Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, '11 massively doable ways to
increase conversions with better forms'
Don't undercut your digital marketing promotions and outreach efforts with forms
that diminish your conversion rate artificially. Here are 11 ways to boost
conversions (includes slides).
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/11-massively-doable-ways-to-increase-conversions-with-better-forms/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=11-massively-doable-ways-to-increase-conversions-with-better-forms
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posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Sunday, 25 May 2014
Friday, 23 May 2014
[Build Backlinks Online] Silly Marketer, Title Tags Are for Robots!
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Silly Marketer, Title Tags Are
for Robots!'
Posted by jennitaLike all good marketers, we think carefully about our title
tags before publishing new content. Then we just take that carefully crafted
title and plop it into the OG tags for social shares, right?Think again!In
today's Whiteboard Friday, Jen Lopez explainswhy we need to put in a little more
effort than that.
Video transcription:Hey, Moz fans, welcome to yet another edition of Whiteboard
Friday. I'm JenLopez, the Director of the Community here at Moz, and today I'm
going totake you on a tale of two marketers.We have the SEO, right? We focus on
making sure that the robots and thatthe spiders are crawling through our sites
and can get to them. Then whenwe want things to show up in the SERPs, we make
sure that our title tagsare keyword rich and our meta descriptions are super
enticing, right? Wemake sure that when somebody clicks from the search engine
results page,that they see exactly what we want them to see. And that's smart,
right?Those keywords are actually a high ranking factor. All of these things
thatwe focus on, we work very hard to make sure that our keywords are at
thebeginning of the title and that sort of thing.But then we have the social
media marketer. Yes, I drew that. I'm sorry,all social media marketers. I know
you don't actually look at that. Wethink about the people, right? How are people
going to look at it? How arepeople going to re-share this? And so as a social
media marketer, we'rethinking like, "How can we change the Open Graph tags so
that people onFacebook and people on Google+ and people on LinkedIn are seeing
thesethings exactly the way we want to see them?" We want to see big images.
Whocares about keywords? That's what that SEO person does, right?What about
Twitter cards? You want to make sure that when you sendsomething in a tweet or
somebody tweets your blog post or your infographic,or whatever it may be, that
it's coming across exactly the way you want tosee it. You're thinking about rich
pins, and you salivate when you're onPinterest and you see a recipe and it
actually shows all of the ingredientsin the recipe. That might just be me, but
in general that's often what wedo.What tends to happen is people are getting
better about using the OpenGraph tags and the Twitter cards and that sort of
thing. But what wenormally do is we take what we have, put in the title tags and
metadescription, and we make it the default so that it's really simple. Sowe're
doing the basics. We're being lazy. That's exactly what we're doing.We do it on
our own blog. You go to our blog, the title that you see on thepage, the title
of the post, the title that you see shared on socialnetwork, it's always the
same. You're going to see it across the board, andit is time for us to stop
being lazy because think about if you did this.Now let me give you first an
example -- Huffington Post. I recently wroteapost for Huffington Post, and being
a SEO myself, I worked very hard atmaking sure that the title tag was something
that would come across in theSEO world very nicely so that it would show up in
SERPs great and it woulddo all this stuff. What was interesting was, that
without my prompting,that something that the Huffington Post editorial team did,
is after Isubmitted my post with all of my information, they told me it took
severaldays. I get this email that says, "Congratulations, your post is
onHuffington Post." I did a little happy dance because now I can put inGoogle+
that I contribute to Huffington Post.Besides that, the first thing I did is I
went to share it on Facebook.What's interesting is when I shared it on Facebook,
it was not the imagethat I'd used. It was not the title that I'd used nor was it
thedescription. It was very specific to social.So I went back to my page
thinking, "What the hell, did they change all ofmy stuff?" No, my title tag and
images and everything are still exactly thesame. However, they've set the Open
