What backlinks are safe to have after Google’s Penguin update? This question is being asked today by many. And, as Google’s link warnings wouldn’t stop, some people decide to demolish backlinks to their site or even dispose of the “bad” site altogether.
However, radical action only means that one doesn’t have the
expertise to do a Penguin-savvy inventory of their site and to dismantle
only those links which stand in violation with the new standards. In
most cases, this is a better option than starting from scratch. From the infographic below, you will learn:
How to perform a Penguin-savvy backlink audit.
How to make sure your on-page SEO meets Google’s quality guidelines.
A quick recap first. Link Builder
makes link building easy. Or rather, easier. We take your site, the
keywords that you’re optimizing for, then get you prospects – other
sites that are more likely to link to you.
But to get those sites to link to you, you need to build
relationships with them. This can take many forms, but usually it should
involve a healthy dose of strategy. You don’t want to fire off very
generic "Please link to me, Mr(s) Site Owner" emails to thousands of
people, because it’s spammy and lazy. People will read it and know that
you’ve sent the email to thousands of people.
A better approach is to group your prospects according to what kind
of site they are, then approach each one with a relevant and personal
email. Obviously this takes time to do properly, but that’s why we built
Link Builder. It goes through all your prospects and groups them, so
academic sites go with other academic sites, news sites with news sites
and so on.
That means that when you’re ready to start introducing your site, you
can do it quickly, but also accurately. You’ll only be sending relevant
emails to relevant people. Guest posting is a part of this. We’ve added
it so you can build up better relationships and get more quality links.
How can Link Builder help?
Guest posting is my favorite link building strategy (that’s not to
say it’s the most effective, I just like it). It allows you to write for
a new audience and it helps get your name out to more people. It gets a
link too, so that’s nice.
The problem with guest posting is that it’s not always apparent
whether or not a site accepts guest posts. You might look at a blog,
think it’s perfect, but actually working out whether or not they would
let you write for them is tricky. (I know because I’ve spent YEARS doing
this. It’s painful.)
You first have to look for some sign of guest posting. So you might
see whether the site uses multiple authors, then look at whether those
writers are in-house or from other sites. Once you’ve done that, you
need to find the site owner’s contact details so you can get in touch.
And so on. By the time you’ve done this for 10 sites, you’ll be bored
and frustrated. When someone finally asks you to write for them as a
guest blogger, you’re kind of over it. Your blog post will have no
passion, no love. It won’t be any good.
The new guest post feature in Link Builder helps save hours of time.
We reduce all that trawling of websites down to one click. Link Builder
gives you a list of sites, you pick the ones that interest you, then you
get the contact details automatically. It’s easy and it’s fast. (We
won’t let you send spam emails because we limit the number of contacts
we release at one time. So doing best-practice, above-the-board SEO
becomes even easier).
How to use it
Log in to your Link Builder campaign. One of your ‘Strategies’ is called ‘Guest Post’. <="" width="300px">
This is a list of relevant sites that we’ve crawled and found
evidence that they accept guest posts. Link Builder does this in
moments, but it would take you hours to do it manually.
At this stage you might notice a number of sites that you’d like to
group together. Say, if a lot of technology blogs accept guest blogs you
might want to approach them in a very similar way. In cases like this,
you should use our tags feature. It’ll make this work a breeze, and I‘ve writtten an article to walk you through it.
Whenever you’re ready to start approaching sites directly, choose one
you’re interested in, and click ‘Contact data’. (I’ve gone with Mashable.com because it’s a site many of you will know). <="" width="750px">
We’ll then go ahead and find the contact details for you. And return them like this: <="" width="750px">
We’ll look for names, Twitter handles, email addresses and Google
plus accounts. Where these things are available, we’ll publish them,
otherwise we won’t.
You can then check the boxes you’re most interested in, and we’ll
save them for you to use whenever you like. You can edit them if you
want to. And add more information, or notes to help you remember who
they are. Say ‘Spoke to this guy about our new product’. Whatever it is,
you can put it here: <="" width="600px">
And it’s super-easy to search for the contacts you want (if you have
loads), just type a name into the search bar and you’re away.
Once you’ve got a contact, you can then use it for whatever link
building strategy you like. Tweet your contacts, email them, Google+
them. Link building is all about managing and building up contacts and
now you have the tools to do it. Hoorah!
But as this is a post about guest blogging, have you read How to be a successful guest blogger?
It’ll give you some great tips on how to get started. Or maybe you’re
not convinced? Then read our interview with the author on why it’s the only link building she does
When you hear the word “online influencer” one typically thinks
of big-league Internet personalities such as Brian Solis, Jeff Bullas,
and Seth Godin. When it comes to blogger outreach, we also value a
different type of influencer – the actively engaged blogger or
journalist who is trusted within an online community.
When we brainstorm for ideas, we always have the end goal in mind and
try to envision our content on the site that we plan to pitch. While
doing so, we do a bit of research to determine who that site’s particular influencer is
so that we make sure we create something that is tailored to their
interests. These actively engaged bloggers or journalists are dedicated
to the niche that they report in, continuously encourage conversation
amongst their readers, and strive to be the go-to source for information
on a certain topic.
We take the time to build relationships with these influential
journalists and bloggers who help shape certain industries that
correlate with our content. Not only is it important for us to identify
these influential connections, it is also important for us to be able
to determine whether they seem open to collaboration.
One of our main goal with every piece of content is to create
something that will be shared and enjoyed by the audience we are
targeting. It helps us tremendously to connect with an online influencer
who supports our work and is enthusiastic about sharing it with their
loyal audience. In order to determine whether that person is both influential and open to collaboration, we do have a few requirements that we look for…
1. Is Their Audience Engaged?
We want our content to ignite conversations, so having them shared
with a loyal audience is key. The biggest credential we like them to
fulfill is that they have their own loyal audience within the site they write for. We determine this by looking at the comments on each of their posts.
