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It was once thought that there were no laws in social media, that anything would due. Well, that is no longer the case. The Internet used to be a lot more open and easier to manage, but it has become more difficult than ever to gain any attention in the social media realm if you starting from scratch. There are most definitely laws and you must know them well in order to succeed.
Law #1: Know Thyself
The main problem with a lot of social media campaigns is that the people running them have not figured out who they are. They do not have a clear objective or a sense of what they are trying to do and who they want to do it for. It sounds really simple, which it is, but it does require some you to stop and think strategically. Sit down for a hour and write down who you are, describe your target audience, and exactly what your goal is in terms of the social media campaign.
Law #2: It’s All About Them, Not You
Social media marketing has nothing to do with you or what you want, at least in the beginning. Constantly posting about new products and services is the fastest way to turn off potential clients and ruin your reputation. No one on social media websites wants to be spammed, they want to here about things that matter to them. Before you start asking them to do anything for you, you need to do something for them whether it means having a giveaway on Twitter, answering questions on Facebook, or providing helpful tips and strategies about your field.
Law #3: Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is easier than ever because you can just go to their profiles and see who is following you. The thing is that you need to be aware of your primary audience is and act in ways that would encourage their support. Once you know who these people are, cater your strategy to fit them. Hang out where they would hang out online, talk about the things that they care about, and show them things that would be of interest to them.
Social media is truly not rocket science. The bottom line is that you need to know who you are, know your target audience, and give them something before you start asking for anything. In short, don’t expect to get a million followers on Twitter or Facebook without putting in the work upfront. If you break any of these laws, then your audience will either never appear and leave right before your eyes.
Ashley Bennett is a writer and marketing consultant. She has recently written a book entitled The 7 Laws of Social Media Marketing that explains the other laws that govern social media marketing. You can read more about her at Ashley-Bennett.com.
Local SEO has seen some major changes in the past year. Since 2010 Google has completely changed the way they handle local keywords. For example “city name + keyword” went from a 3 pack to a 7 pack, then to a 10 pack and then they created a whole new search result category called blended results. Now, when you search for a local company, you will see a mixture of “places” results, a few organic results, some ads (of course) and usually a few pictures or videos.
Local search can seam like a volatile market, and even though there have been some major changes lately, there is still an underlining steadiness. Here are 3 straight forward approaches to localizing your site’s content. I won’t lie to you and say they are easy, but they are simple. If you follow them, you will see positive results.
1. It’s Ok To NAP On The Job
Your “NAP” is the foundation of all local SEO efforts. NAP stands for, Name, Address and Phone Number. Every year David Mhim releases an exhaustive study called “Local Ranking Factors,” in which he reveals the most important on and off page elements in local SEO. Every year local citations makes the top of the list. In fact, this year NAP ranked #4 right behind having an address in the city you want to rank for, (thank you captain obvious, jk,) and verifying your page with Google (which you can do here.)
Google looks at your NAP wAs you can imagine, there are hundreds of millions of businesses worldwide, and they all have a unique address. Because of this, Google requires that you have your local citation formatted EXACTLY the same every time you list it. It would be statistically improbable for Google to figure out different variations of every companies NAP and attribute them to the right place. The best way to format your NAP/local citation is to create a text file that lists your companies information, then you can just copy and paste it into different directories.
Your NAP might look something like this.
BrewSEO
2920 Veda St, Redding, California 96001
Tags/ Categories: example keywords (sorry fellas, I’m not going to give away my target keywords that easy!)
Image: Decide what image to use, and stick with it.
Description: This is an inbound marketing company..etc.
Once you have your NAP formatted go to every local directory you can find (most of them are free) and create a profile.
Pro Tip: Use yext.com to find a good list of local directories. Instead of paying them to create a listing for you, download their list into a spreadsheet and go make the profiles yourself.
2. Hyper Localize Your Content:
Once you have your local citations under hand, it’s time to start optimizing your site. (You do have a website, right? If not, go find a good web designer and hire them to build you one!) There are a few things you can do to instantly improve your rankings.
Have your NAP on every page of your site
One of the easiest ways of doing this is to put your address and phone number in your site’s footer/header. It’s up to you how you list it, but make sure it’s uniform and user friendly.
Use Local Keywords In Your Page Titles
If you have a carpet cleaning site, you can create a page title that looks like this: City Name Carpet Cleaning | Your Company Name. When you make a title, put your keyword first, and your company name second. Unless you have a household brand, it’s better to keep your keywords on the left of your brand name. This will help you rank higher in SERPS, and it will tell visitors exactly what your site is about.
