If you’re not growing in your profession, you’re stagnating. That’s why we keep learning, learning, learning about inbound marketing! Here’s a wrap-up of the best stuff we’ve learned this week…
Social Media Blog Post Archives
Your Biggest Mistake in Measuring Social Media Success
Oct
30
2012
You think social media is a channel that it’s not, because you want it to be. All those people right there for the taking with all their interests laid out for you in their profiles. All that talk that lets you know what they’re thinking. It seems like the perfect place to make perfect customer matches. But, it’s not. At least not initially.
Final Lap for October 26: Best Online Marketing Stuff We Read This Week
Oct
26
2012
At Pole Position Marketing, we’re committed to continuous learning and growth in our industry. Here’s a round-up of what we think are some valuable gems this week on link building, content marketing, analytics, social media and more!
3 Benefits of Using an RSS Reader for Link Building
Oct
04
2012
The Internet is a great place to find information, and it totally rocks as a way to connect with niche writers and interest groups. Of course, the field is vast, and if you’re working hard to get others to link to your exceptional website content (it is exceptional, right?), you’ve got a lot of ground to cover.
Hopefully, you’re a link-building organizational wiz. But if you’re not organized by nature, or are just getting started with your link-building efforts, you may soon find yourself in the abyss of overload, which (I probably don’t need to tell you) can lead to expensive trips to the therapist’s office. I’d like to offer you some ideas that can help with information organization, just in time to avert therapy.
Do You Make These 3 Online Marketing Mistakes?
Aug
28
2012
Many thanks to Suzanne Arthur, owner of start-cleaning-business.com, for this helpful guest blog post.
Getting into business is like buying a car. Making assumptions about how it runs can steer you wrong. When choosing a name for your start-up, for example, you’ll want to consider how it works online, as well as how it represents your business. Likewise, think about the best ways to use the significant reach of social media websites so they enhance your web marketing plan, not replace it. And what about your call to action? Even if you have the finest gizmo in the universe (and undoubtedly you do), your website visitor won’t likely buy your product or service if they aren’t darn sure what’s in it for them.
Let Community Be King Over Your Content
May
29
2012
Several years ago I wrote an article declaring that content is dead and community is king. What’s most interesting about the article is that it contains zero references to Facebook and Twitter, two of the largest online communities today.
While content certainly isn’t dead, the passing years have really proven the value of community engagement. This is no more obvious than the invention of Google+, Google’s latest attempt to get into the social community business.
I recently published an article about how you can win anything with engagement, which explores how search engines are now looking to community engagement as a metric in the algorithms. Essentially, what we are seeing is a merging of content and community into one, where social engagement is the content and the messenger all at the same time.
Seven Over-Optimization Penalty What-If’s. Are You Ready for These?
Mar
21
2012
Both Google and Bing told an audience at South by South West (SXSW) that they are actively working on an over-optimization penalty in order to make their ranking algorithms better. Obviously, this raised some eyebrows with many people who wondered if this might translate into penalties for their websites that are being “optimized” by SEOs.
While no official details have been provided outside of the few comments made during the SXSW session, there is a lot of speculation as to just what this might mean and how it would effect sites that are being optimized. We can glean some answers from the comments themselves, but I wouldn’t expect too much more clarification that isn’t specifically designed to frighten SEOs and Web marketers into greater compliance with their webmaster guidelines.
Then again, following such guidelines is generally good practice for building a user-friendly website. Search engines, after all, just want to be like any other users (other than they don’t place orders for your products or services). Just for fun, let’s look at some “what if?” scenarios. These are all possibilities, and, even if there is little chance of them being worked into the algorithm, they might give you some good ideas about what you can do to better your online marketing efforts.
The Right Message May Not Be So Right for Your Audience
Feb
28
2012
The number one key to your business growth is crafting a message that speaks to your audience. Having the right message builds up your strengths and helps you overcome any deficiencies you might have.
McDonald’s doesn’t make the best hamburgers in the world, but they do have a great bit of messaging that speaks to their target audience. It’s that message, not the hamburgers, that makes Micky D’s the number one fast food restaurant in America.
While substance is important in order to have a great message, the message itself helps establish the perception of your substance. Much to my chagrin, my kids would rather go to McDonald’s over Burger King or Wendy’s. They don’t love the food as much as the box the food comes in, and not even close to as much as that toy inside the box.
McDonald’s has the right message for my kids. But I’m the wrong audience for that message, though I’m a sucker at giving my kids a fast-food treat of their choice! So, McDonald’s has a different message for me. Primarily, it’s a message to give my kids a fast-food treat of their choice!
Think Before You Pay Too Much for Social Media Monitoring
Feb
22
2012
With the meteoric rise of social media marketing, it only makes sense that tools to monitor those marketing efforts would proliferate. Paid tools run the gamut, from blessedly affordable (for solopreneurs and small businesses) to outrageously expensive (only the big guys can even hope to afford them).
Just like Web analytics tools, social media reporting systems can provide a wealth of data. But, is all that data necessary? How much of it is even useful? For most small and even medium-sized organizations, I would argue that only a small slice of what most reporting tools spit out is actionable.
Getting Link Value Out of Your Social Media Efforts
Feb
03
2012
How much link value does a tweet or Facebook like have? It just depends. White hat link builders know that, in most cases, high quality links take time to obtain. The same holds true in using social media to build links. Here are three things to consider.
Have Content Worthy Of Linking To
If you’ve been listening to or engaging in conversations regarding web marketing, you’ve probably heard this mentioned as often as the Pittsburgh Steelers have been to the Super Bowl: you’ve got to have great content to build links.
Having just one piece of content won’t be enough to sustain value over time. It’s vital to have a content strategy. By having a strategy, you’re able to build a following that generally consists of your target audience. If you create well-researched and well-written content around their needs, you’ll naturally build links and become a source of authority. Blogs can be a great platform for sharing content, but there are many other innovative content types.
- "Our clients often tell us we're one in a million. Turns out we're really just one of a hundred thousand or so. But what they're really saying is that we get results that increase traffic, sales and ROI! Number one of a million? Yeah, that's where we put you when we velocitize your web marketing."
