These are a few common WordPress SEO mistakes and some quick fixes to keep them from damaging your pageranks.
SEO has become a much simpler task for the average website owner with the advent of CMS platforms like WordPress. That said, many of us still make a number of slight oversights when it comes to WordPress SEO that result in a loss of potential discoverability on search engines like Google.
The following three WordPress SEO mistakes tend to occur much more often than others, and we have included these simple steps to take in order to avoid making these potentially harmful errors.
Remember Your Alt Tags
WordPress could not make it easier to include Alt tags in images, yet so often we see images that still register as ‘shutterstock-12345’ and can’t help but think, “That’s a lot of lost potential!”
So what exactly does it mean when an image does not have an Alt tag? For starters, it means that if the image does not populate on the page, there is no description attached to it (usually on the top left hand side) to let visitors know what they are missing. More importantly, when it comes to SEO, Alt tags register as keywords. So when someone searches for ‘WordPress’, for example, they will receive a selection of images with Alt tags that include the term ‘WordPress’ in addition to their traditional results. If you miss the opportunity to tag your image, it will not populate those results.
Why is this bad? Your images might outperform your articles in searches, so while your site’s post or page might not make it into the top result on Google, the image can.
In WordPress, the fix for this issue is a simple one. When you upload an image, pay attention to the sidebar on the righthand side.
Screenshot taken 7/8/2014
There, you can easily insert a proper title, description, Alt tag, a link, adjust the size and make all the necessary adjustments in order to ensure that your image is properly optimized for search. In the case that you have already uploaded an image and realize that you forgot your Alt tag, simply open your media library or select the ‘Edit’ option on top of the image, and add it in.
Include All the Details
Whether you’re using Yoast or some other WordPress plugin to assist you with search optimization, make sure that every detail is provided wherever it is required. Of course, your title might populate automatically, but is it too long? The first few lines of your post might populate the meta description, but will it run over? Take the extra few minutes to ensure that the details have all been accounted for so that your article is perfectly optimized for traditional search.
Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.
Here is a simple checklist that can be followed when it comes to those details:
- Is your title included and limited to the character allotment?
- Have you written a separate meta description for your article that is limited to 156 characters?
- Have you selected a keyword and verified that it is well optimized (using the features in Yoast)?Screenshot taken 7/8/2014
- Have you indicated the category(ies) in which your article will appear on your blog?
- Have you included all relevant post tags including one that aligns with your chosen keyword?
- Is there a well-optimized featured image included?
Though these are not the only things to consider when it comes to SEO (for example,there is also keyword density, URL, etc.) these are features that are very easily identified in WordPress, and some of these features (i.e. the Page Analysis feature detailed above) actually include a lot more in-depth SEO analysis to assist you in the optimization process.
Get Your Site SEO Ready
When you first create your WordPress blog, one of the most important things to remember is that it is not yet completely optimized for search. There are certain things that need to be done in the back end in order to ensure that your posts will be optimized for search at a higher level.
First, make sure that you permalinks have been adjusted in order to read as the name of the post and not the post ID. What does that mean? Well, when you first get started with WordPress, permalinks are automatically registered to read as your post ID. What you need to do is visit the Permalinks section of your Settings menu and change the ‘Default’ setting to ‘Post name’. Then, when you write a new post, you will be able to change the URL in order to include your keyword, or a phrase and better optimize each individual post.
Screenshot taken 7/8/2014
Second, you will want to create a sitemap and upload it to your servers and Google. The thing about this, however, is that you will want to wait until you have logged enough pages to make it a worthwhile venture. There are several free services that will allow you to do this for up to 500 pages, like XML Sitemaps Generator, and the rest can be done with a little help from your provider (e.g. Bluehost) and a knowledge of Google Webmaster Tools. A sitemap is very beneficial when it comes to SEO, and the beauty of a WordPress website is that it is very easy to build out the number of pages (so long as they are all properly optimized).
Conclusion
Some of these WordPress SEO mistakes have a quick fix while some require a little more time and effort, but the benefits can be witnessed very quickly. One of the great values of these CMS platforms is that they can be very easily optimized and changed since much of their functionality is superficially accessible. Some of these issues might seem like a chore to fix, but they are certainly worth it. Take the time to optimize your WordPress site for search and watch your pageranks shoot way up!
