The Maine SEO Blog

FeedBurner is a great platform for seamlessly keeping your blog subscribers up-to-date on your latest posts. The added bonus? As the blog owner, you get some pretty sweet stats out of the deal.

A lot of people (myself included) probably don’t check their FeedBurner stats often enough – but why would we? The FeedBurner dashboard is not the most intuitive under the sun. So let’s start with something simple: I want to see how many email subscribers I have and who they are.

From the main Analyze page, click “See more about your subscribers”. (By the way, subscribers on this page shows the total number of subscribers; reach denotes how many people made an action – viewed/clicked.)

You’ll be taken to a page with a graph – showing where your subscribers are actually subscribing from. If this is all the information you were looking for, then you’re done!

Here comes the tricky part. If you’re more interested in email subscribers, then scroll almost to the bottom of the Subscribers page until you see “Email Subscription Services”. Click “FeedBurner Email Subscriptions” to expand the box, then click “Manage Your Email Subscriber List”:

Now you’ll have a list of all of the email subscribers to your blog!

As a side note, I don’t know how accurate the numbers on FeedBurner truly are; but what they will do is give you a relative number of subscribers and stats for measuring purposes.

Nicki Hicks
Seeking out hard-to-find statistics

What happens when your site connects peers?

• Increases website success
• Improve SEO
• Enable real-time research

Example: Drive SEO Strategy (Bank of America’s small business online community)

• Top organic search result driven by community discussion (for the keyword “online contact database”)
• Per click cost for those advertising with PPC: $5-$15

How can social increase the ROI on Our Events? (vmworld.com)

• Reduce event costs
• Extend events to all year
• Offer more value to vendors

What is a holistic engagement strategy?

• Identify and engage the new world influencers
• Real-time & broad visibility of hot topics and trends
• Eliminate missteps

3 ways to engage, ignite passion, and grow relationships

• Become a conversation hub
• Extend the event experience to 365 days
• Focus on a holistic engagement strategy

Speaker: Adam Mertz, Product Marketing Manager at jive
@adammertz

We can improve how our websites maximize our Ad spend

• Improve ad conversion
• Improve spending decision processes
• Increase residual value of advertising
• Re-engage with customers on a long-term basis

Habit #1: Deliver what the customer expects with the continuity of messaging

Landing pages need to be delivered on the ad’s promise

• Copy and calls to action must be on line
• Offer expertise based on the ad’s subject
• Engage the user and build trust quickly
• Start looking for the problem

Keep telling the story as they move deeper into your site

• Consistently message to the user throughout their experience
• Uncover the customer needs and deliver solutions

Benefits

• Reduce bounce rates
• Increase conversion rates
• Build credibility with prospects and customers

Fun example: Waste-O-Meter

Habit #2: Segment and balance user experiences with site goals

Not as obvious as you think

• Align your promises with your calls to action
• Identify latent needs
• Allow visitors to self segment
• Guide users where you want them to go
• Remember: landing pages is just the start

Ask yourself…

• How will each segment react
• What different types of goals do they have?

Benefits

• Build credibility with visitors and prospects
• Higher conversion rates (leads, transactions, self service, etc.)

Habit #3: Deliver value back to your Web visitors by waiting for the right moment

Pick your pitch

• User experience must win out
• Visitors aren’t always ready to engage
• Understand intimacy levels
• Lead scoring helps find buying signals
• Customers filter advertising because it’s always on
• Make it personal, make it matter
• Deliver value

Benefits

• Improve conversions on site
• Differentiating experiences
• Word Of Mouth (WOM) marketing

Habit #4: Learn to listen, listening to your segments and optimizing messaging

Learning to listen

• Scoring your content and actions
• Testing and validating with polls and surveys
• What profiling can tell you
• Measure performance by segment and persona
• Test, test, test: Test messaging with MVT

Benefits

• Better understand of each and every customer
• Incrementally improve campaign performance by segment

Habit #5: Overcome objections and barriers using community content and engagement

Understand your customers hurdles

• Ask your sales team
• Understand the sales lifecycle
• Use community to overcome fear and build trust
• Use content marketing to overcome objectives
• The 12th man (if you’re a football fan) of your sales team

Benefits

• Drive leads deeper into the funnel for your sales team
• Reduce cost of sales
• Improved conversion rates and win ratios

Habit #6: Get the conversation started: Long-term customer value through ongoing dialog

Create an ongoing conversation with your customer

• Engage users in community content
• Put your customer community to work for you
• Offer community content interchangeably with your contnet
• Build trust and confidence in your community

