New Update Tells Us One Thing: Facebook Looks To Out-News Twitter

Anyone who has a Twitter account knows how it is to be bludgeoned with heaps and bundles of news links. In a matter of seconds, you’re going to get it one way or the other. (By one way, I meant the official Twitter account of a news organization and the other means thousands of followers retweeting those links.) From what we see from their latest update, Mark Zuckerberg’s crew is looking to outgun Twitter in disseminating news.

After launching the Trending Topics update earlier this year, Facebook is up to something bigger--and maybe easier-- to maneuver around the news floodgates than Twitter!

Facebook has re-calibrated the Trending Topics update and released it on mobile, all the while adding new techniques to sort them out. After clicking a topic, not only would you see related articles, but the “near the scene” feature allows users to see posts from friends and family members that are somehow involved in that particular story. It even shows a live feed of reactions from people around the world and then allows you to choose which feed to look.

Systematizing that deluge of information is by no means a small feat, considering Twitter could not solve that problem. Twitter, to their credit, tried with the hashtags which can be sorted by location, what the post contains, and the persons you follow but it still lacks organization. Still, Facebook’s update allows you to search by context, which adds more relevance to the things you’re looking for.

It could be just another “harmless” improvement (if you ask Facebook) but even a first-grader can see that Facebook has set a target on the microblogging site. Facebook’s subsidiary, Instagram, recently announced it has 300 million active users which makes them bigger than Twitter and in yet another implicit dig directed at Twitter, Instagram is also initiating verified badges for public figures and celebrities.

We all know, numbers-wise, Facebook is winning the battle against Twitter by a mile. (Facebook has already reached the 10-figure mark, while Twitter users are just hovering around 280 million.) However, Twitter’s notoriety as a news source is well-established and is a very good “straight out of the horse’s mouth” one at that. But with the way Facebook is changing their News Feed, it could spell doom for Dick Costolo and company.

6 Changes Your 2015 SEO Strategy Must Focus On

SEO is constantly changing. New updates are released, new trends are discussed and new strategies are developed. It is something that will constantly evolve.

In 2014 alone, there have already been 13 updates to Google’s algorithm, according to Moz’s change history. These are just the notable and more public ones -- there are refreshes and changes almost daily behind the scenes.

My company, Market Domination Media, is constantly adjusting SEO strategies for our clients based on a number of factors. We recently sat down and discussed the biggest changes that SEO efforts are going to need to adjust to as we enter 2015. Let’s look at six of them right now:

1. Create and optimize for mobile traffic

Back in 2012 ComScore predicted that mobile traffic would exceed desktop traffic in 2014, and they were correct. Google has always said that it feels responsive websites provide the best user experience, and recently starting including a “mobile-friendly” notation next to websites in mobile search results that are indeed mobile friendly.

You can see if your website passes Google’s mobile-friendly test by clicking here. Bing has also stated it prefers a single responsive URL.

Related: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Focus on Local SEO

2. Optimizing for Bing, Yahoo and DuckDuckGo

Could 2015 be the year that some other search engines begin to take more market share? It seems like this is the million-dollar question every year, but some recent developments suggest that it could be possible.

Firefox kicked Google to the curb and Yahoo will now be the default search engine for the browser. Google’s deal is also up with Safari in 2015, and reports have both Bing and Yahoo trying to secure that spot. The option to switch default browsers in iOS 8 and OS X from Google to DuckDuckGo also exists.

With options other than Google becoming more popular and accepted it will make it important to have visibility across these search engines in addition to just Google.

3. Switch your focus from keyword rankings to ROI metrics

If you or your SEO company is still putting an emphasis on keyword rankings and determining the success of the campaign based on keyword positions, then it is time for a major wake up call. Ranking reports can be made to look pretty and some SEO companies will even target useless keywords just to say, “Hey look -- you are ranking number one!”

If you are a business owner spending money every month on SEO, what would you rather hear from your SEO agency?