What other WordPress SEO mistakes can you think of? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
30 Digital Marketing Statistics You Shouldn’t Miss [INFOGRAPHIC]
/by Corey PadveenSome great digital marketing statistics not to be missed.
Thanks to the folks at Optimind, we have a great infographic here with some very interesting digital marketing statistics. Have a look at the data presented and let us know if any of these facts and figures surprised or shocked you!
Thought Leader Interview with Social Selling Expert Julio Viskovich
/by Corey PadveenWe took advantage of our relationship with social selling expert Julio Viskovich and decided to ask him a few questions about the field of social selling.
Not too long ago, we announced that t2 had teamed up with NexLevel Sales. Recently, we decided to reach out to the Forbes-ranked social selling expert Julio Viskovich, who heads up the NexLevel team. We wanted to get some detailed insights into a few questions around the concept of social selling. So, we decided to go to a renowned expert to get the answers.
How exactly would you define social selling, and what would you say are the biggest differences between social selling and conventional sales?
Social selling is interesting because it hasn’t quite been defined. The other part of it is that I see it as a separate entity from traditional selling only temporarily. What I mean by that is that I expect it to just become selling. It’s simply just the best way to sell and until it get utilized properly by the masses, we will have to continue to refer to it as social selling.
So to answer your question, social selling is utilizing social media and social to connect with prospects in the right place, with the right message, at the right time. Prospects are leaving hints about themselves and their business – be there to follow the trail.
Why do you think social selling is so much more effective than traditional sales practices?
Social selling is much more effective than traditional means because it provides salespeople with a mountain of information that they never had access to before. This means getting to know prospects better, building a relationship faster, creating instant rapport, and ultimately shortening the sales cycle.
Do you think there is one industry in particular where social selling will be more effective, or would you say it’s universal? Why?
Social selling definitely works better when you’re dealing with an industry that has adopted technology and social media. For example, technology companies like IBM, Oracle, Dell and others are encouraging most of their workforce to be on social media versus a manufacturing company who aren’t on board yet.
Have you found that there is a particular demographic that is more responsive to social selling than others?
I find that organizations that are leaders and innovators are the ones that are most responsive to social selling. This generally seems to include leadership teams that are tech savvy and concerned about improving processes. Older more traditional leadership teams, like many of us, are afraid of what they don’t know and are taking a more risk-averse approach and waiting until the entire mainstream market adopts it. In my opinion, the early bird gets the worm.
How can salespeople get started with social selling? What would you say is the most important habit to adopt?
Salespeople should get started and I recommend the following first steps:
1) Identify which social networks your prospects are one. Taking a buyer persona and mapping it back through demographics should tell you which networks they’re on.
2) The next step is to get on these networks and build out a professional and visually appealing profile.
3) Start listening. Spend two weeks observing the lingo and etiquette of each network and, if possible, access to training around these networks.
4) Share info that is valuable to your prospects and be there for them when they are asking questions. Don’t worry about creating content, there are myriads of it online. Be useful by sharing news and trusted industry info and insights.
Follow Julio on Twitter, and feel free to ask other social selling questions to t2 on Twitter!
10 Questions to Address in Your Social Media Audit
/by Corey PadveenThese are ten questions that should certainly be addressed when conducting your social media audit.
A social media audit can be an extremely valuable practice. It can provide you with some insight into your strengths, indicating where additional resources should be invested, as well as showcase weaknesses where you need to improve upon your performance or restructure a part of your strategy.
These ten questions are valuable inclusions in any social media audit, because they require you to take a step outside of your ownership and look critically at what you have done, what you are doing and what you would like to do.
On Your Business
Have you aligned your goals on social media with the goals of your brand in general?
Keep in mind that social media is a tool that should be used to achieve business goals. Superficial or quantitative goals like a growth in audience size are good to have, but the focus should be on how social media is helping your brand achieve business goals in the short and long term.
Are the right departments involved in the use of social media?
As with the point above, marketing is only one department where social media can have an impact. As a business, you might find that increased operational efficiency is a goal that social platforms can help obtain. In that case, determine which departments need to be leveraging social channels and make sure that they are doing so properly.
Do proper strategies exist for each of these departments, and are these strategies being adhered to?
