Wednesday, July 27, 2011

Leveraging your SEO for Search Retargeting


Posted by JoannaLord

Here at Moz we work hard to break down those silly silo things (frankly they scare us). We believe that the different pieces of marketing should constantly be communicating with each other. Cyrus (our SEO lead) and I try to communicate on what we are seeing, where we might be overlapping, dropping the proverbial ball and so on and so forth. We know that leveraging each person's daily activities for maximum impact is the key to any company's success.



In the past, on the blog, we've talked about ways to leverage one of your tasks for related gains. Just a few days ago we talked about utilizing your analysis in GA for eCommerce SEO, and a few months ago we talked about how you can repurpose your on page SEO techniques for off page SEO success. These are great examples of how we should all be looking at the work we do daily and ask ourselves, "who else could use this?" and "how can I leverage this information for more gains?" I've never liked the phrase "kill two birds with one stone" (cuz why are we all so cool with killing birds?) so instead I'm coining the phrase "eating two cupcakes with one fork" (cuz we all love cupcakes). Working off that approach, today I'm going to talk about another way you can leverage your SEO duties for marketing success.


cupcakes and a fork

"It's like killing two cupcakes with one fork"

(just go with it)

angry fork photo credit



SEO & Search Retargeting: A Perfect Pair


Specifically I want to outline a few ways we can take all of the data mining and reports we work on and extend their value by using it for search retargeting. But wait, what the hell is search retargeting? Good question my friend. To understand search retargeting, we need to first understand retargeting. I wrote a post a while back that defined "retargeting" as "a form of marketing in which you target users who have previously visited your website with banner ads on display networks across the web."



Search retargeting is a subset of retargeting, and takes it one step further. It is a paid acquisition channel that allows advertisers to reach back out to users who have previously searched for their brand name or target keywords.


The difference between the two makes for a huge opportunity. The visitor doesn't have to have visited your site to be added to your audience to target with ads. For those of us that aren't ranking #1 for every word they want to, and are possibly losing visits to our competitors, you can target those lost visitors simply by going after people that searched for words in a category, industry, service, etc. You can quickly see why it would be beneficial for me to know (when setting up these campaigns and my targeting) what Cyrus is up to, and what he has been working on in regards to keyword targeting, our rankings, and more.


In fact let me show some fun stats to really sell you on the value of search retargeting. Did you know that "retargeted consumers are nearly 70% more likely to complete a purchase as compared to non-retargeted customers." Couple that with the fact that a number of reports have come out saying that retargeted customers also spend close to 50% more than those that weren't retargeted, and you got yourself a hot little thing happening.


Ways to Recycle Those Hours of SEO Work


Okay now that we have shown off just how effective search retargeting can be, lets talk about how we can repurpose some of that hard work us SEOs do to help our search retargeting efforts succeed.


#1 Ranking Reports (the "obvious" candidate)



How much time do you spend looking at ranking tools (possibly even ours ) in gauge the performance of your target keywords? Hours upon hours are spent by SEOs looking at their rankings, or lack thereof. This information helps us all understand where the actual visits to our site are coming from, and subsequently what keywords are driving conversions. But what about the rankings you can't seem to conquer? For a second let's focus on the words you simply haven't been able to make any headway on. Those are prime candidates for a search retargeting campaign.



What if you pass that list of words off to your paid marketer counterpart and told them to focus their energy (and budget) on targeting those people with highly targeted ads? That would not only help supplement your SEO efforts nicely, but you would be spending your retargeting budget on a prequalified audience. Often paid marketers spend a great deal of budget trying to isolate out a solid audience to go after, you'd be saving them time and money. Much like passing those words off to your PPC manager, you can quickly gain visits from these high converting, targeted keywords you are having a hard time ranking for.


Example time: The phrase "free seo tools" results in a lot of conversions for us, but as you can see below, we don't rank in the top five for it.



free seo tools query

Our efforts in increasing our rankings here have been slow to respond. While we continue to work on SEO efforts here, we can supplement with highly targeted ads.



Target: People who search for "free seo tools," "seo tools," "cheap seo tools," etc. with ads like this:



free seo tools



They directly speak to the searcher's intent, "free seo tools" and would likely produce both high CTR for us, as well as increased conversions. This can help us grow our free trial numbers while we figure some things out on the SEO front and get our rankings up for "free seo tools."


