Using lists in your content is a great way to gift readers by providing “eye rests” and making your content easier to read and share.
Is there a difference between using bullets or numbers? Yes.
Think of a numbered list as a step-by-step order and a bulleted list as unordered. In fact, these two types of lists are called “Ordered Lists” and “Unordered Lists”.
An unordered list might include things you would pick up at the grocery store:
An ordered list might be the instructions on cooking breakfast:
In the second list, if I used an unordered list, we might’ve had cold toast, burnt eggs, and a salad for breakfast.
Here’s a video from the team at WPMU with the “how-to”:
I don’t know about you, but now I’m hungry
Photo Pin has become a favorite shortcut for many I share it with. It’s a time saver and really an assistant to finding and posting images to your blog posts.
It’s a search engine for Creative Commons licensed images on Flickr. It seems to be a quicker search and the choices are plentiful as to how you want to filter the license or search. You can also find a “top-tier” of relevant stock images for purchase if those catch your eye.
When searching for an image, the default filter seems to be “Interestingness” and “Non-Commercial” – and I suggest you change those to “Relevance” and “Commercial” (you’ll find these choices on the left once you begin searching).
Once you find an image on Photo Pin click on “get photo” – and then you can download the image, grab the proper attribution code, and even “fave” the image on Flickr to “keep found things found.”
We searched the term “learning” to find the results shown above. Let’s look closer at the image details.
You have four sections and an additional step we’ll take on your blog post (uploading the image to your site).
1. Download the Photo
2. Upload Your Image
The best placement for your image is on the right. However in most cases, you should place your cursor at the beginning of a paragraph and then call for the image to be right justified from within your blog editor. (Here’s a video on how to properly upload an image on WordPress)
3. Grab the Attribution Code
Copy the HTML code so you can give proper attribution on your blog post.
4. Paste code onto your post
Paste the code near the bottom of your post by going to the HTML editor. You can see the end result at the bottom of this post.
That’s it. Make sure to save Photo Pin in your bookmark toolbar (How-to: Firefox | Chrome).
photo credit: Rusty Stewart via photopin cc
Not having a Google Profile could be a “minus” on your findability ledger.
One of the most important pieces you’ll publish on any social platform is your profile. It’s how people find you. It’s how people know whether they want to connect.
On Google, it’s much more than a profile. It’s putting a face – your face – on the findability map. Faces are becoming part of the byline on many search results (if the author or site has implemented rich snippets – have you?)
The photo that would appear in your byline comes from your Google Profile. To add “rich snippets” properly and receive the full benefits of “author rank“- you’ll want a Google Profile. Notice we haven’t yet approached the use of “plus” or social portions of Google.
So let’s take a look at how we might build a great profile on Google, including creating a series of photos, a strategic Introduction, and relevant links to your work.
To begin, log in to your Google Account (here’s why). You can get to your profile by clicking on the +YourName in the upper left corner or by going to profiles.google.com.
It all begins with the “Edit Profile” button in the upper right. You’ll see a reddish bar appear over your profile page. This is also the place where you exit (and save changes).
Remember! Click "Done Editing" on Your Profile to Save Changes
Each section of your profile page can be edited individually. Simply hover over the section you want to edit.
Photos
To begin with, you need a high-resolution image of your face. A highly pixellated (fuzzy) image isn’t going to help you in the least. Try to pick an image that is already being (or can be) used across your other social networks. This main image for your profile is the image that will appear as part of your byline in search results.
You also have five other photos you can use. These can form a banner, where the photos work together (here’s how to create a banner), or they can be four separate ingredients.
For my own profile, I chose the latter (five ingredients) and commented on each photo I used. This way, if people clicked on the photos, they can see why I used it and what it says about me.
In "Edit" mode, click on photos section and then "Manage Photos"
Before you begin editing or adding the photos, it’s probably a good thought to know what you want to convey. For me, I wanted an introduction and to show some of what I do. For your business, it may be more about the products you work with or results of your service.
Once you put the photos up, you can always rearrange them by “organizing” your album (this section is called the “Scrapbook”)
You may "Organize" or "Add" images. To change order, click and drag.
Once you have your photos in order and you’ve save your work. Click on an image to leave an explanatory or editorial comment about the photo.
Leaving a comment will add to the story behind the photo
My comment on the image above points to a practice I preach often: RePurpose your Content
There are several other sections to fill out on your profile page, but here are a few of the more important pieces to populate (before you begin posting)
After the photos, you want to fill in the introduction text below (you’ll see the sections when you click on “Edit Profile” on the top right).
