How Often Should You Optimize Your Content
No doubt there are many different answers to this question. Some people like myself, tweak content on a daily basis. Others have never optimized a single page on their website. Ultimately, the decision of when to take time to optimize your content is up to you, but there are situations when you should take time to optimize your online presence.
Image Source – Mashable
During a Redesign
Let’s be honest, the main purpose of most website redesigns is to optimize their performance. A true redesign is built from the ground up. There is absolutely no better time to ensure that your website is configured to attract maximum interest from readers than when it’s being reimagined. You can build SEO and speed optimizations right into your new design. You’ll have a better looking, faster and more productive website when you’re finished.
When Adding Content for All Pages
Adding fresh content that will appear on all the pages of your website is also a great time to optimize your content. First of all, make sure that the content you are adding is optimized. It’s going to be appearing on every page of your site. If it’s well optimized, every page will benefit.
This is also a good time to tweak individual pages. You’ll be visiting every page on your website to make sure your new content is properly integrated. As you click through your content, keep an eye out for ways to optimize each page.
When Circumstances Change
There are any number of reasons why the circumstances of your situation may change. Sometimes they’re personal reasons. Other times their professional. It might be an opportune time to make some adjustments to your website, especially if the circumstances necessitate a change or update to your website.
When it’s been a While
If you’re reading this and thinking “I haven’t optimized my site in months”, that would mean now is a good time to get to work. If your website and your business are running smoothly, you may not think you need to optimize your site. After all, it doing well and so are you.
Remember that a website that is doing well is a website that is often updated. Make a point to go back and revisit your optimization strategy on a regular basis. Even if it’s just a routine checkup to make sure things are functioning properly. Your website will thank you.
Brian Taylor
Brian Taylor is the VP, Business Development at Forix web design in Portland, OR. Forix offers affordable and ethical SEO services in Portland and web design and development services helping small businesses with their Internet marketing needs.
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Top 5 Marketing Conferences in 2013 You Won’t Want to Miss
Whether you run a business, work in marketing, or just want to gain knowledge about business and marketing in general, attending a marketing conference should be on your top list of things to do in 2013. Marketing conferences allow you to gain comprehensive knowledge about growing your business and staying current with trends related to marketing.
With the end of 2012 approaching, now is the appropriate time to see which conferences will best suit your needs so you can start booking those trips and preparing for the year to come. You owe it to yourself and your business to attend a marketing conference next year.
Here is a list of five top marketing conferences you won’t want to miss in 2013:
The Content Marketing Strategies Conference – Berkeley, CA – May 8-9, 2013
If you’re a small business owner, this is the conference for you. Hosted by dlvr.it, this event specifically helps small businesses gain understanding on the role content marketing has in demand generation, sales, and SEO. You’ll be guaranteed to leave the conference with an action plan to jumpstart your content marketing in 2013.
Guest speakers include the following companies: SAS, Cisco, Intel, ServiceMax, Kelly Services, and more. They will share their experience with content marketing – including strategies, successes, and failures. This event was sold out last year, so get your tickets early, as this will change the way you market in the future.
iStrategy 2013 – Miami, FL – April 23-24, 2013
No matter what your business specializes in, iStrategy is where it’s at. It’s a conference all about transforming your digital strategy to meet the needs of today’s online demands – SEO, SEM, social, mobile, community, and commerce. The future of digital marketing will be discussed by the country’s most prestige digital marketers, online experts, and social media gurus. Takeaways from iStrategy will include improved customer engagement, developed marketing campaigns with authenticity and significance, and a high-performing, integrated marketing system that will forever change your organization. The conference also includes networking opportunities, guest speakers, and workshops.
Hawaii International Conference on Business – Honolulu, HI – May 23-26, 2013
This is Hawaii’s 13th Annual International Conference on Business, and it keeps getting better and better. Held on the island of Oahu at Waikiki Beach Marriot Resort and Spa, this will be the gathering place for academicians and business professionals from all over the world. The main focus of this conference is to learn from each other.
