SEO Is Dead. Here's What Is Taking Its Place

Thanks to recent Google changes, search engine optimization isn't nearly as powerful as it used to be. But that's OK--there's a better way.

BY Erik Sherman

If you've ever tried to deal with search engine optimization, you most likely have, at some point or another, wanted to bundle your whole site up and toss it into the nearest virtual trash can. Particularly if you felt compelled to focus on keywords, or any other technique calculated to artificially pique someone's mouse clicks.

You should be delighted to hear then, if you haven't heard yet, that the old-fashioned concept of SEO is deader than last week's sandwich. Google pretty much pounded the crap out of keyword stuffing and other absurdities with the search algorithm changes it's made over the last couple of years. And then Google made search secure, which means you can't even see what keywords someone used to get to your site.

It's about time, because all the minutiae blinded entrepreneurs to what is really important: making a connection with an audience. The term--not exactly new--that seems to be displacing SEO is OAO, online audience optimization. Before getting too squirrelly about another Three Letter Acronym, let's get grounded and think about what's important.

Really Know Your Audience
Over on the Marketingland blog, Brian Clark quoted great old-time advertising copyrighter Eugene Schwartz:

One hour a day, read. Read everything in the world except your business. Read junk. Very much junk. Read so that anything that interests you will stick in your memory. Just read, just read, just read... There is your audience. There is the language. There are the words that they use.

Clark takes this to mean that you have to understand the language and words people use so you know how to talk to them. I'll take it a step further. Not only do you need to know how they talk, which lets you better guess how they might specifically look for what you offer, but you also need to understand what they find funny. What scares them. What is important to them. How they think. Until you do, they're only marks and you do nothing more than run calculated cons. After you do understand them, they're real people and you might find yourself caring a bit about them. Good--care more.

Translate Caring Into Specific Actions
Do you care about your significant other, family members, or friends? If so, then there are plenty of times that you'll do specific things that you know make them happy. Emotion isn't an abstract concept, but something that drives behavior. Let the same thing happen in your marketing after you start to care about the audience. For example, Linda Ruth lists nine steps for OAO, including be consistent and clear about strategy and purpose, encourage audience participation, and employ engagement metrics and gamification techniques. 

Maybe you'll find that your list is the same. Maybe it will be somewhat different. Just make sure it comes with a focus on customers and how you can provide what they need.

It's like going into a shop you like where the people recognize you and get your interests and tastes. That's all you're trying to do. When the technology, any technology, gets in the way, drop it out back and return to the basics.

 Article curated from Inc. Magazine

How to Master the 4 Big Social-Media Platforms

Most people think of social media as distribution and use the same messaging on every platform. That's not fully exploiting the tools.

Think of how you act with your friends versus how you act with your clients. You behave differently based on your environment. Social media is the same thing. Every platform is like a different meeting, a different room, and you have to be cool or quality depending where you are. Most people think of social media as distribution and use the same messaging on every platform. That's not fully exploiting the tools. Instead, it's important to figure out how to natively tell stories on each platform and which visuals and copy will enhance the likelihood of a given post's going viral.

Twitter

I included #business, because it was a trending topic at the time of this tweet. When you use a hashtag that's trending, you have a substantially better chance of getting engagement from people who aren't your followers. The couple hundred people who click that hashtag every hour around the world might also see it, and I might get some traction I might not otherwise have gotten.I also made my tweet a question, because it makes your brain think about the answer. If I can get someone to stop for half a second to ponder, I've got him in my ecosystem. Also, line breaks allow your tweet to take up a larger portion of the phone screen and attract attention.

Facebook
It all starts with the image. Notice, this image isn't just the label of the bottle. It's an original piece. When you're developing images for Facebook, think about print and magazine advertising. I want people to know what wine it is (hence the crop in on the label) and how good it is (hence the Wine Enthusiast score). Keep your copy short. Include the important information that people will care about. In this case, it's the rating, the price, and the right hook: Click here to buy now. And don't be afraid to go in for the sale. If you want someone to do something, you have to ask him or her to do it. I made sure to include the word buy before the link.

Instagram
Instagram is all about real images. Where are you? What are you looking at? What are you doing now? Unlike the polished images you'll see for Facebook and Pinterest, this is a simple shot taken on a phone. It's native to the platform. That doesn't mean you can't include information or text in your photo. I wrote some of the tasting notes directly onto the tablecloth. The only place where links are clickable in the Instagram app is in your bio. Rather than including a link in the post copy for people to copy and paste in a browser (because, honestly, who would ever do that?), I put the link in my bio. Remember, the more you act human, the more you win. Instagram is personal. It's for those real-life moments.