Hyper Localize Your Images
When you upload an image, make sure the image is named something relevant to your local keywords. Use the name of your city, and your keywords in the image title. After you upload the image also make sure the alt text of your image uses local keywords. Here is an example of locally optimized alt text:
<a href=”where you want the image to link to“><img src=”the url of your image. This is probably going to be hosted on your web-server” alt=” your local keyword. this should also describe the picture.” title=”the name of your image. this should have your city name in it.” width=”xxx” height=”xxx” /></a>
After you’ve localized the images on your site, you can also upload them to Panoramio. Panoramio allows you to add geo tags to your image. It will set the longitude and latitude of your picture, and give your site even more local emphasis. When you upload your image to Panoramio, set the coordinates to your office address. When you do this it will also allow your picture to show up in your Google Places profile.
3. Get Creative With Local Pages
Do Local Pages Like Pink Berry
Pinkberry takes a minimalist approach to local content. You can use their store locater to find their locations. Each location has the store address, store hours, the store’s services (catering, deliver, etc…) the store’s name, and a newsfeed from their blog. That’s it! If you take this approach, you’ll have to do a little extra link building. But with a few high-quality links, you’ll be able to rank competitively for your keyword.
Do Local Pages Like Nerds On Call
The other option is to take an over and above approach to local content and create a sub-site for each store that has completely unique content. (This is a project that I worked on.) Each store has a local page that is highly customized, and has unique content. You can check out a few of them here and here.
The trick here is to create unique content. Do not copy/past content from one sub-site to another one. Lazy duplicate content is one of the worst things you can do to your site. If your company has locations in multiple cities, the chances are you also have enough employees to make this work. You can easily leverage your employes to help you create unique content. If you sell a service, then take the descriptions you used for your services. Interview your employees about the services you offer, and re-write the service descriptions using their own words. Everyone talks, and describes things a little differently, so you’ll have unique copy about your services directly from an industry expert. You’ll have to do a lot more work if you choose to use this approach, but it will pay off in the end.
Local SEO is under a major overhaul, with the creation of Google + Local pages, and Google’s new local PPC ads. Not to worry, if you follow these techniques, your site will survive almost any google algorithm change that happens.
About Bryant Jaquez. Bryant is the founder of the innovative and creative marketing firm BrewSEO. BrewSEO is full of SEO Extraordinaire, Social Media Moguls, Web Designer Superstars and Branding Geniuses. You can follow us @brewseo
Did you know that there is a possibility that your website will less likely to rank in a search engine if it has a slow loading time compared to other fast loading site? Some experienced marketers have conducted an experiment on page loading times with their own sites and have come to the conclusion that fast loading time is always better for ranking. Web page loading time is just one of the contributing factors on how a site should rank in Google and other popular search engines. Different search engines always find great ways on how the user can enhance his or her experience and Google seems to lead the way.
It is quite disappointing when you click on a certain site and the site seems to take all the time in the world to load completely. If your site is like this, has a slow loading time, then do not expect that more visitors or guests will visit your site. There is a huge chance that your visitor will look for another site to click simply out of frustration. If you are selling products or services, then you definitely know that this is bad business and customer experience.
There are several ways on how you can enhance a slow loading page:
Images and their sizes: Generally, images have large file size and most people will tell you not to use large file size images on your page because it can contribute to a slow loading page. This is alright but it can weaken the appeal of a web page and some web designer likes to be creative using their artwork. For you to get around with this problem, then there is a simple solution to that. If you have twelve individual images to be placed in your page, then try to group them together as one. This technique will not mainly reduce the file size of your images but the http requests. This is a simple trick but can be an effective way to speed up your downloading time.
Clean up your code: Making sure that your website’s code is up to snuff with no errors will go a long way to make it load faster. This includes getting rid of any plugin’s or javascript that might be set up on your page but you just are not using.
Use CSS: Getting a good handle on CSS coding and knowing all the aspects of it can bring a lot of speed gains as well. It can greatly reduce the code you need so it is less for your browser to handle.
Flash: These days, with new HTML standards, there really isn’t much need for Flash (sorry, Flash!). Flash files can get huge and bog down a bit fast.
Hosting: Get a good hosting account. This means stay away from the freebies. With the number of people on these sites, it’s bound to get slow.
These are just a few of the areas to look at to help speed up your site. If you are stuck, seek the help of www.
We have another guest posting about Local Search. Today Ashley Bennett will be discussing the benefits of Google+ and how to get local traffic.
