Tag Archives: search engine optimization

How to deploy SEO in your sales funnel

By Aaron Hoos on January 5, 2013 in Business

I’ve been meaning to write this post for a long time — more than a year. I took a couple of different approaches, wasn’t happy with them, and decided to sit on it and wait. Meanwhile, Google’s algorithm changed (a couple of times?) and the web went haywire so I decided to keep waiting.

But then I saw this post at SEOmoz: The SEO Path to Becoming a Great Funnel Owner. This is one of those posts that I read and thought, “I wish I’d written that”.

It’s long. It’s data-heavy (which is awesome but also a little scary if you are looking for a quick read), and it is exactly the seo-and-sales-funnel topic I’ve been meaning to write but in a way that is refreshing and very actionable.

It is a great approach that moves well beyond the importance of keywords and instead focuses on various activities you can do to create and deploy a search engine optimized sales funnel with marketing and sales activities that truly resonate with a specific target market.

Some highlights to watch for:

  • The post introduces a sales funnel and demonstrates how SEO can fit into it in different ways.
  • You’ll read about where to put different types of key words (“head” keywords and “long-tail” keywords).
  • There are a bunch of great places to find data about your target market.
  • … and don’t miss the awesome section on building a persona.
  • There’s a great section about what prospective buyers are doing at each stage of your sales funnel and which content channels serve that part of the sales funnel the most effectively.
  • And in classic SEOmoz form, there’s a good foundation of tracking and analytics so that your decisions are always rooted in fact.

Check out their blog post today: The SEO Path to Becoming a Great Funnel Owner.

The most important 10 minutes and 40 seconds you will spend learning about SEO for 2013

By Aaron Hoos on November 16, 2012 in Business

In the early days of my online writing career (before I started writing almost exclusively for financial and real estate professionals), I did a lot of SEO work. There was a ton of it out there. The work was fast, cheap, easy to write, and paid the bills early on in my career.

But it also meant writing about stuff that was pretty focused around keywords… sometimes crazy, highly-specific keywords .

So clients would say: “I want you to write a 500 word article with the keyword ‘Colorado ski resort and spa’ in the title, in the first sentence, in the last paragraph, in one heading, and with a keyword density of 4%.”

It was arduous work sometimes (especially when the keyword grammar was brutal but could not be corrected because THAT was the keyword) and although I’m glad I don’t do that anymore, it made me a better writer — sensitive to SEO and keyword densities, and it gave me the ability to write about ANYTHING. Those skills have proven invaluable and profitable.

Thankfully, search engine optimization has changed since those “wild west” days of content marketing. Today, new techniques and technologies have evolved and become more important. Specifically, there is the growth in social media (of course!) and I’m also seeing an increased awareness of how search engine optimization plays into sales funnels (and I can’t tell you how happy this makes me! I’ve been beating this drum for a LONG time).

If you own a website and are trying to get it to rank, you’ve probably seen many of these changes yourself. You’ve probably heard of different Google algorithm changes that have made it seemingly more difficult for you to appear in search engines.

So if you are thinking about your search engine optimization in 2013 and beyond, this is the best 10 minutes and 40 seconds you will spend right now. (It’s from SEOmoz‘s October 12th Whiteboard Friday).

The unofficial guide to using Launch.it

By Aaron Hoos on July 25, 2012 in Business

When something new comes out and you want to tell your friends about it, how do you present it to them? Do you use the press release format to announce the newsworthy event? Do you use an informational article format to explain what it is? Probably not.

You likely use stories. You tell your friends an enthusiastic, honest, hype-free, factual story about the product or service.

Launch.it is a place for you to tell those stories. It’s a place for new things to launch.

In this guide, you will learn about…

(Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Launch.it in any way nor am I compensated by them to write this. I’m just an enthusiastic user. Also, please note that Launch.it is in beta so this information is subject to change.)
 

LAUNCH.IT: WHERE NEW IS LAUNCHED

Launch.it is a community platform that aims to be a searchable database of everything new. It is not just another place to create the same old content… they are pioneering a new way of communicating brands to the world.

  • On the publishing/promotional side, Launch.it is a place to tell stories about new products and services and ideas: It’s not another press release distribution site; it’s not another article site. Launch.it wants to be a “spin-free zone” where brands tell honest, fact-based, no-hype stories about whatever is new.
  • On the audience/readership side, Launch.it is a place where readers can interact with the brand in multiple ways. It can include sharing on social sites, clicking to the site to make a purchase or learn more, participating in crowdfunding, contacting the brand, and more.