Do they typically pose a question or make a statement within their
content that entices their audience to comment with their feedback? It
is always a plus when we see a long stream of conversations stemming
from a post that they’ve written. Seeing comments with more positive
sentiment is a good sign to move forward with trying to begin a
relationship.
As an example,
Katie J.M. Barker, who writes for Jezebel, always engages with her
audience in the comments. She goes beyond the typical “thanks for
commenting” and instead adds to the discussion.
On the flip side, sometimes seeing how they respond to negative feedback
can be even more valuable. Chances are, those who handle criticism with
respectful replies are well liked via the online community.
Many huge publications have a custom-built commenting system,
so be aware of how these work from blog to blog when you’re reviewing
comments. When it comes to blogger outreach, theses systems can often
make your job easier…
For example, Gawker Media recently introduced a new commenting system called
Kinja to their 8 individual blogs (Jezebel, Lifehacker, Gizmodo, etc.).
This new system brings the most helpful comments to the top of the
comment thread, and moves the trolling comments toward the end. A system
like this makes it even easier for us to review the valuable
conversations happening, without weeding through spammy comments.
With blogger outreach, it’s pertinent to have a good idea of who is most influential from each site
and spurring the most conversations. Seeing how large a following they
have within their site is a great indicator, but next you’ll want to
take a look at their influence outside of their site — on social media…
2. Are They Socially Active?
When profiling a potential contact, we like to make sure the person
has a strong relationship with their audience on social networks.
Obviously, a huge indicator for one who is actively engaged online is
the amount of Twitter followers, Facebook subscribers and the amount of
Google+ circles they belong to. We like to dig deeper and take an ever closer look at their social activity.
If people reach out to them via social media with questions regarding
the industry that they blog about, that is a great sign that they are a
trusted resource for related information. Once we
determine that they are a trusted resource for opinions on a certain
subject, we definitely want them to be a fan of what we’re creating.
Another type of activity to look for on their social networks is
whether or not they pose questions to their followers that allow them to
contribute to a story that they are writing. While doing so, it is
also important to make sure they are receiving responses
to questions that they pose– a sure sign their followers listen and are
eager to engage with them. Below is a great example of posing a
question that receives response, as done by Alyson Shontell, an editor for Business Insider:
3. Are They Approachable?
While skimming their social media activity and responses to comments on their posts, we try and get a good feel for how they treat their audience.
If they seem open to feedback and tend to respond to all the social
media mentions they receive, we know our chances for having the
opportunity to connect with them is greatly increased.
We pay close attention to their overall demeanor. Is
the person upbeat? Do they have a good sense of humor? Do they go above
and beyond to help their audience? Do they seem busy and rushed when
responding to others? Do they appear stressed out? We continually make
these observations about their attitude when they interact with others,
and it often matches how someone responds when we finally reach out.
The Checklist
In summary, here is a simple checklist of credentials to make sure the potential contact is a good match:
Conversation Starters. Do they typically pose a
question or make a statement within their content that entices their
audience to comment with feedback?
Engaged & Responsive. Do they respond to
tweets, FB comments, and/or Google + comments? Do they respond to the
comments that their readers post on their blog posts?
Open to Feedback. Are they accepting of the comments and feedback that is given? Or do they seem defensive?
Upbeat and Friendly. Do they generally seem like a friendly person?
If the blogger/journalist fills these credentials and has a strong
following of loyal readers behind them, you should definitely try and
connect with them. Building a strong relationship with someone who has
clout within a certain niche can turn them into your biggest brand
advocate. How do you spot influencers? Let us know in the comments below!
Citations are the equivalent to links in optimizing
businesses for local search rankings. Much like how Google founded its
initial search engine upon the thesis that a popularity score could be
developed by analyzing how documents refer to one another, “citations”
in local search are a way of identifying documents that refer to a
place, such as a business.
Google classifies local ranking signals into three broad areas:
“Relevance,” “Prominence,” and “Distance” — see Google’s explanation, “How Local Search Ranking Works.”
Citations fall under the category of “Prominence,” primarily. Citations
could also be called “mentions” — the more mentions there are of your
business on the net where Google might read them, the more popular your
business could be assumed to be. There’s also an element of
trustworthiness involved, too. If more authoritative sites mention your
business, Google and other search engines will have a greater degree of
trust and assurance that it’s likely a real business and not a sham
listing.
So, what are citations in the local search context comprised of?
According to one of Google’s relevant patent applications, “Authoritative document identification,” issued in 2006:
“…Documents may be analyzed to
determine the locations with which they are associated. For example,
assume that the documents relate to the same location. Each of the
documents in a set may refer in some way to the location. For example, a
document may mention a business at the location, the address of the
business, and/or a telephone number associated with the business….”
From this we can derive the following things might be considered to be citations.
Mentions of the business name, particularly along with the address or phone number.
Mentions of just the business’s street address.
Mentions of just the business’s phone number.
Perhaps even mentions of the business’s geocoordinates —
longitude/latitude combinations which fall within the property footprint
or within a short range of the centroid of the property.
It can even be construed that just the mention of a local business’s
URL, without being linked, could be used as a citation — Google’s patent
doesn’t necessarily limit local places to being solely identified by
addresses and phone numbers — any unique identifier which Google can
associate with a local business might also be used as a citation. But,
in the majority of cases, a local citation will involve the street
address and/or phone number.
