Tim Tufnell

Test Post from MAN Digital

2016-12-17T13:46:44.879000Z

Test Post from MAN Digital

https://man.digital

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Our Digital Marketing Automation Methodology – INFOGRAPHIC

2016-12-13T07:16:15.266000Z

How we revolutionize digital marketing campaigns?

Customer Journey Audit

We start with what you have.

Our intelligent programs analyze all your historical sales data.

The software tears through as many data in an hour as it would take a human week to analyze.

The Result

A clear, top-down summary of your “Customer Journey”.

You’ll know exactly what worked in the past, by what degree.

The “sweet-spot” becomes clearer.

The single most effective way to position your offering.

Marketing System Build

We know your customer journey, so now we can lay down the tarmac to make it smoother for future customers.

Traffic

Create customer personas.

Craft engaging content that speaks to their individual needs.

Paid promotion and organic traffic are used to hook in more potential customers.

Engagement

Define the length of sales funnel – How long do we need to nurture prospects?

More content is produced that goes into greater detail and value.

Remarketing means anyone who touches your website can be brought back in.

Sale

Your products or services are promoted in a way that leaves customers happy about how they were sold to, and willing to buy again.

Everything leading up to the sale is tracked. Nothing is left in the dark.

Our systems give you 20/20 vision into the traffic you reach.

Profit Optimization

The system is built to make optimization easy.

Track the result of every dollar spent.

Group individuals into segments.

Split test what works on each segment.

Squeeze every last drop from every dollar spent.

Real-Time Content Personalization

Dynamic Content = Content that changes depending on who’s looking at it and when.

e.g. auto-updating copyright notice in a website footer.

Go far deeper with self-adjusting email newsletters and web pages. Make all your content ultra-relevant to every prospect.

Future-Proof Your Marketing Strategy

Digital marketing is being eaten up by A.I… and that’s a good thing.

Machine learning enables software to plow through mountains of data, allowing marketers (like you) to take their heads out of mind-numbing spreadsheets and focus on the important questions.

Track who clicks what, when, and where.

Make content that tailors itself to different visitors.

Test different theories to find out what really makes you money.

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Our Digital Marketing Automation Methodology – INFOGRAPHIC

2016-12-13T07:06:37.349000Z

How we revolutionize digital marketing campaigns?

Customer Journey Audit

We start with what you have.

Our intelligent programs analyze all your historical sales data.

The software tears through as many data in an hour as it would take a human week to analyze.

The Result

A clear,…

Source: https://goo.gl/ucqoZQ

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My Process For Setting Up A Solid Call Tracking System INFOGRAPHIC

2016-12-06T07:12:21.841000Z

Phase 1: Choose A Call Tracking Provider

Always use a SaaS service with cloud PBX technology. They will be able to handle any sudden peaks in traffic, and troubleshoot other issues.

In-house call tracking is what large corporations have been doing for a long time, and it takes the resources of a corporation to make that option viable. SaaS has opened this technology up to the rest of us.

It also makes sense to choose a call tracking provider who is also a Google Partner. Click here for the list. My personal preference is RingoStat.

Phase 2: Set Up A Tracking Number

If you’re a business that operates locally, get a local number. This helps give you an SEO bump.

Get a call-tracking enabled phone number.

Set the destination number.

This is your business’s root phone number.

Use that number for a marketing campaign that you want to illuminate.

Don’t muddy the waters by using it everywhere. When you want to compare two different marketing channels, use two different numbers.

Phase 3: Hook Up Analytics

If you’re using Google Adwords, you’re now ready to get maximum mileage out of the “Click to Call” feature. Pop a tracking number into that field, and you’ll have added a layer of Google Analytics on that number.

Google Analytics is a common integration for call tracking platforms, so you can use it even without an Adwords campaign. Double check that the platform you want to choose has this feature before you hand over your credit card number.

Focus on one metric above all others – First-time callers. It will take about 3 to 6 months of call data for this metric to emerge from the noise, since at the start, everyone will “technically” be a first-time caller.

Phase 4: Generate More Calls

The next chapter is packed with my favorite techniques for increasing the volume of inbound calls.

The “master technique”, however, is deceptively simple.

Test.

Now that you have tracking in place, you can watch any change you make to your marketing systems ripple through your results. However, that won’t help you much if you make changes at random.

Be a scientist about it. Choose one thing to test at a time, and keep everything else the same. Implement the test, and wait until you have statistical significance before you make a decision on the change you’ve made one way or the other.

This is the one principle to rule them all when it comes to optimizing your results in business.

Test, track, analyze, repeat.

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Call Intelligence: Advanced Call Tracking INFOGRAPHIC

2016-11-29T08:37:10.074000Z

What would you do if you could track the number of times your leads expressed interest or raised objections, or even the level of sales skill your phone reps exhibit?

These are known as conversational metrics, and they’re only possible with call intelligence.

It’s expensive now, but in the near future, I’m sure it will become much more affordable.

Using call intelligence to its full potential requires following these three basic steps:

Gather Useful Insights

Personalize the Customer Experience

Strategize with the Data

Gather Useful Insights

Call intelligence addresses the blind spot in your marketing analytics. Use it to attribute revenue and conversions back to your marketing campaigns and get in-depth insights about your customers.

Call intelligence can capture the following data points (and more):

Peak phone call times

Repeat vs. new call

Call outcome

Average call duration

Geographic location

Caller intent

Phone type

Demographic data

This kind of data is either impossible or time-consuming to track any other way. That’s why I’m so sure this is the future. When this technology becomes more affordable (just as basic call-tracking has done over the past decade), any business will be able to fill up the last gaps in their analytics and see exactly what’s making them money.

Personalize the Customer Experience

Custom Call Experiences

For example, set up distinct menu prompts for first-time callers and repeat callers. This customization can even be based on the caller’s online activity.

Leverage Conversation Analytics

Use signals from a phone call to customize a caller’s experience after the fact. For example, put them on retargeting or nurturing campaigns depending on keywords they say during the call. Or use the results of phone calls to test different sales scripts, thereby improving the experience of all callers.

Follow-Up Right

Put callers into follow-up campaigns based on call activity. Since you know their entire journey, online and offline, you’ll make sure the right message goes to the right person at the right time. No more accidently retargeting a converted customer with a discount for something they just bought!1

Act on the Data

Double Down on Successful CampaignsWith call intelligence, you don’t just know which channels bring you the most calls. You know which bring you the best leads.

Determine actual conversion pathsDo most people call straight from a well-placed search ad? Or do they decide to call only after some email nurturing? See their whole history laid out in front of you.

Tie revenue to phone callsInstead of measuring success by call volume (which can be very misleading), measure it by actual revenue and know which cogs in your machine are making the cash register ring.

Test and OptimizeThere are many things that could make your sales jump up, and with a stable tracking system, it’s fun to experiment. Review the results at the end of the week or month or quarter.

Phone number tests:

Position

Size

Font / Style

Landing page tests:

Calls to action

Messaging

Design

The 3 Core Benefits to Using Call Intelligence

Increase in call volume

Better lead quality

Greater marketing ROI

You don’t have to change your phone number or do anything with your phone system.

Increase in Call Volume. With insights into what’s actually driving phone calls, you’ll know how to drive more. e.g.

Better Lead Quality. Improve the entire customer journey, including their experience on the phone, so you can get more of those high-value calls.

Greater Marketing ROI. With proper analytics setup, you can improve all your channels constantly. The first step is seeing the exact ROI of every channel, laid out in front of you. The second is watching it go up.

Learn more how to do call tracking like a boss with our Ultimate Call Tracking Guide

Sources:

Think With Google, The Role of Click to Call in the Path to Purchase

Search Engine Journal, An SEO Beginner Guide: What is Call Tracking and Why Should I Care?

Less Everything, Adding A Phone Number To LessAccounting Increased Our Paid User Base

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Contact Form_copy

2016-11-27T12:29:25.279000Z

[honeypot antispam]

About You

Name *

[text* sm-name]

Street address

[text sm-address]

City

[text sm-city]

ZIP / Postal Code

[text sm-postcode]

Country

[select sm-country include_blank default:229 “Abkhazia” “Afghanistan” “Akrotiri and…

Source: https://goo.gl/WvKhrl

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Payment – Rejected

2016-11-27T12:29:24.459000Z

Source: https://goo.gl/SMjpOi

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Payment

2016-11-26T14:30:01.138000Z

Source: https://goo.gl/mJDO50

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Payment – Success

2016-11-26T14:29:58.822000Z

Source: https://goo.gl/kEPLWE

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What Are The Dangers Of Call Tracking? – INFOGRAPHIC

2016-11-22T07:08:29.779000Z

I hear a lot of common concerns about call tracking. Most are quite valid, so let’s address them here to make sure you don’t make the mistakes that many do.

Keeping the same number (for NAP consistency and vanity numbers)

Your Name, Address, and Phone number ought to be consistent across the indexed web. This is NAP consistency, which is an important ranking factor in modern local search.

Solution:

Dynamic Number Insertion

Using Javascript to swap out numbers, depending on the visitor.

Keep the number semi-consistent

Your rankings won’t take a massive hit. Keeping one number per paid campaign, for example, will help you much more in marketing intelligence than it could hurt you in SEO.

Your SEO guy holding onto your numbers

I wish I didn’t have to say this, but some shady SEO practices are going on out there. Some agencies try to keep their finger on the button of your campaigns, so if you want to show them the door, all the progress they’ve made for you goes with them.

There are two steps to preventing this:

Educate yourself on how call tracking works. Use it on your own for at least one advertisement, just to get a solid understanding of the process.

Make sure any contract you have with an external marketing team addresses the ownership of numbers generated for call tracking purposes.

Dirty numbers

Eventually, a phone number goes around the block. It doesn’t commonly cause a problem, but from time to time you might get a brand new call tracking number that another business once used. It might have been a spa resort or a drug dealer. There’s often no way to find out. Either way, you’ll get a few calls from disappointed callers looking for the other business. It’s a small price to pay. The longer you use a dirty number, the fewer wrong calls you’ll get (and it’s rare in any case).

If you’re concerned with having a number which used to be associated with something shady, simply do a Google search with the number in quotation marks, including the various ways phones are written (with/without the area code, with/without the digits grouped together). If it’s not indexed by Google, there’s nothing to worry about.

Legal Concerns

In the United States, call recording is legal from cost to cost. There are some regulations, which depend on the state. See this article by Digital Media Law to read up on these regulations. Before you begin, simply check whether you need to be registered as a call recorder in areas you will be targeting.

Most regulations simply require you to notifying the caller that their conversation will be recorded. I’m sure you’ve heard a pre-recorded message telling you this in the past.

*Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer, and nothing I say qualifies as legal advice.

Learn more how to do call tracking like a boss with our Ultimate Call Tracking Guide.

Sources:

Think With Google, The Role of Click to Call in the Path to Purchase

Search Engine Journal, An SEO Beginner Guide: What is Call Tracking and Why Should I Care?

