пятница, 31 марта 2017 г.

EasyRoommate appoints Navigate Digital to work on global affiliate programs

EasyRoommate appoints Navigate Digital to work on global affiliate … new affiliate marketing program and increase the revenue through this channel.

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Digital Affiliate Marketing Specialist

Digital Affiliate Marketing Specialist job in New York, NY Verizon - Partner with other Digital personnel within CMO and Operations organizations to …

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7 Ways to Earn More with Affiliate Marketing [Infographic]

Affiliate marketing is the concept of earning a commission for referring a lead or sale to a website, brand or online store. Through the use of affiliate …

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Intern - Affiliate Sales And Marketing

Intern - Affiliate Sales And Marketing job in Singapore at CNBC - Full Time Unpaid Internship in Singapore, SG - 229848.

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Minimum Viable SEO: If You Only Have a Few Minutes Each Week... Do This! - Whiteboard Friday

Posted by randfish

Even if you know — deep down in your heart of hearts — how important SEO is, it’s hard to prioritize when you have less than 3 hours a month to devote to it. But there’s still a way to include the bare minimum, even if you run on a tight schedule. In today’s Whiteboard Friday, Rand covers a minimum viable SEO strategy to give those with limited time a plan going forward.

Minimum Viable SEO

Click on the whiteboard image above to open a high-resolution version in a new tab!

Video Transcription

Howdy, Moz fans, and welcome to another edition of Whiteboard Friday. This week, Minimum Viable SEO. So if you only have a few minutes in a month, in a week to do some SEO, and I know many of you are professional SEOs, but you work with lots of folks, like content creators, clients, web developers, who have very, very limited time, what I want to try and do is provide a path for you of “do this if you have no other time in the week to do your SEO.”

So let’s say here’s my calendar. It’s February, so 28 days. Start of the month, you have an hour to give me, sometime in the first week of the month. It doesn’t have to be, but that’s a great way to go. At the start of each week, I’m going to ask for 10 minutes just to do a little bit of planning, and then each time you publish content, a very, very small amount of time, just 3 minutes.

I know it sounds hard to believe, but you can get a fair amount of solid SEO work. Especially if you’re in an industry that is not hyper-competitive or if you’re going after the right kinds of keywords, that aren’t super competitive, you can really make a difference. If you’re building up a lot of content over months and years, just following this simple protocol can really take your SEO to the next level.

Start of the month: 1 hour

So, all right, let’s say we’re at the start of our month. We have our hour. I want you to do one of two things, and this is going to be based on if you’re technical SEO, meaning if your website is using WordPress and it’s pretty much nicely crawlable, maybe you’ve signed up for Google Search Console, you don’t see a lot of errors, there’s not a lot of issues, you haven’t created a bunch of technical data on your website in the past, great, fine, then you’re going to be focused on keywords and content. A keyword to content map, which is something we’ve discussed here on Whiteboard Friday — I’d urge you to check that video out if you haven’t yet — but I’m going to make an MVP version, a very, very small version that can help a little bit.

Keyword → content map MVP

Create a spreadsheet with valuable keywords…

That spreadsheet, I just want a spreadsheet with a few things in it, three things really. The most valuable keywords, so just the most valuable keywords that you know you’re targeting or that you care about right now for your business. You think that people are searching for these keywords. Maybe you’ve done a little bit of keyword research. It could be for free, through Google’s AdWords tool, or you could pay for something like Keyword Explorer for Moz, but, really, just 50 to 100 keywords in there.

…current rank and SERP features…

I want the current rank and whatever SERP features appear. You could even trim this down to just your current ranking and the top search SERP feature, so if it has a featured snippet, or if it has videos, or if it shows maps or news, whatever that is, tweets.

…and the URL targeting it (or a note to create content).

Then I want the URL that’s targeting it. Or if you have no URL targeting it yet, you haven’t yet created a piece of content that targets this keyword, put a little, “Okay, that’s a ‘needs to be created.’ I need this before I can start targeting this keyword and trying to rank for it.”

You’re going to update this weekly. You can do that totally manually. Fifty keywords, you can look them up in an hour. You can check the rankings. You can see where you’re going. That’s fine. It’s a little bit of a pain in the butt, but it can totally be done. Or you could use a tool, Moz Pro, Ahrefs, SEMRush, Searchmetrics. There are all sorts of tools out there that’ll track rankings and show you which features appear and whether your URLs are in there or not.

Okay, this is our keyword to content map. If you have that hour, but you know you have technical issues on the site, I’m going to urge you, before you focus on keywords and content, to make sure your technical SEO, your crawl is set. That means, step one, just a basic, simple crawl analysis. So for free, you can use Google Search Console. It will show you, most of the time with relative accuracy, big important errors like 404s and 500s and things that Google thought we’re duplicate content and that kind of stuff.

If you want to pay, you can get a little bit more advanced features and some better filters and sorting and more frequency and those kinds of things. Moz Pro is fine for that. Screaming Frog is good, OnPage.org. All of these are popular in the SEO field.

Crawl/technical SEO review

Step two, you don’t need to worry about every single crawl issue. I just want you to worry about the most severe, most important ones with your one hour. Those are things like 404s and 500s, which can really cause a lot of problems, duplicate content, where you potentially need to use a rel=canonical or a 301 redirect, broken links, where you just go in and fix the broken link to something that’s not broken, missing or bad titles, title elements that are particularly long or include misspellings or that just don’t exist, bad, very bad to have a page on the web with no title, and thin content or no crawlable content. Those are really the worst of the bunch. There’s a number more that you could take care of. But if you only have that limited time, take care of this. If you’ve already done this, then we can move on here.

Every time you publish a piece of content: 3 minutes

Finally, last thing, but not the least, every time you publish a piece of content, I’m going to ask for just three minutes of your time, and that is going to be around this minimum viable pre-publish checklist.

The minimum viable pre-publish checklist

So does the content have a keyword target? Yes, no, maybe? If it doesn’t, you’re going to need to go and refer over to your keyword content list and make sure that it does. So if you’re publishing something, I’m assuming you’re not publishing a tremendous amount of content, but a little bit. Make sure everyone has a keyword target. Make sure, if you can, that it’s targeting two to three additional keywords, related keywords. So let’s say I’m going after something like Faberge eggs. I probably also want to target Carl Faberge, or I want to target Faberge eggs museums, or I want to target Faberge eggs replicas, so these other terms and phrases that people are likely searching for that could have the same or similar keyword intent, that could live on the same page, that kind of thing.

Is that keyword in the title, the main one you’re targeting? Do you have a compelling meta description? Is your content doing a good job of truly answering the searchers’ queries? So if they’ve searched for this thing, are you serving up the content they need?

Then, have you used related topics? You can get those from places like the MozBar or MarketMuse or SEO Zone or Moz Pro. Related topics are essentially the words and phrases that you should also be using in addition to your keyword to indicate to the search engines, “Hey, this is really about this topic.” We’ve seen some nice bumps from that.

