What exactly is a sponsored post?  The simple answer is:  a company pays a blogger cash to blog about their product or service.  This is different than an advertorial since the blogger is paid cash to write the content as opposed to the sponsor creating the message.

An entire cottage industry of companies such as IZEA, Smorty and a slew of others have sprung up to offer a variety of methods to pay for sponsored posts.  Some require bloggers to say good things.  Others tell bloggers they are free to write what they wish.  But in either case, there are potential risks involved marketers should be aware of.

Many digital audiences appear to have an  issue with sponsored posts because they see it as a breach of unwritten editorial rules of the web.  It is for that core reason sponsored posts remain controversial.

For the purposes of this post, I am just talking about cash for blog posts.  This a different animal than offering sampling, trials or demos of products.

Let’s dig into why sponsored – aka cash for blog posts – are something you should measure the risk of carefully:

Sponsored posts may draw the eyes of the engines

Cash for blog posts could be risky behavior if the sponsored links are follow links.  Matt Cutts at Google has publicly stated that paid posts should not affect search engines.   A simple solution for companies brokering sponsored posts is to require the no-follow attribute added to links within the content.  Some pay-per-post companies offering this service state they require it.  Some bloggers may adhere.  But many bloggers have no idea what a no-follow attribute is and may not follow this guideline.  Additionally, bloggers and marketers engaging in outright cash-for-play are involved in risky behavior even with no-follow links.  This is due to halo effect of linking in the social web, and may walk a thin line with the engines who are paying attention to these campaigns.

Before engaging in sponsored posts, consider organic outreach

More than 80% of bloggers are already writing on products and brands.  In other words: be remarkable, have great marketing/PR and you’ll be talked about.  Learn the intersection of social media and PR, begin content marketing and engage in strategies that inspire natural coverage, conversation and influence.  The organic approach yields the highest results: since sponsored posts must have no-follow links, the SEO and PR intersection does not exist.

Sponsored posts may train audiences to expect cash to write about you

By engaging in sponsored posts, you may succeed in training audiences to expect a return every time they mention your brand or product.  Instead of growing in an organic fashion, sponsored posts may keep your brand out of the natural conversations and put you on a treadmill of having to pay cash for coverage.  And that’s not a sustainable way to grow a web community.

May be seen as inauthentic

Due to FCC rules, all sponsored content must be disclosed.  With this disclosure and transparency, readers see the content was influenced by cash, not the author’s true perception of the product or brand.  This potentially destroys the true power of word of mouth.  It affects the blogger as well:  they may lose the trust of a carefully built audience.  Audiences may not believe a blogger thought a product was great because that blogger was paid to talk about it.

Sponsored posts are advertising – not social media

Companies who pay bloggers cash to write about them are engaging in advertising, not social media.  Would you pay someone cash to talk about your company or product at a party?  What would everyone else at the party think?  That’s exactly what happens on the social web when users see bloggers taking cash to write up products.  So if you think it’s a risky play to pay people cash to talk about your brand or product in person, it’s equally so online (perhaps even more so since the web is referential).

Organic push methods do exist

Newswires, article submissions, advertorials, syndication products, and other paid methods of gaining exposure amongst web audiences exist.  The social web as a whole has less issues with these services because they are not paying individuals directly to talk about them.  Rather, they are paying to have their messages added to areas they will be found – and then reacted to – without cash going directly to users or leveraging a personal brand for influence.  Communications professionals can use paid tools to cross the editorial line with less risk than directly paying cash to individuals.

Conclusion

Forrester research has been touting the positives of sponsored conversations.  Jeremiah Owyang says they are here to stay.  There are companies engaging in this tactic and doing fine.  I’m not ruling the tactic out entirely, but I do wish to caution marketing and PR professionals to weigh the risk carefully.  Sponsored posts may run counter to a social media marketing strategy focused on inspiring organic attention and building a community based on trust.  They do not provide the SEO benefits of organic outreach.  Consider your larger objectives and strategies carefully and ask yourself  if sponsored posts are the tactic for you.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Sponsored Posts – Measure The Risk Carefully |
No comment | http://www.toprankblog.com

A while back I wrote about the new design Google is testing (which I like a lot) that adds a third column to search results along the left side.  It’s come and gone a few times since then as I move about the country and as Google reveals it for testing.

As of this morning, Google is delivering the new design to me again and I noticed something different after doing a search on my name. (Admit it, you Google your own name too!) At the bottom of the new column it shows an unconventionally named, “Not entirely unlike” result.  What kind of label is that? It reminds me of the slang phrase, “it doesn’t suck”.

With the addition of Google Profiles and real-time search as well as many other sources, it’s interesting that Google is making such a distinction at the individual level. However, it’s not just people being referenced as “Not Entirely Unlike”.

Here are an interesting set of connections that came up:

• Lee Odden > Not entirely unlike:  Jeremiah Owyang
• Jeremiah Owyang > Not entirely unlike: chris brogan, robert scoble, charlene li, om malik, john battelle
• John Battelle > Not entirely unlike: guy kawasaki, david weinberger, seth godin, robert scoble, om malik
• Om Malik > Not entirely unlike: marshall kirkpatrick, walt mossberg, kara swisher, robert scoble, john battelle
• Robert Scoble > Not entirely unlike: dave winer, jason calacanis, jeremiah owyang, steve rubel, guy kawasaki
• Guy Kawasaki > Not entirely unlike: seth godin, john battelle, robert scoble, clay shirky, lawrence lessig

And on and on it goes with circular references (except for me, since I hardly belong in a list with these people). The notion that many public figures on the web frequently reference each other or at least cite common concepts and resources may very well be supported by the connections listed above.  Also I would note this is not the same as the “Related searches” that often show at the bottom of the search results.