Less Everything, Adding A Phone Number To LessAccounting Increased Our Paid User Base

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Marketing Automation For Small Businesses – Guide

2016-11-17T07:14:19.425000Z

Marketing automation? What is that?

Did you ever wonder where some of your customers come from?

Let me guess, you burned all your advertising budget online, got few leads and got flagged as a spammer just because you were not promoting the right product to the right audience.

It happens all too often.

Don’t worry, we understand you and we want to tell you how to solve this challenge.

But before we go on with this guide let’s destroy some myths. The myth that marketing automation is “impersonal”, “inhuman” and full of “spam”.

Here’s the big picture: Marketing automation is actually all about personalization, or in other words, messages tailored to individual people.

Perhaps you’ve experienced this before, where you surf online for shoes, browse some websites looking for the perfect pair, and then suddenly all the ads you saw online were about shoes.

I bet you thought, “Hm…this is strange.”

Then maybe you started to see a pair of shoes on websites, Facebook and you even got an email about them with a discount coupon.

The discount made up your mind, and you bought those shoes.

Let me tell you…those ads were not a coincidence. They were there because those shoes companies knew what you wanted. They knew what you were interested in because of what you browsed in their website, so they started to tell you more with the help of ads and emails.

This is what we call remarketing.

When a client gives you personal information such as e-mail, you now have permission to share with him anything you want. The challenge is to make sure it’s also what he wants, and to never make him feel like you’re spam- ming him.

With the help of marketing automation you know what your customers are looking for on your website and for what price. After you know what they need, you can send them different e-mails, automatically tailored to what they’re interested in. This creates a relationship with them, proving that you know what each person wants and needs.

Who Should Use Marketing Automation?

First thing’s first. Maybe you are wondering if your business is suitable for implementing marketing automation.

We think that using this kind of solution can take small and medium businesses to the next level and help them grow.

Marketing Automation is not something that comes without any other action from your side. That action is called investment. You want results, so keep in mind that in order to have results, you have to be ready to invest, otherwise this guide might not help you that much.

At the same time, if you haven’t done any online advertising before, maybe you should start now, and come back to this guide after you’ve had some experience.

Let me give you a visual look of how marketing automation goes.

If you want to implement marketing automation, first you need to start building your assets:

Track the behaviour of your leads so you better understand your audience, and know how to interact with them.

You need to ask yourself this: What do your customers need?

Once you know that, marketing automation will help you give them what they want.

Why Do We Need Marketing Automation?

A little bit of history

In case you were wondering, marketing 15K automation has existed since 1992. Yes, 1992.

Now, in order (for you) to understand how things evolved, I need to take you through the story. Follow me…

Marketing automation started before it was actually called marketing automation.

The question that was always the same was, “How do we (as a company) help somebody stay engaged with us?”

Email Marketing

It was easy to promote your business through email marketing in the early 1990’s, because Microsoft’s new hotmail service was handing out free accounts to anyone that signed up. Email marketing grew very fast. Because it was new technology, users would read every email carefully. Eventually, spammers abused email and the public gradually put up their guard, making it harder for good marketers to get through to people.

SEO

In 1995, Yahoo started to gain popularity as a search engine. Their algorithm was simple, and marketers found simple ways to game the system and get on the first page of search results using keyword density and automated backlinks. By the end of the century the practice of search engine optimization was well established.

Smartphones

Soon, smartphones arrived on the scene. Marketers realized that they could offer people more content and ways to interact because they had the freedom of accessing the internet while on the move.

Inbound Marketing

With so many devices helping people connect to the internet, marketers needed to be even more visible. They had to use engaging content (like articles, videos, and infographics) to hook more buyers. They needed to educate their audience about their product because people began to expect to know more about a product before buying.

Marketing Automation

After social media became popular with the public, the marketers followed suit. The various platforms were very challenging for the marketers, so marketing automation was invented to helped them connect with people through email, search, and social.

Let’s have a look at the evolution of marketing automation. The first tool was Unica in 1992.

After people started to use the internet more and more, companies started to promote themselves online, and nowadays this phenomenon has reached such level that most marketing has a bigger impact online.

Eventually, companies became aware of the fact that in order to have more profit, they needed to invest in marketing automation. Note that marketing behavior always follows buyer behavior. When the public changes their behavior, we need to update ours. It’s the way of the world.

What Is Marketing Automation?

By definition, marketing automation is the practice of automating all parts of the customer journey that don’t need direct human input (i.e. the boring stuff) so that marketers can focus more on strategy. Because of this rise in efficiency and creative focus, marketing automation always makes campaigns more lucrative if done right.

Automation software helps you track the actions of customers online, so you can provide them with truly relevant content until they are ready to buy. All this data also informs your strategy by “lifting the lid” off the internet so you can peek inside and see what’s going on.

“Marketing automation democratizes the highest levels of marketing best practice. Even the smallest of teams can incorporate automation to perform complex workflows routinely and at low cost.”

(Marketing Automation for Small Business, LeadPages)

“Campaign workflow can be designed within the tool and then executed automatically; once a campaign has run its course, a range of analytics tools can measure its performance to understand what worked well and what did not.” (What is Marketing Automation?, TrustRadius)

“Using behavioral inputs from multiple channels such as social clicks, viewing a pricing page or consuming a particular piece of content gives marketers the context they need to fully understand a lead’s challenges and how to guide them down the funnel. The most effective marketing automation not only collects data from multiple channels but uses those various channels to send their marketing messages as well. That means the success of your campaign relies less on the email and fully utilizes the various channels that influence a buyer’s decision.”

(What is Marketing Automation? HubSpot )

“Without marketing automation, you are just guessing – just hoping that people will take the bait and be ready to buy your products. Statistics show that buyers don’t do that. They want to learn at their own pace and be reached when they need more information or are ready to buy. A well- constructed marketing automation strategy makes that a reality.” – John McTigue, Kuno Creative – Marketo

“91% of the users who had a success of their business say marketing automation is an important factor.” – Marketo & Ascend2 “Marketing Automation Strategies for Sustaining Success” (2015)

“8% of B2C and 21% of B2B marketers find Marketing Automation one of their Top Digital Priorities.” – Adobe“Quarterly Digital Intelligence Briefing” (2014)

Marketers say that marketing automation helps them save their time (74%), and increases their CRM (68%). They have a better and more timely communication with their customers (58%).– Adestra Marketer vs Machine (2015)

“B2B marketers who implement marketing automation increase their sales-pipeline contribution by 10%.” Forrester Research “The Forrester Wave Lead-To-Revenue Management Platform Vendors” (2014)

4 Useful Steps That Will Help You Kick-Start Your Marketing Automation

Step 1

Send an email invitation to check/view/read/download some of your newest content – send this to the list of people who are interested in that type of subject.

Step 2

Send a thank you message to everyone that checked/viewed/read/downloaded from your previous email.

Step 3

Wait a few days (approx.3) and send them a follow-up email where you offer them another article similar to the topic you send a few days ago. For example use case study.

Step 4

Once you know who opened that mail and who downloaded your content, your sales team can start nurturing them with more relevant content. These people have indicated they will be more likely to buy from you, which is why you should put a focus on them.

7 Steps On How To Make More Money Using Marketing Automation

1. Outrun your competitors

“63% of companies who use marketing automation are outgrowing those who don’t.” (Lenskold and Pedowitz, 2013 – Today their company is a distinguished leader in the development and implementation of ROI processes. They work with companies like MasterCard, JP Morgan, Microsoft, Seagate, Kodak, Siemens, American Century Investments, and ADM)

Relevant data leads to happy customers and high conversion rates.

2. See the effect of marketing efforts with the help of the data

Marketing automation can show us the steps that potential buyers are taking once they make contact with your company. It shows us which strategies had more effect on converting them into leads.

3. Run programs through different channels

We use many channels to connect with our audience. Each channel has a different “culture” and should be handled differently. We need to control the content we show and to measure the effects of each type of communication we try.

4. Save time

When you “program” your campaigns and watch them run, you don’t have a worry about forgetting anything. The software will do most of the work for you.

5. Collect data for your business

You will have more traffic and more information about that traffic.

By getting to know your potential buyers you can improve your advertising campaigns and the communication between you and your audience.

6. Improve your CRM

With so many data about how your customers are behaving, what they like, and what they want less of, your relationship to them will vastly improve. Turn them into ambassadors!

7. Tailor the experience

Marketing automation helps you educate your users and tailor their experience with you. What leads to sales is the personalization and the relevancy of what you say to them.

Why Do Companies Use Marketing Automation?

Because it works. Because it brings them profit.

Let’s take some case studies of both small and big businesses and see how marketing automation increased their profits.

Paper Style

Paper Style targets brides and brides-to-be. They base their campaigns on what these brides search for on their website. They had 3 primary action types that would change what content their visitors would receive from them.

1. Clicking on links about weddings from their email newsletter. 2. Buying products used for weddings.

3. Looking at any page on their website that had a connection with a wedding.

They paid attention to all the behaviors of their possible buyers and took action when possible. For example, if a bride-to-be would purchase an item from their website, they would send a “thank you” email a few days later. But if friends of the bride would buy a bridesmaid accessory, they would also receive wedding gift ideas.

Did it work?

Yes. They had an increase of 330% in revenue per mailing and a click rate increase of 16%.

Barrack Obama Campaign

Still not convinced?

Let’s take Barack Obama’s political campaign as another example.

In 2012, Obama was running for president for the second time. His team used marketing automation with their volunteers through the website you can see above. Marketers would recognize that page as a landing page designed to collect information.

Obama’s team knew the area where every volunteer lived and could track their activity on the site. Time was not wasted on the volunteers that were not that active on their platform.

The result of this campaign, as you can guess, was the re-election.

Let’s take another example.

Cincom Systems

Cincom Systems is a private company that offers software solutions. They were having trouble establishing which buyers were coming from their newsletter. Here’s how they figured it out.

First, they collected their buyers’ information (from the subscribe button from their page) and started to track them. They analyzed their content and the impact it had on their audience: newsletter, blogs, emails and so on, and adapted them to their reader’s expectations.

Then they analyzed their data about their readers and created different strategies to engage with them even more. For example, Cincom would ask for the size of their companies. Once they learned this, they would ask for more specific information later on. This way they had a highly detailed profile of each contact.

Did it work?

Their open rate improved by 256%

Their click-to-open rate increased by 1,941%.

They identified 1,513 new potential opportunities.

They had an average of 18 new sales per week.

Acteva

Acteva is a company that offers services such as online payment, online registration, and ticketing. They started using marketing automation because they needed to improve their ROI and their targeting system. They created content campaigns for their visitors, personalized based on the information the visitor gave them on the landing page.

How did marketing automation work for them?

• Their ROI increased by 350%.

• They had 100% growth in the areas in which they used marketing automation.

• Their revenue increased by $2m.

6 Software Applications That Will Help You With Marketing Automation

We’ve said a lot about marketing automation so far: We shared our insights, we told you why you should use it, and what it’s done for others.

