Archive for the ‘Search Engine Optimization’ Category

Feb

2013

AUTHOR

eleni.konstas

Tags

Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing

Commonly Queried SEO Questions: How do I turn Likes to sales?

Friday, February 22nd, 2013

How do I succeed on Facebook? How do I turn Likes into sales? Why does no one like my page? How do I grow my Facebook? How do I get more Likes? If you’re asking these questions, you’re not the only typing these questions into a search box.

Trust me.

However, these aren’t the questions you should be asking. At least – not until you answer a few others questions first. Big questions take time and the biggest question of all ‘How do I turn likes to sales?’ can be found by first asking yourself…

Is your demographic suited for Facebook?

B2B need not apply. A recent Inc.com article ‘Does Facebook Work for B2B Marketing?’ explains that yes, there’s some successes there, but it’s rare.
Are you Mom friendly? Remember that the top demographic that is active on Facebook is the ‘Mom’ crowd.
Is your target customer tech savvy? You’re in the right place. But if you don’t have a Facebook, think how likely it is that your typical customer has one. Are you your typical customer? If you’re addicted to social media, they may be too. Why not asking them?

How do you plan to use Facebook?

Offer sales, discounts, special incentives. People follow brands on Facebook because they’re passionate about the brand, are looking for deals, or want an inside track to specials. Customers want to be treated well, special. Who doesn’t?
Secret Scoop. So you can’t offer special deals to Facebook? Sneak out a Facebook post about a sale 24 hours beforehand so they’re the first to know!

Can you be timely and on the ball?

It’s all about the timing. An Oscars contest before February 24th will far greater reach and effectiveness with your Facebook following in the weeks before, rather than after. Think of it as getting the most bang for your buck. But the bang is Facebook’s ‘Talking about This’ metric. What are people talking about and how can you get into the conversation?
Announcing a new product? Tell Facebook first. No one wants old news – they already stumbled across is on the site.

Do you have a plan if you can’t personally be on Facebook every day?

Schedule your posts in advance. Facebook lets you pre-post a photo or test updates months in advance. So if you know you’ll be busy on Memorial Day, schedule a post now, wishing everyone a peaceful day off!

Get a little help! If it’s a simple task of updating the daily specials, see who else on staff has the time to lend a hand. For the whole Facebook package, hire a professional. Our Facebook management services act as an extension of your business. We love to post hot deals, fresh updates, and treat your customers as if they were our own!

So how do I turn likes to sales?

You can’t. Facebook isn’t a marketplace. It’s a social network, where you can promote your brand, message and spread awareness. That isn’t to say that you can’t turn a single Like into a lead or sale. It’s just going to depend on factors from our earlier questions. The real value to you is creating loyal customers that continue to buy from you. The “like” alone is just the start.

Remember, Facebook isn’t about sales as much as it is your brand, your message and reach. It’s a place to be social with your customers, whether providing a place to ask for help with an order or to simply shout out how much they love your brand. These kinds of interactions and posts are what every Facebook Page, big and small needs for social media success.

Liked this post? Be sure to Like it on Facebook and keep an eye for the next installment of ‘Commonly Queried SEO Questions’!

Posted in Search Engine Optimization, Social Media Marketing | 2 Comments »

Aug

2012

AUTHOR

SaraTompkins

Tags

Blogging, Search Engine Optimization

Blog Spam Comments: Funny But Not Harmless

Friday, August 24th, 2012

Your blog is a piece of your website that you and your business treasure dearly. It announces new products, gives fun how-to’s, and connects with your customers on a personal level. You’re scrolling through your blog, when you come across a comment like this:

“Keep up the superb piece of work, I read few articles on this website and I believe that your site is rattling interesting and has circles of superb info.”

“Circles of superb info”? Um, what?

You keep scrolling, ignoring the gibberish that you just read. You stumble upon this interesting comment:

“All of us – love hunters, othres sneak up to the victim, some of them take care of it, othres find the love by giving her own, the rest tend to her like night flowers at sunrise, powerless to resist in the rings of rash and emotional hunger.”

“Excuse me?” You think, as you look twice at this comment that was so obviously not directed towards your blog post about finger food recipes. You give it another go and keep scrolling until you feast your eyes on this beauty:

Okay, that’s enough. But really. David Bowie? Come on. What does any of this have to do with my business?

The truth is, these nonsense comments really do not have anything to do with your business’ blog. Spammers, or people that make a business of doing SEO the wrong way, find their way into your links, blog post comments, and other gobbledygook that makes its way onto your brand’s page. By duplicating content over and over, Spammers think that using the same content will boost their rankings in Google. They may leave comments that do seem relevant at first glance and help boost their rankings, but the plain and simple truth is that Google absolutely despises duplicate content, making it harder for the people who try to do SEO correctly.