Once again, building off the last question, it is crucial that for each department where it has been determined that social media can be useful, a proper strategy has been developed and is being executed efficiently.
Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.
On Your Analytics
Do you have measurement criteria in place for all of your goals?
You have a set of goals that you are trying to achieve with the use of social media, and in order to measure those goals, you need to have certain measurement criteria in place for each one. Make sure you know what you are measuring for and that those measurements are being carefully evaluated.
Do you have measurement tactics in place for all of your KPIs?
Not all KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are easily measurable. As noted above, you might be able to look at purely quantitative results with ease, like the growth of your audience, but others might be trickier. Determine what a successful benchmark is for each KPI (discussed in the following question) and be sure that you have a process by which that benchmark can be quantitatively and qualitatively measured.
Are you surpassing your benchmarks?
Just because you can measure your results, it does not necessarily mean that your results are always positive. Pay attention to whether or not you are achieving or, better yet, surpassing benchmarks. At this point, reset your benchmarks to new levels and ensure that you are working towards surpassing those before your next audit.
Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.
Have your test runs succeeded or failed?
As noted in the question above, at each point of the audit you’ll need to be setting up new benchmarks and testing new criteria to see how it performs on social media. Then, at each subsequent audit, you’ll need to evaluate your tests to see if they should be implemented on a full-scale basis or scrapped from the program entirely.
On Your Audience
Have you sufficiently defined your target social client persona?
Your target social client persona is the person (not just demographics or archetypes, but more or less a definition of an individual) that you are trying to engage with your program or individual initiatives. In running your audit, evaluate if you have targeted the right client persona, or if there exists an opportunity to target new demographics based on spike in individual engagement rates.
On Your Budget
Have you reached your ideal results with the budgets you have allocated to social media campaigns?
There are several metrics to consider when it comes to evaluating the effectiveness of your budgets. What’s more, these criteria can be very useful in determining the need to increase or reallocate budgets. They can also help you determine if your campaigns are effective in driving traffic, your audience is properly targeted or your landing page properly optimized. For example, a high click-through rate and low cost-per-click are great, but if you are not generating conversions, you might need to change your target audience or properly optimize your landing page for the remainder of the campaign.
On Your Tools
Are you tools acting as complements to one another, or against one another?
You will always want to ensure that your tools are working as complements to one another. Ideally, tools will be able to produce reports and provide value that, together, help you achieve your goals in the shortest, more cost-efficient way possible. In your social media audit, it will be important to evaluate the tools you are using in order to ensure that they are working for you and not against each other.
Conclusion
A social media audit is going to be a valuable component in any strategy. It is extremely important to spend time whenever possible evaluating how you are performing on your networks and with regards to your strategy as a whole. These are just ten questions of the dozens that might be asked when conducting a social media audit, but they are important ones that should be included in virtually all cases.
What questions do you ask when conducting a social media audit? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
6 Tips to Help Brands Use Pinterest Effectively
/by Corey PadveenWhen brands use Pinterest, they need to think about how the network can help them achieve business goals. These tips will certainly come in handy.
Pinterest can be a hugely valuable asset to any brand, but in order to see brands use Pinterest effectively, there are a few tips and guidelines that should be followed. The personal and subjective nature of Pinterest makes it such that simply posting content to a few owned boards will result in slow growth and a lack of user engagement (and, subsequently, referral traffic).
These six tips can help brands use Pinterest more effectively and start driving growth and achieving network-specific objectives in a much shorter timeframe. Implement some of these best practices and watch as Pinterest starts to work for you!
Reserve Pinterest Sessions
Creating and implementing an editorial calendar might work for some networks, like Facebook, LinkedIn, or Twitter, but Pinterest is all about the experience. Simply posting an image or two according to a schedule isn’t going to work in the long-run.
Instead, devote some time each day (even a 15-minute session is better than nothing) to playing around with Pinterest, sharing content and engaging with other users. These sessions will yield much greater results because of the nature of the network.
Repin, Repin, Repin
On any network, people love seeing their content generate engagement. The same holds true for Pinterest. Search keywords relevant to your boards and start repinning content that you find interesting and that your audience will find relevant.
This practice will accomplish two things: first, it will increase the volume of your pins with the curated content, which is great for your existing audience, and second, it will increase your exposure on Pinterest and lead to a greater reach and greater audience growth.
