Google's pile of money is built upon the solid foundation of an even larger pile of money. And they want to maximize their ROI, just like we do.

It costs Google to be Google.

To crawl and index everything in the world is a massive undertaking, with very real costs attached to it. Google’s latest updates are all about its money. Crawling and indexing the internet is a very real cost and since the beginning of 2011, wasteful websites have been actively punished in the name of “quality” and to save resources.

What should I do?

This is a great time to optimize your website! Ultimately, it makes for a better experience, a more Google-friendly site, and a better Internet. Inspired largely by the SEOmoz Mozinar, here are 5 ways to tune your website to work seamlessly with the modern Google:

✓ Make leaner web sites that load faster

Make pages unique – don’t repeat the same thing over and over. Syndicated content is still a great way to bolster your website, but make sure it doesn’t outweigh your uniquely valuable content. Using Google’s ownPage Speed Chrome Extension or Page Speed Online Analyzer is a great way to get actionable suggestions, straight from Google.

✓ Consolidate multiple domains

Differentiate them enough that they clearly stand on their own, or roll them back into your main site. Make one fantastic site instead of a bunch of alright ones!

✓ Create Unique Value

You still can’t beat having something worth looking at – and sharing. Amazon, for example, add volumes of value in the form of reviews (both their own and customer reviews), interviews, videos, lists, wish lists, and more.

✓ Invest in Quality

Buy high quality content and get it linked. High quality is always better. It’s worth it. 1 moment of excellence is worth hundreds of mediocrity.

✓ Analyze and Optimize Everything

Use Web Analytics, Webmaster Tools, Heatmaps, and Professional SEO Tools to analyze your website, and find where you can improve. And to actively test the improvements you make – so you can be certain that changes you make are the right ones. This will allow you eo ensure that things work exactly as they should – at every step of your website.

The bigger you make the pie, the bigger your piece gets...

Give Google a Positive ROI and You’ll Be Rewarded

Google’s budget is very real. If you give them high return for their resources, then you can expect them to invest more in you. Make your web presence optimal, help contribute to making a more Google friendly Internet, and Google will be more friendly towards you.

You may have heard about serious fluctuations in Google’s rankings lately. Some sites are getting downright hammered. Some are getting boosted. We know what’s going on, and we can help you through it.

What’s going on is a permanent change to Google, and the Internet in General.

Getting traffic online used to be all about something called “SEO” or “Search Engine Optimization.” At its core, it was only really driven by two things: The actual worded content that appeared on your site, and links back to your website from other sites.

This worked well enough until people realized that it was quite mathematical, which meant it was vulnerable to cheating. It is really easy to crank out reams of keyword-targeted content, links from other websites, and even other keyword targeted websites themselves with their own links, and so forth. And the more money you made from doing it, the faster and cheaper it is to build even more. And so if you dig deep enough into the web presence of many high-ranked sites, you’d find an enormous pile of pretty ugly stuff: spammed links from peoples’ blogs, websites that consist solely of ripped-off content from other sites, and an incredible amount of writing that exists merely to repeat words. So it is with very good reason that content and links aren’t what they used to be. Things will never be the same again ever.  This is a good thing.

No successful online presence can be an island.

The old way was to create content targeted to keywords, and go out and find relevant links from sites. Most popular methods were ones that involved no human interaction: directories, link exchanges, eventually blog comments, etc. But businesses are supposed to engage their marketplace, not simulate it.

1. Quality is key. You can’t get by anymore by simply cranking out content for the sake of hitting keywords. It has to be useful and worthy of inclusion in Google’s index and to its users.

“What’s quality?”

• A well designed, user-friendly website with engaging and fresh content that serves a purpose for people who visit it.
• Uniqueness and/or superiority: Do something new and useful that nobody else does or do something familiar absolutely better than everybody else. Always keep the user in mind.
• Make what you do as accessible as possible. This one’s the most immediately actionable for most website. While video, PDF, and other formats might not themselves be high-quality, they are now being seen as quality signals. The idea is that if you’ve taken the time to present your information in multiple formats, you’ve probably created something you want people to see – not just search engines.

In short, a page that fulfills the need of the searcher is a high-quality page.

2. Conversions are key. A conversion occurs when a desired criteria is fulfilled (ie time on a page, or multiple page views on a site), or a user performs a specific action (purchase, newsletter signup, etc).  Conversions are a clear signal of quality because they mean that your site fulfills its visitors’ needs. A site with high conversion rates is clearly fulfilling a purpose for its audience. In other words, the site is useful to people in the way that it’s supposed to be.

