The Maine SEO Blog

I’ve started seeing all these new posts about how Facebook “Likes” are no longer important. It’s more important now to start measuring and tracking your engagement rather than number of Likes.

While I agree that it’s all about engagement and we need to learn how to engage people enough to share our content on Facebook, I believe there is still a need for gaining Facebook “Likes” otherwise the engagement just doesn’t come.

Mari Smith points out in her blogpost, “Ways to Craft Your Facebook Posts for Maximum Shares”, that anyone can share, comment,  and/or like your updates on your Facebook business page, they don’t HAVE to like it first. This is new to Facebook and it’s a good thing. Her post is amazing by the way, if you haven’t had a chance go check it out as there are excellent tips in there to get your content shared.

Engagement is gold. It is much easier to measure engagement and see the benefits, than to judge your success simply through your Facebook “Likes” going up in number. However, unless there is an audience there that is already fairly involved how are they going to see you in the first place to share those items?

So, I say while engagement is the new measurement, because it’s really all about getting seen and improving reach through shares of your content, you still have to get the “Likes” first, or at least a base of “Likers.”

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Facebook Business Pages

I’ve been bad. Very, very bad…about blogging. This is the first post I’ve written in November.

You may have had a similar experience. Maybe you got busy with work. Maybe you haven’t had any great ideas. Maybe you feel like you’ve written about everything there is to write about. Fear not, my friend. Perhaps climbing out of my own blogging coma will help you conquer yours.

Luckily, the blogosphere is a forgiving world. You may have missed out on some traffic, but it’s ok. Go ahead and pick up where you left off.

You’re simply too busy

I understand, real work gets put ahead of blogging. But think about it this way: blogging is a form of marketing and another way to ensure you’ll continue having that work in weeks and months to come. Here are a few easy ways to get around the “time” issue:

Figure out what works for you. Is it easier to blog first thing in the morning? During lunch? At home? Over the weekend? Do you prefer writing just one post at a time? Or do you like to create several when inspiration strikes? Regardless, figure out the schedule that works for you…and do it!

Keep It Simple, Stupid. You don’t need a ground breaking, earth shattering blogpost every single time. Use resources like the questions your customers ask you every day for inspiration. Often times, the quick, easy, and simple posts are the best ones.

Now you’re just making things up. Most of us aren’t too busy to watch our favorite shows. Most of us aren’t too busy to catch the game. Try multi-tasking; if you can sit in front of the TV and watch the ball game and blog, then do it! Or, if you need peace and quiet, carve out 15 or 30 minutes and write your post. That’s why they invented DVR, right?

You don’t have anything to write about or you’ve written about everything

Inspiration isn’t going to hit every day of the week – and if it does, you’re lucky – but that doesn’t mean you can’t inspire yourself.

Use tools at your disposal. There are a ton of tools out there from Google Insights for hot, new keyword ideas to Google Alerts for daily or weekly updates about new articles, blogposts, and websites in your industry. There are hundreds, even thousands of these type of tools out there, but these two are my go-to’s.

Listen to what other people are saying. Lean on your favorite writers, bloggers in your niche, or even your competitors. My favorites for SEO are the SEOmoz blog, Search Engine Roundtable, and Search Engine Land. Whatever your favorite blogs may be, make sure you subscribe to them (be it via email or RSS) and read them as often as you can.

Find a new way to spice up old blogposts. Use tricks like checking out your Google Analytics or using a different blogging technique to resurrect an old post you created.

And there you have it. Now get out there and write! But first…what are your tips or tricks for getting yourself out of a blogging coma?

Image credit: xlibber

Nicki Hicks
Really, what’s cuter than a sleeping baby?

I love Facebook Ads, in fact I think that they offer amazing opportunities for those with smaller budgets to get in front of the right audience.  With that said, if you are going to create an ad, you should take the time to make sure it’s going to be an effective one.

Take for instance this ad I saw yesterday on my wall for a pillow.

I loved the pillows so I actually clicked on the ad.  However, it takes me to a web page off Facebook.  Which is fine, because I expected that from the ad showing the url, however, it doesn’t bring me to the pillows at all.  It brings me to a pop up window that asks me to sing up for membership.

