WHAT’S NEW IN LOCAL SEARCH
I had a chance to interview Chris Silver Smith at DFWSEM and we had a really good conversation about local search. Here’s a link to his SEO Blog.
Transcription
Eric McGehearty: Hi, it’s Eric with Globe Runner SEO, and I’m here today, I’m excited. I’ve got Chris Smith; he’s the director of KeyRelevance, which is a great SEO company here in Dallas, just like Globe Runner. And I’ve actually heard Chris speak before and I was pretty impressed with his knowledge of local search. You were citing patents, bringing out all the facts and really referencing everything you had to say.So, I thought this was a good opportunity, I cornered Chris. And, Chris, can you give us some insight in what you see going forward in local search? What’s big right now that, as a small business that’s trying to get a presence or even a large company that needs to worry about local, what’s the big things we need to be thinking about? And then what’s coming out next? What do we need to be watching out for?
Chris Smith: Sure, thanks, Eric. Yeah, Google’s changing local almost daily. They’re deploying lots of different little iterations to their interface and how listings and businesses can show up on Google and under place search as well as in Google Maps, and on mobile. And all of those little iterations in how businesses are displayed and presented are areas of interest for businesses, because it impacts how they’re interpreted by consumers, how they’re selected.
And we have only limited ability to be able to affect some of that, how that’s displayed. The areas where you are able to make changes, primarily in Google places, you’re able to associate images with your listings, such as logos or photos of your product, services, and your business place. You’re able to add in descriptive terms, description of the business. Make sure that your address is correct. And some other criteria, like products, services, add in particular lists, make sure you’re categorized correctly.
Those are fairly straightforward things. Behind the scenes, though, there’s stuff that you can do, also, to insure that your business appears to begin with. And that’s kind of the big thing for most businesses.
Eric: But just trying to put this on the front page for them, it’s their major selling points.
Chris: Exactly. And so, there are lots of people that are very focused on that. It kind of boils down to making sure that you have a lot of links or what we call citations, which are mentions of your business or mentions of your location. So, a mention of your business name plus your address, or business name plus phone number.
And then the classic search optimization criteria, how many links do you have pointing to you and what sources they’re coming from. All of those things are things that businesses have to be paying attention to in order to rank well in local.
Eric: Well, that’s a good question that I think is always something that we’re interested in, and I’d like to talk a little bit more. How does your backlink profile to your website affect your local listing? Or does it?
Chris: It does affect it, and in fact I believe it’s become more influential with the changes that they’ve made over the last year or two put forward place search, which kind of changed how local was presented to the regular web search.
Eric: So, it’s almost co-mingled.
Chris: Exactly.
Eric: It looks like a regular web, yeah, it looks like a regular web result, but it’s got some local information, it’s got the star review, there’s a little more space between listings.
Chris: Right.
Eric: Yeah, so, yeah, that made me feel like I was probably going to be looking at a backlink profile.
Chris: Yes.
Eric: But I’m tied to the local page.
Chris: Well, we know that it became… Links, backlinks became more influential as a side-effect from that change, because when they merged business listings, which were all part of just a little inserted map listing, you know, widget, essentially.
Eric: Like a 10-Pack or whatever.Chris: They integrated those business listings with actual web listings. And before the change, if you had a business that didn’t have a website, it still could rank within what we call the 7-Pack or 10-Pack. After the change, those businesses that don’t have websites aren’t showing up. And so we know that they had to integrate regular web search results with those business listings in order to make them appear within the regular search results.
And so, like you said, they’re co-mingled and I believe that after the change, links and backlinks became more influential than they already were. Now, as part of the total ranking algorithm, the usual traditional SEO criteria, how many links you have pointing to your website, in addition to key-order relevancy stuff, you know. The link text pointing to your site in those links, the titles that you use on the web pages, the text content, images, all of that goes together and it’s part of the ranking criteria.
