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Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2012

January 1st, 2012 by Shawn Kerr

Internet Marketing Weekly: Use the Lessons from 2011 to Plan Your Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2012 and Increase the Effectiveness of Your Online Efforts

At the start of this new year, you may be experiencing an internet marketing hangover from 2011 and who could blame you? It was a hurricane (no mere whirlwind) of changes this last year. Highlights included:

Google

Panda bears may be lazy, but Google Panda has been anything but with 9 major updates since its release in 2011.

Google released 21 major updates in 2011, up from eight in 2010, five in 2009 and two in 2008. Most of these updates were centered around updates named for an endangered bear. In terms of search engine marketing, 2011 could be called The Year of the Panda. These updates were implemented to return higher-quality search query results by placing quality websites near the top of the search results and lower the rank of low-quality sites. Many complaints, a request from Google for help in gathering data, and several updates later, it appears Google Panda is finally starting to deliver on its promises.

Mobile Device Internet & Search Usage

According to StatCounter, the mobile device market for internet use continued to grow throughout 2011, rising to from just over 4% in December 2010 to 6.5% overall in November 2011. In the search market, mobile devices now account for 20% of search engine queries.

Social Media Marketing

Google+, the search engine’s latest and strongest foray into social media, was opened up for business profiles in November.

Showing up in the news feed of your Facebook fans becomes increasingly important as your fan base grows.

Facebook announced their new Timeline personal profile feature, which rolled out worldwide on December 15, 2011. The biggest lesson of 2011 for businesses on Facebook, though, is the need to be active and effective in engagement via the news feed of your fans. The reason for this is the relative lack of traffic to a business page once “liked.” A PageLever study of Facebook analytics shows that as your fan base grows the percentage of fans visiting the business page shrinks. This does not mean that you don’t need to worry about the branding and extra features of your business page; it does mean that you will need to increasingly focus on the timeliness and engagement effectiveness of your postings to compete for visibility to your fans.

Twitter announced a new interface that is billed as more “follow friendly.” YouTube announced a new design to enhance its social interactivity features. All of these social media outlets are increasing their competitiveness for their slice of your social media marketing efforts.

Recommended Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2012

With 2011 now in the rear-view mirror, it’s time to make sure your internet marketing efforts are ready to meet the challenges as they emerge in 2012.

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Which Blog Posts Attract Readers?

December 25th, 2011 by Rachel Covault

Internet Marketing Weekly: Evaluate Your Blog Posts Using Google Analytics to Help Plan Future Blogging Efforts

Find out which of your blog posts are most attractive using Google Analytics. (Hint: people like baby animals.)

You diligently spend the time to write a weekly blog post, and here at the end of December, you’re looking back on the past year, wondering how to maximize your efforts in 2012. How many people are reading your posts? Which posts are irresistible, and which inspire yawns? Find out using Google Analytics.

Identify what makes a post attractive

Some people will find your latest blog post in search results. Others might find a link to your post on Facebook or Twitter. Your more devoted readers might follow your blog through an RSS feed. So what makes a link to your post intriguing enough for these potential readers to click?

Google Analytics can show you which posts attracted the most visits, allowing you to draw conclusions about what types of posts your readers prefer.

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5 Steps to Creating a Blogging Calendar for your Business

December 18th, 2011 by Silas Fuller

Internet Marketing Weekly Feature: Creating a blogging calendar will help you to become a successful blogger.

Content is King when it comes to Internet Marketing. A blog is going to become your number one tool for developing fresh, new and relevant content. But I often hear from business owners, “I don’t have enough time to blog”. That is understandable, business owners are usually focused on the day to day operations of their business. This post will show you ways to make blogging a part of your day to day operations.

Creating a blog calendar will make your life easier.

Step 1: Locate a desktop calendar or an online calendar. Choose a calendar that best fits your needs. The Google Calendar is a great free resource to use.

Step 2: Calculate how many times a month you are going to blog. You should keep in mind 2 blog posts a month should be your minimum (4 blog posts a month should become your goal). Once you have selected the number of posts your are going to write for the month. Select the day on the calendar you will launch your posts. Keep in mind that having a consistent day of the week is a great plan and will help you to become more organized. For this example, we will use Wednesday as your post day. Go back at least four days on that calendar and start to write what you are going to do to prepare that Wednesday post. Day 1: gather information for your post. Day 2: gather images for your post. Day 3: rough draft of the post is written. Day 4: final edits and posting. This strategy will help you spread out the work. You can do a few minutes of work a day. Instead of trying to spend an hour or two coming up with all the info and then having to write and publish the post.

