This week I learned about the importance of links to my website.
Links not only bring visitors who follow them into the website; they also improve the site's relevance for search engines. Search engines like Google analyze how many ''backlinks'' connect to the site giving it credibility and relevance so it shows higher in search results. Quality is also important since Google knows tricks people use and punishes bad linking practices. It is important that the links are relevant. Links coming from famous and highly visited websites benefit much more.
I have also been using Google Analytics and exploring it almost every day for the last few weeks.
It is really a great tool that that now I can't imagine living without. In order to install it you have to place the analytics java script code on the site, or in the case of Drupal users, install the Drupal Analytics module that places the code automatically in all pages.
Analytics allows website owners to track visits, trends and how their goals (conversions) are being met. This data is more useful when used to determine trends. This way I have been able to determine what actions and changes have worked on my site, which campaigns are being more successful and how visitors interact with my site in general.
Essential to any marketing effort for a product, company or website today is a Social Media Strategy, especially if it is looking to market to young people.
There are many social media courses, articles and tutorials out there that explain the technical side of it. Here are some of the lessons I recently learned about the generals points for social media:
Be different. It is important to stand out from the crowd. The average person today is constantly bombarded with advertisement. It is not enough just to show your product anymore; you have to make them understand why it is different and cause an impression that won’t be overlooked.
Be authentic. Customers are not easily deceived anymore. They look for multiple sources and know when a company is just ”trying to sell them something”. Answer their comments, interact, be a person and engage your customers and visitors so they recommend you to their friends through their comments and interactions.
Be creative. This goes hand in hand with being different. Don’t just do what you learn about social media but look for ways to innovate, to create new things.
Have a strategy. It doesn’t help to spend money and time on this if you don’t have a goal or purpose for it.
Use your tools. Take advantage of Google Analytics and use metrics to measure your social media ROI so you can learn what works and refine your strategy.
The way we
do business has changed. Not only do we have online businesses nowadays but
with the arrival and widespread of social networks, businesses have become
social. A business, especially one that sells to young people, now has to
develop a social networking strategy to serve its customers with personalized
service and improve its SEO at the same time.
I am used
to using Facebook. In fact, my session is always open in my mobile device and I
use it as one of my primary means of communication with friends and family that
I don’t see often, interaction with communities that share my interests, and
assessing the trustworthiness of a company I just discovered. For example, I am
trying to change my Internet Service Provider so after finding some companies I
could choose from the first thing I did was looking them up in Facebook looking
for customer comments and reviews. If a company doesn't have an official
Facebook page it’s easy for me to ignore it. If customers are happy with the
company and mention it on the company’s Facebook page I gain confidence about
their quality. If I ask the company questions through Inbox and their answers
are useful to me, then I am much more likely of becoming their customer.
With these
facts in mind, I came up with a list of goals for Social media and SEO:
Obtain ‘’Likes’’
and relevance. After I ‘’like’’ a company’s Facebook page, I will start seeing
their publications in my wall and they will be present in my mind. The first step
is to get visitors and potential customers to ‘’like’’ the company. A Facebook
Ads campaing can be used for this. My first goal is to reach 100 Likes as a
first stepping stone, then use an ads campaign and organic growth through
interaction to increase its number to 500, and then 1,000.
Create
content that is ‘’likeable’’ and ‘’shareable’’. Publications that are liked,
shared and commented will have a greater and wider reach. Sharing content from
related but not conflicting sources can also be good to keep social interaction
up. The goal is to have at least one publication a day in order to remind
visitors of my site’s existence.
Engage with
the community. The Facebook page is the ‘’face’’ of the business where
customers can ask questions and give suggestions. Friendly and warm interaction
is the key for visitors to return. My goal is to answer comments every day, and
invite people to interact if comments are scarce.
Expand your
reach. I am not really using Twitter, Instagram, or other social media sites to
promote my site other than Facebook and I have been suggested to try it. My
goal is to open an account in those other sites and becoming familiar with
them.
Success can
be measured from this using Google Analytics. With it I can know how many
visitors are visiting my site as a result of social media interactions (which
is the first goal), and how many of those clicked Adsense ads. Links to
Affiliate Networks can also be posted on social media publications advertising
special offers.