A really great resource to look at is David Mihm’s “Local Search Ranking Factors” survey, which has a number of us from the industry that have been watching how rankings work within local. We all contributed to it, and voted for what criteria we thought ranked higher. And it’s kind of amazing how similar our perspectives are just from, you know, all over the country, in all different industries that we’re doing optimization for.
Eric: I’ve got one last question. I know we’ve gone long, I try to keep these really short, but Chris is such an intelligent, knowledgeable guy, I’m going to go long.
So, my last question for you is, in Webmaster Tools I can go in and I can actually say, “Hey, this website is intended for a local audience.” I can pare it down to the United States; I can pare it down to Dallas/Fort Worth. And I can tell Google Webmaster Tools that my website itself is intended for a specific geography.
Does that play a…? How much of a role do you think that plays in local search? Do you recommend that as a strategy? What are your thoughts there?
Chris: I don’t think that that’s all that critical for local websites.
Eric: OK.
Chris: I think, eventually, it becomes [unintelligible 06:36] based on the business’s address and the type of industry it is. So, I wouldn’t set that. I know, in a lot of cases where people were very concerned about which country their website is associated with or whether it’s considered national or international, people would make their settings. I think it makes more sense if you’re here to do some very country-oriented content, or if your content is illegal in other localities and stuff.
You know, gambling comes to mind; they try to limit it from showing up in their different, in some other…
Eric: If you’re a multinational and you have different websites for different countries, you might want to leave those.
Chris: Right. Like, that could help to specify to Google which ones you should show for, particularly if you’re a dot com trying to show up in a foreign country, you don’t have that top-level domain name that’s going to be an incubator for… that you’re specific to that particular country.
Eric: That’s a way to go in and just kind of say, “We really are here for a reason.”
Chris: And I think if you’re a dot com trying to… a dot com, but you’re a company located in Canada, it could be useful in that case. But for most cases, I don’t think it’s necessary [unintelligible 07:51] to set that.
Eric: Good. Well, thanks, Chris, this was great information, I really appreciate your time.
Chris: Sure, yeah.
Eric: And again thanks for taking a minute and letting me hijack you.
This was Eric with Globe Runner SEO. Once again, a great interview, Chris was really knowledgeable, and take what he had to say for it with a lot of seriousness, because this guy really knows local search and he’s impressed me and that’s sometimes hard to do.
Chris: Thanks very much.
The 5 Most Common SEO Mistakes Clients Make
There are so many elements to a sound SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy that it’s common for digital marketers to fail to see the forest for the trees. They are so focused on the more noteworthy, often complex, elements that they forget about the basics. They want to throw fancy pitches—sliders and knuckleballs—when they haven’t yet mastered the fastball. It’s a common SEO mistake.
You can argue that certain elements of an SEO strategy are more important than others, but that’s not the point. If something is helping get visitors to your website, it’s important. What’s really important is that the basics aren’t skipped. Glossing over the basics could be the most common SEO mistake we see on websites we evaluate.
The following 5 are the other most common SEO mistakes, whether committed by someone new to the world of digital marketing or by a seasoned professional.
1. No Sitemap
If your website doesn’t contain a site map, how can you expect Google to easily crawl it? A sitemap tells search engines about website pages that are ready for crawling. Sitemaps are created in a standardized XML format and include information about webpages, their titles, the last time they were updated, associated metadata, and more. You can also add images and videos to your sitemap, but if you have a lot of pages (online retailer, for instance), you should create separate XML files for each.
2. Lack of Internal Links
No question, having a solid linking strategy is important, just don’t forget the internal links. Marketers often get so focused on getting external links that internal links get short shrift. They’re both important.
Internal links help keep visitors on your site longer, which is duly noted by search engines. Internal links also help search engines better navigate your site and can augment the sitemap. If a sitemap directs visitors to a page but it doesn’t have links pointed to it, search engines may consider the page unimportant and index it accordingly.