Benefits

• Creates value for the customer
• Greater customer intimacy/Loyalty
• Expands the customer relationship
• Deeper understanding of customer needs

Habit #7: Provide the ongoing content and experience for which visitors hunger and return

The show isn’t over after the first dance

• Content marketing mixed with episodic delivery to keep them coming back
• Build content assets worth subscribing to
• Pull visitors back with community engagement
• Tap Wisdom of the Crowd content: help customers filter
• Nurture campaigns

Benefits

• Engagement leads to buying
• Drive residual value of ad spend

Putting the Habits to Work

Improve the effectiveness of your ad spend using your website with these 7 habits

• Improve ad conversion
• Improve our spending decision processes
• Increase residual value of advertising
• Re-engage with customers on long-term basis

Speaker: Darren Guarnaccia, VP of Product Marketing at Sitecore

Yesterday I talked a little bit about how to set up Google Alerts, and hinted at why they’re important. Today, I’d like to focus on how you can use the Alerts you receive.

Do some damage control. Even the best business will have unhappy customers. Here’s your opportunity to make it right. Don’t pretend like the post didn’t happen, don’t even ask the blogger to remove it. Face it – head on – and comment; apologize for their bad experience and vow to make it better (however you can manage to). Not only will the unhappy blogger feel better (maybe even remove or update their scathing review), but anyone who reads the post and your subsequent comment will want to do business with you.

Catch the copy cats. Unfortunately, there are a lot of blogs out there whose soul purpose is to copy content from other blogs/articles and repost it. They sometimes give credit, but never their own .02. More often than not, these copy cat blogs are harmless (since Google already sees them as spam), but some are truly a more serious copyright violation.

Catch what fell through the cracks. You might already be tracking your business name on Twitter, and regularly Googling yourself. Google Alerts are a sure-fire way to catch even more mentions of your business.

Get inspired. Tracking your highly sought after keywords will result in a variety of blogposts, websites, and more that also target those keywords. You’ll find plenty of new ideas by reading through these alerts; just make sure your keywords are specific enough so you don’t end up sorting through pages and pages.

Thank people. We’ve talked about the negative, but there’s also the positive! There might be some positive blogposts out there talking about your company, product, or service. Maybe they don’t offer a link, so your backlink checker wouldn’t pick them up. Make sure you leave a comment thanking them and you could even offer them an incentive to do business with you again (% off, free bonus, etc.).

How about you? How have you used your Google Alerts?

Nicki Hicks
Tracking, tracking, tracking

I find that Google Alerts is, by far, one of the most under appreciated Google products. Leveraging it correctly can result in good PR, better blogposts, and a quick and easy way to get a leg up on the competition. Here’s how to make the most of it.

1. Start by assigning a keyword/phrase – the more specific, the better (unless you want to sort through lists of results that don’t apply). You might want to assign multiple alerts, and they could include:

• Your most sought after keywords and phrases
• Your business name
• Your competitor’s name(s)
• Product/service names

2. Then, choose what you want to have sent to you. Choose from:

• News
• Blogs
• Web
• Comprehensive (everything)
• Video
• Groups

3. Receive notifications once a day, a week, or as they happen. (I find that notifications as they happen are simply annoying, but figure out what works for you.)

4. Decide on how many results you want (as to not be overwhelming).

5. Get alerts sent to your Gmail account or your feed….and you’re done!

Tomorrow I’ll talk about how to use the information you get after setting up your Alerts.

Nicki Hicks
Alert the Media

PageRank may be dead (dying?), but the authority powerful links give to a website is certainly not. But…where do you find these powerful links? Certainly not link building farms, but they may be easier to find than you think.

Submission

Directories. There’s a question as to whether directories have much value. They have little to none. That doesn’t mean they hurt though.

You can get a free listing (after more than likely waiting a very long time to be approved) at DMOZ, so it seems like a no-brainer. The most worthwhile paid listings are from the Yahoo Directory and Business.com (both $299 per year).

Forums. Every time you submit a forum post, you can attach a signature (not unlike an email signature) with links back to your website. Depending on the rules of the forum, you might also be able to include links within your post (although they are probably nofollowed).

Article Marketing. Submitting articles to article distribution sites (like Article Marketer and Hubpages), you can leave a signature just like you can with forums. Plus, these services (while usually paid), will distribute your article to the masses – and you don’t have to lift a finger!