Now that we have our day of the week selected for posting and created a few days of lead time.

Step 3: The next step is Brainstorming topic ideas. One place to start is your local Chamber of Commerce, or any other community based groups. They often times have great calendars of events and are very tied into what is happening in your area. Research all the events, festivals and concerts that are scheduled for the upcoming year. Add those dates to your blogging calendar. Remember that when your going to blog about an event that you need to write and publish the post weeks prior. By posting weeks before the event it will give you a great shot at being found in search.

Step 4: Once you have a calendar filled in for the whole year. Take a moment and start to look for blank weeks or a month where you might not have any posts scheduled. For these weeks you should start to fill in anything your business is doing over the next year you would like to promote. Recipes, local hiking trails, bike trails are great things to add to your list. People read blogs looking for local expertise or information about your area. You can use those empty weeks on your calendar to show your readers that your are an expert and resource for your area.

Step 5: Set up a system to alert yourself to blog. I personally miss the days of post it note chains that would snake across my desk. Removing each note as the weeks moved forward. Fortunately technology has advanced and there are many ways to send yourself reminders. Live gets busy so any tools you can use to help remind your self to start your blogging process will help.

With the new year rapidly approaching, it would be a great time to start to develop your calendar. A successful blogging strategy would make for a great New Year’s resolution.

I hope you found this information helpful and I wish everyone a Happy New Blogging Year!!

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Major Changes Come to Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

December 11th, 2011 by Laura Alisanne

Internet Marketing Weekly: Updates to Social Media Marketing Heavyweights, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube

It’s been a whirlwind week, filled with significant updates to three of the most important social media, and social marketing tools operating today.

Twitter is launching an entirely new interface for both desktop and mobile devices, and YouTube has rearranged everything on your YouTube channel to allow for more powerful marketing and sharing with video. Facebook is rolling out their most dramatic user interface update since its inception.

A New Version of Twitter:

Twitter introduced a new version of its user interface on Thursday. The new design will be rolling out over the next few weeks, so not all users have it yet. The design can be seen on both on Twitter.com and mobile phones, as well as TweetDeck. Twitter notes that the new design will make it easier to “follow what you care about, connect with others and discover something new.”

You can see it immediately on the just-updated versions of mobile.twitter.com, Twitter for iPhone, and Twitter for Android. You can get early access on your computer by downloading and logging into Twitter for iPhone or Twitter for Android.

The new interface puts the five main components of Twitter front and center:

The Home Icon:

A new tab menu which is the same across all devices, gives you the same experience on mobile and desktop.

A simpler design where you can easily view your Twitter stats, get suggestions on who to follow and see trending topics.

See Tweets from all the accounts you follow. Tweets can now expand to show more information such as replies, retweets and embedded photos and videos.

The @ Symbol:

Connecting with @usernames:
Whenever you come across an @username—in the news, on a billboard or on a business card—enter it to learn more and connect instantly.

You can track your impact across Twitter. Interactions shows all the actions other people take related to you and your Tweets. See who follows you, retweets or favorites one of your Tweets, or adds you to a list.

See all the Tweets in which you are mentioned in one place, so you can keep the conversation going.

The # Hashtag:

The # symbol before any keyword allows you to search for things people are talking about. Twitter calls it “Discover.”

Enter any #hashtag to discover all of its related stories, conversation and content.

Your Profile Icon: Twitter Calls This the “Me” Tab:

When you click this tab, you can see stats on your tweets, as well as who your following and who’s following you. You also get a list of all your tweets in a nice big format. This is also the place to stay current with any direct message conversations you may be having.

The Quill Pen Icon: aka: The New Tweet Button

Click and post a new tweet, as well as upload photos from both your mobile and desktop. You can also add a location to indicate where you’re tweeting from.

With 100M active users per month, and the site overall seeing 400M monthly unique visitors, people, logged in or not, are using Twitter at a significant rate to stay connected and keep up with news.

Find out more in this Twitter-created video

The New Facebook: Timeline for all (well, everyone in New Zealand for starters, that is).

Facebook delayed the launch of the new Timeline, which was announced in September, after a company called Timeline.com filed a lawsuit against the name Facebook had come up with. Now that it’s all ironed out (well, except for Facebook’s new countersuit), they’ve decided to roll it out to New Zealiand’s 2 million Facebook users. Their strategy? “As a global company, we need to gain perspective and insights from outside the US. New Zealand is a good place to start because it’s English speaking, so we can read the feedback and make improvements quickly,”

In the meantime, you can only view the new Timeline if you yourself have it enabled, and the only way to do that currently is as a Facebook Developer. Here’s a view of one person’s Facebook Timeline:

Check out all the information and demonstrations on the Timeline from Facebook.