3. Too Focused on Traffic
Yes, SEO is about getting visitors to your website, but how helpful is it if you’re attracting the wrong ones?
If you’ve invented the latest, greatest iOS golf app and are trying to attract visitors to your booth at the PGA Merchandise Show, you don’t want Android users showing up (unless, of course, they are ready to switch to an iPhone). Who cares that your briefcase is full of business cards if you’ve attracted the wrong prospects?
When creating and deploying a SEO strategy, it’s very common for marketers to focus on getting the most visitors possible to the website. All those visitors will look great in Google Analytics, but it’s not going to accomplish your ultimate goal—generating more business. Do you want 10,000 visitors that deliver 10 customers or 1,000 visitors that deliver 20?
Think CRO (Conversion Rate Optimization). CRO tells you how effectively you are getting the right visitors to your website. It answers the question, Are the visitors I’m attracting converting to customers? Calls to Action (CTAs), such as form fills to download content or watch a webinar, will help determine if you’re attracting the right visitors. If not, it’s time to create better, more compelling content and cast a smaller but more profitable net.
4. Focusing on the Wrong Keywords
Everyone thinks they know about keywords and understand their importance. It’s an important part of an SEO strategy, but it’s common for marketers, even seasoned ones, to get too hung up on the keywords they assume are important. Here’s the issue—without using valuable keyword tools available, it may be hard to focus on the right ones and think like a customer. You may be too close to the messaging and unable to see through customers’ eyes. Also, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed buying behaviors. Customers may be searching for your products or services differently now than they did prior to March 2020.
Also, you need to consider the keywords your competitors are focusing on and here’s why—if you haven’t been, they’ve been building authority related to those keywords. You need to begin filling that gap. If they’re also bidding on those words through paid ads, they have gotten an even bigger lead. You have some catching up to do.
By using SEMrush, you can easily find out the keywords your customers are focusing on. In short, you need to think both like a customer and a competitor. Use Ahrefs to see pages on competitors’ sites that are getting a lot of traffic. It’s a great way to do some detective work on content and keywords that are attracting visitors. Use this information to help craft more high-value content for your website.
5. Thinking You’re Done
SEO isn’t a set-it-and-forget it proposition. You don’t revisit it every few months. The 5 SEO tactics listed here are some of the more common techniques marketers overlook. If you want SEO to work for you, you’ve got to work at it. Whether all your competitors are focusing on SEO is irrelevant; just know that some definitely are. And they’ll be getting that traffic you want.
Contact the SEO Experts
If you need the help of a digital marketing agency with more than a decade of SEO experience and expertise, Globe Runner is the partner you’re looking for. We are here to help inject your digital marketing initiatives with rocket fuel and launch it to success. If you’re ready to blast off, call us at (972) 472-8528 for a free digital marketing consultation.
How to write a great email for your upcoming campaign
Whether you’re sending a single email or crafting one that will be distributed to thousands, there are a number of things you can’t overlook if you want to get the most opens and clicks possible. Sure, you could get lucky and achieve the metrics you’re looking for, but why leave it up to chance? Counting on luck is a bad digital marketing decision.
Subject Line
The email subject line is so important that, if it isn’t carefully crafted, the following suggestions may prove moot. Without it, there’s a pretty good chance they won’t open the email and get to the body copy and the holy grail of digital marketing–the CTA (Call to Action).
The key to creating a great Subject Line is to not give away too much information, but just enough to make the viewer want to open it. Great examples are “What they never tell you about when you file for bankruptcy” or “Don’t do this when applying for a job” or “Are you positive you’re safe from ransomware?”. You don’t want to mislead recipients, but give them just enough info to make them want to peer inside.
Personalizing the Subject Line with the recipient’s first name can vastly improve your open rate. Several studies indicate that doing so enhances opens by anywhere from 35-50%. Also, use your, or another person’s, actual email address so that it shows up as being Sent From. If they receive an email from Sales@ or Marketing@, your open rates will suffer.