• “Congratulations, you are ranking number one for ‘buy blue widgets online’ but we aren’t sure what that translates into dollar wise.”
• “The infographic that we published last month resulted in earning 67 links and it was also responsible for 45 conversions and $22,480 in revenue.”

Do you want a fancy PDF ranking report or do you want to know what your return on investment was? 

4. More focused social-media approach

Social media was once just a platform to share content, so businesses would sign up for every social platform under the sun and blast their content everywhere. Social media is now a marketing channel as well as a customer-service channel. Your social audience expects your brand to engage with them on a more personal level.

Related: How to Improve Your Google AdWords Campaign This Holiday Season

It is more effective to focus on two or three social-media platforms and be very active and accommodating. This not only helps you generate more leads, sales and revenue, but it also helps to build a very loyal following that will share your content. This can introduce new people to your brand and even present opportunities to earn links.

5. Earning links rather than building links

Through all of the updates and algorithm changes over the years one thing remains the same: inbound links are the most influential signal of trust and authority. This isn’t going to change -- not in 2015 or anytime soon.

The days of building links on irrelevant blogs and chasing large quantities of links to game the search results are over. Earning a single link on a high-quality relevant website is valuable for multiple reasons including SEO, attracting referral traffic, leads, sales and branding exposure. Look for traditional PR and SEO to work closer together in 2015.

6. Targeting more precise keywords and search phrases

The days of targeting broad keywords are coming to an end. While they tend to have a huge search volume, they don’t attract highly targeted traffic and they are expensive to rank. Targeting long-tail search queries not only attracts qualified “buyer” traffic, but these terms will typically have much less competition. Keyword research along with understanding the shopping and purchase patterns of the target consumer can help to identify search terms and phrases to go after.

Businesses will always crave organic search traffic, and search-engine optimization is the vehicle to drive that highly coveted traffic. What are some SEO changes that you foresee in 2015? 

Source

5 More Brain Triggers To Drive Conversions On Your Website Or Landing Page

After my article on using neuroscience and psychology to boost your social media marketing, I thought a follow-up was warranted, this time for website and landing page conversions.
The psychology of web design has been a highly tested field, including relaying on triggers to entice users to complete an action. There are several different forces behind human behavior, like the classic FOMO (“fear of missing out”), curiosity, and the use of color to convey a message or feeling.
The following triggers are proven ways to increase action on your website.

1. Keep It Simple

As many tests have shown, there is consistently a higher click-through rate for calls-to-action on simpler websites and landing pages than pages with too much text or too many options off the bat. The reason for this is because most of us suffer from choice paralysis.
In a series of studies by Columbia University, participants were placed in various scenarios in which they were presented with a series of options. In each study, half the participants were given six options, and the other half were given 24-30 choices. The six-choice groups were not only more likely to make a choice (i.e. convert), but also reported being more satisfied with the choice they did go with.

2. Use The Right Graphics

When used in tandem with clear, informative and easily scannable blocks of text, thoughtfully chosen graphics can also increase conversions.
According to Canva, eye-tracking studies have shown that our eyes are drawn to images of people when we look at a website. Images featuring real customers are more effective than stock images, as they come across as more genuine. Furthermore, when we see an image of another person, we’re apt to follow their gaze — online marketers can use this to draw attention to important pieces of information on a page.
For online retailers and e-commerce sites, providing high-quality images of your products from multiple angles is a great way to ease consumer doubt and increase conversions.
An eye-catching and descriptive call-to-action can positively impact conversion rates as well.

3. Mention The Benefits…

When you outline the benefits a user will receive when they complete the requested action on a page, it makes it easy for them to weigh the benefits and costs. This is called a cost-benefit analysis.
Using this principle in web copy can help users see how their life is going to be better once they complete the action. List the highlights of what the action will hold for the user in a catchy snippet form that makes it impossible to refuse.
It is especially useful to reiterate if what they receive is free, as placing that word near call-to-action buttons has a proven higher ROI (as mentioned in the above-referenced KISSMetrics article).