You’re doing this every time you publish content. It only takes three minutes.

Start of the week: 10 minutes

And the last thing, at the start of the week, I’m also asking you for these 10 minutes to do one or two actions. I just want you to plan one or two actions at the start of the week to bump your SEO. It could include some publication stuff. But let’s assume you’re just doing these three minutes every time you do that.

Take a few actions to boost your SEO

Link outreach and targeting keywords with content

At the start of the week, the last thing you’re doing is just choosing one of these, maybe two. I don’t need more. I want you to do something like link outreach. Reach out to a couple of high-potential targets. Maybe you use like a LinkedIn or SecTool to figure out people who are linking to two of your competitors. Or reach out to partners, to friends, do some content contributions, just a little thing to get one or two links. Or maybe create some content that’s targeting a missed keyword. When you do that, of course, you go through your pre-publish checklist.

Upgrade ranking content

Maybe you are upgrading some content that’s already ranking, like number 5 through 20. That’s where there’s a lot of opportunity for a high-value keyword to get bumped up. You could just do little things, like make sure that it’s serving all of these items, try and get it a featured snippet, identify content that might be old, that needs a refresh, that’s not serving the searcher intent as well because the information in there is old.

Contribute off-site content

Or you could try contributing some offsite content. That could be to places like YouTube, maybe you’ve seen videos show up for something, guest posts, a forum where you contribute, answers some questions on Quora, contribute something to LinkedIn or Medium, just something to get your brand, your content, and hopefully a link out there to a different audience than what’s already coming to your site.

You do these things, right, you start the month with an hour. Every time you publish content, you put in 3 minutes, and at the start of the week, you put in 10 minutes to do a couple pieces of planning, this will take you a long way. Look, SEO professionals are going to do a lot more than this, for sure. But this can be a great start, a great way to get that SEO kicked off, to have a minimum viable SEO plan.

I look forward to your thoughts. And we’ll see you again next week for another edition of Whiteboard Friday. Take care.

Video transcription by Speechpad.com


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четверг, 30 марта 2017 г.

6 Quick Hacks for Increasing Organic Social Media Reach

6 Quick Hacks for Increasing Organic Social Media Reach

According to Ogilvy, the organic reach of content published by brands on Facebook is plummeting.

In an attempt to make feeds more relevant to their users, Facebook has prioritized content shared by friends and family. As social networks acquire more users and see more activity on their pages, organic reach is sure to continue its descent.

It is important for marketers to remember that social networks are search engines in their own right, and like Google, will continue to focus on providing their users with the most relevant content.

As a brand, how do you ensure that your content continues to reach your target audience, and a good percentage of them?

Relying solely on paid advertising is unlikely to get you the exposure or brand recognition that you are hoping for. Besides, the number of people using ad blockers in the US is expected to double by 2020.

Clearly, ad aversion is growing and realizing this, many large brands have begun to focus more on strong organic efforts to increase their exposure and complement their paid activities.

This post lists six smart ways to boost your social media reach organically.

1. Optimize your social profiles

Google’s crawlers use your Facebook page’s name, description, number of likes, and number of people talking about your page. Pages with keywords in their Facebook profile names rank over the biggest brands you can imagine.

For instance, if you search for “beer on Facebook”, none of the top brands show up.

Use the keyword in your page name to get your social pages to rank on Google.

If you’re targeting search on Facebook itself, observe that the platform page ranks your page if you list the keyword in your “Subcategory” in addition to having the word in your page name. So, brands that don’t have the word “beer” in their names also appear on search results.

On Twitter, don’t mention hashtags in your bio, or you’ll be directing people away from your page. You can use hashtags that your brand owns or dominates instead, or you can use the space to share an additional link to your blog.

In addition to social search optimization, ensure that you have the basics straight.

  • Use your free social space to standout (profile/display images and username). You can demonstrate your expertise here to make your profile powerful.
  • Provide a clear description of what you do, supported by links to additional references.
  • Complete your information section and include keywords to describe products or services.
  • Share keyword rich social media posts that are directed at helping people. Avoid being overtly promotional, and using words like “free” on your posts.
  • Link back to the most relevant page of your website or blog where it makes sense.
  • Use “high engagement keywords” to boost your engagement and in turn your search ranking.

2. Post the right content

Your content strategy should cater to your exact target audience. To do that, you need insights about who they are, what speaks to them and how they consume content.

If your audience consumes most content on mobile devices, you should ideally be creating mobile friendly content that makes reading and sharing easy on mobile devices. Traffic analysis tools like Google Analytics and SimilarWeb can give you a sense of which devices your audience members are using.


To identify what type of content will engage your social media audience, you can use in-built monitors on each social platform – like Facebook insights and Twitter Analytics. The “interests” field will help you analyze your content strategy. You can also go by engagement on your posts or consult a social media analytics tool like Quintly or SumAll for help.

Additionally, you could also audit a competitor’s profile and identify the content that is working best for them.

3. Activate advocates

The more users interact with your posts, the more your organic reach is boosted on Facebook. You could kick-start your engagement with the support of brand advocates.

Anyone can be an advocate – a social fan, an employee or an influencer even. Some employee advocacy platforms even pull content from your social feeds and allow employees to like them in-app, making it easy for them to boost your social media engagement.

Additionally, you can activate advocates and encourage them to share your content each time you post. This requires relationship building and motivation from your end. You can also involve influencers in the process by creating and posting content that is likely to be of interest to them. Alternatively, you can invite them to participate in an interview series or a social media discussion.

4. Use supplementary platforms

You could look at external websites as platforms to earn content social media shares. Tons of marketers guest post to build their presence in an industry. You could request editors to allow “Tweet quotes” to drive more social media shares on your posts. This feature can be easily enabled using WordPress’ Better Click to Tweet plugin.

Alternatively, you can use distribution platforms to amplify your content on social media. BuzzFeed, DrumUp and Viral Content Bee are three great examples.

BuzzFeed – this site attracts about 150 million visits a month, and you can redirect a good part of that traffic to your page by making it to the first page of BuzzFeed. All you need is great content, inline with whatever is currently trending on the site.

DrumUp – this content discovery platform also allows you to promote your content. It uses the same algorithm that runs its content suggestions feature to “suggest” your content to people seeking it.

Viral Content Bee – this platforms runs on a mutual benefit scheme that has other people share your content on social platforms in exchange for you sharing theirs.

5. Curate content

Overcrowding is one of the reasons why organic reach is declining on social platforms. It is also an indication of just how much content your audience is forced to consume on a daily basis. You could earn their support by behaving as a content curator for top content in your niche.

The objective is to curate content that is useful to your audience.

