Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from March

Since we update our Growth Spurts blog several times a week, our readers know they can find a lot of actionable marketing & technology advice in it. And in case you’ve missed them, we offer a regular summary roundup of the most popular/interesting posts of the month where we extract the most useful information into tips you can use, and in many cases, provide a link to learn more.

Here, then, are our 5 favorite posts from the past month:

Advertising and SEO

Goodbye, Google Sidebar Ads – What You Need to Know – If you’ve done a Google search on a laptop or desktop in the last few weeks, you’re sure to have noticed a big change. There’s a lot of white space on the right – gone are the sidebar ads and the maps and local listings. What impact will this have on local marketing, SEO and search advertising? While the changes are so new the verdict is still out, we’ve gathered insights from a number of experts in order to get an early read.

Content Marketing

5 Ways to Make Your Blog Post Interactive on the Cheap – Is it time to breathe some life into your blog posts? This article features five tools you can use to draw your readers in and keep them engaged.

How to Grow Your Blog Audience: Here Are 5 Tips – So you have a great blog. You write great content with lots of important information worth sharing. You publish frequently and promote your own content. But still, you aren’t getting many hits. Does it mean your content needs reworking? Not necessarily. Breathe new life into your existing posts by following these 5 steps, and you can transform your low-traffic blog with a high bounce rate into a blog many new people will actually read and come back to.

Social Media Marketing

60 Facebook Advertising Mistakes that Make You Look like a Rookie – Facebook advertising can be deceptively simple and straightforward. This article provides concrete examples of what not to do.

How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media to Grow Their Online Presence – for Free! – After conducting our own social platform/content test for several months, we were able to prove that by investing a minimal, but regular, amount of time and effort, any business can grow its online social presence – for free. Learn how here.

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Goodbye, Google Sidebar Ads – What You Need to Know

If you’ve done a Google search on a laptop or desktop in the last few weeks, you’re sure to have noticed a big change. There’s a lot of white space on the right – gone are the sidebar ads and the maps and local listings. Instead, ads, maps and search results are combined in one center column, mirroring the mobile search experience. The removal of the ads follows on the heels of the new local “3 pack” change last August, which reduced local listings from 7 and moved it to the center column.
What impact will this have on local marketing, SEO and search advertising? While the changes are so new the verdict is still out, we’ve gathered insights from a number of experts in order to get an early read.

The Key Changes

Here’s what has changed in this worldwide rollout that happened in mid-February:

• There are no text ads on the right sideof the search results on desktop.
• The total number of text ads that will appear on a page shrinks from 11 to a maximum of 7:
  • 4 text ads (up from 3) are in the main area above the organic listings.
  • 3 text ads will show at the bottom of the SERPs.

Here’s what’s not changed:
“PLAs demonstrate strong user interaction when they’re on the right side, so they’re staying put.” – Search Engine Land

What This Means for PPC Advertising

“With the new layout, the top four ads will dominate the above the fold section of almost all searches… Click through rates for these ads should significantly rise, which is great news for conversion focused advertisers who have an appetite for more volume. If, of course, you are in the top few ad slots.” – Ad News
“It seems intuitive that having fewer ads on each SERP is going to make ad positions more competitive. The effect on click prices is yet to be seen.” – Marketing Land
It’s important to enable any extensions possible. “Top ads are eligible to show more extensions, and those same extensions can also show at the bottom of the page. Now that text ads on the right rail are gone, each opportunity you get to display an ad is an opportunity to show a helpful ad extension. Investigate all of them and add any that you might be missing.” – Search Engine Land

What This Means for Search Results

“[The addition of the 4th top ad] combined with the range of different ad extensions available, will push down the organic search results even further. Every extra extension pushes the results down by one line… [In spite of this], it’s actually looking like this change will show an increase in organic traffic for websites that are ranked in the top positions.” – Ad News
Early testing shows that the longer the query, the less likely the SERPs will include either ads or the “local pack.” According to Erin Everhart, Lead Manager, Digital Marketing, SEO at The Home Depot, “The value of long-tail keywords just increased, since those keywords are naturally appearing higher above the fold. Yes, they are searched for less often, but they’re now even more likely to provide higher CTRs in addition to the higher conversion rates they’ve historically come with. The longer the query, the closer a person is to purchase.”

