ActiveRain Tutorials: July 2010

Increasing blog traffic through organic search engine results is one of our most popular classes that we teach here at 210 Consulting.  The reason this is subject is so popular is that many understand the importance of their blogs showing up well in the search engines, but are not exactly sure what it takes to accomplish this.  As I have shared in the past, businesses who blog receive 55% more online business than those who do not according to Hubspot.

I've also shared a few basic principles to increasing blog traffic like the importance of writing consistently, labeling your photos properly, and even how to optimize a blog on a budget.  These are some great starting points on how to increase the traffic to your blog, but in order to really optimize things, there are a few basic principles & concepts that need to be used each time you write a blog.  This webinar on August 9th, 2010 at 1PM will walk you through step by step on how to write the best possible posts for search engines.

In addition to teaching you how to optimize things, we will also teach you how to write posts that are appealing to consumers.  Many times people get focused on SEO that they forget about the importance of writing something that is of interest to a consumer who is visiting the blog.   You only have one chance to wow that potential reader and if what you write isn't interesting, then they will move on to find the information they need from somewhere else.

We will teach you how to make your posts visually appealing as well as share several ideas for writing that can help you generate virtually an unlimited number of blog posts.

At the end of this course you will know:

• How to write a successful blog post that consumers will read
• How to get your blog posts showing up well in the search engines
• How to garner traffic into your blog by sharing on other social networks.

This 2 hour session is a must for anyone who is new to blogging, or to anyone that feels they are not optimizing their efforts with their blog at this time. The cost for this course is $50.  In addition to the live webinar class, you will also receive a copy of the presentation after with a copy of a recording of this class for review whenever you need a refresher.  If you are interested in this class but are unable to attend, feel free to contact us to purchase a recording.

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

How To Improve your Video and Images for Higher Ranking in the Search Engines.

Acquiring SEO and traffic to your Blog or Website using great content, titles, descriptions, and keywords etc. has always been a subtle yet powerful strategy in the Blogging community.  Many new businesses and individuals don't start off blogging or creating websites with the understanding of how SEO (Search Engine Optimization) works, or why it might be important to their success. In time... they learn. We all do.

In my travels around the country teaching SEO, Blogging, and Social Networking, the one thing that is least talked about or questioned is the power of video and images. You hear "Content is King" but you won't hear or learn that video and images are the most viewed and sought after items on the Internet.  Could this be one of the reasons Google has links to them at the top of every search results page?

How do you get YOUR Video and Images to show at the Top of the Search Engine Results?

Matt Cutts from Google explains a few ways you can accomplish this.  He shares some great ideas and tips on using and adding meta-data and user generated content.  The idea of using captioning in Video is brilliant!  You provide the transcripts and youtube will auto-align the text.

Creating captioning is easier than you may think, Matt and others do this on every video and I can show you how.

Matt also shares some great ideas on how to use flickr, he gives some great examples and says “it’s almost like crowd sourcing!”  Flickr has great SEO but you need to understand how to use tags, descriptions and some of the tips in this video will assist you in knowing how and why.

If you create and use your own pictures, images, or video, and you want to get views, traffic, and ultimately generate leads and business, it's important to know a few key things including the SEO tips Matt shares in this video. It's also important to know that SEO isn't the only key ingredient that gets your material found on the web. Apply the concept that "Content Is King" to images and video, along with these tips and you've won 90% of the battle.

We are excited to be hosting our first official contest today! Our friends over at Uprinting, a printing company contacted us and gave us 2 sets of 500 business cards for us to give away to two of our fans. Watch the video below to learn all about the contest. More specific details are listed below:

So What Can I Win?

• 500 Premium Business Cards
• 2x 3.5", 2x2: (square card) or 1.74 x 3.5" (slim card)
• 14 pt gloss cardstock, 14 pt matte cardstock, or 13 pt recycled uncoated cardstock
• Full color both sides

How Do I Win?

• Must be 18 years or older and a US resident
• Write a blog post about why you love/hate social media, why you blog, why Jason Crouch always has his thumb up, etc...
• Post this link: http://210consulting.com/business-card-contest/ somewhere in your post for your friends to have a chance to win as well.
• Leave a link to your post on our Facebook Page by July 31st at Midnight EST.