Is there anything useful in the “Not entirely unlike” feature for marketers? I’d say it’s about as useful as the Wonder Wheel if you were to use it for keyword brainstorming or research. Besides certain people’s names, it does come up for certain, general phrases too:

• Internet marketing > Not entirely unlike:  search engine optimization, online marketing, affiliate marketing
• CRM software >customer relationship management, erp, financial software, crm solution, business software
• Coffee >espresso, cocoa, orange juice, banana, chocolate

Interestingly, it doesn’t fire for phrases like, “iPad”, “iPhone” or “Apple” but does for “smart phone” and “google phone”.  To test this yourself, Google must have chosen to display the new Google design to you. It doesn’t work with the current form of Google.

Are you getting the new Google design? What do you think of it? Are there other features you’ve seen that are interesting?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
New Google Design & Not Entirely Unlike Jeremiah Owyang |
5 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

• There are nearly 40,000 Tweets a minute, according to TweeSpeed
• Last year, Tweets grew 1,400%, while traffic to Twitter.com grew around 1,100%
• More than 60 million Facebook status updates are posted every day

When it comes to microblogging sites, customers and prospects are either there, or those that influence them are. Microblogging can take on a life of its own – with users making connections, developing relationships and publishing content all from within.

Are you unsure of how to best leverage microblog connections and microcontent for other online marketing efforts?  One answer: cross-publishing or syndicating microblog content to other channels.

Fortunately today there are several tools available to help you and here, are three:

1. @anywhere

Imagine being able to apply your Twitter marketing success to your website. Twitter is in the process of rolling out a new feature, @anywhere, that will allow users to syndicate Twitter content to virtually any online channel without sending visitors back to Twitter.com. Not only that, but the syndication process will be as simple as dropping a few lines of JavaScript.

Initial participating sites include Amazon, eBay, Digg, Yahoo!, The New York Times, Salesforce.com, You Tube and several others. With @anywhere, visitors to these sites will be able to follow Twitter users, retweet content and search for new Twitter accounts – without ever having to leave the website.

Here’s what it could someday mean for your organization:

• Customers reading a blog post written by your CEO could follow him or her on Twitter directly from your site
• Prospects viewing a video on your website could retweet the content without leaving the webpage

2. Google Buzz

Google Buzz

The latest social media player to enter the game is Google. Its recently launched Google Buzz tool is built into Gmail and enables sharing of updates, photos and videos all from within the inbox. The tool connects with sites already in use, including Twitter, Picasa, Flickr and Google Reader.

Essentially the tool enables Gmail users to leverage the personal email contacts already made, as well as the entire Gmail community at large, to engage in conversations and share microblogging content.

Google Buzz goes beyond just status updates, though. It automatically pulls images from links and enables users to respond to content without ever leaving Gmail.  Whether Google Buzz attains the popularity of Facebook or Twitter remains to be seen.

3. Facebook Connect

Facebook Connect

With Facebook Connect, marketers can create more engaging experiences on their websites by allowing site visitors to bring their Facebook life with them. Facebook Connect pulls Facebook users’ profile information, photos, connections and more directly to your website.

Facebook Connect creates what it calls a “viral sharing loop” on your site by:

• Making it easy for site visitors to share your content with their Facebook networks
• Enabling you to show visitors what’s most popular on your site with their Facebook friends
• Allowing visitors to comment on, review and rate content on your site

Other tools that make it easy to share microcontent incude: ping.fm, HootSuite or socialoomph.com.

What tools do you use to cross-publish or syndicate your microblogging content to other channels?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
3 Tools to Help You Share Microcontent Online |
3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Think Traffic – This blog by internet entreprenuer Corbett Barr  makes some serious promises: “…teach you the techniques, tools and knowledge you need to build real, sustainable web traffic without a big budget.”  Sounds pretty good to me. Corbett relates his experiences with past projects and growing an audience for Think Traffic to the benefit of readers.  This very new blog offers practical tips and is well designed enough to get our top listing for this week’s review.

Bryan & Jeffrey Eisenberg – Best selling author of multiple books, Bryan Eisenberg begged me for months to add his new blog to the BIGLIST. I challenged Bryan to write another best selling book, start a new company, become a keynote speaker at several popular industry conferences and lose at least 30 pounds. (Hey, we set the bar high for the BIGLIST).  Of course, I’m kidding about the challenge (and the begging). Bryan has accomplished all of those things and much more while writing an excellent blog on conversion optimization and internet marketing strategy with his brother Jeffrey, who is also a best selling author, keynote speaker and online marketing strategist for major brands.

Jeff Bullas’s Blog – Jeff works as a sales and marketing manager at Infinity Technologies and his self-titled blog flavors towards social media – offering examples, case studies, lists of tips posts and insights from setting aside his traditional marketing roots and current focus on building trust and relationships with customers through social media, permission and inbound marketing.

CanuckSEO – Long time internet marketing veteran Jim Rudnick writes with passion and flair about “Canadian SEO for Google Success!” as well as small business, local SEM and plenty of flavorful opinion posts on a variety of search marketing industry topics. Go for the tips, stay for the story telling and enthusiasm.

Honorable Mention

Lip Service – Laura Lippay is an ex-circus performer, SEO pioneer, very classy woman and currently Director of Technical Marketing for Yahoo! Media. Laura teases us all by occasionally writing about life and search marketing on this blog that just isn’t active enough to be added to the full BIGLIST. But the Feb 2010 posts are certainly worth an Honorable Mention.