3. Participation is key. Participation in the social sphere is now mandatory for many businesses. You might choose not to. But right now there is a competitor actively engaging your market. They will steal it from you if you sit back. This is the way that Google will be able to separate the true experts from the pretenders. What matters now is not knowing how the Internet works, but deserving a top spot in the market. You need to prove that you’re worthwhile.

4. Branding is key. Claim your brand online – or hire a company to secure and optimize your online branding. Get yourself listed in the Better Business Bureau. Do everything that it takes to prove that yours is a legitimate company dedicated to providing superior service to a specific market. Be a real branded company – not just a mass of words targeting a niche.

Belong in your Marketplace

As painful as it may seem, this is about separating people who are passionate and well-informed from those who are simply set up to exploit a niche. Make sure you provide value and find a way to let your audience let people know.

Please feel free to ask any questions or bring us any comments or concerns you might have.

IIMA Fusion 2011 brought internet marketing luminaries to Vancouver BC.

With IIMA Fusion 2011 came some of the most influential people in search engine, social media, and online marketing strategy – and their expertise – who presented for a power-packed day of seminars and workshops on internet marketing strategy and execution, including search marketing, conversion optimization, user engagement, analytics, and e-commerce. Path Marketing CEO James Carter emceed the event and introduced each speaker – all of whose time and insight was very much appreciated.

Fusion featured helpful information for newcomers and veterans alike.

Seminars and workshops were well-reviewed and well-attended. Highights among those attended by this author included:

• Keynote speaker Rand Fishkin – CEO SEOmoz and co-author of The Art of SEO, who presented on how SEOmoz built itself into a successful company with industry-standard SEO software, and featured current opportunities. These include vertical search (dominating multiple search engine types, such as video, discussions, maps, and even multiple engines themselves) and the abundance of ranking factors, which represent significant opportunity to get indexed and ranked.
• Stephan Spencer, founder of NetConcepts and fellow author of The Art of SEO, who presented on “The Social Media Underground“. Among his key insights were just how important it is to make sure that your content winds up in front of the right eyes – getting it in front of influential people will increase your outreach immensely. In addition, it’s important to reciprocate on help you get. “Social Media” is just that.
• Mona Elesseily of Page Zero Media and Chris Goward of Wider Funnel Marketing conducting a workshop on landing page optimization where they evaluated sites, talked about the best use of the most valuable page “real estate” (the top right), showed how simple landing pages and calls to action usually convert better than more complex ones, and recommended against video overuse on landing pages.

Thanks again to everyone who presented! We’re looking forward very much to IIMA Fusion 2012!

We have had several customers use Hoovers’ data service integrates directly with Salesforce.com to give sales & marketing teams the ability to improve data hygiene, quickly access more complete picture of the key stakeholders in a major account and develop prospecting lists.

This is good news for small business clients that don’t have a lot of time to dive in there every month, and can’t justify a budget for somebody else to roll-up their sleeves every month.

In simple terms, this means that if you set this up properly on a poorly optimized account and come back in a month, your overall conversion rate should be higher.

You will find the settings in the “Ad Delivery” options in AdWords, check out Google’s official blog post on ad rotation for conversion rate.

See for yourself. The monkey does a good job of illustrating the problem!

To me, your average fit’n’eager LuLuLemon employee provides the perfect example. They eat, sleep, breath Lu Lu Lemon. I have spoken with many “LuLu” employees who enthusiastically boast about exactly how much they looooooove their job. They truly believe that LuLuLemon Athletica improves lives.  Not simply through selling workout gear, but by providing a way for yogis and fitness buffs alike to form and nourish communities with a focus on wellness, health and longevity.

I think this makes a lot of sense, Lululemon has a global mission that’s easy to buy into; who doesn’t want to be fit, happy and at peace? But here’s a tough, not so sexy sell: garbage collection.

Vancouver-based 1-800-GOT-JUNK ? has built a phenomenal story around great people that are passionate about removing your junk! I’m not making this up – 1-800-GOT-JUNK? has been ranked one of Canada’s top 100 companies to work for several times!

A Tour With the World’s Most Empowered Rubbish Removal Company

To figure just how much Kool-Aid is being consumed over there, I was sent on a tour of 1-800-GOT-JUNK? Upon arrival It was apparent that everyone in the company from the top down seemed proud, excited and invested in that company’s growth and success. They seemed to truly believe in the mission of the company. Enthusiasm and friendliness emanated.