We will pick a winner after July 31st and contact you directly if you are a winner to give you the details on how to claim your prize. We thank Uprinting for giving us this opportunity! Check out their business card printing page for an idea of what your cards could look like and get ready to win!

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

A Facebook Page, run by Jonathan Rivera was recently shut down by Facebook due to a complaint of the use of the vanity URL and the use of the trademarked term REALTOR®.  He had been made aware of the violation after selecting his vanity URL, but as Facebook’s guidelines state: “You will not be able to edit or transfer this username once you set it.” The irony of this story is that when Jonathan was made aware of the violation he tried to reach out & contact Facebook to correct it, but was unable to do so. He tried desperately to be in compliance with NAR rules & regulations.  Instead of Facebook allowing him to fix the username, they instead shut down the Real Estate Referral Page completely leaving a network of over 47,000 fans without a home.

This network was not only another fun page on Facebook, but also as he stated in the interview I recently heard, a good source of referrals having delivered over 1,400 referrals around the country to agents for free.

This is just once again another reason why it is important to know what laws & trademarks exist before picking a username, a web address or anything.  It will be interesting to see what happens with this as things move forward.  Jonathan has been working diligently to get the page reinstated, and from his interview with Techsavvy Agent, NAR was being agreeable in him keeping the page as long as the username gets changed.

Only time will tell what happens with this.  One thing I surely learned from this is that I will definitely think twice before selecting the next vanity URL for a Facebook Page.

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

I get asked from time to time by new bloggers how often they should be writing new content for their blog.  I usually try to answer the question by saying as often as possible!  The reason you want to write as many posts as you can for your blog is that you are giving the search engines more pages of content, creating new pieces of to be shared with your subscribers and also causing the search engines to revisit your page to index the newer content.  So if you are writing new content daily, you are hopefully seeing increases in traffic regularly.

If you are a new site without hundreds of pages of content being indexed by the search engines, you need to create your own buzz on your site by writing consistently & often.  The more often & consistent you write, the better the results will be.  Sharing your content onto other sites like Facebook, Twitter, & other social media platforms is also a great way to garner that traffic in the early stages.  But of all of these tactic, the thing that will bring more people to you is to continuously generate new quality content for your blog.

I recently did an analysis of a clients Google Analytics for their blog just to see how much more traffic her site received on the days she posted new content compared to those she did not.  The results really blew me away.  On the days that a new blog post was published, the site would receive anywhere from a 200%-500% increase in traffic over that 24 hour period.  Here is a screenshot of her analytics that she gave me permission to share:

This site has phenomenal other statistics as well.  Their bounce rate stays consistently under 30% and average time on the site hovers around 5-7 minutes with most consumers viewing at least 6 pages on each visit.  So, can you imagine what it would do for her business if she wrote a blog post each day instead of one every week?  Her site traffic would skyrocket as well as her client base!

So if you are not writing regularly, take time today to develop a writing schedule.  If you are someone like me, you have to literally schedule it into your daily routine or you will find your time filled in with other tasks & projects.  At the bare minimum, I feel you should be contributing at least 3 posts a week.  If your weekdays are too busy, then take the time on a Saturday afternoon while watching a movie to write your three posts for the week.  Place all into draft mode and then publish a post on Monday, Wednesday & Friday.  That way your site has a consistent flow of new content.  Developing a successful writing strategy can be the biggest factor between normal & extraordinary amounts of traffic to your site.

On the other hand, those who mention writing blogs in under 10 minutes time, I give a word of caution to developing this type of habit.  Very few people can do this successfully.  Till you brainstorm your thoughts, get them typed out with correctly labeled photos & links, you are probably looking at 30 minutes per blog post.  Remember while quantity is key, it should NEVER trump the quality of your work.

 

Jeremy Blanton to Jason show details Jun 15

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors

So constitutes someone receiving the title Social Media Guru?