Leave Comments
Just as you should repin interesting content, you should engage further and start commenting on user uploads to increase engagement and reach. Comments can go a long way. Again, they will help you boost your visibility with key audiences (assuming you are commenting on posts that are relevant to your account’s theme).
Comments will also go a step further to show that you are in fact engaging with your audience and not simply sharing content in the hopes of leveraging Pinterest’s referral traffic power.
Maintain a Theme
If there is one thing that doesn’t look good for a brand, it is when their Pinterest profile is all over the place. Though Pinterest is a network where you should be sharing content that inspires, a professional account will try to adhere to at least a semblance of a theme.
This is not to say that you should not have fun with your Pinterest account – you certainly should. By in sharing content, make sure that it relates to your brand or your brand’s personality in some way. Keep the personal pins to your personal account, and leverage Pinterest s=to showcase your professional creativity, and content that interests and relates to your brand and audience.
Invite and Join
One great thing about Pinterest is the ability to invite users to pin to your boards and accept invitations to pin to others’ boards. This is a feature that should certainly be taken advantage of whenever it presents itself.
If you have a board that begins generating a lot of interest, begin inviting fans of the board to share their pins. It will greatly increase both the content shared to your board as well as the exposure of the board and, subsequently, your brand. Additionally, sharing your content to others’ boards will help increase your account exposure and drive new traffic to your boards and possibly website (assuming your pins link back).
Link Your Pins
This is a commonly referred to best practice, and there is a reason for it. Above the backlinking capabilities of Pinterest are referenced. These are only possible if you are embedding your pins with links, and pinning images directly from your website and blog posts.
When an image is pinned to Pinterest directly from your webpage or blog post, it automatically features a link. When you share images directly to a board, however, you will need to add the link in yourself. Don’t forget about this, because it makes the network all the more valuable when it comes to driving site traffic.
Conclusion
Pinterest is a powerful network and virtually any brand can find a way to take advantage of it. These best practices will certainly help brands use Pinterest more effectively. If you’re planning on getting started with Pinterest, be sure to include these activities in your strategy.
What else have you seen work on Pinterest? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
5 Things to Keep in Mind when Running a Contest on Social Media
/by Corey PadveenIf you’re planning on running a contest on social media, be sure to keep these best practices in mind.
There is no shortage of brands that have found great success from running a contest on social media. Contests are easy to design, simple to execute and are great ways of activating your social audiences (that can often find themselves dormant). When running a contest on social media, however, it is important to keep a few things in mind both from a superficial level (i.e. what people can see) and internally (i.e. what you need to remember as a business).
These five best practices will help you ensure that the next contest you decide to execute with the help of your social networks will be one to remember!
Cross-Platform Promotion is Key
People are never going to know about your contest unless you tell them about it. It sounds simple enough, but too often brands assume that simply launching a contest on social media means that their audience will flock to the sign up page. You’re going to need to go above and beyond in order to ensure that your contest – whatever it may be – is seen by audiences on every one of your social networks, when it’s appropriate, of course.
Your LinkedIn audience may not be as interested (or appreciative) in you promoting your contest as, say, your Facebook audience. Know the demographics of your network’s audiences and be sure that you share as much information about the contest with the right networks.
Take Advantage of Social Advertising
Just as with cross-platform promotion of your giveaway or contest on social media, advertising is going to be a crucial component to helping it pick up momentum. Again, people are not simply going to stumble upon the promotion you’ve worked so hard to develop. Creating a set of hypertargeted (if you’re not familiar with the term, learn more about it here) ads and running them on an ongoing basis will be hugely beneficial in driving signups that you want.
As a business, there is a reason why you’re making this offer, running this contest and giving something away. You have something to gain in the long run as a brand. That, in all likelihood, is going to come from a targeted demographic that you deem valuable as an audience. Take advantage of the targeting capabilities with social ads and get your target prospects signing up and giving you their information.
Enable Fangate and Collect Data
One of the nicest byproducts of a giveaway or a sweepstakes is that it can help you build your audience very quickly with some highly targeted audience members. In keeping with the theme of hypertargeting your social ads in order to promote your contest/giveaway with target demographics, you will want to be sure that Fangate is enabled in order to help build your social audience and stack it with audience members you hope to target with business-relevant messages in the future.