What is Google+ Local and Why You Should Care
Google+ is a new social media network created by Google. It is most similar to Facebook, but it also has a lot of unique features that are not present on other social media networks. It is a place for businesses and people alike, so there are ways to share messages, videos, and just about anything else on the website. In the initial stages you had to be invited to join the network, but now Google+ is currently open to the general public now. It is not quite as popular as Facebook or Twitter, but you should care because there are a lot of people on the website and it will give you a chance to promote yourself.
Tips to Optimize Your Google+ Listing
– Claim your Google+ if you have not already done so
Google will automatically create a listing for your business in most cases, whether you know or not, so it is up to you to claim it. Unfortunately, a lot of businesses will fail to claim their profile on Google+ and simply leave everything to chance. It is recommended that you claim your business, start a Google + account, and start making people aware of your presence.
– Maintain accurate information about your business
One of the biggest problems that businesses have online is making sure that customers know how to contact them. A lot of businesses have websites and social media accounts, but in some cases they will have inaccurate contact information. This could be something like a different phone number, email, or even web address. It is essential that all of your information is current so that people know how to contact you.
– Use local keywords
Emphasize the use of local keywords on your website and social media pages. This means you should use terms like “San Francisco Photographer” or “Chicago Restaurant”. Try to use the terms naturally in a post or add them as part of your keywords on your post, but do not over do it. It is best to use 3-5 keywords in your post to prevent diluting the strength of those keywords.
– Communicate with customers on Google+
Given that Google+ is a social media network, you definitely need to be social even if you are acting as a business. Round up your customers on that are Google+ and start a group. Start posting news about your business or offering coupons or discounts on Google+.
– Encourage positive reviews from your customers
As you probably know, people are allowed to write reviews of your business on your account, so you need to make sure that they have positive things to say about it. You are not allowed to compensate people for these types of posts, but you can encourage customers that have had positive experiences to tell others about it on the website.
– Link your Google+ to your website and tell your customers about it
One of the most important things you can do to get traffic from Google+ is to link your website to the page and vice versa. People should be able to get all of your social media links from your website and they should also be able to reach your website from your profile. Although it sounds really simple, a lot people forget to do it.
Google+ is gaining popularity everyday, so it is better to join in on the action early. It has a very intuitive interface and most find it easy to use, so go ahead and get started today.
Ashley Bennett is a marketing consultant and owner of MarketingMages.com.
Announcement! We have our first guest post from fellow internet marketing ninja Shane Jones. Thanks for taking the time to write this post for us. It provides some great local marketing tips!
We often think of the Internet as a way to reach customers all over the world, but you don’t have to be a global company to reap the benefits. In fact, online marketing can be a great way to reach customers right in your own neighborhood.
Everything is moving online, including your local newspaper, magazine, and radio station. Since more and more of your customers are spending significant amounts of time online, you need to take your local marketing strategy there as well. Here are a few ways to do it.
Get Listed
Your town may have listings on Citysearch and Craigslist, but it most definitely has listings on sites like Yellowpages and Yelp. When you publish your site, get more traffic by registering it on all those sites.
Some web hosting services provide the tools and instructions for getting listed in local web searches. Many of these sites will display your business name, address, website address, phone number, and even reviews from happy customers. This helps local customers decide if your business can best meet their needs, but it’s also great if your business provides a service that people will need immediately when they search for it. After all, how often is someone going to casually browse for a service like rodent control?
Advertise on Local Media
As mentioned above, your local newspapers, magazines, and radio stations are hosting their own websites. Since you probably already advertise in their traditional formats, why not advertise online as well?
In fact, this is a good way to create an integrated strategy. Buy your usual ad space, but throw in a few well-placed banner and display ads in the process. This serves two purposes.
First, it creates a more cost-effective, accountable way to reach local customers. Second, since traditional readers and listeners also go online, it doubles the chances that they’ll learn about—and reach out to—your business.
Create Locally Based Content
Blogs and other forms of content marketing have become very popular ways to promote your business and drive more traffic and sales. But not many people create content that integrates their business expertise with their location. Now is the time for you to start.
For instance, if you run a clothing store, you could talk about the same fashion trends that everyone else is talking about, or you could talk about the fashion trends you’re seeing as you walk around your town. If you do this, you’ll see another benefit – because you’re focused on your local area, your search engine rankings will catch the attention of local people looking for your type of business, which is exactly what you want.
Find the Customers Next Door
The Internet spans the globe, but it’s a pretty good way to find customers in your own community as well. Put your local marketing strategy online and find more customers right down the block from you.
About Shane Jones : I am an internet marketer, and blogging fanatic, who loves to write about business, the current economy, anything marketing, and SEO. I also am an avid outdoors-man, who loves hiking, rock climbing, and kayaking. You can also follow my opinions on soccer and sports at http://www.localsoccernews.com