Did your SEO or SEM blog make the cut? Share the good news with your readers using the badges page.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
BIGLIST Update: These SEO Blogs Are No April Fools |
8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

Since SEO presents the biggest opportunity to generate a high quantity and quality of B2B leads, more B2B marketers are speeding up their ability to test innovative search engine optimization programs. Unfortunately, there are a mix of common mistakes that persist.  Here are 5 common mistakes and how to avoid them.

1. Using Keywords More Important to You Than Your Customers

It’s pretty common for some B2B web sites, especially those in the technology space, to over emphasize nomenclature, specifications and in some cases, cleverly named products or categories as attempts to stand out.

These product and service references are accurate to someone, but often not the buyer. In many B2B SEO programs, one of the most frequent exercises is developing insight into what customers actually think about an industry or a company’s products and services. What a customer might type into a search box on Google, Yahoo or Bing  may very well be different than the language the company uses in it’s own marketing and advertising content.

Here are a few tips on researching the keywords your customers use to find your products/service:

• Brainstorm based on solutions & customer needs
• Identify what concepts are most relevant according to where the customer is in the buying cycle
• Conduct interviews or survey customers
• Review current web analytics for referring search traffic
• Poll sales & customer service staff for phrases used by customers
• Leverage social media monitoring tools for tags and phrases
• Review competitor web site content

Once you’ve created a glossary of key terms, you can organize them by category of the site and add metrics for Popularity, Competition and Relevance to guide in their use for optimizing existing pages and creation of future pages.  A Standard Keyword Glossary can be created based on input to tools like Wordtracker or Keyword Discovery. A Social Keyword Glossary can be created using social media monitoring tools that aggregate keyword clusters.  Looking at both types of glossaries allows SEOs to find Cross-Over Phrases for social media optimization as well as standard SEO.

2. Content is Not Reachable by Search Bots

We’ve learned from persona experience and heard from people like Vanessa Fox, creator of Google’s Webmaster Tools, that one of the most common issues with web sites performing poorly in search results has to do with barriers to getting crawled by search engines. Crawling of course, means the process of discovering links and content and then copying that content. If a search engine cannot follow links to your web pages or follow the links between web pages of your site, then it will be difficult for crawlers to find your content.  No content means no presence in the search results.

Many B2B web sites are created with technological and design prowess that offer a good user experience and even better tools to manage content. But they often ignore the need for search engines to interact with content.  We’ve run into situations where title tags are hard coded exactly the same for all pages of a site, or Ajax or Flash are used to create navigation elements within product categories that are seen as one web page vs 5 or 6. Multiply those missing 5 pages across hundreds of products and that’s a very large portion of content not being able to attract new customers.

Here are a few ways to avoid crawling issues:

• Avoid unnecessarily complex URLs & using session ids
• Do not publish multiple URLs to duplicate content
• Rather than use temporary redirects (302 or JavaScript) use a 301 redirect to point old pages to new pages
• Understand that if you site navigation relies on Ajax, Flash or JavaScript, you’ll want to provide an alternative text link navigation method.

Use Google’s Webmaster Tools or even those offered by Bing to see how their respective bots are interacting with your site. If there are crawling errors, they will be reported along with broken links and a variety of other useful feedback that you can use as a basis for implementing fixes.

3. Lack of New Content

If you read Online Marketing Blog with any frequency (and we hope you do) then you’ll know how we feel about content for marketing B2B companies. A longer buying cycle for most B2B products and services requires more content to educate customers, help them evaluate their options, consider choices and ultimately, make purchasing decisions.   Many B2B SEO efforts focus on optimizing existing content without a content marketing strategy that defines and editorial calendar for producing new content.   Blogs have been our tool of choice for managing and promoting B2B marketing content to attract customers via search, links and mentions within social media and networking sites.

Along with the creation of new content is the issue of site architecture. Managing content along with the interlinking of keywords to pages helps search engines find pages and infer meaning. Fresh, themed content along with a logical site structure using  categories, sub-categories and appropriate links between them can make a tremendous impact on search engine driven customers to a B2B web site.

Each new web page, or digital asset for that matter, that is optimized, published and included in a search engine’s index can serve as a potential entry point for prospects, customers and even journalists and potential employees.   Many companies in the business to business category publish large numbers of documents in PDF format. Those can be optimized with keywords and links just like any other document. The same goes for whitepapers, archived newsletters, press releases, past webinars, case studies and content used to describe online demos.

However, do not create and publish content just for the sake of adding more “hooks in the water”. Pages and media should have a purpose and should be mapped out in the keyword glossary and managed with a content editorial guide.  Search performance is greatest when you optimize content for customers first, search engines second.

4. Keywords Missing in Content and Text Links

Content alone does not solve SEO challenges, since customers search using keyword phrases. The keyword research conducted in the first recommendation should be used to “optimize” web page content and any other file formats (PDF, DOC, PPT) or media (images, video, audio) that can be found in a search engine. A general guide is to optimize for 1-2 phrases per web page, document or digital asset.

Here are some basic on-page content optimization tips to guide the usage of keywords:

• Title tags
• Headings
• Paragraph titles
• Keywords in body copy
• Anchor text in links
• Image alt text

Ideally, the content management system would be modified to prompt users to use keywords in these areas when new pages are being created. Dynamic keyword insertion tactics can also be used to help automate keyword placement in Title tags and the alt text of images, for example.