Clear, concise; yes, less is more
Sure, you want to display your writing prowess, but don’t get sucked in to writing for yourself. It’s a common mistake, but, remember, you’re writing to get recipients to act on your CTA. Be concise and remember that less is more. Try and keep the email copy to under 200 words and break up the text into a few paragraphs. You don’t want a single, solid one; that will make your 200 words look like a lot more. If you open an email and are hit with several hundred words, your mind immediately calculates the time you’ll have to invest to get through those words. Get to the point, and fast. Your goal is to get them to take action as soon as possible.
Don’t forget the white space. Without it, even the most concisely written copy can appear too long. White space combats clutter, the enemy of good content.
Using images? Include alt-text
Breaking up copy with an image is fine, just make sure it isn’t overpowering. Also, make sure it includes alt-text so it can be displayed on whichever browser the recipient may be using. No alt-text, no image, no good.
It’s all about the CTA
Don’t make CTAs hard to find. They should be prominently displayed, whether it’s clicking on a button, hitting a link, or filling out a form. Remember, that’s the ultimate goal—getting recipients to act on the CTA. You can include additional touchpoints, like social media icons linking to your page, but make sure they don’t interfere with your CTA.
Know your personas
Think about who will be receiving the emails and create personas for them. What will they act on, what will turn them off? If your campaign is targeting C-level professionals, your copy needs to address the types of responsibilities maintained by that level of employee. For them, you may not include as much granular information about a product or service, but more about how it can enhance ROI and affect things like CAPEX or OPEX. In other words, know your audience and write to them.
Words to avoid, lists to exclude
Steer clear of words that can trigger spam filters, like guarantee, winner, order now, free, risk-free, congratulations, etc. They can send your carefully crafted email straight into recipients’ spam folders. And while we’re on the subject, sending out to purchased email lists is another good way to get your emails flagged. If you’re using an Email Service Provider (ESP) and you send to a purchased list, you’re playing with fire. They often contain spam traps, which are emails included in the lists that signal the ESP that it’s a purchased list (they don’t like purchased lists). In other words, the ESP will know that this isn’t a list of recipients who have opted-in to receive the email. And if recipients flag your email as spam, the ESP will soon reach out to you wanting more information on the list, how you got it, etc. Also, purchased lists will often have a lot of hard bounces (bad email addresses), which is another red flag for the ESP.
Don’t forget to Test
Take the time to conduct A/B testing, which tests 2 versions of the email. For instance, you may want to test 2 Subject Lines, so a small percentage of the list receives email A, the other email B. The winning email (the one with the most opens) is then sent to the rest of the list. You can test subject lines, email copy, images, promotions, CTAs, etc. It’s a great way to hone your messaging and efficiently get the most effective version in front of the most amount of people.
Also, test your email in different browsers and on mobile devices. There’s a good chance that at least 50% of your emails will be viewed on a smartphone, and if it doesn’t look right, you’ve essentially scrapped half of the messages sent, maybe more.
Contact the experts
If you need the help of an online marketing agency with more than a decade of experience, Globe Runner is your partner. We are here to help inject your digital marketing initiatives with rocket fuel and launching it to success. If you’re ready to blast off, call us at (972) 472-8528 for a free digital marketing consultation.
Marketing Your Retail To Go Services
With Texas Governor Greg Abbott’s most recent executive order (April 17, 2020), our state’s non-essential Texas retailers can begin offering “retail to-go” services this Friday. This is a fantastic opportunity for retailers to recoup some of the revenue that was lost over the past month when stores were shuttered. So what is your plan for marketing your retail to-go program?
What is Retail to-Go?
Retail to-go means selling your retail merchandise without customers coming into stores. Stores are still closed to the public, but orders can be accepted online or by phone and retailers can ship merchandise, deliver it or offer curbside pickup.
What Does Retail to-Go Marketing Include?
