Inbound Marketing Blog

I was talking to my brother the other night and somehow we got on the conversation of online advertising and not wasting money. Somewhere in the midst of this discussion I gave an example of making sure you are not paying for visits when a searcher is putting your business name in their search phrase. This is a waste of your money, because the intended user already knows they want to go to your site. Why not let them click the free organic link? In a very quick response he came back with a great analogy: “That is like giving every customer that walks in your door a dollar for showing up when they intended to anyways.”more

Much like measuring the results of traditional marketing (TV ads, billboards, ect), it’s difficult to analyze exactly what your social media efforts are doing to help promote your brand. In it’s purest form, “social media” is essentially the digital representation of social interaction. How do you truly measure the ROI of attending a network event? Or talking with someone about your business? You don’t- because you can’t but you do these things because you know that it’s piece of a bigger puzzle and can eventually lead to future sales. The same is true about social media: the impacts of engaging are not entirely known. But, if you are willing to spend a bit of time and put your thinking cap on, you can analyze some data and provide some tangible results.more

I’m sure you’ve heard the phrase, “We have two ears and one mouth, and therefore we should listen more than we speak.” I’ve heard it so many times that it’s permanently ingrained into my brain. How about you? As I explore the social web it seems as though companies completely forget this saying and utilize social media like traditional “interruption marketing.” You know the companies I’m talking about. They’re easy to identify when you are viewing your Facebook or Twitter news feed. You constantly see their updates letting you know about the “great deal” they are offering, or messages encouraging you to “buy now.” They post so frequently that the content you’d like to see gets lost in all the noise. It’s as though the marketing people within these companies completely forgot about delivering VALUE to their “fans” and “followers.” If you happen to be one of these “marketers,” and you’ve somehow forgotten what brings the most value to your clients, I’ve got a tip for you. Become an active “listener” so you can get back to the basics of delivering as much VALUE as possible.more

Content is everything. Content informs, educates, fulfills, inspires and helps your audience gain trust in your brand. It’s the act of giving them what they want, not telling them what you think they should know. In essence, it’s hitting them “right there.” Content keeps your audience on the edge of their chair, or makes them fall out of it when it’s really, really good. It’s not simply words on a page. It’s a page, or video, or post or workshop full of information that really means something to the audience. There are tons of types of content, but here are my personal favorites.more

The vast majority of blog readers don’t leave comments before they leave the blog site. Are you one of them? If so, it might be time to re-think the importance of commenting on blogs. If done correctly, your comments can gain exposure online and increase your network. While your personal blog and social media profiles allow you to share information and express opinions in your own social sphere, commenting on other blogs gives you greater exposure to those involved and interested in your particular niche. This offers an even larger venue to voice your opinion and provide thought leadership.more

If you’ve been through the Mindscape Internet Marketing Academy, you know that it’s important to do your keyword research, filter the list based upon your research, and then start changing your on-page content elements to work in those keywords. However, after doing that, how do you know if you’re really gaining any traction? If you know the keywords you’re targeting, measuring the impact of your efforts is actually quite easy using Google Analytics!more

I’m sure your first instinct is to say, “Heck no…I would never do that!” Are you sure about that? Now, I’m not talking about literally “flying the bird” in the face of your prospects. However, I actually think that would be much better. If you did take such bold action, you’d be doing it intentionally and your message to your prospects would come through loud and clear. I’m talking about working your tail off to understand your buyers, strategically gaining awareness, sharing valuable information to show them you’re worthy of doing business with them, and then taking actions that show them you could care less about them.more

Have you Googled yourself yet? Ensuring your online presence is super important, as it should accurately reflect who you are. Whether you’re job searching, networking or trying to work your way into an elite group, it’s a sure thing that someone is going to dig deeper online to discover what you’re all about. To show you an example, I Googled my own name. Here’s how I look to the world: Renee Achterhof – Google Profile Renee Achterhof | Facebook Renee Achterhof | LinkedIn Renee Achterhof, Grand Rapids, MI | My Life Renee Achterhof (RAchterhof) on Twitter Renee Achterhof | Rapid Growth Media Renee Achterhof on the Behance Network Renee Achterhof (shoozer228) on Etsy We don’t necessarily have control over what results show up on which page in Google. That’s why it’s important to see which results do pop up, so that you can refine those pages to the image you hope to convey to those searching for you.more

I’m sure by now everyone has heard of the Panda algorithm update that Google started implementing in late February. Since that time there have been periodic updates to the algorithm, with more on the way. The goal of the Panda update has been to “clean up” the search engine results pages and return more relevant and meaningful results. If you have been involved with article marketing, you know that many of the article sites had become home to some truly horrendous content. I’ve seen countless “articles” that were so bad it looked like someone dropped 250 words in a blender, and then poured them out on a page. Even worse, some of these articles actually showed up at the top of the SERPs.more

I think every business owner has come to a point in their business career when they say to themselves, “Sometimes I think it would be much easier to just go get another job!” Well, if you haven’t, I can assure you I’ve found myself in that position many times, but thankfully it was only a passing thought similar to a gas pain. :) I had a conversation with a business owner a couple weeks ago who was faced with an opportunity to take on a full-time position. He was struggling with the decision to shut down his company and move into the land of employment. As he explained the opportunity to me, I quickly understood the challenge he was facing. He’s amazing at what he does and almost every client he’s worked for gives a glowing review of the value they’ve received throughout their business relationship. His business is doing extremely well and there are no pressing financial disasters or lack of work that would be pushing him in the direction of leaving the world of an entrepreneur.more