Research

Competition. This is one of my favorite link building strategies. Head over to Yahoo Site Explorer and type in your competitor’s domain. After you sort by inlinks, except from the domain, and to the entire site, you’ll see all of your competition’s incoming links! Luckily for you, Yahoo will (generally) list the incoming links in order of authority, so (for the links that make sense), start going down the list!

Blogs and Articles. Google yourself. You might find old articles or blogposts that mention your company but don’t link to your website. Contact the webmaster and see if you can’t get them to fix that for you.

Then try Googling your best keywords and phrases using Google’s Blog search. Sometimes, you have to filter through the filth, but you’ll find the gems in no time!

Be proactive

Events, Sponsorships. Speaker at a conference? Sponsoring an event? Make sure the conference/event website is linking to yours. More often than not, those links are mighty powerful.

Social media. Links from your Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube accounts may be nofollowed (LinkedIn’s are not nofollowed, but redirected), but you only have to take one look at your Analytics to see the traffic coming from them. What’s more – social media websites are fantastic for viral aspects – and they might lead to other links!

Comment, comment, comment. Likewise, comments are also nofollowed, but still count as a link! Again, someone else commenting sees your insightful thoughts; theoretically resulting in a link!

What are your favorite ways to discover new possibilities for incoming links?

Nicki Hicks
Link Building for Dummies

How to look at any site

• Acquisition
• Conversion
• Retention

Common Issues

• Open external links to _blank
• Page speed

Corey’s taking a look at websites submitted by conference-goers. Here are some of his key suggestions:

• Optimize your title tags
  - Less than 100 characters (don’t worry about the 65 character limit)
  - Include something that makes you unique (phone number, “Free shipping”, etc.)
  - Use your keywords
• “Welcome” H1 tag is not. helpful.
• Use the All in One SEO Pack plugin
• Don’t put too many links on the homepage
• Tag clouds don’t have an SEO benefit
• “Just be natural”
• Add tags that make sense
• Stick with what you’re good at. Write good content.
• Link within your own blog. Make sure you use keywords in anchor text
• Two indexes: primary (what Google mainly focuses on) and supplemental

How do I find keywords?

• Google search-based keyword tool
• Google AdWords keyword tool

Other tips

• Use your own site for information – with the keywords in Google Analytics. Sort by source within an individual keyword to see which search engine visitors are coming from
• Few code errors (WP is great). Install Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, Bing Toolbox in order to make sure there are no more issues.
• Monitor your keywords.
• RockinSEO – monitor keywords

Link Acquisition Tools

• SEOmoz has Linkscape and now Open Site Explorer

Social Media

• Incoming links
• Most are nofollow, but LinkedIn will give you one follow [which is directed through LinkedIn before it goes to your website]

Last tips

• Don’t have external links as some of your navigation links (to social media sites, other websites, etc.)
• Stop using meta-keywords
• Use external CSS
• Use alt tags
• Emphasis keywords with bold and strong
• If you’re not making your site fresh, go home
• Testimonials can be huge
• People will link to you if you have something worth linking to

Corey Eulas, ninety seven media
@coreyeulas

• Theme: a collection of files that work together to produce a graphical interface with an underlying unifying design.
• Themes alter the look and presentation of material

Understanding your site (Knowing what you’re looking for)

• Information architecture: the structure and organization of your information
• Kinds of information
  - Posts
  - Links
  - Media
  - Pages
  - Comments

Things to think about

• Homepage
  - An informational page with information about my business
  - My recent posts
  - My best posts
  - All of the above
• Primary buckets of information
  - Top level nav should incapsulate your 5(ish) most important buckets of information
• Building a sitemap: outline of content on your site intended to organize the information so people who visit can understand it (love this definition)

Understanding your site: Vocabulary

• (Photo/Web/Video) Blog
  - focus is a chronological diary of posts
  - homepage showcases recent updates
  - has navigation elements, but often understated
• Magazine theme
  - think blog, on steroids
  - content freshness important, but quality has value too
  - home page usually showcases “best of” content
  - content often fits into clear categories (navigation)
• Content management system (business)
  - CMS
  - typically refers to complex, page centric sites
  - audience usually comes for static information, not “fresh” content
  - common for business & non-profits
• Portfolio
  - not an individual showcase
  - may or may not have “blog” component
  - typically a large focus on media
  - often a small, media-centric CMS

3 Types of Themes (from a Licensing perspective)

• Freely available, GPL (General Public License) compatible
• Commercially supported GPL
• Proprietary (non GPL) – doesn’t have to mean commercial
• Premium = NOT a type of theme

What comes in the box

• Default, pre-installed WordPress theme [Kubrick]
• Best place to find themes: Official WP Themes Directory
• Other resources: Smashing Magazine, ThemesPreview.com, WPHacks, Premium WP, StudioPress

Things to consider

• Price – think about time spent after purchase
• Support
• Quality of Design
• Features
• Ease of use

Tips for finding a consultant

• Show, don’t tell (see examples of themes)
• Ask for referrals
• Look behind the curtain (ask for examples for “out of the box” features)
• Be realistic about price expectations
• Have they given back to the community?