4. …And The Drawbacks If They Don’t Take Action

This taps into consumer FOMO, or “fear of missing out.” People don’t like feeling like that aren’t going to have or know something that everyone else around them has or knows.
As Psychology Today points out, our relationship with our smartphones has only worsened this fear, as it now translates to making sure we stay up-to-date with everything we can so we aren’t in the dark about something we shouldn’t be.
FOMO is playing a part not only in our social lives, but our professional ones as well, as we utilize social media, RSS readers, e-books, and more to make sure we are staying relevant in our industry. Web designers and marketers can play into this fear by outlining what a user is missing out on if they don’t complete the action.

5. Design Matters

Subconsciously and not-so-subconsciously, we as web users now judge a company’s entire trustworthiness and service offering by the quality of their website design.
In a study as reported by Portland marketing firm Kinesis, 75% of those surveyed reported they had made a judgment about a company’s credibility solely based on their website design.
Kinesis also reported that 94% of a user’s initial reactions about a company’s website were design-related. This means that design has a major impact on not only whether a user will complete an action on a website, but even whether they will decide to utilize any of the business’ products or services at all.

Final Thoughts

Good design now equals trust in the online world, but if you complete a clear, concise website or landing page with graphics, explainable, easy-to-read content, and an emphasis on the benefits and drawbacks, your pages are on the road to a much higher conversion rate than their counterparts.

 Source

Top 4 Social Media Marketing Inclinations For 2014

There are certain ways by which one can share information on the internet. These ways are going over a change with the period of time and had a thoughtful impact on the marketing. In the recent few years, there have been more shifts towards the inbound techniques. Businessmen are getting more success by circulating original contents rather than implanting advertisements because these offers you additional benefits such as branding and viewers intensification.

Taking into account these tendencies in mind, I am going to discuss my calculations for top online marketing inclinations of 2014.

 

Content Advertisement Will Be Immense

It is one of the chief techniques that companies are launching influence and building faith of the clients creating valuable contents by various channels. This basically involves suitable diligence information which proves thoughtful for the clients. By following this way, the company gradually builds relationship with its demographic and increase loyal following. The top B2B content marketing strategies are social media, editorial on business website, eNewsletters, videos, case studies etc. 

If you are using more than one channel, company is able to create a optimistic reputation within the industry. This trend suggests it is better to focus on the inbound marketing by publishing valuable, engaging content intended for a specific audience. 

More Variety In Social Media Marketing 

In the recent few years, business was limited to the social media networks as they apply into the marketing promotion. Face Book, LinkedIn and Twitter are playing a great role in this. But now-a-days new social media sites are emerging all the times. However some people really initiate, others like Pinterest, Google+, Tumblr and Instagram have rush towards the popularity with an excess of new opportunity which allows them to create engaging content in different media forms. 

As a result, it has become general for the business to diversify and experiment with numerous networks with the aim of getting in touch of maximum amount of clients. 

Content Should Be Image Centric

However clients are more attracted with growing number of advertisements, it should bear in mind that content should be written in an easy-to-understand way. Now-a-days various social media sites more emphasis is given on image based content to present it in an attractive way. The speedy rise of Pinterest and Buzzfeed are evidence of image based content.

Follow Kiss Principle

These days’ people don’t have time to read in-depth messages. They just want short, easy to understand, organized and modest vision. This is all what social media sites are demanding about.
The innovative marketers are making efforts to tone down their promotion messages and beating clients.

Truth about the Google Penguin recovery & strategy to bring traffic back to your website

Honestly,  I don’t think that has anyone recovered yet but you will read so many articles about tips or strategy from recover penguin. The first thing comes in mind is that it is a real Google algorithm update. If you follow the Google algo guidelines then you must be bounce back from Google penguin attack.

We have also noticed or researched many forums that people put discussion about to send reconsideration request to webmaster, So that they could recover as soon as possible. But I will clarify that submitting a reconsideration request will not help you re-rank if Penguin hit you.