We’ve worked with many B2B web sites that have great content, but are missing keywords where customers and search engines need them – especially in links between pages.  Adding keywords to the link tells both web site visitors and search engines the topic of the page being linked to.

Not good: Click Here for more information.
Better: Visit our CRM Software Resource Guide for more information.

As far as links go, one of the most often missed opportunities is to encourage keywords in links from other web sites to B2B content. Many marketers complain that they don’t know where to get incoming links for B2B pages outside of paid directories, link swaps and social news/bookmarking/profile sites.  Basic backlink analysis on sites with active PR, Advertising and Marketing programs will frequently reveal anchor text of incoming links to be the company name.

The core strategy that we follow whether the site is focused on B2C or B2B customers is to create, package and promote content that’s worth linking to.  However, no one will know to link to great content unless you promote it. One of the most effective ways to do that is by developing social distribution channels.

Here are a few examples:

• RSS
• Twitter
• Facebook & LinkedIn status
• Facebook & LinkedIn groups
• Social News, Networks & Media: Digg, Delicious, StumbleUpon, Flickr, YouTube

One of the best ways to acquire keyword rich links from other relevant web sites to B2B content is to ask!  For example, when Public Relations staff coordinate the publishing of a contributed article or have secured a media placement mentioning the company, they can also remember to ask the journalist to link back to the company site. The worst the editor can say is no, it’s not our policy to link out.  Press releases are common link building tactics as are guest posts on other industry blogs.  The other best way to acquire B2B links is to create unique and often humorous or compelling content that gets shared and linked to by others.

Check out this post on the TopRank Marketing site for even more link building ideas, 43 actually!

5. Not Monitoring KPIs and Ongoing Optimization of Content Marketing

Each phase in the buying cycle presents different needs for the buyer that’s using search to find information and solutions.  Monitoring key data and interactions that are not necessarily conversion or sales focused can provide helpful insight into what content or link sources are helping to move the needle in the right direction.  Meeting the needs of searchers with the right content can be measured in a variety of ways according to what’s being offered.

A few KPIs to pay attention to include:

• Keyword sourced traffic
• Branded vs non-branded keyword traffic
• Pages indexed, popular entry pages
• Crawling errors & Webmaster Tools Reports
• Rankings relative to your own site over time
• Inbound links: quantity, quality, longevity
• Link traffic
• Social media citations & traffic

Of course, reaching goal pages & conversions are part of the B2B search marketing feedback loop to guide future optimization as well.  For one of the best resources on the web for measuring web site performance, read Avinash Kaushik’s Web Analytics Blog.

Through ongoing monitoring, keyword performance trends, cyclicality and new opportunities will be revealed. Adjusting certain optimization and linking efforts can improve performance and provide new channels of search traffic.

For an experienced search marketer, these mistakes are very simple and fundamental. In fact, they’re really the tip of the iceberg. However, our agency receives multiple inquiries every day from companies that suffer from these core SEO issues. Every day, week, month and year that goes by presents the same types of issues and until their solutions become as common as the need for a contact form and a home page on a web site, they will continue.  No matter how long that takes, TopRank Marketing is happy to be of help!

If you’re a business marketer, what are some of the common SEO issues you’ve experienced with B2B web sites?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
Common B2B SEO Mistakes and How to Solve Them |
20 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

In this post, Jiyan discusses the progression and importance of news content in blended search:

Once upon a time, Page 1 had a special meaning for PR practitioners and business owners alike.

It meant that for one day, they had received the pole position in the consciousness of the consumer, who would hopefully transition from newspaper consumer into business customer. For businesses – both local and global alike – Page 1 either meant an outpouring of business or pending doom.

With the emergence of search as ubiquitous, Page 1 has begun to take on added meaning. Business owners are still very concerned about Page 1 but now, depending on whom you ask, Page 1 often refers to search and the consequent generation of a limitless stream of business and leads without having to pay for ongoing PR or advertising.

For many, Page 1 in search has become the new holy grail of business owners and SEO practitioners alike.

When I’m asked the question, “Will PRWeb get us onto Page 1 of search,” I immediately start shaking my head vigorously while hoping no one from the major engines overheard the question.

Of course, nothing can guarantee you will be on Page 1 of search. That being said, as part of a broader online marketing strategy, news releases can be an effective tool to facilitate the outward expression of news and information about a business, which over time can result in the creation of online authority in the eyes of search engines.

Yet with blended search, the picture becomes muddled.

At some point in the last couple years, Google (and now Bing) decided that users want more than just Web results when they run a query in search and so started offering a front page that contained a broader array of types of content including images, video and news.

According to some accounts news performs better in blended results than other forms of media and unlike other forms of media in blended search, news has a distinctly temporal slant. After all, news is really just information with a timestamp.

What this means for business owners, communicators, marketers, etc. is that under some circumstances, news can actually be a viable gateway onto Page 1 of search in a relatively short amount of time by leveraging sites that search engines regard as ‘news sites,’ including news release sites.

All that being said, here are some specific observations we’ve made about news in blended search:

1. If a recent news story is relevant to a query, it is more likely to appear somewhere in the results

This may seem fairly obvious but the devil is in the details. Nailing down ‘relevance’ between a query and results is a tall order but we have found that placing your target keywords in the title, preferably in the first part of the title of your news story, dramatically increase the likelihood that your news story will show up for queries of the target keywords once the crawlers have found the story. As the keywords descend into the story, from left-to-right and top-to-bottom, they become less impactful in terms of helping your story get onto the blended results for your target query.

