I hope everyone had a great Father’s day! You may have been too busy BBQing, golfing, fishing or playing with power tools to put aside time for Internet marketing news. Here are a few articles that have arose in the IM world in the past week: Facebook Hashtags Take a Page From Twitter’s Ad Business; Google X Announces Project Loon; Twitalytics Arrive: Official Twitter Analytics Released to the Public; and Why You Should “Bing In On” It Your Online Marketing.

This Week In Internet Marketing 2013 06 18

Facebook Hashtags Take a Page From Twitter’s Ad Business

Last but not least, Facebook finally jumped on the #hashtag bandwagon. Hashtags give user the opportunity to join real-time conversations. This will expand Facebook’s community engagement and increase its marketing capabilities. Twitter may have to compete to keep maintain ad revenue.

Google X Announces Project Loon

Google realizes that everyone isn’t connect to the Internet. Project Loon is balloon-powered Internet access for areas of the world that don’t have access to traditional web options. The overall goal of this project is provide new resources and technologies to areas of the world that it’s currently unaffordable.

Twitalytics Arrive: Official Twitter Analytics Released to the Public

Twitter is finally offering analytics to its advertisers. No ad spend is required; however, advertising must be offered within your country to access the new feature. None ad related tweet stats include the number of retweets, favourites and extended reach from follower shares.

Why You Should “Bing In On” It Your Online Marketing

Bing isn’t only reminding marketers but also the publics that its still a relevant search platform. With Bing’s market shares increasing, it’s important for marketers and business owners to rule in the search engine into their online marketing strategy. Try out the Bing It On challenge, it might be worth reallocating some paid search budgets.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

Google Authorship Beyond Webpages

How to Win in the Google Stock Market

Best Practices for Measuring SEO Success

6 Mobile Marketing Tactics to Nurture Customer Relationships

Google Settles Class-Action Lawsuit Over New Class C Stock

Of course when you grow up it becomes less about toys and more about your favourite teams vs. their most embittered foe, Apple vs. Mac, Coke vs Pepsi, Pirates vs. Ninjas, Playstation vs Xbox etc… You know the kinds of conversations I mean, the type that get fanboys to make t-shirts. It’s simply natural, we love to watch the controversy that brews from rivalry.

What an idea!

I was thinking about this recently after one of those late night X vs Y conversations and started to wonder. How do my favourite rivalries match up on social media? In particular, I wanted to use the social media de facto measuring stick of Facebook and likes. I started to construct grudge matches in my head, attempting to demonstrate the innate urge for resentful combatants found in all of us.

I chose 5 of my favourite rivals and pitted them against each other by examining the number of likes they’ve received on Facebook. Don’t worry though, this isn’t the wild west, there must be rules! Well, only one rule in fact.

My only rule is each of the participants must be neutral. By saying this I mean one of the contestants cannot be infamous or notorious. For example, one can’t be King Henry VIII vs. His Wives, Magneto vs. Professor X (although I love Magneto) or the Black Plague vs. Healthy Living. In addition, I found not all of these pages were verified accounts, so I chose to use the most popular or relevant page results in that case. So with the format in mind, let’s move forward with my top 5 rivalries.

My Top 5 Rivalries Played Out Through Social Media

1. Leafs vs Habs

I grew up in a hockey crazed home. I mean hey, I am Canadian! Nothing was better growing up in Toronto than a Saturday night game between ‘le bleu blanc et rouge’ aka the Montreal Canadiens and my beloved Toronto Maple Leafs (I know, I know, here comes the hate). Checking the verified Facebook accounts of both teams I saw the following.

Toronto Maple Leafs

Montreal Canadiens

Winner: Montreal Canadiens

I was dismayed to see my boyhood team on the losing end of page likes; however, I was happy to see more people talking are talking about the Leafs! I suppose I should be used to losing as a Leafs fan, but it still hurts. Round 1 goes to the Canadiens de Montreal.

2. Star Wars vs Star Trek

If you haven’t gathered by now, I am a nerd. Two of my favourite universes ever created take place among the stars. I’ve always dreamed of space travel and these two franchises have only fueled my fantasies. To be completely honest, although I started my galactic journeys with George Lucas’s franchise (Star Wars), I eventually drifted towards the adventures of Starfleet’s beloved crews. I love both equally.