Depending on your situation, retail to-go marketing may include a wide range of communication vehicles and marketing tactics. It will most definitely include a component of online marketing – a website with photos of your products, business pages on social media channels, and email marketing to your client base. You may have some of these in place already, but what updates are needed to get back in business quickly? Some changes you may consider might include:
- Add e-commerce capabilities to your existing website
- Make website changes or additions to let customers know about retail to-go
- Market and sell your products on your social media pages
- Deploying an email marketing campaign to promote your retail to-go services
- Search engine optimization to ensure your products are discovered by interested customers
- Paid search ads to be sure your products are prominently displayed in searches
Rocket Fuel for Retail
Hopefully, you have been keeping your customers informed during the COVID-19, so you’re on their radar and they’re anticipating your return to the marketplace. The start of retail to-go means it’s time to go full blast. If you need the help of an online marketing agency with more than a decade of experience, Globe Runner is your partner. We are here to help inject your retail operation with rocket fuel, propelling it to success. If you’re ready to blast off, call us at (972) 472-8528 for a free digital marketing consultation.
Now Is The Time Time To Get Creative!
As we face a new reality of battling the coronavirus (COVID-19), your way of life and your way of doing business has likely changed completely, seemingly overnight. While these are challenging times, for many of us, there are opportunities. Throughout history, in times of crisis, adaptability has proven to be an essential ingredient for survival. During wartime, hundreds of U.S. manufacturing companies converted their operations from making consumer goods to items essential for war.
Today, with COVID-19 spreading across the globe, nimble businesses are already adapting to meet changing demands and fill needs. Dozens of alcohol distilleries across the country are using their capabilities to produce and distribute much-needed hand sanitizer. In the UK, Dyson and Rolls Royce are being tapped to manufacture ventilators to treat coronavirus patients. Car services that usually focus on taking travelers to the airport have switched to meal and grocery delivery. Hotel housekeeping services are now sanitizing medical facilities and other venues offering essential services.
To thrive, you must find ways to pivot, to serve existing customers in a new way or use existing assets to tap into a new market. Globe Runner is here to help identify the best ways to get the word out; on your website, through targeted digital advertising, and via email and social media marketing campaigns. Globe Runner’s digital marketing expertise can
- Bring in new customers and clients through Digital Advertising Improve your visibility with search engine optimization
- Add online selling capabilities for products and services through an eCommerce application
- Inform and reassure existing customers
- Improve your online reputation with proactive strategies and messaging
Globe Runner is ready to help your business succeed in any and every way possible. Give us a call today at (972) 499-0453 for a brainstorming session on ways we can help your business.
Sincerely,
Eric McGehearty CEO
Globe Runner
Law Firm PPC for Attorneys
Pay Per Click (PPC) Services for Lawyers
If you’re not satisfied with the search results your law firm’s website is getting, you might want to consider another option: pay per click (PPC), also called paid search advertising. If your field of specialty is particularly competitive, you may have found that your SEO efforts aren’t achieving the results you’re after. You may want to consider PPC advertising to supplement the traffic organic search brings to your site.’
Types of Search Results
There are two types of search results: organic and paid. Organic refers to search results you don’t pay to acquire. If your SEO, blogging and listings are enough to get your website premier search results, that’s fantastic. If not, PPC can help get you more visibility in search engine page results.
When you do a Google search, there are several results at the top of the page with a small “Ad” designation. Those are “Google Ads” paid search results, which is Google’s paid search advertising platform. (While other search engines, like Yahoo and Bing, have similar paid search vehicles, here, we focus on Google Ads because almost 80% of searches are conducted via Google.)
How Paid Search Works
PPC advertising involves an auction, with you (and your competitors) bidding on keywords (e.g. Dallas Estate Planning Attorney). If, when, and where your ads appear in a Google search is determined by your Ad Rank, which is calculated by your maximum cost-per-click bid (the highest price you are willing to pay for a click on your ad) and your ad’s quality score.