Unlike press releases and articles, Launch.it stories (they call them “launches”) are more social, more focused on action, and they can be updated as facts change. I might not be 100% correct here but it feels like their site is aiming to be more like an engaging magazine that tells interesting, factual stories about new ideas rather than a newspaper that reports only the cold, hard facts.

As a writer, I’m interested in finding stories to cover. As an entrepreneur, I’m interested in telling the stories of new brands I develop. So here is an unofficial, unauthorized guide to launching your brand’s new idea from Launch.it.


LAUNCH.IT

The Launch.it homepage is made up of a few different sections…

  • Across the the top is a menu of high-level categories that launches are filed under — Technology, Consumer Electronics, Fashion, Media, Medical and Pharma, Services, Food and Beverage, Health and Beauty. (There are other categories you can file your launch under but they don’t appear on this list).
  • Below that is a section of the top ten launches. I’m not sure how this is sorted (although I’m guessing it’s by number of visits or number of shares). To the right of these top-10 featured launches is a sidebar that includes a ticker/”odometer” of the number of launches, a featured launch, and a link to Launch.it’s Facebook page.
  • Below that second is a section that lists 60 other launches in a 5 x 12 grid.


INTRODUCTION TO LAUNCH.IT

From the Launch.it homepage (http://launch.it)…

Click the “Sign Up” link to sign up (you can create an account or sign in with LinkedIn, Twitter, or Facebook). I created my own account.

From then on, click the “Login” link to get to the login page…

Once signed in, you’ll be directed back to the homepage but you’ll have two new links at the top of your page. These are the two main areas you’ll use on Launch.it: The Discoverer Dashboard and the Launcher Dashboard.

Here’s the Discoverer Dasboard:

Although mine doesn’t look very interesting right now (hey, I’m still new to Launch.it), this page is your dashboard to follow industries, writers, and brands, and to save launches for later viewing. Right now I’m following just one industry (Finance) and the launches in that category appear in my news feed.

Keep reading below because I’ll share some ideas about what you can use this dashboard for!

The other dashboard is the Launcher Dashboard…

On this page, you can see at a glance a number of stats about your launches — how many launches, how many views, how many comments and followers, how many stars your launches have earned, plus there are links on the lower half of the page to your launches, to analytics, and more.

Next, I’m going to show you how to launch content on Launch.it. If you are already familiar with that, skip this section and check out some ideas to use Launch.it to find stories or ideas to use Launch.it to launch your own news.


HOW TO LAUNCH ON LAUNCH.IT

From the Launcher Dashboard, click the great big button in the middle that says “new”…

And the next page you’ll get to is the page to create your launch story…

On this page…

Choose your byline from the drop-down menu. (It might be you or it might be other writers you’ve created, for example if you have several on staff who are sharing the same account).

Choose your brand from the drop-down menu. You can select your own brand (if you’re writing stories for your brand) or you can add new brands (if you own several brands or are a marketing firm).

Write your headline. Although the title can be pretty long, I would suggest that you try to keep it short because only the first 34-37 words will be displayed if your launch becomes featured. Check out the example below to see what I mean. Notice how the title is cut off a little? It’s not the end of the world, of course, but I think it would be more powerful if someone could read your entire title. So 34-37 words is the rule of thumb.

Write your subheading. Your subheading isn’t a reiteration of your headline but should instead provide additional information or context. Also note: Your subheading only shows up when someone views the blurb on its own page (it doesn’t show up in the condensed view on the home page) so make sure that the information is helpful but not essential to understanding your launch.

Write the body of your launch. This is the main content. I’m not sure how much space you have but presumably you have enough to get the story across. I would suggest aiming for a minimum of 400 words and a maximum of 1500 words. Too little and you’ll end up not getting your point across; too much and you’ll lose your readers. For more information, Launch.it provides a brief but helpful guide.

Note: Another important thing to consider is the length of your first paragraph. If your launch becomes one of the top ten featured stories, they will post the first part of your first paragraph (about the first 40 words or so) so make sure you create good content in that first paragraph. Check out the first paragraph of the launch below as an example:

Select your industry. There are several to choose from. Pick one that makes the most sense.

