The Importance of Video on Your Blog
May 8, 2012
There’s a couple of cool things about using video in your blog: not only are people more likely to watch it than read a ton of dense text, video actually affords you lots of creative opportunity to bring information to your “readers” in compelling (and memorable) ways.
Check out these stats……
- Visitors who view product videos are 85% more likely to buy than visitors who do not, according to Internet Retailer, April 2010. (via Invodo)
- From a study by Simply Measured, video on your brand’s Facebook Timeline increases engagement by 33%. (via VatorNews)
- According to a Google report from 2010, “Video exhibits higher click-through rates than non-video for both in-page as well as expanding rich media formats.”
- Ever since Google integrated video into its universal search offering in 2007, websites featuring video have gained a significant SEO advantage. When a company integrates relevant videos that match the content of its website, search engines find and index the video within the site’s context. This improves your overall website and video search ranking as it relates to your business’ keywords, and also allows search results to be presented with matching videos, making them more appealing, thereby increasing search-based traffic. (SearchEngine Land)
Did You Graduate From Link Building High School Yet?
9th Grade: Links You Can Build Yourself That Require Little Time Investment
Before I get into this, I’d like to stress that you should have a really good keyword strategy and make sure you’ve optimized each page on your site around a different keyword phrase. Any link you’re building should be designed to help a specific page rank high in the search engines for a specific keyword.
That said, the first set of links that every business should get are the ones that don’t require anyone else’s help. There are lots of business directories out there where you can just submit your URL, company name, and a description of your business. Some of them require approval. Some of them require a fee. Yahoo’s directory, Joe Ant, Aboutus.org are some of the ones you should do right away.
In this class of Level I links, there are also many social media sites where you can simply build links to your site. Most of these no longer pass SEO credit, but they’re still good links to get, assuming your target audience visits the site or these sites rank high for your keywords already.
It’s arguable that you should hire someone to do (or start) this stuff for you. It’s low level work that generates low level returns. Just make sure that you don’t hire a firm that will get you 1,000 links for < $1,000 dollars. If it’s too good to be true, it is.
10th Grade: Links You Build Yourself that Require Effort
Before I get into this level, I’d like to stress that launching a business blog should be done before doing this. Without having a blog on your site with lots of good, well-optimized content, you don’t really have anything to link to.
That said, there are two very common link building techniques that work well that don’t require you to be a “thought leader”. Yet. These activities require a bit more time investment and a small financial investment. They are article marketing and press release optimization. With both of these methods, you have to create relevant content that will appeal to your market. So, it requires more time than Level I. Also, the process of getting your articles syndicated and your press releases submitted and picked up – takes effort. You might consider hiring a wired pr firm or a strong SEO firm to do some of this stuff for you.
If done correctly, both of these methods can significantly increase the links to your site. Also, if you write your articles and press releases with a keyword strategy in mind, and with links that support your keyword strategy, it can significantly increase your rankings for specific keyword terms. Run your press releases and your articles through press release grader to determine whether they’re going to help.
11th Grade: Links You Network For that Require a Significant Time Investment
This part of link building is kind of like sales. Cold calling can be done effectively with persistence. But, networking, getting referrals, giving first, the law of attraction, etc is a better way of getting new clients.
Link building is the same way. If you’re more of a cold caller type, and there are lots of potential places you can get a link, you might consider just creating a list of webmasters and asking them for a link.
If you’re a natural networker and you’re in this for the long haul, I’d recommend being a bit more patient. Apply your persistence and spend your time building relationships.
No matter what route you take, the goal of this level is to make yourself visible among people interested in the same topics as you. This process is a bit self promotional. But, you must promote yourself in a way that you’re adding value. You master this level by acting like a resource for people in your industry. How do you do this? It’s all about networking and building meaningful relationships. The first step is reading other people’s blogs. Then, commenting on them. Then, eventually starting a relationship where you’re communicating 1-on-1 with them. I recommend you take the leap from reader to 1:1 with a blogger, by pointing them in the direction of other people’s content that might be interesting to them. In the non-marketing world, this usually happens through email. In the marketing world, this usually happens through Twitter. If you’re techy, this might happen through Delicious. If you use StumbleUpon or Digg, those are great platforms to share things with peers. Even google reader lets you do this kind of networking. But, it can certainly happen through any social networking platform or system that enables 1:1 communication.