Star Wars

Star Wars comes in with 10 million+ likes despite the fact I was unable to find a verified account. This among other things proves there’s an astonishing number of geeks out there. This doesn’t even take into account particular film pages so this number is staggering.

Star Trek

Star Trek was a little more difficult, with various shows and movies attached to the franchise, it was hard to find a definitive page. That being said there is still an impressive fanbase out there who go “boldly” follow the brand on Facebook. After accumulating likes from various other fan pages the numbers approached 7 million.

Winner: Star Wars

I’m scoring this round for the Skywalker’s, Obi Wan and the scoundrel smuggler from Correllia.

3. Chinese vs. Mexican Food

This is a strange battle that comes straight from my taste in awesome food. Ok, I’m creating a rivalry! Take heed, the Chinese and Mexican food I’m talking about won’t be showing up on the streets of Beijing or served at your neighbour’s daughter’s Quinceañera.

I’m talking straight up bastardized versions of these foods, see cheddar cheese on a burrito or General Tao chicken (although I’m not a fan) for example. For this round I selected peoples interests instead of pages because it seemed to represent the food and no particular brand.

Chinese food

Mexican food

Winner: Chinese food

Chinese food garners over 500,000 ‘Likes,’ more than twice as many as Mexican food. This may Interestingly enough be due to the fact that half of Mexican food lovers aren’t available to browse due to stomach issues. I joke, it gets my vote but ultimately loses the fight.

4. Android vs Iphone

This one would have been a slam dunk for Apple a couple of years ago, still is as a matter of fact. Despite this Android has gained tremendous traction over the last couple of years. For this showdown I have simply accumulated the ‘Likes’ of the distinct pages to come up with a representative number. As an Android user myself, I was hoping for a better result. Unfortunately reality bites, get it? Apple? No? Nevermind.

Android

The Android platform comes in at around 2,532,082 ‘Likes’, a respectable number considering Apples jump out of the gate and consequential stranglehold on the industry.

Iphone

The Apple darling accrues 4,789,284 ‘Likes’ with an additional 1.5 million for Iphone 4 alone.

Winner: Iphone

Although gravity may come into play eventually, it looks like the apple hasn’t fallen far from the tree (I’ve really got to stop these puns), as the Steve Job-less company still enjoys supremacy on social media and Facebook in particular. This will be one to keep an eye on in the coming years.

5. Marvel vs D.C.

I consider this one of the ultimate fanboy showdowns. Batman vs Spiderman, Superman vs Elektra (who suggested that one?). This one goes back a couple of generations as the two comic book giants have always battled for the admiration and loyalty of the crazed comic book audience. I remember those schoolyard conversations where we would dream of matching up our favourite heroes in theoretical fights to the death. Now we can do it in another fantasy world, Facebook.

Marvel

Marvel comes in at 5.3 million plus likes as Wolverine and company demonstrate a viable presence on Facebook.

D.C.Comics

I found this Facebook page directly from DC’s website. The results don’t really surprise me, but I would’ve like D.C. to put up a bit more of fight. Some should add Facebook to the short list of Doomsday and Kryptonite as the only weaknesses of Kal-El.

Winner Marvel:

With a close to 5:1 ratio Marvel dominates the final round.

Like it or Not

I find it interesting seeing these rivalries play out on social media. Does the Facebook sample truly represent the power and fan base of each brand? Or did the individual pages and their specific content garner more likes? Like it or not, Facebook ‘Likes’ have become a measurement of success for all brands. In all honesty, with pages of this, or any magnitude for that matter, it really doesn’t matter.

‘Likes’ aren’t how you win social media, the real winners are pages that engage their followers, host conversations and offer customer service. Social media isn’t only a popularity contest, it’s also about creating a touchstone for your audience by providing a human element connected to your brand.

That being said, it was an interesting and fun topic that I would love to revisit in the future. If you would like to get involved, feel free to add your rivalries in the comments. Who knows, maybe they’ll show up in our next social media showdown. Thanks for taking your time to read.

As I have transitioned from youth into adulthood, my passion for search engine supremacy has become my new focus. Nowadays, I live, watch, eat, and breath the strategies and tactics that help businesses rise above their competition. Coincidentally, there are some synergies between search engine rankings and soccer.

I am going to try and explain a couple of Search related subjects using soccer analogies.

SEO – The Fair Play Analogy

I have found that I can look at Google in the same way as the Premier League in England, because Google operates in a similar fashion.