But we haven’t discussed who can help you automate your marketing. Which tools are best? Which companies can you trust?

Just for you, we made a list of 7 applications you should take into consideration when you decide it’s time to use marketing automation. There are much more out there, but because this guide is mostly for small businesses, we will tell you the ones that are the best mix of affordability and power.

1. Sales Manago

“Our software enables our customers to achieve outstanding sales results by implementing a complete range of automated and personalized marketing in a multichannel environment.”

Has a wide range of features (social media, email marketing, mobile marketing, advertising network, dynamic website content).

Makes it easy to use the data you collect without getting overwhelming.

Number 1 marketing automation for B2C in Europe.

Our recommendation for small and medium businesses.

2. Hubspot

“It was time to make the marketing and sales process human. Time to treat buyers like people, not numbers on a spreadsheet.”

Place an accent on inbound marketing (educating people; raising awareness).

Have a very good relationship with their customers.

Gives you a platform that allows you to optimize every single part of your sales funnel.

3. Salesforce

“Salesforce is much more than just a CRM solution. It brings together all your customer information in a single, integrated platform.”

Uses the CRM system by tracking the history of the client – email, service requests, and even phone calls.

Helps you collaborate easily with colleagues, also through mobile.

Works great with social media such as Facebook or Instagram.

4. ActiveCampaign

“We believe in intelligence-driven marketing. Marketers get better results. Contact get a need-driven & respectful experience.”

Gives you many pricing options.

Focused on e-mail marketing, sales and CRM.

They show you exactly how to use it with a library of videos with instructions.

Very simple to use, it allows you to send relevant emails to specific groups of customers based on actions they’ve taken.

You can organize your campaigns using a flowchart and send emails accordingly.

5. GetResponse

“Among us, you’ll find experts in various fields who stay creative and open to new knowledge and experiences.”

You can become an affiliate to their business and receive 33% commission after every paid account you recommend.

Great at email marketing automation specifically.

You can start small by not having to pay a lot for the first few thousands of subscribers.

6. InfusionSoft

“We accelerate small business growth in technology, sales, and marketing strategy, and a community of industry leaders, business owners, coaches, and consultants.”

Infusionsoft Mobile have many features which allow you to work where you are (upload, access, and edit contact information, communicate with customers, view, create, and complete tasks, etc.)

This app tracks your customers and their behavior, then it shows you your task-list including communications with contacts, appointments, and info about the customers related to those tasks.

Includes some great e-commerce features.

Funnel Lead Marketing – Example

DO’S and DONT’S When Using Systems To Automate Your Marketing

Don’t just automate your current process without revisiting your goals and strategy.

Marketing automation is a multiplier. If you’re already executing a bad strategy, accelerating it with automation software could be disastrous.

Make sure your goals and strategies line up with customer needs and expectations. If you’re not sure, begin slowly, and carefully track how your audience responds during the first few weeks.

Do integrate marketing automation with your inbound marketing strategy.

With marketing automation, there is no need to send a general, broad message to your entire contact list that will end up getting deleted or marked as spam because it’s not relevant.

Do send highly targeted and specific content to a narrow audience.

Put yourself in the customer’s shoes. Say that you’ve engaged with a company; maybe you’ve downloaded a piece of their content and really loved what you read. The next email you get is a completely different topic that has nothing to do with the thing that made you interested in the first place. Wouldn’t it make more impact if you received an email that continued to dive further into the topic of the content you already read?

Don’t forget about your existing customers.

Selling is hard work. Many companies are so focused on generating new revenue that they forget about their current customers: The group of people that already have an affinity for what they are selling, and most likely want to buy more.

Do set up customer engagement campaigns to keep your current customers happy and coming back for

Keeping your customers engaged with content marketing is an essential piece of growing your company. Nurture those relationships by sending segmented, customer-only content, that will educate and encourage them to keep coming back to your company for thought leadership and expertise.

Digital Marketing Automation Checklist

Marketing automation is all about three things: strategy, relationships and time.

Give yourself some time to really think about the strategy and prepare for the implementation. As they say “Rome wasn’t built in a day.”

1. What do you want?

From the perspective of the customer? What am I looking for?

From your perspective? What will get you to your goals?

2. What does your lead want from you?

3. Where are finding you now?

4. What and Who?

What happened?

Who needs to know about it?

What’s the action to be taken?

Who should be taking that action?

5. Set implementation goals for:

Month

Quarter

They will help you get on the right track in moments of crisis.

6. Take action.

7. Revise and analyze your steps.

8. Don’t give up before the payoff!

What’s Next? The Future Of Marketing Automation

One of the best things about Marketing Automation is its efficiency. With relevant technology you’re able to manage leads and finally benefit from the content you create to the maximum degree.

It helps you build long-term relationships with your customers and to manage their preferences. You already know it. There are two sides to everything. And it’s worth to look ahead and see if you’re taking the right course.

Find out some insights/predictions about the future of technology and marketing. See how they can work and turn into profits for your small business.

“The integrated messaging activities will be based on detailed subscriber profiles including precious cross-channel information.”

René Kulka – Email Marketing Evangelist at optivo, Consultant, and author of E-Mail-Marketing: Das umfassende Praxis-Handbuch

“Marketing automation is still in the early innings. And the way marketing automation is used is still evolving.” (…) In the next phase, marketing automation will solve far more than demand generation – it will be used to deliver a better customer experience from brand awareness through customer retention and loyalty. Marketing automation will serve as the command center for orchestrating prospect and customer communications in Account-Based Marketing. And marketing automation will be the big data platform used by marketers to make smarter decisions and to better understand their customers. We’re excited to play a role in helping companies better understand their business and meet their customer’s needs.”

Andy MacMillan – CEO at Act-On Software, Inc.

“Marketing automation needs leads, and while content is the most potent fuel for lead generation, managing and leveraging that growing library of content will be vital in order to fully utilize marketing automation.” “Too many systems still don’t connect. It’s time to stop using Excel spreadsheets as the glue that holds your marketing operations together, manually collecting data from disparate systems.”

Jeff Cohen – Oracle.com

In our opinion, the integration of marketing and technology is certain and it’ll be developing. Be aware of that and see for yourself what marketing automation can bring to your small business.

Whatever you do, don’t get left behind!

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Stop Wasting Time And Start High-Value Inbound Calls – INFOGRAPHIC

2016-11-15T07:15:30.466000Z

When you have a robust call tracking system in place, you feel excited to invest in a new campaign, because even if it doesn’t work the way you’d hope, you know the data you’ll get from it will be true and useful.

Website

Make your site call-friendly. Independent market research company Ipsos found that 70% of mobile searchers use click-to-call. At the very least, this means hyper-linking the telephone number on your website with “tel:+441010101010” for example. Be sure to include the area code at the start of the number to make it clickable.

Callback Widgets

Add more design and functionality with a callback widget. Most digital marketing blogs will persuade you to put share buttons on your website that follow the user as they scroll. But you don’t pay the bills with shares, do you? You pay them with the sales that happen on the phone. So why not replace your share buttons with a call button that follows the user as they navigate your website, and keep your call staff only a quick tap away at any moment.

Landing Pages

Pages with a telephone number convert better than those without, even if the number is never called. If your goal is to get calls, do one better by making the number more inviting with a callback widget or other click-to-call button. You don’t have to be techy to pull this off. There are many tools available today for creating beautiful landing pages. Among my favorites are:

Unbounce.com

Instapages.com

Landingi.com

Add coupons to your landing pages to help prompt on-the-fence leads to action. Make sure they know that quoting their unique coupon code over the phone is the only way they will get the discount. Don’t be afraid to give them a fat discount either. The phone is a great place to upsell, and repeat custom is worth the initial cut in price. The critical thing with a landing page is getting them past the hump of tapping that call button.

Adwords

With Google Adwords, the majority have focused on getting people to click, but search advertising can be even more effective for inbound calls. You can create as many different campaigns as you have target demos. Optimize them for calls with phone-specific calls to action:

Call Now

Call Only Promotion

Discounts Over The Phone Only

Free Estimates Fast Over The Phone

Discover What We Can Do For You Over a Short and Fast Phone Call

Pro Hack: In the Adwords interface you can add a location extension, which will present your phone number listed in Google My Business. Maybe people, especially from the desktop, will call that number without clicking. No click means you don’t pay a penny. Free calls!

Bing & Yahoo

When you’ve found a groove that works in Google Adwords, it’s a cinch to import the same campaign into Bing or Yahoo Search. These widely used Google-alternatives might not have as huge a user base, but they are certainly big enough, and they are more relaxed about what you can do in your campaign.

Pro Hack: Add your phone number in the display URL of your Bing Ad. This can lead to free calls.

Social Media

With a Facebook business page, you’ll have the option to set up a call campaign. You’ll have the same audience targeting features as you would with any other social ad campaign.

Use promo numbers for your profiles on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Snapchat, and any other platforms where your target demographic spends time. Have your social media managers handle the phone calls from those platforms so your other sales agents can focus on their own specialty channels.

Citations

Your business citations should be plastered all over the internet, and be as consistent as possible. The same title, the same email, the same description, and the same telephone number on all your citations helps your search results in Google Maps.

The downside of using the same number on every citation means that you cannot differentiate traffic from different citation sources. My recommendation is to take this trade-off. Citation traffic is organic traffic and therefore is not the most critical kind to dissect.

Learn more how to do call tracking like a boss with our Ultimate Call Tracking Guide

Sources:

Think With Google, The Role of Click to Call in the Path to Purchase

Search Engine Journal, An SEO Beginner Guide: What is Call Tracking and Why Should I Care?

Less Everything, Adding A Phone Number To LessAccounting Increased Our Paid User Base

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How 3 Companies Plugged Their Revenue Leaks

2016-11-08T08:01:20.102000Z

If you’re just about to get into call tracking, I’m excited for you. You’re about to identify and plug up major revenue leakages and grow your bottom line. Here are three cases of companies doing just that.

1) Fannit Marketing agency Fannit was being wrongly accused.

Their client thought Fannit wasn’t doing their job. It looked like lead generation was too low. However, by tracking where phone calls came from and how effective each call was, they discovered the problem wasn’t in lead gen at all.

The problem was in sales.

The phone agents didn’t know the answers to many of the questions that leads had. Spotting this gap in their process added $250,000 of potential annual revenue for the client.

2) Hotel Grand Lucayan Knowing what’s working is sometimes enough to transform a business from “flirting with broke” to stable and growing.

As a luxury vacation resort in the Bahamas, Hotel Grand Lucayan spent most of their marketing budget on Atlanta. That’s where most inbound flights to the Bahamas came from, so it seemed to make sense.

After implementing call tracking, however, they found advertising in certain areas in the US northeast and Florida worked far better. They now knew their highest performing areas down to the zip code.

Grand Lucayan’s phone conversion rate went up by 157%.

We live in a multi-channel world.

To win, you need to be omni-channel.