In an ideal world, all businesses would be represented in all of the
appropriate business directories and local search engines where
consumers are searching to find local products and services. But, this
doesn’t happen in a vacuum. A handful of businesses called “data
aggregators” — such as Universal Business Listing (a company I consult with), Localeze, and Infogroup’s Express Update
— research and compile databases of business listings. They obtain this
information in various ways, such as by obtaining feeds of business
listings from phone companies, self-disclosure, business registrations
from local tax authorities, and obtaining databases from other companies
that are frequented by new businesses as they set up shop — such as
business card printers. Aggregators then supply their business listings
to various sites, such as yellow pages companies, local search engines,
social media sites, mobile apps, and social media sites, which then
publish them.
Data
aggregators — such as Universal Business Listing, Express Update, and
Localeze — research and compile databases of business listings.
Once business listings are published on various websites — yellow
pages, business directories, check-in app websites, social media sites
(such as Facebook) — local search engines including Google may crawl
those sites and associate pages where businesses are mentioned with the
business’s entry in their index. As you can tell from Google’s patent,
each time its crawler discovers a business’s listing data, Google may
interpret this as a citation and count the mention towards the
business’s overall popularity score.
Aggregators distribute a business’s listing information to many websites.
Established businesses need to periodically check their listings on
many sites to ensure that the information remains correct and updated
with any recent developments. In many cases, information can become
corrupted and may need to be corrected to make sure that Google’s
algorithms interpret it correctly. Practices such as using a different
tracking phone number for every directory can result in Google and other
local search engine developing needless duplicate listings, which can
cause one’s ranking score to become diluted.
New businesses need to get their listing data published in as many
directories as possible to help obtain enough citations to rank well
among their local competitors.
It is possible to audit and add/update business listing data by hand
in each online directory website, but the process is extremely
time-consuming. I have done this for some clients in the past, and even
for a business with only a single location, the process is so
labor-intensive and time-consuming that I consider it nearly infeasible.
Instead of handcrafting your business’s listing information in dozens
of top directories, I suggest that you turn the activity over to one of
the top aggregators and have your data added or updated uniformly
across many dozens of directories, automatically. Data aggregators
typically have much wider reach into more sites than what you’ll achieve
by hand, and will remove the drudgery involved.
It will take weeks to months for aggregators to typically get data
distributed — each publisher and local search engine has differing
database update schedules, so it can take a while before a change is
reflected. It takes even longer before the new citations might influence
search rankings, since Googlebot must have sufficient opportunity to
crawl the entire sites of publishers after they’ve begun to display the
new data.
You can attempt to add or update your business’s listing information
by hand, directory site after directory site, but you’ll likely
experience too much fatigue before you’ve developed sufficient numbers
of citations. It makes much better sense to contract with an
aggregator/distributor service, get the listings deployed out there more
rapidly, and then begin benefiting from conversions sooner.
Having a wide variety of citations for your local business is highly
advantageous for referrals from each site where you may be listed, as
well as for helping to augment your local search rankings. Data
aggregators may be your key for getting more customers sooner. Chris Silver Smith’s profile. >
One of the biggest concerns we hear from B2B companies when we explain the importance of content creation
in inbound marketing is that their focus is somehow not interesting
enough to sustain a blog or other creative content. "Not interesting
enough?!" we say. "Are you passionate about it? Do you get up every
morning to help your company grow and deliver on your promise to
customers? Of course it's interesting enough."
To prove it, we've compiled a starter list of B2B companies that create killer content
on a regular basis to keep prospects coming back to their website and
engaging with their business. Still think your company is too boring to create compelling content? You might want to think again.
Blogs and Written Content
Intercom's Balanced Blog
Intercom
is a customer relationship management and messaging tool for web
businesses. If you don't know what that means, you're not alone.
Luckily, the company has one of the best content-driven blogs I've seen.
Run predominantly by Intercom COO Des Traynor, the blog is consistently
updated and well-toned. It focuses on the questions that Traynor and
his colleagues grapple with as business owners, and gives readers a
sense of the careful thought that goes into their own product
development and customer relationship management. Not bad for a customer
relationship management company, huh?
What They Do Well:
Each post is approached as a learning opportunity.
It's clear from the first read that each post Intercom creates is
thoroughly researched and aims to resolve a tangible business question.
Take the blog's post on churn, retention, and reengaging customers,
for instance. The article takes a common issue that the company's
customers have when using their software, and walks through how to
address it with detailed guidelines.
Each post is data-rich. We have a saying at
HubSpot: "Data needs explanation, and explanation needs data." Each post
on the Intercom blog does a good job of not only incorporating data,
but also of adding context to that data. Take its post on understanding distribution and conversion. Traynor takes a commonly cited statistic about 2% conversion rates on site and gives it a new spin.
The blog is a good blend of product content and educational material. This point is core to inbound marketing. Intercom's blog does an adept job at creating content that simultaneously educates readers
about strategies and best practices as well as explaining in a
non-intrusive way how its product fits into that strategy. In other
words, the balance is well-maintained.
Deloitte's Killer How-to Guides
Deloitte is a Boston-based consultancy with services
that include audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management,
and tax. The company works with a massive cross-section of industries,
from government to life sciences. At Deloitte, their knowledge is their
selling point, so creating informed, useful content is core to their
marketing strategy.
What They Do Well:
A Range of Formats: What is interesting about Deloitte's content is that it comes in a number of different forms. From guides to podcasts, and newsletters to debates, there's never a shortage of new content.
Open Discussion: One of the formats Deloitte's content takes is in the form of open-ended debates on
topics like merger integration, big data, and health care exchange.
These debates are prime content for CIOs and COOs preparing for a
decision on similar topics, and thus, great lead generation content.
Gild's Awesome Thought Leadership Content
Gild, a provider of recruiting solutions for technology companies, takes a different approach to its blog.
