Online Consulting

Google Says Goodbye to Content Farms

Custom WordPress Sites, Online Consulting, SEO, Social Media Advisors, Twitter

Over the past two weeks Google has really been making big news and cleaning up their search results. First we heard all about the debacle of J.C. Penney from the NY Times for not playing well online and using too many black hat SEO techniques to even list. Some of the topics that they used to rank #1 on now are not even found in the first ten pages of search content. Clearly, Google will not tolerate people trying to cheat the system and has no problem acting with authority they possess when needed.

Custom WordPress Site Results in Google — New Social Search Results

Then last week they announced major changes in social search results in Google. No longer will the results just show up at the bottom of the page, but they will now be ranked into regular results along with organic traffic. This means that social media platforms like Twitter are even more valuable to your business. I just did a test to see how this affected my results while logged into my Google account. As many of you know, we built custom WordPress Sites, so when I did a recent search, there was the link to our site sitting at #3 in the results. Granted, my results there might be slightly skewed as I am the owner of the social media accounts, logged in, and in the same geolocation, but when I checked with a friend on the other side of the country, I was #6 there. So, if you aren’t yet using social networks, START NOW!

Following these two big headlines from Google over the past 2 weeks came another HUGE announcement today. Google has declared war on the content farmers. Content farms are websites that simply pull content off of other websites and publish it out as their own. They are also sites that have thousands of pages of random content about absolutely nothing of value at all. People have built these sites because in the past the massive amounts of pages of content would rank well and help them to generate some good income through ads running on the sidebar and people clicking on links within to affiliate programs.

Google Results for Custom WordPress Sites — New Content Farm Free Search Results

But, Google has recognized that these sites are not worthy of such well placement in the SERP’s and have started to take action accordingly. This means that sites that have a blog attached where users are generating their own unique content to their own site are going to start to see better ranking results. I noticed that already I have seen big jumps by some of my keywords. For example, that same term, Custom WordPress Sites, when I search it in a cache cleared browser not logged into Google, it used to rank on page two of Google. Now I have moved onto the first page of Google and am sitting at number 6.

This once again places a greater importance on blogging and writing new fresh content for your site regularly. If you are not creating new unique content for your site on a regular basis you will probably find yourself dropping down into the abyss of results with the content farmers, black hat SEO users, and plain old spammers. Develop a writing strategy, get a plan in place and start. If you don’t think you can find ideas to write about regularly, there are services to help with blog topics from really great bloggers. Saying you don’t know what to write about is an excuse that can no longer be tolerated.

From my perspective, I am really happy with these recent changes from Google and am excited to see how this will affect online businesses as things move forward. If your business isn’t as successful as you want it to be online, it might be time for a change.

Social Search Becomes Even More Important To Search Engine Rankings

Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors, Twitter

Today Google is starting to roll out some new features in it’s Social Search rankings. The use of social search isn’t a new feature, it has been around for a while and has been a part of your searches. If you had not noticed them in the past, they were usually showing up in your searches towards the bottom of the first page. You would notice that the results were of those you had connected to on social media networks like YouTube, Twitter, etc.

According to Search Engine Land, Google’s new roll out will take your connections via social networks and make them even more important starting today. From what I read in their post, you will now see your social connections showing up in the results just like an organic result would. This means that using services like Twitter are even more important now to your business as they too can start to be ranked in the search engines.

The one thing I found interesting in their post was that Facebook Likes were not going to be indexed yet into the search results. In Fact, they referred to Twitter as “The new Facebook Like.” By this I believe what they mean is that you will see more and more using Twitter to help share content. As we all know, Facebook has special connections with Bing, so I think this might be a way for Google to snub Facebook some.

The other point I wanted to bring a little bit of emphasis to is that the size of your sphere is going to play a little great role in how people find you. Each consumers social search results are going to be based on who they are connected to. So if I have only 70 connections that I interact with and you have 700 that you interact with on a regular basis, then you are going to have a much larger net to connect to.