Now, because it didn’t lead me to what I wanted and I didn’t want to sign up for membership, I left the site immediately.  Which means, the advertiser was charged for my click, but I didn’t not make a purchase or become a member, which were probably two of their goals for the ad. DON’T run an ad like this!

Next ad… And this one is much better I admit, because it actually brings you to the image of what they are advertising for and a very quick form to fill out to purchase the item.

However, rather than bringing me off page to their website, they should have an ability to purchase from their Facebook page, keeping me where I want to be and possibly gaining a “Like” from me, so I see more of their updates for FREE!

And, the last Ad is a great example of what to do with your Facebook Ads. 

This ad keeps me on Facebook, asks me to “Like” the page which encourages further interaction/engagement down the road, tells me a friend of mine likes it and lets me know what I can expect to get from liking the Facebook page.

Now, not all Facebook ads HAVE to point back to a Facebook page.  However, in my experience the ones that do see better results.

So, how should you set up your Facebook ad?

- Don’t point them to external pages off of Facebook (keep your audience where they want to be)
- Don’t mislead if you are showing them an image that you are selling, lead them to that page
- Do ask for a like (you want your dollar to go further than that one click)
- Do have an eCommerce landing page on your Facebook page
- Do tell them what they will receive or can expect for becoming a fan
- Keep it social, people are more likely to “Like” a page a fan likes

So, get out there and create GOOD ads.  Good Luck!

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Facebook Advertiser

Recently, my friends and I have been hiking every weekend. It’s a great way to get some exercise in and it’s a fun activity to explore nature with friends. Not to mention it’s something that I can do with my dog on the weekend to give him a much needed energy release after being cooped up in the house all week. But, it wasn’t until I wrote a blog post for a client on Maine’s Waterfalls that I started to get really inspired.

Maine has a crazy amount of beauty and so many things to discover. But, the caveat to that is, in order to see a beautiful waterfall or awe inspiring mountain view, you first have to make the hike to do it. Hiking is NOT easy. In fact, many of the trails that are required to get to these Mountain Tops can cause you pain and exhaustion. However, once you hit that apex you get to stroll down and the endorphins kick in and it was all worth it.

But, the more you hike, the easier it gets. You develop your muscles, strengthen your heart and lungs and build endurance. In the end, it becomes more natural and more enjoyable.

SO, what does this have to do with web marketing success? EVERYTHING!

Social media doesn’t come naturally to everyone. I can’t count how many times we hear clients say that they didn’t know it was going to be so much work.  Blogging is work, creating content is work, posting updates takes time and imagination and it all has to be valuable and interesting information for your audience.

Waterfalls were my inspiration, what’s yours?  What is going to get you excited to put the work and effort in to get the web marketing and social media results that you want? You can look for inspiration for your posts in many places, did someone say something to you today that sparked an idea, did you hear something on the radio, did you read a blog or magazine article that got you thinking? Anything you hear, read or do can be used to spark an idea for a blog post or Twitter update.

Like with starting a workout or starting to hike, it takes time to adjust and adapt to your new activity until it becomes easier or a habit.  This also goes for web marketing.  Right now it may not seem like it fits in your schedule or it may not feel natural to you.  But, the more you do it the easier it becomes.  Create an editorial calendar for yourself and stick to it. Commit to posting one blog post a week or making 3 updates on Facebook a day. Do that until you master it and then add on the next phase of your web marketing plan.  Like with taking a hike, the first trail is the hardest and with every new trail (or marketing step you take) the easier it becomes.

Results! We all do this because we want the web marketing results.  With a hike it’s an amazing view, endorphins released from exercise, fresh air or a waterfall, with web marketing we want to get our message to the right people resulting in our end goal.  Whether that goal be more leads in the sales funnel, more people attending your event, more traffic to your website or better customer service web marketing and social media are just our tools to help us achieve those goals.

So, what are you waiting for? Find your inspiration, make the commitment, and take the first steps.

If you’d like help developing a social media plan for your business, or a personal trainer for your social media marketing to help you stay with it, flyte can help. Just contact us to get the ball rolling.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Hiking Web Everest

Have you ever checked out the keywords in your Google Analytics only to find that the top 10 search queries are all different variations of the name of your business? It’s ok. It happens to every business.