It starts with the problem most of its prospective customers (tech
recruiters) are facing, and posts primarily thought leadership style
posts on the causes of that problem, potential solutions available, and
what greater trends are at play. In short, Gild posts seem to be an
ongoing discussion of the situation many of their customers find
themselves in. What They Do Well:
Focus on the Problem: Gild recognizes that many B2B
readers consume a piece of content because they're trying to address a
core challenge they face. Take its recent post: "Tech Recruiters: Reflect & Rebuild."
In it, Gild spends much of the post peeling apart the various layers to
the challenge its prospects face. They don't provide the answer
outright; rather, the post is an exercise in exploring the question.
Kuno Creative's Killer Marketing Ebooks
One of HubSpot's partners, Kuno Creative, does a phenomenal job with its ebook library.
The content in its library ranges from in-depth "manifestos" to quick
cheat sheets. Each teaser tells the audience exactly what they'll find
in the ebooks as well as what they can expect to learn. The inbound marketing agency covers mainly how-to topics, largely sought after by their prospective customers.
What They Do Well:
An Eye to SEO: The library is already easy to
peruse, but Kuno has also created quick links with search
engine-friendly keywords like "Social Media Resources" along the
sidebar. These small tricks ensure that Kuno's content is more aptly
found via the search box.
Timely Updates: Some topics are ever-evolving. By
adding dates and continually re-releasing content with updates to
reflect the most recent changes to a given topic, Kuno makes sure its
readers aren't relying on outdated information by breathing new life into old content.
Visual Content
Eloqua's Amazing Infographics
Eloqua,
a marketing automation company, is a big believer in inbound marketing
and the value of content for B2B. Over the years, in addition to
developing a content-rich blog, Eloqua has also released a number of
successful infographics focused on the core issues of its target
audience. What They Do Well:
Infographics With Depth: It seems like everybody is churning out infographics
these days. One of the things that sets Eloqua apart, however, is they
ensure that the visual display of the information they're presenting
adds value rather than just color. Take this infographic on content marketing.
Laying out each format of content on a spectrum helps viewers
understand the role that each content format plays in a lead's
decision-making process.
Plenty of Sharing Opportunities: In addition to making it easy to embed their graphics, the share buttons at the base of this particular post have garnered more than 700 twitter shares and 400 pins on Pinterest.
FireRock's Powerful Pinterest Content
FireRock, a HubSpot customer that manufactures pre-engineered masonry products for contractors and home builders, has one of the best Pinterest accounts
I've seen from a B2B company. It helps that they create really
beautiful stone fireplaces, so the imagery is captivating, but they also
know how to optimize Pinterest for their business. What They Do Well:
Clear Understanding of the Channel: Instead of
taking pictures of the raw materials, FireRock recognized how many
people actually use Pinterest: to get inspiration for their own designs
and projects. Thus, FireRock pins pictures of their work in context of
the home so people can envision the finished installation.
Good Use of Geographic Labeling: Many of the pictures are tagged by geography, so viewers searching by region can find them more easily.
Cisco's Fantastic Videos
Cisco, a global provider of networking systems from routers to
webinar software, understands that creating valuable content extends
beyond the boundaries of a website. They've developed a YouTube channel with videos and tutorials to help their prospective business leads learn the ins and outs of network solutions. What They Do Well:
Practical Advice: Cisco's tutorials are clearly marked and
deliver on the promise of being educational rather than promotional.
Each video adds to what has become a really valuable resource online for
companies seeking networking solutions or troubleshooting what they
already have.
Fully Integrated Content: Cisco not only creates great video
tutorials; they have also pulled their entire social network into their
YouTube channel. So with a click, you can comment, follow the company on
Twitter, or check out their content on other social channels.
Social Media Content
GE Aviations' Engaging Presence
With 16K followers on Twitter and 4,000 Facebook fans,
GE Aviation knows how to engage its audience. Part of the strength of
their social content is that there is a clear back and forth between the
content created by GE and the content contributed by its followers.
Every aspect of GE Aviation's social content is about the community
around GE -- not just the company itself. What They Do Well:
They give their followers a nickname. It may not work for
every company, but GE Aviations refers to its followers across all
social media networks lovingly as "AVgeeks." They've even turned it into
a hashtag
that their followers can use in other contexts. Injecting community
into their content makes their social media presence about more than
just the company, helping it spread farther and wider than it may have
otherwise.
They share content other than their own. One of the
best practices HubSpot recommends to businesses leveraging social media
is talking about more than just your own content. GE is a stand-out in
this sense, sharing news articles, pictures, and other content for the
benefit of the whole AVgeek community.
GoToMeeting's (Citrix) Terrific Twitter Content
Another webinar and remote meeting provider, GoToMeeting
(run by Citrix) does a really nice job of making sure its Twitter
stream is filled with valuable content. They have three team members
dedicated to the channel, and their investment in content has paid off
in more than 27,000 followers. What They Do Well:
Sharing Content Other Than its Own: Just like GE
Aviation, GoToMeeting is another great example of a B2B company acting
as a curator of valuable content. Below, you can see an example of that
in action.
Sick of meetings? Here's how to make them matter gotom.tg/N37KOD -> Good tips from CNN.com
A Widened (But Still Relevant) Focus: Beating the
same drum again and again about online meetings can get old. Instead,
GoToMeeting's Twitter content focuses on the larger theme of working
better. They include tips for productivity, working from home, and office humor.
VMWare's Killer Community Content
VMWare, a virtualization and cloud computing provider, took what can
be highly technical content and translated it in a B2B-friendly way
through its very own online community. Rather than trying to compete
against communities like LinkedIn, VMWare uses its community to be a central hub for finding content, forums, and its existing social media channels like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
What They Do Well:
Connecting its Readers: VMWare seems to recognize
that forging ties between its customers and leads is just as important
as putting the company at the center. The community utilizes forum
content, Twitter lists, and other content tools to connect its audiences
to each other.