Customization

• Look for theme specific settings under “appearance” menu

Jake Gold, C. Murray Consulting
@jakemgold

Five Keys to a Successful Blog

1. Identify target personas

• Know who you’re writing for
• Your content pulls in your personas
• What keywords will attract your persona?
  - Fill your post with them
  - Build an archive of content full of them
• Choose your keywords. (Hubspot has the Keyword Grader keyword tool)
• A word of caution:
  - Writing for your persona doesn’t mean talking about your products/services
  - Write about things your audience WANTS to know about

2. Plan a Mix of Posts

• Example: NY Times, mix of news, opinions, business etc.
• Use a lot of types of posts to get traffic
• Types of blog posts
  - Raisin Bran: basic, everyday posts
  - Spinach: healthy, thoughtful posts
  - Roasts: big, beefy posts
  - Tobasco: posts that start a fire (controversial)
  - Chocolate cake: the sweet stuff (entertaining and fun)

3. Write great blogposts

• You don’t have to be Hemingway, just write great content
• Use headings
• 500-800 words (or shorter!)
• Lists are ok (just not too many)
• 1 idea per post

Blog Topic Ideas

• List of 5 ideas, trends or thoughts
• Publish a list of links
• Take a recent experience and share it
• Answer questions you received recently
• Comment on other blog articles
• Turn a press release into a blog article
• Check out your email inbox
• Always add a photo
  - Flickr (make sure you use advanced search, check off the creative commons box)
  - iStockphoto
  - Shoot your own

Where do you get ideas?

• Everywhere
• Keep a list
• When you learn something new, flesh it out
• Ask your readers
• Write great headlines

How to write a great headline

• Write the headline before the article
• Imagine people won’t see the article
• Surprise people
• No spelling errors!
• Use your keywords

4. Sustain It

• Pick a publishing schedule
  - Once a week
  - Stick to it
  - The goal is to build up a body of keyword-rich content
• Different ways of doing posts
  - Email interviews
  - Video interviews
  - Guest posts from people w/ similar blogs
  - “Best of” lists
  - “How we do it” posts
• Should I hire people?
  - Pros: you don’t have to do the work, you hire a “professional writer”
  - Cons: your writer doesn’t know your business/audience as well as you

5. Spread it

• Why leave comments?
  - Karma
  - Get noticed by other bloggers
  - Get noticed by other blog readers?
  - Links to your site
• Tips on comments
  - Share an example
  - Agree
  - Disagree
  - Add a useful link
  - Ask a question
  - Use your real name (not company)
• Publish on social media (
• Where do you link to your blog?
  - Homepage
  - Press releases
  - Comments

How to measure your blog

• Subscription (RSS, email)
• Pageviews
• Comments
• Inbound links
• Conversions

Speaker: Karen Rubin, Hubspot
@karenrubin

There aren’t a million grandiose secrets to blogging. (Although that would make a fantastic blogpost.) Write well, gain an audience, use your keywords…the list goes on and on.

There is one little thing you could do in order to get more readers, more subscribers, more retweets, more everything. And shh…it’s a secret.

It’s all about the title.

Hitting people’s pain points with your title is a sure fire recipe for a successful post. And here are some ideas on just how to do that.

• Don’t be afraid to be a little sarcastic.
• Create lists. “10 Things You Can’t Live Without”, “4 Reasons You Need To Know About X”, etc.
• Do the opposite. Instead of “5 Ways to Save Money with Y”, make the title “5 Ways Not to Lose Money using Y”.
• Think about your audience. “10 Things You’re Doing Wrong as an SEO”, “8 WordPress Plugins You’re Crazy Not to Be Using”, etc.

Then, after you come up with your award winning title, follow it up with some great content. That way, when someone sees a tweet, facebook status, search result, digg entry, etc. with your title and click, they aren’t disappointed.

Nicki Hicks
Sarcasm is bliss

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