mark Cuban would be even more sad 
Continuing with basketball, we know you’re based in Seattle. That’s interesting. We don’t like the OKC thunder either (only because they left seattle, promise..)
More Fun Facts for you to come to dallas.
In conclusion,
Dallas is awesome. We’d love to have you. We’d be great hosts and show you a great time.
If you are from dallas and have more stuff to add, please contact me and I’ll update the site!
Having worked as an SEO for various companies over the last decade, there have been constant battles between IT departments, Creative teams, Marketing teams, and Management. Everything is in constant flux and rarely does anyone agree on the changes that need to be made to a website. This will probably never change, unless the top-down management structure dies in the United States (Not happening anytime soon).
Historically, web content has been broken up like the archaic newspaper. The hierarchy began with the most important content above the fold on the front page. Menus and links guided users to 2nd, 3rd, and even 4th level pages that disseminate information in a similar structure to the home pages. As technology changed, we began adding some key elements including blog snippets or links to social media and some geniuses decided flash would be a great technology… for about 15 minutes.
Change Is Gonna Come
For the last few years something interesting has started happening. A few very talented designers and UX / UI developers have started decreasing the hierarchical structure historically seen in websites and have created content rich pages with more content and fewer links.
I’m not a true expert, but I believe three things happening in tandem played a role in the new concept that broke the idea that “above the fold” was necessary for marketing success.
Search Engine Optimization & Above the Fold
SEO is an obvious reason for increasing single page content (without stuffing). Keeping link juice on a single page, while creating high value content is one of many steps to help SEO success. By keeping the majority of content on a single page, you can optimize the page for better information with more “crawlable” content. This content if done with moderate design and UI input can create a compelling page with high link bait.
This link bait can be used in multiple facets. infographics, and other visually appealing high-value data is easily shared across social networks including facebook, twitter, and pinterest. These infographics are a great way to add value while educating visitors on a product or compelling piece of data.
Next Page Abandonment Syndrome
Call it advertising overload, information overload, ADD, disdain for clicking “next”, call it anything you want.. but it still exists. A study has shown that you lose an average of 33% of visits with each additional click they make. Users have lost tolerance and have started abandoning websites that have required clicks for additional content. In an age when the majority of web titles start with “Top 10 reasons why…,” Visitors expect at least the majority of the content to be available and accessible on the first page or bounces start to spike. Businesses have started using this method in their sites as well. Jacob Cass, a pretty well known designer, has a pinterest that highlights some of these UI’s.
Smart Phone Ubiquity
The third and most important reason for the death of above the fold importance is the mobile device. Smart phones and tablet saturation has made single page content more accessible and in some cases more usable than previous methods of design. It is easy to scroll up or down to consume a webpage than it is to zoom in on the next button on a site.
As mobile devices reach critical mass for internet browsing, accessibility and design are becoming the most important aspect of content delivery online. Having your high value content readily available in a format that is easy to read, understand, and react to is vital for the next generation UI / UX designers.
Above The Fold Focus Is Still Necessary
Even though the legacy attention to above the fold details is fading, there are still key elements that should remain in tact to increase usability, conversions, and customer service. Key contact information including a phone number is generally accepted to be placed in the top-right corner of a website. This best practice is still common, specifically for a local business, or a localized landing page where conversions are heavy on the site. For a corporate, or portfolio site, this information is less necessary. Other important details should include a logo to let the visitor know they’ve reached the correct website, and a high-value statement to keep them on site and wanting to learn more. Strong Call to Actions with well placed visual content including videos, or non stock photography images are a great way to entice visitor interaction.
Some Below The Fold Inspiration
Let me know what ya’ll think, is Above the Fold really less important than it used to be?
I’ve been doing a lot of work for companies needing “hyperlocal” advertising for the last half decade. Businesses like Foursquare, Gowalla , Facebook, Yelp, and other social media outlets have definitely convoluted hyperlocal advertising and promotion. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
A few years ago, a well edited kml file attached to the Google Maps API, a halfway decent landing page, and a claimed Google Listing almost certainly guaranteed high ranking for localized searches. Today, competition and a more internet savvy userbase has increased the complexity of a successful localized marketing campaign. Below I have included some quick tips to help start your journey into hyperlocal advertising.
Claim You Local Listings - This is the newest change to local advertising and needs to be the first thing you do after reading this post. Go here and claim you Google Places listing from google. More than likely it will take a few weeks for the postcard and phone number to arrive, but you need your listing in the “directory” if you’re going to have success down the road.
Create a Localized Landing Page - No matter what size business you are running, having a personalized and localized landing page is necessary for hyperlocal advertising success. If you’re a franchise with strict guidelines there may be some red tape, but work with your marketing team to make sure you have a landing page with these key elements.