How to Grow Your Blog Audience: Here Are 5 Tips

So you have a great blog. You write great content with lots of important information worth sharing. You publish frequently and promote your own content. But still, you aren’t getting many hits. Does it mean your content needs reworking? Not necessarily.

Breathe new life into your existing posts by following these 5 steps, and you can transform your low-traffic blog with a high bounce rate into a blog many new people will actually read and come back to.

The SEO and Analytics Steps to Follow to Grow Your Blog Visitors

1. Make sure your blog posts are visually appealing – and contribute to SEO

Looks aren’t everything. But are people more likely to take your blog seriously if it is professional looking? You bet! You put a lot of time into your blog posts, and it should look like you do. Be sure your layout is organized with defined sections. Add aesthetically-pleasing, yet relevant images. Furthermore, use relevant keywords in the alt text field (the text that will show if an image doesn’t render correctly) to maximize SEO. Put the effort into making your blog look like it is worth reading, and your bounce rate will drop, and average time on page will improve.

2. Increase readability, improve SEO and lower your bounce rate by using headers to create clear, concise subtitles and bullets

If your blog post is a list-type post in a bulleted or numbered format, think “SEO” when writing the headers of these lists. Each header you include should be a clear summary of what is to follow in the paragraph(s) below. And by including popular (and relevant, of course!) keywords, you’re reinforcing for Google what the post is about. This, in turn, increases your chances of showing up in search results.

3. Optimize your Meta Page Titles

Your meta title, the text in the top left corner of your web browser, should clearly depict what the post is about. This text can be picked up by directories/webmasters, too, if they decide to link to your post. Be sure to include the “focus” keyword of the post. Keep it relevant. Keep it specific. Keep it simple. (60-70 characters, max!)

4. Create/Update your post’s Meta Descriptions

The meta description neither plays a major role in SEO nor improves your rankings in a Google search, but it is still very important. Because, while there’s no guarantee that this description will be used by Google, if a search query matches it closely enough, Google may choose to display it in the search results. This gives you some control over what is displayed, and could mean that the searcher may be more likely to click on your post, as it will appear to be a good fit.

If you have not put much effort into your meta descriptions, they are easy updates to make. Start with your top-viewed posts and add focused, keyword-rich descriptions. Again, while it should be concise, the meta description give you more space to expand upon your page title. Think of it as a short summary to hook your readers. This will make it more likely for readers to find your post. (150-180 characters)

5. Re-promote your older, evergreen posts on all of your social media accounts – with appropriate hashtags

Sharing your posts with your followers is a great way to gain new views, but Twitter especially gives a potentially large opportunity for new readers. You can tweet out your posts, even if they are older posts, a few times a day with different text. Fool around with hashtags and find out what works best.

Don’t be hesitant to periodically – even aggressively – re-promote your “evergreen” posts (posts that stay relevant over time). Each time you tweet, a new person may find your post. Chances are, someone is looking for exactly what you are posting about, so let them find you through relevant hashtags. Even just one retweet can have a dramatic impact if it comes from a user with a lot of followers. (Read about evergreen posts for local businesses here.)

Click to tweet this post to share with your followers

So how do you know any of this actually works? Well, we tested it ourselves, and we think the results speak for themselves.

Our Blog SEO/Analytics Test Explained

We took four older blog posts and tracked their performance over the course of six months (a period we will refer to as Period 1). We then implemented the five changes listed above, tracked the posts for the following six months (Period 2), and compared the results of Period 2 to Period 1.