The other part I see with social search is that the more interactions and things you share with your sphere, the more likely you are to show up in their search engine results when one of your connections search for something. The beauty of this type of ranking is that you do not need to have a vast knowledge of SEO, or pay someone a bunch of money to get ranked. You simply need to share links and talk about topics that are of interest to you. Also, talking about topics related to your brand/business will help you to show up within your connections search results when they are needing assistance with things that your business handles. The one caution I would add though, is make sure you still continue to connect and engage consumers regularly and not just turn into a serial spammer. You know you don’t want to become hated on Twitter.

So if you aren’t using social networks like Twitter, you may want to start today!

Too Many Gurus, Not Enough Workers

Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors

I will start this post today with a fair warning that I am about to rant. So if you aren’t wanting to read this, click here. This morning I was doing my normal routine of talking with people on Twitter when I noticed one of my local friends sending a tweet calling out a local “Social Media” Agency to see if they would respond since they didn’t to his previous tweets over 24 hours ago.

Here’s exactly what the tweet was he sent. As many of you know, I wrote about 7 ways to be hated on Twitter a few months back. And as you can see by Paul’s tweet, they obviously got him a little unhappy. In fact, as I went on reading the discussion that took place, Paul was not alone. Several from around the area chimed in with their displeasure of these types of companies.

After reading his tweet, I immediately took off to investigate this a little bit further. I love the term gurus and love it when companies call themself it. So the first thing I did was open their Twitter account to see how they had been using it. I was very shocked to see they were following at least three of the seven things I had mentioned before about using twitter wrong.

Here Comes the Rant

All of that above was said to get to this point. There are many companies out there that call themself experts and gurus on a subject. Before you hire them based on a flashy presentation or a fancypants website that has glitz and glamour, take a moment to do some investigating of the company. Ask them to show you how they are personally using social media for their own business. Don’t be duped into signing up for a service where they create your accounts & will run them for you. If this happens I can almost guarantee you that the accounts will be set up on automation and no engagement will take place with consumers.

Even more importantly than this, make sure you at least see if they have accounts themselves for their company. Paul started looking more closely at local companies and found three other major businesses in our area that sell “social media packages” that do not even have Twitter accounts set up for their personal business. I find it very diffficult to call yourself a guru and sell a product if you are not using it yourself.

Part II

The second thing that really gets under my skin are those who are wanting to be experts and gurus in social media just because they have used it for a bit and find it enjoyable. What many do not realize is that those brands and businesses that are having success with social media is because they work the various platforms hard and put in countless hours to make it profitable. I know personally for 210 Consulting, I spend anywhere from 10-20 hours a week collectively working on content for our blog, engaging consumers on Twitter, and interacting on Facebook with my connections. While it takes a good amount of time to do this stuff, it has paid off very well for me over the last year as our business has continued to grow each and every month.

Companies who set up accounts and never do anything with them and expect them to create business for them are drinking some special formula Kool-Aid that isn’t going to produce. Too many times everyone wants to have the title, but are unwilling to put the work. Over half the clients I talk to ask me how to automate everything in a coaching session. My response is always the same. You can automate and syndicate your stuff out to everywhere, but it’s basically pointless to do so if nobody reads it and you aren’t there to interact to those who comment.”

Automation is an option and you can use it if you want, but it is so ineffective that I wouldn’t dare use it. It’s the lazy man’s way of doing social media. The person who does their social media marketing this way will eventually turn into the person who sits on the couch all day eating chips watching TV. Eventually you will get to the point where you will be so lazy that you won’t be able to even get up and will mess yourself. Consumers are smart, they are watching and they are paying attention. They know if your brand isn’t actually interacting with consumers. If that happens they aren’t going to connect with you and definitely don’t want to buy your products or services.

So, before you go and hire a guru take some time to check them out & see what they are doing on a regular basis. If you want to see what we do here at 210 Consulting, here’s links to all our profiles:

If anyone would like links to any of our other social media profiles, feel free to ask in the comments below and I will be happy to share.

