April Showers Brings May Flowers, and with that probably more Google Algorithm updates. It’s important that we protect ourselves from the next Penguin update.

We saw last year become the “Year of the Penguin,” and it’s important to be well prepared for the next Penguin 4 update. With these past few updates, Google put the most weight on spammy links and content. This is why it is essential to be actively monitoring your website for anything suspicious or unnatural. Just because it isn’t an issue now, doesn’t mean it won’t be a problem soon. Along with spammy links, Google put an even larger emphasis on quality, fresh content.

Content is king- well at least in the eyes of Google and the rest of the search engines. So it’s important that content is relevant and consistently being updated. The challenge that many face is coming up with new ideas to write about. One can look all over before realizing that they can find content ideas in their daily routine. Everything from Google Trends, news alerts, blogs, and social news feeds can provide relevant ideas for getting the creative mind going.

For more content ideas, tips on video optimization and more, be sure to check out our top favorite tweets of April below.

• How To Prepare For The Next Penguin Update
• Find Content Ideas in the Daily Routine
• Tips For Video Optimization
• 5 Ways to Protect your Website from Google SEO Penalties
• How Personalization Affects SEO

Be sure follow Marcel Media for the latest news and insights on all that is happening in digital marketing:

Another benefit of Paid Search is the data it produces.   Information derived from an optimized program can be leveraged to develop Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategies.  Specifically Paid Search can provide insights for the development of title tags, metadata, link building efforts, and content for websites – all essential pieces of an effective SEO program.  Here are three key Paid Search data points that can be used to start strategizing an SEO program.

One –  Indentify Keywords & Ad Copy driving traffic:  Keywords and ad copy that drive traffic can be leveraged while developing an SEO program.  To isolate top performers, use a calculation to determine click through rates (CTR).   (Clicks/Impressions) x 100. For example, let’s say a term has 200 clicks, and 3000 impressions.  CTR = (200/3000) x 100 = a CTR of 6.6%.  This means that for every 100 impressions there are 6.6 clicks.  This formula should be used for keywords, ad copy, and keyword ad copy combinations, all available through a paid search platform like Google’s Adwords.  While top performers can be used for things like title tags and metadata, this research will also provide insight into searchers’ behavior and identify keywords they use and don’t use.   This data can help with the creation of headlines, content, and even call to action items on a page.

Two  - Identify Keywords & Ad Copy driving conversions:  While traffic is essential, ROI is generated through conversions – sales and lead generation.  This is the same for both Paid Search and SEO.  Conversions can be tracked through cookies and/or dedicated landing pages.  Determining conversion rates uses a similar equation, (conversion/visitors) x 100.  For example let’s say an accounting firm generates 20 leads/conversions from 500 website visits.  The conversion rate = (20/500) x 100 = 4.0%.  This means for every 100 visits, 4 of those visitors converted.   This equation can be adjusted to focus on keywords, ad copy, landing pages, and keyword/ad copy/landing page combinations.  While the information derived through a CTR evaluation will help establish traffic, info from a conversion rate analysis will provide specific details that can be used to drive that traffic to the desired action.

Three – Identify the most Popular Keywords: While the first two data points focus on current campaign performance, it can be beneficial to expand research to find other keywords that could be leveraged for an SEO program.  Google’s Traffic Estimator is a valuable tool as it includes information on costs/cost-per-click (CPC), search volumes, and average positions for selected terms.  Keywords with higher CPCs are generally more common and popular, they should also be deemed valuable for an SEO program.   While these terms may exceed Paid Search Budgets, they may drive an ROI in SEO.

While an optimized Paid Search program can be a very effective advertising tactic, it can also serve as a valuable market research tool.  The platform can provide insights on terms, keywords, messaging, copy, and web elements that drive and convert traffic.  This information can then be used in planning while expanding online marketing initiatives.  Not only can this information be integrated into an SEO program, it can also be used in other tactics such as Social Media, Email Marketing, and expanded and/or focused Paid Search programs.

