3 SEO Tips for the Ages

SEO has evolved since the mid 1990s from a cookie cutter method (pre-Google) to a set of best practices that are anything but simple. Many companies still get SEO wrong even when they think they’re doing it right. Often, a webmaster informs the IT Director, who informs the Marketing Manager and the CEO that the website “has been SEO’d.” Even the verb tense is wrong. It implies that search engine optimization is a one time process like upgrading a copy machine. Nothing is further from reality!

SEO is a Marathon

SEO is anything but a one time process. I liken it to training for and running a marathon.  If you’re serious about running in a marathon, you better start training at least six months before the race. After the marathon event, unless you have no plan to ever run another marathon, you must continue to train. As long as you are a marathoner you’re always in training – ALWAYS. SEO is the same. It’s like every other aspect of business that needs ongoing care and feeding. Sure, you go through different phases of an SEO plan, but it’s never done. If you believe that, you’ll make your competitors very happy.

Simplifying the Mystique of SEO

While SEO has certainly evolved over the years, I seek to boil it down to three key points.

Site Architecture

Your website must be friendly to search engines. It starts with the code that lives behind the front end which humans see at www.yourcompany.com. For non-techies think of website code as the plumbing, wiring and brick or wood structure of a house. While, the human eye sees furniture and decorated walls, without a solid infrastructure a house is not functional.

A website’s code should be “lean” which is the opposite of bloated. When a website has a bloated CSS or long scripts, the content on your website simply gets lost in the eyes of search engines. Literally, the search engines have difficulty finding your content because it’s so buried in a bloated code environment. The solution is to have a web developer clean up the code by consolidating it (optimizing) so that the content is easier for search engines to find and index it in their search engine (database).

Another important aspect of site architecture is the meta data. This is the data that speaks to the search engines about each web page. The title tag is very important because it identifies the central theme of the page. It’s also the title which is displayed in a search engine listing. The description tag is also important because it’s the snippet or summary of the page in the search engine listing. A well written title tag and description tag can make or break click throughs from your listings in a search engine.

Keyword Strategy

Developing a keyword strategy is also critical to a sound SEO strategy that delivers results. There is no way getting around the fact it takes work. At my SEO services agency we use a keyword strategy approach that is very effective. I’ll share it here for companies and competitors alike with no reluctance. We identify the products or services of our client and the buyer personas of each one. Then we conduct keyword research by putting ourselves in the shoes of each persona. We create tables to list each persona and their pain points in order to think the way they think. Whenever possible we interview the personas or, at a minimum the people who know the personas very well inside a client’s business. Below is a sample of buyer personas used in keyword research:

This method of keyword research sets up a keyword strategy that drives the content strategy. The SEO results increase greatly for being found in search engines by each of the personas that buy the target product.

Content Strategy

It’s been said that content is king. I once had a friendly debate with my friend Andrew Davis at Tippingpoint Labs about the role of content in SEO. His viewpoint was that all you need is great content to get good SEO results. It’s true that great content can provide good SEO results. But, the keyword strategy should drive the content strategy. The keyword strategy will guide what content you produce, for whom and the writing style. For example you may need content written for a management audience and some content for a more detailed worker. If you’re writing a page about a software product, the management level page and the data sheet page should be different to address each audience. The persona tables will help define how to write each content page.

Another important aspect of a content strategy is diversity. Text based web content is very important. But, search engines score all your content. By offering a good mix of content including images (with text tags), video and audio you please the search engines. Spreading your content across the web through social media including social bookmarking sites also contributes greatly to getting good SEO strategy results.

Lastly, the best benefit of a good content strategy is that it will result in getting inbound links. That means that people will link to your content and those links are the currency of search marketing. The more relevant inbound links you have, the better you’ll score with search engines.

It’s All About Conversions

I hope these three SEO tips were helpful to you.  But, the truth is this is an incomplete plan. A solid SEO plan will get you found in the search engines, but you need a strategy that converts visitors to your website into sales prospects or members of your community. I’ll get to that in a future blog post.

I invite you to add more tips below or comment on my three tips. I hope this blog post delivers on my goal of 3Es of content marketing, as I have preached in my book, Marketing 2.0.

Top Five Reasons Podcast Content Marketing is Misunderstood

I often wonder why podcast content marketing isn’t more popular than it is. I admit I’m biased since I’m a podcaster. But, I’m also an avid podcast consumer. I was a consumer of podcast content long before I became a podcast content producer. Now, I listen to podcasts in my car more than I listen to the radio or CDs. My iPod is filled with podcasts, rather than music.  iTunes makes it easy for anyone to find and consume content in podcast format.

The Three E’s
In my book, Marketing 2.0, I encourage marketers to produce content that delivers on the three E’s: educate, enlighten, entertain. Podcast content is a terrific medium to deliver on any of the three E’s. But, why isn’t podcast content more popular?

I offer five reasons why podcast content isn’t more popular.

Podcasts Are Not Indexed by Search Engines
Unlike Facebook fan pages and conventional web and blog pages, a podcast is not indexable by search engines. Podcasts are audio files uploaded into a subscribable format such as iTunes or another podcast directory such as Podcast Pickle. You can also subscribe to podcasts from a blog with a link to iTunes. But, to get the most current podcast you must either visit iTunes to synch or visit the producer’s blog to listen to current podcasts.

iTunes is Big But It’s Not YouTube
Apple may enjoy more market share than Google with the iPhone over the Google Nexus One, but when it comes to video content, Google’s YouTube rules. While video podcasts are available, most podcasts are audio. Let’s face it, audio is just not as popular as video. And, with the iPad here, delivering an even more rich media experience, video will remain more popular than audio as the netbook market continues to grow.