#2 Second Tier Keywords (a "little less obvious" candidate)



Oh keyword research, how we love thee. Okay maybe some of us don't loveeee it, but it's a huge part of the process. SEOs spend hours pulling likely keyword targets, pulling traffic data, and competitive data to help them decide what to go after next.



In that gold mine of keyword data are dozens of likely search retargeting candidates. SEOs know that not every word they deem valuable can be a priority right now for their company or their clients. These get pushed into some second tier keyword bucket, that often doesn't get as much content, link building, or other resources allocated to it. My advice? Send that list on over to your paid marketer. Ask them to target these topics, site categories, etc. with their search retargeting ads until you have some more time and resources available to go after them.


Example time: Let's say we are ranking well for "seo tools" and "seo software" but we don't have the time to build an SEO campaign around the idea of "SEO resources." We know there are a number of people searching for this niche (SEO newbies, SEO students, etc.) and we know we have a ton of valuable content around the topic. So how can we help people find our resources, and associate us as a SEO resource if they have never heard of SEOmoz or visited us before?



Target: users that visit {seo blogs, seo training sites, and seo tool providers} with the below ad:



resources



By using the word "resources" we are speaking directly to this user's need for more SEO learning material. We also get the added benefit of lining our logo up with this type of value add, which hopefully, down the road could result in a visit to our site and possibly a free trial signup.


#3 Competitive Research (a "no one out there is really doing this, so go kick some butt" candidate)


My favorite part. I don't know what it is about competitive research that has us all thinking the information we gather is context specific, but it's true. I remember the first time I mentioned to a PPC colleague they should look at SEMrush's SEO results for one of our competitors to build out our PPC campaigns, you would have thought I just smacked a puppy. She was in shock.



The truth is we are all playing on the same field here guys. A lot can be gained by studying your competitors total efforts, not just their paid or organic ones. Next time you spend time spying on your competitor's organic efforts, pass that information off to your paid marketer and ask them to build a search retargeting campaign around it. Because let's be real, we all have limited time and resources, and some of their targets will never make it onto your prioritization list. Plus, often you will see brand association start to shift through retargeting, which will reciprocally help your SEO efforts. Whoa, cool huh?



Example time: Look at the below results when I used SEMrush to view some of my competitors top keyword rankings. While we perform well organically for "seo software", "best seo software", etc. we don't necessarily have many SEO campaigns around the concept of "powerful" and "easy/simple."



rankings for SEMrush



This tool is showing us that our competitors are cleaning up here, and we know we need to at least be building some brand sentiment around these adjectives. Search Retargeting can help.


Target: We can set up search retargeting ads for people that are searching online for these terms, and then target them with ads that directly speak to this. Below you can see we have incorporated these words to help build our brand association with them.



unleash SEOmoz power



seo software simplified 2



seo software simplified



Given the size of these networks and their amazing targeting capabilities, you can rest assured that you will likely be in front of these users, even though your site is nowhere to be found. This retargeting bridge can be very powerful.



The moral of the story is an important one -- we can't work independent of other channels in marketing. While search retargeting has been around a while, it's only recently gained a bunch of attention. It's like advertisers are just starting to realize its potential. I suggest quickly jumping ahead of them and taking it a step further--leverage your current and past research to produce more targeted, more creative, and highly effective search retargeting campaigns.




Tuesday, July 19, 2011

10 Social Media Marketing Tips to KickStart Your Week

With so many great social media marketing tips being passed around the blogosphere, I wanted to pass along some of the best tips that hit my Google Reader this weekend and share them with the community.monday-desi-glitters-7


1. Google + means your emails are even more social. Your subscribers have yet another opportunity to share your content, and they can even do the targeting for you by sharing with specific circles. This means the content of your emails needs to be even more compelling now more than ever so you don’t miss the sharing opportunities of Google +. (via How Google+ Makes Social Email Marketing Even More Important, HubSpot)


(and for a different take on Google+…)