Write your key message bullet points. These will appear in the sidebar of your story. I’m not sure how many you get to write. I wrote 3. I’ve seen 5. I think 3-5 is a good, digestible number for your readers.

Upload your lead image. Make your image 680×490. The image will appear in different sizes but always in that ratio. In some places, the image will be only about 27% of of the larger size (approximately 186 x 132) so make sure that your image is recognizable at that size too.

Add advanced features. Definitely add advanced features if you have them! These include video, links for buying/fundraising/contacting you, more images, etc. The more you add, the more visually attractive and engaging your content becomes. When it comes to interaction, select as many as you can — Give them a place to click to visit your website and a way to contact you.

Once you have filled everything out, you can save, preview, and publish your launch story and it goes immediately to the home page of Launch.it. Later, you can always go back to review and edit your launch story from the Launch Dashboard.


HOW TO EDIT YOUR LAUNCH

Once you have a launch launched, you can edit it. I love this feature of Launch.it because (unlike press releases and some article publishing sites) information changes and you should be able to go back and update it. To edit your launch story, go to your Launcher Dashboard and at the top of the page, click the button labelled “Launches”…

(Note: There are other places on the page where you can click to view your launches but as of this writing, this is the only button that gets you to a place to edit your launches).

On this page, you’ll see the launches you have published, as well as links to edit, view, unpublish, and get analytics.


IDEAS TO USE THE DISCOVERER DASHBOARD

The Discoverer Dashboard is useful to filter the growing number of launches to keep track of what is important to you.

I love the idea of being able to follow industries, writers, and brands. I’m planning to use the Discoverer Dashboard in the following ways:

  • As a business, finance, and real estate writer, I’m going to follow related industries to pay attention to what’s going on in each space. The dashboard gives me the ability to filter by industry so I can quickly scan on a regular basis to find new ideas and trends.
  • As a writer, I’m always interested in connecting with other writers and learning how they are covering stories. This will give me a chance to meet experts in specific fields.
  • As a writer, I want to follow specific brands to see how they grow. They might be part of a story or trend I’m following or a competitor for one of the businesses I own, or the next big thing that I want to learn more about if I’m looking for a great idea for an article.


IDEAS TO LAUNCH ON LAUNCH.IT


The Launcher Dashboard is where you create content to engage with your audiences about your new idea, brand, product, service, or whatever. So here are some ideas you can launch with:

  • Launch your new brand
  • Launch each product or service
  • Launch new versions of products and services
  • Launch the latest version of your website
  • Launch your mobile app
  • Launch your new store
  • Launch your new Facebook page, Twitter profile, etc.
  • Launch a news story about you (Remember: This isn’t a press release but you can still create a story about what’s new at your business)
  • Launch your email newsletter
  • Launch sub-brands
  • Launch partnerships and joint ventures
  • Launch your blog
  • Launch individual blog posts (within reason, of course! I’m not suggesting that you spam Launch.it but there are times when an individual blog post is worth launching)
  • Launch a free report
  • Launch your ebook
  • Launch your print book
  • Launch your new location
  • Launch a story about that big project you landed
  • Launch when a new executive joins your team
  • Launch when you develop a new innovation
  • Launch a story that you hope to get some exposure about (we writers are watching!)
  • Launch your latest project for which you want investors/crowdfunders

So go Launch.it!


QUICK LINKS

Website: Launch.it
Twitter: @Launch_It
Facebook: LaunchItNews

The 7 qualities that make SEOmoz’s content so darn bookmarkable

By Aaron Hoos on June 5, 2012 in Business

It’s hard to sift through the sheer volume of content that you and I are exposed to every day.

I have more feeds filling up my Google Reader than I have time to read, I have more email newsletters filling up my inbox than I have time to read. And let’s not forget about tweets (and other social media streams), ebooks, magazines, books, and client-recommended research.

So. Much. Stuff.

And every day, there’s more and more of it flowing in.

Since I can’t possibly read it all, I scan the headlines and I bookmark stuff that seems like it’s worth coming back to later.

I’m pretty selective when I bookmark, with one key exception: I ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS bookmark SEOmoz’s email newsletter (of their blog content) without first reading it… because I know it will be good.

It’s weird because in the scope of my business, search engine optimization (which is SEOmoz’s focus) is only a tiny fraction of my work. I don’t call myself an search engine optimizer or an internet marketer, and when I promote my services, SEO and internet marketing are secondary benefits that comes after prospect/client engagement. And SEO does play a part in helping me promote my businesses, but it’s still only a part of the much bigger picture.

