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Presented by Tracy Terry, Founder of Trust eMedia. WordPress Milwaukee User Track - In this session, participants will learn important SEO tactics, social aspects you need on a website, and inbound marketing best practices for performance, engagement, and lead generation. Inbound marketing has taken the marketing industry by storm. Today’s customers not only want you to provide a website, but to also be able to include best practices that will turn their website into a lead generating machine. Clients are happy when they realize they do not have to hire additional agencies to perform different strategies to their website. By knowing what makes a website “work” for a customer, you will have an edge on competition and a one-stop shop for clients.
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Website Performance, Engagement, and Leads
Tracy TerryTrust eMedia CEOJune 2012
www.TrusteMedia.com
www.TrusteMedia.com 262-204-7855 Get Spotted!
Our Passion
Helping Companies, Brands, and Organizations Get Spotted!
o Located in Lake Geneva, WIo Full-Service Inbound Marketing Agencyo Family Business
Highlight Reel
Founded Trust eMedia 2010Inbound Marketer of the Month Award 2010Certified Inbound Marketing ProfessionalCertified Competent Internet Marketer SEO/SEMInbound Marketing Educator, 1 of 20 across the globeBrazen Careerist Featured SpeakerContribute Monthly to Hubspot’s Inbound Marketing BlogRecently Featured in Mashable and Social Media ExaminerWE Magazine’s Top 100 Women in ECommerceSpeaking and Training on Inbound Marketing / Social Media
www.TrusteMedia.com Inbound Marketing Agency
Get Spotted! University
www.TrusteMedia.com
trustemedia.com/blog/the-inbound-marketing-spot
plus.google.com/100711742922800604093
www.Facebook.com/TrusteMediaMarketing
www.LinkedIn.com/in/tracylterry
twitter.com/trustemedia
About
In this lesson we are going to go over specific items your website and/or blog should have on it to be
most effective.
Social Search
Google and Bing both have what is called Social Search. Google and Bing feel that a recommendation
from your friend is more important than a recommendation from a
stranger. Therefore, content you are searching for on the search engines that has been shared, created, liked,
subscribe to, or +1’d by your Facebook friends or Google circles
will be placed higher in search results for that search term query.
Social Search
Seen this yet?
Google+ Business Pages are Appearing in Search Results on the Right Side of Page
Social Search
• A Larger Community in Social Networks Means More Referral Traffic to Website
• A Larger Community in Social Networks Means More Chances to be Found by Customers in Search Engine Results via Social Search Results
• Enticing Users to Share Content Drives Traffic to Your Site and Increases Rankings
• Online Users See Content Shared by Their Social Networks 1st in Search Results
• Online users make purchasing decisions based on the recommendations of others. A social share shown in SERPs can influence buying decisions.
• Google and Bing both not only have a social search feature, but also have admitted that your social authority is part of their page ranking algorithms.
What Does This Mean for Me?
#1 Keywords
Keywords are the words users type into the search bar in a search engine (such as Google, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) to find your product or service.
#1 Keywords
What are your keywords or keyword phrases?
Think about what your customers would type in a search bar to find your product or service.
What you need to know about keywords:
1. Use Google Insights for Search to help you choose keywords.
http://www.google.com/insights/search/
#1 KeywordsWhat are your keywords or keyword phrases?
Think about what your customers would type in a search bar to find your product or service.
What you need to know about keywords:
2. You can also use Google Adwords
https://adwords.google.com/o/Targeting/Explorer?__c=1000000000&__u=1000000000&ideaRequestType=KEYWORD_IDEAS
#1 Keywords3. Your keywords should be the very first words in your page title. (Your page title is your
website coding). If you are a hotel in Janesville, WI, your top keyword phrases would probably be: Janesville hotel, Janesville Wisconsin hotel, Janesville WI hotel. Those words
should be first in your page title. NOT YOUR COMPANY NAME.
Every page of your website should have a unique page title. No two should be the same.
<title>Janesville Wisconsin Hotel | Sleepy Inn</title>
<meta name="keywords" content=“janesville wisconsin hotel, janesville hotel, janesville wi hotel">
<meta name="description" content=“This is the area that you see below a page title in a Google Search. You description should have a call to action and be enticing for a visitor to click.">
#1 Keywords
This is where your keyword, meta description shows up.