3) Paychex

To be omnichannel, you need to have a clear view of your customers’ buying cycles. No gaps. If you’re tracking click through rates but not inbound calls from specific ads, for example, you simply can’t know how well they’re performing.

Paychex reduced cost per acquisition by 43% and increased leads generated by 95% when they started tracking calls.

They found their Adwords campaign was doing more than twice as well as they thought, and they zeroed in on their best keywords. They also reduced their ad spend during peak times when the staff was often overwhelmed by call volume, thereby reducing their cost without losing any sales.

I, for one, like to know where my money is going. I like to see how each dollar is performing, and how much return I’m getting from my investments.

I’m willing to bet you do too.

Learn more how to do call tracking like a boss with our Ultimate Call Tracking Guide

Sources:

Think With Google, The Role of Click to Call in the Path to Purchase

Search Engine Journal, An SEO Beginner Guide: What is Call Tracking and Why Should I Care?

Less Everything, Adding A Phone Number To LessAccounting Increased Our Paid User Base

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Why We Love Tracking Calls (And You Should, Too!) – INFOGRAPHIC

2016-10-31T09:34:16.300000Z

Imagine if you could track calls like you track clicks.

Wouldn’t you like to track the results produced by individual sales reps, individual calls, or calls that come from particular marketing channels?

Once you have this knowledge, you’ll never go back. It’s like going from tunnel-vision to 20/20. The phone is often the critical junction where a sale is made or lost.

I know you’re busy, so to prevent any wasted time for you or your team, I made this guide. Below you’ll find the step by step system I use with my clients to set up basic call tracking from scratch. Also, learn how to move into advanced call tracking (known as call intelligence).

What is Call Tracking?

Basic call tracking is the use of unique numbers (generated automatically) to track the source and efficacy of your inbound phone calls. Use a different number for each marketing campaigns, and your call tracking software can measure the true results of each channel.

Advanced call tracking involves the automatic analysis of phone conversations, pre-recorded voice menus, and auto-scheduled call flows. We’ll cover that later on.

What You Stand to Gain

There are five main benefits to call tracking:

1. Know your ROI. You’ll know for sure how much money all your marketing efforts (and investments) bring into the business.

2. Watch the right KPIs. Forget bounce rate. The phone contains much more critical metrics.

3. Increase call conversion. Inbound calls convert extremely well already, and by tracking results, you can run tests to optimize sales.

4. Call intelligence. With advanced call tracking, you’ll know the full picture of every lead who winds up on the phone.

5. Find and fix money-leaks. Uncover gaps in knowledge or skill within your staff that would otherwise go unnoticed.

Know your ROI

Time and again, businesses who try call tracking find huge discrepancies in their sales and marketing systems. You might be pouring money into something you assume is giving you a return when it’s not, and simultaneously ignoring something that’s doubling every dollar you put into it!

Without call tracking, how will you keep your marketing channels accountable? Instead of hearing a monthly tally of keyword rank, bounce rates, unique visits, and other “slightly useful” figures, wouldn’t it be simpler to see how many phone calls each channel has generated for you?

With call recordings, you’ll also know the quality of calls coming from various channels. You can find real gold mines this way!

Watch the right KPIs

Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are simply metrics that matter to your business.

Many of us working in local SEO have focused on KPIs based on rankings and traffic. Not because they’re necessarily the best metrics to follow, but because it has been easiest to track them for a long time. Relying on these metrics nowadays, however, does not make sense. With the rise of personalized search and internet directories, they miss a lot of conversions.

For example, when someone searches for a local plumber and calls directly from the SERPs, you wouldn’t see that as a click-through. And yet, it could be the hottest lead you got that day! A rankings and traffic report is blind to those valuable phone calls.

Increase call conversion

Calls are highly profitable.

According to Google, inbound phone calls are 10–15 times more likely to convert than inbound web leads. BIA/Kelsey notes that 61% of businesses rate their inbound phone calls as “excellent leads,” while only 52% rate leads from the web as excellent. Most high-ticket products and services depend on phone calls to close the sale, and they’re the most important sales to be tracking!

You can only sustainably improve what you measure. When you know what’s bringing in the most calls, and how many calls vs. sales you get, you can start running tests and optimizing your sales systems. Until then, you’re in the dark.

Call intelligence

Going beyond call tracking and recording, those with the budget can also get “call intelligence” to get to work for them.

· Know how many phone calls are first-time and how many are repeated.

· Get alerted when someone who was on the phone a week ago shows up on your website again.

· Automatically assess the sales skills of your telephone sales reps.

· Track how many times a customer showed interest in purchasing, without having to sit through recordings.

· And much more.

Find and fix money-leaks

It’s time your receptionists and other call agents were accountable for their performance on the phone. It’s not about being “Big Brother” or pointing fingers. It’s about helping them improve and become masters of their job, to become an even more valuable asset to the business that pays their wage!

For example, they might have knowledge gaps that they feel too busy or too embarrassed to mention or fix themselves, leading them to stumble through customer questions and lose sales. Advanced call tracking is great at figuring out where phone performance can be improved.

As long as your workforce is happy to learn (as they should be!), then performance-tracking will be good news for everyone.

Learn more how to do call tracking like a boss with our Ultimate Call Tracking Guide

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Test Link from https://man.digital

2016-10-14T17:00:19.225000Z

Test post please ignore

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Introducing Progressive Web Apps: What They Might Mean for Your Website and SEO

2016-09-15T07:25:23.565000Z

Posted by petewailes

Progressive Web Apps. Ah yes, those things that Google would have you believe are a combination of Ghandi and Dumbledore, come to save the world from the terror that is the Painfully Slow Website^TM.

But what actually makes a PWA? Should you have one? And if you create one, how will you make sure it ranks? Well, read on to find out…

What’s a PWA?

Given as that Google came up with the term, I thought we’d kick off with their definition:

“A Progressive Web App uses modern web capabilities to deliver an app-like user experience.”

– Progressive Web Apps

The really exciting thing about PWAs: they could make app development less necessary. Your mobile website becomes your app. Speaking to some of my colleagues at Builtvisible, this seemed to be a point of interesting discussion: do brands need an app and a website, or a PWA?

Fleshing this out a little, this means we’d expect things like push notifications, background sync, the site/app working offline, having a certain look/design to feel like a native application, and being able to be set on the device home screen.

These are things we traditionally haven’t had available to us on the web. But thanks to new browsers supporting more and more of the HTML5 spec and advances in JavaScript, we can start to create some of this functionality. On the whole, Progressive Web Apps are:

Progressive

Work for every user, regardless of browser choice because they’re built with progressive enhancement as a core tenet.

Responsive

Fit any form factor: desktop, mobile, tablet, or whatever is next.

Connectivity independent

Enhanced with service workers to work offline or on low quality networks.

App-like

Feel like an app to the user with app-style interactions and navigation because they’re built on the app shell model.

Fresh

Always up-to-date thanks to the service worker update process.

Safe

Served via HTTPS to prevent snooping and ensure content hasn’t been tampered with.

Discoverable

Are identifiable as “applications” thanks to W3C manifests and service worker registration scope allowing search engines to find them.

Re-engageable

Make re-engagement easy through features like push notifications.

Installable

Allow users to “keep” apps they find most useful on their home screen without the hassle of an app store.

Linkable

Easily share via URL and not require complex installation.

Source: Your First Progressive Web App (Google)

It’s worth taking a moment to unpack the “app-like” part of that. Fundamentally, there are two parts to a PWA: service workers (which we’ll come to in a minute), and application shell architecture. Google defines this as:

…the minimal HTML, CSS, and JavaScript powering a user interface. The application shell should:

load fast

be cached

dynamically display content

An application shell is the secret to reliably good performance. Think of your app’s shell like the bundle of code you’d publish to an app store if you were building a native app. It’s the load needed to get off the ground, but might not be the whole story. It keeps your UI local and pulls in content dynamically through an API.

– Instant Loading Web Apps with an Application Shell Architecture

This method of loading content allows for incredibly fast perceived speed. We are able to get something that looks like our site in front of a user almost instantly, just without any content. The page will then go and fetch the content and all’s well. Obviously, if we actually did things this way in the real world, we’d run in to SEO issues pretty quickly, but we’ll address that later too.

If then, at their core, a Progressive Web App is just a website served in a clever way with extra features for loading stuff, why would we want one?

The use case

Let me be clear before I get into this: for most people, a PWA is something you don’t need. That’s important enough that it bares repeating, so I’ll repeat it:

You probably don’t need a PWA.

The reason for this is that most websites don’t need to be able to behave like an app. This isn’t to say that there’s no benefit to having the things that PWA functionality can bring, but for many sites, the benefits don’t outweigh the time it takes to implement the functionality at the moment.

When should you look at a PWA then? Well, let’s look at a checklist of things that may indicate that you do need one…

Signs a PWA may be appropriate

You have:

Content that regularly updates, such as stock tickers, rapidly changing prices or inventory levels, or other real-time data

A chat or comms platform, requiring real-time updates and push notifications for new items coming in

An audience likely to pull data and then browse it offline, such as a news app or a blog publishing many articles a day

A site with regularly updated content which users may check in to several times a day

Users who are mostly using a supported browser

In short, you have something beyond a normal website, with interactive or time-sensitive components, or rapidly released or updated content. A good example is the Google Weather PWA:

If you’re running a normal site, with a blog that maybe updates every day or two, or even less frequently, then whilst it might be nice to have a site that acts as a PWA, there’s probably more useful things you can be doing with your time for your business.

How they work

So, you have something that would benefit from this sort of functionality, but need to know how these things work. Welcome to the wonder that is the service worker.

Service workers can be thought of as a proxy that sits between your website and the browser. It calls for intercept of things you ask the browser to do, and hijacking of the responses given back. That means we can do things like, for example, hold a copy of data requested, so when it’s asked for again, we can serve it straight back (this is called caching). This means we can fetch data once, then replay it a thousand times without having to fetch it again. Think of it like a musician recording an album — it means they don’t have to play a concert every time you want to listen to their music. Same thing, but with network data.

If you want a more thorough explanation of service workers, check out this moderately technical talk given by Jake Archibald from Google.

What service workers can do

Service workers fundamentally exist to deliver extra features, which have not been available to browsers until now. These includes things like:

Push notifications, for telling a user that something has happened, such as receiving a new message, or that the page they’re viewing has been updated

Background sync, for updating data while a user isn’t using the page/site

Offline caching, to allow a for an experience where a user still may be able to access some functionality of a site while offline

Handling geolocation or other device hardware-querying data (such as device gyrpscope data)

Pre-fetching data a user will soon require, such as images further down a page

It’s planned that in the future, they’ll be able to do even more than they currently can. For now though, these are the sorts of features you’ll be able to make use of. Obviously these mostly load data via AJAX, once the app is already loaded.

What are the SEO implications?

So you’re sold on Progressive Web Apps. But if you create one, how will you make sure it ranks? As with any new front-end technology, there are always implications for your SEO visibility. But don’t panic; the potential issues you’ll encounter with a PWA have been solved before by SEOs who have worked on JavaScript-heavy websites. For a primer on that, take a look at this article on JS SEO.