Now that spring is here, it’s a great time for spring cleaning on your website. Whether functionality needs an update or content needs a refresh, evaluating your landing pages annually is a best practice. One important duty as a marketer is to understand why consumers make the decisions they do. Before putting any onsite tactics into place, it’s crucial to define the primary objective of the page and campaign. Ask yourself the right questions: What is the first thing a visitor notices when they land on your page? What do you want the visitor to do once they land?

Providing clear and simple choices on a landing page is one of many tactics to improve the user experience. When users are driven to relevant pages specific to the ads and searches that brought them there, trust begins to grow between them and your business.

If you want to use social media as a tool to drive users to your site, think about how people use social media before jumping right in. One way to think about it? Treat your fans and followers as people you are meeting personally for the first time. You want to be approachable. You want to excite them and provide something valuable. Instead of delivering a monologue, start a real conversation, and people will be more inclined to engage.

Spring into spring with our top Twitter stories of March.  In case you missed something in March, or want additional great tips for your digital marketing strategy, here are our five favorite tweets from March:

•  6 Tips to Better Landing Pages
• How to Ask The Right Questions When Designing Your Homepage
• 6 Habits of Remarkably Likeable People… And Businesses On Social Media
• Playing By The Rules: 7 On-Page SEO Best Practices of 2013
• 7 Innovative Steps to Increase Revenue With Conversion Rate Optimization

Be sure follow Marcel Media for the latest news and insights on all that is happening in digital marketing:

Research Ideas
One – RSS feeds: Really Simple Syndication (RSS) provides immediate notifications every time a site updates its content. Most news sites will have an RSS function. Once installed the reader receives a feed and can search for information and relevant content ideas. Most browsers will have an option to include a reader in the tool bar or as an extension, in Google Chrome for example find Google Reader in the Chrome app store. After installing find the RSS button on desired news sites to receive direct feeds of information.

Two – Google news:  Google news provides up-to-date news coverage, from sources all over the world.  These stories can be used as starting points to create “brand perspective” content that can be valuable for a website, blog, and social media posts.

Three – Blogs:  There are countless blogs with good web content that can provide ideas to adapt into fresh relevant content. Never copy, but leverage useful ideas and themes to create unique content around relevant topics.  For examples, this is not the first blog on content ideas, but it the first with this organization and list.

Four – Social News Feeds:  Social feeds on networks like Facebook and LinkedIn show updates from connections, companies followed, and relevant news.  Feeds will often link to news stories, blogs, and other online materials that can be leveraged for custom content creation.   The social news feed is an attractive starting point for content research because the topics have already been vetted and determined relevant by their presence in the social space.

Focus on specifics

Five – Google News Alerts: Sent via email, news alerts work as a stored search that will send results as Google finds matches. The email will provide a list of news stories and websites that are relevant to specific search terms. Results in alerts are up-to-date and can be used to generate ideas for new content.  To sign up for these alerts, go to Google News Alerts, enter desired terms, the type of alert and frequency. Alerts can be set up for companies, brand names, products, industries and competitors.

Six – Google Trends: This is a free tool from Google that can be used to identify current trends in the world. It identifies the most popular searched terms and insights on specific topics. This can be useful in selecting topics that are relevant to current conversations.

Seven – Hashtags (#) on Twitter: The # symbol, called a hashtag, is used to mark keywords or topics in a Tweet. Within a Twitter search simply place hashtag in front of key terms to identify conversations and relevant topics that can be used to influence content creation.  Relevant topics to search include: company name, brand, products, industry, and competition.

If it works – keep doing it

Eight – Re-purpose and re-package existing content:  Ever use a white paper to generate leads?   After the campaign is complete take the documents and create a series of blog posts based on the content, but with an updated perspective to make it fresh.   This can be done with older blog posts, newsletters and even case studies.  Performance may have significantly improved since the case study was written.  If there is success, create updated content telling that story. 

In conclusion, with the changes in the search algorithms a content marketing strategy is essential.  Ideas come from multiple sources; many are free and always available.  By looking at these activities in a new way it will be much easier to fill the content funnel.       