Your meta description can be as long as you want, but only the first 150 characters show up in Google. This is why you see the “…” at the end and the sentence is not finished. Try to limit your characters to under this amount. Use a call to action here that entices a person to click through to your website.
<title>Janesville Wisconsin Hotel | Sleepy Inn</title>
<meta name="keywords" content=“janesville wisconsin hotel, janesville hotel, janesville wi hotel">
<meta name="description" content=“This is the area that you see below a page title in a Google Search. You description should have a call to action and be enticing for a visitor to click.">
Meta Description
#1 Keywords
I like to use All In One SEO Pack as My WordPress SEO Plugin
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/all-in-one-seo-pack/
#1 Keywords
4. Place keywords in the first sentence of your website page text.
5. Place keywords throughout your text without overpopulating or sounding spammy.
6. Place keywords at the end of your website page text.
7. Bold some keywords in your website page text.
Download the Google SEO Starter Guide here: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
#1 Keywords8. Make use of heading tags in your website coding. Place keywords in your heading tags. Use
only 1 <h1> tag. Heading tags are used by search engines to identify words which are more important than the rest of the page text. The theory is that headings will sum up the topic of the page, so they are counted as important keywords. Heading 1 has a larger size font than
Heading 2 and so on… They are mostly used as paragraph headings.
Download the Google SEO Starter Guide here: http://static.googleusercontent.com/external_content/untrusted_dlcp/www.google.com/en/us/webmasters/docs/search-engine-optimization-starter-guide.pdf
#2 Call to Actions
If you have optimized each page of your website properly, then all your pages should be able to rank well in search engines. Therefore, you never know which page a website visitor may land on. That being said, you need at least one call to action on every single page of your website.
#3 Social Media Networks
Website visitors should be able to connect with you via your social networks from your website. Use social media icons or widgets on your pages.
#3 Social Media Networks
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/social-media-icons/
#3 Social Media Networks
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/floating-social-media-icon/
#4 Blog on Your Own Website
If you are blogging on an external platform, that’s great you are blogging. But, if you are trying to get your website found by customers, (your blog is not your website and your website is on a separate domain) blogging on an external platform is not your answer. Each blog post is a new page to your website. This means, fresh content on a consistent basis – which Google loves, more chances to rank for more keywords, and more chances to gain more inbound links to your website (to your blog posts). Stats show you’ll gain 55% more website traffic, 97% more inbound links, and 434% more indexed pages. Woo hoo! Get that blog on your own website, please! You can easily install WordPress onto your domain.
#5 RSS Button
Don’t forget to add your RSS feed button for your blog next to your social media icons on your website’s home page. Where do you link it to? Most of the time, you can just add /feed to the end of your blog URL. Here’s an examples of an feed URL, www.yourcompany.com/blog/feed.
If you use FeedBurner, you can get your RSS button and a subscribe by eMail code for your website.
#6 eNewsletter Sign Up
If you have an eNewsletter, be sure to get your subscription form or button on your website. You can get this from your software (MailChimp, etc.)
#6 eNewsletter Sign Up
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/newsletter-sign-up/
#7 Social Sharing Buttons
You should have social sharing buttons placed throughout your website on various pages, if not all your pages, so they can be shared in social media. Do not limit the website users choices of social media networks to share to.
Nothing is more annoying than going to share an article or webpage and noticing your favorite social media network site isn’t listed as a sharing choice – the share button for that particular site is not there. It happens to me ALL the time.
People are busy and don’t have time to manually copy and paste your heading and links into social network posts. It will discourage them and you will lose a share. So, make sharing easy and available to all social networks. You need to keep the Share or Add all button.
The best way is to use an Add This or Share This button.