2. News results can include thumbnailed images and these can improve click-through rates

Crawlers like Google look for relevant images to place in connection with news stories in the news block in blended search. They normally extract images from within the body of the story so including these images can result in having a thumbnail placed in connection with the result.

Who cares?

Well, everyone has seen the heat maps that show the importance of receiving top billing on page 1.

What we’ve found from our own internal tests however is that results with image thumbnails can have click-through rates that are similar and sometimes even higher than results that are actually located higher.

In other words, reader’s eyes are naturally drawn to the thumbnail so even if the news block is located lower down on the blended results page, the inclusion of a thumbnail can mitigate the lower placement to a great extent.

3. Many types of queries can result in news

There are some types of queries that seem to have an obvious time slant: current events, sports, celebrities, etc. However, we have seen news show up in blended search results for query types that seem less obviously tied to a date.

For example, tip sheets and best practice documents can be easily turned into news stories that can have a presence in blended search and drive traffic. With Spring right around the corner, there is a great opportunity to leverage audience demand for content to drive Web site traffic.

For example, a quick glance at Google insights reveals that queries for ‘Spring decorating’ are on the rise.

An opportunistic interior designer could use the opportunity to submit a release with a title like ‘Spring decorating tips from leading interior designer,’ that will have a good chance to tap into an upwards trending query in the blended search results.

4. Individual stories don’t appear in blended search results for long

Using your news to get Page 1 placement is a short-term proposition. As quickly as the story enters the blended search results, it can disappear. We typically see news stories show up in the blended search results for 24-48 hours. Depending on how dynamic the news landscape is for the query (some queries are going to receive a flood of news stories that may wash your story away in hours), the lifespan of your story may be even shorter.

Connect with Jiyan on Twitter, his blog or visit PRWeb, TopRank’s favorite press release distribution service.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
The Role of News in Blended Search – Observations & Best Practices |
3 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

In fact, three of the top 10 brands in 2009, as ranked by Interbrand, generate a sizable amount of revenue from their B2B customers: IBM, Microsoft and GE.

As a B2B marketer your brand is your most valuable asset.

B2B branding is less about cool, hip monikers (the Apples and Starbucks of the world) – and more about thought leadership.

Particularly in down economies, B2B prospects and customers conduct significant research leading up to purchases. That means you as a marketer have to educate them early on, and establish your brand as a trusted resource that gets their problems and has the solution.

To help your organization be seen as the thought leader it is, we’ve identified five B2B branding tips:

1. Consistently produce useful, innovative content

These days, every company is essentially a media company. So it’s easier than ever to provide relevant, informative content for customers and prospects.

From a company blog to Twitter to YouTube, there is no end to the content channels available. Provide the latest industry news and insight on trends through:

• Offering a white paper through an email marketing campaign
• Creating videos and promoting through YouTube and on your web site
• Conducting interviews with industry influentials and turning into blog posts

Whatever channels you choose to promote, and whatever types of content you create, these consistent signals prove to customers and prospects that you are a thought leader.

2. Network digitally and in person

Nothing communicates a brand more than direct involvement with customers and prospect. In that regard, online social networking has opened a new door. According to a recent eMarketer study, six in 10 B2B marketers planned to up spending on social in 2010.

Whether your organization integrates Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn or another social network into its B2B branding efforts, the same rules apply:

• Social media is about engaging in conversations, not just pushing products
• It’s not about the masses; it’s about your target audience
• It’s listening and hearing before selling and talking

That’s not to say that in-person networking is irrelevant. On the contrary, perfect B2B branding combination. Take advantage of opportunities to give keynote speeches, participate in panel discussions or lead breakout sessions at industry events.

3. Get personal and be real

B2C marketers seem to have this concept nailed. But humanizing your company for customers and prospects is just as important in B2B branding.

For one TopRank® Online Marketing client, an industrial part distributor for the bulk powder processing industry, humanizing its image was a top concern.

The TopRank team created the Powder Doctor, a unique character, to relate to customers and prospects through email marketing campaigns. This humorous cartoon character offers advice – Dear Abby style – for common industry problems. Powder Doctor campaigns have increased sales for Powder-Solutions by 83%.

4. Position yourself differently than others in the space

No doubt about it, it’s tough to build personal B2B brand if you’re just like everyone else. You simply can’t be known for what everyone else is.

Standing out from the crowd is easy when your products or services are truly one-of-a-kind. When products or services are similar to those offered by the competition, it’s more of a challenge to uniquely position yourself.

For one TopRank client – a staffing software company – that challenge was known all too well. To help the client stand from a large pool of competitors, TopRank developed a copywriting strategy where website copy was written in first person, from the viewpoint of the staffing software (i.e., “why you should hire me to fill your staffing software needs”).

This strategy has not only helped the company develop a truly distinct B2B brand; the strategy has also achieved increased search traffic, high rankings for terms such as “staffing software” and a trend up in inquiries.

5. Leverage proof points

It’s perfectly appropriate – and necessary – to toot your own horn from time to time as part of your B2B branding efforts. Whether it’s an impressive media placement or a web traffic milestone, implement proof points illustrating why your organization is a thought leader into marketing communications.

Keep in mind that proof points are both analytical and subjective. For example:

Analytical: website traffic increases, number of retweets of blog posts, number of blog subscribers

Subjective: media placements, media interviews, mentions on blogs

Are Your Ready to Take B2B Branding to the Next Level?

B2B branding through thought leadership is not as easily quantifiable as other marketing efforts. And investments in reputation building might not pay off as immediately as pay-per-click or email marketing.