Community Management: It's clear from the activity
that VMWare has a team dedicated to adding useful content to the
community and keeping its readers engaged. So before you take on a
project of this scale, it's worth taking stake to see if you have the
resources to keep it going.
The list doesn't stop here. The bottom line is, there's a world of
content opportunities out there just waiting for B2B companies with a
little creativity to take on. What other B2B companies do you think take
on a fresh approach to content creation? What do you do in your own
business to deliver content that matters to your audience?
Image Credit: breahn
While your website is definitely no one-trick pony, when it comes to
its role as an inbound marketing tool, its ability to drive conversions
-- both in terms of net new lead generation andreconversions -- is definitely one of its bragging rights.
But surely there must be more you can do to boost your website's conversion potential, even after you've got all the conversion basics down pat ... right? Absolutely! Read on to learn about 9 different ways you can improve your website's ability to convert.
9 Tips to Improve Your Website Conversions
1)Leverage Social Proof
Social proof stems from the concept that people will conform to the
actions of others under the assumption that those actions are reflective
of the correct behavior. In other words, it's the mentality that, if
other people are doing it, and I trust those people, that's validation
that I should also be doing it. This third-party validation can
be a very powerful motivator for your site visitors' and prospects'
actions.
Consider the various ways you can add some social proof to your
marketing assets to drive conversions. This very blog, for example, uses
it on our blog subscription CTA at the top right-hand sidebar as well
as on our blog subscriber landing page. It encourages visitors to think, "76K other people have already subscribed? I probably should, too!"
You could also experiment with other types of social proof such as
testimonials on landing pages or on CTAs themselves. Check out what we
did with our blog CTA for our ebook, "The Essential Step-by-Step Guide to Internet Marketing,"
for example. We added testimonial tweets to add credibility to our
offer and emphasize that others thought it was worth the download -- and worthy of a Twitter endorsement.
2) Revitalize Your CTA Designs
Call-to-action designs
have the tendency to get old and stale, especially when they're used
over and over again within various marketing assets. Think about it --
if you saw the same CTA design every time you visited a particular
website, it probably wouldn't get you clicking, even if you've never
converted on the offer it's promoting. This is true for multiple
offers, too. If you're using the same design for various offers, it can
also get stale pretty quickly. Why? Because the design no longer
captures your visitors' attention. As a visitor who has seen the same
design repeatedly, your eyes just end up glossing over it. On HubSpot's
website, for example, we've noticed that the longer a CTA design appears
on our site, the lower and lower its click-through rate becomes.
That's why it's important to regularly update the designs of your
calls-to-action. Once you notice click-through rates dipping, spend some
time updating the creative and copy of your CTA buttons, whether you do it yourself in PowerPoint or hire someone with design chops.
3) Feature New Offers
Updating CTA designs can definitely improve dropping click-through
rates, but it won't do much if the offer you're touting is outdated
itself. Just like designs, offers have the tendency to get stale, too --
and for a number of reasons. I mean, if you've been promoting the same
offer over and over again, or if the content of the offer is obviously
outdated, even to a new visitor (e.g. "Free Ebook: 10 New SEO Tips for
2010"), it's probably not going to have the best conversion rate. The
solution? Time to create or feature some new offers! Marketing offers
aren't effective forever, so put some time and effort into creating
brand new ones or updating and repositioning evergreen offers that could
benefit from some revitalization. Before you do, analyze the strength of your existing offers
so you can put your content creation efforts into the types of offers
that you already have historically performed well, whether it's a
particular offer type (i.e. ebooks vs. webinars) or certain subject
matters.
4) Update CTAs on High-Trafficked Blog Posts & Web Pages
Imagine this scenario: you've just created a brand-spanking new
offer, as we suggested in tip #3, and you're testing it out for the
first time via a call-to-action on a new blog post. Over time, that blog
article becomes a big hit, getting tons of traffic and inbound links,
and thus ranking extremely well for one of your most desirable keywords.
But the offer? Despite that fact that you based the creation of that
new offer on the success of an existing offer on the same subject, it's
not really delivering the same awesome results, and well, it's kind of a
flop (hey -- it happens to the best of us!).
But that fantastic blog post it's on will still continue to get a ton
of traffic, right? So keeping a CTA for a subpar offer on that post
probably isn't the smartest decision. No worries. All you have to do is
swap out that CTA for a higher performing one. As a result, you'll have
much more success converting all those people coming to read that post
into new and reconverted leads. Not a bad deal, huh? (Note: If you're a HubSpot customer using our Call-to-Action tool,
all you have to do is replace the underperforming CTA with a better
performing one within the CTA group, and every post/page containing that
old CTA will automatically be replaced with the new one. Easy!)
5) Reduce Friction
How friction-less is your website's conversion process? Truth be
told, there are quite a few distracting, annoying, and confusing
obstacles that can prevent your website visitors from converting. And if
you're not aware of -- and actively removing -- these various
hindrances from your website, you could be leaving precious conversion
opportunities on the table.
To reduce friction and increase conversion rates, here are 8 things you should consider doing (all of which we elaborate on in this blog post):
Shorten your lead-capture forms.
Create targeted landing pages.
Remove top/side/bottom navigation from landing pages.
Get rid of calls-to-action on landing pages.
Share landing page links in social media.
Place landing page forms above the fold.
Use actionable language in CTAs and on landing pages.
Make it as easy and user-friendly as possible to convert.
6) A/B Test and Optimize Landing Pages and CTAs
Conducting regular A/B tests is a smart and data-driven way to
improve the performance of your marketing, particularly when it comes to
conversion rates. What's more, there's no shortage of variables you can test and optimize.
When it comes to CTAs, consider A/B testing such elements as design,
button size, colors, copy, messaging, tone, imagery, and placement. When
A/B testing landing pages, you can test many of the same variables you
test within your CTAs, in addition to variables like page layout,
length, number of form fields, etc. (Note: HubSpot's Call-to-Action and Landing Pages tools make it very easy to A/B test CTA and landing page variations.)