So even though I don’t have time to read all of the content flowing to me, I bookmark the stuff that looks like it will be helpful but I also always bookmark stuff from SEOmoz.

Weird.

So I’ve been trying to figure out why their content is SO bookmarkable… even to someone like myself who might only get some relevance from their content.

I try to provide good content on my blog but I wouldn’t define my work as “bookmarkable” so I’m hoping to reverse-engineer what they have achieved. Here are the qualities that describe SEOmoz’s content, which makes them so darn bookmarkable:

1. ENGAGING

Their content is always engaging. They have truly mastered the art of copywriting for an email audience (great headlines that get opened, great links to other content that beg to be clicked-through). Their content is highly readable and even when I’m scanning, I can’t help but read all the way through. There’s a good mix of text and graphics, stories and instruction, step-by-step and bullets. Their copy is riveting.

2. PRACTICAL

Their content is practical: It’s useful, it’s easy to read and follow, the benefits are clear and obvious and I can draw a straight line from their content to the benefits my business and my clients’ businesses will receive.

3. LONG

I’ve never done a word count on SEOmoz’s content but it seems long. At least, longer than some of the other stuff in my inbox. And because of that, it’s more bookmarkable. I scan it and think “this looks helpful but I can’t possibly read it all right now.” So BAM I hit the little star in Firefox and come back to it later.

4. COMMUNITY-ORIENTED

This is very powerful and it’s underappreciated. A lot of writers use terms like “you” and “I”… that’s okay but it has the tendency to sometimes feel instructional — like a teacher talking to a student. But SEOmoz writes as a peer to a group of peers. They use “SEOs” as a collective noun for search engine optimization practitioners (“SEOs do this” and “SEOs do that”, etc.) It has the feeling of a slightly-more-skilled-than-you peer who is sharing a valuable insight that you didn’t know. What a great way to get buy-in from readers!

5. TIMELY AND TIMELESS

This is another powerful quality that SEOmoz has mastered that I jealously aspire to. Their content is both relevant to right this moment but it also has good content that will be just as relevant next year. This makes readers WANT to read their content right now and later. Most blogs I read pale in comparison — their timely content doesn’t seem relevant next week, while their timeless content doesn’t seem important to read right now. Frankly, that’s a struggle I face in my writing — I’d love to write more about the movement of the stock market but no one wants to read that on the day AFTER!

6. PUSHES THE READER

Here’s what I mean by this: SEOmoz’s content can sometimes delve pretty deeply into statistical analysis and other types of numbers. They aren’t afraid to push their readers to know more. This is such a huge difference compared to other blogs that assume all readers are at a certain point and stay there.

7. CONSISTENT

SEOmoz’s content is always good. That’s why I always bookmark it. Other sites might produce good content one day and mediocre content another day (hey, I’m the kettle calling the pot black on this one!) but SEOmoz jams out good content always. That’s why I sometimes catch myself just bookmarking their content before I even finish reading the title.

And that’s the ultimate goal for any blogger: Are you writing content that is so good and so consistently bookmarkable that your readers will see your email, open it, and bookmark the the content before they bother to see what it’s about? I don’t but it’s such a great goal to work toward.

Do you have any blogs that you consistently bookmark to read later? What must-read recommendations (besides your own blog of course) do you have? Put it in the comments below…

3 steps for real estate professionals to dominate local search

By Aaron Hoos on January 12, 2012 in Real Estate

It doesn’t make much sense for someone to type in the word “real estate professional” or “REALTOR” and find your website or blog in the search results. If they’re in Dustytown, Australia and you’re in Wausau, Wisconsin, there’s not much you can do to help them.

So you need a plan to focus your search engine optimization on only your most likely prospects. So where do you start?

STEP 1: FIGURE OUT WHAT YOUR TARGET MARKET IS LOOKING FOR

Well, you first need to start by figuring out who your most likely prospects are. Are they people moving into town from out of town? Are they people buying or selling within town? Do you have an even more focused niche than that? (Hopefully you do).

Each of these groups is looking for something different.

If your target market is military families who are moving to Wausau, Wisconsin from elsewhere to work on the ultra-secret military base then they are searching the web for very different terms than if your target market is soccer moms and dads who are looking to sell their first home and upgrade because they have baby #3 on the way.