Graph and the Twitter cards to bespecific to social. I had this like "Oh my gosh
moment," when I realized:Why in the world aren't we all doing this? Why aren't
we taking one pieceof content and making it so that not only do the robots see
it and do wecare about the keyword rich title and meta description that looks
good inthe SERPs and getting all the schema just right so that it looks
rightthere? Why don't we do that plus we make sure that the Open Graph tags
aregreat, that you have an image that's super shareable, that you have
adescription and the title that can be somewhat up worthy?I'm not a huge fan of,
"This woman wrote on a Whiteboard, and you'll neverguess what happened next." I
really don't like those, but people click onthat stuff. You put a different
image, a different image here than adifferent image you have here, and you make
it something. You put a circlearound somebody's face in the background. We've
all seen those on Facebook,right? They work really well. It's brilliant. You
take one piece ofcontent, and you make it work really well for the robots, and
you find thathappy place. You get the people plus robots equals love. That's
becauseyou're making your content that you've worked really hard at, you've
puttime and effort into this, you're making sure that it's easily consumableby
the people who want to share it and re-share it hopefully and make itviral
because you want that virality here. But you also want it to bestable, and you
want the robots to see it and you want the spiders to beable to get to it and
all of that.So my quest, you have a quest. I am doing this hopefully internally
assomething that I'm pushing very hard, and I would like to see you step upyour
game as well. So rather than just keeping those defaults of, "Here ismy title
tag and I'm going to use it in all of the places," that you'regoing to take the
time to write not only your title tag and metadescription for SEO purposes, but
that you're going to work hard at takingthese and doing really great things with
your social meta tags as well.Below, I'm going to give you some resources to
specific poststhat talk about how to do this well and how to do this well and
then takethose and combine them. When you do that, you are going to find that
peopleare going to love the heck out of your stuff. I will be the first one
whenwe get that set up on our site, I will tell you exactly how it's workingfor
us. So stop being lazy, do the hard work, and make your stuff supershareable all
over the Web.That's it for today. I hope to see you again soon. Have a great
weekend.Additional resourcesFor more info on title tags:New Title Tag Guidelines
& Preview ToolFor more info on social meta / open graph (OG) tags:Must-Have
Social Meta Tags for Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and MoreSign up for The Moz Top
10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news,
tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive
digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/bqANf0T3OjY/silly-marketer-title-tags-are-for-robots
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
for Robots!'
Posted by jennitaLike all good marketers, we think carefully about our title
tags before publishing new content. Then we just take that carefully crafted
title and plop it into the OG tags for social shares, right?Think again!In
today's Whiteboard Friday, Jen Lopez explainswhy we need to put in a little more
effort than that.
Video transcription:Hey, Moz fans, welcome to yet another edition of Whiteboard
Friday. I'm JenLopez, the Director of the Community here at Moz, and today I'm
going totake you on a tale of two marketers.We have the SEO, right? We focus on
making sure that the robots and thatthe spiders are crawling through our sites
and can get to them. Then whenwe want things to show up in the SERPs, we make
sure that our title tagsare keyword rich and our meta descriptions are super
enticing, right? Wemake sure that when somebody clicks from the search engine
results page,that they see exactly what we want them to see. And that's smart,
right?Those keywords are actually a high ranking factor. All of these things
thatwe focus on, we work very hard to make sure that our keywords are at
thebeginning of the title and that sort of thing.But then we have the social
media marketer. Yes, I drew that. I'm sorry,all social media marketers. I know
you don't actually look at that. Wethink about the people, right? How are people
going to look at it? How arepeople going to re-share this? And so as a social
media marketer, we'rethinking like, "How can we change the Open Graph tags so
that people onFacebook and people on Google+ and people on LinkedIn are seeing
thesethings exactly the way we want to see them?" We want to see big images.