The benefits:

  • Audience loyalty
  • Social media authority
  • Opportunity to build relationships
  • Less promotional appearance
  • More visibility

Facebook boosts posts of the authors you have had previous interactions with. Curation can help you establish that interaction with influencers by sharing their posts, so you can get on their radar. Similarly, Twitter connects you with people you @mention, and curation is a great way to make the most of this function.

6. Make it personal

We have already discussed how Facebook boosts your posts on the feeds of people you have interacted with. So interact with your fans. You should ideally do this anyway, because people are more receptive to your content when they have personally interacted with you previously.

Brands are also using personal communication as an opportunity for real-time marketing, to make a real impact on their audience. There are numerous instances of this, most of them customer care related.

You may have come across the Morton’s Steakhouse and Sainsbury examples.

Morton’s caught the tweet and had a porterhouse steak waiting for Peter Shankman in under three hours.

Brands are using social media listening tools to monitor smart keywords and find opportunities to build strong bonds with their audience. You can also use Twitter lists to monitor influential fans, so you can connect with them at exactly the right time and drive an invaluable positive impact for your brand.

Wrap up

If you are looking at social media solely as a content distribution platform, you are seriously limiting your marketing opportunities. Social media is now also a PR platform, a customer care outlet, an SEO factor, and has many undetectable effects on your overall brand presence. To make the most of them all, you have to keep an open mind and be observant. There are probably many more ways in which you can boost your organic reach.

Guest Author: Disha Dinesh is a Content Writer at Godot Media, a leading content agency. Her interests include social media and content marketing. When she’s not writing, she’s on the hunt for social media trends and inspiration.

The post 6 Quick Hacks for Increasing Organic Social Media Reach appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.



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Top Affiliate Program

Essay Niche; Top Affiliate Programs; Make An Affiliate Website; Top Affiliate Marketing Companies; Affiliate Marketing Products; Affiliate Program …

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Senior Affiliate Marketing Manager

Digital & Search Marketing, Questa.com.au is seeking a driven Senior Affiliate Marketing Manager to work alongside our Head of Search & Delivery.

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Launchify 360 is the new web-savior for neophyte entrepreneurs

It is a complete toolkit to help novices in areas as affiliate marketing. March 29, 2017 - Boston - To keep up with the increasing pace of online business …

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среда, 29 марта 2017 г.

5 Emerging Content Marketing Trends You Need to Know in 2017

5 Emerging Content Marketing Trends You Need to Know in 2017

Content marketing is an integral part of your digital marketing strategy.

In 2016, we saw extensive adoption of content based promotion across all industries. In 2017, the practice will continue to thrive even more; especially in small and medium sized businesses.

Content marketing offers better engagement, better conversions, and usually costs less than other forms of marketing. Besides, with a constantly increasing number of ad-blocker software users across the globe, content marketing becomes the only way to get a message through with assurance. So, this year too, brands will need to focus more on content marketing.

The following 5 content marketing trends will help you reap the maximum benefits out of your content marketing strategy in 2017.

Trend #1: Production of more user-friendly content

The number of online users is increasing constantly, so too does content consumption. This has made businesses think that producing more content is the right way to get into limelight through content marketing. In fact, 70% of B2B marketers plan to create more content in 2017 compared to last year. However, that’s only the half solution.

Over the years, Google search algorithms have become better at deciding the relevancy of content. And now search bots are smarter than ever in detecting whether a piece of content is user-friendly or not. Also, relevancy is the prime factor that triggers engagement, which is one of the main reasons why content marketing is done in the first place.

A post shared by Greatist on healthy protein snacks received about 90K shares on Facebook and over 2 million Pinterest shares; all because it was of some value to the target readers. And because of its relevance, now it also appears on the top of search results when you search for ‘protein snack’, ‘healthy protein snack’, and other related terms.

So, when you put efforts into creating more content this year, make it relevant at any cost despite the huge volumes that you plan to produce.

Trend #2: Micro-influencers

Companies have always relied on influencing individuals to increase their brand awareness (hint: celebrity endorsement). However, with the rise of social media in recent years and an increasing number of influencing individuals on these platforms, today, influencer marketing has grabbed the top position in the checklist of marketers.

According to MuseFind, 92% of customers trust influencers more than advertisements and celebrity endorsements.

Consequently, at present, influencer marketing is going through a great upsurge, wherein brands are approaching experts to endorse/review/promote their product on their blog, social media accounts, and other online channels.

In recent time, there have been many campaigns that prove how beneficial influencer marketing can be for a brand; however, the lesson 2016 has taught us is that influencer marketing revolves around trust, and a bigger following doesn’t always bring the better results.

As a result, brands are focusing more on the authenticity of the social influencers, rather than number of followers. According to a New York based fashion store Gigi New York, working with micro-influencers (with small but authentic followings) brought them better engagement than working with popular social influencers.

So, paying heed to micro-influencers will be critical when you formulate an influencer marketing campaign this year.

Trend #3: Content personalization

Today, most companies are using analytics for customer segmentation in order to target specific customer groups in a better way. How CCD engaged football lovers in 2014 is a great example of devising a content marketing campaign around certain audiences.

Viewing the success of CCD and several similar campaigns in the recent past, it goes without saying that your content marketing strategy should be formulated around specific target groups in 2017 too.

All social networks have a distinct structure when it comes to content sharing and promotion. Most of them let you personalize content either with location settings or hashtags. Based on the channel you choose for marketing, make the best use of such features.

How Facebook selects content for its ‘Trending Section’ based on location is a good example of personalizing content for a specific customer segment. If you own a Facebook page and have promoted your updates in the past, then you must have seen how it allows you to target your content to a very specific group of people.

Creating and promoting personalized content in this manner make a content marketing campaign focused, and win more prospects for its high relevancy. This in turn improves engagement, brand recall, and sets you apart from competitors.

Trend #4: Video content

Video content is no new concept, as brands have been using videos as their website banner, in social media updates, email content, etc. for quite some time. And now with better video compression algorithms in place (and at the same time, with the internet’s growing penetration), videos are being used extensively to send across a brand message, promote offerings, or simply for the purpose of engagement.

There are plenty of online and offline tools for video marketing to create and share professional-looking and engaging videos. Use such tools for creating a good number of videos in less time.

While tools can help you in creating videos, engagement can only be built around ideas. For that, you would need to draw inspiration from how other popular brands are running their video marketing campaigns.

Blendtec’s ‘Will It Blend?’ video campaign is a good example in this context. The US based home blender maker company started the ‘Will It Blend?’ campaign to show off the strength of its blenders by (brutally) blending various tough solid products such as an iPhone, hard-plastic toys, Neodymium magnets, and so on.

Creating such engaging videos around the USP (unique selling proposition) of your offerings will not only attract more customers but will also help you acquire a bigger market share.

Trend #5: Social media as a source of news

Social media giant Facebook recently faced a series of lawsuits for showing fake news in its trending section. Many are of the opinion that the Facebook’s manipulated trending section also impacted the outcome of the recent presidential election.