Last year, over 200 participants attended representing more than 27 countries. You’ll meet and interact with those both inside and outside your own area of expertise, and gain insight as to what others are doing all across the world.
Pivot Conference: From Social Brands to Social Media – New York City, NY – October 15-16, 2013
Pivot Conference is much more than your average social media conference. It’s a conference where not only do the speakers influence the audience, but the audience influences the speakers. You’ll learn from and with each other. At Pivot 2013, you’ll learn how to influence choices and become a trusted resource, what constitutes a successful organization, meet the leaders of brand initiatives at the leading edge of Social Business, and interact with celebrities, geniuses, and billionaires.
Note: Pivot is an invitation-only conference for senior executives. If this describes you, request an invite on Pivot 2013’s website.
SMX West – San Jose, CA – March 11-13, 2013
This is an all-encompassing conference for everyone – whether you own a business, work for a Fortune 500 company, are an experienced internet marketer, or are just diving into the world of internet marketing. As an attendee, you choose which conferences and seminars you want to attend. There are more than 50 sessions on search engine optimization, paid search advertising, social media marketing, local and mobile search, and landing page conversions. Since you can’t attend more than one conference at a time, they’re all uploaded so you can review ones you attended and see ones you missed out on.
Purchase the All Access pass to get all of the conference sessions, keynotes, access to the tradeshow floor, in-person networking activities, online networking activities, parties, and more. If you still want more after the conference is over, attend an in-depth workshop on March 14th on search and internet marketing topics to learn even more. SMX West is so compelling you’ll leave wanting to implement the strategies before you’ve even arrived back home.
3 Things That Make Me Better Than You at Social Media (and what you can do about it)
source: woofer_kyyiv @ flickr
“Sure, sure”, you’re saying to yourself.
This guy is clearly a nobody. He’s got no background, he’s not famous, and I think I have more followers than him on Twitter.
Why would he even dare to think that he’s better than I in social media?
Worthy reader, you’re going to read this post and think that I’m just bragging here.
But, you’re also going to leave with a set of action items that happens naturally for me and will become natural for you.
You see, I grew up with Facebook and Twitter. Quite literally. When Facebook first allowed anyone ages 13 and over to register, I had just turned 13.
And what has happened with people that grew up with social media is that we have developed the innate sense of sharing and the natural sense between great posts and TMI (too much information).
Here are three things that I do on a daily basis, things that connect with people, and things you should take away from this article.
#1. Be witty, inspirational or helpful, but only one.
With any tweet, I seek to 1) make people laugh, 2) motivate or 3) offer information. It’s the crux of getting any form of useful attention to yourself.
But, if you try to do all three at once, you’re going to lose yourself somewhere. People my age call this “trying too hard” or “too much information”.
When we see an inspirational quote, we’re launched into a brief spark of energy and deep thought.
When we see a witty tweet, we chuckle and admire the creativity of the tweet.
When we see a helpful link or tip, we have a small “a-ha!” moment.
Notice how we don’t have “a-ha!” moments when we laugh, nor do we feel motivated about life when we see a link to a blog post.
Pick one, and only one.
We send a different message with each tone, and mixing these tones will undermine whatever it is you want to say.
Furthermore, if you don’t have any of the three, your message will be lost. Lost, meaning nobody will care to look at it.
These are the Facebook statuses that get zero likes and zero comments, which is more disappointing to us millenials than you may think.
These are the messages that say “dinner and movie with the family~” or “this cereal tastes so good”. You don’t care about how good the cereal is. Now imagine how many other people don’t care.
The takeaway here: Each tweet (excluding replies) that you send should have ONE purpose: make people laugh, motivate or offer information.
#2. Avoid opinions that you have to defend.
Primarily, I’m referring to politics, the economy and religion.
When you post these opinions, the only people willing to respond are the people who care enough about one side or the other.