While, on the surface a contest might simply look like a brand being kind and generous, there are always business motives behind any decision. For your contest or promotion, be sure to require participants to ‘Like’ or follow your brand in order to participate. What’s more, you should be sure to collect as much data as possible. If people are interested in what you are giving away, they will likely be willing to share with you a whole lot of information. Think about what you want to collect (email addresses are a given) and include those fields in your signup form.
Protect Yourself with Detailed Terms & Conditions
If you think that simply adding an email address to a database without getting a user’s signoff is going to fly, you’ll have to think again. Without providing clearly laid out Terms & Conditions for your contest on social media, you’re going to open yourself up to a whole host of issues, including being labeled as a spammer.
Be sure to include a box that participants must check in order to participate that indicates that they have read and understand the terms of participation. In those terms, be sure to lay out what it is you intend to do with the information provided. People have a right to know and you, as a responsible brand, have an obligation to tell them.
Take Advantage of Rich Media
There’s no way to deny the fact that audiences of all types respond most to rich media (photos and videos). When promoting your campaign, take advantage of these kinds of media whenever possible. Be creative and think outside the box. There is so much content out there – and among that content, so many other brand including your competitors – that simply telling people about the opportunity to participate might be overlooked. Show them what it is being offered and encourage their participation with a unique message.
Conclusion
A contest, promotion, sweepstakes, or giveaway is a great way to attract attention to your brand, and it has never been easier than it is with the strategic use of social media. But in order to find that success, you’re going to have to put it the right mix of ingredients. Keeping these best practices in mind will go a long way with regards to finding success with your contest on social media.
Have you run any contests that leveraged social networks? Tell us about them in the comments below or on Twitter!
6 Productivity Apps Every Digital Marketer Needs
/by Corey PadveenIf you’re a digital marketer, then you’ll want to download these six productivity apps to make your life a whole lot easier.
Smartphones can be a lot of fun, but they can also make our day-to-day life a lot easier when we use them for business. As digital marketers, we all know that the job is far from over when we leave the office. Depending on what’s happening, it might just be beginning. These six productivity apps are amongst the best on the App Store or Google Play, and will make the life of a digital marketer much easier.
Chrome Remote Desktop
One thing that Google has done (and they’ve done it very well) is integrate all of their platforms for seamless use. So while you might not ‘use’ Google+ every day, if you’re logged into a Google profile, you’re active on Google+. And if you’re using Chrome, you can take your office with you everywhere.
Chrome Remote Desktop is an excellent platform for accessing your desktop when you’re out of the office. Regardless of your hardware – be it a Mac or a PC – all you need to use the app is a Chrome browser installed and linked to your device. Unfortunately for iPhone users, the Chrome Remote Desktop is only available on Android devices (phones and tablets).
Sociidot
Setting goals is a crucial part of our daily routines. We have small tasks that we want to accomplish, and checking them off of a list makes us feel like we have had a productive day. But there are not too many productivity apps out there that create goals in the way that Sociidot does.
In this app, the focus is much more on the bigger picture and tasks that need to be accomplished in order to achieve those longer-term goals. Create a Story and assign due dates to each of your tasks (or, Dots) and watch as you come closer to reaching major milestones and achieving business relevant goals.
EasilyDo
Don’t you wish you had your own version of ‘Jarvis’ like Iron Man? With EasilyDo, you’re not too far off. EasilyDo is described as ‘Your Virtual Personal Assistant’ and it really does to all the things you need done for you, saving you time and helping you organize your day a little more efficiently.
If you’re traveling on your best friend’s birthday and are expecting a package delivery and need everything taken care of, EasilyDo does it. It tracks things like birthdays, organizes contacts, checks local traffic and weather and, yes, tracks your packages so you can get everything done as it needs to be done without skipping a beat.
CamScanner
You need to get a copy of a client’s artwork to your creative department and you’re sitting in a client’s conference room with no scanner, computer or corporate email in sight. Enter CamScanner to save the day.
Not only can you take a picture and send it as a PDF, but you can crop, enhance and modify the picture taken in order to ensure that you are sending the highest quality version of this image to whomever you need to send it to.