Podcasts Are Not Understood by the Masses
I’ve often heard marketers refer to their audio file on their website as a podcast. A podcast is only a podcast when you can subscribe to it and get updates through a feed. The lack of understanding of a podcast as a content delivery medium combined with the high popularity of video contributes to low popularity of podcasts.

Inconsistent Quality of Podcasts
Let’s be honest, some podcast content producers just don’t produce quality audio. I’ve often downloaded podcasts based on the title and description only to listen to just a few minutes before ditching it due to poor audio quality. Worse yet, the audio quality is good but the personalities on the show babble for 10 minutes before getting to the point. Good podcasts get to the content quickly and engage their listeners, creating a loyal audience.

Lack of Consistent Content from Producers
If you want to listen to podcasts on marketing, you have plenty of choices among content producers with a track record. But, there is a high rate of abandonment among podcast producers, due at least in part to the lack of monetization opportunities around most podcast content. Therefore, many podcast shows start and end often within a few weeks or months. Podcast content producers should adopt a content marketing mindset, only starting a podcast series when they can commit to longevity.

The Bright Side of Podcasting
If this blog post was about the good, the bad and the ugly of podcasting, the five reasons above address the bad and ugly. Now, let’s get to the good because there is plenty of good in podcasting.  First, there are in fact many terrific podcast shows produced by terrific peeps. Below I offer you a list of some of my favorite podcasts. Admittedly, these podcasts are all about marketing. If you have other favorites, please add yours to this list in the comments section below.

Find and Convert Podcast
This is my podcast. It’s my favorite because I thoroughly enjoy producing it. I interview ordinary marketers doing extraordinary marketing. I produce two or more podcasts per month, each providing an interview with a guest that has valuable experiences and insights to share about their marketing strategy. My guests are regular marketers just like my listeners. My audience can relate to these guests and gain inspiration from their stories. I deliver mostly on the first 2 of the 3 E’s. On occasion, there may be some light entertainment.

DishyMix
The DishyMix podcast is hosted by podcasting extraordinaire Susan Bratton. Susan interviews digital marketing executives, many of whom are authors, CEOs and entrepreneurs. Susan’s interview style is one of the best. She really does her homework with each guest, and consequently brings out his or her best. Susan Bratton is CEO of podcast empire PersonalLifeMedia, a portal of podcasts ranging across all topics ranging from art, health, news, politics, marketing and many others.  Susan delivers on all three E’s with DishyMix. I am the self appointed #1 fan of DishyMix.

HubSpot TV
HubSpot TV is a weekly video podcast that airs live on Friday’s at 4pm. People tune in live to watch HubSpot.TV every Friday, or download it from iTunes and time shift it as I do. Their format is comprised of hosts Mike Volpe and Karen Rubin running through inbound marketing news from the week, offering tips, advice and their own, sometimes controversial commentary. Their personalities are so different, it makes for an interesting chemistry. Mike and Karen usually have a guest on their show to discuss the guest’s claim to marketing fame. HubSpot TV delivers on all three E’s with a heavy dose of entertainment mostly through Karen’s off the wall humor.

Marketing Over Coffee
Christopher Penn and John Wall record a weekly podcast from a Dunkin Donuts in the Boston area. They cover current news in marketing with a bit of a technical twist. They often provide tips on how to fine tune various aspects of your permission based email or social media plans. I always learn something from Penn and Wall. Therefore, I find their content to deliver on first two of the three E’s.

Six Pixels of Separation
Mitch Joel, CEO of digital media agency TwistImage, author of the book Six Pixels of Separation, and frequent speaker hosts this weekly podcast which comes in two flavors. He usually interviews interesting people in marketing with great conversation around contemporary marketing topics such as the future of  newspapers in a digital society. His conversational tone is always pleasant and interesting.  His other podcast is called Media Hacks and features a group of social media mavens who banter about anything. The unscripted conversation is always colorful and usually interesting. Both of these podcasts deliver on the first of the two E’s.

Podcast Show Notes
When a podcast is linked to a blog post, the show notes can provide a written summary to readers and provide search engine results on the topic of the podcast. I write a blog post for each of my podcasts in part to broaden the exposure of my podcast. But, I also recognize that I may get readers of the blog post who won’t listen to the podcast, and vice versa. So, writing a blog post is an effective way to straddle both lines of blogging and podcasting. The show notes also create SEO value for the podcast content because the post will be indexed in search engines.

Podcasting has been around for less than a decade. It’s been trumped by video in popularity. But, consumers who want to get smarter on a topic of interest should search out podcasts starting with iTunes and subscribe to them. Marketers looking for another content channel should consider producing a podcast series.  If you’re a marketer that has never produced a podcast series, you may want to consider it. But, consider your ability to commit to a show with regular frequency. Even it your frequency is only monthly, as your audience grows they will expect your monthly show. You won’t want to disappoint them once you’ve developed an audience.

I invite you to visit my podcast page. You’ll find my podcast interviews to be about ordinary marketers doing extraordinary marketing across a range of topics including B2B marketing, SEO, social networking, inbound marketing, experiential marketing, small business marketing, measuring results, success stories and others.

If you have favorite podcasts to add to my list, please add them in the comments below.