If you conduct regular A/B tests,
be sure to document your results so you can keep track of the insights
you gather from them. Over time, you'll be able to use these insights to
develop best practices specific to your own business that can help you
optimize your marketing efforts right off the bat!
7) Experiment With Secondary CTAs
I know what you're thinking: "Wouldn't including two different CTAs
on the same web page confuse and distract visitors from the action your
want them to take?" The answer is, it depends on the offers your CTAs
are promoting. Yes, displaying two CTAs on one page can distract
your visitors from completing your desired conversion. However, when
the secondary CTA is not promoting a competing offer, it can actually
save a conversion when your visitor isn't interested in -- or ready for
-- the main offer.
For example, if you scroll down to the bottom of this post, you'll
notice that we actually have two separate calls-to-action there. One is
for our main offer -- our ebook on mastering the design and copy of calls-to-action.
The secondary CTA, which isn't as prominent, promotes subscription to
this blog. And having that subscription CTA there might actually capture
a few of those people who weren't interest in the ebook (maybe they've
already mastered CTA design and copy), but did find our blog content
valuable enough to want to subscribe to future updates. Blog subscribers
may not be as valuable to us as new or reconverted leads, but hey, they're still valuable.
Identify opportunities on your website where secondary CTAs for
non-competing offers make sense, and monitor the results. If they seem
to take away from conversion on your main offer, a secondary CTA may not
make sense on that particular page. However, if you notice that they
actually add more conversions when visitors typically would've
left without converting on anything, including a secondary CTA is
probably a smart decision.
8) Appropriately Align CTA Selection With Web Pages
When you're selecting CTAs for your various web pages, there should
always be a method to your madness rather than just slapping a CTA
button on any page on your site, particularly if you have an
arsenal of different marketing offers at your fingertips. But how do you
determine which offer's CTA goes on what pages of your website? We've
created a detailed, step-by-step process for figuring this out, but here's the jist of it ...
First, you'll need to map your various offers to each stage in your
sales cycle, since your offers are likely more appropriate for different
stages. For example, a free trial of your software would probably be a
better fit for a lead who is closer to making a purchasing decision than
say, a first-time visitor to your website, who would probably be better
suited for a lower-commitment offer like a free, educational ebook.
After you've mapped your offers to your sales cycle, you'll need to
do the same for the various web pages on your website. In other words,
based on a combination of common sense and your marketing analytics,
you'll need to determine how each page on your website aligns with the
stages you identified in step 1. For instance, if you know that your
blog attracts a lot of new visitors, you would probably associate those
pages of your website with site visitors in the awareness stage of the
sales process, not the purchase stage.
Once you've mapped your offers and your website pages to the
different stages in your sales cycle, you can start placing appropriate
calls-to-action where they belong. Use your analytics to identify the top offers in each stage, and add them to pages you've mapped to that stage. Voila!
9) Optimize Pages You Expect to Receive High Traffic
From time to time, conversion optimization opportunities arise that
are time-sensitive or events-driven. You just have to be quick to
identify and leverage them! The idea is, if you expect a certain page or
pages of your website to receive a surge of traffic around a certain
time, you can proactively optimize those pages for increased
conversions.
So if you decided to launch a new marketing campaign that may end up
driving more traffic than usual to a particular page (e.g. perhaps you
included a link to your 'About' page in the description of a new contest
you're launching in social media), it would behoove you to audit and
optimize that page for conversion opportunities. You might realize that
it's not optimized at all, that the CTAs on that page are stale, or that
there are other opportunities for improvement.
For example, at HubSpot, we expect that our INBOUND conference website
will receive a surge of traffic next week during the conference, so it
would make sense for us to swap out any CTAs for users to register for the conference, and place lead generation calls-to-action in their place since registration during the conference would be pointless. What other tips would you recommend to increase a website's conversions?
Image Credit: Katie@!
Successful search engine optimization (SEO) requires inbound links from quality relevant websites. Using extracts from their book, Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and response, Ken McGaffin and Mark Nunney here outline the definitive steps in a successful, long term link building campaign.
Search on Google with one of your most popular keywords
and you'll likely find millions of results. How does Google decide who
comes first? And how can you persuade Google to give you a higher
ranking in the results?
Search Google with office furniture, for example (see image below), and there 120 million sites in the results. How do you beat over 120 million other websites?
You've got to work on two main areas - the keywords you use on your own web pages (on-page SEO) and the links on external websites that point to yours (link building).
On-page factors are easy to manipulate and therefore search engines
don't base their algorithms on them alone. They look for more
information in the links that point to your website. These are much more
difficult to manipulate and so are given precedence in search engine
algorithms.
So successful SEO soon requires successful link building. That can be a daunting task and it's why we've written this book.
Good content, an understanding of your online community and knowing
how to get external sites to link to yours are all needed to build
quality links over time.
This is entirely possible no matter what your level of experience -
just approach the job systematically and give it sufficient time and
you'll soon be getting quality backlinks without even asking for them.
Here we'll take you through 62 steps of the following seven stages of the definitive link building campaign:
1) Strategy
2) Management & metrics
3) Networking & prospect hunting
4) Content creation
5) Promotion
6) Debrief
7) Repeat
We'll then give you a link to a spreadsheet containing a checklist you can use for your own link building campaigns.
You'll find more how-to detail on practical link building in Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and response, by Ken McGaffin and Mark Nunney.
Stage 1. Strategy
"Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat". Sun Tzu.
It's best to know where you're going before you start your journey.