What does it mean?

Unless you have an incredibly general business name, people shouldn’t have a hard time finding you online. Even though you certainly want people to be searching for your business name online, I would argue that you also want to be found via search terms from people who don’t know you exist as well.

Think about it. We’ll rank for “flyte new media” all day long; but what about “Portland Maine web design“?

Ok, so how do I fix it?

There are a ton of things you can do to help your website start ranking for non-branded search terms. Here are just a few to get you started:

• Optimize your website. Make sure that your non-branded keywords are used throughout your title tags, headers, copy, and links.
• Start blogging.  Blogging is a simple and easy way to optimize for very targeted keyword phrases. The part most people forget? Regardless of whether or not your blog lives on your website or on its own domain, make sure that you link to pages on your website as they apply – and be sure the links themselves use your non-branded keywords.
• Go local. If your business is local, make sure that its categories include your non-branded keywords. Most local search engines (like Google Places) allow you to apply at least five categories to your business listing.

There you have it. What are your methods for ranking better for non-branded search terms?

Nicki Hicks
SEO for Non-Branding

Something funny just happened. Did you tweet about it? 

You saw something strange. Did you take a picture of it and Facebook it?

You found a great article online. Did you share it with your social community?

It should be as easy as that right? But, it’s just not coming naturally for you.  You ask yourself why is it so easy for everyone else?

And, while it may not be easy for everyone else, Mashable just posted a blog talking about a new study that came out the may prove that it is more natural for others to participate in social media and use these tools for business than others.

Researchers at University College London published a new study in Proceedings of the Royal Society B, based on MRIs of a group of 165 adults who were asked to report the number of Facebook friends they have. The research discovered that those with higher Facebook friend counts had more grey matter density in the amygdala, an area the study says was already known to be linked to real world social network size, as well as in other regions including the right entorhinal cortex, which is associated with memory.

This doesn’t mean that you can’t learn to be more social, as according to the research study, they are not sure which came first, did these people have a more social brain before or after they started using these social tools? Which came first, the chicken or the egg?

So, while getting started using these social tools isn’t always easy, you can take notes on what others are doing and learn from them.

For instance, pick the social network that comes easiest to you and makes the most business sense for you to use and then do it every day until you master it.

Take Facebook for instance, brainstorm ideas for updates, posts, pictures, and videos that you can share.  Look at what others like you are doing.  Pay attention to what the experts are doing. Is there anything they are doing that sparks inspiration for you? What are your competitors doing? What are you doing on a daily basis that can be re purposed for content? Are you taking video? Photos? Answering customer questions? Or, working on a new project?

My advice? Concentrate on one thing at a time, make a habit of it, and then move to the next item.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Maine SEO Blog

There are a ton of websites where you can buy royalty free images, but how about some where you can get them for free? Enter Flickr’s Creative Commons, a section of the site where users can allow their images to be used (basically) royalty free.

1. Start by going to the Creative Commons section in Flickr.

2. Choose the photo you’d like to use.

3. Check what type of attribution, commercial use, and derivative works the photographer allows for the photo; it could be any of the following:

• Attribution-Noncommercial-ShareAlike
• Attribution-Noncommercial Creative Commons
• Attribution-Noncommercial-Noderivs
• Attribution Creative Commons
• Attribution-ShareAlike Creative Commons
• Attribution-Noderivs Creative Commons

4. Attribute properly and as long as you follow the rules set by the photographer, publish away!

Nicki Hicks
Free photos, FTW!

Keyword research Notes from Keyword Research & Copywriting SMX East 2011 – Christine Churchill, President KeyRelevance Follow her at @keyrelevance

Keywords are important because people still type in phrases and terms to find things online.

Everyone wants to be #1 on Google, and it takes a lot of know how, keywords, links, social, etc. You can increase conversions by speaking the customer’s language. By using the keywords they are using you are speaking like your customers, so they feel like you get them. Also, try to find overlooked or new keywords and take advantage of longer tail phrases.

Below you will find notes from SMX East’s Keyword Presentation, it will cover where marketers get their keywords, how the cycle of finding your keywords works, important tools and how to use these for ideas on content creation and copywriting.