Unfortunately many like to use the term social media guru or expert to describe themselves. They feel that they are expert because they are involved on a network and use it regularly. Since you may not yet be on the social media platform, they feel they are fully qualified to teach you how to do it. The only problem is that when they begin to teach you how, they share their bad habits with you. They teach you how to set up automated ways to gain 1,000 followers on Twitter which sounds great, but really will not help your business. I had a conversation on Twitter the other day with a well respected person in the social media realm. The statement @garyvee made was this: "If u are seeing this tweet I have one simple thing to say : THANK YOU, it stuns me that people care about the # of followers, if u have 1 :)"

Focusing on the one connection you have to make that single person feel like the most important person in the world can be more beneficial for your business than having 350 that you do not engage at all. Word of mouth referrals is always the most powerful way to build your business. Also, if you are automating everything to focus on getting more followers, those that do follow will instantly look at your content as an annoying spammer and probably either block you or place you in a hidden list that they ignore completely.

So how should you go about hiring someone for online consulting as your social media advisor?

Before hiring someone and paying them money you should first see what type of help they are offering. Is it just a CD series of what they did to get their big batch of connections or is it going to be training that will help teach you how to use social media platforms for your business to grow your business. Remember, you need to get information to teach you how to engage prospective clients and to convert them into raving fans, not just get more people connected to you. Use the Kevin Costner method, "if you build it, they will come." Set it up properly and use the correct practices and you will gain the following you want.

The other night I had someone approach me and ask if I had ever heard of some guy that was on TV selling a CD series on how they were able to make thousands of dollars in less than 24 hours of time using the internet. After sharing with the gentleman that I had never heard of him, he said "well I was up late last night and this guy was on TV around 3 AM selling this series that he used to make all this money online. I bought the CD's. Plus they have a money back guarantee, I just have to wait a year to get my money" I turned and said what I always tell clients: If it is such a good product & method that can make you so much money, why would the guy share the secrets with you instead of just making the money himself? Not to mention, you just gave this gentleman an interest free loan for a year!

Which brings me to my second point, There are no quick ways to make money with social media. The gurus who say you can do this and within 30 days it will start making you millions with only working 1 hour a week are sharing lies. Effective social media marketing takes time and hard work. It takes constant work of writing new blog content, engaging friends & followers on both Facebook & Twitter. If someone says you can do this a different way, RUN!

Thirdly, ask the "guru" for proof. Instead of just hiring them because they gave a good sales pitch, ask for them to show you their Facebook Page, Twitter Account, and Blog. See if they are actually using social media effectively in their business first. This is a huge indicator as to what they will be sharing with you. Also, do not be afraid to ask for testimonials from previous clients. They should be able to easily & quickly provide this as well as a portfolio of some of the work they have done for clients. If you do your homework before hiring them you will not end up spending thousands of dollars on a website that never gets produced. I learned this one the hard way.

I was helping a church get a website a few years back and went online did a little research and found a company that looked like a reputable site and asked them to create a website for the church. Since they only focused on church sites I thought this was a slam dunk winner. I looked at the portfolio of work & it looked nice so we went ahead and paid them to build the site. After $1,500 spent and no site they fell off the earth. We had the shell of the site built, but didn't have access into it so we could not log in to remove the spam & PORN that was being plastered all over the forums of the church site.

Needless to say the church was not happy with the results and since then has not had an online presence. Luckily they trust me enough to build them another site which will hopefully go live in the next few weeks. This time however, I will be doing all the creating and building of the website myself, so it will hopefully go a lot smoother and end up with an even better result.

Lastly, before hiring the social media guru, take some time to research them on the internet. Go and Google their business name, their personal name, phone number, & address. People who are unhappy about someone are going to share about their displeasure of a company. Don't just search the company name, but take it a step farther & search the person's name & phone number. Whenever my phone rings with someone trying to sell me something I go straight to the search engines and enter the phone number in. Within seconds I can tell everything that people who have had experience with this company really think & feel. You will know quickly that this number will call to sell the world, but then disappears and is extremely difficult to get the automatic payments stopped. You will know if they promise to get you 10,000 visits to your site but after signing up you then realize that the package you purchased only gets you 200 and to get the larger numbers of traffic you need to spend another $300 per month. I can normally know before even hanging up the phone if I wish to do business with this vendor or not.

In closing, if you Invest a little time at the beginning of your journey into social media you will end up with better results. By not taking the time in the beginning, you could end up investing a lot more dollars to receive the same result in the long run.

Originally Posted at: 210 Consulting- Social Media Advisors