Zamurai
If you’re working with a team on a project and you’re not always together, it can make completing tasks tough. That is especially true if you’re not using Drive or some other cloud-based collaboration tool. Zamurai takes the whiteboard out of the office and puts it onto your smartphone.
The app is designed to allow for brainstorming-like collaboration using a whiteboard template. You can also take notes on a presentation as a group and share ideas and changes to a project in real time. In this way, no matter where your team is, there is never a moment lost while working towards an objective.
Google Now
OK, granted, this isn’t just to make a marketer’s life easier, but it needs to make the list. It can sometimes seem scary how tuned in our devices are to everything we are doing; this is particularly true with Google Now, but in the best of ways.
Similar to EasilyDo, Google Now is a virtual assistant of sorts, but with a unique ability to intelligently analyze circumstances and provide you with necessary information without you ever having to ask for it. Google Now also works with your multiple Google devices, so if you are a Google loyalist, it becomes even more in tune with your patterns and habits.
Conclusion
Our smartphones are called that for a reason. If we really use them to their fullest extent, our lives as marketers will become a whole lot easier. So take advantage of the productivity section of the App Store or Google Play and see how much more you can get done!
What are your favorite smartphone apps? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
3 WordPress SEO Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
/by Corey PadveenThese are a few common WordPress SEO mistakes and some quick fixes to keep them from damaging your pageranks.
SEO has become a much simpler task for the average website owner with the advent of CMS platforms like WordPress. That said, many of us still make a number of slight oversights when it comes to WordPress SEO that result in a loss of potential discoverability on search engines like Google.
The following three WordPress SEO mistakes tend to occur much more often than others, and we have included these simple steps to take in order to avoid making these potentially harmful errors.
Remember Your Alt Tags
WordPress could not make it easier to include Alt tags in images, yet so often we see images that still register as ‘shutterstock-12345’ and can’t help but think, “That’s a lot of lost potential!”
So what exactly does it mean when an image does not have an Alt tag? For starters, it means that if the image does not populate on the page, there is no description attached to it (usually on the top left hand side) to let visitors know what they are missing. More importantly, when it comes to SEO, Alt tags register as keywords. So when someone searches for ‘WordPress’, for example, they will receive a selection of images with Alt tags that include the term ‘WordPress’ in addition to their traditional results. If you miss the opportunity to tag your image, it will not populate those results.
Why is this bad? Your images might outperform your articles in searches, so while your site’s post or page might not make it into the top result on Google, the image can.
In WordPress, the fix for this issue is a simple one. When you upload an image, pay attention to the sidebar on the righthand side.
Screenshot taken 7/8/2014
There, you can easily insert a proper title, description, Alt tag, a link, adjust the size and make all the necessary adjustments in order to ensure that your image is properly optimized for search. In the case that you have already uploaded an image and realize that you forgot your Alt tag, simply open your media library or select the ‘Edit’ option on top of the image, and add it in.
Include All the Details
Whether you’re using Yoast or some other WordPress plugin to assist you with search optimization, make sure that every detail is provided wherever it is required. Of course, your title might populate automatically, but is it too long? The first few lines of your post might populate the meta description, but will it run over? Take the extra few minutes to ensure that the details have all been accounted for so that your article is perfectly optimized for traditional search.
Image Credit: Shutterstock. Used under license.
Here is a simple checklist that can be followed when it comes to those details:
Though these are not the only things to consider when it comes to SEO (for example,there is also keyword density, URL, etc.) these are features that are very easily identified in WordPress, and some of these features (i.e. the Page Analysis feature detailed above) actually include a lot more in-depth SEO analysis to assist you in the optimization process.
Get Your Site SEO Ready
When you first create your WordPress blog, one of the most important things to remember is that it is not yet completely optimized for search. There are certain things that need to be done in the back end in order to ensure that your posts will be optimized for search at a higher level.
First, make sure that you permalinks have been adjusted in order to read as the name of the post and not the post ID. What does that mean? Well, when you first get started with WordPress, permalinks are automatically registered to read as your post ID. What you need to do is visit the Permalinks section of your Settings menu and change the ‘Default’ setting to ‘Post name’. Then, when you write a new post, you will be able to change the URL in order to include your keyword, or a phrase and better optimize each individual post.