Inbound Marketing Is All About Leverage

Inbound Marketing Lead Generation Survey

HubSpot recently released a report on the State of Inbound Lead Generation. The report is a result of interviews with more than 1,400 HubSpot customers who are mostly small and mid size businesses. A webinar delivered by Rick Burnes and Sophie Schmitt of HubSpot summarized the findings.

The findings are very interesting and very compelling especially for businesses who are either still sitting on the sidelines or are flat out skeptics of inbound marketing. I find that overwhelmingly those businesses who don’t buy into the inbound marketing mindset haven’t allowed themselves to break out of a decades-old paradigm. But, the earth is shifting and marketers simply can’t ignore the facts especially as more facts become available such as those in this report from HubSpot.

Critics of this research may say that the companies interviewed are users of the HubSpot inbound marketing software. Of course! You wouldn’t survey people sun bathing on a beach about their winter vacation habits and expect that data to be of high integrity.

HubSpot has built a customer base of more than 2,500 customers. While the degree to which each customer is using the full gamut of inbound marketing strategies to include SEO, blogging, social networking and generally a strong content marketing mindset may vary, the common denominator is they buy into the fact inbound marketing can effectively produce leads.

So, here are some of the most compelling findings from this report.

The More Google Indexed Web Pages the More Leads Produced

Businesses with 60 to 120 Google indexed pages produced a median of 7 leads per month. Those with 176 to 310 Google indexed pages produced a median of 22 leads per month. Those with 311 + Google indexed pages produced a median of 74 leads per month. This triple digit growth is achievable through a bonafide, committed, consistent blog strategy.

Business Who Blog Produce More Leads

As stated above businesses with more Google indexed web pages produce more leads. The most practical way to increase indexed page count is by having a blog connected to your website. This chart shows that companies who blog produce more leads.

Blog Size Matters
The survey proved that having a blog alone doesn’t move the needle. The more content the better. The data suggests that fewer than 10 blog posts didn’t make a difference in lead generation. But, more than 20 blog posts demonstrated more leads from those surveyed.

Twitter Matters in B2C
B2C businesses who use Twitter produce twice as many leads as those who don’t use Twitter. Though this research doesn’t account for B2B businesses on Twitter I’m a fan of Twitter due to the reach it can provide and ability to spread your content. For example, in addition to my personal Twitter account, Find and Convert also has a Twitter account.

More Keywords Ranking in Top 100 Produce More Leads

This data point proves two myths wrong. Myth #1 is that many businesses think the only ranking that matters is for a small number of keywords which typically represent their core business. Sometimes it’s just one keyword phrase. Myth #2 is that the only rank that matters is page 1. Of course, we all want to rank #1 on page 1. But, this data shows that businesses who have dozens of keywords ranking in the top 100 rankings get more leads. This translates to having dozens of keywords that rank across the first 10 pages of Google. The way to look at this is like a diversified portfolio of assets. The value is in the total portfolio, not any one asset. Having dozens of relevant longtail keywords that rank in the first 10 pages of Google will produce more leads.  These two myths are shattered in the chart below.

It’s All About Leverage

This webinar concluded with the concept of leverage. Inbound marketing allows a company to leverage content assets online to produce connections with people who have interest in your company’s products. Ignoring this leverage opportunity is very risky in a marketing economy where established competitors can surpass you with inbound marketing strategies quickly. Worse yet, newer nimble and inbound marketing savvy competitors can come out of seemingly nowhere and eat your lunch.

Get on the inbound marketing bandwagon. A good place to start is with my book, Marketing 2.0 . I wrote Marketing 2.0 for executives and their staff looking for a basic understanding of how social media and inbound marketing strategies can bridge the gap between sellers and buyers. Mike Volpe, V.P. Inbound Marketing at HubSpot wrote the foreword of my book. Those who’ve read it say it provides a good primer to get started. Check out the reviews.

Allow me to give a plug for the fact my inbound marketing agency is a certified HubSpot partner. We can help you get started producing more leads through inbound marketing or take it to the next level.

Media Heaven on Earth Meets Internet Marketing

Garry Jones, President, Full Sail University.

Media Heaven on Earth
The Full Sail campus is located in Winter Park, FL and is comprised of 190 acres. There is almost one million square feet of sound stages, recording studios, computer animation labs, green screen rooms, motion capture suites and just about any type of environment to create a video, a movie, sound track, animated feature, a game, etc. There are 9,000 full time students studying in 30 degree programs. Some students are campus based and some are online. The students are all passionate, driven story tellers interested in learning the tools of their trade. They are matched with teachers similarly passionate about these tools and story telling. The result is a hip learning environment where people are super charged and where sparks fly in the creative process.  Full Sail attracts students from around the globe. Though, the main campus is in Winter Park, FL (near Orlando) there are sister schools in the Los Angeles Film School and the Los Angeles Recording school as well as outside Denver, at The Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design.

The Harvard of the Media and Entertainment Education
Garry recently attended the Grammy’s in L.A. along with 18 staff members. Over 100 Full Sail graduates participated in Grammy nominated projects. The Full Sail staff toured graduate’s studios, Warner Bros Pictures and visited with many Full Sail graduates catching up on their lives and careers. Full Sail has captured the attention of much media. Rolling Stone Magazine has named it one of the five best music programs in the U.S. Electronic Gaming Monthly, named its Gaming Degree one of the top 5 in the world. Shift Magazine named it the #3 new media school. Unleashed Magazine named it one of the top 5 film schools in the U.S. Rolling Stone magazine, also dubbed Full Sail one of the Schools That Rock, naming it one of the best music business departments in U.S. Full Sail’s recognition is growing because their graduates are performing great results in the entertainment and media industries.