Teams can buy the best players, and agencies can buy the best links. Teams can spend as much money as they want, and Internet marketing agencies can do the same. As a bi-product of this spending, it’s harder for the smaller teams to win, and harder for small agencies and businesses to Get Ranked. The EPL (English Premier League) is now attempting to create a fair playing ground by implementing new rules to even the playing field. On that note, Google has done the same by deciding to release its zoo animals (Penguin, Panda and Penguin 2.0) on the search world.

HERE’S THE IMPACT:

The EPL has new fair play rules where teams must recoup the money they spend in order to avoid penalties i.e. dropping down in the league. Similarly, Google now demands that businesses be fair regarding where they link, and businesses must make sure those links are relevant. If businesses fail to heed the warning, they will face penalties and will drop down in search results, potentially relegating themselves to the second page.

The Paid Search Transfer Market

I like to look at PPC the same way as soccer managers approach the transfer market.  Here, we will call keywords “Players.”  Every player is for sale. The question is whether or not you have enough money for the best player.  Sometimes you have to find ways around the market by trying to get cheaper players that will work just as hard to get the same results. Remember how Billy Beane applied “Moneyball” tactics for the Oakland A’s? The same methodology applies (there goes all of my knowledge on baseball).

SEO the Free Transfer Market

Now this is different to the Paid Search market. The biggest budget doesn’t always get the best player. This is where we have to be tactical.  We have many positions to fill on the field (pages on our site). It’s about finding the best player to fill the role (The right content).  We can pick who we want for free, and we can utilize the player in the correct way (Optimize your Keywords).  When it comes to search rankings, we don’t want to use the same keyword too many times or else you’ll be penalized by Google. Similarly, you don’t want to have too many players competing for the same position on the pitch, as that can create a roster imbalance.  For search purposes, we want to aggressively target a handful of keywords. In soccer, you want to have around two good players, easily managed and trained.  In both cases, if the player or keyword is fresh, well utilized, and in good position, you can find yourself climbing up the table making significant progress.

I am going to leave it there as I could give soccer analogies all day. The end result is this, you need to find the right components to create a winning formula- whether we’re talking soccer or search engine supremacy.

It’s not news to savvy webmasters and marketers that Google has targeted every sort of “self serving” link you can obtain – except for guest posts – so far! Directory links are denigrated, forum links are so watered down that you need hundreds, if not thousands to be effective; the value of reciprocal links expired years ago; and you can’t buy ‘em without risking deep penalties. Low quality links – whether from blog commenting or links from sites with low domain authority can actually harm you, the SEO pundits say. So, site owners have turned to guest blogging with a passionate desperation.

You only have to look around a few blogs to realize that there are hundreds of rehashed articles on every topic imaginable – not ‘spun’ exactly, but hardly content you could fresh, let alone unique. Even some of the excellent ‘guest blog romance’ sites such as My Blog Guest tend to offer titles you’ve already seen before. How many times should the top 5 SEO tools be presented?

Will Google Denigrate the Value of Guest Posts? You Betcha!

Google made a concerted attack on blog comments – a notoriously abused source of low quality links. You need only consult your own Webmaster Tools to see which links Google “counts” to learn whether blog comments have been effectively wiped out as a valuable source of links. They did that, in part, by raising the bar on domain and page authority. As marketers and webmasters have turned their link building efforts to obtaining guest spots on popular blogs, can Google be far behind in taking aim on this tactic?

The Future of Guest Blogging

It’s Who You Know – And Who Knows YOU! Do establish an ongoing guest post relationship with blogs that are highly relevant to your niche and enjoy strong trust and domain authority. I use both Moz’s Open Site Explorer (http://www.opensiteexplorer.org/) and Majestic SEOs’ tool and publish regularly on those sites. Your relationships are more and more important as Google effectively narrows its sites on lower quality content and links. You are building a brand – whether for your product, service or as a writer – and that takes repetition. Running an ad once on a top rated radio show isn’t worth the cost of the ad – but running that ad day in and day out will build recognition. It’s the same with content marketing – you need to put your message and brand in front of the same audience repeatedly to have a clear impact.

That may seem like a contradiction to the advice you get from most sources: diversify, diversify, diversify. But I don’t mean to suggest that you only write from one or two blogs – or even three. By all means, write for 3 or 4 blogs regularly, and also seek additional venues for your content.