It is all about the keywords:

• Give the video a keyword rich title. The title is the biggest factor in convincing a user to view the video.  Use keywords in the filename and URL as search engines place weight on these terms.  Avoid using stop words in the filename, such as “the”, “and”, etc.
• Place keywords in the metadata of the page on the site where the user can access, or read about the video. Use title, keywords and meta descriptions. Optimize surrounding text on the page, including keywords relevant to a user’s search. Spiders can read and index the metadata and surrounding text and correlate it with the video content. Make sure to include the word “video” on a regular basis in the metadata, as many users include the term in their search
• Include the business name and a category in the file name in the interest of local rankings.

Optimize the video properties:

• Open the properties of the video, go to the Summary tab, in the Title include the business name and category. Include the business name, category and phone number in the Author field. In the Comments field, include keywords, the Google categories, the city name, and surrounding cities of the business.

• Make it easier for search spiders to find all the videos by keeping them all in one directory.
• Avoid flash video players when possible as they are not search engine friendly.
• Create a video site map to make it easier for the crawlers to find the videos.

• Keep the length reasonable (5 minutes or less). Users may abandon if the video is too long.  Consider creating multiple videos, or a video series for detailed subject matter.

For Video Upload Sites (like YouTube or Vimeo):

• When uploading on these sites, provide the same metadata. This will include a title, keywords, and a description.
• Link back to related content and videos on your site. Make sure you are driving qualified website traffic in return for the video you’re providing.

When created and optimized correctly video has the potential to be a very powerful marketing vehicle.  By its interactive nature it can be very effective in delivering a message.  In addition, videos are adaptable and can be used across multiple channels.  Optimization is key to assure the video reaches it full marketing potential.

Most marketers know that a well built landing page can affect your online marketing goals, but do we really know what makes a well built landing page? The headline of your page and the number of calls-to-action can influence the way a user reacts to and uses your site. Even more important is the content on the page.

Is your content working as hard as you are? Producing great content isn’t easy, but great content can impact conversions and overall user experience. While increasing conversions is important, well written, relevant content will work for you in a number of different ways. Tracking which content produces the most user engagement gives you the opportunity to build out even more content around those topics increasing the chance that others will read and share with their network.

Need a little more weekend reading?   We’ve compiled our top Twitter stories of February, which includes everything from tips on increasing conversion rates and how to turn social media followers into advocates.

In case you missed something, or want even more great tips to add to your digital marketing strategy, our six favorite tweets from February our below:

• 10 Expert Tips For Increasing Landing Page Conversions

• 5 Ways to Get More From Any Content Marketing Campaign

• 3 Ways to Turn Social Media Followers Into Promoters of Your Brand 

• 5 Social Media Marketing Strategies for eCommerce Websites

• Why Do Brands Overlook The #SEO Opportunity For Non-Branded Keywords?

• 4 Ways to Make Sure Your Content Marketing is Working (As Hard as You Do)

Be sure follow Marcel Media for the latest news and insights on all that is happening in digital marketing:

One – Define the primary objective of the campaign and the page.

Do you want your users to buy a dryer now?  Do you want them to request a rebate via mail or email?  Sign up for your newsletter?  Watch a product demonstration video?  It’s critical to clearly define the goal of the campaign and the landing page up front.

Two – Identify the target audience and design the page around them.

Ask important questions about the target audience and who they are, where they live, how they arrived.  Typically, there will be a creative brief or campaign materials available to review prior to creating the landing page.  This will assist with keeping the main campaign goals in line with the creative of the landing page.  If you know these users recently purchased a washing machine, don’t try to cross sell them a washing machine from the dryer product page.

Three – Improve the user experience.

Drive users to a page specific to the dryers that are available through the promotion.  Remember that a targeted marketing effort such as Paid Search (PPC), Display Ads or Email should tie a specific offer to a specific page.  If users land on a more general category or home page, they may become frustrated if they have to click through to find the offer or product of interest.

Four – Build trust and respect privacy.

Building trust and respecting audience privacy are fundamental to a successful landing page strategy.  There a few simple ways to demonstrate trust and privacy.  Display a phone number and easy contact form or email address.  Also, give prominence to trust seals and/or privacy policy or terms and condition information.  Users also don’t like to dig for return / refund information and making this clear and identifiable usually increases conversion rates.

Five – Provide clear calls-to-action.