Internet Marketing Curriculum
Full Sail launched an online Bachelors and Masters degree program in Internet Marketing in October 2008. The Masters program is a one year long program and the Bachelors degree is a two year program. Under the leadership of Carol Cox, the students get a well rounded education in Internet Marketing including, SEO, PPC, analytics, consumer behavior, branding, mobile advertising, social media and consumer behavior. Each course is four weeks long.  All the instructors are located on campus. They work very closely together to share information to keep the content current. They keep up to date through web news, webinars, podcasts, conferences, blogs and other online sources of updated content that can be added to the curriculum as needed.  Course content is sometimes up to the minute fresh….They don’t use any textbooks. They use trade publications and other relevant industry articles. The Internet Marketing curriculum continues to grow as they attract students from varying backgrounds including entrepreneurs, corporate marketing departments and stay at home moms starting a new business or working in a family business.

Full Sail Marketing Strategy
The university market is a very competitive market with over 4500 colleges plus 3000 proprietary colleges in the U.S. Full Sail does a fine job of articulating their core message and value proposition in all their marketing communications. Under the leadership of Andrew Solberg, Full Sail’s marketing strategy includes many of the Internet marketing techniques they teach including SEO, PPC, display ads and email marketing. Additionally they use traditional marketing including outdoor, television and print. All their traditional media includes links to their website or a landing page for tracking purposes. When someone visits the Full Sail website they quickly get exposed to the student experience and the breadth of their educational credentials. Not surprisingly, their website provides a very rich media experience that is noticeably different than most college websites. A visit to their website allows you to experience a tour of their campus.

A Launch Box Moment
On the first day of classes at Full Sail each new student experiences The Launch Box. Full Sail accelerates their learning curve by putting a mobile, digital studio in their hands on day one. The Launch Box includes a MacBook Pro with all applicable software for each student’s degree program. From day one the student has tutorials to get set up and running. The famous moment on the first day of class is when the instructor says to the class “Welcome to the the next chapter of the rest of your life. Turn on your launch boxes!” At the same moment everyone powers up their customized MacBook Pro and they end up in wild applause.

I thoroughly enjoyed this podcast interview with Garry Jones, Carol Cox and Andrew Solberg of Full Sail University and encourage you to listen to it (above or from iTunes). The next time you watch the Grammy’s or the Oscars, know that Full Sail graduates had a hand in some of those works of art as well as many others in private industry that may not appear in awards but nonetheless have a powerful impact in their respective market segment.

The education provided by Full Sail University allows students to earn a living in current economic conditions whether as an entrepreneur or as an employee in media, entertainment, gaming and Internet marketing fields.

As a Floridian, I’m proud to know Full Sail University is based in my home state. As a digital citizen and marketer I’m thrilled to see the economic impact of this fine institution of specialized learning and their commitment to students through tools, technology and devoted instructors.

B2B Content Marketing for SMB Business

Kim Albee on B2B content marketing.

Kim Albee is founder and President of Genoo, a marketing automation software company serving B2B SMB companies mostly in the U.S. Genoo provides tools to build micro-sites, do lead nurturing, lead tracking and it integrates with Salesforce.com. I met Kim on LinkedIn when I was looking for case studies for my book. This podcast interview is an update to that case study.

Kim launched her Genoo product in June 2008 in beta. It became available to the public in Sept 2009. As an entrepreneur launching a new marketing automation software product with no marketing budget Kim got very creative. She started playing with social media tools, most notably LinkedIn. She joined some relevant groups in 2008. But, at that time LinkedIn didn’t offer the “discussion” feature, so there was no ability to create conversations in groups.

Kim wondered how she could find and engage people interested in B2B marketing. She didn’t find any B2B groups on LinkedIn, so she created a B2B Online Marketing group and invited others to join it. But, without a discussion feature, the group didn’t have much value. Then, Kim set up a free forum for conversations on B2B marketing. But, no one joined. By now, Kim was getting frustrated by her limited ability to engage with other B2B marketers online.  Then, it happened!  LinkedIn started offering discussions in groups and everything changed.

Kim created a LinkedIn group called B2B Online Marketing and she also created a dedicated website which shares and re-purposes content from the group.  BTW, do a Google search for “b2b online marketing” and you’ll find this website in the first 5 search results. Kim started discussions in this group on relevant topics such as lead generation, SEO, how to create great content, how to create and use micro-sites and other topics of interest to B2B marketers. Initially, Kim emailed the members of the group each time a new discussion was started using the email feature in Genoo. The group has grown to over 3,200 members and it’s still growing, fostering great conversations among B2B marketers.

Kim blazed a new trail with this approach. She was willing to experiment with something new. She was very persistent and resourceful. Her leadership is apparent as she created a new group and has been willing to maintain it with active interaction with the group members.

Some B2B Online Marketers Still Skeptical
Kim hears the same objection I often hear from B2B marketers. Many are simply skeptical that marketing online is effective for narrowly defined B2B niches. The truth is that most people search online when they need to find a product or service. B2B marketers must ask themselves, how do their websites perform in searches pertaining to their niche? Many B2B websites are just a “blow-horn” for their products and services with no meaningful calls to action, or limited opportunity to engage (if any). The reality is most B2B prospects want to get to know a business before they call them or fill out a form. They want to check you out first. And, the way to allow them to check you out is through great content!

Niche Marketers Take Notice
I’ve written before in my blog and in my book how marketers in any market segment should draw a circle with two concentric circles around it to define their target market. The smallest circle is the bulls-eye target market. The two outer circles contain demographics who reach and influence the bullseye. Marketers should target each of these groups through great content.

