Category Archives: Content creation

reelWebDesign.com Becomes A Yext® Certified Partner & Adapts to Change

Content creation, content marketing, Google glass, Mobile Marketing, Organic SEO, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Technology, The Importance Of Content Creators, Video marketing, Web Design, , , , ,

google-hummingbirdAs the SEO world has recently been turned on its head by the new Penguin 2.1 and Hummingbird algorithm we at reelWebDesign.com are compelled to focus more on two areas:

  1. Helping small businesses with local SEO (getting you found locally on the web with geographically driven keywords and intentions in mind).
  2. Helping you with social media marketing and content production.

Our focus will be in these two areas more than ever and it will benefit your business and ours in many ways.
How?
Google’s new algorithm is centered around people and helping them find what they are looking for. In essence they have bcome the new ASK.com (even though they’d never admit it), but where ASK had failed to deliver good results Google claims that they will deliver excellent results, and who am I to argue with them as they do own the worlds largest search engine!  So content is what we are going to focus on for our clients. However, many local businesses like pizza parlors and locksmiths don’t need to answer a lot of questions for their consumers and others just don’t have time or money to create fresh content, for these businesses they just need to be found! That’s the second part of Google’s algorithm: where having citations is more important than ever (a citation is basically a listing on any of the major local directories and social networks on the web i.e. Foursquare, Yelp, zagat, 8Coupons, Citysearch etc.).  So we have partnered with Yext to make it inexpensive, consistent and easy to implement.  Note: Consistency is extremely important as the search engines will see the same business as a separate entity if listed with different names, phone numbers or addresses.  This inconsistency will water down your search or ‘Google juice’, thereby lowering your ranking.

In addition to teaming up with Yext® we are offering a free Google plus/places listing optimization as part of our local SEO plan.  Google, as no surprise, values it’s own social networks, Google Plus and Google Places over all others. We believe this focus on providing relevant content, social media management and marketing and local SEO with Yext® as our partner will provide excellent results for all new and current customers.  Please watch the video below about the Yext® service.

responsive_web_designer

Our focus will also be to deliver responsive or mobile ready web design (responsive web design is developing a website that changes or responds to diferent sized screens for a better user experience.  Example: Our website is responsive and will appear differently on your laptop, tablet and phone).  

Why responsive/mobile ready?

mobile-search-dataAnalytics firm BIA/Kelsey has predicted that mobile search queries will overtake desktop queries by 2015. If your website isn’t mobile ready then you’ll be missing out on the larger piece of search.  Compound this with the push in the SEO world to focus more on local search and you’ll understand that mobile search is the area of largest growth and the best bet for acquiring new customers from this point forward.

Social Media

So where does social media fit into the equation? Social media is similar to the old word of mouth marketing… on steroids! It allows for your message to be broadcast to countless people in an extremely fast fashion.  It also helps with search engine rankings.  The more a post is shared the more the search engines see it as valuable. Google+, although an underused social network by most,  is extremely important as Google values it above all other social networks. For this reason we post your message to the main 4 driving forces on the social web: Google+, Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.  If you have a blog we’ll also post your article/blog post to various other networks as well including: Delicious, StumbleUpon, Plurk, Newsvine, Scoopit, Diigo, Folk and Hubpages to name a few.  This will not only boost your viewership but also your Alexa rating which influences search engine ranking as well.  It is from the social networks that search engines are able to personalize your user expereince and give you results that are customized for your personal liking’s.  So as you can see social media is an extremely important factor in online marketing and its value to both people and search engines is growing more important every year.

Conclusion

It’s been a tumultuous year in search marketing but I believe I know where it is all headed and I see why Google is doing this great transition. With Google watches, glasses and more voice search integration on the horizon the way we perform and undertake search is going to change dramatically. Search will move more towards speech and visual cues with geographical underpinnings wrapped around your personal likes and dislikes i.e. personalized mobile search.  People will be asking more questions about: ‘what’s in the area’, ‘how to do things’, ‘what do you know about this’ and ‘what’s going on now that I would like’.  From this information, surprisingly, we can see that small businesses do have a future as there will be more of a need to discover and cater to micro-niches.  So as long as we, small businesses, focus on a niche and excel at it we can have a successful life as Google and other social networks will actually be driving people towards us.

The future brings more focus to everything, the question is what will your business focus on, and our job at reelWebDesign.com will be to find you your appropriate crowd through all of our partner networks including our latest, Yext®.

By Peter Marino owner of reelWebDesign.com, a company helping small businesses find their niche.

Learn How To Implement Effective Content Marketing For Global Success

Content creation, content marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Video marketing, Viral marketing, YouTube Marketing, , ,

The world of marketing is changing rapidly. In the information age, traditional methods of advertising have begun to lose their luster, forcing companies to raise the bar on how they market their brands and products. Central to this new advertising paradigm is content marketing: attracting customers not by “selling” them a brand, but instead by creating interesting, entertaining, or compelling content that will guide customer behavior without making an explicit sales pitch. Many large brands are now making effective use of content marketing to change the way customers engage with their brand.