Once the user lands on the page, it’s important to clearly direct them to the next step.  In the example of the electronics store, a clear button reading “Buy Now” or similar lets the user quickly convert.  If the item is not for sale within the site, make it very easy to request information, call to order or sign up to receive more information.  Colorful, graphic displays catch the eye, whereas text or Submit buttons usually do not.

Six – Measure, analyze and test.

Review your campaign goals again and determine which Key Performance Indicators (KPI’s) will be important to track and measure the success of your campaign and landing page.  View trending data over time to analyze the information.  If you see things that you want to change, set up an A/B test using a simple free tool such as Optimizely or Google’s Content Experiments tool located within Google Analytics.  Examples of good testing variables include button color, messaging within a call to action, form fields, images, text size and font.  Small tests can have large results.

Happy Testing!

Hashtags connect conversations and place them into one stream.  Social networkers on Twitter and LinkedIn use hashtags to search for relevant subject matter.  Hashtags bring people together and facilitate conversations.

When choosing a hashtag the key is to keep it simple, unique, easy to remember and narrowly focused.  Here are five topics to consider during the selection process:

One: Conduct research to see if the hashtag is being used, or has recent history:  

If the hashtag is in use, move in a different direction. Do not compromise the integrity of the message with a hashtag that may create confusion within the social conversation.  If it is essential to use a term with hashtag history, tools Hashtracking and Hashtag Dictionary can provide details on its use.

Two:  Does the hashtag grab attention? Tell a story? Relate to the brand/product or initiative?

Keep both the social goal and overall marketing goals in mind as the hashtag should be a reflection of those initiatives.  It helps when a hashtag grabs attention and is easy to remember.  There are two ways to accomplish this:

• Abbreviations – This is popular tactic for conferences, events and promotions.  For example this past year’s “Healthcare Internet Conference” used the hashtag #HCIC12
• Action Words – Adding terms like now, go, win, and stop can amplify attention and create a positive disruption.  Examples include: #travelnow and #wintickets

Three:  Who is following the hashtag and participating in the conversation?

It is essential to keep the target markets in mind.  If the target is a niche group such as conference attendees, the hashtag should be both easily identifiable to the target group, and specific enough to limit confusion among other users.  If the target has limited restrictions it would make sense to use a more general keyword for the hashtag.  Another thing to consider is if the hashtag has the potential to offend.  Even if it has not been used, it could be “owned” or already a common phrase familiar to others & being used in another context. If the hashtag is unintentionally offensive, it’s unlikely to generate success.

Four:  Nothing kills the conversation quicker than running out of space, or misspelling a hashtag. 

Twitter already limits the number of characters to 140. Replying and re-tweeting messages eat up additional characters so try to keep the hashtag count to 10 characters or less.  Choose words that are easy to spell, and avoid those that have more than one spelling (gray & grey).

Five: Expanding the use of the Hashtag

While the use of hashtags may have started on Twitter, other networks like Facebook, Google+, LinkedIn, Instagram, and Pinterest now also use them. Hashtags allow marketers to organize content, making it easier for users to find what they are looking for.  Integrating hashtags across multiple social channels has two benefits:

• Expansion Increases Impressions:  A larger audience is being exposed to the hashtag if it appears on multiple networks.   This can be amplified as users share information to their networks.
• Expansion Increases Frequency:  Users of multiple social networks will see the hashtag more often, in different places, and will more quickly associate it to a specific brand.

While factors such as messaging, creative, and targeting will influence the success of an email program, the quality and freshness of the list may be the most important. In general, the creation of in-house lists have been limited to converting web traffic, as the opt-in lies in the contact or registration form, or somewhere in the order path on the ecommerce site. However, there are ways marketers can grow in-house lists by expanding efforts to get opt-ins by those not converting on the website. Here are four tactics to consider:

One – Double Down on Opt-In Forms:

It is impossible to predict when a website user is going to have that “a-ha” moment and decide to purchase a product or fill out a form via a website. As marketers, we try to be readily available when this happens. This is why a simple email opt-in form should be on every page of the website. The form should be easy to fill out and request no more than a name and an email.