No matter what business you’re in you have a USP (unique selling proposition). There is  a story there. Share your story. Your target market may not currently be on Twitter or Facebook every day, but when you share your content there you will get better search results. SEO is all about the long-tail now. If you don’t start now, you won’t be there when your audience arrives.

Email Challenge
Kim met someone online who challenged her to write one email every day for 30 days on a relevant marketing topic. He offered to subscribe to her email list, in return for Kim subscribing to his. Kim agreed and sent her first email to her list of about 5000 people, many of whom she did not email frequently. She had low expectations but was willing to experiment. Remember, Kim is not afraid to take some risk. She started her first email with a cheesy email heading: “Hello Fellow Marketers.” She explained her plan to send one email each day for 30 days on a marketing topic. To her surprise, she got 218 people to sign up to get an email from Kim everyday for 30 days on relevant B2B marketing topics. After her final email, she did a survey which received a 38% open rate. Kim took some risk with this 30 day email challenge. And, the results were impressive.

Content Marketing & Relationship Building
I couldn’t have scripted this interview any better. In my book, Marketing 2.0 I boil everything down to having a terrific content marketing strategy and building relationships online. Kim’s daily email was great content, not to mention her B2B Online Marketing group on LinkedIn. Kim built relationships with her 218 subscribers through a personal response to replies she received which built relationships with her subscribers. After the 30 day experiment Kim got several new customers without ever once making a pitch for Genoo. Her great content was her marketing. How measurable is that?! Very!

Kim is a  terrific example of Marketing 2.0 in action. She is willing to take risks. She succeeds a lot more than she fails. But, if we don’t have some failures along the way we’re probably not trying hard enough. Kim is proof positive of this.

To engage with Kim (and why wouldn’t you want to), here are several ways:

Genoo Marketing Automation Software

Kim Albee on LinkdeIn

Kim Albee on Twitter

Marketing Automation Resources

If Kim Albee’s content marketing strategy story inspires you, please add your thoughts below.

Boston Tweetups Equal Joselin Mane

Podcast interview with Joselin Mane. Joselin is a former IBMer who runs an internet marketing consultancy and a Tweetup service called Boston Tweetups. Joselin is a colorful character. You’ll enjoy meeting him in this blog post and the video links below.

I met Joselin at the Inbound Marketing Summit in Foxboro, MA in October where we connected very quickly. We both run inbound marketing agencies and we talked shop for a while and hit it off. I knew Joselin would be a great guest on my podcast show because he has so many interesting stories about Tweetups and SEO and social media marketing. Don’t limit yourself to reading this blog post. You should listen to the full podcast interview (above).

Tweetups

What is a Tweetup? The term evolved from meetups where people organized and promoted events around a topic. A Tweetup is an event that originates from people who organized it through Twitter.  A common example is when people who attend a conference get together in social settings and the event is totally organized and promoted organically through Twitter.

Why Should Marketers Consider Organizing a Tweetup?

Tweetups are very social. Most marketers can get huge value by bringing people together and engaging and networking. It’s common knowledge that we do business with people we like and trust. And, meeting face to face speeds up the relationship and trust building process.  It doesn’t matter whether it’s a B2B or B2B company, the face to face aspect of making connections is very powerful. Tweetups are all about building relationships. While a Tweetup can have a specific purpose such a cause or product announcement, it can also just be purely social. Joselin uses Eventbrite to announce, organize and offer advice on Tweetups through his Boston Tweetup service.

Joseline’s Top 3 Do’s and Don’ts for Tweetup Organizers

Do’s

1. Decide on the theme first.
2. Attend other people’s Tweetups.
3. Document everything.

Don’t’s

1. Don’t forget the human element.
2. Don’t change too many things once promotion begins.
3. Don’t neglect the details and be sure to plan ahead.

Boston Tweetup

Joselin missed an event last year and decided to research events and when he did he found nine event calendars. Joselin then consolidated them into one calendar for Boston social media and marketing events. He set up a blog and shared this calendar and started Tweeting about the calendar. Eventually Joselin’s calendar became recognized as the authority for Boston social media events.  One thing Joselin did consistently was promote other people’s events asking for nothing in return. Joselin has proved to be a thought leader in Boston through his social media event calendar.

Next Boston Tweetup December 3rd

Joselin’s website for Boston Tweetup includes a video summary of each Boston Tweetup event.  He also offers a poll for each Tweetup where people can vote on the Tweetup events and post comments. Joseline’s unselfish leadership on social media calendaring has resulted in new opportunities including attending Celtics games in box seats as well as meeting people from NBC which resulted in an assignment. Who knows, we may see Joseline one morning on NBC’s Today Show talking about his Tweetups. I wouldn’t be surprised. I also won’t be surprised to hear that his big Tweetup on December 3rd will be the biggest of the year!

Video for SEO

Joselin helps clients with SEO using best practices and a video strategy. Google is always interested in presenting recent content in its search results. He points out that videos get indexed very rapidly by search engines. But, search engines can not index the actual content in a video. Rather, they index the meta data in videos. Google has to index videos rapidly because there are so many videos being uploaded every day.  Joselin creates customized video for clients and uploads them to about 150 social media profiles. Each video is tagged and uploaded to each of these social media sites. He uses geo tagging to appeal to Google’s Universal Search features.  Joselin interviews his client and captures their value proposition in a short video and propagates it across about 150 social sites. He releases videos on dozens of video sites and on various social sites like StumbleUpon, Delicious and Twine. One entry can result in dozens of entries in search results.