All this is happening because people are increasingly relying on social networks as a source of news. A survey done in early 2016 states that already more than 50% of social media users use it as source of news. As per Statista, 61% of digital marketers rely on Facebook to advertise monthly.
Infographic: Which Social Networks Do Advertisers Rely On? | Statista
You will find more statistics at Statista

Social media has evolved  as a popular content marketing channel in the last few years. Facebook and Twitter are already being extensively used for content marketing. Growth of video marketing in recent time also puts Instagram among the most popular content marketing social media channels.

It’s your time to leverage the power of these channels to deliver news. Make sure everything that is talked about your brand in the future gets covered through social media too. And, especially the paid and earned coverage that you get from third party reviewers and sites should be shared on social too.

Wrap up

Year by year, new content marketing trends come to the surface and with that changes everything you planned a little while ago.

That leaves businesses with several questions – like what new type of content, channels, and tools the recent technological advancements will introduce?

While it is important to know these trends and capitalize on them, it is equally important to act in accordance to the fundamentals of content marketing, which are,

  • Reaching out to customers at all possible touch points
  • Offering them a solution through your content
  • And, creating a frictionless path that allows users to move toward that solution.

Guest Author: Ankush Mahajan

The post 5 Emerging Content Marketing Trends You Need to Know in 2017 appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.



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Monarch Airlines appoints Navigate Digital to manage affiliate programme

Louise Copland, online marketing manager at Monarch, said: “Navigate has been managing our digital media for the past two years so they already …

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London tech startup aims to disrupt the digital rewards and loyalty landscape

MobPower Marketing Group (MPG) is an internally operated marketing platform designed to help members find … Via Sh8pe Rewards, a portion of each transaction (the affiliate commission) is pooled and distributed to each Sh8pe …

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Dale Taylor Affiliate Blogging Ninja Course On Blogs & List Building Released

Dale Taylor is launching an online marketing video course designed to teach users effective blog buiding, affiliate marketing, list building, and forging …

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Submit A Daily Deal for your business!!!

Let’s discuss how we can market to new customer for you. Its called Results Based Marketing - No cost to you unless we get you business !! We are in …

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How to Make Sure Your Digital Marketing Strategy is Results-Driven

Posted by Alex-T

To measure, or not to measure?

When it comes to outlining potential metrics in digital marketing, I always ask myself a question: “Can I measure this?”

For the most crucial elements of your strategy, the answer will likely be yes. But digital marketing involves tons of metrics that we must track on a daily basis. The majority of the data we gather gives us a general understanding of what’s going on, yet keeps us too far away from reaching our business goals. For instance, Google Analytics alone has more than 75 standard reports and each of them can be modified, providing us with even more data. Trust me, it’s hard to stick to your goal if you delve too deep into analytics. So, yes, the struggle is real.

I’m not going to reinvent the wheel here. In this article I’ll break down the most important steps you need to take when you are at the crossroads of defining your company’s short- or long-term digital marketing objectives. What if things go south, you ask? How do I fulfill my boss’ expectations? Will I ever be able to get over a failure? OK, let’s not get overly dramatic here. Read on to learn why I believe in the power of KPIs, reasons why you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment, the importance of stepping out of your comfort zone, how to properly set up your “plan, act, measure, improve” routine, and which metrics can be deemed reliable when you work with digital marketing channels (and how to not get misguided by them).

Selecting the right goals

One question that you really don’t want to spend more than a few seconds answering is: “Was it worth it?” To ensure that the effort, time, and money you put into your marketing journey aren’t wasted, you need to have a clear vision of where you’re headed.

So how do you know which goals are right for you?

Your best bet would be to split your goals into two separate groups that are focused on:

  1. Business objectives
  2. Tracking your own internal progress

Now, let’s see what these goals are all about, and what achieving them entails.

Business goals

Bertie Charles Forbes once said, “If you don’t drive your business, you will be driven out of business.”

Steering any type of business in the right direction is never a piece of cake. And no one ever called finding a roadmap for how to get there a no-brainer.

Goals are the essence of expectations — the expectations of your boss, your clients, the CEO of your company, or anyone else whose opinion should be taken into consideration when it comes to your business strategy. Will there be any room left for a compromise? It’s up to you to decide, since these goals aren’t “one-size-fits-all.”

But what I can tell you for sure is that you have to “keep it real” and ensure that your business goals are attainable and realistic. Setting them requires determination, hard work, and perseverance. Here are a couple of handy tips for you:

  1. Do some research and find out what the major current trends in your industry are. Is your industry growing rapidly? Numbers don’t lie. Look into the matter and find the percentage of growth.
  • Use Statista.com to can learn about your general industry trends. Statista is particularly useful when it comes to digital markets.
  • Another great place to learn about industry trends is SimilarWeb. They have a solid list of industries that should give you an insight about what traffic sources are the most advantageous and why.
  • Remember the past, live in the present, and think about the future. Gather as much historical data as possible. Historical data is vital — it helps predict the future of a company and a market.

    The results here should be delivered based on internal data gathered from Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, with an emphasis on the number and type of transactions and information about your clients. In order for the results to be accurate, this data has to be gathered for at least a few months. It’s essential to detect a trend because you need to understand the following issues:
  • Whether your business is affected by seasonality. For instance, the B2B SaaS industry normally experiences a recession close to the middle of July, and enters a ramp-up mode at the beginning of September. But without having YOY comparison at hand, you can’t say whether it’s a trend or not. Besides that, seasonality should also be taken into serious consideration if you’re planning to grow your conversions.
  • Trends will help you identify which channels have performed better. Sometimes you can see that an overall sessions’ trend in Google Analytics is rising on a monthly basis, but it could be due to paid channels boosting your traffic flow. In this case, something could be wrong with organic traffic. Analyzing trends allows you to see how various digital marketing channels differ from one another, what tactics you need to bear in mind, and what specific aspects to focus on.

Are you looking to increase your bottom line? Willing to pump up your sales? Rome wasn’t built in a day. Think of a smaller goal that can be expanded upon rather than being apologetic at the end of the quarter. But don’t get too comfortable. Goals must challenge you. That’s how great things happen!

And whenever you’re measuring your business goals, money is the most accurate indicator. The more, the merrier. What’s the point of all the hard work you put in if it doesn’t maximize the bang for your buck?

Tracking your internal progress

Previously, I mentioned that we get bombarded by all kinds of digital marketing data flowing from various channels or tools. This data will remain fruitless unless it correlates with your business goals, but this is where Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) become highly relevant. A KPI is a measurement that demonstrates how effectively a company is achieving its key business objectives.

If you lock down the right KPIs to track, you’ll insure yourself against making uneducated marketing decisions. Each company has unique needs. So when faced with choosing your KPIs, obviously you should go for those that will assist you in reaching your business goals, not obstruct you.

Here I’d like to accentuate those KPIs that don’t assist you in accomplishing your business goals.