Vouchercloud®

When it comes to variety, Vouchercloud® offers instant delivery of money-saving coupons on mobile devices and voucher codes for online shopping. The use of social media and YouTube is to showcase its content marketing and is delivered well. Check out this video below, that silently showcases a family enjoying the benefits of Vouchercloud® as they travel through a fictional restaurant meal, train ride, and movie theater — all without making a traditional sales pitch. Videos such as these showcase the benefits of services that Vouchercloud offer without the need for spokespeople or even explanations of their services, instead focusing on a brief, entertaining video that shows customers what their service is all about and the discounts they can save.

Timex®

For its iconic IRONMAN brand, venerable watch company Timex® knew it had to break out of its traditional advertising practices and focus on a new kind of marketing. They eventually unveiled the “I am a Runner” campaign, choosing to focus not on the products themselves, but on the storytelling opportunities involved in running and the Ironman challenge. Timex® already had a strong connection to the Ironman running challenge, and so capitalized on that connection by creating a Facebook app that collected runners’ stories and photos and allowed real athletes to share their experiences.

Burberry®

Clothing company Burberry®, one of the oldest fashion brands in the industry at 157 years, sought to freshen up their market image and take some new approaches to advertising. Investing heavily in digital advertising, Burberry® launched two projects. The Burberry® Acoustic project, unveiled in 2010, featured a series of videos showcasing up-and-coming British musicians (all wearing Burberry® clothing, of course), and the Burberry® Kisses project involved a website that allowed users to capture their unique “kiss print” on their computer webcams, modify the kisses with virtual “lipstick,” and then share with others. The focus on customer engagement and participation spread awareness of Burberry’s iconic brand.

Red Bull®

One of the most memorable and resonant content marketing campaigns in recent memory has come from Red Bull®. The energy drink company took its slogan (“Red Bull gives you wings”™) to the limit when, as the centerpiece to their “Stratos” campaign, they sent daredevil Felix Baumgartner into space to perform a record-breaking dive from low orbit. The video of the jump, which showed Baumgartner’s successful plummet to earth at Mach 1.25, garnered over eight million simultaneous live streams on YouTube. The photos of Baumgartner’s landing on Facebook gathered over 200,000 “likes” within minutes of its posting. Red Bull created massive awareness for its brand and raised the bar for content marketing everywhere, without turning the Stratos event into a commercial.

The scale and scope of Red Bull’s® marketing efforts have raised the bar for other content marketers worldwide — not every company, obviously, can afford to send a man into space to promote their products. But in the world of content marketing, ingenuity and creativity frequently trump limitless budgets and high production values, and with enough inventiveness, even the most modest content marketing effort can achieve a massive audience.

Author: Hannah is a writer who works alongside the travel, fashion and food brands for vouchercloud.com. We look forward to hearing your thoughts on content marketing for success and any tips you may have.

Organic SEO : Why All-Natural Is Still Best

Content creation, content marketing, Organic SEO, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, , ,

My mom is a devoted supporter of anything organic. She checks the label on food items, makes sure that she buys only from organic family farmers and buys me yogurt while everyone else in school enjoys ice cream. Nevertheless, I was proud of the fact

and never complained that I was the “healthy kid” in class. I knew my mom was doing something right.

Organic SEO

Just like food, I prefer doing business the healthy way. There’s no way I will empty my pockets for so-called shady companies who use shortcuts.

Tricks of the Trade, Anyone?

In our modern world, we have a lot of gadgets and machineries that make life easy for us. We like to pay more for automatic vehicles when we can manage with a stick shift. We love ordering fast food, even though we can always prepare healthy 10 minute meals. You’d like to avoid these tactics when it comes to boosting your website rankings.

 Content Spinning – Google is always looking for uniquely written content. For talented copywriters, it’s not a problem. However, content spinning software is heaven sent for lazy writers. They can take any article from the Internet (including this article!) and use the software to create reusable content. Though considered as a black hat SEO technique, it was still acceptable by some blog owners in the past. However, Google found a way to detect those spun articles and yes, content is king again. Thank you for that!

  1. Purchasing Social Media Followers – Even if you have the money to buy the likes and plus ones, don’t ever fall for this technique. Chances are, those accounts are not owned by real people. The reason why you need social media as part of your marketing strategy is for customers and potential clients to be interested in your products and services. You can’t achieve that with fake accounts.
  1. Keyword Stuffing – Trust me, this does not taste as good as turkey stuffing. As the name suggests, an article is stuffed with too much keywords. If you’re looking for a cheap florist in Sydney, you don’t want to come across this:

“If you are looking for a cheap florist in Sydney to provide flowers for your next occasion, you’re in luck. As the only cheap florist in Sydney, check out the products and services we can offer you. You might also want to read on the multiple benefits you can get from a cheap florist in Sydney. Hurry and contact us, the cheap florist in Sydney you can rely on.”