The New YouTube:

Last week, YouTube rolled out significant changes to their design. The overall look is much darker, and the layout is dramatically changed as well. The new YouTube is more focused on social activity around video and in letting viewers customize their home page experience.

YouTube is an often underutilized platform for marketing and connecting with users. However video is one of the most powerful way to connect your business to your guests and potential customers.

The New YouTube includes the following changes to the Channels design:

Avatars can be up to 1600×1600 pixels. It will be resized to be 36 x 36 pixels on many locations on the site.
New Channel width is 970 pixels.
You can choose which Tab you desire to be the Default View.
There are four new layout templates to choose from.
The Title Header can only be 64 characters long.
How long is that? Pretty long.
You can type or copy & paste some symbols

There are (as always) pros and cons to the new design. Here are some of the major points:
Pros:

Simple Design allows for better focus on Video
Channel Title can be customized up to 64 characters.
Friends/Subscribers not visible (to clutter up the design)
Sharing and Connected Accounts options is better
Search on the channel

Cons:

Absolute background color not changeable from YouTube “Gray”
Cannot manipulate the sections.
Channel Title background color not changeable.
Friends/Subscribers not visible (for others to see)

Find out more with these helpful links:

Try Out the new Channels.
YouTube’s video on using the new Channels.
YouTube’s Official blog post on the new Channels.
YouTube’s support guide.

You can experiment with the new Channels and then switch back as needed. In time, the new design will be enabled for all, so getting your feet wet now is a good idea.

How to flip between the old and new:

1. Click on EDIT CHANNEL

2. then “Switch back to the old channels design”

The last 10 days have seen a whirlwind of changes, with many new things to experiment with and learn more about. Tells us what you think, and share your thoughts here.

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Social Media Bar Comes to Inndx Websites

December 4th, 2011 by Shawn Kerr

Internet Marketing Weekly: Inndx Members May Now Offer Social Media Links and Sharing Using Our Social Media Bar

InsideOut Solutions is pleased to announce that our Inndx members and our Association system websites may now take advantage of our new Simple Social Bar Plugin.

Presenting the Inndx Simple Social Bar

You can see this plugin “in action” on the bottom of our blog.

The social media savvy out there among our clients have long been using the various “on-page” social media plugins we have offered on Inndx. Now you may consolidate your social media links and sharing icons, such as:

Inndx Simple Social Bar as It Appears on a Website

Inndx Simple Social Media Bar as It Appears on a Website

Facebook link and “Like” & “Send” share buttons
Twitter link and “Tweet” share buttons
Google+ link and “+1″ share button
LinkedIn link and “Share” button
RSS Feed to encourage subscriptions to your blog
Email the website owner
and many more options.

All of these appear in a single bar that appears at the bottom of the screen on every page and blog post of your website. As a visitor scrolls down the page, this bar travels along, staying at the very bottom so they know where to find it. We recommend that you use the bar and then clean the clutter of those buttons and icons off of the content of your pages and blog posts to make your website more visitor-friendly.

What’s so important about social sharing?

Social sharing via Facebook, Twitter, Google+, etc. is a major component of effective Social Media Marketing. Here’s two important reasons why, if you are active in social media, that you should make sharing prominent on your website:

Social Sharing Disperses Your Web Content to a Wider Audience

Engage The Social Media Audience Directly: Gain new & engage current Facebook & Google+ fans, Twitter followers, etc. by giving them a way to socially interact with the content of your website and blog content by sharing it with their own friends, fans and followers. Those likes, sends and shares will disperse your content to a much wider audience than it might otherwise reach.

Increase Your Search Engine Visibility: Social media is emerging as a factor in search engine rankings. Search engines add value to a website when a link is shared with high frequency via social media, increasing the potential for better search engine rank. Having these social sharing button increases the potential of your website’s content being shared, thereby increasing its competitiveness for search engine rank.

The Simple Social Bar includes Google Analytics tracking for both the current asynchronous code and the older PageTracker code so that you may track the social media activity via your website.

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Twitter for Your Business: An Intro Guide to Get You Up & Running

November 20th, 2011 by Laura Alisanne

Internet Marketing Weekly Feature: The Basics of Twitter for Business

What’s Twitter?