But building a recognizable B2B brand pays off in the form of long-term increased referrals, positive brand conversations on both digital and in-person channels, web traffic and sales.

What methods have you used to build a B2B brand?

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
5 Tips for Better B2B Branding |
15 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

• 6 in 10 marketers plan to spend more on content marketing in 2010.
• 71% of bloggers who maintain blogs for a business – their own or one they work for – report that they have increased their visibility within their industries through their blogs (as just one example of content marketing in action).
• Content marketing plays an integral role in many of the top digital marketing tactics marketers implemented in 2009.

In this fast-paced panel, 3 content marketers each shared some quick tips, trends and strategies for content marketing.

Byron White, Chief Idea Officer, ideaLaunch

Byron ran through an overview of 10 tips to follow when fleshing out a content marketing plan:

1.  Develop a content marketing plan – many digital marketers just dive in without any type of plan.  This is always a mistake, before going any further, you need to get organized and understand next steps

2.  Use free and paid research tools to research terms – there are a slew of both free and paid research tools which can help you define keywords necessary to create a keyword glossary.  Use tools in conjunction with your own creativity to create an inclusive list of terms.

3.  Find the hot topics and keywords – by understanding the industry and leveraging tools, you can discover hot/trending topics and keywords to be a part of your mix in addition to the mainstay terms.

4.  Develop customer profiles for testing/research the competition – building customer profiles and competitive research allows you to draw upon a knowledge base when creating content to both stand out from competitors and connect with your audience.

5.  Develop an SEO plan with “keyword silos” – made up of long tail and short tail keywords – in addition to building a keyword list, group it into like terms in order for your content team to leverage it in an effective manner during content creation.

6.  Score content for SEO strength – either via an automated tool or manually, score existing content for SEO strength in order to gauge what to optimize first.

7.  Infuse your brand with great content – on the web, your content is your brand (and your brand is your content).

8.  Create stories – people connect with stories more than just product pages and lists of features.  Tell stories and connect with prospects at a much deeper level.

9.  Define great content – know what great content looks like before you develop it.  You can’t create something remarkable unless you have a vision in mind.

10.  Document content publishing date – this is a frequently forgotten, but important tip.  Only by documenting new content publishing date can you track/trend success of that content over time.

Of course, metrics are key – track interaction and engagement with content.  Get to a point you understand how your content, whether a blog post or a product page, is converting and working for your brand.

Heather Lloyd-Martin, CEO, SuccessWorks

Heather spoke on developing great content in the B2C and B2B space.

Why care about content?  The best SEO is good content, according to Seth Godin.  If you want people to convert, link to you or even visit your site you need quality content.

Main advantage of good content?  Control.  Great content allows you to gain control of your site.

Tip # 1:  Think about your target audience

Start by creating a customer persona.  The questions you need to answer to do this include:

• Who is your target audience?  (hint: it’s not everyone)
• Do you have multiple audiences?
• How old is your typical buyer/reader?
• What education level do they have?
• What are their average levels of income?
• What benefits are important?

Tip #2: Expand your keyphrase universe

Look for opportunities to build out new, unique content.  Reach both hit and long tail phrases, and create content that speaks to a broad mix of terms.  One way to do this is build out a resource section to answer both broad and ultra-specific, detailed questions.

Tip #3:  Free your content from “fake SEO rules”

“Party like its 1999…but don’t optimize your site that way.”  I.E. – there’s no need to follow a specific keyword density to rank.  Instead focus on quality first, keywords second.

General SEO content rules:

• Keyphrases in headlines/subheadlines
• Keyphrases in hyperlinks
• Keyphrases throughout the content (but not forcing it)
• Keyphrase-rich title
• Focus around 2-3 keyphrases per page

Tip #4:  Help your titles sizzle off the surface of SERPs

• When you’re on a SERP, there are 10 results and users need to pick one.
• Try to keep your titles to around 70 characters
• Include your main keyphrases
• Clearly explain what the landing page is about
• Include benefit statements (such as “free”) whenever possible

Tip #5 There is always something you can do

Beware the “website mullet.”  Check for outdated copy.  Some of the worst offenders can be press pages, conference/events pages, old articles, etc.  Where possible, update copy or add additional content if you have older areas of a website gathering cobwebs.

Also, if you want to build out a new section of the site to make your content friendlier but can’t change the template:  start a blog or create a new section of the site.  Don’t let technical issues get in your way.

Jonathan Allen, Director, Search Engine Watch

Jonathan spoke on the idea of using other people’s websites/social sites to gain rankings and an audience.  The theme  was on mash-ups – aka remixes of content.

Define your goal – is the goal of this content to persuade or sell people to take action or is it more long-term, to develop links to improve your search engine rankings/brand awareness. 

Develop personas – I.E. connectors, those hyper-connected individuals who will help your content spread.  By reaching them, you achieve the highest propensity for your content to spread.

Create content – it must be relevant and must be compelling.

Connect – once content starts to spread, connect with others and encourage them to share so it spreads further.

Rinse and repeat – when you find a formula that works, continue to leverage that to create additional content. 

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
How To Develop Great Content – SESNY |
11 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

SES New York kicked off with an excellent keynote presentation by David Meerman Scott (interview) followed by a panel on Digital Asset Optimization including Mark Knowles, Chris Boggs and myself. Richard Zwicky moderated.

The rising importance of optimizing one’s digital assets came out of Google and other search engines’ decision to start including information and file types from other sources than their main search index. Some queries trigger search results that go beyond web pages, MS Office docs and PDF files to include sources such as images, blog posts, news, video thumbnails, books and shopping.