Obtaining page one results from paid search advertising takes more than simply outbidding your competitors. If your max bid is $2 and your quality score is the highest of all bidders in the auction, your ad might appear higher than an ad with a $6 max bid but a lower quality score. You are only charged when a viewer clicks on your ad and is directed to your website. Quality score plays a big role in determining ad position.
How is Quality Score Calculated?
Quality score is a measure of the quality of your ad and its landing page, relative to the keyword. Ad quality is determined by factors such as expected click-through-rate, the ad’s relevance, and the landing page experience, which includes relevance, page load speed, and usability on mobile devices. The bottom line is, you can’t buy your way into the top position on Google Ads. You must optimize your ads and your website to be successful with PPC. In short, the higher the quality of your ads and landing pages, the better the return on your investment (ROI).
PPC advertising certainly isn’t a set it and forget it proposition. Each time someone performs a search, a new auction is conducted. Advertisers adjust bids, ad spend, ads, and other factors on a daily basis. And in an effort to improve their product and stay on top, Google updates, revised and changes Ads continuously. So, what worked well last week might produce different results today.
LAW FIRM PRACTICE AREAS WE OFFER LEGAL MARKETING SERVICES FOR
Bankruptcy
Business Law
Business Litigation
Child Custody
Civil Litigation
Corporate Law
Criminal Law
Divorce
DUI/DWI
Estate Planning
Family Law
General Practice
Health Care
Immigration
Labor and Employment
Landlord and Tenant Law
Libel, Slander and Defamation
Medical Malpractice
Medicare and Medicaid
Personal Injury
Real Estate
Social Security Disability
Wills and Probate
Workers Compensation
For more information about PPC for attorneys, contact the law firm marketing experts at Globe Runner. We specialize in helping law firms get the most out of their paid search advertising dollars.
Why Your Marketing Needs Branding Guidelines And How To Create Them
Whether you’re a one-woman business or a multinational corporation, strong branding is the hallmark of a trustworthy, professional organization.
Clearly defining your strategy and maintaining your brand consistently across an endless array of marketing channels is a skill best served by official branding guidelines.
Looking to put out marketing messages that are so evidently you make your competition an afterthought? Take out a pen and paper. We’re about to give you a crash course in developing and creating branding guidelines for your business.
What are the Basics of Branding Guidelines?
Your brand is the face, voice, and personality of your business. The main goal of your branding guidelines is to strategically and definitively spell out how all marketing collateral should sound and appear to the outside world.
Done right, they ensure anyone who’s read them – freelance contractor to CFO – can step in and design social media posts, make updates to your website, or put together written informational material about how to represent your brand without an in-person play-by-play.
What do Branding Guidelines Include?
Many of the elements you’ll want to include in your branding guidelines are somewhat obvious – others are a little more nuanced but just as important so you don’t end up on this list of social media fails.
Start by scoping the following brand subtleties:
- Attributes. What would a potential hire, future customer, or business partner find when they Google about you? Are you an Inc. 5000 recognized business? An SEO expert? Addy award-winning company? (Oh wait, that’s us.) Start with the high-level view and get granular from there.
- Brand personality. Are you bold and groundbreaking? Cautious and thorough? Selective and specialized? Genuine and compassionate? If you’re having trouble putting these into words, think of what a good “culture fit” would be if you were bringing on a new member of your team.
- Core values. These are internal messages that guide your day-to-day. You might share them with the world, but they’re primarily used to steer your marketing and operation efforts.
- Target audience. Here’s where our dear old friend the buyer persona takes center stage. Use them to help you craft compelling collateral and tantalizing turns of phrase that capture their full concentration.
Next, move on to the visual brand elements that represent your brand:
- Color usage. What specific colors do you want to be used? Which should be used together, and what should be avoided? Get clear about the vividness or gradation you want to be applied and provide specific Pantone reference numbers where possible.
- Typography. Fonts make a huge difference in conveying your brand’s personality. Make sure you have a list of typography that works well together and defines which ones to use for headlines and subheadlines, web content, blog posts, etc.