Whocares about keywords? That's what that SEO person does, right?What about
Twitter cards? You want to make sure that when you sendsomething in a tweet or
somebody tweets your blog post or your infographic,or whatever it may be, that
it's coming across exactly the way you want tosee it. You're thinking about rich
pins, and you salivate when you're onPinterest and you see a recipe and it
actually shows all of the ingredientsin the recipe. That might just be me, but
in general that's often what wedo.What tends to happen is people are getting
better about using the OpenGraph tags and the Twitter cards and that sort of
thing. But what wenormally do is we take what we have, put in the title tags and
metadescription, and we make it the default so that it's really simple. Sowe're
doing the basics. We're being lazy. That's exactly what we're doing.We do it on
our own blog. You go to our blog, the title that you see on thepage, the title
of the post, the title that you see shared on socialnetwork, it's always the
same. You're going to see it across the board, andit is time for us to stop
being lazy because think about if you did this.Now let me give you first an
example -- Huffington Post. I recently wroteapost for Huffington Post, and being
a SEO myself, I worked very hard atmaking sure that the title tag was something
that would come across in theSEO world very nicely so that it would show up in
SERPs great and it woulddo all this stuff. What was interesting was, that
without my prompting,that something that the Huffington Post editorial team did,
is after Isubmitted my post with all of my information, they told me it took
severaldays. I get this email that says, "Congratulations, your post is
onHuffington Post." I did a little happy dance because now I can put inGoogle+
that I contribute to Huffington Post.Besides that, the first thing I did is I
went to share it on Facebook.What's interesting is when I shared it on Facebook,
it was not the imagethat I'd used. It was not the title that I'd used nor was it
thedescription. It was very specific to social.So I went back to my page
thinking, "What the hell, did they change all ofmy stuff?" No, my title tag and
images and everything are still exactly thesame. However, they've set the Open
Graph and the Twitter cards to bespecific to social. I had this like "Oh my gosh
moment," when I realized:Why in the world aren't we all doing this? Why aren't
we taking one pieceof content and making it so that not only do the robots see
it and do wecare about the keyword rich title and meta description that looks
good inthe SERPs and getting all the schema just right so that it looks
rightthere? Why don't we do that plus we make sure that the Open Graph tags
aregreat, that you have an image that's super shareable, that you have
adescription and the title that can be somewhat up worthy?I'm not a huge fan of,
"This woman wrote on a Whiteboard, and you'll neverguess what happened next." I
really don't like those, but people click onthat stuff. You put a different
image, a different image here than adifferent image you have here, and you make
it something. You put a circlearound somebody's face in the background. We've
all seen those on Facebook,right? They work really well. It's brilliant. You
take one piece ofcontent, and you make it work really well for the robots, and
you find thathappy place. You get the people plus robots equals love. That's
becauseyou're making your content that you've worked really hard at, you've
puttime and effort into this, you're making sure that it's easily consumableby
the people who want to share it and re-share it hopefully and make itviral
because you want that virality here. But you also want it to bestable, and you
want the robots to see it and you want the spiders to beable to get to it and
all of that.So my quest, you have a quest. I am doing this hopefully internally
assomething that I'm pushing very hard, and I would like to see you step upyour
game as well. So rather than just keeping those defaults of, "Here ismy title
tag and I'm going to use it in all of the places," that you'regoing to take the
time to write not only your title tag and metadescription for SEO purposes, but
that you're going to work hard at takingthese and doing really great things with
your social meta tags as well.Below, I'm going to give you some resources to
specific poststhat talk about how to do this well and how to do this well and
then takethose and combine them. When you do that, you are going to find that
peopleare going to love the heck out of your stuff. I will be the first one
whenwe get that set up on our site, I will tell you exactly how it's workingfor
us. So stop being lazy, do the hard work, and make your stuff supershareable all
over the Web.That's it for today. I hope to see you again soon. Have a great
weekend.Additional resourcesFor more info on title tags:New Title Tag Guidelines
& Preview ToolFor more info on social meta / open graph (OG) tags:Must-Have
Social Meta Tags for Twitter, Google+, Facebook, and MoreSign up for The Moz Top
10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news,
tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive
digest of stuff you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/bqANf0T3OjY/silly-marketer-title-tags-are-for-robots
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] Social Media Lessons from America’s Biggest Company
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Social Media Lessons from
America's Biggest Company'
Chad Mitchell, Senior Director of Digital Communications for Walmart, joins the
Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss his social team's changing structure,
managing the reputation of a company that operates on so many levels, and
staying authentic with a global brand.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/social-media-lessons-from-americas-biggest-company/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=social-media-lessons-from-americas-biggest-company
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
America's Biggest Company'
Chad Mitchell, Senior Director of Digital Communications for Walmart, joins the
Social Pros Podcast this week to discuss his social team's changing structure,
managing the reputation of a company that operates on so many levels, and
staying authentic with a global brand.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-pros-podcast/social-media-lessons-from-americas-biggest-company/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=social-media-lessons-from-americas-biggest-company
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] TITLE
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'The Attention Economy: Why Some of Your Content Will Always Fail' 
You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/7roCAxunVWw/attention-economy You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
"The attention auction" is a phrase that has stuck in my head since I first read it earlier this year, on AJ Kohn's blog Blind Five-Year-Old. The idea is that we're all competing for a finite amount of attention, and it's a zero-sum game. If people are paying attention to your competitor, they can't pay attention to you at the same time.