While many SEOs were responding to the changed landscape of the Search Engine Results Page (SERP) and optimizing for other file types, many others were already optimizing holistically under the premise of, “What can be searched on can be optimized“.

Most companies are not wired to create the variety of content that can achieve top visibility on search engines. In most cases, search engine optimization efforts are focused on content and digital assets that are currently in place.  Being able to get more marketing impact out of existing content is as much a driver of digital asset optimization as it is a part of a holistic strategy that matches up with the opportunities presented by an ever changing search results page.

In the DAO session at SES New York I presented a historical perspective on digital asset optimization based on when TopRank  started writing about it in 2007. I also talked about the changed search landscape that now includes personal, real-time, social and mobile search. I also discussed the following TopRank 10 Step DAO Content Strategy:

Search & Social Media Keyword Research

Anticipating demand via search is traditionally handled by keyword research tools such Google’s tools, Bing or services like Wordtracker and Keyword Discovery.

As advertising and media placements can drive search, so can social conversations. Social media monitoring tools can help marketers conduct social keyword research as a compliment to search engine based keyword research.

Find out what key language and key topics are being discussed on the social web and you’ll have invaluable insight into content ideas that can provide value for both social media marketing and search engine optimization.

Analyze Search Results Landscape

The output of Universal and real-time search results are not persistent. For example, a search for a particular phrase one day might yield news and image results and on another day display only web pages.

It’s useful to monitor the search results landscape for keyword phrases that you’re after. Understanding the mix of data sources besides the main search engine index can help with the allocation of optimization resources.

If news and real-time results are most common, it may make more sense to focus on content promotion there versus images or video.

Define Buyer Personas & Buying Cycle

Understanding the needs of your customer is marketing 101. Search marketers are becoming more sophisticated in their understanding of customer profiles and developing personas to represent who you’re trying to attract via search is an important step in a content strategy.

Knowing what kind of content and what type of digital asset your customers will best respond to can improve effectivness at driving traffic from the search visibility you’ve achieved through SEO.

The buying cycle is another dimension that warrants attention to make sure you’re creating, promoting and optimizing content that is relevant to where your customers are in their search/research process. Broad concepts usually represent early stages of research versus more specific phrases which often indicate a buyer is closer to purchase.

Inventory Existing Content & Assets

With a more holistic SEO effort, especially one that will incorporate digital assets, it’s important to have a baseline understanding of what you have to work with. Taking inventory of your content and digital assets is something we’ve been recommending for over 3 years and it’s an essential first step.

Having an understanding of current content and digital assets can also uncover content that is ripe for re-purposing. A common example is video that can be deconstructed into multiple, short form videos, single images, transcribed into text or splitting the audio off into a podcast.

Develop an Editorial Plan for New Content

Understanding your search and social media keywords, buyer personas and the assets you have to work with will help identify what new content you’ll need to create.

Adopting the perspective of a publisher, not just a marketer, will help resource allocation, planning and goals/measurement for content creation.

For example, rather than just sending out a press release and publishing a blog post with a new product announcement, a company might, based on search/social keyword research and an understanding of their buyer personas, decide to create a resource page for journalists that includes links to relevant resources, a standard press release, images, PowerPoint, video, past media coverage, executive interviews, audio snippets, demo and appropriate media relations contact info. It would be made easy to bookmark or share this resource page as well.

The assets being linked to from the resource page would be hosted either on the corporate site, optimized of course, or hosted on 3rd party media sharing sites such as Flicrk, YouTube, SlideShare, DocStoc, PRWeb and others.

This provides a richer experience as well as numerous options for interaction. It also offers multiple, potential entry points into the resource page via search, since the optimized digital assets can rank in search results on their own and link to the destination content on the corporate web site.

Map Keywords to Content & Digital Assets

The functional process of implementing search/social keyword research is to map those concepts to the content and assets you have. This helps manage the initial keyword optimization process.

Mapping keywords to the editorial plan is also a useful guide for the future creation and optimization of content. Not only are web pages, images, video and other assets optimized for search, but optimized for customers.

Operationalize Content & Digital Media Creation with SEO

SEO and digital asset optimization are not one-time events. Keyword demand will change and of course, new content and media will be published. To ensure keyword optimization of new content, it’s important to incorporate SEO with established content creation and promotion processes.

That might be updating the corporate styleguide with SEO and keyword usage rules or it might mean making programming changes to the web site’s content management system to prompt content creators with keyword cues when adding text or other media.

Develop Off Page Digital Assets

The beauty of social content is of course, that it’s social! Sharing should be easy and encouraged. Hosting some digital assets on social media sharing sites such as those mentioned above (Flickr, YouTube, Slideshare, DocStoc) can introduce your optimized content to new audiences and attract both traffic and links. More relevant links mean better search engine visibility and web site visitors.

Promote/Syndicate via Distribution Channels

How will anyone know you have excellent content and digital assets if you don’t promote? Dedicate a fixed and persistent effort to developing social networks where your customers and influentials spend their time on the social web. Do the same with social media sharing web sites so that when you post a new video on YouTube for example, your network there can be notified.

Developing distribution channels for content will significantly improve reach and the likelihood of your content being passed on, shared and made socially popular. Email newsletters, RSS, Ping.fm and TwitterFeed services are good examples of content distribution services that help promote content efficiently.

Ongoing Measurement with Web, Social and Search Analytics

Search marketing professionals are well aware of the value from web and search analytics that measure search visibility performance as well as web site interactions and conversions. The importance of social media monitoring and analytics is also essential for a DAO Content strategy.