SEO Has Become CSO

Joselin’s approach is an example of my sentiment that SEO is becoming CSO (content search optimization). By creating a broad content footprint that gets spread across the web very methodically marketers can create strong reach and great search results. Joselin likens this to a mall and the stores in the mall. A storefront exists inside a mall. The social sites such as Facebooks and YouTube are malls. People enter these malls and can see the content in each “mall.”

Cool Glasses

I asked Joselin about the cool glasses he wears. He said an optometrist friend of his recommended these glasses. They have no legs. Rather they use a short spring that rests on each temple. I’m sure it took a little getting used to but these glasses are very interesting. I’ve never seen anyone else wearing these glasses. They are symbolic of Joselin’s unique personality. He’s one of a kind!

Below is my interview with Joselin at the Inbound Marketing Summit in October. Enjoy…

As I See It…. Ready, Aim, Fire

Bernie Borges

How many times have you heard the expression “ready, fire, aim?” This cliché is used often in business and sports when making reference to a plan that gets executed without much planning. It’s an oxymoron. Either a plan is a plan or it’s not a plan. You might as well admit that not having a plan is just winging it.

Unfortunately, many marketers have taken a “ready, fire, aim” approach to inbound marketing. Whether it’s not doing extensive keyword or competitive research for SEO, or not planning out effective PPC campaigns and ad groups, a lack of planning is sure to negatively impact your results.

We find this is especially true and prevalent in social media marketing. With such growth in popularity in social media platforms including blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn, many marketers have jumped in with one or both feet without a plan.

Ask yourself these questions: What is your content strategy? What is your content hub on the web? Does your content strategy have C-Level support? Are enough resources allocated to your content strategy? How are you measuring results?

I’ll introduce another very common expression – the 80/20 rule. I passionately suggest that 80% of a marketer’s success on social media is directly correlated to the strategy, in particular the content strategy. And, 20% is correlated to the web communication channels you choose to implement your content strategy.

Did you notice I just renamed blogs, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and LinkedIn “communication channels?” Don’t allow that to get past you. If you buy into this 80/20 rule of planning versus execution, then you quickly understand that the social media channels you use are your communication channels.  You understand the importance of developing a strategy – a content strategy.

In developing your content strategy, focus on your target audience. Don’t limit your target to your most immediate target demographics. Expand that circle to include demographics that interact with your target audience. Depending on your industry, that may include analysts, consultants, resellers, etc. The point is to not limit your target too narrowly. Your content should engage people in your industry in a compelling way.

What happens when you don’t plan and you just implement (ready, fire, aim)? You might have some success. If you do, consider yourself lucky. But, you have a much greater chance of making some costly mistakes. You may attract the wrong people. You may not be prepared to direct people to the right place in your communication and create a wrong impression. For example, if most of your communications point people back to your website’s home page, and it’s not well designed to engage visitors in a way that is consistent with your social media strategy, you’ve blown it. Would you throw a party without preparing for the guests?

Marketers should avoid the temptation to dive into social media without a plan that includes research. Just as in creating any business plan, conducting research to determine whom you’re targeting, where they are, and what topics are of interest to them is crucial. Then, determining a content strategy that addresses your audience is the next step. Then, and only then, are you ready to use the popular social media tools to implement your social media marketing plan. Ready, aim, fire!

Tips for Bulls-Eye Blogging: Getting Your Content Found

Dianna Kersey: Information Architect

Since the beginning of time, humans have been searching for ways to communicate.  From sign language to cave drawings to paintings, humans have been trying to tell their stories.

In fact, we humans have protected, copied and preserved the written word since its inception.  From Dead Sea scrolls to naval captain’s logs to newspapers to the blogs written by the world’s 70 million bloggers, people have been (and continue to be) obsessed with communicating what is important to them.

So, you say you are clean out of parchment, your hammer and chisel are dull and you don’t own a printing press?  How about we move into the 21st century and we learn how to communicate with not only other humans, but search engines as well, so those other humans can find the words on your blog that express what’s important to you.

So let’s start with the basics….

Loading the Rifle:  What is a Blog?  Here is a short video to explain:

There are 8 types of blogs that can be a part of how you choose to communicate what’s important to you.

Here are examples of each kind:

1.    Linkblog – Social bookmarking, such as del.icio.us
2.    Moblog – sending pictures from a camera phone or mobile device, e.g., Flickr
3.    Podcast – audio recording in MP3 through RSS feed – iTunes
4.    Videoblog/Vlog – video recording in MP4 through RSS feed – YouTube
5.    Microblog – short text message, popular with mobile users, e.g., Twitter
6.    Miniblog/reblog – content is mostly from a third party in a post versus creating original material,  e.g., stumbleupon
7.    Liveblog – covers a live event, such as a sporting event or press conference.  Engadget is an example.
8.    Blog – A collection that can include all of the above.

Once you choose which format is inspiring to you, it’s time to bring it to life and be found on the social web. When choosing a blog strategy, first you will want to choose a blog platform (such as WordPress or Blogger) and create a themed look and feel appropriate to what you want to talk about and what you feel will appeal to the type of audience interested in your same topic.

Now that you have a blog hosted and up and running…. now what?  You need great content. Period.  Your content must be interesting, informative, educational, or inspiring in a way that compels your readers to engage with you.  Most important, be creative and have fun with the voice of who you are.