From a link building perspective, the ultimate goal of this level is to get invited to write a guest article for other people’s blogs or website. For example, I wrote an article about inbound lead generation for Aaron Ross not too long ago. In the article, I linked to relevant resources on my blog and the HubSpot blog and site. These are great links from an authoritative source. Aaron reaches our target market sending relevant traffic. These links also help us rank for our target keywords.
During this process, you’re also building up a group of people that will most likely begin following you…
Seniors Rule! (12th Grade): Links Other People Give You Because You Create Remarkable Content.
This level is like the last month or two in high school when you’ve already passed midterms and you’ve been accepted to the college of your choice. You’ve done the hard work already. Now, it’s time to go to parties and enjoy being the carefree big man on campus.
You don’t necessarily halt the activities above. But, you spend more of your time just creating remarkable content. (And some link bait.)
At HubSpot, we do some guest articles once in a while and we optimize our press releases. But, mostly we just put time into churning out content on our blog and producing other online marketing resources like webinars and white papers. Some of you seem to think this stuff is pretty remarkable. As a result, it generally creates great conversations in our comments, strong attendance at our webinars and lots of white paper downloads. And regularly, people link to our webinar announcements and blog articles of their own accord.
This doesn’t start happening overnight, unless you’re already famous. We have a lot of advantages at HubSpot. Website Grader’s success, funding in the bank, successful clients, smart founders who started blogging before they had a product and now… a lot of employees who contributor to the blog, a strong social media following, etc.
But, we did it in < 2 years. If you’re a small business and you follow the path above, there’s no reason why you can’t stake your claim on the web. Link building is an important part of that. Hopefully, this post demystifies the process a bit and gives you a roadmap to get started.
The biggest mistake that newbie internet marketers make is thinking that creating great content on their blog will be all it takes to be successful internet marketers. My biggest frustration is when newbie bloggers pack up shop after just a month of writing because the blog doesn’t have an immediate impact on their search traffic and lead volume.
At the end of the day, if you publish great content on the web AND connect, relate and build relationships with other humans, really good links will come naturally. Until then, put in some homework and earn your way through link building high school.
Photo by CarbonNYC
Make it EASY for Your Prospects to Work With You
March 8, 2012
I know this sounds like, “duh, MJTVgirl….you into the wine a little early today?” — but, in reality, many of us have this issue. Any of these sound familiar?
- “I don’t want to put prices on my page – each client is sooooo different,”
- “I will put up ALL the things I could ever conceive of doing for a client on the website. They will find what they are looking for,”
- “A website is the place I can showcase everything….that way, everyone will see how incredibly talented I am!”
OK..no. No. And most definitely NO.
Let’s address pricing: do you realize that you are missing a HUGE SEO opportunity if you don’t talk about pricing? What if you wrote an article that addressed “How Much Does it Cost to X” – fill in your specialty or product. Wouldn’t that be an article you think a LOT of your prospective customers would be searching for? Particularly if you are in a business where the pricing is not necessarily so available? If you are clear about your pricing, say it.
In terms of a business that custom-fits the product or service to the client need, that is fine, however, I would recommend you come up with “products”: packages that you know many of your target customers would want. This is a great way to show them the product/service you are offering can be boxed-up in a meaningful way — and they can get their heads around what you do. If you are so vague about how everything will work, they won’t trust you and will go elsewhere.
Next – there is not really such a thing as a competent generalist. Most of us do some sort of specialized work. Whether it is for one or two industries or within one category. For example, both of these could be true: “I build pools” OR “I build high-end, custom pools.” If you have a beautiful mansion and are looking for something really unique, who would YOU call? The point is, be specific to what you’re offering. The narrower (narrower?) you can be, the more expressive and the more you can address specific issues — these are your clients. Searching for help and finding that level of specificity feels like slipping into a warm bath. Ahhhhhh……
One more little point on this: If we are the pros, why would you leave it up to those who seek the help to “figure it out” on your website what you do and how you can help them? I would never want to leave it up to a customer who is looking for help to accurately diagnose what type of help he or she needs. In a service industry, that is my job. All they know is “something isn’t working and I need help.” For god’s sake, help ‘em find help.
The third no-no is really just an ego issue. Remember — the best copywriting, the best kind of content addresses the NEED – and it’s not “hey, wonder where I can find a guy with a HUGE ego to help me?” No one is searching for that. They need your help. Let them find you. OK?
mary jo cranmore
