Inbound Marketing Blog

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

A month ago, I wrote about the Google Page service. The Page Service caches your static content and serves it up from their servers for faster page views. It sounds great in theory, and perhaps it will perform well in practice. Currently, it’s still in a beta period and available to only a small set of webmasters. While I was researching that article, I stumbled upon a service called Cloudflare. Cloudflare already does what the Google Page service does, but also protects your sites from known threats like spambots, can auto-minify your site’s CSS and Javascript files, hides your email address from any spambot that may get through, and a whole bunch of other cool stuff. Basically, they level the playing field for small websites. A small website no longer has to pay large sums of money to get the security and reach that giant, corporate websites get. And Cloudflare manages to do it all for free.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

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

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

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

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

MINDSCAPE is pleased to be a part of the City of Grand Rapids Mayor's 50 program. This program is designed to give 50 local high school students an opportunity to intern for local businesses. As part of the program, the student receives a paid internship with up to ten hours a week for six months. These students apply to be part of the program and are selected by the business based on interest, talent and skills. In addition, the students receive comprehensive training to prepare them for the business world prior to beginning their internship. Devin Rittenhouse, the first of our Mayor's 50 interns, wanted to share his thoughts on his experience at MINDSCAPE for 6 months. Devin is a junior at Rockford High School and recently turned 16 years old. He wrote a blog so we could share with you- click "read more" to check out what he wrote!more

Every once and a while there are reasons where you may have some site owners who want individual reports for themselves and then some other entity wants to measure each site against the others. This can often be the scenario in the case of a franchise.more

The holiday shopping season is upon us. Retailers are clamoring for the hottest deals, promotions, and attractions to gain your business. Given the huge focus on e-commerce this month, it seemed appropriate to provide a review and analysis on a huge national brand with an active online presence. There are many sites to choose from, but we decided to focus on Best Buy’s website, www.bestbuy.com.more

I must admit that I am a bit puzzled by Google's recent moves to lay content over top of their PPC ads. Here are a couple recent examples of this: Local Search: The new local search map slides down the page and over PPC ads as you scroll Instant Preview: The preview overlaps the PPC ads, taking them out of focus. It almost seems fishy...like what are they trying to train us to do now? :) Ads are their core revenue generator. Seems crazy to cover them up.more

Google is once again trying to improve search with the release of their latest feature named Google Instant Preview. Basically you'll be able to roll over a magnifying glass icon and get a screenshot view of the website you'd be visiting if you click. This isn't a new concept, but new from Google. There are browser add-ons you can get such as CoolPreviews that give you this same functionality.more

Websites are already a staple in business today. Whether your company is big or small, it is necessary for everyone to have a web presence. That’s why we thought it would be fun to analyze a well-known website every month for you and give you our thoughts on what makes it work, what we like, and some gaps we discovered. Our team of programmers, designers, SEO experts, and Social Media guru’s will be tearing apart a well-known site and sharing our comments and thoughts with you. Our hope is that it will keep you thinking about your own site, what you can be doing better with it, and help give you ideas to make it more successful. And, since its November and still football season, we figured it was as good of time as any to kick off our new series and analyze the NFL’s website (www.nfl.com).more

Facebook and Microsoft's search engine Bing came to a new partnership agreement. The following was reported by Bloomberg on October 13, 2010: "Facebook Inc. expanded its partnership with Microsoft Corp.’s Bing search engine, letting people automatically see what their Facebook friends think about the topics they’re seeking information on. Bing’s new search screen also will let users become a person’s friend on Facebook or send a message to the social- networking service, Microsoft and Facebook said today at a media event in Mountain View, California. Searches for restaurants or movies will spotlight the ones that a user’s friends like." Whoa. Re-read that last sentence. "Searches for restaurants or movies will spotlight the ones that a user’s friends like."more

Chances are if you’re in any kind of sales or marketing related position, the company’s website has come up. You’ve likely been part of a team considering updating the website, redesigning the site or looking at ways to better market the site. Website costs vary. So what do you do? Ask around for referrals, likely engaged in a Google search and even checked out competitor sites to see if there was a link to “website developed by XYZ Company” at the bottom of the site.more

If you've written off SEO (search engine optimization) as a search engine marketing tactic in favor of the presumably easier PPC campaign (pay-per-click), boy are you missing the boat! I am not going to talk about HOW to optimize your site for the search engines, but rather, showcase the tremendous importance it has for the success of your campaign, your website, and even your company related to traffic. Before we talk about the future, let's go back. Way back. Remember BANNER ADS? Sure, they're still around. Actually, they're still all over. But when is the last time you recall seeing a banner ad on a site and clicking on it? Chances are, you don't…because you didn't. This is so common, there's a term that's been created called "banner blindness".more

Something I experienced over a 3 second period on my walk into the office building this morning inspired me to write this. It was a deep inhale of brisk, downtown Grand Rapids air. I actually had to take a double sniff. The first inhale caught my attention, but it was that second deep, lung filling gulp of air that whisked my mind away to the warm breeze of Cancun, Mexico. It was that smell. A magical mixture of clean air and something on the grill that did it. I was no longer walking down the sidewalk of Ottawa Avenue, I was relaxing pool side at the Royal Caribbean Resort with my wife, being served a mixed drink as the sun beat down on me (my mind works very fast). Ahh, what a feeling. The point? Let me get to it...more