I have to admit that I had heard about ''SEO'' for a long time but I never knew what it meant until a couple months ago when I started learning more about Search Engine Optimization, or how easily can search engines find your website.
There are a few factors that can affect your website's SEO:
Keywords: Include Keywords that people are looking for but are also relevant to your website. It is important to focus on quality rather than spamming the website with the desired keywords.
Back-links: How many links lead to your site? This is a very important point too, and these links must be high quality links too, not just spam.
Site optimization: How long does it take to load? Is it easy to see in all screen sizes? What about mobile devices? All of this affects visitor experience in your site and how likely they are to return.
Be unique: Not only create original content; make that content so unique that your site stands out from the crowd.
Make it shareable: If you were a visitor, would you share what you found on Facebook or another social network? Make your content interesting, and make sure your URL's are simple and reflect what your content is about.
There are much more ideas to be applied on a site for SEO.
I still have a long way to go for my site. I'm learning and applying these things by trying and making mistakes. My site (In Spanish): www.saliradentro.com
Very slowly but very surely, my business project is getting up there.
My wife and I went out on the weekend to get more pictures of some places I wanted to write articles about and we ended up visiting 7 different free museums in downtown Mexico City that afternoon alone. There were a lot of museums we didn't have time to visit since we were very tired after that but now I have lots of pictures and experiences to write about.
I installed Google Analytics in my site using the Google Analytics Drupal module. It's amazing how much information I can obtain with it and I have been using it to improve my site. I especially liked being able to see the bounce rate to see how effective my landing page is after visitors get there as a result from my Adwords campaign.
I am also working on a new version of my site trying out different Drupal distributions and themes before I make changes in the actual website.
I also started my Adwords campaign. At first I was having a very high bounce rate as I was sending visitors to my home page, but I found much better results as I created more specific ads that lead to specific sections of my site, especially to the ones that are better connected to products from my affiliate networks.
The website (in Spanish) is taking shape, although I really want to make some major changes on it. I found some interesting Drupal distributions and modules that will allow me to do a complete makeover for my website and make it more like what I want it to be but I haven't had the time to do it. Another obstacle is that I don't want to lose what I already built doing an experiment that might or not work.
The solution: I am creating a local website using XAMPP to create a server and installed Drupal there, then I will create a sample of the website layout and features that I want and see how it works before doing it in my actual site. That way the process will be smoother and faster and I won't miss revenue and visits now that I'm about to start my Adwords campaign.
I am also happy to say that I just earned my first $0.10 from Adsense and I started having clicks on my affiliate ads! It's not a lot but it is an important milestone for me. I got this little traffic by creating a Facebook page about my website, inviting my friends and my wife's friends to like it and then posting links to the articles in my website.
This week I learned a lot about Adword ads. I had some experience creating Facebook ads campaigns for a couple business projects and this is quite a different system with a few things in common. With Adwords I choose the keywords I want to associate my ad to rather than purely demographic information. Adwords also provides a lot of feedback on the effectiveness of my ads and my Keywords through the ''quality score''
I am very excited about officially starting my Adwords campaign tomorrow. I also have a lot of ideas for articles and sections that I am about to create as well as a YouTube channel associated with my site and turn it into a whole online magazine.
Tips for Adwords Ads: http://www.addme.com/newsletters/issue269.htm
Getting started with Adwords ads: https://support.google.com/adwords/answer/1704392?rd=2
These last couple of weeks have been some of the most intense of my life. I have been working over time and doing some important projects, the most important one being my web based business.
I had a steep learning curve with Drupal, but now I'm so glad that I chose it not only for the satisfaction of achieving something challenging but also because now that I have installed and customized all the modules that I need and built the ''back bone'' for my website, adding new content will be really easy; I will just have to type it, give it format and Drupal will publish it right where I need it automatically.
This has been a great experience so far, and next week will be even better as I launch my Adwords campaign and see the website actually working.
I have found very nice Affiliate Networks and I have applied to them as well as to Adsense. I also got a lot of insight from Affiliate Marketing and Adsense forums with people who have more experience. Now I'm just waiting for my application for several of those programs to be completed and start placing my ads or links in an intelligent way.
I am also excited about creating new content. I hadn't realized that I like photography! I am looking forward to going out with my wife, visiting places and writing articles about it using my own pictures and experiences.
So, here it is! This is my very first website: www.saliradentro.com