I mean, think about it. Mention the two words “Obama” and “good” and all of a sudden, you have divided the entire country into two halves, those who agree and those who don’t.
If you really want to express this sort of opinion, do it on a Twitter account that isn’t affiliated with your brand. That way, you avoid associating your brand with conflict and bias.
Millenials are particularly adept at this sort of indifference. When we post things on Facebook, we all have that hope that we score a certain number of likes. And sure, when we see someone blasting a politician, we might agree or disagree.
But in general, we are afraid of being parts of those disgusting, messy comment threads that others see and go “…ugh”.
And that’s a good sixth sense in the case of social media marketing.
The takeaway here: Avoid conflict. Your brand is a platform for you and your knowledge, not your opinion.
#3. Express all other thoughts you have.
It’s like the Three Laws of Robotics. Do anything you have/want to do, as long as it doesn’t interfere with the first two points.
That means that besides politics, the economy and religion, anything is fair game as long as it is witty, feel-good or helpful, but only one of those.
Growing up around social media, I have had plenty of experience that tells me that nobody will come to you asking for your thoughts. You have to put it out there on your own.
When you’re on Twitter and someone posts a cool picture, tell them it’s cool. An inspirational quote that you thought was great? Thank them for sharing.
The difference between social media interaction and in-person interaction is that social media lacks the element of nonverbal communication. You can’t see that a person is smiling, so you don’t know to ask them about their day.
Share, share, share.
This is the one way to differentiate your brand from other brands. This is the one way to show that behind a Twitter account is someone reading tweets and typing out replies.
And people love to see that someone.
The takeaway here: If you have a thought, you better share it. Few thoughts are stupid, and the stupid ones are often related to controversial opinion.
Using Facebook and Twitter for years has taught me how to capture attention (because it’s not given to you), how to avoid shooting yourself in the foot (because it can happen) and how to remind people that you’re still alive (because dead people don’t post on Twitter).
Be like a millenial and share more effectively.
Ways to keep the big G happy and not get slapped!
Getting slapped by Google can be very painful for the webmaster and of course the rankings! A Google “slap” is a term that is used to label a website as Spam. One way to find out whether you have been slapped is by checking your PPC (Pay-Per-Click) campaigns to see if the bids have gone sky high and has become next to impossible to locate your ads.
It is such a horrid feeling to know that a site you have worked hard on for a very long time is labelled as Spam, and been pushed out of the biggest search engine on the face of the planet.
Image By Stuart Miles
Tips to help after the sting of the slap:
Don’t become a Spam site – The worst thing you can ever do is get your site labelled as Spam in the first place, try to avoid this entirely by not stuffing your pages full of keywords in
strange places, try to make the content look as natural as possible! All you need to do is provide good quality content and have 23 keywords in each article if nessacary.
Post fresh content – Google LOVES brand new and origional content, you will always put a smile on the bots face if you feed him fresh food! If you don’t update often he won’t return at all, think of it as a hungry dog, if you do not feed the dog he will run away in the other direction!
Build your site – If you are creating a brand new site try not to open it fully to the search engines until you have at least 10 pages of content, the reason is there is obiously no point in opening a website with just one page, it’s boring, it’s plain, you did not start a website to create just one piece of information, did you?
Narrow down your content – Try to narrow your niche down and not create a massive wide variety of topics, if you can narrow it down for example the health niche to “Exercise”. You are then telling Google exactly what your site and subject matter is about. If you are wanting to create authority website on health then by all means go ahead, just make sure you are VERY clear in every single piece of content what it is about.
Contact forms – Always make sure your website has that personal touch and has a bit of “you” in it. Put up a contact form for questions or for people to contact you, Google likes it when you make the effort to be a socialite! Just be careful of those darn spammers, if you are using wordpress use a quiz plugin so they cannot spam.
If you stick to these simple little rules nothing can go wrong, well at least on-page anyway.