Twitter is an information network made up of 140-character messages called Tweets. It’s an easy way to discover the latest news (“what’s happening”) related to subjects you care about.

At the core of Twitter are small bursts of information called Tweets. Each Tweet is 140 characters in length, —you can share a lot with a little space. Connected to each Tweet is a rich details pane that provides additional information, deeper context and embedded media. You can tell your story within your Tweet, or you can think of a Tweet as the headline, and use the details pane to tell the rest with photos, videos and other media content.

How is it Useful?

Twitter contains information you will find valuable. Messages from users you choose to follow will show up on your Twitter homepage for you to read. It’s like being delivered a newspaper whose headlines you’ll always find interesting – you can discover news as it’s happening, learn more about topics that are important to you, and get the inside scoop in real time.

How to Start Using Twitter:

Reading Tweets and discovering new information whenever you check in on your Twitter timeline is where you’ll find the most value on Twitter.

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Scary Internet Marketing Mistakes

October 30th, 2011 by Shawn Kerr

Internet Marketing Weekly Feature: Don’t Scare Away Business

Halloween is almost upon us. In the spirit of the spooky season, I felt compelled to list some of the scary internet marketing mistakes businesses make.

Prep for surgery, not a slasher film, when trimming your internet marketing budget.

Don’t Be a Budget Slasher

We all know by now that times are tough and recovery will be slow for most of us. The online advertising budget is an easy target for the axe. If you must cut into your internet marketing budget, proceed with the skill of a surgeon’s scalpel rather than hack away with a machete like a slasher in a horror movie?

The priority is to ensure that you can evaluate the Return On Investment (ROI) of your various internet marketing efforts. If you don’t have Google Analytics tracking of revenue sources, get it. If your current revenue center (online store, reservations, etc.) can’t report the sources of online revenue from website visits via Google, paid online directory listings, etc., it is time to change providers.

If you don’t have an online revenue center, you can still evaluate the quality of visits via sources tracking in Google Analytics. See last week’s post: Evaluate Your Paid Online Directories with Google Analytics.

Once you are able to evaluate your revenue sources, you can make an informed decision about what to cut, scale back or re-purpose.

Loud pink and green Comic Sans font on a bright yellow background? Don't be the scary internet clown!

Don’t Be the Scary Internet Clown

What is it about a clowns that scares some people? Three words: they’re too different. To these folks, clowns are frightening, annoying or both because they don’t look or act like you and me…at all. Don’t scare off website visitors with off-putting fonts, colors, images or sounds.

Don’t Let Your Blog Become a Ghost Town

Why are ghost towns scary? Because they’re abandoned. When was the last time you published a blog post? Last week? Last month? Longer? Should your blog have a virtual tumbleweed blowing across the page? Keep the cobwebs at bay by posting regularly, at least weekly whenever possible. Bring more and better visits by posting well. Don’t have the time to write? Hire a trustworthy writer who will work with you to understand how your business and area.

Be Social, Not Creepy

Choose your professional social media posts and responses with care.

Ever know someone who tried to hard to be popular, but just came off as eerie or, worse, threatening? How about the person that puts up a friendly social face, then doesn’t return your calls? Social media is now a major component of internet marketing. As a business, your social marketing efforts will walk the razor’s edge of the personal/professional line. Keep your personal and business social media accounts separate. Always make sure to post to your business account as your business and don’t let personal issues bleed over to your professional social efforts. Respond appropriately to comments both good and bad – don’t ignore or overreact to negative feedback. Remember, your followers, fans and the whole world are watching.

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Evaluate your paid online directories with Google Analytics

October 23rd, 2011 by Rachel Covault

Internet Marketing Weekly Feature:

It’s been one year since you signed up for a listing on a certain online directory, and today a renewal notice from the directory’s salesperson appeared in your inbox. Should you renew? How can you tell whether the price of your listing is a worthwhile investment of your marketing dollars?

Google Analytics can help you make an informed decision. Analytics can show you how many visitors the directory sent to your website and how engaged those visitors were with your site.

Note that this post describes the process using the new version of Google Analytics. The process is similar in the old version of Analytics, but the menus and the layout look slightly different. To access the New Analytics, log in to Analytics as you normally would at google.com/analytics and click the red “New Version” link in the upper-right corner.

This post describes how to see the visitor statistics for paid directories using the new version of Google Analytics.

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Internet Marketing Resolutions for 2012

Category Archives: Internet Marketing

Which Blog Posts Attract Readers?