Two – Don’t Just Tell Them, Show Them

Providing a visual example of what to expect will help the user decide to opt-in.  Within the forms, (both the one recommended above and the site’s main conversion process) provide a link to previous emails or newsletters so a user can get a better understanding of what to expect.  Keep this link up-to-date with the most recent promotion and/or newsletter.

Three – Get Social:

Social Media can be an extremely valuable resource in building and maintaining the freshness of an in-house list.  Here are three ways to use Social Media in list building:

One – A few months ago we posted a blog about Facebook Applications in the Timeline and how applications can replicate aspects of a corporate website.  Users expect to be able to interact with a brand via Facebook on a business level.  Each Timeline should have one application dedicated to a basic contact form with an email opt-in, and one application dedicated to building the email list.

Two – Promotions and Social Media go hand-in-hand.  Just as marketers use the channel to inform about products, services, and events; it should also be used to encourage opt-ins to an email list.

• Ideally through a CMS or “hosted web form” build a dedicated page that will capture the user’s information.  When possible include examples of previous emails

• Use a URL shortening tool like bitly to maximize space on the post
• Promote the URL through social channels.  To create urgency, include a message detailing when the next email is going out.

Three – Socialize your mailer. 

Unless a program is targeted toward a very specific group, empower those receiving the email to share the information with their social networks.  A tool like “Share This” can easily be embedded into an email blast and allows the user to choose which social network to share the mailer on.  Be sure to complete the loop by also having an opt-in on the mailer.  This will allow users who receive the information via a social connection to easily join the list.

Four – Let other sites do the work:

Imagine building a fresh list with quality leads without having to spend the time or resources on traffic generating tactics.  This can be achieved through a process called co-registration (Co-Reg).  When a user registers on Website A, they will have the option to opt-in to Website B’s offer.  If they do, Website A will share (for a fee) the registration information with Website B.  The process is a widely accepted marketing tactic.  The cost for a Co-Reg lead will vary depending on the industry and the type/amount of registration information that is required.  In most cases the website buying the leads will have the option to review and deny any that don’t meet a defined criteria.  Co-Reg empowers marketers to expand their reach and connect with users not converting on their website.

Examples of content marketing include:

• Blogs and micro-blogs
• White papers and articles by SME’s
• Videos and vlogs
• Checklists & Surveys
• Webinars
• Email newsletters
• Press releases

There are a few best practices to remember when creating a content marketing strategy.  Below are 3 tips for delivering great content.

One – Be genuine. Remember that when customers engage with content, they are expecting value and authenticity.  In order to create value, provide information that is real and legitimate and not sales oriented.  Avoid calls to action or marketing lingo.  To provide authenticity, utilize subject matter experts and include opinions and help whenever possible.  American Express’s Open Forum  is a good example.  They have engaged a unique and targeted audience, small business owners, with interesting information to help solve business issues and challenges.

Two – Frequency Counts.  Once an audience segment has been engaged, there will be expectation for frequent updates and ongoing information sharing.  It’s important to set that expectation up front and to deliver.  Many businesses have weekly, monthly, quarterly email newsletters.  It’s critical to track the open rates and success of articles / content within the email in order to maintain the right regularity of delivery.

Three – Stay Relevant.  When a company offers many different products and services or serves multiple market segments, it can be challenging to stay relevant.  By ensuring that the content being delivered is significant and timely to the user, marketers increase the connection to that end user.  Lululemon does a good job with their blog.  Their yoga / fitness enthusiast customer demographic may be in a different frame of mind during the long, cold winter months.  Therefore, blogging on timely topics such as fitness goals and new years resolutions can appeal to a wide audience.  This content is relevant and interesting to yoga and fitness fans.

Once a successful content strategy is in place, there are many ways this can flow throughout the business’s marketing initiatives.  Content is key for an SEO strategy and the more unique content that is added to the company website, the better.  This will encourage users to come back to the site and increase stickiness as well as increase visibility with Google.  Social Media is a great way to promote content and to send out teasers or exciting upcoming articles, videos, webinars etc to the user base.  For more information on content marketing and how brands are using it, please watch this video from the Content Marketing Institute.  Happy Marketing!