There are a few issues you may encounter if you’re going to have a site that makes use of application shell architecture. Firstly, it’s pretty much required that you’re going to be using some form of JS framework or view library, like Angular or React. If this is the case, you’re going to want to take a look at some Angular.JS or React SEO advice. If you’re using something else, the short version is you’ll need to be pre-rendering pages on the server, then picking up with your application when it’s loaded. This enables you to have all the good things these tools give you, whilst also serving something Google et al can understand. Despite their recent advice that they’re getting good at rendering this sort of application, we still see plenty of examples in the wild of them flailing horribly when they crawl heavy JS stuff.

Assuming you’re in the world of clever JS front-end technologies, to make sure you do things the PWA way, you’ll also need to be delivering the CSS and JS required to make the page work along with the HTML. Not just including script tags with the src attribute, but the whole file, inline.



 Obviously, this means you’re going to increase the size of the page you’re sending down the wire, but it has the upside of meaning that the page will load instantly. More than that, though, with all the JS (required for pick-up) and CSS (required to make sense of the design) delivered immediately, the browser will be able to render your content and deliver something that looks correct and works straightaway.


 Again, as we’re going to be using service workers to cache content once it’s arrived, this shouldn’t have too much of an impact. We can also cache all the CSS and JS external files required separately, and load them from the cache store rather than fetching them every time. This does make it very slightly more likely that the PWA will fail on the first time that a user tries to request your site, but you can still handle this case gracefully with an error message or default content, and re-try on the next page view.


 There are other potential issues people can run in to, as well. The Washington Post, for example, built a PWA version of their site, but it only works on a mobile device. Obviously, that means the site can be crawled nicely by Google’s mobile bots, but not the desktop ones. It’s important to respect the P part of the acronym — the website should enable features that a user can make use of, but still work in a normal manner for those who are using browsers that don’t support them. It’s about enhancing functionality progressively, not demanding that people upgrade their browser.


 The only slightly tricky thing with all of this is that it requires that, for best experience, you design your application for offline-first experiences. How that’s done is referenced in Jake’s talk above. The only issue with going down that route: you’re only serving content once someone’s arrived at your site and waited long enough to load everything. Obviously, in the case of Google, that’s not going to work well. So here’s what I’d suggest…


 Rather than just sending your application shell, and then using AJAX to request content on load, and then picking up, use this workflow instead:


 

 User arrives at site


 Site sends back the application shell (the minimum HTML, JS, and CSS to make everything work immediately), along with…


 …the content AJAX response, pre-loaded as state for the application


 The application loads that immediately, and then picks up the front end.


 
Adding in the data required means that, on load, we don’t have to make an AJAX call to get the initial data required. Instead, we can bundle that in too, so we get something that can render content instantly as well.


 As an example of this, let’s think of a weather app. Now, the basic model would be that we send the user all the content to show a basic version of our app, but not the data to say what the weather is. In this modified version, we also send along what today’s weather is, but for any subsequent data request, we then go to the server with an AJAX call.


 This means we still deliver content that Google et al can index, without possible issues from our AJAX calls failing. From Google and the user’s perspective, we’re just delivering a very high-performance initial load, then registering service workers to give faster experiences for every subsequent page and possibly extra functionality. In the case of a weather app, that might mean pre-fetching tomorrow’s weather each day at midnight, or notifying the user if it’s going to rain, for example.


 Going further


 If you’re interested in learning more about PWAs, I highly recommend reading this guide to PWAs by Addy Osmani (a Google Chrome engineer), and then putting together a very basic working example, like the train one Jake mentions in his YouTube talk referenced earlier. If you’re interested in that, I recommend Jake’s Udacity course on creating a PWA available here.


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How to Generate Content Ideas Using Screaming Frog in 20(ish) Minutes
2016-09-13T07:25:20.954000Z
Posted by Todd_McDonald


 A steady rise in content-related marketing disciplines and an increasing connection between effective SEO and content has made the benefits of harnessing strategic content clearer than ever. However, success isn’t always easy. It’s often quite difficult, as I’m sure many of you know.


 A number of challenges must be overcome for success to be realized from end-to-end, and finding quick ways to keep your content ideas fresh and relevant is invaluable. To help with this facet of developing strategic content, I’ve laid out a process below that shows how a few SEO tools and a little creativity can help you identify content ideas based on actual conversations your audience is having online.


 What you’ll need


 Screaming Frog: The first thing you’ll need is a copy of Screaming Frog (SF) and a license. Fortunately, it isn’t expensive (around $150/USD for a year) and there are a number of tutorials if you aren’t familiar with the program. After you’ve downloaded and set it up, you’re ready to get to work.


 Google AdWords Account: Most of you will have access to an AdWords account due to actually running ads through it. If you aren’t active with the AdWords system, you can still create an account and use the tools for free, although the process has gotten more annoying over the years.


 Excel/Google Drive (Sheets): Either one will do. You’ll need something to work with the data outside of SF.


 Browser: We walk through the examples below utilizing Chrome.


 The concept


 One way to gather ideas for content is to aggregate data on what your target audience is talking about. There are a number of ways to do this, including utilizing search data, but it lags behind real-time social discussions, and the various tools we have at our disposal as SEOs rarely show the full picture without A LOT of monkey business. In some situations, determining intent can be tricky and require further digging and research. On the flipside, gathering information on social conversations isn’t necessarily that quick either (Twitter threads, Facebook discussion, etc.), and many tools that have been built to enhance this process are cost-prohibitive.


 But what if you could efficiently uncover hundreds of specific topics, long-tail queries, questions, and more that your audience is talking about, and you could do it in around 20 minutes of focused work? That would be sweet, right? Well, it can be done by using SF to crawl discussions that your audience is having online in forums, on blogs, Q&A sites, and more.


 Still here? Good, let’s do this.


 The process


 Step 1 – Identifying targets


 The first thing you’ll need to do is identify locations where your ideal audience is discussing topics related to your industry. While you may already have a good sense of where these places are, expanding your list or identifying sites that match well with specific segments of your audience can be very valuable. In order to complete this task, I’ll utilize Google’s Display Planner. For the purposes of this article, I’ll walk through this process for a pretend content-driven site in the Home and Garden vertical.


 Please note, searches within Google or other search engines can also be a helpful part of this process, especially if you’re familiar with advanced operators and can identify platforms with obvious signatures that sites in your vertical often use for community areas. WordPress and vBulletin are examples of that.


 Google’s Display Planner

 


 Before getting started, I want to note I won’t be going deep on how to use the Display Planner for the sake of time, and because there are a number of resources covering the topic. I highly suggest some background reading if you’re not familiar with it, or at least do some brief hands-on experimenting.


 I’ll start by looking for options in Google’s Display Planner by entering keywords related to my website and the topics of interest to my audience. I’ll use the single word “gardening.” In the screenshot below, I’ve selected “individual targeting ideas” from the menu mid-page, and then “sites.” This allows me to see specific sites the system believes match well with my targeting parameters.


 

 

 


 I’ll then select a top result to see a variety of information tied to the site, including demographics and main topics. Notice that I could refine my search results further by utilizing the filters on the left side of the screen under “Campaign Targeting.” For now, I’m happy with my results and won’t bother adjusting these.


 Step 2 – Setting up Screaming Frog

 


 Next, I’ll take the website URL and open it in Chrome.


 Once on the site, I need to first confirm that there’s a portion of the site where discussion is taking place. Typically, you’ll be looking for forums, message boards, comment sections on articles or blog posts, etc. Essentially, any place where users are interacting can work, depending on your goals.


 In this case, I’m in luck. My first target has a “Gardening Questions” section that’s essentially a message board.


 

 

 


 A quick look at a few of the thread names shows a variety of questions being asked and a good number of threads to work with. The specific parameters around this are up to you — just a simple judgment call.


 Now for the fun part — time to fire up Screaming Frog!


 I’ll utilize the “Custom Extraction” feature found here:


 Configuration → Custom → Extraction


 …within SF (you can find more details and broader use-case documentation set for this feature here). Utilizing Custom Extraction will allow me to grab specific text (or other elements) off of a set of pages.


 Configuring extraction parameters

 


 I’ll start by configuring the extraction parameters.


 

 

 


 In this shot I’ve opened the custom extraction settings and have set the first extractor to XPath. I need multiple extractors set up, because multiple thread titles on the same URL need to be grabbed. You can simply cut and paste the code into the next extractors — but be sure to update the number sequence (outlined in orange) at the end to avoid grabbing the same information over and over.


 Notice as well, I’ve set the extraction type to “extract text.” This is typically the cleanest way to grab the information needed, although experimentation with the other options may be required if you’re having trouble getting the data you need.


 Tip: As you work on this, you might find you need to grab different parts of the HTML than what you thought. This process of getting things dialed can take some trial-and-error (more on this below).


 Grabbing Xpath code

 


 To grab the actual extraction code we need (visible in the middle box above):


 

 
Use Chrome


 Navigate to a URL with the content you want to capture


 Right-click on the text you’d like to grab and select “inspect” or “inspect element”


 

 

 


 Make sure you see the text you want highlighted in the code view, then right-click and select “XPath” (you can use other options, but I recommend reviewing the SF documentation mentioned above first).


 

 

 


 It’s worth noting that many times, when you’re trying to grab the XPath for the text you want, you’ll actually need to select the HTML element one level above the text selected in the front-end view of the website (step three above).


 At this point, it’s not a bad idea to run a very brief test crawl to make sure the desired information is being pulled. To do this:


 

 Start the crawler on the URL of the page where the XPath information was copied from


 Stop the crawler after about 10–15 seconds and navigate to the “custom” tab of SF, set the filter to “extraction” (or something different if you adjusted naming in some way), and look for data in the extractor fields (scroll right). If this is done right, I’ll see the text I wanted to grab next to one of the first URLs crawled. Bingo.


 


 

 

 Resolving extraction issues & controlling the crawl

 


 Everything looks good in my example, on the surface. What you’ll likely notice, however, is that there are other URLs listed without extraction text. This can happen when the code is slightly different on certain pages, or SF moves on to other site sections. I have a few options to resolve this issue:


 

 Crawl other batches of pages separately walking through this same process, but with adjusted XPath code taken from one of the other URLs.


 Switch to using regex or another option besides XPath to help broaden parameters and potentially capture the information I’m after on other pages.


 Ignore the pages altogether and exclude them from the crawl.


 
In this situation, I’m going to exclude the pages I can’t pull information from based on my current settings and lock SF into the content we want. This may be another point of experimentation, but it doesn’t take much experience for you to get a feel for the direction you’ll want to go if the problem arises.


 In order to lock SF to URLs I would like data from, I’ll use the “include” and “exclude” options under the “configuration” menu item. I’ll start with include options.