Based on my past experiences, here’s what I’ve come to realize:

  1. In event marketing, it’s a common practice to use the number of leads gathered during an event as an indicator of success: the more, the merrier. The problem, however, is that this metric doesn’t really speak for the sales activity. You try to score as many leads as you can, desperately scan each and every badge, including those folks at the booth nearby, so that you can impress your boss with a big number. In the end, you may have a lot of leads, but most of them are going to be useless. What’s the point in having heaps of leads if your dominant KPI is sales? You could have had only two successful sales meetings but still reach your quota.
  2. Another metric that I think email marketers shouldn’t sweat at all is keeping your unsubscribe rate as low as it could possibly be.

    It makes no sense if what you’re after here is sales. No doubt, you should keep an eye on your unsubscribe rate, but it’s not a key metric here. Users who have unsubscribed aren’t interested in your services, so get over those clients and focus on the ones who are interacting with your messages. Try to increase the amount of these users. You need less people that have accidentally subscribed to your list, and more people that will open, click, and then purchase. Simple as that!

Let’s say you want to set goals for your SEO strategy. The business goal here would be to increase your revenue streams from organic traffic. You also need to define an exact number to aim for in both the short and long term. However, in order to implement these tactics, you need to consider internal processes like:

  • Site visibility (rankings, content, backlinks)
  • On-page user behavior (bounce/exit rates, usability, session duration)
  • Technical considerations (site speed, redirects, accessibility, site structure)

These groups are generic and will almost surely be different for every site out there, depending on which processes you focus on the most. The good thing is, once determined accurately, these internal metrics should help you understand whether your business goals are attainable early in the development stage.

The power of experimentation

When it comes to any business process, you should be open to experimentation. Data can give us clues about users’ past behavior, not about how they will respond to daring future changes — that is, if your process and your number of users allows for it. There’s no point in such a trivial exercise as an A/B test if you only have 100 users on a daily basis. Luckily there are plenty of other things that you can work on, such as operating within channels that allow you to see results in a short-term perspective. And where SEO is concerned, that definitely includes analyzing traffic, so that you can see whether getting a link from a particular site was worth the trouble.

According to Jim Manzi, founder of Applied Predictive Technologies, and Stefan Thomke, a Harvard Business School professor, the process of experimentation is easier said than done, owing to a myriad of organizational and technical challenges.

The authors of the article conclude that companies need to ask themselves several crucial, yet painfully obvious questions: Does the experiment have a clear purpose? Is the experiment doable? How can we ensure reliable results? Have we gotten the most value out of the experiment?

Take a moment and think if you can answer any of these.

Plan, act, measure, improve

I see digital marketing as a combination of facts and judgement. There’s no one analytic approach that can ultimately tell you you’re on the right track, give you a pat on the back, and say, “Great job, pal! Way to go!” That’s why I feel like the atmosphere within the digital marketing industry is filled with hesitation, uncertainty, and doubt.

Some marketers think that the answer to sharpening their judgement in this perpetually changing environment is data (you don’t say!), and some companies are gearing up with intricate analytical tools.

Yet, it’s next to impossible to integrate all of this information and make it serve answers that you can trust unconditionally. We get stoked by the prospects that “big data” and advanced analytics create — no doubt about that. But data continues to be only as valuable as the expertise you’ve nurtured, and good judgment will continue to be a hallmark of the best marketers.

However, if you create a process for planning, acting, measuring, and improving right off the bat, then you’ll be able to fully accomplish your business goals.

But before you try to make it happen, I want you to consider the following:

1. Your processes should be measurable (otherwise, there’s no room for improvement).

If you want to analyze the performance of your “Buy Now” button, then you need to make sure that you have everything to do that. I prefer to work with Google Tag Manager because it allows you to add new goals and see a user’s activity without bugging your developer to update scripts and things like that. It gives you the freedom to act, and that’s exactly what you need.

Note: Don’t forget to personally verify that all triggers are working properly and that you have all stats registered in your system.

Here’s a couple of great resource to help you understand and master Google Tag Manager:

2. You’re very likely to fail at your first attempt at choosing the right metrics (which is a part of the process; no one is insured against that).

You live, you learn — whether you’re the last one to know about the latest trend, or you’re too busy struggling to get this one thing right. Whichever your case, I feel your pain and I can assure you it’s absolutely normal.

Here’s my example: For a while, I considered the number of registered users to be the main metric for my own online event (and I still rely on this metric). However, I’ve learned that I can’t fully rely on this metric since the number of subscribers doesn’t really affect the number of actual live listeners. Recorded videos aren’t very popular among my audience, either; I suspect the reason for that is because my users want to consume content right when they’re becoming my subscribed users. And because it’s free of charge, there’s not enough incentive to come back for more. Human psychology is indeed an intricate thing.

3. Either your approach needs a slight adjustment, or it has to be replaced with a completely different tactic.

I think the best example here is a social media arena where experts have their sleeves rolled up, tweeting their day away, too busy to slow down and… analyze. There, I said it! You can go ahead and hate me now.

But that’s the reality. Some well-known companies publish works that say we need to post more, especially on Twitter, if we want to increase clicks, retweets, or shares. However, if you apply a little bit of common sense and dare to doubt such research, you’ll see that there’s no correlation between the number of posts and the level of engagement or number of clicks.

With that being said, the best approach here is to concentrate on conversions, rather than impressions — a metric that can be helpful when trying to increase brand awareness, but doesn’t generate clicks or retweets. The more time you spend improving conversions, the better results you’ll have in the end.

Take a look at SocialBakers’ report, which investigates the matter of tweeting frequency:

bakers.png

In order to shed some light on an everlasting problem, SocialBakers compared the Total Engagement Rate with the Average Engagement Rate of over 11,000 tweets between May 25th and June 25th back in 2013.

One of their major findings: you must figure out how to balance things and avoid “extremes,” and that three tweets a day will keep the decline of your engagement rate away.

Putting theory into practice

Moving on, I’d like to present you with some statistics from the Digital Olympus Twitter account:

November

December

January

Tweets Per Day

3.8

15.16

4.61

Avg Impressions Per Day

3,700

5,100

4,500

Engagement Rate

0.80%

0.50%

0.80%

Clicks

158

248

241

Retweets

211

239

224

Likes

302

409

345

As you can see, in January we were able to improve our retweet/like and click activity. We experimented with different tactics. Our final goal was to get as many clicks as possible and a satisfying engagement rate. Back in December 2016, we were tweeting much more than we normally did, and it never affected our click rate. In January we decided to take it easy and started tweeting less, which was, in turn, more cost-effective. As you can see, the results were pretty good.

However, we did lose some traffic, which means we need to generate more than 4.6 tweets per day.

And as I’ve already mentioned, currently my main business metric is our number of subscribers, which has decreased slightly lately.