To start, we updated each post to be more visually appealing and up-to-date. This included the addition of new graphics (as the old ones looked dated), changes in font, and the switch to a more simplified format.

Once we were satisfied with the overall layout, we went to work on updating our SEO. This involved some keyword research to see if any new keywords had become popular since the original post date, as well as reworking headers and bullets to include these keywords.

Following the steps listed above, we then changed meta page titles and meta descriptions as recommended in steps 3 and 4, and we repromoted the posts on social media. We promoted each post once a week on Facebook, and up to six times a week on Twitter.

So what do the results of our test reveal?

After implementing the 5 tips provided above, we saw noticeable improvements in three areas that are good indicators of page performance:

• Page Views (how many times the post was viewed)
• Unique Page Views (the number of individual visitors to your page)
• Bounce Rate (the number of visitors that leave your site after viewing only one page – the lower the bounce rate the better)

Analysis of the page performance of these posts indicated an increase in page views/unique page views, as well as a decrease in bounce rate from Period 1 to Period 2. In fact, unique page views saw an increase of 24% following the implementation of these steps, which means more people were able to find our posts thanks to the SEO benefits provided by these changes.

The bounce rate decreased by about 5%, meaning that these changes brought visitors who actually stayed on the website rather than immediately bouncing off the page. In short, this means the viewers of the updated posts were quality visitors that were actually interested in the topic, rather than visitors that navigated to the page by accident.

All in all, the results of our test allow us to conclude that implementing these 5 tips can breathe new life into your older posts. Optimizing the posts for on-page SEO and regularly re-promoting them can have a positive impact on the number of individual visitors who can find and read your posts. And, of course, by incorporating these tips into any new posts, you’ll be one step ahead of the game from the start.

How Small Businesses Can Use Social Media to Grow Their Online Presence – for Free!

A large business with widespread consumer appeal can naturally expect organic social media growth in terms of followers and interaction: people already know your name, are interested in your brand and are looking for answers. In this case, you may spend more time interacting with customers and keeping up with questions than you do just promoting content.

But we were curious: does this mean that if you are a small business with fewer resources, or in an industry not known for an interest in social media, you should abandon all social media efforts?

The simple answer: No!

We don’t mean that you can sit back, do nothing and watch the Likes roll in. But after conducting our own social platform/content test for several months, we were able to prove that by investing a minimal, but regular, amount of time and effort, any business can grow its online social presence – for free.

Share this post using hashtag #SalesRenewal and be entered into a Free MIA (Marketing Investment Analysis) Giveaway – $250 value.

Tweet: See how any business can grow its online social presence – for free. #SalesRenewal http://ctt.ec/P3SwN+

Which Social Media Sites Will Work Best for My Small Business?

The answer will vary based on your particular market, but we recommend starting with the “big 3”: Facebook, Twitter, and Google+. Each platform allows you to interact with different audiences that when used together allows you to create a unique community of peers, prospects, clients, and more. The key to getting the most out of your efforts is to understand these differences and use them to your best advantage.

But first things, first. Before we get into the details, let’s talk strategy, because whether you’re a large or small business, you shouldn’t “do social media” for the sake of doing social media.

What is the goal of your social media? Is it to increase sales? Is it to build awareness of your business? In our test, we’re focusing on the latter.

The next step is to set expectations for the three different platforms and understand how all three will contribute to your unique community. Our test confirmed that we can:

• Use Twitter to build relationships with others in the same industry
• Use Facebook to build a solid base of interested fans
• Use Google+ to increase reach among those who may not be familiar with your business

Finally, figure out what content you are going to promote. Do you have original blog posts that others might find interesting? Can you share images of recently completed projects? Is your business part of a larger industry of which you can curate news to share with followers?

Once you understand your content, you can set up a schedule for finding, creating and publishing on each social media platform.

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Tweet: See how any business can grow its online social presence – for free. #SalesRenewal http://ctt.ec/P3SwN+

So how does my small business use Facebook, Twitter, and Google+ all at the same time, but in different ways?