Rand Fishkin from SEOmoz has written a great article that details 21 tactics to increase blog traffic, but we are going to cover just a few highlights.

Talking to Humans: Taking Aim at Your Target

Here are a few items to help keep your content fun, inviting and engaging to your audience:
-    Great content – first and foremost.
-    Link to your sources and data information. Don’t be afraid to link to resources valuable to your readers.
-    Invite guest bloggers to be featured on your blog.
-    Interview influential people who address the topic covered by your blog.
-    Use rich media – e.g., video, charts, images, graphs, podcasts, bullets, etc….
-    Use community sharing software such as ShareThis or Tweetmeme to allow visitors to share your content easily with others through Twitter and Facebook and many other bookmarking  platforms throughout the web.

Talking to Search Engines: Bulls-eye

Okay, so you have great content. Check.  Now it’s time to be found in the search engines and share your content with readers.  You have to socially broaden your footprint on the web and get your content out to communities that are interested in what you have to say.

How do you do that?

Here are some simple tips to help search engines identify and “read” your content and properly index it so that a person searching on the topic that you posted about can find your blog. By using these plug-ins (or many others like these), you can help tell the search engines what your posts are about.

-    Use a SEF (search engine friendly) plug-in, such as headspace2, to insert title tags, smart URLs and descriptions into your posts to help search engines index the posts for the right keywords.
-    Tag your content with keywords relevant to what that post is about.
-    Make it easy for someone to subscribe to you with RSS feeds or subscribe with email.
-    Use an interactive WYSWYG word processing plug-in, such as Tiny MCE Advanced, which allows you include images, video and a myriad of other functionality to make your content engaging.

You’ll be loaded for bear if do your research, choose the type of blog that’s right for what you want to communicate, educate yourself on your chosen topic, learn from other bloggers, create a community by broadening your web footprint, and use the 21st century tools to help humans using search engines find your blog content when they search on the keywords that are most relevant to it.

Good luck!

Interview with Brian Halligan, Co-Author of Inbound Marketing

Podcast interview with Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot.

I interviewed Brian Halligan, CEO of HubSpot to discuss his new book, Inbound Marketing, Get Found Using Google, Social Media and Blogs, which Brian co-authored with his co-founder and fellow MIT alumnus Dharmesh Shah. First, I asked Brian to briefly describe HubSpot. In full disclosure, Find and Convert is a HubSpot partner.

HubSpot is an inbound marketing software company which is about three years old now. HubSpot helps companies transform their marketing strategy from the ground up through a methodology which is implemented and managed on their web-based software platform. HubSpot software helps marketers run their organic search engine optimization, PPC and social media strategies with analytics and lead intelligence to measure results.

Inbound Marketing – The Book

Brian describes his new book as a cookbook for marketers that provides the transformation from old style marketing to the new inbound marketing. The book describes how marketing has changed over the past 5 years. In his book, Brian and Dharmesh outline the five steps in becoming an inbound marketing centric business.

1. Create lots of content
2. Optimize that content for Google and social media
3. Spread that content
4. Measure results
5. Convert website visitors to leads and customers

A New Mindset

If you’ve read my blog before or listened to any of my recent podcasts you’ve heard me say that the new marketing is a mindset. It’s a new way of thinking. It’s all about creating content and building relationships through your content. As Brian points out in his book, marketers need to make the shift away from interruptive marketing to inbound marketing. He says the modern marketer is half a traditional marketer and half a content creator. When a marketer creates “remarkable” content, other content producers will remark about your content. In fact others will link to your content. And, links are the currency of the web which will produce traffic to your website. In fact, Brian says the modern marketer’s content becomes a magnet to their website hub.

Not Your Father’s Marketing

I asked Brian how marketers can embrace inbound marketing? In response he takes us on a trip down memory lane (you may not be old enough to remember his story). He says that marketing hasn’t changed much over the last 50 years. But, during the past 5 years it’s changed a lot and will continue to change in the coming years. In 1965 television ads worked exceptionally well. People had to watch the ads. They had no choice. In fact, they had few choices in their media consumption. Today, consumers can block out ads across most media platforms including television, radio. email and web browsers. In short, consumers can filter out most advertiser’s interruptions.

Are You Worthy?

In years past any company with a healthy budget could advertise and sell products. Even bad products could be marketed and sold with a big budget.  Today, the friction is far less for great ideas with less money required to get the word out. Good products with good positioning and happy customers can sell by spreading the word around the web. Bad products (unworthy) can’t hide anywhere in the current marketing paradigm.

Measuring Results

A common question asked by marketers about inbound marketing is how do you measure results? Not surprisingly, Brian and Dharmesh devoted a chapter to this question. Their advice is to look at campaigns using the funnel metaphor. Study the flow of visitors to your website hub, the conversion to leads, to opportunities and ultimately to customers. Study all the web channels that filled your funnel and see which ones have produced the best results in the funnel. The ones that work best you should  “double down” on and nix or revise the ones that don’t.

What’s Remarkable Content?

I asked Brian how does a widget manufacturer produce remarkable content? One of the case studies in his book is Whole Foods. They are a natural and organic grocery food retailer. As part of their inbound marketing strategy one of their buyers blogs during his trips to France.  He blogs about his meals during his trips, and the cheeses he bought on his trips. He cites another example of a fishing rod manufacturer who creates lots of content about the industry, not about the product. The magic sauce of inbound marketing is not to sell your product through your content. He says marketers should turn their website into a magnet about your industry to attract people. Invite customers, analysts and others interested in industry topics to engage with your content. Allow your content to become a magnet and engage people in ways that can convert into leads. It’s a very common mistake when marketers jump on the web and create content all about their products.  Marketers can be very successful inbound marketers if they talk about industry issues and watch others link to your content.