Phone number in the upper right corner of the page – This is more about best practices,
Hours of Operation - Continuing the trend of basic information that needs to be included. This key metadata is critical to potential customers. If you own a business that has non-standard hours, this information is even more critical. If a customer doesn’t know your hours of operation and shows up outside of those hours, you will more than likely lose a customer and the lifetime value they provide. It is simple to include your hours of operation on your site. Customers will appreciate it. Don’t forget to update your hours during the holidays.So, you’ve done all your hard work and have an amazing, functional, and informational landing page ready for your customers to visit. Now its time to make sure this is the main site you’re generating localized visibility through. Make sure you’ve linked to this site on local search engines and other outlets including:
Pay Per Click Advertising - Bonus!!!! If you have any budget left for marketing, I highly recommend testing a local PPC campaign to your landing page. It is easy to setup, integrate, and launch. And you can market your site with maximum exposure and very little upfront cost. Done correctly, a PPC campaign can cost < $300.00 a month and generate far more revenue. If you’d like help discussing setting up a PPC campaign with a proven adwords expert. Contact me, I’d love to help.
Last week, my wife and I decided to start working on some projects “offline.” Like most of my counterparts in the industry, when I’m not working I am working on something else. We decided to change it up and create a completely custom headboard for our new king bed. 1 trip to lowes, $65.00, and about 3 hours of work and we have this completed masterpiece. I am very tempted to toss a similar design on etsy to see if they sell. What do ya’ll think?
Local SEO has seen some major changes in the past year. Since 2010 Google has completely changed the way they handle local keywords. For example “city name + keyword” went from a 3 pack to a 7 pack, then to a 10 pack and then they created a whole new search result category called blended results. Now, when you search for a local company, you will see a mixture of “places” results, a few organic results, some ads (of course) and usually a few pictures or videos.
Local search can seam like a volatile market, and even though there have been some major changes lately, there is still an underlining steadiness. Here are 3 straight forward approaches to localizing your site’s content. I won’t lie to you and say they are easy, but they are simple. If you follow them, you will see positive results.
1. It’s Ok To NAP On The Job
Your “NAP” is the foundation of all local SEO efforts. NAP stands for, Name, Address and Phone Number. Every year David Mhim releases an exhaustive study called “Local Ranking Factors,” in which he reveals the most important on and off page elements in local SEO. Every year local citations makes the top of the list. In fact, this year NAP ranked #4 right behind having an address in the city you want to rank for, (thank you captain obvious, jk,) and verifying your page with Google (which you can do here.)
Google looks at your NAP wAs you can imagine, there are hundreds of millions of businesses worldwide, and they all have a unique address. Because of this, Google requires that you have your local citation formatted EXACTLY the same every time you list it. It would be statistically improbable for Google to figure out different variations of every companies NAP and attribute them to the right place. The best way to format your NAP/local citation is to create a text file that lists your companies information, then you can just copy and paste it into different directories.
Your NAP might look something like this.
BrewSEO
2920 Veda St, Redding, California 96001
Tags/ Categories: example keywords (sorry fellas, I’m not going to give away my target keywords that easy!)
Image: Decide what image to use, and stick with it.
Description: This is an inbound marketing company..etc.
Once you have your NAP formatted go to every local directory you can find (most of them are free) and create a profile.
Pro Tip: Use yext.com to find a good list of local directories. Instead of paying them to create a listing for you, download their list into a spreadsheet and go make the profiles yourself.
2. Hyper Localize Your Content:
Once you have your local citations under hand, it’s time to start optimizing your site. (You do have a website, right? If not, go find a good web designer and hire them to build you one!) There are a few things you can do to instantly improve your rankings.
Have your NAP on every page of your site
One of the easiest ways of doing this is to put your address and phone number in your site’s footer/header. It’s up to you how you list it, but make sure it’s uniform and user friendly.
Use Local Keywords In Your Page Titles
If you have a carpet cleaning site, you can create a page title that looks like this: City Name Carpet Cleaning | Your Company Name. When you make a title, put your keyword first, and your company name second. Unless you have a household brand, it’s better to keep your keywords on the left of your brand name. This will help you rank higher in SERPS, and it will tell visitors exactly what your site is about.
Hyper Localize Your Images
When you upload an image, make sure the image is named something relevant to your local keywords. Use the name of your city, and your keywords in the image title. After you upload the image also make sure the alt text of your image uses local keywords. Here is an example of locally optimized alt text:
<a href=”where you want the image to link to“><img src=”the url of your image. This is probably going to be hosted on your web-server” alt=” your local keyword. this should also describe the picture.” title=”the name of your image. this should have your city name in it.” width=”xxx” height=”xxx” /></a>
After you’ve localized the images on your site, you can also upload them to Panoramio. Panoramio allows you to add geo tags to your image. It will set the longitude and latitude of your picture, and give your site even more local emphasis. When you upload your image to Panoramio, set the coordinates to your office address. When you do this it will also allow your picture to show up in your Google Places profile.
3. Get Creative With Local Pages
Do Local Pages Like Pink Berry
Pinkberry takes a minimalist approach to local content. You can use their store locater to find their locations. Each location has the store address, store hours, the store’s services (catering, deliver, etc…) the store’s name, and a newsfeed from their blog. That’s it! If you take this approach, you’ll have to do a little extra link building. But with a few high-quality links, you’ll be able to rank competitively for your keyword.
Do Local Pages Like Nerds On Call
The other option is to take an over and above approach to local content and create a sub-site for each store that has completely unique content. (This is a project that I worked on.) Each store has a local page that is highly customized, and has unique content. You can check out a few of them here and here.