I don’t know of a character limit here, and you can use hyperlinks as well as bold and italicized fonts. While you may be tempted to just copy and paste any bio text you have from elsewhere, know this: Content on your Google Profile page will hep you get found in the Related People and Pages section now appearing on many Google Search Results. Do a search for “Content Marketing” and look at the profiles on the right of the search.
Shouldn’t you be there for your business or key offerings? You’re closer to getting there if your profile tells your story.
Farther down the page you’ll have an opportunity to put your work contact info such as phone number and email address. IMPORTANT: Don’t skip these – I’ve already had people contact me because they found the info on my Google + Profile page.
On the upper right (but below the photos) is a section you can input other social profiles and web pages. I also put the address to the RSS feed of my blog. While not everyone will (though you should), if they connect with you in one place, they’re likely to connect with you elsewhere. Where is your elsewhere?
There is more to your profile that you can update or tweak later, but these are the most important. For findability and credibility sake.
And we haven’t even talked about “plus” yet. And maybe you don’t want to plus at all. But not having a Google Profile is a minus to your business.
Getting a Google Account: The PurposeGoogle Plus burst onto the social scene in the summer of 2011. Some love it. Some hate it. You should use it for your business. For reasons greater than the “+” sign.
There are plenty business reasons to use Google Plus, most notably “findability” or making sure customers and buyers searching for a business like yours – find yours. We’ll go more in-depth on the “plus” parts of Google in other posts. To get started, you want a Google Account.
It’s not about having another email account or another social network – you don’t ever have to give your GMail account out to anyone and you don’t have to be social. Yet, the tools available from Google and how you’ll use them make having a Google account (including the GMail) very important – especially for business. Google has a suite of business tools too, though we’ll begin here with an individual Google account.
You will use (and might already be using) GMail, Google Reader, Feedburner, Google Analytics, YouTube, GoogleDocs, Google Places, Maps, News, and much more. Your customers and potential customers use Google on so many devices, it is common sense to have a Google Account – and just plain stubborn to not.
When creating your Google Account, we recommend getting as close to your real names (whether as a person or a business) as possible. If your name is Jim Franklin of Franklin Boat Works, do your best to get “jimfranklin” and “franklinboat” or “franklinboatworks”.
If your name is not available, it’s better to use initials than a number, though if you must use a number make it so it means something: your business address or part of your phone number; a zip code or … you get the idea.
After you fill out the first page of information, you will be asked to fill out a profile. You can do that now or skip this step temporarily. You can always modify your Google Profile from any Google page when signed in (if you’re not signed in to Google, go to Google.com and sign in). Just look in the top, right corner:
Getting a Google account is not for popularity sake. While having many connections or likes is a wonderful thing, the reason you’re creating a Google account is for “findability” sake. You want customers and prospects to find you. They want to find you (if you’re good) – and frankly, Google wants them to find you (if you’re the most relevant solution to the searcher’s problem)
The model of Dialing 8 consists of its hub (Blog) and eight areas branching off the hub.
This model will exist for a long time and its advantage to a business is that strategies and tactics can be planned regardless of how rapid tools come, go, or change.
This is part of how Dialing 8 overcomes overwhelm. A new tool comes about and a business owner can decide which area off the hub we place it (if we place it at all). Every tool doesn’t need to be employed.
While we look at the social media tool set largely as tactical within a strategy, there can (and should) be a strategy for each tool. Understanding the possibilities of a tool or platform can go a long way to determining if it can be an asset to your overall plan.
As we examine tools, platforms, apps, plugins, and extensions with such an eye as to how an item might be used to the benefit of a small business owner. The uniform framework we will use is simple, and hopefully one you can easily adopt for your own use:
These 8 Ps will provide the who, what, why, when, where, and how for each tool, along with ideas on how you can remain focused and measure your success.
Dialing 8 Member Benefits
The breakdown of a tool will also serve as a foundation for one of our weekly workshops (members only), and members will have access to a worksheet so they can build their own plan of action for a tool. Members will also have access to a printable “cheat sheets” they can refer to often.
Have you ever seen those emails from Hubspot offering a free downloadable ebook?
If you haven’t you’re missing out. If you’re ignoring the emails, you’re missing out.
What you shouldn’t miss out on is the model of combining creative forces into a single content package. In a recent mailing, I received this offer for How to Build a Powerful Business Presence on LinkedIn sending me to this page to get the book:
Notice the contents of the ebook list 5 great titles and links to the authors. (And you should go download this free ebook because it gets better on the inside).
