seobridges.com

In the restaurant industry, a good dining room manager will ensure the entire staff’s trained to take ownership. That means if a guest’s water glass is empty or nearing empty, whoever sees it and makes note of it should either fill that water glass or escalate it to the right person (the server). Social Media Monitoring works in much the same way, in that whichever person in a company sees a specific tweet or comment, should either respond or let the right person know so they can respond.

Now, on the social media initiative side, that is sending out Tweets, such as promotional Tweets or posting comments to blogs and Facebook, it should also be a collaborative effort. Companies that choose not to hire one or more people to handle their social media should consider setting up a social media task force that consists of one person from every department to head up the social media initiative for that department. Larger companies can assign one executive to act as liaison or Chief Social Media Officer to head up that task force and speak on behalf of the company.

If your company has a specific social media department, or a department assigned to handle social media, and that works for you, great. If you have one employee who handles all your social media, and that works for you, great. If you outsource your social media, and that works for you, great. Though, if your company’s large, and you are in social media limbo, consider a social media marketing committee.

I’d love to know your thoughts about what has or hasn’t worked for your company.

Stay Social My Friends!

Erick

If there are two things you like, it’s free and it’s lists. Blogs with lists of free stuff always get the most views. I try to write my blogs in list or bullet point format as much as possible, but I don’t list free resources (i.e. other sites) as much as I once did. If I list a social media or related start-up and that start-up goes under or is acquired by a larger company, I am left with a broken link. And that’s not good for SEO.

Recently, someone contacted me about trying their site and writing a review. Someone else asked me to review their book on social media marketing, which I will post within the next week or two (e-mail erick @ seobridges . com if you’d like me to review your book, site, or product).

I stopped focusing on posting lists of free resources because while it is great for my initial SEO because it attracts visitor, it is potentially bad for my overall SEO because those sites may cease to exist or the URL may change.

While I may post the occasional review of a social media or social media related site, which has been around for a while, that’s not my focus. My focus is to help you understand the principles of SEO and social media marketing. Yes, I will continue to give you tools, when it’s appropriate; but understanding those principles will prove of higher value to you over time.

What do you find most valuable about my blog?

Stay social my friends!

Erick

If you’ve perused my blog before, you probably noticed a few recent changes. No more large buttons at the top of the right hand column. I like to play with widgets, and I like to see how people who visit my site interact with widgets I use. I thought it was time for a change.

First, let me tell you why I added the widgets I added. I added the tag cloud because people like to click. I’d rather just click a button than type words. For those who want to find specific blogs, using specific keywords, or still like to type, I kept the traditional search feature. I kept the Amazon widget, but I may play around with the colors. I added widgets to a couple of my favorite bloggers, and I may add widgets to a few more. I may also add more widgets.

I want to make my site more interactive, meaning I want you to come to my site and get the information you need related to my site. I want you to know you can bookmark my site, click on it when you need it, and click on whatever topic you want to find related to my site. I want you to trust you can find the information you want to find, related to my site, by going to my site. And I want you to know I am listening to you.

So, please let me know what I can do to make my site more user and search friendly and more interactive for you. I have my magnifying glass out, I hear the theme music, Penny and Brain are running across the screen, and a trio of women are singing “Inspector Widget.” Sometimes, the best way to be more social is just to ask, so I’m asking you how can I be more social for you?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

You can make your #blog attractive to #search#engines by making it attractive to potential readers. That means adding keywords but not too many.  Stuffing your blog or article with keywords is like wearing too much makeup.

Along with keywords, you want to maintain a conversational flow. That could mean starting your paragraphs with strong transitional sentences, offering links to other resources, or engaging your readers in conversation by asking questions.

Here are ten more tips:

1. Include keywords in the title that draw readers in and allow search bots to categorize Web pages better.

2. Use short paragraphs, lists, bullet points, or other devices that allow readers to skim.

3. Link to blogs, articles, or other online resources that offer valuable content and/or resources.

4. Don’t offer information 500 other bloggers offer.

5. Your description (this appears in search engines below the title) should pose a question or challenge, offer something free, or otherwise draw people in.

6. Use black font on a white or light background. No white font on a black background.

7. Use Arial, New Times Roman, or another easy to read font.

8. If you use a CMS such as WordPress or Drupal add something personal, link to other blogs, and allow people to comment. Unless you’re Seth Godin, your content alone won’t grab people’s attention.

9. Spell and grammar check with a tool like PaperRater. You’re going to misspell words and use improper grammar. Don’t lose sleep over it.

10. Embolden or underline important text to let readers and search engines know what information you consider the most important.

Can you think of any other tips to give blogs sex appeal?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Yesterday, a British woman shattered all of my preconceived notions of Brits always speaking perfect English.  After centuries of hearing Brits make fun of us Yanks for speaking a substandard form of English, I heard a Brit use improper grammar.

It’s a grammatical mistake I hear people use often.  It usually begins around the 2^nd grade when children’s teachers correct their students, even though their kids used the right word.

So, here it is.  She used “I” when “me” was the correct word.  If any of your teachers told you “I” is always the correct form, they’re wrong.  “I” is subjective, and “Me” is objective.