Surely everyone wants to wake up every Monday touched, moved and inspired about their career, their company. However, not every company carries the merit badge of having health and wellness or saving the planet; this is why 1800-GOT-JUNK? makes a great case-study. This company does not promote health and wellness to the public and they certainly don’t rescue baby seals from oil spills. They simply make cash by helping people get rid of their junk. Sounds boring right? So why is the average 1800-GOT-JUNK? employee sporting a giant grin and twinkling eyes that reminds you of a five year old at a birthday party?

A Great Story.

Brian Scudamore, the entrepreneur that started 1800-GOT-JUNK?, has a personal success story that is truly inspiring and it is written right up on the wall of the head office in the form of a timeline with colored pictures for all to see. He started his company during university. Excited by its potential, he ended up not finishing school, choosing instead to drop out and invest his all into this company.  Fifteen years later he is on Oprah sharing his success story.

How did Brian Scudamore do it?  How did he make people excited to haul junk?  More miraculously, they probably have a world record for call center staff retention – several staff with 7-plus years!

Make Everyone Part of the Story & Re-Write it Often.

It would seem that Scudamore invited his employees to be a part of his dream. In a wonderfully innovative move, he asked them to conjure up their wildest goals for what 1800-GOT-JUNK? could achieve. He asked for lofty, seemingly impossible ideas. Then one Monday morning, the team arrived to work to find these had been painted on the wall in the head office in big bold text with the name of the owner attached. One of such ideas was to get 1800-GOT-JUNK? on Oprah, another was to have the company’s name placed on the side of a Starbuck’s cup. Both of these wonderfully outrageous dreams were actualized.

Scudamore makes his employee’s feel important and valued by overtly exposing and how their individual efforts and roles within the company has helped it become a success. To invite others to share in the growth and success of your company is a humble, respectable and smart move. Don’t be afraid to share the reigns. Potential to help innovate and grow your company could be right in front of you.

Hire People Who Know How to Have Fun!

According to our tour guide, to get hired, you must be “excited about hauling junk!”  I believe the direct translation is actually: hire people who are energetic, excited and team oriented. As long as they’re doing it as a team, they’re going to be engaged whether its junk, lightbulbs, toilet paper…

Live the Values.

I know this sounds cliché, we’ve all heard it before, but employees are thrilled to see the CEO grab a desk next to them for the day. CEO, Brian Scudamore regularly hops desks, which helps him keep his finger on the pulse of the business and gives everyone direct access to something they truly desire: knowing how they fit in and how their role is making a difference. His employee’s consider him respectable, relatable, approachable and down to earth.

Work Together Every Day on the Big Picture

Everyday around 11:00 a little bit of magic goes down at 1800-GOT-JUNK?. Its called “the huddle.” It is a meeting that includes all employees. The numbers and figures of how exactly the company is doing financially are shared along with other positive tidbits.

Sharing clear numbers and figures with everyone in the company is a great way to share the bigger picture.  It is easy to find the motivation to work hard and do a good job if you know how your role fits in to the bigger picture. This ensures that everyone is on the same page, that everyone feels appreciated and that everyone feels invested.  That everyone is drinking the Kool-Aid.

I was at the Presentation in SOHO / SME Expo Vancouver this afternoon to hear Senior Director of Sales for Facebook Canada, Alfredo Tan speak and reveal that Canadians are still by far the most Facebook addicted on the planet. Tan took on the world 6 months ago to head up a new Sales office in Canada for Facebook.

Top 4 Highlights Include:

1. Zuckerburg’s Mission: “Give people the power to share and make the world more open and connected” hmm.. sounds very facebooky.
2. We want Facebook to represent your life….as well as the brands in your life.
3. 62% of Canadian Facebook users, use it every day, that’s 10 million return visits a day!
4. Again, on all metrics – visits, return visits, time on site, Canadians are Facebook obsessed! (We’re the bar on the left).

1. "Give people the power to share.."

2. Facebook Social Graph Concept

3. Canadian Daily Facebook Users - 10 Million!

4. Canadians Are Facebook Addicts.. On All Counts!

The Internet Marketing Conference Vancouver will be featuring the Apple and Internet Guru, Guy Kawasaki as a keynote to IMC Vancouver 2010, September 21st – 23rd.

Sign up for three days of intense Training, Conference and Networking activities with over 75 speakers from leading companies in marketing. Anticipate important sessions from Facebook, Google, Twitter, Bing, Digg, Apple, as well as sessions lead by Mountain Equipment Co-op, Lands End and others.

Topics will include Mobile to Social, Search to Affliate, Email to Video, Analytics to Creativity and will engage and inform participants of exciting new business opportunities that modern information technology offers.