Here’s why spam comments are irritating and can hurt your blog:

They clog up your blog! They divert attention away from whatever you are writing about in the post. Sure, the comment might not make a whole lot of sense, but it sure does grab your reader’s attention for a quick second. This in return make the topic at hand a lot less interesting than trying to decipher a spammer’s failed attempt at producing natural SEO.
They take forever to sort out. Most blog platforms have add-on’s, such as WordPress’ Spam Plugins that filter all your blog comments into one place. This can sometimes be overwhelming, but it is a great way to pick and choose the good ones from the bad ones.
Spammy comments can put your readers at risk for Malware and viruses, which is something no business would want to deal with.

So why even have a blog if these sneaky spammers are going to screw it up for everyone?

Don’t get discouraged just yet. Having a blog does hold a certain value to your business, as well as making it easier to provide SEO-friendly content. Here are the reasons why having a blog can help you sell more and boost your rankings:

Google loves fresh content! Something completely original, clean and optimized perfectly for the search engines can boost your rankings. If it’s uniquely written and relevant to what your business is about, a blog can do wonder’s for your website’s ranking.
Surprisingly, blog posts rank higher over short periods of time than any other piece of content. What a great way to get in touch with your customers, while relating to them on a personal level with fun recipes or quotes.
It’s another avenue for your audience to find you on. It can also be cross promoted with unique and new copy on your social media pages, which in return brings people back to your website. It sounds like a win/win, right?

Solid Cactus, provides blog management services to our clients. Instead of you sorting through all these spammer’s comments, we have it under control. We do this by getting rid of the unnecessary comments and help regularly post relevant, SEO-friendly content to your blog. Not sure how to even begin to start a blog for your website? We can also build you one. We’re like the superheroes of the SEO industry: protecting and fighting off the spam villains, as well as doing optimization the correct and organic way.

For more information about our blog services, please visit the SEO section of our website.

Posted in Blogging, Search Engine Optimization | 2 Comments »

Aug

2012

AUTHOR

Mandy Boyle

Tags

eCommerce 101, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Services

Improving SEO With A Search Agency Blogger Network

Tuesday, August 14th, 2012

If you were to ask a site owner what the most difficult part of SEO is (besides writing unique content), you would probably get the response “link building”. For a site owner, link building is an ongoing challenge that impacts many parts of their business. Links give a site exposure while also acting as a vote in confidence in a site. Links also factor into how well a site can rank in the search engines and they can be excellent vehicles for driving traffic. The difficult part of building links is building quality links that are targeted.

Let’s face it, it’s easy to go out and buy links. It’s easy to place a link on a totally irrelevant site because it’s cheap. It’s so much more difficult to find sites to work with that are relevant to your audience, are quality, and have the ability to boost both traffic and SEO. But unfortunately, many site owners do take the easy way out and they purchase links just for links sake. When done at an aggressive volume or when the links come from bad neighborhoods, you’ll likely see a decreased presence in Google – and that’s not the sort of thing you want to receive from one of the main drivers of traffic to your site.

One of the ways a site owner can build links effectively is by turning to bloggers. Now, “blogger relations” has long been an effective marketing tactic. You’ve likely heard stories about businesses sending bloggers products for review or hosting giveaways on other sites. Here’s a quick look at some places where you can learn more about this style of link building:

From a link building standpoint, these are awesome because you’re getting positive write ups, coverage, and links back from relevant, targeted sources. In fact it sounds really simple too.

Sounds simple enough right?

Unfortunately, these types of links are really hard to build and can be costly over time as you provide more incentives, try to find willing bloggers, and coordinate their efforts – so what’s a site owner to do?

There is another option that can yield links from blogs in a targeted, relevant manner. Partnering with a professional search agency like Solid Cactus, can give you access to a network of bloggers to secure coverage for your site. These aren’t the traditional PR style links either, and you don’t have to offer incentives to get a great write up. Instead, they’re basic posts or overviews (think of them like advertorials) of a site on a blog that’s connected to your industry, from real bloggers.

Using a search agency and its blogger network eliminates most of the truly time consuming relationship building of traditional blogger relations. The search agency can leverage its existing network of bloggers to find and negotiate with relevant bloggers within your industry for you. They can give specific details and instructions so that the coverage matches what you are looking for as well. Granted, you may not get a perfect post every time since these are real blogs with real people that run them at the other end. What you will get is something authentic, real and valuable, which is what ultimately, link building is all about.

For more information about boosting SEO with Solid Cactus Blog Links services you can contact us here.

Posted in eCommerce 101, Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, Small Business Services | No Comments »

Jun

2012

AUTHOR

AnnaP

Tags

eCommerce 101, Search Engine Optimization

Before You SEO… Make Sure You KNOW

Tuesday, June 26th, 2012

S.E.O.—“search engine optimization”—is a classic, powerful tool worth including in any online marketing strategy. As more of your competitors get on the web, it’s more important than ever to make sure customers find your site first. But in the wrong hands, SEO can yield lackluster results and quickly become a money gobbler. Before you choose a provider to run your SEO, read this article and become an informed consumer.