In other words, you use the subjective form “I” when you are going somewhere or doing something, such as in the sentence, “You and I are taking the dogs to the park.”  But you use “me” when you are the object, such as in the sentence, “Will you take the dogs and me to the park?”

An easy way to remember it is to take out “dogs.”  You wouldn’t say, “Would you take I to the park?”  The word doesn’t change from “me” to “I” just because you add dogs or any other noun.

If you write a blog, blogs, articles, or any other Web content, correct grammar is important.  And if you hire someone to write any type of Web content for you, just because they know the rules of SEO doesn’t mean they know the rules of grammar.

Stay grammatically correct my friends,

Erick

One of our core company beliefs is that People do business with People.  The blogs are where we can let our customers and potential customers know who we are, that we are not a monolithic inhuman corporation. We’re real people.  In managing online identity, authenticity is key.

Now last week I mentioned that I blog as “Carmen Electrode” and “Joe Welder.”  I’m sure you’re thinking, “how is THAT authentic?”

Good question.  I’ve thought about it myself.  First, I don’t think anyone really expects that Carmen Electrode is anything other than a construct of our company. Besides, she looks like this:

Joe Welder, on the other hand, is my boss’ nickname.  It’s what his buddies called him when he was active in motorsports and worked as chief mechanic for a racing team.  We have references to his nickname and his history throughout our company web properties.

When I post as Joe Welder, 99.9% of the time, the article originated with my boss.  Occasionally I’ll send him an industry article and solicit his opinion. In both these instances I edit for clarity, for typos and for geeky grammar things like cohesion, passive voice and continuity.  While maintaining his story, and his voice.

When I talk about being authentic, I mean that regardless of the handle you give yourself online, be real.  Don’t just be marketing fluff. And you don’t have to be perfect.  I think customers appreciate imperfections, as long as there is honesty and integrity, and as long as they feel valued as a customer.

In fact, sometimes you can turn those mistakes—and we all make them—into good stories.  Just the other day, a customer called us and complained that we did not send the SYLVANIA tungsten they ordered, but rather GTP tungsten.  What we had neglected to tell our customer, and all of our other customers, was that Sylvania Tungsten had become GTP back in 2008, and had only recently changed their packaging.  We used this as opportunity to educate our customers about the change, reinforce our position as industry experts, remind them of our awesome satisfaction guarantee, and say “hey, we’re human!”

It’s not the mistakes you make it’s how you handle them.  And really, it’s not a story if someone wants something and gets exactly what they…  and blogging is all about telling stories and making connections with our customers.

Next time I’ll talk about how much is too much authenticity…

–
Jennifer Simpson, aka Je Sais (I know)
DID I BLOG YOU?
http://akajesais.com/

As I mentioned in my introductory post, I blog utilizing several personas:  JeSais for my personal blog, Carmen Electrode is my work affiliated online persona, and Joe Welder for my boss.  It sounds more complicated than it is.

I won’t go into too many details about my personal blog–  mostly because it’s not really relevant to search engine optimization.  I started it learn more about blogging.  I would note, however, that if you do blog, keep in mind you are not necessarily as invisible as you think you are.  My own personal rule of thumb is to never post anything online that you would not want your mother or future employer to read.

The company I work for, Arc-Zone.com, sells welding accessories. Primarily an online business, we serve a variety of clients from independent fabricators to industrial manufacturers around the world. For work I manage the two company blogs:  CarmenElectrode.com and JoeWelder.com.

One way that I distinguish the voice of Carmen Electrode from Joe Welder is by selection of topic.  I use the CarmenElectrode.com blog to (hopefully) dispel some myths about the kind of work that welding is, and the kind of women who actually weld.  I also write about equality in the workplace, and other issues of importance to women welders.  And Rosie the Riveter–I blog about Rosies.  I repost articles profiling the original Rosies, stories about the Rosie the Riveter Parks, statues, and memorials, and I also write regular profiles of women in the industry for a section I call “The New Rosies.”

The Joe Welder blog is primarily my boss’ platform (who is the owner of Arc-Zone.com) so the posts are topics that reflect his history in the racing industry and as a master fabricator as well as his personal interests:  So Cal culture, cars, mountain biking and green manufacturing to name a few.  One regular feature is Ask Joe for write-ups of technical inquiries, and the solutions our company experts provide.  We also post about customer service, new products in our webstore, and how we differentiate ourselves from others in the industry.

Another tool I use to distinguish voice is diction and word selection. For Carmen Electrode I tend to use more flowery, “feminine” language… a voice that is probably closer to my “real” voice (though maybe a bit more hip and fun!).  Jim (my boss, aka Joe Welder)  writes many of the posts himself, though I do edit them for him. I strive to maintain his diction and his use of words like “dialed in” or “check it out” or “bitchin” even when writing posts as “Editor.”

Whether I’m online as Carmen or Joe, because these are business blogs there is a level of professionalism that we always maintain.  It is one of our company’s core beliefs that in order to flourish, we must maintain a positive atmosphere.  The blogs are not places to dish dirt on the industry, on our competitors, or on vendors that let us down. Instead they are places to celebrate the industry that we contribute to and benefit from.  I’ll talk about this in more depth in my next post on maintaining integrity.