 

 

 


 Here, I can configure SF to only crawl specific URLs on the site using regex. In this case, what’s needed is fairly simple — I just want to include anything in the /questions/ subfolder, which is where I originally found the content I want to scrape. One parameter is all that’s required, and it happens to match the example given within SF ☺:


 

  http://ift.tt/2cJeOyx


 
The “excludes” are where things get slightly (but only slightly) trickier.


 During the initial crawl, I took note of a number of URLs that SF was not extracting information from. In this instance, these pages are neatly tucked into various subfolders. This makes exclusion easy as long as I can find and appropriately define them.


 

 

 


 In order to cut these folders out, I’ll add the following lines to the exclude filter:


 

  http://ift.tt/2cJeGiB


  http://ift.tt/2cAsRJr


 
Upon further testing, I discovered I needed to exclude the following folders as well:


 

  http://ift.tt/2cJecsL


  http://ift.tt/2cAt2EG


 
It’s worth noting that you don’t HAVE to work through this part of configuring SF to get the data you want. If SF is let loose, it will crawl everything within the start folder, which would also include the data I want. The refinements above are far more efficient from a crawl perspective and also lessen the chance I’ll be a pest to the site. It’s good to play nice.


 Completed crawl & extraction example

 


 Here’s how things look now that I’ve got the crawl dialed:


 

 

 


 Now I’m 99.9% good to go! The last crawl configuration is to reduce speed to avoid negatively impacting the website (or getting throttled). This can easily be done by going to Configuration → Speed and reducing the number of threads and URIs that can be crawled. I usually stick with something at or under 5 threads and 2 URIs.


 Step 3 – Ideas for analyzing data

 


 After the end goal is reached (run time, URIs crawled, etc.) it’s time to stop the crawl and move on to data analysis. There a number of ways to start breaking apart the information grabbed that can be helpful, but for now I’ll walk through one approach with a couple of variations.


 Identifying popular words and phrases

 


 My objective is to help generate content ideas and identify words and phrases that my target audience is using in a social setting. To do that, I’ll use a couple of simple tools to help me break apart my information:


 

  http://tagcrowd.com/


  http://ift.tt/1f8plf9


 Excel


 
The top two URLs perform text analysis, with some of you possibly already familiar with the basic word-cloud generating abilities of tagcrowd.com. Online-Utility won’t pump out pretty visuals, but it provides a helpful breakout of common 2- to 8-word phrases, as well as occurrence counts on individual words. There are many tools that perform these functions; find the ones you like best if these don’t work!


 I’ll start with Tagcrowd.com.


 Utilizing Tagcrowd for analysis

 


 The first thing I need to do is export a .csv of the data scraped from SF and combine all the extractor data columns into one. I can then remove blank rows, and after that scrub my data a little. Typically, I remove things like:


 

 Punctuation


 Extra spaces (the Excel “trim” function often works well)


 Odd characters


 
Now that I’ve got a clean data set free of extra characters and odd spaces, I’ll copy the column and paste it into a plain text editor to remove formatting. I often use the one online at editpad.org.


 That leaves me with this:


 

 

 


 In Editpad, you can easily copy your clean data and paste it into the entry box on Tagcrowd. Once you’ve done that, hit visualize and you’re there.


 Tagcrowd.com


 

 

 


 There are a few settings down below that can be edited in Tagcrowd, such as minimum word occurrence, similar word grouping, etc. I typically utilize a minimum word occurrence of 2, so that I have some level of frequency and cut out clutter, which I’ve used for this example. You may set a higher threshold depending on how many words you want to look at.


 For my example, I’ve highlighted a few items in the cloud that are somewhat informational.


 Clearly, there’s a fair amount of discussion around “flowers,” seeds,” and the words “identify” and “ID.” While I have no doubt my gardening sample site is already discussing most of these major topics such as flowers, seeds, and trees, perhaps they haven’t realized how common questions are around identification. This one item could lead to a world of new content ideas.


 In my example, I didn’t crawl my sample site very deeply and thus my data was fairly limited. Deeper crawling will yield more interesting results, and you’ve likely realized already how in this example, crawling during various seasons could highlight topics and issues that are currently important to gardeners.


 It’s also interesting that the word “please” shows up. Many would probably ignore this, but to me, it’s likely a subtle signal about the communication style of the target market I’m dealing with. This is polite and friendly language that I’m willing to bet would not show up on message boards and forums in many other verticals ☺. Often, the greatest insights besides understanding popular topics from this type of study are related to a better understanding of communication style, phrasing, and more that your audience uses. All of this information can help you craft your strategy for connection, content, and outreach.


 Utilizing Online-Utility.org for analysis

 


 Since I’ve already scrubbed and prepared my data for Tagcrowd, I can paste it into the Online-Utility entry box and hit “process text.”


 After doing this, we ended up with this output:


 

 

 


 

 

 


 There’s more information available, but for the sake of space, I’ve grabbed only a couple of shots to give you the idea of most of what you’ll see.


 Notice in the first image, the phrases “identify this plant” & “what is this” both show up multiple times in the content I grabbed, further supporting the likelihood that content developed around plant identification is a good idea and something that seems to be in demand.


 Utilizing Excel for analysis

 


 Let’s take a quick look at one other method for analyzing my data.


 One of the simplest ways to digest the information is in Excel. After scrubbing the data and combining it into one column, a simple A→Z sort, puts the information in a format that helps bring patterns to light.


 

 

 


 Here, I can see a list of specific questions ripe for content development! This type of information, combined with data from tools such as keywordtool.io, can help identify and capture long-tail search traffic and topics of interest that would otherwise be hidden.


 Tip: Extracting information this way sets you up for very simple promotion opportunities. If you build great content that answers one of these questions, go share it back at the site you crawled! There’s nothing spammy about providing a good answer with a link to more information if the content you’ve developed is truly an asset.


 It’s also worth noting that since this site was discovered through the Display Planner, I already have demographic information on the folks who are likely posting these questions. I could also do more research on who is interested in this brand (and likely posting this type of content) utilizing the powerful ad tools at Facebook.


 This information allows me to quickly connect demographics with content ideas and keywords.


 While intent has proven to be very powerful and will sometimes outweigh misaligned messaging, it’s always great to know as much about who you’re talking to and be able to cater messaging to them.


 Wrapping it up

 


 This is just the beginning and it’s important to understand that.


 The real power of this process lies in its usage of simple, affordable, tools to gain information efficiently — making it accessible to many on your team, and an easy sell to those that hold the purse strings no matter your organization size. This process is affordable for mid-size and small businesses, and is far less likely to result in waiting on larger purchases for those at the enterprise level.


 What information is gathered and how it is analyzed can vary wildly, even within my stated objective of generating content ideas. All of it can be right. The variations on this method are numerous and allow for creative problem solvers and thinkers to easily gather data that can bring them great insight into their audiences’ wants, needs, psychographics, demographics, and more.


 Be creative and happy crawling!


 Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!


 

 

 

 Read more on our blog MAN Digital Blog


 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 via FREELANCE SEO CONSULTANT – MAN DIGITAL https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/13/how-to-generate-content-ideas-using-screaming-frog-in-20ish-minutes/

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Duplicate Listings and the Case of the Nomadic New Mexican Restaurant
2016-09-12T13:33:36.301000Z
Posted by MiriamEllis


 

 

 


 Albuquerque’s locals and tourists agree, you can’t find a more authentic breakfast in town than at Perea’s New Mexican Restaurant. Yelp reviewers exclaim, “Best green chile ever!!”, “Soft, chewy, thick-style homemade flour tortillas soak up all the extra green chili,” “My go-to for great huevos rancheros,” and “Carne was awesome! Tender, flavorful, HOT!” The descriptions alone are enough to make one salivate, but the Yelp reviews for this gem of an eatery also tell another story — one so heavily spiced with the potential of duplicate listings that it may take the appetite of any hard-working local SEO away:


 

 “Thru all of the location changes, this is a true family restaurant with home cooking.”

 “This restaurant for whatever reason, changes locations every couple years or so.”

 “They seem to wander from different locations”

 “As other reviews have already mentioned, Perea’s changes locations periodically (which is puzzling/inconvenient — the only reason they don’t get 5 stars)”

 “They switch locations every few years and the customers follow this place wherever it goes.”


 


 Reading those, the local SEO sets aside sweet dreams of sopapillas because he very much doubts the accuracy of that last review comment. Are all customers really following this restaurant from place to place, or are visitors (with money to spend) being misdirected to false locations via outdated, inconsistent, and duplicate listings?


 The local SEO can’t stand the suspense, so he fires up Moz Check Listing


 He types in the most recent name/zip code combo he can find, and up comes:


 

 

 


 A total of 2 different names, 3 different phone numbers, and 4 different addresses! In 5 seconds, the local SEO has realized that business listings around the web are likely misdirecting diners left and right, undoubtedly depriving the restaurant of revenue as locals fail to keep up with the inconvenient moves or travelers simply never find the right place at all. Sadly, two of those phone numbers return an out-of-service message, further lessening the chances that patrons will get to enjoy this establishment’s celebrated food. Where is all this bad data coming from?


 The local SEO clicks on just the first entry to start gaining clues, and from there, he clicks on the duplicates tab for a detailed, clickable list of duplicates that Check Listing surfaces for that particular location:


 

 

 


 From this simple Duplicates interface, you can immediately see that 1 Google My Business listing, 1 Foursquare listing, 3 Facebook Places, 1 Neustar Localeze listing, and 1 YP listing bear further investigation. Clicking the icons takes you right to the sources. You’ve got your clues now, and only need to solve your case. Interested?


 The paid version of Moz Local supports your additions of multiple variants of the names, addresses, and phone numbers of clients to help surface further duplicates. Finally, your Moz Local dashboard also enables you to request closure of duplicates on our Direct Network partners. What a relief!


 Chances are, most of your clients don’t move locations every couple of years (at least, we hope not!), but should an incoming client alert you to a move they’ve made in the past decade or so, it’s likely that a footprint of their old location still exists on the web. Even if they haven’t moved, they may have changed phone numbers or rebranded, and instead of editing their existing listings to reflect these core data changes, they may have ended up with duplicate listings that are then auto-replicating themselves throughout the ecosystem.


 Google and local SEOs share a common emotion about duplicate listings: both feel uneasy about inconsistent data they can’t trust, knowing the potential to misdirect and frustrate human users. Feeling unsettled about duplicates for an incoming client today?


 Get your appetite back for powerful local SEO with our free Check Listing tool!


 Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!


 

 

 

 Read more on our blog MAN Digital Blog


 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 via FREELANCE SEO CONSULTANT – MAN DIGITAL https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/duplicate-listings-and-the-case-of-the-nomadic-new-mexican-restaurant/

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A Dozen Digestible Takeaways from 2016’s E-Commerce Benchmarks Study
2016-09-12T07:31:39.780000Z
Posted by Alan_Coleman


 Hey Moz Blog readers.


 I’m delighted to share with you a big body of work the Wolfgang team has just completed. It’s our E-commerce Benchmarks 2016 study. We dove into Google Analytics insights from over 80 million website sessions and over one-quarter of a billion dollars in online revenue for travel and retail websites, calculating average e-commerce website key performance indicators (KPIs) for you to use as benchmarks.