SEO translates your company and marketing strategies into target markets and matching keyword niches. 1) Choose target keywords. For SEO, this means you
must decide which keywords you are targeting. And you must include those
keywords in the link text of internal and external (from other sites)
links. 2) Group your target keywords into market sectors.
So, for example, if your website is an online garden center you might
categorize your keywords into groups, including the following:
• seeds
• plants
• garden furniture
• water features
• barbecues
• etc, etc... 3) Focus your link building work on each market sector in turn, eg barbecues, water features. For each of those, you might further refine your target keywords into keyword niches, eg for barbecues, this could include:
• gas barbecues
• charcoal barbecues
• portable barbecues
• barbecue accessories
• etc, etc...
A keyword niche is all keywords containing a seed keyword, eg the gas barbecues keyword niche includes camping gas barbecues and natural gas barbecues. 4) Infuse all your link building and promotion with your brand name.
Eg, if you have any influence over link text then don’t just use gas
barbecues, use (if ‘Barbilicious’ is your brand name) Barbilicious gas
barbecues.
If you are launching a new design line called, say ‘Vintage Chic’,
call it (if ‘MyBrand’ is your brand name) ‘MyBrand Vintage Chic’.
There's much more on link building strategy in Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and response, by Ken McGaffin and Mark Nunney.
Stage 2. Management & metrics
To be successful, any project needs to know who does what, when, who
is in charge, what's being measured and how. Let's break that down.
Before you start, make sure you have answers to these questions: 5) Decide who will do what and how? Who blogs? Who
tweets? Who comments? What's your company's social media policy? What
software will be used? What account will be used for sending and
receiving emails from bloggers? How will records of (and contact with)
link prospects be kept and accessed? 6) Make sure you've got a clear decision-making process
You might be going into new territory for your company. Is blogging the
PR department's brief or the online marketing department's? (We've seen
SEO under one and blogging under another). How will options be
discussed and decisions reached? If these issues aren't sorted out then
you can be paralyzed (and it's why big companies often are). 7) Ensure you can make rapid changes to your site
Sounds simple enough but it often isn't. With one client, to get a blog
post live, we had to: write it, get it approved by a PR company and then
a government department - the process took up to a week and at times a
post would come back unfit for purpose and too late to be worth
publishing! 8) Decide what metrics to use, eg inbound links,
traffic, SERPs ranks, mentions, email recruits, feed subscriptions,
sales. As well as total links, you might count links containing target
keywords in their link text.
Be aware that there are many factors outside your control - you might
get lucky and deserve no credit for good results; and you might have
the best link building campaign ever but fail for other reasons.
Metrics are there to help you - of course you need results but
concentrate more on how you do things (your method, your process - this is what this book is for) and results will be more to do with your considered actions than luck. 9) Choose your monitoring tools. You can count links with Google Analytics, Google Webmaster and Wordtracker Link Builder.
I recommend using Link Builder because:
• It uses the Majestic SEO crawl of the internet which is as big as almost any search engine’s but without their filters (ie, you can see the lot).
• You can see your competitors’ inbound links and your own with one ‘click’.
• You not only see inbound link counts but also a breakdown of those
links into different types like blogs, directories, media and social.
• Everything is displayed in attractive, easy-to-read graphs.
• Er, I managed much of its redesign with my link building partner Ken McGaffin.
It's now time to get out into the community... There's
much more practical advice on planning and managing link building
campaigns in Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links
to your website for SEO, traffic and response.
Stage 3. Networking & prospect hunting
Find and explore your target market’s online community. Make friends there and build lists of link prospects.
There are many opportunities for this as we show below. But you must always record your prospects' details either in a spreadsheet like this, a bespoke contact management tool or specialist link building software like Wordtracker Link Builder. 10) Check your own site's inbound links and referrers. Use your site's analytics, Google Webmaster Tools and Wordtracker Link Builder.
301 redirect any 404s you find whilst there. 11) Find relevant blogs. Study, start commenting when confident, don't mention your own products at first. 12) Monitor news sites. Make sure you know what's going on. Comment, be supportive and helpful, make friends. 13) Build press lists. Contact journalists, make yourself available as an expert - show your pedigree. 14) Join forums. Register, use your signature, be more helpful than promotional, earn community trust. 15) Look for specialist sites that accept article submissions. Contact any specialist sites and bloggers and ask if they want guest content written by you. 16) Take part in specialist social sites. egister, help, etc. Here’s a list of 193 of them. 17) Look for specialist groups on big social sites. On Facebook, StumbleUpon and Twitter, search for groups and lists 18) Look for local sites and small news sites. Make contact, offer help, stories and content. 19) Join trade associations and chambers of commerce. Be active, look for contacts and linking opportunities. They are there to help and that includes mentions and links. 20) Look for relevant libraries. Great resources for communities and quality links. 21) Approach your suppliers. They have websites, right? 22) Watch competing websites. Study inbound links, press releases, successful content and tactics. 23) Find directories. Consider becoming a directory editor. Don't submit your own site until it's established.
To help find all the above: 24) Enter your targets keyword into Link Builder. One search with a target keyword on Wordtracker Link Builder
will find the inbound linking sites to the top 10 sites on Google for
that keyword. Those inbound links are all link prospects. They are
organized into different types of sites that can be used for different
linking strategies including blogs, directories, social, news, business
and jobs. 25) Do regular searches with your target keywords to find all of the above. Start with a systematic search. 26) Search with advanced queries. For example, try the following …
Find pages with your keyword on them and “submit url” contained
within the anchor text of links pointing to them (in other words, find
sites about that keyword who accept submissions): keyword inanchor:"submit url"
Find pages that link to competitor1 and competitor2 but not your site: linkdomain:competitor1.com; linkdomain:competitor2.com; -linkdomain:yoursite.com
For more advanced Google queries, aka 'search operators', See GoogleGuide. 27) Read all you can on the quality sites you find.