The graph above also tells me that even with fewer tweets, we’re still able to attract the right type of audience and to convert our registrants (in our case, the conversion is registration).

Wrap-up

Metrics aren’t always perfectly revealing. Nevertheless, the volume of data accessible nowadays should make analytics doable. In this article I offered you insight into my way of defining business goals, managing internal processes, and dealing with such prosaic activities as measuring, which should never be underestimated. Provide yourself with everything you might possibly need to measure accurately, and don’t be afraid to fail. It’s all part of the process, believe me.

We’ve learned that setting your business goals requires some legwork, like collecting historical data and researching current industry trends. And once you’re certain about your KPIs, you should always keep them on your radar because they demonstrate how fruitful your efforts are on the way to accomplishing your business objectives.

Never stop experimenting with your business ideas, set goals that will challenge you and your team, and don’t go overboard with dubious practices. In this case, less is more.

Now, off to reaching new heights, guys!


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вторник, 28 марта 2017 г.

The Most Important WeChat Features for Digital Marketers Targeting Chinese Consumers

The Most Important WeChat Features for Digital Marketers Targeting Chinese Consumers

The renowned social network ‘WeChat’ is of great interest to western marketers currently, and it should well be.

With 700 million active users it has become the gateway into China, your WeChat activity has become arguably more important than your website in China.

For B2C and B2B, WeChat is a key marketing tool in the aptly named ‘mysterious orient’. Without a strong presence on WeChat you are practically invisible in China.

What is WeChat?

WeChat features

Tencent owned ‘WeChat’ began life as a simple instant messenger application before morphing into the fully fledged, integrated social network it has become. It is primarily an application for smartphones.

It is hard to convey the scale of WeChat’s popularity in China. 700 million users spend on average an hour a day utilizing the many services that have been developed as an integral part of daily life in China.

These include:

  • Text/video/picture messaging
  • WeChat moments (akin to Facebook’s news feed)
  • QR Codes
  • Mapping and localization services
  • WeChat Gaming
  • E-wallet, Payment and Financial services
  • Dating
  • Mobile phone top-up
  • ‘Didi Kaudi’ – Taxi Ordering

WeChat is a mobile phenomenon with the vast majority of users on smartphones. There is also a desktop version but the Chinese have embraced smartphone technology with affordable, mass market smartphones such as ‘Xiaomei’ proving to be incredibly successful.

The success of WeChat is down to both the variety of services it offers and the fact that users can run their whole life through this one application. In fact, external website links are opened within WeChat itself, this functions like a browser. You are still within WeChat even when directed to an external source. As a result there are a higher number of WeChat interactions and therefore greater exposure to content.

Let’s take a look at some of the most important WeChat features and how they can integrate with your China digital strategy.

Official Accounts

Businesses can launch official accounts on WeChat. These are distinct from general user accounts.

Official accounts allow for the creation and customization of your own mini-site within the WeChat application, you can also provide your own unique content and customer services, this acts as a key area for WeChat branding.

Official Accounts for WeChat features

A quality mini-site developed on WeChat.

There are two different varieties Subscription and Service:

  1. Subscription accounts – These are better if you want to push more regular content and notifications, you have one post per day and these notifications for users are displayed in a sub-section for subscription accounts. It is important to note that these accounts do not allow for WeChat payment.
  2. Service accounts – These are best for businesses accessing more advanced features on WeChat. Your posted content will be seen on the main ‘moments’ feed and displayed in-line with personal contacts, so as users look at their messaging page they will see your post within this. Service accounts also offer WeChat payment which is a significant plus.

With official accounts you need to attract followers. On WeChat users can only see content posted if they are already subscribed to your account. Therefore many businesses use their official WeChat as a site for promotions and exclusive offers for subscribers, this strongly incentivises the Chinese who have developed a strong culture of following official accounts.

You attract followers through exclusive WeChat promotions, the sharing of quality Chinese tailored content, and through interacting with users. There are many large groups on WeChat focused on specific topics where you can start conversational threads linked to your area of expertise. Users will often share content on their moments if it is interesting and engaging, there is a much stronger culture of sharing posts in China which you can utilize with the right WeChat content.

Subscription and Service for WeChat features

Above is the moments feed with a sponsored post from a service account .

Subscription and Service for WeChat features 2

Above is the ‘subscription accounts’ followed page.

E-Wallet Development

From a marketing perspective the monetization of WeChat is fascinating. WeChat can be linked to a users bank account where they can make payments via WeChat itself. Users collect QQ coins, transfer money, top up their mobiles, pay utility bills and make payments all via WeChat.

E-Wallet Development for WeChat features

E-wallet services.

A social network developing in line with e-commerce in this fashion is unique.

For western business here are the two most useful functions:

  • Hongbaos – This translates as ‘red envelope’ and is based on the Chinese tradition of giving red envelopes at special occasions and festivals. Businesses can utilize ‘hongbaos’ to attract followers with a lucky dip system with one or many followers winning prizes. In the envelope is a fixed sum which is then transferred to the users WeChat wallet. They can be shared in groups or individually as a reward for following and sharing your posts.

Hongbaos for WeChat features

An example of Hongbao posting, you can select a random or identical amount to be allocated to those who open the package.

  • Micro Stores – Businesses with service accounts can now open ‘m-stores’ within WeChat itself. Users can browse stores on WeChat with incredible ease of payment, with their account linked to their banking. They just input their password and make payment within seconds. Brands can now start developing these customized micro stores, it is like hosting your own website within the established infrastructure WeChat provides.

Micro Stores for WeChat features

The Micro Store for ‘Croisi Europe’ with links for payment via WeChat’s E-wallet.

WeChat Content

Your content on WeChat needs to be developed for WeChat users. Incentives to follow your account should always include friends and family, if users share it their immediate social circle can also benefit. The Chinese greatly trust the views and opinions of their close social circle and you are able to attract whole groups in this way.

In terms of adapting your marketing strategy you need to research your target audience, which WeChat groups are they already active in? You need to be present here and connect with users in order to facilitate group conversations. Creating your own group (of up to 500 people) is a way to start sharing your own content and promotional offers.

It is a cliché but it is true that the Chinese are still very fond of cartoon animation and more intense color palettes. It depends on your brand and how you seek to market yourself, as opting for more subtle and neutral imagery can help you stand out from the more traditional Chinese approach.

All content needs to be adapted into simplified Mandarin Chinese however with the adoption also of more colloquial language on WeChat. It is ‘conversational’ marketing to a certain degree.

QR Code Marketing

QR Code Marketing for WeChat features

Image Source: West Gate

The wide scale phenomenon of the QR code is quite unique to China. WeChat has built itself around the effective utilization of the QR code. Users scan each others codes to add one another but also to link to official, subscription accounts. There is a significant opportunity for offline to online marketing here with physical products featuring QR codes. In China the QR code is now part of the physical environment in cosmopolitan cities like Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou.