Screenshot taken 7/8/2014
Second, you will want to create a sitemap and upload it to your servers and Google. The thing about this, however, is that you will want to wait until you have logged enough pages to make it a worthwhile venture. There are several free services that will allow you to do this for up to 500 pages, like XML Sitemaps Generator, and the rest can be done with a little help from your provider (e.g. Bluehost) and a knowledge of Google Webmaster Tools. A sitemap is very beneficial when it comes to SEO, and the beauty of a WordPress website is that it is very easy to build out the number of pages (so long as they are all properly optimized).
Conclusion
Some of these WordPress SEO mistakes have a quick fix while some require a little more time and effort, but the benefits can be witnessed very quickly. One of the great values of these CMS platforms is that they can be very easily optimized and changed since much of their functionality is superficially accessible. Some of these issues might seem like a chore to fix, but they are certainly worth it. Take the time to optimize your WordPress site for search and watch your pageranks shoot way up!
What other WordPress SEO mistakes can you think of? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
Where to Find Your Social Data
/by Corey PadveenSocial data is everywhere, and these are a few of the places where you can find it.
We constantly hear people talking about big and social data, and the concept of using these social data in order to build strategies, identify opportunities and construct campaigns is quite exciting. The issue we face, however, is that it is not entirely clear where we can find these social data in order to begin harnessing their value.
These sources are just a few of the places where social data exists and where it can be extrapolated and used in order to achieve any one of the above-mentioned goals.
Owned Social Media
This is a given. Your owned social media – any account that is owned and operated by your brand on networks like Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, to name a few – possess mountains of data that can be mined and analyzed for your own needs.
Raw data might not look very exciting (see the Excel spreadsheet below) but for anyone who knows how to use it, it certainly is.
Screen Taken 6-27-14
You can export reports and analyze data sets directly from networks like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and now Google+ with their latest My Business feature. This data can then be manipulated in a number of ways to serve your own purposes.
Google Analytics
Google Analytics is the example, but virtually any platform used to monitor web traffic provides us with an exorbitant amount of data – and not just web data, either. (Google Analytics was chosen because of the websites that monitor their traffic, roughly 95% use Google Analytics.)
Screenshot Taken 1-28-2014
While most people use Google Analytics simply to monitor web traffic, the social menu (shown above as a subsection beneath the Acquisition tab) provides some detailed reports on the activities taken by your social audience. Learn their tastes and interests using Universal Analytics, study their behavior on your website looking at things like the Users Flow chart and begin to craft strategies that you know will appeal to these interests and habits.
This process can be further optimized by using Goals and Filters in Google Analytics to begin filtering out traffic and focusing only on a social network, for example, then setting goals to measure the effectiveness of campaigns or strategies on different networks.
Screenshot Taken 1-28-2014
Social Media Monitoring and Listening Technologies
There are no shortage of technologies that exist on the market that make it easy for brands to collect and analyze copious amounts of social data – from industry data right down to competitor insights.
Tools range anywhere from free or inexpensive platforms that provide some fairly useful insights – like Mention, for example – to high-end enterprise level tools that run in-depth analyses on the data collected and provide you with some extremely useful reports – tools such as Crimson Hexagon.
Image Credit: Crimson Hexagon
Social Ad Reports
Social advertising is still in a state of infancy, and therefore, a state of complete affordability. A small injection of cash can lead to major – and very measurable – results. Those results are full of valuable data (because these results go into greater detail about the activities taken by your audience).
When or after running a social ad campaign, collect all of your data, download all of your reports and really start to analyze the results to see where opportunities exist, what you might be able to learn about your target demographics, and how you can turn this small investment into some hugely beneficial strategies that generate equally impressive (if not more impressive) organic results.
Conclusion
While there is data everywhere, these are just a few of the places where brands can begin sourcing and mining their own data. These insights can then be moulded into whatever you need them to be. The beauty of raw data is that they are simply numbers until something is done with them. So they are completely in your control. And as we all know, control is nice to have when trying to build a brand on social media.
Where do you look for social data? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!
10 Tips for Writing Engaging Facebook Posts [INFOGRAPHIC]
/by Corey PadveenThese ten tips showcase how you can create more engaging Facebook posts!