Authorship is Critical – and that may be a good thing or a bad thing.

Today’s advice tends to run something along these lines: Make sure you are linking to your Google+ profile from your guest posts – and don’t forget to add a link to the site where your guest blog was published to your Google+ account contributor. Seems like a sound suggestion, but if you are the only author writing and posting with links back to your site, will that look natural to Google when it targets “guest post spam?”

Imagine a World without Links

In a guest post by the same title on Search Engine Watch, author Andy Betts posited: “Let’s imagine for one moment that we had a world without links. Publishers went back to print material. Do you think people wouldn’t write for [these] magazines and publications and offer thought leadership, best practice advice, and opinions. I don’t think so.”

And that’s a perfect question as we move into the future. If you wouldn’t write the story for the added exposure and value to your reputation, should you be writing the post at all? Every time we do something just for the “SEO” value of a link, we violate Google’s Terms of Service. But we also compromise our own integrity.

Don’t Put All Your Eggs — or Links — in One Basket

In a post Penguin world it’s easy for the webmaster of a new site to decide that directory links are suspect, blog commenting a total waste of time and forum links too time consuming to make a difference and that guest posts are the only answer. Whatever you decide, remember Google knows what a natural link profile looks like and penalizes sites vary widely from the norm. It’s still worthwhile to be in quality directories, some link exchanges are natural, participating on forums and blogs (especially without regard for whether links are followed) remains a normal activity, and it will be always be valuable to have useful articles posted on quality sites.

A Last Word About Quality

Quality has always been the watchword for content development – whether it’s the content itself or where you place it. But quality is a subjective, um, quality – and it’s hard to define or quantify. Google has tried to do it with word count (minimum 550), graphics (must have one on a page) and that old ranking factor, PageRank, that remains an important factor, if only one of 200.

But how do YOU determine your own quality?

I like to aim for thought-provoking – you don’t need to exactly stir the pot (though controversy can be a great way to stimulate your audience and develop a dialogue and even community) but you do need to help your readers ask the right questions and come to new conclusions if you want them to return to your site. Remember, your goal here is not primarily to obtain a link, but to increase your circle of influence, to enhance your reputation as a writer – that is, as a purveyor of information — and to win new loyal readers and fans for your own website, product or service.

My favorite yardstick for quality assessment is a simple question: would I rather post this on my own site? When I find myself dithering about whether I want to find a good home for this article or just keep it under my own wing, I know I have a quality article. As I wrote this article, I had that dialog in my head – should I offer this or should I post it on my own blog. I decided to offer it only if I could find a home where I had published before and hoped to publish again. TechWyse was exactly where I wanted to be!

What do you think? Did this article meet your quality standards? Did it make you think critically about your own content marketing plan? Has it changed your mind or informed your opinion on guest blogging?

If you were too busy to get your Internet marketing fix this past week, you’re in luck. Here’s a few articles highlighting what’s going on in the IM world: Yahoo Redesigns Search Results Page; 5 Ways Social Media Supports All Critical Areas of Any Company; Google Is Said to Be Acquiring Waze for $1.1 Billion; and Facebook Is Getting Rid Of Over Half Of Its Ad Units.

Yahoo Redesigns Search Results Page

Yahoo has officially launched its new search engine results page (SERP) in the U.S. With ex-Google executive behind the Yahoo wheel, it’s not surprising that the new look bares resemblance to Google’s SERP. This redesign may increase the number of users search queries. It might be time to start paying more attention to the Yahoo platform.

5 Ways Social Media Supports All Critical Areas of Any Company

Social media marketing is much more than an online presence. Multiple levels of any organization – from sales and marketing to HR and client services –  can benefit for having a company showcased on social media. Think outside the box and start using social media as a tool for operations.

Google Is Said to Be Acquiring Waze for $1.1 Billion

All major search engines seem to be on a shopping spree when it comes to acquiring the next big mobile apps. Google has agreed to scoop up map-software provider Waze for $1.1 billion to keep it out of the hands of its competitors such as Facebook. Google wants to hold onto its elite mapping status.

Facebook Is Getting Rid Of Over Half Of Its Ad Units

Currently Facebook offers marketers 27 different ad units; however, reportedly it will be cutting that number in half. Marketers shouldn’t fear, since the overall goal of reducing the number of ad units is to eliminate redundancies. The changes won’t be made overnight, it’s expected for all changes to be made within the next six months.