Where marketers Get Keywords:

• Site log files for converting keywords – Google Analytics
• Google Analytics for frequent words
• Internal site search
• Competitor sites
• Competitive intelligence tools
• Exploring long search phrases
• Social semantic mining

Cycle of keyword research

1. Brainstorming and discovery
2. Keyword expansion
3. Keyword evaluation

Brainstorm and Discovery phase:

• Brainstorming – no judging words at this stage. Goal is to cast your net widely and generate broad list.
• Keyword lists from within company
• Review company website and print collateral
• Press releases
• Often too much insider jargon
• May or may not be customer’s lingo
• Customers’ words are disconnected from marketing department, change keywords and traffic rises, if you are using the words your audience is using.

Other good places to look at what language your target audience is using:

• Conduct customer interviews
• Customer surveys and focus groups
• Talk to support of sales personnel who talk directly to customers
• Search twitter and blogs and social media
• Review discussion forums, user generated talk
• Online magazines or print
• Company and product reviews
• Online thesaurus

Competitors:

• Review their website and collateral for keywords
• Look at words they are buying in PPC
• What terms are they targeting in SEO?
• Can give you competitive insights and ideas on overlooked terms

Analytics:

• Captures “exact phrase” that searcher entered
• Provide rich source of keyword data, but only show what’s currently working
• Could reveal “untapped” keyword gems

Site search box

• Reveals keywords and expressions that visitors are actually using/wanting
• Gives insight into relative popularity
• Can follow visitors path and see if site converts
• Make sure you collect all info
• Can tie your site search into your analytics to see what people are searching for
• Can get inside mind of consumer when they are coming to your website

Why Use Tools for Keyword Research?

• Save $ / time
• Provide insight outside of your site
• Identifies keyword opportunities you might miss
• Offers popularity #s you can’t get from your own analytics
• Moves you beyond keyword assumptions
• Allows you to compare phrases

Free Tools:

• Google keyword tool
• Webmaster tools
• Insights
• Trends
• Content targeting
• Adcenter labs tools
• Microsofrt ascenter add in for excel

Paid Tools:

• Wordtracker
• Trellian
• Hitwise
• Wordstream
• Nichbot
• Comscore
• spyFU

Why pay? It’s usually a suite and you get a lot more then just a list of keywords. Looking at Different Tools: Google Keyword Tool

• Free and easy
• Provides keyword volume data from Google
• Finds synonyms
• Can export to excel
• You can log in to your Google account for more keywords and options including local trends
• If you log in you are going to get more keyword choices, more columns, more options
• Select “exact match” or “phrase match” when doing SEO research, broad makes large jumps in lateral thinking, comes up with some terms that aren’t as great
• Advanced options, allows you to choose country, language, mobile research (just added back in Dec) you will get diff numbers for laptops vs mobile devices
• Recently added column is Google Search Network – added as option but have to be logged in to see it, it’s goole and it’s partner sites, not just Google, so pulls in more data, #’s tend to be higher
• Can use words, phrase, url (competitor, page, etc)

Google Trends

•  Monitors trends
• Allows you to compare popular phrases – ex. Myspace and Facebook, you could use plural and reg form of a keyword and see what’s more popular
• Also can plug in website and look at stats
• Also visited and also searched for sections tell you that searchers that went to this website, also went to these other sites
• Hot trends – good for helping you come up with blog posts, articles, find what’s hot that day

Google Insights

• Trends on steroids
• Allows you to see and monitor trends, but allows you to see keywords related to the one you are looking at
• Last few years lots of changes in keywords because economy affects what people are saying and searching for
• Key relevance – can find that in states terms are more popular than in another – can be better to check out for regional or local search stuff
• Rising searches – very valuable for up and coming phrases, break out means there has been like a 500% increase, so great terms to use, since new and growing – a lot of them aren’t quite as competitive
• Monitors seasonality – this is good for mapping out key phrases for over the month, so great for blog posts, articles etc.