Two words: Joint Venture
You can do this in your line of business. Think about it. Some examples:
In the last installment of our Metrics for Small Business Series, we are going to take a look at the holy grail of any social media marketing strategy: The Conversion Rate. What it is, how to measure it and how to improve it.
A conversion rate is a measure of the number of viewers to your website that complete your call to action divided by the total number of visitors to your site.
If you’re an e-commerce site, it means the number of potential customers that complete a sale, if the action you want your visitors to complete is to subscribe to your blog, it’s the number of viewers who input their email addresses in order to receive your email or newsletter.
While many website focus on increasing the number of viewers they have, still a worthy endeavor, it is far more important to get your visitors to actually do what you want them to do in order to grow your business.
Probably the simplest, fastest and cheapest tool to use when tracking conversion rates is Google Analytics. The beauty of Google Analytics is that you can tailor it to your specific goals and once you’ve specified what you want to track, Google Analytics does the rest and will generate your conversion rates.
With Google Analytics, you can set up and track up to 20 goals – which are the actions you want your customers to take like signing up for a newsletter, requesting more information or making a purchase.
In Google Analytics, there are four types of goals you have to choose from:
When you are setting up a goal within Google Analytics, you can also track the steps that your customers need to complete before arriving at the goal page, like going to the shopping cart, entering billing info and selecting delivery option. If your definition of completing a call to action are those visitors who submit a contact form, then a successful completion could include going from the home page, to the contact page , filling in the contact page, submitting it and getting the success or thank you page. A goal could also be when someone downloads a free report or white paper you’re your site. These steps are called Goal Funnels.
The Funnel Visualization Report can give you a good idea of who is leaving your “call to action” process at each step, allowing you to investigate the reasons why.
With Google Analytics, you can measure many different types of metrics, including bounce rates, time spent on your pages, referral traffic and, of course, conversion rates. As I’ve said before, the beauty of Google is that is automatically generates reports so you can see each step of your conversion process from when a visitor lands on your site until they leave, either with or without converting.
By generating reports to analyze how people are coming to your site, how long they are staying, what they are looking at and ultimately, if they complete your desires action, you can determine which pieces of your web presence are most effective and which ones need some improvement. It is a critical part of any social media strategy to test, measure and continuously look at ways to improve your conversion rates. Conversion rates are, after all, why you’re online in the first place.
Why do people drive at night? Hard to do, difficult to see. Even with high beams, you can only see as far as your headlights.
I know several business people who won’t blog because they can’t see the results before starting. More than one have actually said things like,
“I’ll write more when I get more readers.”
Really? What’s the math on that possibility?
Why do people drive at night? Confidence.
Can you apply the same with social media? Have Confidence.
On your social media trip, keep your eye on the road – but don’t get ahead of yourself. Post one post at a time.
In today’s installment we are going to take a look at the benefits of creating an RSS feed for your site and how using certain tools, like Feedburner, you can analyze how your RSS feed
Why Your Site Needs an RSS Feed
feed-icon (Photo credit: Urizev)
An RSS feed, which stands for Really Simple Syndication, is a means of syndicating your blog’s content. Most blogging platforms will have an RSS feed already built in. When you start publishing posts, your latest posts will be updated in your RSS feed. A feed is an easy way to distribute content without requiring people to actually visit your site. A person can subscribe to a website’s feed and gain access to regular updates of a website. These updates are delivered automatically using email, a new reader, or a web portal
Benefits for the Webmaster:
Benefits for RSS Feed Readers
Why Feedburner
Feedburner is a feed “enhancer.” It takes your default blog feed, and adds more functionality to it without you having to modify it yourself. It allows you to track analytics about your RSS feed’s subscribers and activity. Once a standalone service until acquired by Google, you can now set up Feedburner for your RSS feeds within your Google Account.
With Feedburner, you can track:
Other reasons why Feedburner can be helpful is because in addition to using it to analyze your readership, you can
Why Do You Need RSS Metrics?
As with any metric, when you analyze the data, you can get a good idea of what your readers are searching for, by the posts that they read, the keywords they use to get there, the devices they are using and the posts they are clicking through most often and your reach with these posts. Why is this important? Because then you can generate content that your readers are looking for. And having a targeted content strategy to grow your audience and increase conversions is what we’re all about, right?
In the last installment of our metrics series, we will be examining perhaps the most important metric of all – Conversion rates, which are the percentage of visitors who take the desired action of your site.
via: Marketing Tech Blog
Infographic Credit: Visual Guide to Rich Snippets on SEOmoz created by BlueGlass Interactive