Making Facebook Connections Personal

Facebook, Facebook For Business, Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors

We all heard the big fuss this week about Facebook changing the layout on Business Pages. I saw at least 10 different people write about it. As usual, my first stop was over at my buddy Mike Mueller’s blog as he is my Facebook Guru whenever I want to know the real details. However, this isn’t what I wanted to discuss in this post. Instead I wanted to talk about one of my absolute favorite tools on Facebook. This is a tool that allows you to connect on a one on one level with others and make your Facebook Friends a personal friend once again.

Who Cares? I’m All About Quantity

I understand that some of you are probably thinking to yourself right now, “who cares? I am trying to make as many connections as possible!” If that is your mindset, I get that. I personally have over 1,400 friends on my Facebook profile and accept just about any & all friend requests. (Unless I know it’s spam.) But here’s my question: What good is 1,400 friends if I never interact with them?

Now don’t get me wrong, there are ways to connect with people through leaving Happy Birthday wishes on their wall with 300 other people. But to me that isn’t that personal. In fact this last birthday of mine I looked and some that came by to wish me Happy Birthday. Several had not left a comment, or anything on my wall since my bday before. So how does that make me want to be a consumer of their product or service? I could also try tagging them in photos that they aren’t in to help promote by business, but that doesn’t seem too personal but rather more like spam. Instead, my favorite way of connecting with friends on Facebook is through Chat.

Facebook Chat For Personalization

When I start each day of work, one of the first things I do is sign onto Facebook and open up my chat. I do this for several reasons. The first is that I am connected to many of my previous and current clients. They like using the service to ask me a quick question about their custom WordPress sites, or to schedule a coaching call. It’s a fast easy way for them to get a response from me. On my end, I like it because I can talk to multiple clients all at the same time. It’s not uncommon for me to have at least four different Facebook chats running at the same time. I also like the rest this gives my voice as I already talk anywhere from 3,000 to 5,000 minutes a month on the phone. Which is my second reason for using Facebook chat. I can multitask phone calls, multiple chats and save my voice all at once.

The second reason I love using Facebook chat is that it is a great way to connect with past clients. We all know that after a few months down the road your clients can start to forget who you are. They don’t remember that while you helped them with one service, you also have a list of other things you offer. Sometimes just the simplest conversation with them can drum up new business. Over the past few months this has been one of my most productive ways of stirring up new business. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t start a conversation with “Hey do you need any of my services?” The art of the soft sell is definitely needed here in full force. Instead I may ask how their family is doing, or how they like their new site, or share an article that might help increase their business. By offering something of value, they are more likely to remember me in a positive light.

The third way I use the Facebook Chat is to answer questions of those I am connected to. I regularly see friends of mine on Facebook asking for assistance with an issue on their wall. I could send them a private message and wait for a response to see if I answered the question properly, but that can take a lot of valuable time. Plus normally when you answer a question for someone there are three other questions you may have to get answered to get to the correct solution. If they have their chat enabled, I simply send a message. After a simple conversation and quick solution, I have instilled trust in them and that person will think of me the next time they might need to hire someone to handle a task related to my business. As with any type of networking, the key is getting your brand and name in front of consumers as much as possible in a positive manner that they will remember you in the future.

This leads me to the last way I use Facebook Chat to personalize my connections and expand my business. When time permits, I will start conversations with friends that I knew from many years ago and try to reconnect. This may be old high school friends, people I grew up with, or college buddies. Once again, I don’t necessarily start these conversations with the mindset that if I talk with them it will bring me business. I genuinely am try to reconnect with past friends that I have slipped out of touch with. If we don’t talk about what I do for a living at all, that is fine. Why? Because now that we have talked about our kids, shared photos, and reminisced of times of old, I have now gone from just someone they knew in the past to an old friend that is back on their radar. They are no more likely to pay attention to my status updates, photos & videos. All of this means more opportunities for business.

I am sure there are many other ways to connect on a personal level with people on Facebook. For me, I am a fan of the Facebook chat and will continue using it. So, the next time you are logged on, find me and let’s start a conversation!