- Iconography. Will icons that help users navigate your website be hand-drawn? Cartoon-ish? Image-based?
- Photos and imagery. Will images be clean with tons of negative space throughout? Or color-saturated? List feeling words to help content creators choose images and photographs that mirror the brand personality.
- Logo usage and variations. Your brand’s logo is your calling card – the most recognizable piece of the branding puzzle. Be sure to give written instructions about which logo variations are to be used when. Be it as watermarks on all your social media posts or as a condensed or expanded version of itself, cite specific examples including which size and color logo variations are appropriate in different settings.
Round out your branding guide by defining your written voice:
- Tone. Are you warm and empathetic? Authoritative and knowledgeable?
- Topics. Which are the most pertinent topics for your industry? Which should writers steer clear of?
- Grammar. List all possible particularities here. Oxford comma stickler? Hate hyphens? Are you APA, Chicago, or elements of style devouts? The people want to know.
- Emoji-usage. Some brands are pro – some very, very anti. There’s no right or wrong answer so long as your writing guidelines specify one way or another.
- Expletive and punctuation usage. Many brands rely on the use of curse words to pack a punch and shock the reader into paying attention. These more expressive brands are often bent on using exclamation points in their marketing materials. If these rub you the wrong way, you’re not alone. Just spell it out!
Whether you’re a start-up or reorganizing your small business after decades in the industry, creating branding guidelines can quickly help you establish your organization as leaders in the field and make you instantly recognizable. Even a simple sketch up of these basic branding elements can deliver huge returns.
Want a branding expert to help you put guidelines together? We’re on it!
How to Come Up With Irresistible Topics For Your Content Marketing
Blog posts that make headlines. Viral social media posts. Web series watched at breakneck rates. That’s the power of well-curated content marketing.
But it’s not enough to have Pulitzer Prize-worthy copy and National Geographic-style imagery. Truly tempting content often begins with one thing: topics that are relevant to your target audience.
Choosing the right topics for your content marketing efforts is part art, part science, and these trade secrets are just the boost yours needs to start improving their ROI.
1. Talk about the topical.
You don’t want to talk about trends exclusively, but if there’s a relevant breakout story that’s even semi-related to your brand, it’s worth talking about while it’s timely.
One free tool that will give you endless easy-to-use data is Google Trends. Whether you want to explore the topics that are breaking the internet that week, or search for something related to your business, this is the place to start.
The very top section allows you to enter a search term or topic you’re interested in. From there you can scroll to the bottom of the page to see related topics that might be more niche and of interest to your readership.
You can keep scrolling down the trends.google.com homepage to see recent stories and trends the internet is already consuming.
Just make sure to exercise all possible channels to help disseminate your high competition topics. We’re talking paid advertising, influencer partnerships, and content with high production value.
2. Get niche.
In the same way, long-tail keywords can help you zero in on topics your target audience is searching for, niche topics that are less competitive tend to yield higher results.
Let’s take content marketing vs influencer marketing as an example. The former is a household name – one that established businesses know they must use in order to stay relevant. However, influencer marketing is an emerging frontier where social media brand ambassadors are just beginning to establish themselves.
Point is, choosing to write about a topic that’s hugely relevant for your brand or industry, even if it’s not well-known yet, can put you at the forefront of thought leadership and bring in loads of new subscribers.
3. Pick network-specific topics.
Whether throwing your hat in the meme ring or comparing terminology used on different social media platforms, make sure to keep where you plan to share your content top of mind and create accordingly.
You can also promote the content differently on various networks for a cross-channel attention grab.
4. Repurpose once-popular content.
Don’t reinvent the wheel. If you had a once off-the-charts piece of content that has since gone dormant, you can likely revive it with newer, more engaging topic phrases.
Whether you republish it on your own site or send it to affiliate sites to remarket it to different audiences, it’s a great way to make your content marketing do double duty without putting in a lot of extra hours.