How does SEO work, really?

In 2010, more than 80% of Americans made an online purchase¹. Most of them used a search engine to find that product; in February 2012, 73% of all Americans were using a search engine at any given time². SEO helps guide these millions of customers to your online store. It all starts when the customer searches for a product…

All major search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing show a long list of results whenever a customer enters a search term. A particular website’s ranking determines whether it will be shown on the first page of results….or the 100^th. Let’s pause here—why is this so important? Well, 98.95%³ of search engine users only look at the results on the first page. So if your store’s website isn’t on the first page, it might as well not exist online. Here’s an easy tool for finding your current website rank.

How can a business get on that coveted first page? Search engines reward websites with the right combination of ranking factors, or “signals” by listing them at the top of search results. Unfortunately, choosing the right combination of signals becomes more difficult every day, as the internet becomes an increasingly competitive space.

The most practical solution is to hire an expert. In the long run, this course will probably even save you more. Instead of fiddling with “signals” on the computer on day, you’ll be focusing on your business. Think you can do it yourself? Before you decide, first take a look at how the founders of Google described their rankings process when Google was first released—click here.

How can it boost my sales?

It’s all about location, location, location. With a physical store, the site you choose determines what kind of people visit your store. For an online store, the concept is the same—with one important twist. With a physical store, people see your store every time they drive by or shop in the same commercial center.

In contrast, when people shop online they can skip right to their destination without “driving by” your store. A good SEO strategy gives your store a prime “location” on search results for the customer’s desired destination. An excellent SEO strategy goes one step further and makes sure that customers see your store before they notice the competition.

Best Practices

To do SEO right, you or your provider must know all of possible signals—and their optimal placement—decide which ones will be most effective for your business, track results, and make frequent adjustments as the landscape changes. Keeping track of it all could be a full-time job! Below, we’ve put together a just few of the important SEO do’s and dont’s.

¹Search Engine Use 2012, Pew Internet & American Life Project (March 2012)

²Global Trends in Online Shopping: A Nielsen Global Consumer Report (June 2010)

³Granka, Joachims, and Gay. Eye Tracking Analysis of User Behavior in WWW Search. (Cornell University, 2008).

Posted in eCommerce 101, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »

Feb

2012

AUTHOR

lauren.carey

Tags

Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization

Facebook Gives your Business a Voice

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012

Now, don’t get me wrong… I love pretty much everything about my job here at Solid Cactus. Being an SEO Manager gives me the opportunity to be innovative, creative, and just have a good time. But, as is the case with anything in life, I like some things more than others. One of my favorite parts about this job is helping clients manage their Facebook business pages. In the time since it started, Facebook has evolved into something that we all pretty much rely on to keep in touch with one another. Any good business mind knows that you need to be where the people are. And the people are on Facebook.

But you knew that, right? You have a Facebook page for your eCommerce store already. That only leaves one question…

Now What?

I can’t even tell you how many businesses I’ve “hidden” on Facebook because they just get too annoying. Either they post too often (or not often enough), they don’t answer questions, or they aren’t finding ways to connect with their audience. The thing you need to remember about Facebook is that it’s first and foremost a place for friends and family to connect and catch up with one another. You have to find a way to make your business fit into that model.

As a business, you’ll likely want to promote what your business does, your products, and some special offers now and then. The people that “like” your page are there because they somehow feel connected to your offerings and want to know about them. In that sense, they’re already a little engaged with you. But what should you do to keep them engaged?

Keep the Love Alive

Your goal should be to post in a relaxed and conversational style. Don’t post in an over-casual tone, though. Something like “Our new deal is crazy awesome, LOL” is not appropriate. On the flip side of the coin, something copied word-for-word from other marketing channels isn’t appropriate, either. Facebook needs to fall somewhere in that happy medium. Here are some tips to help you use the right voice for your Facebook page:

Stay as timely as possible. That means monitoring your wall regularly—try to respond to people within a few business hours. Let’s face it, people are on Facebook all day long, and having to wait for your response is something that they’ll notice.
Be as clear as possible when you post. You don’t want people to get confused and require a large amount of follow up comments.
Being on Facebook is supposed to make people feel good. That’s why you need to make sure that you’re optimistic and upbeat. What happens if someone leaves a less-than-pleasing comment on your wall? Don’t ignore it—simply reply with polite assurance that you’ll address their issue. And make sure to express appreciation for positive comments.
Share things that are relevant to your industry. If your fans find it useful, entertaining, and interesting, they’ll really respond to it.

When you get these ground-level things right, you’ll be able to do so much with your business Facebook page. Then you can take advantage of some other great extras (like paid Facebook advertising and Facebook Stores) to really boost your brand.

Posted in Online Marketing, Search Engine Optimization | No Comments »