2. First use Google + for yourself. Wait for brand permissions and more information from Google to really understand its implications for business and if you want to quit Facebook. “Honestly, there’s a lot to like about Google+. One thing I don’t, however, at least from a marketing standpoint, is the majority of people aren’t there. They’re on Facebook. We also don’t yet know how G+ is going to handle brands and businesses. There’s a lot left to be determined. Jumping ship on a 700-million person behemoth of a marketplace is just short-sighted and hasty.” (via Reality to Soon Set in On Google +, Jason Falls in Social Media Explorer)


3. Write blog content for your target audience, which is not necessarily yourself. This happens for startups a lot: They blog about being entrepreneurs, which is great – if your target audience is entrepreneurs. You have to blog about the things that your community wants to know about. (via 10 Lessons for Managing Marketing at an Early Stage Startup, Mark Suster)


4. If you’re going to use social media for customer service, mirror your hours of operation on Twitter to the hours of operation you have for your support team. (via How Much Time Should You Devote to Social Media?, Jeff Esposito)


5. Measure social media ROI by analyzing how it performs compared to more established channels or advertising methods, such as banner ads. It’s not comparing apples-to-apples when it comes to cost, but you can compare the quality of traffic they drive to your website. (via The ROI of Social Media: 10 Case Studies, The Next Web)


6. FourSquare deals aren’t just for restaurants and bars. See how one medical practice creatively offered a special to his tech-saavy patients for checking in. It’s something any small business marketer can take a tip from. (via 6 Successful FourSquare Marketing Campaigns to Learn From, Mashable)


7. How frequently you blog does count. Businesses that blog daily generate 5 times more traffic than those who post only weekly or daily. (via How to Grow Social Media Leads, Social Media Examiner) Bonus tip: Need ideas for all that content? Here’s 41 of them to get you started.


8. Content curation has its limits. If you do a weekly wrap-up post of other articles, only use an excerpt or short quote and always, always, always link back. (via How To Use Content From Other Blogs Without Violating Copyright, SocialFresh)


9. Hashtag-stuffing Tweets doesn’t work. A study from Argyle Social shows that (in their sample) Tweets with hashtags got 5% fewer click-throughs than those without hashtags. (via Hashtag Stuffing Doesn’t Work for B2B Twitter Accounts, Social Media B2B)


10. If you follow more people than are following you, you could harm your Twitter account’s SEO potential. Search engines “trust” those with more Twitter influence, and following many more people than follow you isn’t always an indicator of that. (via How to Improve the SEO Value of Your Twitter Account, Marketing Profs) Bonus tip: Use a follower management tool like ManageFlitter to help you control the number of people who you are following but aren’t following you back.


What social media and marketing tips will you think about this week? Let us know in the comments!


Want social media marketing ideas? Get 100 content tips for your blog, Tweets and Facebook page in our latest ebook - 100 Content Ideas for Community Managers.





Tuesday, July 5, 2011

Blokube - a Social Network for bloggers

If you are a serious blogger, then you are interested in promoting your blog. You are certainly familiar with social media sites, and they serve to promote your blog. Social media sites like Twitter, Facebook and so on, allow users to create profiles, provide photos, website links, biography information, and a host of other personal data.
To get solid traffic from social media sites, you usually have to be very active on these sites, and it may take a long time.

What is Blokube?

If you want to chat with top bloggers in your niche, then you should be on blokube. Blokube is a relatively new social networking site, which was designed to serve as bloggers and internet marketers. Although social networks began to appear all over the place in the last few years, I think that is really blokube number one for quality content.

This means that you can always provide interesting content to improve your chances of back link and you can share information with community members to enhance your blog. Send a message to Blokube creates a link to the original post and the blog is an opportunity for members to vote and comment on various posts. You can easily submit your story with a few clicks. Just copy the address of the story in the "Submit Story" tab in the sidebar.

Blokube is a free online community, and you can spend some time connecting with other people, vote for their content when you find value in it .. Spend half an hour to write unique articles to be published on Blokube and enjoy the magical power supply, sharing and connecting.

Who can join Blokube, and how?

If you are a blogger and you need quality content and still not have enough traffic, Blokube definitely for you. You will find like-minded people like you to vote for and share their content.

Blokube much more than sharing a blog and voting platform. This is a community of like-minded.
Any blogger or internet marketer can join blokube. This is a free site, and all you have to do is register on the account. You can register here Blokube.com.

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