5. Use content marketing tools.
Remember that you never have to do it all on your own. There are plenty of content marketing tools available to you at low to no cost.
Paid versions give you invaluable insights to see what your audience is searching for, the channels they’re using to find it, and how the search volumes compare over time.
Remember that what you’re not writing about, your competition probably is. Staying ahead of the curve – or at least following along its trajectory- is the best way to ensure your content marketing topics are timely and click-worthy.
Need some help putting pen to paper? Let us do the legwork for you!
INVENTIVE TACTICS TO DOUBLE YOUR EMAIL LIST
People are wary of email soliciting. Maybe it’s junk mail fatigue, maybe it’s genuine distrust, but on the extreme end, ask for an address and you may as well be requesting their social security number.
Still, we all know companies whose email list numbers in the thousands with impressive open rates to boot. So how do marketers overcome the skepticism and keep subscribers engaged over the long haul?
That, my friend, is today’s aim.
Looking for inventive ways to double your email subscribers? These tools and tricks are designed to do just that.
Why Prioritize List Growth?
You’re still reading so that means you are at least partially invested in growing your email list. Great!
For those of you still on the fence or who need to make a case to the higher-ups, what if we told you that with no email growth strategy in place, you’re likely to lose about half of your list within two years.
According to Hubspot, email marketing databases degrade by about 22.5% every year. Some of your subscribers change companies, others actively unsubscribe part way through the year, and many fed you an inactive yahoo email from the beginning and haven’t logged in since 2007.
We repeat, the time to double your email list is now!
Here are five essential, creative practices to implement starting with your next email campaign.
- Use buyer personas to list segment. You know we’re big proponents of both buyer personas and email segmentation. The two go together as naturally as search marketing and increased sales. Certain users will respond better to certain content. It’s your job to use the demographic information you have about your subscribers to send them pointed emails with information that’s most likely to speak to their specific interests. We also recommend segmenting by action so you know if a reader is more likely to follow a certain CTA or consume particular pieces of content.
- Host an event. Workshops, speaking engagements, and networking events are great ways to bring in fresh potential subscribers. Whether you invite industry leaders, contact social media influencers, or just give out free snacks, there’s no shortage of options to draw a crowd. Simply look within your immediate community to create a killer panel. Or, if you’re like us, consider promoting a cause. In our case, we decided to turn our office into a gallery space, inviting talented local artists to show their work a few times a year. Whatever type of event you host, make sure to use a site like Eventbrite to register guests, send tickets, and capture their emails in the process.
- Offer a guest WiFi. You’ve done it a thousand times at the airport waiting for your plane to board. The security line was a breeze and you now have an hour to kill before takeoff. You shore up appropriate WiFi networks on your laptop and see the Boingo Hotspot or free airport guest WiFi. With the flick of the keyboard you enter your email address, hop online, and never give it a second thought. Similarly, offering a free guest free WiFi option to your patrons or clients who visit your office is a great way to grow your email list without much work. Apps like Gazella make the collection even easier, integrating the collected contacts into platforms like Constant Contact.
- Run a paid ad. Paid search is everywhere these days. It’s a critical part of any digital marketing strategy that can help you knock out all variety of end goals. While most people think it’s designed to increase your web traffic or improve your page views, you can also use it exclusively as an email capture. We’ve seen plenty of clients have great success creating a Facebook paid ad that steered browsers to their email sign-up sheet, effectively doubling their email subscribers in the span of the campaign.
- Go analog. We’re living in a digital world, but don’t underestimate the value of good ‘ol pen and paper. You might try sending out postcards to former customers with a QR code that takes them to your subscription page. Or you could simply create email sign up sheets on rotation at trade shows, your brick and mortar stores, or at the receptionist area of your office.
These email list growth tips only scratch the surface of all the many ways you can increase your subscribers.
Want us to talk you through additional email marketing strategies? Make contact – see you in our inbox!
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