On the front end, social media monitoring tools can help you identify conversations and influentials that are meaningful to the topics and customers your marketing efforts are trying to reach. Social keyword research can in part, be accomplished by some social media monitoring tools. Those same tools are essential for measuring the social impact of your digital asset and social media optimization efforts.

A simple cycle would be one where you’ve identified new keyword topics beginning to buzz on the social web and taking that cue to create content. Promote that content through your social networks and use social media monitoring to track the effects of your content contributions to the larger conversation on the topic. Use web analytics to measure any increase in search based traffic based on the growing popularity and awareness of the topic based in part, on your contributions and social interactions.

With an Optimized Content Strategy, there’s good news and bad news.

The good news is that by following these 10 steps, a significant impact can be achieved in overall authority for the topics and keyword concepts focused on as well as the ability to attract new business, media coverage and employees.

The bad news is that it’s not easy. Making the commitment to serving customers with content and media on an ongoing basis, indefinitely without the initial ability to forecast ROI will make many companies say, “Great idea and it makes sense, but not for us.”

However, those companies that make the effort to really understand and implement these fundamental concepts are making an investment with a payoff that is very long term and with momentum, very signifcant. Some companies will be able to “come out of nowhere” and dominate their category by following these 10 guidelines for an optimized content marketing strategy.

Live blogging coverage of the Digital Asset Optimization session at SES New York was provided by:

• SEM Geek
• Outspoken Media
• Search Engine Roundtable
• AimClear

And this article on Holistic SEO with Digital Asset Optimization was recently posted on ClickZ

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
10 Steps to Optimize Your Content Marketing Strategy |
18 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com

During the past decade, PRWeb has reshaped the traditional press release and changed how companies large and small distribute news. Innovations of PRWeb over the years include:

• Search engine optimization (SEO) for press releases to increase the visibility of news in search engines like Google and Yahoo!
• Social bookmarking tools like trackbacks and bookmark links to take advantage of the explosion in social networking
• Really Simple Syndication (RSS) to increase the distribution potential of news and built the industry’s largest RSS network
• Allowing customers to include podcasts along with their news to increase the impact of their news release
• The “Feature Video” allowing customers to leverage the video content from popular sites like YouTube to bring their news to life

Meg Walker, Director of Online Marketing for PRWeb lead a session discussing how to optimize press releases to gain the strongest visibility in both search engines and media.

1.  Meet audience demand

Prior to drafting a release, you need to understand what your audience is demanding.  Meeting audience demand is integral to accomplishing your press release visibility objectives.

There are many times you don’t realize there may be a hook in to reach your target, and understanding audience demand allows you to tap into it.

The steps to meet audience demand include:

Knowing your audience – what is it potential prospects and media are interested in?  In what tone should they be spoken to?  Do they appreciate a certain angle over another?  Understanding is key and should drive the strategy behind the release.

Be relevant – more than just understanding your audience, give them content that is both relevant and timely.  By doing this, you’ll create the highest propensity your news gets picked up, shared and passed on.

Satisfy customer demand – to know what the demand is, first research popular trends in search engines and stay on the pulse of your industry.  By creating content that is related to hot topics you can create far more visibility for your releases.  Staying up to date, informed and on the pulse of your customers is vital to connect with them through press releases.

2.  Stay focused

By keeping your keywords and topics focused, your release can rank better in search engines and resonate more with media.  As you are writing releases, remember you are writing about one topic per release.  By segmenting the message or trying to say too much at once, you dilute your key points and take a risk prospects and media will walk away without taking next steps or remembering the point.  Keep it simple, focused and impactful.

3.  Use images for search

Images can increase the click through rate on releases in both regular and news search by 15 – 25%.  It’s a simple step, but can’t be stressed enough.    Additionally, using images creates more traction in media – journalists and bloggers both love images as it helps them tell their story.

At PRWeb, we have seen releases that used 3 images generate more than 50 articles.  We also find that many people are discovering images via image search, which then draws them back not only to the release, but to the customer web sites.  Because PRWeb hosts press releases forever, your images can continue to receive both organic and image search traffic indefinitely.

4.  Use videos to engage visitors

By using video in news releases, we have seen up to a 500% increase in time on pages.  As the web shifts to a rich media experience, bloggers, media and end users are becoming more accustomed to video.  In the future, it may be common that video is included with releases.  But since today it is not as frequently used, it’s a chance to make your news stand out.

5.  Optimize your release

Anchor text links – use 3

• One to homepage – direct visitors directly to your company website.
• One to product page – send media and consumers directly to the product they are reading about.
• One to blog post – this presents an opportunity to speak to readers in a less formal fashion.  With social web users and digital influencers continually expecting social content, a press release presents a great opportunity to spark interest in your social content.

Alt-tag – an alt tag helps your images get discovered in search engines – all release images should be tagged appropriately.

URL Keyword – top keywords can be used as part of the URL string, so be sure and include those during the release selection process.  PRWeb allows you to customize this.

Description Tag – add a keyword rich and compelling description tag (on PRWeb, that will become the meta tag).

Title of release – the title of the release will become the title tag of the page, which is a vital element of your on-page optimization.  If you have a target phrase, ensure your phrase leads the title of release. 

You can learn more about PRWeb at their website or follow them on Twitter.

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© Online Marketing Blog, 2010. |
SESNY: 5 Tips To Optimize Press Releases For Search |
8 comments | http://www.toprankblog.com