Well placed QR codes drive traffic but also allow for cross promotion on different social media outlets and forums. Weibo (akin to Twitter) is the second largest social network and often features images as posts embedded with QR codes linking to WeChat accounts.

China is a wholly digital marketing territory, offline activities are primarily concerned with bringing consumer leads online.

KOLs (Key Opinion Leaders)

WeChat is the main site for the Key Opinion Leader, the Chinese on social media are strongly influenced by these ‘influencers’ who have already established significant online followings around them.

For branding this is particularly effective when they share content or links to your official accounts and praise the quality of your product or service. KOL’s can be recruited by businesses to promote them, this is an aggressive initial market entry strategy that works well but can prove to be costly, it is not ultimately sustainable as you do need to build up your own e-reputation.

For marketers developing links with influencers is crucial initially.

KOLs for WeChat features

‘Jamie’ is an influential figure in Chinese English education, with many educational businesses looking to expand into China partnering with established English learning KOLs can prove effective. 

KOLs for WeChat features 2

Evangeline is a reputable figure in food and dining and often posts influential restaurant reviews.

Geo-localized marketing services

WeChat is arguably the most developed social network on the planet, geo-location services are now starting to be used for marketing purposes.

Based on a users location, content ads can be streamed at the bottom of pages that are specifically tailored to the users preferences. A key area for this is in retail, consumers enter the shop and then need to follow the account for a limited edition discount for example. It links digital to concrete physical activity in a revolutionary way from a marketing perspective.
Geo-localized marketing services for WeChat features

Turning on location services which can be provided to other friends on WeChat, the location is set to also determine more focused, geo-localized ad content.

Wrap up

To conclude, WeChat is an innovative and intelligent network that needs to be understood deeply for effective marketing activities. With a significant e-reputation and visibility developed on WeChat, brands and companies will generate leads digitally in China. You need to be seen on this gateway network to China in order to succeed in the aptly named ‘mysterious orient’.

If you have any further questions or projects in mind please get in touch.

Guest Author: Benji is digital marketing specialist based in Shanghai, China. He is passionate about providing solutions for businesses expanding their operations into China. For more information see his blog and website here.

The post The Most Important WeChat Features for Digital Marketers Targeting Chinese Consumers appeared first on Jeffbullas’s Blog.



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Fox Network Head Of Marketing Angela Courtin Exits

In her role as Fox CMO, Courtin oversaw on-air and off-air promotion and advertising, national media, multi-platform & affiliate marketing, design and …

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Angela Courtin to Exit Post as Fox Broadcasting Marketing Chief

Angela Courtin to Exit Post as Fox Broadcasting Marketing Chief … national media, multiplatform and affiliate marketing, design and social media.

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Local SEO Spam Tactics Are Working: How You Can Fight Back

Posted by Casey_Meraz

For years, I’ve been saying that if you have a problem with spammers in local results, you can just wait it out. I mean, if Google cared about removing spam and punishing those who are regular spammers we’d see them removed fast and often, right?

While there are instances where spam has been removed, it seems these are not fast fixes, permanent fixes, or even very common. In fact, they seem few and far between. So today I’m changing my tune a bit to call more attention to the spam issues people employ that violate Google My Business terms and yet continue to win in the SERPs.

The problems are rampant and blatant. I’ve heard and seen many instances of legitimate businesses changing their names just to rank better and faster for their keywords.

Another problem is that Google is shutting down MapMaker at the end of March. Edits will still be allowed, but they’ll need to be made through Google Maps.

If Google is serious about rewarding brands in local search, they need to encourage it through their local search algorithms.

For some people, it’s gotten so bad that they’re actually suing Google. On January 13, 2017, for instance, a group of fourteen locksmiths sued Google, Yahoo, and Bing over fake spam listings, as reported by Joy Hawkins.

While some changes — like the Possum update — seemed to have a positive impact overall, root problems (such as multiple business listings) and many other issues still exist in the local search ecosystem.

And there are other technically non-spammy ways that users are also manipulating Google results. Let’s look at a couple of these examples.

It’s not all spam. Businesses are going to great lengths to stay within the GMB guidelines & manipulate results.

Let’s look at an example of a personal injury attorney in the Denver market. Recently, I came across these results when doing a search for trial attorneys:

2017-02-28_1137.png

Look at the #2 result listing, entitled “Denver Trial Lawyers.” I originally thought this was spam and wanted to report it, but I had to do my due diligence first.

To start, I needed to verify that the listing was actually spam by looking at the official business name. I pulled up their website and, to my surprise, the business name in the logo is actually “Denver Trial Lawyers.”

business name.png

This intrigued me, so I decided to see if they were using a deceptive logo to advertise the business name or if this was the actual business name.

I checked out the Colorado Secretary of State’s website and did a little digging around. After a few minutes I found the legally registered trade name through their online search portal. The formation date of this entity was 7/31/2008, so they appear to have been planning on using the name for some time.

I also reviewed their MapMaker listing history to see when this change was made and whether it reflected the trade name registration. I saw that on October 10, 2016 the business updated their MapMaker listing to reflect the new business name.

mapmaker-history.png

After all of this, I decided to take this one step further and called the business. When I did, the auto-attendant answered with “Thank you for calling Denver Trial Lawyers,” indicating that this is their legitimate business name.

I guess that, according to the Google My Business Guidelines, this can be considered OK. They state:

“Your name should reflect your business’ real-world name, as used consistently on your storefront, website, stationery, and as known to customers. Accurately representing your business name helps customers find your business online.”

But what does that mean for everyone else?

Recently, Gyi Tsakalakis also shared this beautiful screenshot on Twitter of a SERP with three businesses using their keywords in the business name:

It seems they’re becoming more and more prominent because people see they’re working.

To play devil’s advocate, there are also businesses that legitimately sport less-than-creative names, so where do you draw the line? (Note: I’ve been following some of above businesses for years; I can confirm they’ve changed their business names to include keywords).

Here’s another example

If you look closely, you’ll find more keyword- and location-stuffed business names popping up every day.

Here’s an interesting case of a business (also located in Denver) that might have been trying to take advantage of Near Me searches, as pointed out by Matt Lacuesta:

lacquesta.png

Do you think this business wanted to rank for Near Me searches in Denver? Maybe it’s just a coincidence. It’s funny, nonetheless.

How are people actively manipulating local results?

While there are many ways to manipulate a Google My Business result, today we’re going to focus on several tactics and identify the steps you can take to help fight back.

Tactic #1: Spammy business names

Probably the biggest problem in Google’s algorithm is the amount of weight they put into a business name. At a high level, it makes sense that they would treat this with a lot of authority. After all, if I’m looking for a brand name, I want to find that specific brand when I’m doing a search.

The problem is that people quickly figured out that Google gives a massive priority to businesses with keywords or locations in their business names.