Use Twitter to Build Relationships with Others in Your Industry

Even if your individual business is small, chances are it is part of a somewhat larger industry. And even if you are in an industry whose customers do not actively interact with you on social media, chances are your peers are ready and willing to “talk”. This is where Twitter can be of great benefit to you. You can use Twitter to build a business community which could lead to partnerships, referrals and even potential customers. If you can create this connection with your peers, then your content has as greater chance of being noticed by other businesses and shared among your industry and beyond. Here are three ways to help get you into the game:

1. Start following others in your industry. For example, if you have a painting company, follow others with “painting” in their name. At the very least, you may get some good sources of content from these companies, but they will most likely follow you back. Both you and your followers gain sources of content, and you gain new followers as well. Win-Win.

Our test: By following this simple step over the course of 12 months, we managed to organically grow followers for one client by 93%! By growing followers, we also grew impressions and interaction in a similar fashion, which means all of our content is now seen by a much larger audience.

2. Promote your original content via Twitter. Share it with those in your industry. Tweet at specific people to get noticed (think @ and #), and tweet often. Then, with those followers that you’ve recently gained, you will likely get likes and retweets from those in your industry. Once you break into the scene and share great content, others will notice and remember your name.

Our test: We began our content campaign in September, and by the end of the year we had already seen 80% growth in interactions, including mentions, retweets, favorites and replies. Keep in mind that we already had a working Twitter account before the campaign, but you can see when we changed tactics by the results in our chart. We saw similar results with all our clients, so believe that you, too, can see similar results with your Twitter account.

3. Interact! Retweeting and favoriting posts will gain recognition, and soon enough you’ll be part of your industry’s social media world. Once you’ve tapped into this network, your impressions are bound to increase exponentially.

Our test: We started this “interaction” campaign in November. As you can see, we grew our reach by 25% and more than doubled interaction in just two months!

This is only the beginning. By keeping up this cycle of following, promoting and interacting with those in your industry that care about the same topics as you do, you will see exponential results over time.

Share this post using hashtag #SalesRenewal and be entered into a Free MIA (Marketing Investment Analysis) Giveaway – $250 value.

Tweet: See how any business can grow its online social presence – for free. #SalesRenewal http://ctt.ec/P3SwN+

Use Facebook to Build a Solid Base of Interested Fans

Unless you hired a firm that offered to grow your fans for 5 cents a Like (please tell us you didn’t do that!), chances are the majority of your followers are folks who are genuinely interested in you. These are valuable prospects and customers, because they already know your business and they care about your success. The most important types of posts for a small business are those directly related to your company. This includes images of recent projects, company news, products, etc. If you want to see interaction spike, including shares, impressions and reach, your best bet is to promote as many of these types of posts as you can. (Of course, we would never advocate 100% of your content be about you, 80% is a good target.)

Our test:In a study conducted with our signage company client, we posted three types of content over the course of a one-month period: projects/company news, original blog posts, and curated content/industry news. The same number of posts for each category were promoted at similar times of day for similar days of the week.

By far, the posts that got the most views and interactions were related to recent projects or company news. Original blog posts came in second, but only received 62% of the reach of “projects” posts. Curated content was least effective, only scoring 41% of the reach when compared to “projects” posts.

Share this post using hashtag #SalesRenewal and be entered into a Free MIA (Marketing Investment Analysis) Giveaway – $250 value.

Tweet: See how any business can grow its online social presence – for free. #SalesRenewal http://ctt.ec/P3SwN+

Now we know what works best, but does this mean you should limit yourself to only one type of Facebook post? Of course not! It just means you can emphasize recent projects and company news, and intersperse this with curated content. Remember: Curated content is always important because it brings variety to your posting – people don’t want to only hear about you.