That’s ugly as sin. No one in his right mind would want to read and share that.

The All Natural Goodness of Organic SEO

I view SEO rankings like a test in school. Those who don’t have the patience to study may do well in school for the moment, but will ultimately fail. That’s the same reason why you should choose an SEO agency who can help you with your goals, sans cheating. They should be able to offer SEO service that’s legitimate. With Penguins and Pandas on a witch hunt, you don’t want Google to penalize you for taking shortcuts.

In conclusion, if you’re a businessman who does not have time to write good, interesting and share-worthy content, find an SEO firm who can help you with that. You want your content to be read and shared by people, not thrown out. Real people (and not fakes ones) means money actually coming in, and not the other way around.

By Debra Wright

Debra Wright is a creative and innovative blogger and online marketing specialist. She uses her wordsmith skills to share her ideas, thoughts, and tips to other people about topics that fascinate her, such as Organic SEO. Follow Debra on twitter @debrawrites…

Eight Tips For Driving Targeted Traffic with Quora

Business Tech, Content creation, content marketing, Quora marketing, Small Business Marketing, Social Media Marketing, , , ,

If you’re after backlinks, you have nothing if not choices. One choice that many people seem to miss however is Quora.com. Often billed as Yahoo Answers on steroids, Quora is a Q&A site/social network that’s grown increasingly popular in recent years.

Quora backlinks might be no follow but that doesn’t stop them being highly reputable. And more importantly, the Q&A nature of the website often makes them an excellent source of highly targeted direct traffic.

If you’d like to increase your website or blogs exposure with Quora, here are eight simple tips for doing just that.

Create a Winning Profile

First off, if you’re new to Quora, you’re going to want to invest some time in your profile. Special care should be taken when choosing both your avatar and tagline. Both will be displayed every time you post something. You should also include a few personal details together with any niche relevant professional experience. The better your profile, the more people will visit your website to learn more about you.

Follow the Right Topics and Users

Quora allows you to select the kind of questions that you’re most interested in by choosing both topics and users to follow. Take the time to choose topics that are relevant to your niche and users who are actively discussing it. Once you’ve done this, you’ll be greeted with relevant questions every time you log in to Quora. This is one of the things that makes Quora so valuable, not only for traffic, but also for new content ideas.

Quality Matters

If you’ve built backlinks on Yahoo Answers, you’re likely to have noticed that the amount of traffic you get is largely dependent on the quality of your answers. On Quora, quality is even more important. The best answers get up voted to the top of the page, the worst answers get down voted to the bottom. If you want results on Quora, taking the time to craft answers that people actually value is therefore crucial.

Learn What Makes a Popular Answer

Get liked on Quora for authority

If you’re not sure what constitutes a good answer on Quora, the easiest way to educate yourself on the matter is to simply spend time browsing the site. You’re likely to find that the best answers are typically:

Written by somebody who’s well qualified to answer

Very detailed, with references where applicable.

Written in easy to understand, non-technical language.

Entertaining and enjoyable to read.

Answer the Right Questions

quality and quantity is important on Quora

Unlike Yahoo Answers, being the first to answer a question on Quora offers no real advantage. When choosing questions to answer, you should instead focus on both the number and type of followers. Are they people who are actually likely to visit your website? You should also look at the existing answers and ask yourself whether or not you’re capable of writing something better.

Ask Your Own Questions

Ask on Quora for authority

If you want to make the most of your time on Quora, don’t limit yourself to other peoples conversations, start your own. Here are a few tips for asking questions that get attention:

Don’t ask questions that have already been asked.

Ask questions that genuinely make people think.

Ask questions that are relevant to your website but don’t be obvious.

Include long tail keywords to get your questions ranked in Google.

Be Tactful

Be tactful on Quora

While there’s certainly nothing wrong with joining Quora solely for promotional purposes, if you want your content to stick, excessive self promotion needs to be avoided.

Don’t link to your blog unless it actually contains relevant information. Don’t talk yourself up, let your answers speak for themselves. Focus on providing a quality answer first, and building a backlink second.

Connect with People

Finally, while there’s no denying the value of Quora for driving traffic, don’t forget that it can also be a powerful tool for connecting with other people in your niche. Quora is, after all, a social network. And if you want to truly harness its power, it’s important to actually be social.

Take the time to engage with the community. Be helpful and don’t be afraid to discuss topics that are not directly associated with your niche. Engage with the Quora community and you’ll be rewarded with more than just traffic.

This post has been contributed by Jake Cornwall, an employee at Vayu Media, an internet marketing firm. He is very passionate about photography and he shares his ideas, as well as suggestions, through blogging.