In the example below, I did a search for “Fresno Personal Injury Lawyers” and was given an exact match result, as you can see in the #2 position:

fresno-.png

However, when I clicked through to the website, I found it was for a firm with a different name. In this case, they blatantly spammed their listing and have been floating by with nice rankings for quite some time.

I reported their listing a couple of times and nothing was done until I was able to escalate this. It’s important to note that the account I used to edit this listing didn’t have a lot of authority. Once an authoritative account approved my edit, it went live.

The spam listing below has the keyword and location in the business name.

We reported this listing using the process outlined below, but sadly the business owner noticed and changed it back within hours.

How can you fight back against spammy business names?

Figuring out how to fight back against people manipulating results is now your job as an SEO. In the past, some in the industry have given the acronym “SEO” a bad name due to the manipulative practices they performed. Now it’s our job to give us a better name by helping to police these issues.

Since Google MapMaker is now disappearing, you’ll need to make edits in Google Maps directly. This is also a bit of a problem, as there’s no room to leave comments for evidence.

Here are the steps you should take to report a listing with incorrect information:

  1. Make sure you’re signed into Google
  2. Locate the business on maps.google.com
  3. Once the business is located, open it up and look for the “Suggest an edit” option:

    suggest-edit.png
  4. Once you select it, you’ll be able to choose the field you want to change:
    click on what you want to edit.png
  5. Make the necessary change and then hit submit! (Don’t worry — I didn’t make the change above.)

Now, don’t expect anything to happen right away. It can take time for changes to take place. Also, the trust level of your profile seems to play a big role in how Google evaluates these changes. Getting the approval by someone with a high level of trust can make your edits go live quickly.

Make sure you check out all of these great tips from Joy Hawkins on The Ultimate Guide to Fighting Spam on Google Maps, as well.

Tactic #2: Fake business listings

Another issue that we see commonly with maps spam is fake business listings. These listings are completely false businesses that black-hat SEOs build just to rank and get more leads.

Typically we see a lot of these in the locksmith niche — it’s full of people creating fake listings. This is one of the reasons Google started doing advanced verification for locksmiths and plumbers. You can read more about that on Mike Blumenthal’s blog.

Joy Hawkins pointed out a handy tip for identifying these listings on her blog, saying:

“Many spammers who create tons of fake listings answer their phone with something generic like ‘Hello, locksmith’ or 'Hello, service.’”

I did a quick search in Denver for a plumber and it wasn’t long before I found a listing with an exact match name. Using Joy’s tips, I called the number and it was disconnected. This seemed like an illegitimate listing to me.

Thankfully, in this case, the business wasn’t ranking highly in the search results:

2017-02-28_1254.png

When you run into these types of listings, you’ll want to take a similar approach as we did above and report the issue.

Tactic #3: Review spam

Review spam can come in many different forms. It’s clear that Google’s putting a lot of attention into reviews by adding sorting features and making stars more prominent. I think Google knows they can do a better job with their reviews overall, and I hope we see them take it a little bit more seriously.

Let’s look at a few different ways that review spam appears in search results.

Self-reviews & competitor shaming

Pretty much every business knows they need reviews, but they have trouble getting them. One way people get them is to leave them on their own business.

Recently, we saw a pretty blatant example where someone left a positive five-star review for a law firm and then five other one-star reviews for all of their competitors. You can see this below:

review-spam.png

Although it’s very unethical for these types of reviews to show up, it happens everyday. According to Google’s review and photo policies, they want to:

“Make sure that the reviews and photos on your business listing, or those that you leave at a business you’ve visited, are honest representations of the customer experience. Those that aren’t may be removed.”

While I’d say that this does violate the policies, figuring out which rule applies best is a little tricky. It appears to be a conflict of interest, as defined by Google’s review guidelines below:

"Conflict of interest: Reviews are most valuable when they are honest and unbiased. If you own or work at a place, please don’t review your own business or employer. Don’t offer or accept money, products, or services to write reviews for a business or to write negative reviews about a competitor. If you're a business owner, don't set up review stations or kiosks at your place of business just to ask for reviews written at your place of business."

In this particular case, a member of our staff, Dillon Brickhouse, reached out to Google to see what they would say.

Unfortunately, Google told Dillon that since there was no text in the review, nothing could be done. They refused to edit the review.

And, of course, this is not an isolated case. Tim Capper recently wrote an article — “Are Google My Business Guidelines & Spam Algos Working?” — in which he identified similar situations and nothing had been done.

How can you fight against review stars?

Although there will still be cases where spammy reviews are ignored until Google steps up their game, there is something you can try to remove bad reviews. In fact, Google published the exact steps on their review guidelines page here.

You can view the steps and flag a review for removal using the method below:

1. Navigate to Google Maps. 2. Search for your business using its name or address. 3. Select your business from the search results. 4. In the panel on the left, scroll to the “Review summary” section. 5. Under the average rating, click [number of] reviews. 6. Scroll to the review you’d like to flag and click the flag icon. 7. Complete the form in the window that appears and click Submit.

What can you do if the basics don’t work?

There are a ton of different ways to spam local listings. What can you do if you’ve reported the issue and nothing changes?

While edits may take up to six weeks to go live, the next step involves you getting more public about the issue. The key to the success of this approach is documentation. Take screenshots, record dates, and keep a file for each issue you’re fighting. That way you can address it head-on when you finally get the appropriate exposure.

Depending on whether or not the listing is verified, you’ll want to try posting in different forums:

Verified listings

If the listing you’re having trouble with is a verified listing, you’ll want to make a public post about it in the Google My Business Community forum. When posting, make sure to provide all corresponding evidence, screenshots, etc. to make the case very clear to the moderators. There’s a Spam and Policy section on the forum where you can do this.

Unverified listings

However, some spam listings are not verified listings. In these cases ,Joy Hawkins recommends that you engage with the Local Guides Connect Forum here.

Key takeaways

Sadly, there’s not a lot we can do outside of the basics of reporting results, but hopefully being more proactive about it and making some noise will encourage Google to take steps in the right direction.

  1. Start being more proactive about reporting listings and reviews that are ignoring the guidelines. Be sure to record the screenshots and take evidence.
  2. If the listings still aren’t being fixed after some time, escalate them to the Google My Business Community forum.
  3. Read Joy Hawkins’ post from start to finish on The Ultimate Guide to Fighting Spam in Google Maps
  4. Don’t spam local results. Seriously. It’s annoying. Continually follow and stay up-to-date on the Google My Business guidelines.
  5. Lastly, don’t think the edit you made is the final say or that it’ll stay around forever. The reality is that they could come back. During testing for this post, the listing for “Doug Allen Personal Injury Attorney Colorado Springs” came back within hours based on an owner edit.

In the future, I’m personally looking forward to seeing some major changes from Google with regards to how they rank local results and how they monitor reviews. I would love to see local penalties become as serious as manual penalties.

How do you think Google can fight this better? What are your suggestions? Let me know in the comments below.


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