Use Google+ to Reach Those Who May Not Know Your Business

Google+ may not be the social media platform Google was hoping it would be. But you know what? That’s okay, because that means you do not have to split your efforts to grow multiple fan bases – stay focused on Facebook and Twitter. If you do have a decent following on Google+, that’s great. You can still post to it and receive clicks and interaction as you would with Facebook. But Google+ brings an added benefit – SEO! – that does not require you to have followers.

When you post to Google+, your posts then have a chance of showing up in a Google search, which can increase traffic to your site. When you post to Google+, you want to make sure you have clear and concise titles for posts, as well as descriptions that include relevant keywords. When people search for these keywords, they may be directed to your Google+ page, which could then lead them to your site.

While we spent the majority of our interactive efforts on Twitter and Facebook, we regularly shared our content on our Google+ page. By making sure our our titles and descriptions were targeted to a specific key concept, we found that our Google+ posts showed up in Google searches for those key concepts. This allowed us to reach yet another “community” – searchers who may not necessarily know our business but who are interested in our topic.

Make it a part of your routine to share to Google+ whenever you post to Facebook. It only takes an extra minute or less.

It is often difficult to show a direct correlation between social media marketing efforts and the bottom line, particularly for smaller businesses. But when social media is viewed from the right perspective – as means of building your community of peers, prospects and customers – it’s clear that it is an important tool for marketing a business, large or small. And while it may be harder for smaller businesses with a small following to earn followers and interaction, we’ve proven that it can be done by understanding and taking advantage of the strengths of each particular platform. By following these tips, you can grow your following, increase reach, and gain valuable interaction in just a few short months.

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Best of Growth Spurts – Our Favorite Posts from November

Since we update our Growth Spurts blog several times a week, our readers know they can find a lot of actionable marketing & technology advice in it. And in case you’ve missed them, we offer a monthly, summary roundup of the most popular/interesting posts of the month where we extract the most useful information into tips you can use, and in many cases, provide a link to learn more.

Here, then, are our 6 favorite posts for the month:

Marketing Strategy

• Don’t Let Silos Destroy the Customer Experience – Integrated marketing is critical for a good customer experience. It means breaking down silos not only between individual marketing tactics, but across product lines, between marketing and sales, and with upper management, too.
• A Better Way to Calculate the ROI of Your Marketing Investment – Today, marketers have access to data that allows them to track an individual’s various interactions with a brand before their purchase and better understand what role each interaction played in the eventual sale. This approach is called “attribution modeling, ” and allows companies to attribute appropriate credit to each online and offline contact and touch point in a customer’s purchase cycle so that they can improve their marketing ROI. Read more about this approach here.

SEO

• Google’s Natural Language Search Gets Smarter – If natural search traffic is important to you and you have not yet reevaluated your SEO strategy, this story makes it abundantly clear that now is the time to do so! Why? Because you are shooting yourself in the foot if you’re still focusing on traditional keywords instead of semantics.
• 9 Ways Small Businesses Can Be Big on Google – With smart planning, small businesses can have a strong presence even with a limited budget. Taking advantage of online opportunities is key. Here are 9 ways to make sure your SEO efforts pay off, including adding customer reviews and ratings to each product you sell; using a variety of images and/or videos for each product; and building links to specific product pages instead of just your homepage or other high-level pages (a.k.a. deep-linking)

Content Marketing

• How to Market to Goldfish – Did you know that the average attention span has gone from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8.25 seconds in 2015? And that is shorter than the attention span of a goldfish, at 9 seconds. But all is not lost, as we are humans, not goldfish. Find out some of the keys for holding people’s attention in this article from Hubspot.

Social Media Marketing

• How Airlines are Using Social Media for Seat Selection – They call it “social seating.” By using your social media profiles, airlines will select who you sit next to on your next flight. The claim is that it will provide you with a better in-flight experience. What do you think?

Stay up-to-date with marketing news and advice for your business – Subscribe to our Best of Monthly Digest here.