Another term for the same basic idea is "attention economics" – in an attention economy, attention is treated as a scarce commodity. We've got access to more information than ever before, but no more time or attention to give.
The concept is pretty key for us content marketers. When you publish new content, you're putting a bid into the attention auction. And not everybody can win.
Here at WordStream, we put a lot of thought and planning into our content projects. Some of them work, and some of them don't. Why? As much as we'd like to believe we've nailed the process down, it's not always obvious.
So how do you win the attention auction? We've espoused a bunch of theories and provided a lot of examples of stuff that has worked for us, including:
- Better content promotion
- More long-form content
- Unique, contrarian content
- Just generally GREAT CONTENT
But even when we follow our own advice and seemingly do everything right, sometimes we just don't win. Why, God, WHY?!!
I've been thinking about this stuff, and I've arrived at two hard truths about the attention economy:
- Attention is to some extent random
- Eventually you hit the attention ceiling
I'll take about both of these hard truths in a little more detail below.
What Wins the Attention Auction is Sometimes Random
To state the obvious, and reference The Smiths, some blog posts do better than others. This graphic speaks volumes:
Our top 50 blog posts (ever) do as well as all the other blog posts combined (over a thousand of them).
Try as we might to develop repeatable processes to ensure that almost everything we publish does amazing, it just doesn't work that way. All the key metrics trend up over time, so we keep hitting new highs, but there are always relative hits and relative duds.
Effort vs. Attention
For example, we recently released the results of an internal study that, we believe, provided concrete evidence of gender bias in the online marketing industry. We put a ton of time and effort into this article. A TON. It was a group effort involving multiple people from multiple departments.
Now, it's really important to note here that we weren't looking for traffic for traffic's sake. We wanted a lot of people to read it because we believe it's an issue that deserves a lot of attention – one that's bigger than just marketing. The gender bias issue comes up again and again, but there's a lack of hard data to reference in the debate, particularly when it comes to our industry. So personally, as a vocal feminist, I really wanted the piece to do well and find plenty of sympathetic readers.
Did it? Well, kind of. The response was incredibly positive – many people told us the article was fascinating and thanked us profusely for the transparency and the effort. A huge percentage of people who read the post went on to share it. It got some great media coverage, including coverage in spots outside the tiny filter bubble of search marketing. That was really rewarding. So it wasn't a "failure" by any stretch.
But the traffic numbers weren't stellar compared to our most recent hit: this post on the Panda 4.0 update and how it affected eBay surpassed it in page views in less than 24 hours. That's right – a post we spent weeks on and promoted the crap out of has fewer total page views than the Panda post got in just a day. (At this point, it's not even close.) The Panda post was a quick reaction to some big industry news; we did put some analysis and time into it, but not nearly as much as we did for the gender bias study. Regardless, it's the one that won the attention auction.
However, it's not just about whether your article touches on a hot trending topic – we write about big industry news all the time, and it doesn't always strike a nerve. Along the same lines, sometimes the articles that win the attention auction are evergreen topics that have nothing to do with anything in the news. You think you can predict the winners, but the attention auction has randomness built in.
I'm not the only one who has noticed this phenomenon. Gianluca Fiorelli tweeted last week:
You write a post saying that Google is broken and obtain fantagillions shares. Write a better post about strategy and people say "Meh!". Bah
— Gianluca Fiorelli (@gfiorelli1) May 22, 2014Yep. Been there my friend. Aleyda Solis has noticed it too:
@gfiorelli1 I think it's relatively common ... it happens to me too :) the one I invest most time in doesn't perform as I expect.
— Aleyda Solis (@aleyda) May 22, 2014In the attention economy, attention doesn't always go to the most "deserving" articles or the ones you put the most effort into. It's not purely random, of course, but there's a butterfly effect that introduces unresolvable unpredictability.
The Attention Ceiling: Sorry, But People Will Eventually Get Sick of You
The randomness of the attention economy isn't the only barrier to your success as a content marketer. I've also noticed a phenomenon I'll call "the attention ceiling." What this means is that even if you publish five totally amazing blog posts in a week, probably only one or two them will be runaway hits. In other words, you can't earn all the attention all the time because people just don't want to pay attention to you all the time.
We published two posts this week, side from the Panda post, that I thought had the potential to be hits. They were well-thought-out articles with really interesting angles and lots of actionable advice. Neither one of them had nearly the same impact as the Panda post, though we promoted them all equally. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him click.