Google Contextual targeting tool

• Free tool
• Builds themed keyword lists
• Great for keyword expansion and lateral thinking
• Provides ideas for organizing and structuring your keyword lists
• Basically it’s textual wonder wheel – (wonder wheel cancelled in July, don’t know if it’s coming back)
• If you were a wonder wheel fan it’s the tool for you

Keyword Discovery

• Multiple databases
• Global, historical global, international, news, shoping, eBay
• Provides seasonal data and trends
• Includes suite of tools – misspellings, keyword density tool (uses as a double check, to see where different phrases were used on the site)

Wordtracker

• Data pulled from meta search engines
• Eliminates most skewing issues caused by bots
• Differentiates between singular and plural
• Offer free tool for trial
• Questions tool so you can see what’s being asked – create blog posts or articles

Wordstream

• Keyword tool, PPC management., Pay Per Click checker gives you feedback on your campaigns

Google Instant

• Shows results as you type, great suggestions for phrases and titles for blog posts and content

Soovle.com

• Kind of like Google instant
• Pulls keywords suggestions from several different sites and puts them in one place
• Helpful to see if you missed things during brainstorm

Ubersuggest

• Start typing in phrase and it will go through the alphabet, lists them all for you, keyword ideas etc.

Twitter Search

• Trends – gives you pulse of what’s on web and what’s hot
• Look through and do searches to find good blog post and content ideas
• Great for knowing in real time what’s going on
• Great for monitoring what others are saying about your products/services, which helps you find customer language

YouTube

• YouTube search suggests keywords, pulls from YT searches and titles
• Your results will be different than Google, as people use different words and phrases to search video
• Also look at promoted videos to see keywords suggested and used

Google Sets

• Google will come up with a couple sets to help with your list, and comes up with longer lists

AdCenter Labs Tools

• Search Funnels – gives insight into mind of the user, shows searches before and after a term you put it

Yahoo

• Good for trending info, their trending is going to be different than Google, usually heavier on the entertainment side
• Suggestion box is pretty good as well, some of their suggestions are actually embedded in the phrase rather than just at the beginning

Quintura

• Allows you to navigate by clouds
• The larger, bold words are the most popular
• good for brainstorming and broadening keyword buckets

Ask

• They will show you related searches, but will also do related questions, invaluable for coming up with content ideas for what’s fresh new and on top of peoples minds

Microsofts’ ad intelligence

• Excel plugin
• Provides related keywords
• Fast for building out lists
• Extracts keywords for URL
• Gives insights on seasonal “spiky” keywords
• Shows geographic and demographic info on keywords

Keyword Expansion Phase:Target variations of your keywords

• Comparison – best, compare, reviews
• Price – cheap, discount
• product descriptor – green, plus size, ;unique
• intended use – gift for grandmother, baptism
• product
• location
• action
• season
• abbreviations
• brand/vendor/manufacturer

Keyword “buckets”

• Group related keywords into lists of related terms
• Do a series of keyword research projects on a site, not one (can do one search for every area of a website, that are more specific) do a different series of research for each site – break it into pieces
• Develop a keyword matrix – url, main phrases,

Keyword permutationsTools for permutations – aaron wall, excel, concatenate tool

• Relevancy to site (meaning choosing the kw that best describes what the site offers, traffic alone isn’t the goal, you want targeted traffic)
• Keyword popularity (number of searches done in a period of time, popular phrases less relevant, more competitive, cars or homes ex, in most cases less popular phrases are better)
• Users intent (research vs purchase, stage in buying process, kw indicate where consumer is in the buying process) you want to match your content to satisfy the user’s intent when using the keyword – for instance review in the beginning, fast or quick in terms they want to find buy button, those landing pages that you tie with those keywords are going to be very important (80% of all searches on the web are non commercial)
• competition (who is raking for your keyword terms? Who has PPC ads? Search term parity – if you are trying to win something in SEO you have to do as much as the person that is currently ranking, how much are their bids, how optimized is the site, linkage info, anchor text etc., what keywords are optimized and where are they on page) Competitive tols – Hitwise, Comscore, SEOMOZ keyword tool difficulty, SEM Rush, performance – test keyword performance look at analytics

Content optimization:

• Think phrase not just single keyword, use matrix,
• Title tages best to optimize
• Title appears in first line of listing on SERP
• Spend extra time to create compelling titles that grab attention
• Include keywords
• Meta important bc snippit that gets ppl to click on your page, keywords and strong mrkting message – good description will get ppl to click on you even if you are lower on the page
• h tags
• Visible portion of page
• Al attribute
• Links and anchor text
• File names
• url