Note: This is part one of a series of posts about measuring ROI of Social Media Picture this….. You FINALLY convinced your boss to let you champion that social media marketing effort you’ve been pitching for a year. YAY! You've created an awesome social media strategy, joined Facebook and Twitter (and maybe even YouTube or wherever else your awesome strategy told you to join). You're building your fan base, you're engaging in conversation, and you are in front of your computer every second of every day waiting with baited breath for the next opportunity to respond. Seriously- it is flat out AWESOME! Fast forward 6 months….more

Image Credit: Idea Go If you’ve read my posts about How to Get Started in Email Marketing and How Often to Email Your Customers, you may be thinking: "That’s great information, but how do I build an email list in the first place?" Good question! There are many different list services out there that you can purchase email addresses from, and still I’ve always questioned the success rate. I prefer to build my own lists to ensure that these are people (note: PEOPLE) who have visited the website and either requested information or found it helpful enough to request consistent communications. Building an email list can take time. Here are 8 tips to help you get started with building your list:more

Link building is an extremely important part of search engine optimization and is a critical part of developing an online presence. Unfortunately, it can be a long process and if not done correctly, can result in serious damage to your brand. The good news is that quality link building pays off by helping increase traffic to your site and improve your search engine ranking. Our link building experts collaborated on a list of dos and don’ts to help you get started:more

One of the biggest fears for companies entering the social media world is receiving criticism from users or customers. Often, we hear that they are concerned about what people will say to them, about them, or that they will look bad on social media. Guess what- they are already saying stuff about your brand!! Regardless if feedback is positive or negative, people are talking about your brand. That’s why it is important to monitor these conversations and engage in social media to give your organization a voice. However, determining how to respond when someone is taking about your company on social media can be difficult at first. Start by reviewing the feedback and determining what the tone is. Most comments can be categorized as positive, negative, or offensive. Here is an overview of how to handle each situation:more

Mobile is convenient. Mobile is there with us, no matter where we are or what we do. We don't have to be sitting at home or in the office or in a coffee shop where our laptops are plugged in. Our world is outlet-less, whether we're in a meeting or on the bus or walking downtown. In the past, mobile was the future. It is now the present. So what does your mobile content look like? Is it easily navigational? Is content clear and distinct, or does it get jumbled or lost? Jumbly content is not fun for anyone. So how can you ensure your content is up-to-snuff?more

Can I Just Cut Some Code Already? All I wanted to do was let users share a video link from a web app I was building. I thought it would be easy. And you know what, it probably is. It's probably easier than what I'm going to show you here. But is it simply stated somewhere in Facebook's documentation? Not that I could find. So after piecing together parts of their docs, plowing through search after search and reading a multitude of blog posts, I came up with this solution.more

Contrary to popular belief, the “thrill” of social media has not gone away; if anything, it’s in full swing! I know this because of the increasing amount of questions that we receive from prospects and clients about social media. One of the most common questions I receive from people is how to get more fans/followers. I’ll be honest with you- it’s a question I’ve thought about for a long time. I’ve researched ways to build your fan base, talked to numerous social media folks, and observed what other brands have done trying to get an idea of what the best tactics/strategies are to build a fan base. There are a lot of ideas out there on how to do this, but I still find it difficult to determine exactly what you can really do to build your fan base.more

With Google’s latest Panda update and recent Google Account policy change, search results are becoming more and more customized to user’s individual habits. As a result, it’s becoming a little more difficult to know exactly what your Google search position is. You could be positioning 1 for yourself (c’mon, who doesn’t Google themselves often!?) and position 15 for someone else. As Google starts to merge some Webmaster Tools data into Google Analytics, they are quietly slipping in some cool new parameters that we can track. One the most recent ones that I came across allows us to track the position of the results that showed up for that user! It requires a little bit of set-up but any Ninja who has gone through the Mindscape Internet Marketing Academy will be able to make quick work of this!more

Google Apps for Business is a great solution for companies that want email, calendar and documents hosted in the cloud by Google. Mindscape, where I work, has used Google Apps for Business for a number of years now. It allows me to have aaron [at] mindscapesolutions.com as my email address. What it did not allow in the past was for me to access tools like Google Reader, Checkout, Picasa, and a number of other popular, ancillary services from Google. What I could do, however, was create a second Google account using the same aaron [at] mindscapesolutions.com address. This account had to have a separate password, but as a standard Google Account, I had access to those other Google Services. I wasn’t interested in using my work email to access those other services. So I made it even more complicated. My wife runs her own photography business, www.branderphoto.com. I use aaron [at] branderphoto.com as my personal email. It’s also a Google Apps for Business account. So, when I wanted to access Google Reader, and Checkout and Analytics and Picasa, I had to have a separate aaron [at] branderphoto.com account, with a different password, to access those accounts.more

If you're focused on getting your site to the top of the search engines, you understand the battle we have against spammers (crap sites). Google is constantly trying to further optimize their algorithm to get rid of the spam sites (spam sites, for example, are link sites you'll land on that provide you with no value). If Google always sends users to sites that provide no value, people will stop using them. So it's in Google's best interest to make sure their search results are the best possible. Before, getting to the top of the search engines was a fairly level playing field for spammers (black hat) and real optimizers (white hat). It came down to some basics of optimizing the page to communicate with the search engines and building lots of quality links (I am over simplifying this a bit, but you get what I am saying). Anyone could tell the search engines anything they wanted and the search engine believed them to a certain level. And BIG power lied in the links. Until Panda.more