#8 Google +1
Be sure when you set up your AddThis or ShareThis account and choose your styling, that you get a Google +1 button. If you do not, please go to Google and download the code for the +1 button and get it on your website. In social search, websites that have been +1’d by friends in your social network will show up first in search results. +1s also show up on a Google+ user’s Google profile. Get the +1 button!
http://www.google.com/webmasters/+1/button/
#9 Google+
Don’t make the mistake of thinking you can just add a Google+ icon to your page and link it to your Google profile. That is not the case. You must either use the Google badge provided by Google here:
https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/config
Or use the rel=“publisher” code in your link from the icon to your Google+ profile. NO NOT JUST PLACE AN ICON ON YOUR WEBSITE AND USE AN A HREF TAG TO YOUR GOOGLE PROFILE WITHOUT THE REL=“PUBLISHER” CODE. See instructions here:
https://developers.google.com/+/plugins/badge/
You must also link from your Google+ profile to your website. This is the only way to be eligible for Google Direct Connect. Learn More Here:
http://support.google.com/plus/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1711199
You can test your coding here to make sure everything works:
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools/richsnippets
#10 Google Authorship
Google is now showing authorship information in search results. If you would like your photo and information to show up in Google searches next to the content you create, you need to establish authorship.
Learn to do so here:
http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=1408986
We’ve copied and pasted the instructions from Google for this on the following pages.
#11 Keep It Current
Be sure to keep your website current. If you have outdated information, get it off. If your promotion is over, get it off.
When a website visitors lands on your website and sees all this old information lying around, they most likely think that no one is even looking at this website or it wouldn’t be out-of-date like this. So, why bother even trying to contact you? No one will probably get the eMail. Are you even in business any more?
Also, be sure to advertise your current promotions on your website. If you are running a Facebook contest, do your website visitors know that? They should. Be sure to integrate your marketing efforts and use every vehicle possible to extend your reach.
#12 Ease of Use
Your website should be easy to use and easy to navigate. Users should not have a hard time finding the information they are looking for. Every website page should be only 2 clicks away from your home page.
#12 Avoid Flash Websites
You see it all the time. Websites made entirely of flash because they WOW visitors. The problem is half your visitors probably never see your flash website.
Problem #1 – Load time. Even my high speed DSL doesn’t load a flash website fast. I close the window before it’s even done loading because I don’t want to wait, like everybody else.
Problem #2 – Google doesn’t read flash. There is no text for spiders to crawl. Google states they can read some flash elements now, but not all. And other search engines may not be able to ready any. They recommend flash for decorative purposes only and not your entire website. It cannot be read by all phones or iPads.
#13 Use ALT Tags
An alt tag is used to describe an image. It stands for Alternative Text. Google cannot read images, so an alt tag tells Google what an image is about. Also, if images cannot be shown on a website, a person can read what the image is about. This is also a good place to use some keywords.
Here is a sample image code: <img src= “http://www.yourcompany.com/image.jpg”>
Here is where an alt tag fits in: <img src=“http://www.yourcompany.com/image.jpg” alt=“image description goes here”>
Learn more from Google, by watching a video here:
http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2007/12/using-alt-attributes-smartly.html
#14 Landing Pages That Convert
Each page of your website needs at least one call to action because you never know which web page a visitor may land on. Each call to action text or button needs to direct the website visitor to a landing page where they can convert. Your contact page, newsletter sign up, and content offers all need conversion forms where your website visitor can convert.
#15 Contact Information
Give your website visitors various ways of getting in touch with you.
• Phone number• Fax number• eMail address• Contact Form• Mailing Address
Provide them with as many different ways of getting in touch as possible. Don’t make the contact form on the contact page the only option. Some people like to do business over the phone, some by eMail, and others through the form. Make all options available.
#15 Contact Information
Check Out Slick Contact Forms
#15 Contact Information
Check Out Slick Contact Forms
#16 Press Room
If you create and submit press releases, don’t just submit them to press release distribution sites. Create a Press Page on your website and place your press releases on that page. You can set this up in WordPress just like your blog with each press release a new post. I just create 2 different categories. 1 for blog and 1 for press. This will create new pages to your website, fresh content, a new chance to rank for keywords, and a new chance to gain more inbound links to your website – just like your blog.
#17 Testimonials
Testimonials are great. Video testimonials are awesome. Any type of testimonial you can place on your website is testimony to the quality of your product or service. Scatter testimonials throughout your website, not just all on one Testimonials page.