Images as content

• Optimize images by using kw description in file name, alt ext, caption etc.
• On page
• Anchor text huge
• Home page strongest, most targeted
• Internal page SEO – look at slides
• Talk about benefits not features – makes people more interested

3 Types of searchers:

1. navigational – type in your website
2. informational – enter questions
3. transactional – buying ones/subscribing ones, download

*note: no tool is 100% accurate, but it’s a good ballpark estimate Using all in title helps to see who is optimized for that particular subset

How many terms should you target a page? It’s subjective and need to look at competitors, and look at linkage data and where you are ranking. Look at your Page Rank, and it depends on that as well, long tails better, and then each page should have laser focus on one term. But, usually two or three phases max.

Does it matter where keywords are in page content? Yes. You want it early, prominent bold, header tag, linked, title, bulleted, links, etc. Sends signal to search engines that’s what the page is about.

The above is a very thorough list of tools and ways of finding keywords. Of course this can all seem a bit overwhelming, so I would recommend finding the tools that work best for you and sticking to 2 – 3 different sources.  Also, within most of the tools talked about above there are tips on how to use those for coming up with blog titles and content ideas. If you are ever having a hard time coming up with content these are great quick fixes to get the juices flowing.

What tools do you currently use or would you recommend? Are there any methods you are currently using that you don’t see mentioned above?  Share them with us in the comments

This is one of my favorite blogging tricks and regardless of whether you’re running out of ideas or not, this little tip is great wayto re-kindle some traffic and re-inspire using your most popular posts. That said, let’s get right to it.

Start by logging into your Google Analytics account and going to Traffic Sources > Sources > Search > Organic.

If you’re looking at statistics for just your blog, then you’ll probably already see some great ideas for blogposts. Regardless, change the number of rows shown to the maximum number (500), then continue scrolling down for more keyword ideas.

You’ll start to see limited searches for the same term (1, 2, maybe even 3). These longtail search terms are the perfect start for additional blogposts. Sure, people already use these to find you, but why not use what works? Here’s a quick snapshot:

I might take some of these keyword phrases and create posts like:

• The 100 Most Like Pages on Facebook (similar to this post)
• Alt Tags and Image Descriptions in Facebook (similar to this post)
• How do Alt Tags Help with Google Image Search? (similar to this post)
• What’s the Difference Between an Alt Tag, Image Title, Description, and Caption? (similar to this post)
• Analytics Decreasing? Here’s Why.
• My Bounce Rate is Really High. I think… (similar to this post)

Facebook releases new metrics for better measurement of how and where your Facebook content is being shared.

Facebook has released several new metrics, among those are Engaged Users, Virality, Reach and individual Post data.  While I think most of these will be very helpful and overall this is a fantastic addition to the Insights platform, the one I think is the most interesting is the new Facebook metric called “People Are Talking About This.”

This is the most comprehensive metric that Facebook has come out with yet.  This number represents an accounting of all user-initiated activity related to your company’s Page.

“The people talking about this” metric measures:

• Liking a page;
• Posting to a page’s wall;
• Liking, commenting, or sharing a page’s status update, photo, video, or other content;
• Answering a question posted by a page;
• RSVPing to an event hosted by the page;
• Mentioning the page (users must formally tag the page);
• Tagging a page in a photo;
• Liking or sharing a check-in deal, and
• Checking in at a place.

These metrics will help businesses measure the real reach and effectiveness of their Facebook Business Pages.  Until now, the information was really weak.  Now companies will be able to see how well items performed leading them to create more posts that people want to share and that have an affect on their audience.

In their press release, Facebook said “Research shows that word-of-mouth conversations among friends are the most influential for getting a brand’s message across,” this new metric is a perfect way to measure that.

The new insights tab will only be available to page administrators, according to Inside Facebook, but pages will display a counter of people talking about this just below their like counts.  Since the count is visible to everyone, this will allow for  competitive brands to take a peek at how their competition is doing in comparison.

Check out the new page insights by clicking on your Insights link on your Facebook Business Page or read the Page Insights Guide.

Joan Woodbrey Crocker
Measure Measure Measure