More Internet Marketing Headlines

Confessions Of A $100 /Month SEO Client

Google Launches New Image Extension For AdWods Ads

Bing Ads Will Copycat AdWords Enhanced Campaigns With New Bid Adjustments

Google Wants to Launch Trusted Stores in UK

Vine Shares Top Instagram Shares on Twitter

In 1995, I was invited to a local school to test out this new gimmick called “the internet.” I have to be honest, I wasn’t overly impressed. As far as my feeble child-like mind could tell, the internet was nothing more than an online library. You typed in what you were looking for, and the interweb spat out some moderately relevant results. It wasn’t efficient, it wasn’t insightful, and it certainly wasn’t user friendly. I remember thinking to myself, “I don’t see this catching on.” I had no idea.

(When I was young, my kid moments weren’t documented for the world to see.)

A Dis-Trust Of Technology

To be fair, I had every right to believe the internet would flop. 20 years ago, humans didn’t trust technology. In 1993, you’d be halfway through an eight page essay, and MS DOS would suddenly decide it’s time for a re-boot. All your work was gone, and you’d have to start from scratch. Do you remember the frustration? Even if you had saved the document, you were relying on some useless, clunky, floppy disk to do the job. Let’s be honest, those ridiculous old disks didn’t inspire much confidence.

But back to the point…

It’s hard to comprehend how important the internet has become in such a short period of time. In 1993, the only person with a cell phone was Zack Morris. In 2013, your grandma has a smartphone synched to her email and Facebook page. In 1993, businesses relied on old school push marketing efforts to instruct consumers what to do. In 2013, businesses are at the mercy of consumers who can gather all the information they want with the push of a button. Consumers have never had so much power. For business owners, perfecting your message and reputation has never been more important. The onus is squarely placed on business owners to adapt, and those who don’t heed the warning are destined to fail.

(When I was in high school, we couldn’t share the experience online.)

Does this sound overly dramatic? Good! I’m not joking when I say the internet has become, and will continue to be, the most important conduit of new business.

The Times, They Are A Changin’

So how can business owners effectively adapt to these changes? The first step towards changing your circumstances is admitting you have a problem. Can you save money by designing a website yourself and trying to master this “search engine optimization” thing? Absolutely. But don’t expect positive results. Would you edit, shoot, and produce a global television commercial on your own? Obviously not.

So here’s the question…

Why would someone outsource the production of a television commercial, but attempt to do all forms of internet marketing in-house? The simple answer is that the television industry has more barriers to entry. In order to get on TV, you need to meet the right people, and you need to pay a lot of money for air time. Conversely, the internet has zero barriers to entry, and all you need is a domain name, a host, and a free WordPress theme. Given the inherent open door nature of the internet, it’s easy to think you can do it all on your own. But here’s something to think about. How can you stay on top of an industry that continues to evolve at a break neck pace?

Think about it, in the span of 20 years technology has gone from practical irrelevance, to indisputable prominence. Everyone has a computer, most people have smartphones, and many people have tablets. More importantly, the internet is taking over every aspect of communication and information sharing. Television and radio are being integrated into the online experience, and traditional print media properties are desperately trying to survive. If the internet was a roller coaster, we are still in the process of reaching the tipping point.

(In 2008 I played hockey overseas, and I was able to document the experience online.)

Here’s a crazy thought. Google and Facebook barely existed seven years ago, and now they are two of the most powerful companies in the world. With this in mind, can you begin to comprehend how technology will change the world in the next 20 years? Education will be completely reformed, the medical industry will do the same, and all business will operate in the online space. Honestly, these tectonic paradigm shifts can be more than a little intimidating. However, similar to anything else in life, you have to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. The worst thing a business can do is remain stagnant.

It’s Going To Get Worse Before It Gets Better

If you feel like you are behind in terms of your online presence right now, you better get a move on. In the words of Police Chief Clancy Wiggum, it’s going to get worse before it gets better. In 2013, a business without an online presence is like someone lost at sea with a life jacket. In 2015, a business without an online presence will be that same person, except they will have an anvil attached to their ankle. Atrophy kills business, and in the digital age it is incumbent upon all of us to be nimble and proactive.

For some people, the internet represents an opportunity to control your brand and get creative. For others, it’s a nuisance. No matter which side of the fence you stand on, these are the new rules of the game. It’s time to respect the game.