#17 Testimonials
If you are not tracking your website traffic in detail, you need to be. Google Analytics is a free tool from Google that tracks your website traffic and provides you with information on your website visitors. Sign up for free and place a tracking code on your website:
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Some WordPress themes have a designated area for your Google Analytics code. If not, can usually place in the appropriate file, header.php, etc. found in the WordPress Editor section.
#18 Google Analytics
#19 Above the Fold
Keep the navigation and other important items, such as Call to Actions above the fold. Above the fold means the portion of your website that is visual on a person’s computer screen. Below the fold is the portion of your website that is not visible on a person’s computer screen – they have to use the scroll bar to see what is below the fold.
A website visitor who is seeking a product or service may not scroll down your home page if they do not see what they are looking for right away. They may just leave your site. Therefore, it is important to keep all priority information above the fold. Items above the fold need to grab a website visitor’s attention and keep them on your page looking for more information.
Fold Line
#20 Website Features
Below are some givens and a couple website features you should think about.
o Of course you should have your company name and logo on your website.
o Most websites have an About Us page. Make sure yours is the best it can be. People are curious about you, so provide them with some details about your background and what your business is all about.
o Clearly state the purpose of your website. When someone lands on your website, they should know exactly what you offer right away. Your website should also be pleasing to the eye. You know how you’ve run across some of those just plain ugly websites and, well, you leave right away. You don’t want that happening to you.
o It’s been a common practice to place a duplicate navigation menu in the footer of your website. Sometimes just the top pages are placed in the footer, such as: contact, about, eNewsletter, or Privacy. You decide if you want to place navigation in your footer and what links you want to place there. You can add normally add your page navigation into your footer from the Widgets area of your WordPress site or blog.
#21 Website Contento Your website needs to have quality content that appeals to your buyer personas. You can
have the best looking website in the world, but without valuable, remarkable content, it’s worthless. Write copy not only with keywords in mind, but also with buyer personas in mind. Provide them with the information they are seeking and make that information easy to find. All created content offers and blogs should be written around keywords and be interesting to buyer personas (eBooks, reports, white papers, blog, social media posts…)
o A search bar is optional. If you have a great amount of content on your website, having a search bar may be useful to your website visitors.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-custom-search/
#22 SiteMap
o A sitemap can help website visitors find the page they are looking for if they get lost on your website. It also is a great way to keep all your website pages 2 clicks away from your home page.
#23 Mobile Site
o With millions of mobile phones being used to access the internet,having a mobile version of your website is almost a must. You cancreate an entire mobile site separate from your current website or you can add some coding to your current website to optimize it for mobile viewing.
WordPress Mobile Pack
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-mobile-pack/
#23 Mobile Site
WordPress Mobile Detector
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-mobile-detector/
#23 Mobile Site
Wapple Architect Mobile Plugin for WordPress
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/
There's no redirection to a mobile version of the blog - URLs are exactly the same on web and mobile giving you the ability to promote and use one single domain!
#23 Mobile Site
GOMO by Google
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wapple-architect/
Mobile site building. Mobile site testing. Mobile Google Ads.
Anatomy of a Blogo Make sure your blog includes best practices
– A page title– All meta tags– A description– A Sidebar with Call to Actions– An RSS Feed– A Subscription by eMail– Categories Section– Recent Posts Section– Archives– Social Media Profiles– Link to Home Page / Blog Roll– Contact Information
Anatomy of a Blog Post• Make sure your blog post includes best practices
– A page title– Meta keywords– A meta description– An image with an alt image tag– Heading tags with keywords– An enticing headline– Content interesting to your buyer persona– Search Engine Optimized to get found
on Google by customers– A question at end to encourage comments– A clear call to action at the bottom, typically
driving the user to a landing page where theycan convert to a lead.
– In-text links to landing pages, sources– Social sharing buttons
That’s a WrapWebsite: www.TrusteMedia.comTwitter: twitter.com/trustemedia Facebook: facebook.com/trustemediamarketingBlog: trustemedia.com/blog/the-inbound-marketing-spotLinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/tracylterryGoogle+ plus.google.com/110447784766296258310StumbleUpon: stumbleupon.com/stumbler/trustemediaPhone: 262-204-PULL (7855)eMail: [email protected]