–
Jennifer Simpson, aka JeSais
DID I BLOG YOU?
http://akajesais.com/

Akismet is good at combating most comment spam, but it doesn’t catch everything.  Sometimes it’s difficult to tell if someone took the time to read my blog and comment, or if they just posted a generic comment.

If you comment, “nice blog,” or even post a longer comment that does not mention me or anything about my blog, I won’t publish your comment.  I’ll assume you wrote out a generic comment to a Word doc, such as, “Most of what I read online is trash and copy and paste, but you definitely add value. Bravo,” and you copied and pasted that to numerous blogs without reading those blogs.

To everyone who takes the time to read and comment on my blogs, I appreciate your comments.  Though, unless you mention me, my blog, or something relevant to the topic I blogged about, I can’t decipher whether you read my blog and wrote out that comment or if you just copied and pasted generic comments to random blogs.

The purpose of blogging is to spur conversation.  Posting random comments to random blogs without reading those blogs is like pretending to have a conversation with a person, while nodding, thinking about something else, saying ‘right’ every few moments, and leaving without any notion of what that person just said.

Perhaps, you’re thinking, ‘Who cares?  A comment is a comment.’  I don’t think the laziness of SEO content writers or bloggers who cut corners should be rewarded.  Let’s keep the conversation going by respecting one another enough to post comments that encourage conversation.

Stay social my friends,

Erick

After you determine which blogs are the most popular with your Facebook friends, Twitter followers, or people from other social networking sites, go to those blogs and figure out what made them so popular.  It’s easy to assume the content alone makes your blogs popular, and that might be the case.  Though, if you go to the blog I mentioned yesterday, you’ll see right away that how that blog’s laid out probably had something to do with it’s popularity.  The layout made it easy to read.  So, I can use that to go through all of my past blogs and make them as user friendly as that one.

Now, before we forget about Google Analytics,  use it to determine how people found that particular blog.  Below the main graph, you’ll see a drop down tab defaulted to “Content Detail.”  From there you can select “Navigation Summary,” “Entrance Paths,” “Entrance Sources,” or “Entrance Keywords.” Most people found that particular blog by searching for the keywords “social media monitoring” or “social media marketing” via a search engine or via the search engine on my site.

Yesterday, I said those people who visit your site from Facebook, Twitter, or other social networking sites are good barometers for the types of people who visit your site from search engines.  Since most people found my site or that blog using the keywords “social media marketing” or “social media monitoring,” I can get a better idea of which friends or followers (or at least the types of friends or followers) from those particular social networking sites might come to or be interested in the information I provide or services I offer.

Of course, Facebook has not yet offer a way to to filter through your friends by what they’re talking about or interested in learning more about.  The closest you can get is by going to your friends list and searching by interest.  Though, I only have one friend on my friends list (out of more than 900 friends) who has marked ‘social media’ as one of her interests, and I wrote the blog I used as an example yesterday before she was on my list.  Now, I just need to figure out a way to figure out the types of people who might be coming to my site from Facebook or other social networks.

Any Ideas?

Stay social my friends,

Erick

Today, let’s look at how you can use your Facebook visitors to determine what types of people are visiting your site.  If you didn’t read my blog yesterday, you might want to read yesterday’s blog Welcome to Google Analytics Sniper Training School before you read today’s blog.  For those who read yesterday’s blog, after you’ve figured out what pages or blogs people are going to on your site from Facebook the most, determine what about those pages or blogs attracts people.

Once you select Landing Page and Visitor Type, two more drop down boxes will appear.  You can use those tabs to find out more about your new and returning visitors from Facebook, such as how many pages those users who visited particular blogs visited, the average amount of time they spent on your site, the average bounce rate, and more.  Most visitors to my site from Facebook go to my homepage, but I determined my most popular was Using Google Analytics as a Social Media Monitoring Tool.

Once you’ve determined which of your blogs receives the most amount of attention from your Facebook friends, open a new tab to determine how those visitors interacted with that blog compared to visitors from other sources.  To find this go:

Content >> Top Content >> Find that blog from the bottom, right section of the page

That blog was one of my more popular blogs with all my visitors.  When you click on it, you can compare visitors to that page from Facebook to visitors to that page in general.  My Facebook friends seemed to appreciate that blog more than visitors from elsewhere, which means I might want to write more blogs like that to attract more of my Facebook friends.

Again I can use this method to find out more about people who visit my site via Twitter and other social networking sites.  Of course, I can also use this method with people who find my site via search engines, but unless that person leaves a comment you can’t interact with that person.  Okay, so you may not be able to interact with people who visit your site via social networking sites unless they comment on your blog or retweet it or other.

Though, regardless of whether you have 100 or 5,000 friends on Facebook and 10 or 20,000 followers on Twitter, a certain type of person befriended you or follows you.  I mention this to say that just as those blogs that were the most popular to my Facebook friends are my most popular blogs all around, people who befriend and follow you are a pretty good barometer of the type of people who are coming to your site via search engines.

Stay social my friends,

Erick