With so much content being shared to the web (and to Facebook in particular), it is hard to imagine how we can create more engaging Facebook posts. This great infographic from We Are Social Media (WERSM) provides some useful tips that can help you share more engaging Facebook posts in no time.
While some of these tips are repeated quite often (and have become common knowledge) we often forget about some of the most important components that go into engaging Facebook posts. Take a look at the list of pointers and see if you can begin driving higher engagement with your next post on Facebook!
4 Social Business Trends to Watch For in the Second Half of 2014
/by Corey PadveenSocial business trends are exciting and evolving, and these are a few to watch for in the latter half of the year.
Social business trends are constantly on the move. The field is quickly changing and there are new components emerging constantly. I was recently presenting at the Social Media Strategies Summit in New York on the concepts behind building a social business strategy for B2C brands. Hearing two full days of presentations shone some light on what some of the most popular social business trends are, and what marketers should be paying attention to in the second half of this year. According to a whole host of experts (the full summit agenda can be seen here) this is what is on the rise in the world of social business.
Welcome to the Age of Social Advertising
We have advocated social advertising for quite some time, but it has not been until recently that industry experts have really come around on the idea of ‘pay to play’. The social-media-is-free excuse is slowly disappearing, and people are starting to realize that in order to see ROI, there has to be an ‘I’ involved.
That ‘I’ (which, of course, stands for investment) has come in many forms – a lot of which was opportunity or sunk costs that most people tended to overlook – but is now clearer than ever: paid ads. Networks like Facebook have made no effort to hide the fact that brands are going to have to accept the ‘pay to play’ model – and why would they? Facebook has reached a critical mass of users and can effectively call the shots. Of course, there is a diplomatic way of doing things, so they slowly rolled it out over time.
The good news is that ads are still relatively inexpensive (we ran an internal case study for a competitive keyword set and found that Facebook can be upwards of ten times less expensive than AdWords) but that won’t last too long. As brands continue to see results and more companies jump on the advertising bandwagon, we can all expect to see those costs rise.
Mobile is Even More Important
It’s no secret that mobile is hugely important. We’ve watched the rise of this platform shoot past anything we’ve ever seen in this or, quite frankly, any other field. It might sound hard to believe, but mobile is becoming even more important.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
There is a 93% global penetration of mobile devices. 93%. Roughly a third of those users are using a smartphone. (Source) Apps and programs are being developed specifically for mobile, and networks like Twitter – roughly three quarters of whose userbase accesses the network via the mobile app – and Instagram are going completely mobile. Brands are looking for ways to leverage the popularity of the platform, and we can surely expect to see mobile campaigns, mobile friendly content and mobile advertising continue to skyrocket in the months to come.
Social Care is Penetrating New Markets
Everyone knows the story of Comcast’s success with social care – essentially, customer service through social media. The brand went from having some of the worst customer service ratings in the provider market to some of the best, all through the use of Twitter. That idea is starting to make it to new markets.
Moreso than ever before, brands of all industries are wondering how they can engage in some form of social care. Last year, Nielsen reported that a third of all online adults prefers to engage with a brand on social media rather than through conventional forms of customer service (including email). As that number has risen, so has the number of companies trying to leverage the popularity of this phenomenon. Positive customer experience (and tweeting about that experience) is an extremely valuable growth opportunity, and that is very capable of being done with social care.
Social Media and the Law
Perhaps the most hotly debated (and longest running) session at the summit took place around the idea of the implications of the law in the world of social media. It is a hugely interesting topic, simply because it is the first media of its kind and old laws have to been reinterpreted to apply to its use.
Image Credit: Shutterstock
Recently, a lawsuit was launched by a well-known actress against a well-known retail operation for the use of an image against her consent on Twitter. This is a groundbreaking suit as it really highlights that there are in fact legal implications to using social media – and not just the ones made up by employers and employees dealing with a ‘misunderstanding’. This is a field growing in importance, and we can surely expect to see it come to the forefront in the very near future.
Conclusion
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that there is so much taking place in the world of social media. These social business trends are only a few of the directions in which social will be heading this year (and in years to come). With such a quickly evolving market, it is sometimes difficult to keep track of the latest announcement or change. But these items should stay top of mind.
What major social business trends have you noticed this year? Tell us in the comments below or on Twitter!