NOTE: Please make sure that you’re logged-in to LinkedIn before using this guide as it contains a lot of links that will require you to be logged-in and if you don’t have a LinkedIn business page to get started click here.

 Related Posts:
 LinkedIn Advertising for B2B Marketers 

LinkedIn In Comparison to Twitter and Facebook for Business 

15 Strategies to Boost Your Company’s Followers on LinkedIn

1.) Install the LinkedIn Follow Button on Your Website

This is a no-brainer. Having a LinkedIn follow button gives people an easy way to follow you on LinkedIn. Follow this link for complete instructions to grab the code and install the LinkedIn follow button.

2.) Learn About LinkedIn’s Publishing Tools

You’ll need quality content, but there are a still options available to you.

3.) Join LinkedIn Groups or Create Your Own

LinkedIn groups are a great way to share your company’s content with a wider audience. Posting to LinkedIn Groups is easy. Simply click the share button on your content and select post to groups. See screenshot below. Many group members elect to have updates sent directly to their inbox; this is a fantastic way to get exposure and boost the number of followers for your company.

To create your own group, just click here. To find groups relevant to you click here.

A word of caution about groups: make sure the content you’re posting is relevant to the group. If it’s not, you run the risk of being moderated and if you’re moderated twice you may be banned from the group.

4.) Share Your Content

Are you producing content? You should be! Without it you’re going to have a tough time attracting people to follow your page. This doesn’t mean writing a blog every day, but it does mean posting regular updates and sharing interesting relevant articles with your audience.

What’s more, make it easy to share by Installing LinkedIn share buttons on your blog posts.

5.) Post Job Openings

Every time we post a job opening on LinkedIn we notice that our numbers surge. Makes sense right? Applicants want to demonstrate their interest in the company and stay abreast of your company’s updates in the future. Follow this link to get started with posting a job on LinkedIn.

6.) Cross-Promote on Your Other Social Media Pages

There’s no harm in asking your Facebook Fans or Twitter Followers to follow you on LinkedIn. Give them the link, add an enticing call-to-action and you’re done!

7.) Ensure Your Staff is on LinkedIn and Get Them to Follow

This seems so obvious, but you’d be surprised how often you’ll find people within the company not following. Sure, they may not use LinkedIn as often, but that’s no excuse for them not to be following you. You can do this by sending out an email or mandating it at a staff meeting.

You’d be surprised, but there are a lot of LinkedIn hold-outs. The benefit of having everyone on the platform is that it accurately depicts the size of your company and a link to your company’s page will appear right on their profile.

8.) Get Your Staff and Co-Workers to Share Your Updates

Let’s say you’re in a 40 person company with an average of 200 LinkedIn connections per employee. If every one of your colleagues shares an update, that exposes your company to 8000 people! This of course assumes that everyone checks their feed. See tip #4 for how to install share buttons on your blog.

9.) Fill Out Your Company Profile From A to Z

LinkedIn actually gives you a lot of options for filling out your company profile. You can add products and services, create an eye-catching profile and banner photos and all the employees in the company will be automatically connected. Posting updates and sharing content will play a big part in this because updates are featured very prominently on your company page; so make sure you’re active.

10.) Designate Multiple Admins on Your Company Page

Having multiple admins means that there will be more people who are able to share updates on behalf of your company. Encourage these newly minted Admins to share articles they find (so long as they’re relevant to your industry). Huddle your team together, provide some examples of great content to share, then monitor the page to make sure updates are in-line with your brand.

To learn how to become a company Admin click here. And to learn how to add new Admins click here.

11.) Add a LinkedIn Company Profile Widget to Your Blog

In case you already haven’t noticed, LinkedIn has tons of cool widgets covering everything from follow buttons to share buttons. There’s also a company profile widget you can add to your blog. Get the code here.

12.) Add a Follow Company Link on Your Email Signature

Did you know that LinkedIn has their very own email signature builder? You didn’t? Well you know now! This tool allows you to build a custom email signature for a variety of email clients. At first glance there isn’t an option to add a follow button, but you do get one field for a website. So instead of adding your website, you have the option to paste in your company’s LinkedIn Company Page URL. Do that and change the anchor text to follow XYZ company and you’re all set.

If you’re handy with HTML you can always create a custom email signature, too.