As you know that Google launched the Penguin update in April 2012, it was designed to punish that website who use black hat SEO or have spammy backlink profile.  It hurts when people do unethical things or over optimize the website such as “Keyword stuffing & Cloaking”.

If you do follow the guidelines then you must be recover from the penguin attack. Herewith I am sharing some Google penguin recovery tips given below:

Tips to recover from Google Penguin :

•           De-optimize the web site
•           Make Natural backlinks
•           Create quality links from high authority website
•           Post quality & fresh content
•           Don’t use black hat techniques
•           Add more social elements
•           Avoid paid links

Have You Lost Your Keywords From Google Searches Overnight?

One of the most common problems for online marketers is trying to figure out how it is that Google operates in order to make our sights more effective. Trying to get our heads around this is just plain counter productive. It doesn't matter how much time we spend trying to understand what goes into a good structured website, we just can't figure them out.
One minute the search engines are in love with the site and the next thing you know your site has been drooped form the natural search engines and your Google organic traffic just dropped overnight.
There is nothing more frustrating than putting all that work into a site and feeling proud that we have taken a listing in the search engines and people are visiting our sites from that listing. The feeling is great. Once that Google organic traffic disappears though, we are left feeling hugely frustrated, and for most they work tirelessly to get that site back on to the natural search results page.

Not surprisingly, the Penguin update didn’t negatively affect the traffic for Right Channel, my business where I’d done all the SEO and marketing work myself. If anything, I even saw a small boost in traffic as a result.
So what did I learn thanks to Penguin and my outsourcing debacle?

The only way around these problems is to start creating plenty of great, original content, and building natural, high value backlinks from that content.

1. When did your page rankings drop?

Depending on how your Web traffic dropped, it may be possible to identify what aspect of Google's ranking algorithms slapped your site with a penalty.

Knowing this is important because it can suggest possible causes, and provide clues to how to fix things.

2. Webmaster tools

Not all penalties are handed down by Google algorithms. It is also possible to receive a manual penalty.

In this case, it is important to check your Google Webmaster Tools account because Google sends notifications of penalties, amongst other things.

3. Google search

Of course, one of the best places to look for clues as to what went wrong is in Google's index itself. To check what Google has indexed for your domain, type in:
site:your-domain.com

Take action

Once you understand what has gone wrong with your SEO, it is time to start making amends. Here is a list of common problems with websites (that aren't too difficult to fix) that may lead to a drop in rankings:

• robots.txt file blocking Google from indexing pages
• .htaccess file misconfigured, and preventing proper indexing
• Broken sitewide links (i.e. footer links)
• Sitewide, followed external links
• Followed affiliate or paid links
• Stub pages
• Slow page load times
• Broken or invalid HTML

Why should B2B companies invest in social media?

Social media has for many years been seen as a B2C tool, only useful to consumer brands. However now in 2013, you are likely to find a social media agency dedicated solely to B2B marketing on Twitter and Facebook in almost every city. This is largely because social media for B2B has really taken off over the last 12 to 18 months. But how can you capitalise on this? This article will look at how you can pick the right agency to help get you started off on the right track.

The Extreme Importance of Social Media in Business Today!

Social media... it's all the rage today! It is increasingly becoming a more integral part of people's everyday lives, especially now that people can carry the world in their pockets with cell phones that are Web enabled and have data packages. Since there are now over two billion people -- nearly one-third the entire world's population -- connected via social media, it has become crucial, even critical, for businesses to take advantage of the huge potential given to them by social media.

Why should B2B companies invest in social media?

• 83% of companies invest in social media to create awareness for their brand
• 56% invest in social media to acquire brand evangelists
• 55% of companies invest to increase trust
• 32% invest in social media as an outbound marketing channel

Benefits of Social Media Marketing for B2B companies:

• 85% generating business exposure
• 69% increasing traffic
• 65% providing marketplace insight