The trick here is to create unique content. Do not copy/past content from one sub-site to another one. Lazy duplicate content is one of the worst things you can do to your site. If your company has locations in multiple cities, the chances are you also have enough employees to make this work. You can easily leverage your employes to help you create unique content. If you sell a service, then take the descriptions you used for your services. Interview your employees about the services you offer, and re-write the service descriptions using their own words. Everyone talks, and describes things a little differently, so you’ll have unique copy about your services directly from an industry expert. You’ll have to do a lot more work if you choose to use this approach, but it will pay off in the end.
Local SEO is under a major overhaul, with the creation of Google + Local pages, and Google’s new local PPC ads. Not to worry, if you follow these techniques, your site will survive almost any google algorithm change that happens.
About Bryant Jaquez. Bryant is the founder of the innovative and creative marketing firm BrewSEO. BrewSEO is full of SEO Extraordinaire, Social Media Moguls, Web Designer Superstars and Branding Geniuses. You can follow us @brewseo
Okay, hands up, the web design Windsor team at Cayenne Red might well advise their clients to change their websites on a regular basis, but there is wisdom in our words.
No-one would think of wearing the same clothes, day in, day out, for the whole year (well, maybe some of our designers, but not normal people), so in the same way we change for the seasons, a website needs to have a change of clothes at least twice a year.
We are not advocating a complete change. A good website design should have a shelf life of at least two years, if not five. But twice yearly, there should be some changes introduced.
And the reason for this regular facelift is not to keep web designers in business, but to stop a site looking stale, or boring, or possibly worse, behind the times.
And if you want proof as to whether this is a valid argument, then use one of the tools which allows you to look at sites as they were some years ago, and even five years ago. The results will shock you, because most sites change on a regular basis, not only keeping up with the fashions and trends of the day, but also keeping pace with the latest technology advancements.
Websites are still predominantly text based, but you will notice that around the most active websites, the text is surrounded by all manner of plug-ins and software tools. Text may be the search engines friend, but multi-media is playing an increasing important role.
Sites have to be very strong visually and use all manner of techniques to reinforce the central sales messages and calls to actions. And the worse thing a site can be accused of is, is looking staid and boring.
Surfers are fickle and the more they see of sites, the more demanding they are. This is why, despite users moaning when a site changes (look at how Facebook changes are met); the designers know that they have to remain fresh and innovative.
A website cannot be seen to stand still, because the fear is, a bored user will move allegiances and be gone to a competitor in a flash of an eye-lid. And once one goes, more will follow, given that many surfers are like sheep and will follow their friends, colleagues and peers.
So, we reckon that sprucing up a website to keep it fresh and alive is the best way a website owner, or a webmaster, has of boosting their platform.
And, the changes do not have to be radical, but an enhancement of what already exists. Think of how many products are refined over much iteration so that the basic design concept is not lost, but the qualities that made it a success remain.
The key is to plan at least two minor facelifts a year; it’s a great use of the marketing budget.
Biljana Dimovska, Cayenne Red.
Biljana Dimovska is a member of the digital marketing team at PPC Agency Cayenne Red. She is a regular contributor to the media on how companies market themselves in the digital age.
Did you know that there is a possibility that your website will less likely to rank in a search engine if it has a slow loading time compared to other fast loading site? Some experienced marketers have conducted an experiment on page loading times with their own sites and have come to the conclusion that fast loading time is always better for ranking. Web page loading time is just one of the contributing factors on how a site should rank in Google and other popular search engines. Different search engines always find great ways on how the user can enhance his or her experience and Google seems to lead the way.
It is quite disappointing when you click on a certain site and the site seems to take all the time in the world to load completely. If your site is like this, has a slow loading time, then do not expect that more visitors or guests will visit your site. There is a huge chance that your visitor will look for another site to click simply out of frustration. If you are selling products or services, then you definitely know that this is bad business and customer experience.
There are several ways on how you can enhance a slow loading page:
Images and their sizes: Generally, images have large file size and most people will tell you not to use large file size images on your page because it can contribute to a slow loading page. This is alright but it can weaken the appeal of a web page and some web designer likes to be creative using their artwork. For you to get around with this problem, then there is a simple solution to that. If you have twelve individual images to be placed in your page, then try to group them together as one. This technique will not mainly reduce the file size of your images but the http requests. This is a simple trick but can be an effective way to speed up your downloading time.
Clean up your code: Making sure that your website’s code is up to snuff with no errors will go a long way to make it load faster. This includes getting rid of any plugin’s or javascript that might be set up on your page but you just are not using.
Use CSS: Getting a good handle on CSS coding and knowing all the aspects of it can bring a lot of speed gains as well. It can greatly reduce the code you need so it is less for your browser to handle.
Flash: These days, with new HTML standards, there really isn’t much need for Flash (sorry, Flash!). Flash files can get huge and bog down a bit fast.
Hosting: Get a good hosting account. This means stay away from the freebies. With the number of people on these sites, it’s bound to get slow.
These are just a few of the areas to look at to help speed up your site. If you are stuck, seek the help of www.