13.) Create a Follow Campaign with LinkedIn Ads

This might not be a tip for the budget-conscious, but companies like HP have had success with using LinkedIn ads to drive followers. See first-hand how HP drove followers using LinkedIn ads. You can even read the case study here.

If you have the budget and you feel this is worth trying, get started by visiting LinkedIn’s Targeted Advertising page.

14.) Ask People to Follow on Your Company Newsletter

Have a company newsletter? You’re in luck, a newsletter is the perfect place to include a call-to-action that will entice people to follow your company on LinkedIn.

15.) Analyze Your LinkedIn Business Page Insights

LinkedIn Page Insights give you valuable data about how your company is trending. It will give you stats like Page Views, Unique Visitors, Page Clicks and post engagement. But it doesn’t end there. LinkedIn gives you tons of valuable data about visitor demographics including visitor seniority, industry, function, region, company size and more.

The metrics I’ve listed are just the beginning. If you’re an admin, navigate to your company’s page and click “page insights” or “follow insights” to gain access.

In Conclusion

I’ve gone to great lengths to research and accumulate all the links that will help you gain followers. One last tip I’d like to include is to be creative with your company’s page. Get your designer(s) to create great banners. Have your writer(s) spend time crafty witty and original copy to help you stand out. Offer exclusively updates for LinkedIn. That way if people already follow you on Twitter or Facebook they’ll have a reason to follow you on LinkedIn as well. Lastly, and this is the toughest thing: create a great product and/or service. Start with that and the rest will follow (no pun intended).

More followers = increased visibility and when you have visibility you will:

• Attract top-quality talent

• Attract new business

• Improve company perception

• Build your brand

And so much more. I hope this guide serves you well, and please feel free to share it on LinkedIn!

Here’s a list of all the links included in this post:

• Create a Linkedin Company page
• Get on LinkedIn Today
• Install the LinkedIn follow button
• Install the LinkedIn share button
• Add groups relevant to your interests
• Post a job on LinkedIn
• Create a company profile blog widget
• Create a custom LinkedIn email signature
• Create a Targeted LinkedIn Ad

P.S. This guide was inspired by a an email thread that went around my company on exactly this topic. I’ve gathered the best suggestions and added a few of my own. So this guide doesn’t only contain my own tips, but also the suggestions of some very bright people at my company TechWyse.

If you are using AdWords to promote a small to medium business, then every penny counts so it is important to ensure that your ad groups are as focused as possible. Using negative keywords to qualify your campaign can make the difference between attracting someone who is looking to buy your product and someone who is looking for a job! If you are a local business and want to make sure that you are paying for the right type of clicks in your AdWords campaigns, then consider using one of the negative keyword lists that I’ve provided below.

Note: Some of the negative keywords provided may not be relevant to your campaigns, so be sure to use your discretion when adding any of them to AdWords.

Negative Keywords That (Almost) Every AdWords Campaign Should Include

This is a list of keywords that don’t belong in any campaign and should be added by default to all of your campaigns.

• free
• cheap
• nude
• naked
• sex
• porn
• porno
• torrent
• torrents
• youtube
• craigslist
• ebay
• kijiji

Employment Search Negative Keywords

These are searches that someone looking for a job would typically include in any search query. By adding these negative keywords, you can eliminate job seekers from finding (and clicking) your AdWords ads.

• hire
• hiring
• employment
• employer
• employers
• job
• jobs
• occupation
• occupations
• career
• careers
• occupation
• occupations
• full time
• part time
• work
• resume
• resumes
• salary
• salaries
• pay
• intern
• recruiter
• recruiters
• recruitment
• resume
• resumes

Education Search Negative Keywords

These keywords would typically be included in a search query by someone looking to upgrade their skills i.e. not to buy your product and/or service.

• training
• learn
• class
• classes
• school
• schools
• college
• university
• tutorial
• tutorials
• course
• courses
• textbook
• textbooks
• book
• books

Research & Information Search Negative Keywords

This list is essential for anyone with an eCommerce website. Reduce the amount of window shoppers and tire kickers who click on your ads by adding these negative keywords.

• review
• reviews
• rating
• ratings
• opinion
• opinions
• article
• articles
• information
• info
• pics
• picture
• pictures
• photo
• photos
• how to
• how do i

After spending hours crafting an effective AdWords campaign, it can be easy to forget about adding negative keywords to that shiny new campaign. By forgetting to add them, you could be wasting hundreds of dollars per month in unqualified leads to your business.