Mapping Your Consumers Actions

Online Consulting, Social Media Advisors

I must start this post by stating that I am a complete statistics junkie. I love studying my Analytics in Google and trying to figure out the patterns of my visitors. I can get lost for hours dissecting my data and enjoying every second of learning more about my consumers and what they want, what patterns they follow, etc.

I recently read through a presentation that Jay Thompson gave on “Conversion Optmization For Your WordPress Blog.” In that post he shared a bunch of links to different ways to monitor how people are using your site. There were a few that stood out to me, one of which was clicktest. It’s a simple setup where you can upload an image, and have people do a simple test on your site. You can either make it a multiple question type test where people can view the image for 5 seconds and then answer questions on what they remember, or as I chose, I ran a test with a screenshot of my site and asked people to click where they would go next when visiting my website.

There is a paid and a free section to the site. I signed up for the free version which gives you about 20 tests. To get a few more clicks and test results for free, they allow you to share your test on Facebook & Twitter. You can also participate in others tests to earn a few more clicks. By doing this I was able to get a good mix of results to the test from random visitors along with current and potential clients who know me. This means I had a good mix of new and returning visitors to my site.

So What Did I Learn?

I was pleasantly surprised by the results that I received from my test. I have broken down the findings into the 5 main things I learned about consumers visiting my site:

1. They Want To Know More About You- When I studied the notes for my site, the first thing I learned is that people do want to learn about you the person behind the business as well as what the business is about. The hottest section on the heat map by far was my about page. This made me realize quick that I need to go back through those pages of my site and make sure they are in the best condition possible delivering the most amount of quality information to consumers about what we do, who I am and yet still give them something of value to want to stay at our site. In the past I always focused my time and effort on providing quality content in blog posts and I know my about section is lacking because of it.

2. People Click Pictures– If you look the results for my site, you can see that people were clicking on my image in the blog post. Normally when I write a blog post, I do not set the image to go anywhere with a target link. So, when someone clicks on the image, it just shows the raw image file. I learned though from these tests that people actually click on the image on a regular basis and that it is pretty important to have that image linking somewhere. So, when you place an image on your blog posts, make sure that they deliver something of value. Either link them over to a page inside your site that continues the conversation on the topic or to an external area that gives more information on the subject you are covering.

3. People Like Search Options- This one didn’t catch me by surprise as being a popular area of the site. I know when I visit a site I am not familiar with I like the ability to find a search button and get directly where I want to be instead of surfing through the entire site. I was however slightly surprised by how popular it actually was. What I learned here is that it is imperative for a site to have search button in place in a clear visible position for consumers. Remember, the easier the navigation is to get consumers where they want to go, the more productive your site will become.

4. Call To Action Buttons- I wrote about the importance of a clearly defined sidebar before here on my site, but this test helped to confirm my point. Having clear call to action buttons on your site above the fold is very important to consumers and they will click on them. The fourth most popular place people clicked on my site was the call to action button for our Custom WordPress Site Design. I knew already that this page was the most popular static page of our site from studying our analytics over the past few months, this test just confirmed that validity in having that button on my sidebar.

5. It’s OK to Have Products Front & Center- I’ve debated having the Products & Services tab at the top of my site. My one thought was that maybe it was too in your face and turned away consumers that were coming to gather information from a blog post. My other argument though was that if I moved it to an interior section of my site, it would make it almost impossible for consumers to find their way to that section. And while it may turn off a few consumers by it being on the main screen, I came to the conclusion it is imperative to keep this here because if consumers cannot find my products or services then it will make it almost impossible for me to earn a living. And while I really enjoy sharing good information with my sphere, I still need to be able to support the family. I also think this is the other major contribution to our Custom WordPress Site page being so popular. This is one of the very few pages on my site that you can get to by either using the main navigation at the top, or the sidebar button. Clearly though, people want to know more about our products and services when visiting the page as that is the second most popular section of the site.

So do you know what consumers do when visiting your site? If not, it may be time to find out.