 I hope these findings help you benchmark your KPIs and gain deeper insights into what you can do to boost conversion.


 There are a number of unique features to this study:


 


 We’ve divvied the results up into overall, travel, and retail. Within the retail cohort, we’ve broken out results for our “online only” retailers and “multichannel” retailers. The KPIs are distinctly different for the two sets of retailers.


 We’ve conducted a correlation study in which we correlate all the factors of the study with conversion rate and with average order value.


 We’ve expanded the scope of the study since last time and based on your comments, we’ve included site speed analysis, as well as more info around paths to conversion and assisted conversions.


 
In this post I’m going to give you an overview of 12 key takeaways. You can read the full report here. Or grab some quick insights from our infographic here.


 1/ The average e-commerce conversion rate is 1.48%.


 

 Retail websites averaged 1.36%.


 Online-only websites converted almost twice as well as their multi-channel counterparts with 2%, compared to 1.12%.


 The travel websites in the study averaged a 2.04% conversion rate.


 
It was notable that the travel websites enjoyed higher conversion rates but lower engagement rates than the average retailer. This spiked my curiosity, as that just seemed too darn easy for the travel retailers. After deep-diving the data, I found that the committed retail customer would visit the one retail website multiple times on their journey to purchase. On the other hand, the travel shopper does a lot of research, but on other websites, review sites, via online travel agents, travel bloggers, etc. before arriving at the e-commerce website to merely check price and availability before booking. This finding illuminates the fact that the retailer has more influence on its customers’ journey to purchase than the travel website, who’s more dependent on an ecosystem of travel websites to warm up the prospect.


 

 

 


 Click the image to open a still image in a new tab


 2/ The death of SEO?


 The data states it emphatically: “Hell no!”


 Google organic is the largest source of both traffic (43%) and revenue (42%). SEO traffic from Google organic has actually increased by 5% since our last study.


 There was also a strong correlation between websites with a high percentage of traffic from Google organic and higher-than-average Average Order Values (AOVs).


 From this finding, we can infer that broad organic coverage will be rewarded by transactions from research-heavy, high-value customers.


 3/ AdWords is the king of conversion


 The strongest correlation we saw with higher conversion rates was higher-than-average traffic and revenue from AdWords.


 In my experience, Google AdWords is the best-converting traffic source. So my take is that, when a website increases its spend on Adwords, it adds more high-conversion traffic to its profile and increases its average conversion rate.


 AdWords accounts for 26% of traffic and 25% of revenue on average.


 4/ Google makes the World Wide Web go ’round


 When you combine Google organic and PPC, you see that Google accounts for 69% of traffic and 67% of revenue. More than two-thirds! Witness the absolute dominance of “The Big G” as our window to the web.


 

 

 


 Click the image to open a still image in a new tab


 5/ Facebook traffic quadruples!


 In our last study, Facebook accounted for a meagre 1.3% of traffic. This time around, it’s leapt up to 5%, with Facebook CPC emerging from nowhere to 2%. When better cross-device measurement becomes available in Google Analytics, I expect Facebook to be seen as an assisted conversion power player.


 6/ Don’t discount email


 Email delivers 6% of traffic, which is actually as much as all the social channels combined — and treble the revenue. In fact, with a 6% share of revenue, Google is the only medium that delivers more revenue than email. Digital marketers often lust after shiny new toys (hello, Snapchat!), but the advice here is to look after the old reliables first. And this 40-year-old technology we all use every day is about as old and reliable as it gets.


 7/ Site speed matters most


 This section was added to the study after comments from you, the Moz Blog readers, last time around, so thanks for your input. The server response time correlation with conversion rate (-0.31) was one of the strongest we saw. It was dramatically stronger than engagement metrics, such as time on site (0.11) or pages viewed (0.10). We also found that for every two-tenths of a second you shave off your server response time, you’ll increase conversion rate by 8%. Don’t forget that site speed is a Google ranking factor, so by optimizing for it you’ll benefit from a “multiplier effect” of more traffic and a higher conversion rate on all your traffic. Google’s page speed tool is a great place to start your speed optimization journey.


 Check out our conversion rate correlation chart below to get more insights on which metrics can move conversion rate.


 


 Click the image to open a still image in a new tab


 8/ Mobile is our “decision device”


 2015 was finally “the year of mobile.” Mobile became the largest traffic source of the devices, but seriously underperforms for revenue. Its 42% share of traffic becomes a miserly 21% share of revenue, and it suffers the lowest average conversion rate and AOV. Despite these lowly conversion metrics, our correlation study found that websites with a larger-than-average portion of mobile traffic benefitted from larger-than-average conversion rates. This indicates that the “PA in your pocket” is the device upon which decisions are arrived at before being completed on desktop. We can deduce that while desktop remains our “transaction device,” mobile has become our “decision device,” where research is carried out and purchase decisions arrived at.


 9/ Digital marketers are over-indexing on display advertising


 Despite accounting for 38% of digital marketers budgets (IAB Europe), display failed to register as a top ten traffic source. This means it contributed less than 1% of e-commerce website traffic.


 10/ Bounce rate don’t mean diddly squat


 Bounce rate actually has zero correlation with conversion rate! Digital marketers feel a deep sense of rejection when they see a high bounce rate. However, as an overall website metric, it’s a dud. While admittedly there are bad bounces, there are many good bounces accounted for in the number.


 11/ Digital marketing “economies of scale”


 Interestingly, websites that enjoyed more-than-average traffic levels enjoyed higher-than-average conversion rates.


 This illustrates a digital marketing version of “economies of scale”; more traffic equals better conversion rates.


 The corollary of this is lower CPAs (Cost Per Acquisitions).


 12/ People are buying more frequently and spending more per order online.


 Average conversion rates have increased 10% since the last study. Retail average order value has shot up a whopping 25%! This demonstrates people are migrating more and more of their shopping behavior off the high street and onto the Internet. There’s never been a better time to be an e-commerce digital marketer.


 You can deep-dive the above digestibles by reading the full study here.


 How do these benchmarks compare to your personal experience? Anything you’re surprised by, or that confirms your long-held suspicions?


 I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below.


 Optimize hard,


 Alan


 Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!


 

 

 

 Read more on our blog MAN Digital Blog


 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 via FREELANCE SEO CONSULTANT – MAN DIGITAL https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/12/a-dozen-digestible-takeaways-from-2016s-e-commerce-benchmarks-study/

 Read more on our blog MAN Digital MAN Digital Wordpress Blog


Weird, Crazy Myths About Link Building in SEO You Should Probably Ignore – Whiteboard Friday
2016-09-09T08:26:24.600000Z
Posted by randfish


 The rules of link building aren’t always black and white, and getting it wrong can sometimes result in frustrating consequences. But where’s the benefit in following rules that don’t actually exist? In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand addresses eight of the big link building myths making their rounds across the web.


  http://ift.tt/2cbIF2a


  http://ift.tt/1GaxkYO


 

 

 


 Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!


 Video Transcription


 Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week we’re going to chat about some of the weird and crazy myths that have popped up around link building. We’ve actually been seeing them in the comments of some of our blog posts and Whiteboard Fridays and Q&A. So I figured, hey, let’s try and set the record straight here.


 1. Never get links from sites with a lower domain authority than your own


 

 

 


 What? No, that is a terrible idea. Domain authority, just to be totally clear, it’s a machine learning system that we built here at Moz. It takes and looks at all the metrics. It builds the best correlation it can against Google’s rankings across a broad set of keywords, similar to the MozCast 10K. Then it’s trying to represent, all other things being equal and just based on raw link authority, how well would this site perform against other sites in Google’s rankings for a random keyword? That does not in any way suggest whether it is a quality website that gives good editorial links, that Google is likely to count, that are going to give you great ranking ability, that are going to send good traffic to you. None of those things are taken into account with domain authority.


 So when you’re doing link building, I think DA can be a decent sorting function, just like Spam Score can. But those two metrics don’t mean that something is necessarily a terrible place or a great place to get a link from. Yes, it tends to be the case that links from 80- or 90-plus DA sites tend to be very good, because those sites tend to give a lot of authority. It tends to be the case that links from sub-10 or 20 tend to not add that much value and maybe fail to have a high Spam Score. You might want to look more closely at them before deciding whether you should get a link.


 But new websites that have just popped up or sites that have very few links or local links, that is just fine. If they are high-quality sites that give out links editorially and they link to other good places, you shouldn’t fret or worry that just because their DA is low, they’re going to provide no value or low value or hurt you. None of those things are the case.


 2. Never get links from any directories


 

 

 


 I know where this one comes from. We have talked a bunch about how low-quality directories, SEO-focused directories, paid link directories tend to be very bad places to get links from. Google has penalized not just a lot of those directories, but many of the sites whose link profiles come heavily from those types of domains.


 However, lots and lots of resource lists, link lists, and directories are also of great quality. For example, I searched for a list of Portland bars — Portland, Oregon, of course known for their amazing watering holes. I found PDX Monthly’s list of Portland’s best bars and taverns. What do you know? It’s a directory. It’s a total directory of bars and taverns in Portland. Would you not want to be on there if you were a bar in Portland? Of course, you would want to be on there. You definitely want those. There’s no question. Give me that link, man. That is a great freaking link. I totally want it.


 This is really about using your good judgment and about saying there’s a difference between SEO and paid link directories and a directory that lists good, authentic sites because it’s a resource. You should definitely get links from the latter, not so much from the former.


 3. Don’t get links too fast or you’ll get penalized


 

 

 


 Let’s try and think about this. Like Google has some sort of penalty line where they look at, “Oh, well, look at that. We see in August, Rand got 17 links. He was under at 15 in July, but then he got 17 links in August. That is too fast. We’re going to penalize him.”


 No, this is definitely not the case. I think what is the case, and Google has filed some patent applications around this in the past with spam, is that a pattern of low-quality links or spammy-looking links that are coming at a certain pace may trigger Google to take a more close look at a site’s link profile or at their link practices and could trigger a penalty.


 Yes. If you are doing sketchy, grey hat/black hat link building with your private networks, your link buys, and your swapping schemes, and all these kinds of things, yeah, it’s probably the case that if you get them too fast, you’ll trip over some sort of filter that Google has got. But if you’re doing the kind of link building that we generally recommend here on Whiteboard Friday and at Moz more broadly, you don’t have risk here. I would not stress about this at all. So long as your links are coming from good places, don’t worry about the pace of them. There’s no such thing as too fast.


 4. Don’t link out to other sites, or you’ll leak link equity, or link juice, or PageRank


 

 

 


 …or whatever it is. I really like this illustration of the guys who are like, “My link juice. No!” This is just crap.


 All right, again, it’s a myth rooted in some fact. Historically, a long time ago, PageRank used to flow in a certain way, and it was the case that if a page had lots of links pointing out from it, that if I had four links, that a quarter each of the PageRank that this page could pass would go to each of them. So if I added one more, oh, now that’s one-fifth, then that becomes one-fifth, and that becomes one-fifth. This is old, old, old-school SEO. This is not the way things are anymore.