Pinterest
Pinterest is all about aspiration or utility. Here, I'm not just selling wine; I'm giving knowledge. This infographic gives context and tells you everything you could want to know about this bottle. This is just too much text for any other platform, but it feels right at home on Pinterest. People are shopping on Pinterest, so they're spending more time on the content and looking at it with a critical eye. I used a much longer image on Pinterest than on any other platform. The platform dimensions are different and allow for it, but more important--similar to what I did on Twitter--longer pins take up more real estate.



Article curated from Inc. Magazine

To learn more about how social media can help your business, click here to contact IES Marketing.

6 Ways to Get Sales Email Opened

Practical rules to ensure customer and potential customers actually read what you've written for them.

 

I recently received an email from a reader that contained an excellent question: "Do you have any Subject Line templates/best practices for prospecting emails?"  Here are some guidelines, based partly on my own experience and partly from published research:

1. Make the subject line simple. There are several reasons why this is true.  First, busy people get a LOT of emails and usually decide which ones to open based upon a quick scan of the list of messages that have recently arrived.

Since they're not actually reading the Subject Lines, a Subject Line that requires the recipient to consciously think about its meaning is unlikely to be opened.  Here are some examples from emails I've received over the past couple of days:

Wrong:
Subject: Ernesto Zedillo to Chair 21st Century Council of Berggruen Institute on Governance

Right:
Subject: The "Call Me Back After the Holidays" Stall

2. Make the subject line short. A short Subject Line makes it more likely that the entire Subject Line will appear on the list and not be cut off mid sentence.  The two examples below are exactly as they appeared in my inbox:

Wrong:
Subject: Webinar: Register Now to Learn How...

Right:
Subject: You've Been Promoted, Now What?

According to the email vendor MailChimp (which I do not use but which has good information), emails are more likely to be opened if the Subject Line is less than 50 characters. I never use subject lines more than 40 characters.

3. Use a pre-tested subject line. The Internet in general and your own website in particular are excellent test beds for what interests people enough to click on it.  Using the title of a popular blog post (yours or somebody else's) as your Subject Line almost guarantees a high open rate.

As many of you know, I write and send a free weekly newsletter by email.  I have never gotten less than a 25% open rate and sometimes achieve more than 33% (anyone in the business will tell you that's really good.)

I credit this to the fact that my Subject Lines are almost always based on the most popular blog post of the past week.  For example, here are the five newsletter titles that got my highest open rate with a link to the original post:

• 10 Dumb Sales Tactics to Avoid
• 6 Tips for Persuasive Sales Messages
• Eliminate Stress and Have Fun at Work
• 9 Easy Habits That Make You Happier
• 12 Great Motivational Quotes for 2013

If you click on the links, you'll notice that all of these posts received a large amount of "Shares" which is why I used them in the Subject Line of my newsletter.

4. Avoid words that recipients hate. Your email won't get read if it's caught by a SPAM filter.  Most people know some of the words that trigger filters, like "FREE" and "CIALIS," but few people realize that there are actually about 100 of these words.  Here's a comprehensive list.

In addition to the above, MailChimp has identified three words that generally get through SPAM filters but which for some reason, people don't like when it comes to opening emails: Help, Percent off (% off), and Reminder.

With this in mind, here are two subject lines from MailChimp's research.  The first received open rate of less than 1%, the second an open rate of over 90%:

Wrong:
Subject: Final reminder for complimentary entry to attend the West Freelands BCI Cluster Conference 2006

Right:
Subject: Your April Website Stats

5. Localize but don't personalize. According to MailChimp again, people tend to open emails that have a Subject Line that refers to the city or town in which the recipient lives.  However, they tend to ignore Subject Lines that contain the prospect's name.

It's not hard to see why.  Everybody knows that your emailing programs will insert the recipient's name anywhere you like.  However, inserting the location is less common and implies that that the source of the email is local.

Wrong:
Subject: John, are you ready for the new year?

Right:
Subject: Reach decision-makers in St. Louis.

6. Have content that delivers the goods. Recipients tend to ignore emails from people they don't know and read emails from they know (or know of).  That's why you'll get a much higher open rate if you're emailing current customers, former customers or people who've "signed up" to get emails from you.

This is not to say that generating email lists from online sources (like LinkedIn) doesn't work, but only that your emails will have a much lower open rate.

However, regardless of how you found the email address, once the recipient has gotten an email from you and opened it, the recipient will decide whether or not it's worthwhile to open any future emails you send.

If you've got a fantastic Subject Line but the contents stink, you're just going to irritate the recipient.  It's like unwrapping a package with a beautiful bow that turns out to contain a box of crap. People remember that.

On the other hand, if your email contains got great content, there's a good chance that the recipient will open future sales emails, even if the Subject Line isn't fabulous.

To learn more about how email marketing can help your business, click here.

Article curated from Inc. Magazine