IMC has been running for ten years and is anticipating a record breaking 350 marketers from key companies in the Pacific Region to the Four Seasons Hotel Vancouver.

This conference is a must for all digital marketers!

Participants will learn latest regarding traffic acquisition, measurement and analysis, content creation, social media, and much more from the industry leaders.

]]> http://www.pathmarketing.com/guy-kawasaki-speaking-at-imc-vancouver-next-week/feed 0 http://www.pathmarketing.com/can-social-media-generate-leads-in-90-days?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=can-social-media-generate-leads-in-90-days http://www.pathmarketing.com/can-social-media-generate-leads-in-90-days#comments Mon, 13 Sep 2010 18:06:45 +0000 mzizzy http://www.pathmarketing.com/?p=464 Many businesses spend years toiling away in social media purgatory. Technorati’s latest count, shows over 130 million blogs indexed since inception in 2000. How will yours stand out?

There is hope for first quarter social media returns, if you can avoid some of the common mistakes such as the “if you build it, they will come” syndrome and have a hyper-focused, realistic, and well executed social media …

Many businesses spend years toiling away in social media purgatory. Technorati’s latest count, shows over 130 million blogs indexed since inception in 2000. How will yours stand out?

There is hope for first quarter social media returns, if you can avoid some of the common mistakes such as the “if you build it, they will come” syndrome and have a hyper-focused, realistic, and well executed social media strategy.

Here are some easy tips on what to do in the first 90 days.

First two weeks: narrow your focus

• Look at your brand and pin point the one thing your company can do better than anyone else in the world, or at least your market.
• Define it and add it into your marketing activity for the quarter. Having focus that is clear and planned for will help eliminate the desire to do too much and ensure you have a unique niche in your field.
• With that focus in mind create a Landing Page

A successful landing page will turn traffic into customers if it is relevant and gives the customer what they want. Most often we hear people complain about low traffic to the site. The way to think about this is to change the visitors into paying customers. How is this done? Through relevance.

Third-sixth week: develop valuable content

Generate content that explains your vision, your niche in the market. Add this content to your landing page and deliver regular blogs specific to your niche. Make it appealing and specific.

Ask yourself…

• Does the content empower the client?
• Does it help them directly?

Align a complete content strategy with your ideal customer:

• What challenges are your current prospects having?
• Can you write about this?
• Can you position yourself to be an early thought leader in their sales process?
• Link topics monthly to create editorial flow, return visits and loyalty
• Make sure content is easy to share.
• Keep going with your content. It needs to be part of your regular routine.

Sixth-ninth week: Engage your clients and the public

Now that you have written content that is focused and specific to your brand, you need people to want to read it.

• Spread the word! Email friends, send posts to clients and ask them to share it. Make sure it is relevant information and share, share, share.
• Make sure content is easy to share.
• Search Twitter for discussions related to your niche. If there are any questions, answer them with an @ reply and provide a link back to your blog post or any relevant page on your site. This tip doesn’t necessarily grow your traffic but it sure will give you quality leads if done right.
• Turn your blog posts into slide presentations and upload them to slideshare and scribd. Put your website and social media profile URLs in there so people who view your slides can pay you a visit. This is a cool way of repurposing your blog posts and regaining some value back.

If your story is compelling and unique then it will grow and leverage and audience, ultimately expanding your reach.

• Answer relevant questions on Q&A sites like Yahoo Answers, Yedda and Answers.com.
• Send out a release about a webinar or upcoming event. By using a distribution service (i.e. PRWeb) you will help search rankings and increase visibility of the story. This will then increase the likelihood of the story being picked up by news sites.
• Run a survey on your blog, Twitter and Facebook and share the results with other people. Explain the methodology and findings of your survey and publish the results in PDF format and share it on your site and other sites. Send a message to everybody who participated in the survey on Twitter with a link to the results. You can also contact bloggers in your niche and ask them to share your findings. Tamar Weinberg shows you how to pitch superstar bloggers here: How to Get an Influencer’s Attention. Post short useful articles on forum sites relevant to your niche and leave a link back to your site.

Ninth-twelfth week: Paid Advertisements in Facebook and Adwords

By taking the story to Adwords and Facebook with paid advertising you increase visibility and you develop personal.

Especially on Facebook, for example:

• Tailor your ads by gender, “likes” and jobs – start with Facebook and increase to adwords. Results are measurable increase in visitors and attendants to your webinar or event.

Remember, social media is an exciting and effective lead generation tool if used properly.  Stay posted!

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