Bookmark this article and make adding these commonly used keywords a part of your AdWords campaign creation workflow!

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Power Tips For Great Content That’s SEO Friendly 

1. Content

This is one of the top tactics that doesn’t get the attention nor consistency it deserves. Many of us have heard that content is king, in fact, there are a lot of people that will argue that phrase. Some people don’t think that consistent blogging is vital whereas others swear by it.

However, content is important, it is necessary for almost any website. Although, your website would determine how often you add content and whether or not you need to add more. For some websites and topics you may only need to stick to static content, whereas others can see a tremendous boost in their overall rankings and visitors if they consistently blog.

Whether or not you are blogging consistently or just maintaining your static content, you must make sure your content is original, unique, and powerful. Make sure it speaks to your audience, is well put together, and most importantly, make sure it is original.

2. Social Integration

Engage on your social media platforms. This is one thing many websites fail to be consistent with and in fact, some fail to do it at all. It is vital that you maintain a good presences of all major social media platforms. Make sure you engage with your followers and most importantly make sure you are consistent.

Abandoning your accounts for weeks at a time doesn’t help you whatsoever. In fact, not only are your consistent efforts on social media accounts good for your relationship with Google but your audience as well. The more consistent you are, the more of a following you will begin to develop and reach out to more people.

3. Relationships With Others

One of the most powerful seo tactics that can help your website gain Google’s trust is by developing relationships with other websites. When you develop a strong relationship with them and begin to gain backlinks from their site, you will become more trustworthy. However, don’t just gain a relationship with any website.

Try getting websites with a PageRank of 3 or above and make sure their website focuses on a topic that is related to your industry and niche. Unrelated topics and low ranked websites won’t allow Google to think highly of your website. Begin gaining backlinks by guest blogging on trusted and related websites.

Why You Need Their Trust

Most small website owners’ goal is to just get ranked for specific search results and gain more unique visitors to their site. However, having a successful website consists of much more than just that. In addition to any SEO site tools you may be using, gaining a good relationship with Google and other search engines is vital to maintain a good and powerful website now and tomorrow.

The truth is your ad platform can only give you so much data. And that data can only tell you so much about your campaigns. The fact is you should be looking deeper not only into “why” a campaign may be performing poorly, but also into “why” a campaign may be successful as well. And there’s no better place to find this additional “why” data than Google Analytics. In this blog post, I’m going to break down 5 specific metrics that I think (at a bare minimum) you should be looking at frequently to help you make better bid/management decisions.

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1. Bounce Rate

Bounce rate is simply calculated by taking the total number of visits to your site that left without visiting any additional pages within your site, and dividing that number by the total number of unique visits. A pretty simple metric really. The cool thing about Google Analytics is you can look at this rate on specific levels such as bounce rate by mobile traffic, or bounce rate by a specific campaign and so forth.

2. Pages per Visit

This data will give you additional understanding into the value and integrity of your site as a whole and specifically to your landing pages. The higher the number isn’t always better, because it really depends on your business model and your goals for when visitors hit your site. But generally speaking, 3 pages per visit is always better than 2.

3. Average Visit Duration

This data in a way continues what metric #2 gives you but possibly with a bit more detail. With this metric you can get a better understanding of the value of your landing page and how intriguing it actually is to the visitor. Or not of course.

4. Mobile Percentage

What percentage of your PPC traffic is mobile? More specifically, what percentage of your PPC traffic uses iPads? iPhones? Android? You get the point! This data is extremely valuable because this segment of the market continues to grow leaps and bounds month after month.

5. Browser Breakdown

And finally the browser breakdown, the breakdown of what specific web browsers your PPC traffic is using to access your site. This is especially important to follow if you are constantly adding to new features to your website and/or landing page because things tend to break in this crazy world we live in of browser compatibility.

We easily could throw another 10 metrics on top of this list, but the idea of this exercise is to show you the top 5 so you can generate some success from looking at this data. If you like how this helps you, you can begin to dig deeper because by that time you’ll see the benefit in doing so. Pulling this data really only takes a couple of minutes once logged in and inside the Google Analytics interface. So lack of time shouldn’t be an issue for you.

And one last final tip: use the “advanced segments” functionality in Google Analytics to quickly segment all the reports by Paid Search traffic only. This will allow you to cut all the other data out and focus solely on the PPC data which is most important to you.