Watch Your Competition

Marketers can easily watch their competitors in the age of social media and tools like Google Alerts. HubSpot created a series of tools under the Grader brand. Marketers can use Website Grader to measure their own websites, as well as their competitors side by side.  Other Grader tools such as Twitter Grader and Facebook Grader allow marketers to watch their competitors on a frequent basis with a lot of transparency. Marketers can watch the competitive trends. Startups can be very aggressive by watching competitors closely.

Why Now?

In this chapter Brian and Dharmesh stress that marketers should not wait to embrace inbound marketing.  The barriers to entry to beat the top content producers are high. The longer a marketer waits to become an inbound marketer the harder it will be to catch up. All the great content that marketers produce will generate links back to their website hub. The content becomes a permanent asset on the web.

Marketing Crystal Ball

I asked Brian what’s in his marketing crystal ball? To answer this question, he referenced the large old style marketers like P&G who have allocated big money to advertising over the past 50 years. This approach to marketing built Madison Ave. Brian predicts that in the next 50 years inbound marketing will flip Madison Ave on its head. Advertisers have fewer media outlets to turn to because consumers are watching less television and reading less print. Instead consumers are going online using Google, social media and blogs. Brian predicts the next group of companies that will become Google-size success stories are those who engage on the web through remarkable content. The next Coke will not be an interruptive marketer. The next Coke will be content producers with a great product. I partially disagree. I think this will happen in the next 5 or 10 years. It won’t take 50 years. Just look at Zappos.

Two Real World Examples

I asked Brian for two great examples of inbound marketing. But, I required that he describe his own company as one of them. You may think this was a softball. But, the truth is that HubSpot is a poster child for inbound marketing. I asked Brian to describe their success with HubSpot TV. He described the early days of HubSpot before the product launched.  He was actively blogging about inbound marketing several times each week.  He rapidly adopted the mindset of constantly creating content. So, it started even before HubSpot launched version one of their software product. This approach eventually led to the development of their free Grader products (great content) described earlier. One day one of HubSpot’s product developers, Karen Rubin, suggested starting a TV show! Though some people initially laughed, she convinced V.P. Marketing Mike Volpe, himself a prolific content producer. The rest is history. HubSpot TV is more than one year old now with a loyal and sizable audience. It airs live every Friday at 4pm eastern and is syndicated in iTunes ranking #1 for inbound marketing and other related terms. Shameless plug: I was a guest on HubSpot TV in August. I had a blast!

The other success story Brian told is from his book about a company called 37Signals. I learned that this company has long provided inspiration to HubSpot. They are a small software company out of Chicago with really great products. They created a wildly successful blog called Signal Versus Noise. This blog was once a top 100 blog. They also created a book, and their reputation spread very quickly. I pointed out (unknown to Brian) that we are a 37Signals customer. We use their Basecamp product in our client engagements. And, we learned about Basecamp through word of mouth. Proof positive that inbound marketing is for real.

At the end of my interview with Brian he said something which I believe is profound in its simplicity and its reality. Brian said “Inbound Marketing is not rocket science. The sooner you do it the better off you are!”

Brian, I couldn’t agree with you more…I wish you and Dharmesh success with your new book, Inbound Marketing which is available everywhere.

Internet & Technology Summit Tampa Makes Impression

Yesterday I participated in the first Internet & Technology Summit in my backyard – Tampa, FL. I travel around the country to similar events so it was a pleasure to drive 30 minutes from my home to a quality event.

The producer of the this event is David Glass, a local entrepreneur. David is a well known publisher of print and online media outlets which focus on business and technology in Florida. The event began at 7:30 am and ran until almost 1pm. In addition to a great line up of speakers, more than twenty sponsors exhibited. About 300 people attended the event made up of small and mid-size business executives and a healthy showing of local entrepreneurs. Here are some highlights of the event.

Brent Britton (attorney 2.0) kicked off and hosted the event, serving as the emcee throughout the morning.  Brent is uniquely gifted in this role. His wit and style of humor combined with his edgy and geeky intellect make him a model emcee for technology events. Brent’s introductory remarks provided anticipation for the content, learning experience and networking opportunities for the enthusiastic attendees. He kept the pace moving and the audience engaged.

Mike Volpe, V.P. of Inbound Marketing at HubSpot was the keynote speaker. Mike set the tone for the event with an inspiring presentation which challenges the status quo of marketing. Below is an excerpt of Mike’s keynote.

Internet & Technology Summit Video 2 from Tampa Bay CEO Magazine on Vimeo.

There were three topical tracks with panel based speakers on each topic. The tracks were:

Social Media/Search Marketing
Speakers: Bernie Borges, Kevin Hourigan, Guy Hagen

Mobile & Web Application Development Trends
Speakers: Jody Haneke, Greg Schmitzer, Bradley Blanken

Rich Media & Application Development Innovations
Jennifer Bakunas, Heidi Kempf, Greg Wilson, Sean Carey

Quote of the day: “I’d rather be a developer acting like a marketing guy than a marketing guy acting like a developer.” Greg Wilson, Adobe Systems

Clearly, there is a hunger in our community for technology business conferences to discuss the impact of innovative technologies, best practices and ideas among business leaders and entrepreneurs. I think we’ll see more events like this in Tampa in the future.

If you attended, please add your comments below.

Next Page »