Figure out what your target market is looking for and the types of words they are using to search online.

STEP 2: GET THE SEARCH TERMS

Head over to Google’s Keyword Tool and type in some of those words into Google’s keyword search. In the example below, you see I’ve done that with the fairly generic term “Homes for sale Wausau Wisconsin”…

By the way: The key here is to combine an action verb — “buy home”, “sell home”, “list home”, “find home” — with a location — in this case “Wausau Wisconsin”. Don’t forget to try mixing words like “buy house” instead of “buy home” and also try the short form of your state instead of the full name (or, drop the state altogether and see what the results are).

When you click the Search button you get the result of your search…

And just below that, you get a big list of ideas that are similar to the terms you’ve written…

This list is useful because it shows you related keywords that people are searching for that you might be able to use.

Find a few that you want to focus on — somewhere between 3 and 6 keywords. If you help people buy AND list homes then consider focusing on 3 buying-specific keywords and 3 listing-specific keywords.

STEP 3: USE THOSE SEARCH TERMS EVERYWHERE

You’ve found the terms that your clients are looking for. Now it’s time to use those search terms everywhere. Use them in the following places:

  • In your website domain name
  • In your website title and subtitle
  • In the title of your blog posts and web pages
  • In your article marketing (in the title of the article and in the text)
  • In your press releases
  • In the title of your ebooks
  • In the title of your print book
  • As the name of your ezine
  • In the title of your Storify locally-focused stories
  • In your Twitter description
  • … and anywhere else that you put online and offline

Mix and match them. Pepper them throughout your work. “Own” the words by making your brand synonymous with those words.

An introduction to search engine optimization for real estate professionals (Part 1): What is search engine optimization?

By Aaron Hoos on October 11, 2011 in Real Estate

When someone wants to find something on Google (or on some other search engine), they type a word or a phrase into the search engine and they get a list of websites that the search engine feels is relevant to that word or phrase.

For example, I’ve searched “Orlando real estate agent” to get a list of real estate agents in and around Orlando.

Websites don’t just appear by magic in those search results.

Search engines scan all websites to know what each website is about. Then the search engine files the site appropriately so that it only appears in search results when specific words or phrases are typed in. A website about Orlando real estate professionals should appear when someone searches with words relating to Orlando and to real estate agents. Search engines call these words and phrases “keywords“.

Search engines just use robots to scan websites, not real people. So these robots just look at all the lines of code that make up your site and they make their best robotic guess about what your website is talking about. They might do a pretty good job but they might not file you exactly where you want your site to show up.

For example, if people are Googling a phrase like “Buy a home in Orlando”, and you want your website to show up when someone searches that phrase, you need to build your website in such a way that it tells the search engine robots that your site is all about that phrase.

If you haven’t used the right combination of words, the robots won’t understand where to file your site. You need to be specific about the keywords that you want your website to be searchable for or your site will end up appearing lower down in searches or for completely different phrases.

Example: Let’s say that you are a real estate agent in the nice, friendly town of Sunnyville. If your clients use the phrase “Sunnyville real estate agent” when they’re searching for a real estate professional in Sunnyville, you will probably want to use that keyword on your website so the search engine robots will know that you want to your website to be found when someone searches that phrase.

If you don’t use that exact phrase in your website (maybe you use “real estate agent” and “Sunnyville” elsewhere on your site), but one of your competitors uses the exact phrase “Sunnyville real estate agent”, the robot that scans their site will file them higher on the list than you. That means your competitor will appear higher in the search engine results than you when a potential client types in “Sunnyville real estate agent” into the search engine.

So your first job is to figure out what keywords you want your website to be searchable for. I’ll show you how to do that in tomorrow’s blog post. Once you’ve discovered what keywords you want your website to be searchable for, the next thing you have to do is strategically use those keywords so that the search engine robots can easily understand what your site is all about, and so the robots can file you correctly.

How to improve your accountant marketing so more targeted prospects come through the door

By Aaron Hoos on September 16, 2011 in Finance

Your website can potentially reach a massive global audience. But if you’re an accountant, you’re not so concerned about website visitor from the other side of the world. Rather, you’d prefer website visitors from the other side of the street! Your website needs to reach a local audience.

In this video, I show accountants how to make one simple tweak on their website to help them get more local traffic to their website.

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