 PageRank is not the only piece of ranking algorithmic goodness that Google is using in their systems. You should not be afraid of linking out. You should not be afraid of linking out without a “nofollow” link. You, in fact, should link out. Linking out is not only correlated with higher rankings. There have also been a bunch of studies and research suggesting that there’s something causal going on, because when followed links were added to pages, those pages actually outranked their non-link-carrying brethren in a bunch of tests. I’ll try and link to that test in the Whiteboard Friday. But regardless to say, don’t stress about this.


 5. Variations in anchor text should be kept to precise proportions


 

 

 


 So this idea that essentially there’s some magic formula for how many of your keyword anchor text, anchor phrases should be branded, partially branded, keyword match links that are carrying anchor text that’s specifically for the keywords you’re trying to rank for, and random assorted anchor texts and that you need some numbers like these, also a crazy idea.


 Again, rooted in some fact, the fact being if you are doing sketchy forms of link building of any kind, it’s probably the case that Google will take a look at the anchor text. If they see that lots of things are kind of keyword-matchy and very few things contain your brand, that might be a trigger for them to look more closely. Or it might be a trigger for them to say, “Hey, there’s some kind of problem. We need to do a manual review on this site.”


 So yes, if you are in the grey/black hat world of link acquisition, sure, maybe you should pay some attention to how the anchor text looks. But again, if you’re following the advice that you get here on Whiteboard Friday and at Moz, this is not a concern.


 6. Never ask for a link directly or you risk penalties


 

 

 


 This one I understand, because there have been a bunch of cases where folks or organizations have sent out emails, for example, to their customers saying, “Hey, if you link to us from your website, we’ll give you a discount,” or, “Hey, we’d like you to link to this resource, and in exchange this thing will happen,” something or other. I get that those penalties and that press around those types of activities has made certain people sketched out. I also get that a lot of folks use it as kind of blackmail against someone. That sucks.


 Google may take action against people who engage in manipulative link practices. But for example, let’s say the press writes about you, but they don’t link to you. Is asking for a link from that piece a bad practice? Absolutely not. Let’s say there’s a directory like the PDX Monthly, and they have a list of bars and you’ve just opened a new one. Is asking them for a link directly against the rules? No, certainly not. So there are a lot of good ways that you can directly ask for links and it is just fine. When it’s appropriate and when you think there’s a match, and when there’s no sort of bribery or paid involvement, you’re good. You’re fine. Don’t stress about it.


 7. More than one link from the same website is useless


 

 

 


 This one is rooted in the idea that, essentially, diversity of linking domains is an important metric. It tends to be the case that sites that have more unique domains linking to them tend to outrank their peers who have only a few sites linking to them, even if lots of pages on those individual sites are providing those links.


 But again, I’m delighted with my animation here of the guys like, “No, don’t link to me a second time. Oh, my god, Smashing Magazine.” If Smashing Magazine is going to link to you from 10 pages or 50 pages or 100 pages, you should be thrilled about that. Moz has several links from Smashing Magazine, because folks have written nice articles there and pointed to our tools and resources. That is great. I love it, and I also want more of those.


 You should definitely not be saying “no.” You shouldn’t be stopping your link efforts around a site, especially if it’s providing great traffic and high-quality visits from those links pointing to you. It’s not just the case that links are there for SEO. They’re also there for the direct traffic that they pass, and so you should definitely be investing in those.


 8. Links from non-relevant sites or sites or pages or content that’s outside your niche won’t help you rank better


 

 

 


 This one, I think, is rooted in that idea that Google is essentially looking and saying like, “Hey, we want to see that there’s relevance and a real reason for Site A to link to Site B.” But if a link is editorial, if it’s coming from a high-quality place, if there’s a reason for it to exist beyond just, “Hey, this looks like some sort of sketchy SEO ploy to boost rankings,” Googlebot is probably going to count that link and count it well.


 I would not be worried about the fact that if I’m coffeekin.com and I’m selling coffee online or have a bunch of coffee resources and corvettecollectors.com wants to link to me or they happen to link to me, I’m not going to be scared about that. In fact, I would say that, the vast majority of the time, off-topic links from places that have nothing to do with your website are actually very, very helpful. They tend to be hard for your competitors to get. They’re almost always editorially given, especially when they’re earned links rather than sort of cajoled or bought links or manipulative links. So I like them a lot, and I would not urge you to avoid those.


 So with that in mind, if you have other link ideas, link myths, or link facts that you think you’ve heard and you want to verify them, please, I invite you to leave them in the comments below. I’ll jump in there, a bunch of our associates will jump in there, folks from the community will jump in, and we’ll try and sort out what’s myth versus reality in the link building world.


 Take care. We’ll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday.


 Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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 via FREELANCE SEO CONSULTANT – MAN DIGITAL https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/2016/09/09/weird-crazy-myths-about-link-building-in-seo-you-should-probably-ignore-whiteboard-friday/

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Online Marketing Secrets Are Yours To Learn
2016-07-16T05:53:06.766000Z
Although you may have tried Web marketing before, it can be a chance to try again. Do not allow this to dissuade you becoming as successful as you would like to get. If your efforts have not contributed to success, more than likely you might have not had accessibility proper information.


 When you correspond online, include links to your business webpage within your signature. When you add your link to your forum signature, it is going to appear at the end of every post you will be making. Moreover, put a hyperlink within the signatures of most your own emails. This system is a method to encourage people to go to your internet site without having to let them have a sales pitch. It improves the targeted traffic to your site plus your page rank. Highlight that link by introducing it with a catchy, related quote.


 Successful Internet marketing requires a serious approach and thorough research. A mentor is an invaluable resource. People that realize how to effectively market on the net often provide free tips or online tutorials for the nominal fee. Pick a system that you are going to would like to keep with. It might start slowly, yet it is definitely worth some time you place involved with it.


 Email is surely an effective business tool. Be sure these emails contain interesting information. You want your emails to be welcomed by recipients by giving them something they really want, not dismissed as spam. Publishing a periodic newsletter or ezine can help you stay in touch with your potential customers after each sale, and gives them top reasons to return for future offers.


 It is wise to use email marketing being an advertising strategy. You ought to design your newsletters to draw in and excite your potential customers. Your main goal is usually to give subscribers the experience that your particular emails are helpful for them, not spam messages. These emails will let your prospects know that you appreciate their business.


 Many webmasters overlook that they need to keep their websites simple. Multimedia programs like Flash and Silverlight are really tempting to site owners numerous designers use them when building sites. They should also remember that some visitors cannot use that technology. Visitors will be able to browse your internet site, without dealing check out our social media with extra nonsense.


 

 

 


 Add content such as a blog or forum in order to avoid your website from becoming boring or irrelevant. Fresh information are desired by search engines like yahoo, if freelance seo consultant you lack this in your site, your ranking will go down. Writing blog posts regularly can make adding fresh content less difficult.


 Begin small when creating a site to advertise something and gradually grow, adding new features or components slowly. There is a higher possibility of search engines to bypass your web site if it has across a million pages, than if your site just has twenty thousand pages.


 Give your web site an user friendly link structure. The last thing you want on your own website are difficult to get links and deficiency of usability for your personal audience.


 The interactive and fascinating nature of an online marketing strategy makes it much simpler for users to bond along with your brand. Try and let the visitor in on how much your products or services will make their life better. When writing the advertisement, the consumer ought to have feelings of exactly how the product will manage to benefit them while they’re reading the ad.


 If you are planning to create a webpage, you need to plan it thoroughly before you start. Decide what submissions are most suitable that you can write and look for a article directory. You can find differing requirements from directory to directory. It may be about content length or about content density. Give attention to these requirements as you write, along with your submissions will probably be on target.


 Develop a video featuring you making use of your product. This will give your prospects advisable of how your product or service work. Discuss just how the item is beneficial and show off the options than it too. You may post your video on sites like YouTube plus your own blog.


 

 A significant tip regarding Internet promotion is going to be a professional in whatever you handle on your site. This helps establish credibility if you have true, relevant content.


 Seek partnerships with fellow online merchants to enable you to come up with joint offerings that one could sell at competitive prices. This enables you to link together multiple markets, so that you improve your sales numbers. A fantastic example is an online agent who can perform booking for individuals. This individual may help people decrease their prices on airfare, hotels and car rentals, by putting them all in one transaction. This idea is perfect for any organization containing linked products that complement the other person, but are not viewed as competitors.


 Provide your frequent customers or visitors with a reward of some type for producing purchases from the site. The target would be to maintain the customers you possess while gaining brand new ones. This will get you a great reputation.


 Understanding of your competitors is probably the secrets of successfully marketing your small business. You are able to improve your profits by providing goods and services not currently available from the competitors. In Web marketing, this is basically the key ingredient.


 These web analysis products are designed to suit several uses and easily integrate along with you sites per-existing software.


 Affiliate marketing online has recently become a necessity with any business online. Each business must consider using this technique of marketing. Take advantage of the tips in this post to make sure that you will be using affiliate internet marketing properly to be able to increase the achievements your company.


  http://homebusiness.about.com/od/homebusinessglossar1/g/internet_market.htm


 

 

 

  

 

 

 

 via FREELANCE SEO CONSULTANT – MAN DIGITAL https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/2016/07/16/online-marketing-secrets-are-yours-to-learn/

 Read more on our blog MAN Digital MAN Digital Wordpress Blog


About Tim Tufnell
2016-07-14T11:54:01.865000Z
https://mandigitalblog.wordpress.com/

I'm a certified Social Media Strategist, teaching seminars and providing services to maximize social media presence. My specialties are marketing and event planning, copywriting and design, printing, and promotional products.

http://about.me/timtufnell

Tim Tufnell

Test Post from MAN Digital

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Customer Journey Audit

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Profit Optimization

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Phase 1: Choose A Call Tracking Provider

Phase 2: Set Up A Tracking Number

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Gather Useful Insights

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Act on the Data

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Keeping the same number (for NAP consistency and vanity numbers)

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Marketing automation? What is that?

Who Should Use Marketing Automation?

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What Is Marketing Automation?

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Know your ROI

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Call intelligence

Find and fix money-leaks

Test Link from https://man.digital

Introducing Progressive Web Apps: What They Might Mean for Your Website and SEO

What’s a PWA?

The use case

Signs a PWA may be appropriate

How they work

What service workers can do

What are the SEO implications?

Going further

How to Generate Content Ideas Using Screaming Frog in 20(ish) Minutes

What you’ll need

The concept

The process

Step 1 – Identifying targets

Google’s Display Planner

Step 2 – Setting up Screaming Frog

Configuring extraction parameters

Grabbing Xpath code

Resolving extraction issues & controlling the crawl

Completed crawl & extraction example

Step 3 – Ideas for analyzing data

Identifying popular words and phrases

Utilizing Tagcrowd for analysis