How to bring your Business Success Using Pinterest

Pinterest is one of the fastest growing social media platforms to date, surpassing over 10 million user faster then any other stand alone site in history. But what can it do for your business? Well, as Donna Moritz mentions in her article “The 10 Commandments of using Pinterest for Business”, studies have shown that, not only does Pinterest generate more traffic then LinkedIn, Google+ and YouTube combined, it can actually get you more referral traffic than Twitter. Those, to me, are some pretty good reasons that businesses should be using Pinterest.

Just in case your still not convinced that something as fun as Pinterest can possibly be of use in a business sense, check out this video.

Now that your convinced (hopefully), how do we make sure we succeed with our Pinterest account. Well, here are a few things to keep in mind. 

1. Have a plan, don’t just pin anything. Set up you account properly and integrate your other social medias with your account.
2. Make sure you always check the source of a pin before you re-pin it and always credit your sources in your own pins.
3. Pin strategically. If your pin can work on multiple boards, pin it to all of them to increase your pins reach.
4. Be social. Don’t just pin, engage with other people’s pins (like your potential consumers) by liking or commenting on them and, if it fits to one of your boards, re-pin it.
5. Produce visual content. Pinterest is a visual social media. Make sure you images stand out and grab users attention and interest.

These are just some of the thing you can do to insure your Pinterest success. For more in-depth tips and strategies see Moritz article on “ The 10 Commandments of using Pinterest for Business” and check out the Infographic below. 

Not the moon landing … but just as important: How to choose the right landing page for your ad.

First off, what’s a landing page? Well, it’s really simple actually. It’s the page within your website that your potential customers “land” on when they click on your ad. Often in Organic (unpaid) search results this would be your websites home page. But when it’s a paid ad, often you want to make sure that you are taking your potential customer to the exact point in your website they want. For example, if you are a restaurant and your ad is about a catering service your business supplies, instead of taking the consumers that click on the ad to your home page and them having to search the website for information on your catering service, have it land them on the page in your website that is dedicated to the catering service, or perhaps the order form they would fill out when hiring you. 

Selecting the right landing page for your ad can make or break the success of said ad. The less work you make the consumer do, the happier they will be and the more likely they are to become a customer.

The key take away is to make sure the landing page is relevant to your ad and not just your site's home page.

Here is a infographic that leads you through the do’s and don’ts of optimizing your ad's landing page   

It's more than just tactics! It's insights

Social Media platforms like Facebook and Twitter are simple enough to use. I mean most kids now have a Facebook page by the time they’re 6. It’s not rocket science. But using them effectively as a marketing tool is a whole new ball game. There are small, boutique agencies out that specialize in Social Media Marketing and tactics. But many off them are struggling. Why when Social Media is such a fast growing marketing tool are these boutique agencies struggling. Well, Jamie Turner, founder of The 60 Second Marketer, has some insights.

In a blog post titled “How to Think Strategically About Social and Mobile Marketing”, Turner talks about how agencies are focusing only showing their clients some tactics to use when developing social content. This is good, but there is only one problem. After one or two campaigns, the clients are going to realize how it’s done and how best to utilize it and save money by using an in house team instead of hiring an outside agency.

So how do you prevent this? You need to become more than just the tactics person. You need to become a metrics person, says Turner. While people can easily go and figure out some good tactics and implement them, many are clueless when it comes to analyzing the metrics and discovering how a particular campaign is succeeding or failing. Knowing how to do this, and do it well makes you valuable to clients.

But, Turner goes on to say that this still is not enough. To truly make yourself invaluable to clients you need to be able to come up with the tactics, collect and analysis the metrics and then provide insights. You need to be able to look at you client’s data and their competitor’s data and spot the trends. If you can foresee any potential challenges and develop strategies to implement to avoid the challenges, you will look like Social Media Gods in your client’s eyes.

To see Turner's full article, How to Think Strategically About Social and Mobile Marketing, click here.

Does Google +1 help your page ranking in Google search?

Every companies or brands goal is to be number one on Google. But how does one do this, and do it right. How do you get to the top of the Google search ladder without getting blacklisted? How do you make sure that you show up in the right search categories?  Well, your page ranking depends on a number of factors that Google’s computers analyze. Keyword density, anchor text, metadata… the list goes on. But in a recent study done by Stone Temple Consulting, one thing is for sure. Google +1 have no effect on your page ranking in Google.

 

Many companies and brands assumed that Google+ shares would prove their brand influence, therefore improving its page ranking in Google. So when Google's Distinguished Engineer Matt Cutts politely said that, no, Google +1 in fact did not help your page ranking, it sparked serious discussions in the industry. And when Stone Temple Consulting released the findings of its study, many were shocked that Cutts was indeed telling the truth.

In terms of discovery and indexing, Google +1 do help. But when it comes to your page ranking, Stone Temple Consulting found that they had no effect that they could see from the 6 articles they tested in the study. "We saw no evidence of Google+ shares driving ranking," Eric Enge said, President of Stone Temple Consulting.

Well, there it is. While Google +1 will help Google search find and index your website, it will not help increase your page ranking.

To get more information on the study, see New StudyFinds Google+ Shares Don't Cause Higher Search Rankings or join the Google Hangout hosted by Eric Enge entitled "Documented Google Plus Impact on Search Rankings" this Thursday (September 19^th) at 4 p.m. ET when he will discuss the study's findings. Joining him to discuss the study will be an all-star panel that includes Mark Traphagen of Virante, Pete Meyers from Moz, Joshua Berg of Google Plus SEO and SMO, and Marcus Tober of Searchmetrics.

Who uses Google? (Infographic)

Thats a weird question. Doesn't everyone use Google? Well, yes, but who is the average user? What do they look like? What are they searching for? Well, according to data collected by Google in 2006, the average Google search user is male, has graduated college, makes on average 77, 000 dollars a year ... well you probably don't want to sit there and read about it. So here is a fun info graphic  depicting the average Google search user.

Who uses this search engine? Does my products/services target market use this search engine? This is the kind of information that companies would want to know when they are looking to optimize their websites for search engines and making it the number one search result.