Follow links to the websites they mention. Wander around and see what
and who is in the community. What do people like and dislike? What do
they get passionate about? Always be looking for link prospects and
ideas. Learn
how to find more link prospects in Wordtracker Masterclass: Link
Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and
response.
Stage 4. Content creation
Quality content is essential for natural link building and is a constant theme of Wordtracker Masterclass: Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and response.
This is because the most important factor in getting links without
asking is creating something worth linking too. The list below takes you
through some of your options for creating link-worthy content: 28) Always be looking for spectacular content. It
can turbo charge your link building. But even in competitive markets, a
solid, consistent approach will bring rewards over time. 29) Make the most of the content you already have Is
it link-worthy? Can it be made so? In some recent work for a national
retailer, after some digging around I found gold - a large collection of
quality how-to content stuffed away in PDF format in a hidden corner of
an old website. 30) Publish industry news (one-offs or regular).
Industries have industry websites and they want industry news. Provide a
regular supply, use target keywords in your headlines and you'll get
links from pages relevant to your content (good) using your target
keywords (perfect). 31) Don't ignore national media news (one-offs or regular). National news is a tougher nut to crack but be persistent and you can get results. 32) Customize your news for regional media (one-offs or regular). Regional news is easier to get coverage and links from. The obvious technique is to give your news stories a regional angle. 33) Ask target bloggers/experts to comment on an
article when writing it. Once you've earned a reputation, you can post
whole articles with no more than other experts' opinions. 34) Interview key industry personalities. If an
expert is speaking at a conference or writing regular blog posts then
they want publicity and coverage. Offer it and they will speak to you.
Make the interview interesting and others will link to you. 35) Review other sites and resources. You review, they link. You might make friends at the same time too. 36) Link to any reviews of your own site. They
review, you review their reviews. Do you have any product you can send
for review? If you are a service and you have spare capacity then work
for free and for the publicity. 37) Learn how to produce videos. All above in video format. Pretty much all mentioned content ideas here can be in video format or accompanied by videos. 38) Publish photos. People love photographs and will link to them. Social sites like StumbleUpon and Digg love collections of stunning and interesting photographs. Many photographs on sites like Flickr can be reused for free. 39) Publish infographics. Not cheap or quick to make but they can make a dull or hard to understand subject appealing. 40) Conduct surveys or polls (for stories and PR).
Surveys are great for market research and improving your products; and
provide stories that news sites and blogs love to link to. 41) Run competitions and giveaways. It's easy for a competition to be ignored, so make it interesting and make it simple to understand and enter. 41) Create free widgets and tools. Some sites create
almost useless tools just to get the links from sites that list free
tools. Far better to make a genuinely useful free tool that keeps on
giving value to users and links to you. 43) Publish free downloadable guides and whitepapers. Take some content, wrap it up into a PDF and you have yourself a 'free guide'. 44) Collect and publish case studies. Readers want specific content - examples. Case studies are detailed examples. 45) Create lists. Collections of useful stuff like
lists, top tips, how-tos, 10 best, 10 worst, etc are really link-worthy.
Want some ideas? Search for 10 best and 10 worst then adapt and 'switch' (ie, rewrite) the best content to your market. Find
more content ideas for link building in Wordtracker Masterclass: Link
Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and
response.
Stage 5. Promotion
So you know why you're building links (your strategy); which keywords
you're targeting; you've researched and established yourself in your
market's online community; and are creating quality content. Now what?
You've got to let people know, of course.
It's time to promote and here's a detailed list of methods for you to consider: 46) Create RSS feeds. Try registering with Feedburner. 47) Publish newsletters. Recruit site visitors to
your free benefit-packed newsletter and you are building an emailing
list. Use your newsletter to promote your content. 48) Post on your site/blog. You’re doing that anyway, of course. But it’s amazing what people forget if it’s not on a checklist. 49) Submit content to generic social sites, eg Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, StumbleUpon, Digg and now Google+. 50) Submit to your specialist social networking sites. 51) Contact your specialist contacts with email, direct tweets and even telephone. 52) Contact journalists you know personally. Don't just issue press releases - get to know them, chat and build trust. 53) Buy and use a list of relevant journalists' details and get to know them. 54) Contribute with guest posts and articles on specialist blogs and sites. 55) Issue press releases to online and offline specialist distributors (like PRWeb and Press Dispensary). 56) Submit to site-of-the-day sites. 57) Consider Eric Ward's URLwire - it's a paid-for service but is top quality. 58) Buy PageRank links (or not), ie links without the nofollow tag, if you want to take the risk - but we don't recommend it. 59) Buy promotional links (adverts) on generic sites like StumbleUpon and Facebook; specialist sites; and Pay Per Click (PPC). The links won’t directly help your SEO but others might share your content and those links will.
If your content is good and your network strong then you will get
links from your immediate contacts. Then their readers and others will
find your site, visit and perhaps link to it.
You'll be getting links without asking. Success. Master
the craft of building links without asking in Wordtracker Masterclass:
Link Building - How to build links to your website for SEO, traffic and
response.
Stage 6. Debrief & repeat
We recommend that you have separate link building campaigns for each
of your target market sectors. Work on one campaign after the other but
try to overlap each a bit so that search engines don't see too many
surges of similar links at one time.
As each campaign comes to an 'end' with your team and (if relevant)
client, you should review your strategy, tactics and execution to find
lessons to learn and changes to make. Consider the following: 60) Improve your strategy. Are you targeting the right keywords? 61) Build on your tactics. Are your chosen methods the right ones? 62) Streamline your systems. Were you able to get done what you wanted done? If not how can that change?
Then move on to the next market sector.
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On the flip side, sometimes seeing how they respond to negative feedback
can be even more valuable. Chances are, those who handle criticism with
respectful replies are well liked via the online community.