But this isn't all bad. If you find yourself hitting the attention ceiling from time to time, it's probably a good thing. When people or companies blow up stupid-huge and are everywhere all the time, it's a dangerous position. Sometimes it seems like you're killing it and winning every auction, and then everyone gets sick of you all at once.
This seems to be what happened to Groupon and what is now happening to Upworthy – they hit upon a winning formula, but it only lasted for so long before the big collective UGH. Once your formula is recognizable as a formula, the magic is gone.
Image via The Bachelors Brand
So Where Are My Actionable Takeaways?!
Sorry, but this post isn't really about actionable takeaways. It's more about setting expectations.
Rand Fishkin did a great slide deck recently about setting expectations around content marketing. First of all, great content usually doesn't lead immediately to leads or sales. It's a more meandering process:
It works this way if you give people time to grow to love you for your content and then come to you as a customer when they're ready. When it doesn't work, it's often because people give up too soon.
Rand says that his wife Geraldine's blog, The Everywhereist, never broke 100 visits a day for two years. Then she had a couple of posts that got some attention, but traffic fell back down shortly afterward. Luckily, she kept plugging:
So here are the takeaways for content marketers working in an attention economy:
- If you have a hit, try to reproduce it, and fail, don't give up – even people at the very top of their game experience relative wins and relative losses. Attention comes in waves.
- Anticipate and plan for the attention wave – if you've got five awesome pieces of content planned for June, don't front-load them all in the first week. Spread the love and you'll give your best stuff a better chance to succeed.
This post originated on the WordStream Blog. WordStream provides keyword tools for pay-per click (PPC) and search engine optimization (SEO) aiding in everything from keyword discovery to keyword grouping and organization.
You may view the latest post at http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/WordStreamBlog/~3/7roCAxunVWw/attention-economy You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are posted. Best regards, Build Backlinks Online peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Thursday, 22 May 2014
[Build Backlinks Online] Amsterdam’s Schiphol Airport Launches Interactive Game Powered By Instagram Photos
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport
Launches Interactive Game Powered By Instagram Photos'
The Amsterdam Airport has embarked on a new kind of social media content which
features beautiful user-generated images from Instagram users all over the
world. Find out how this creative campaign is driving engagement and increasing
tourism.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-case-studies/amsterdams-schiphol-airport-launches-interactive-game-powered-by-instagram-photos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amsterdams-schiphol-airport-launches-interactive-game-powered-by-instagram-photos
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Launches Interactive Game Powered By Instagram Photos'
The Amsterdam Airport has embarked on a new kind of social media content which
features beautiful user-generated images from Instagram users all over the
world. Find out how this creative campaign is driving engagement and increasing
tourism.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/social-media-case-studies/amsterdams-schiphol-airport-launches-interactive-game-powered-by-instagram-photos/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=amsterdams-schiphol-airport-launches-interactive-game-powered-by-instagram-photos
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posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] Influencer Marketing, Rick Springfield, and a Bottle Opener that Opened Doors
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'Influencer Marketing, Rick
Springfield, and a Bottle Opener that Opened Doors'
Influence marketing is all about who you know. It's about building
mutually-beneficial relationships by making connections. Learn how to market to
influencers from 22 influential marketers.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/influencer-marketing-rick-springfield-and-a-bottle-opener-that-opened-doors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=influencer-marketing-rick-springfield-and-a-bottle-opener-that-opened-doors
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peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Springfield, and a Bottle Opener that Opened Doors'
Influence marketing is all about who you know. It's about building
mutually-beneficial relationships by making connections. Learn how to market to
influencers from 22 influential marketers.
You may view the latest post at
http://www.convinceandconvert.com/digital-marketing/influencer-marketing-rick-springfield-and-a-bottle-opener-that-opened-doors/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=influencer-marketing-rick-springfield-and-a-bottle-opener-that-opened-doors
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posted.
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Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
[Build Backlinks Online] How Our Agency Survived Year One
Build Backlinks Online has posted a new item, 'How Our Agency Survived Year One'
Posted by Bill.Sebald
There are some things in life you don't truly understand until you experience
them. I was given plentyof parenting advice when my son was born, but it only
took me so far. Nothing prepared me for the first time our babydecided to roll
over right off the bed onto the floor (luckily we had a pile of laundry serving
as a cushion). If you've never been a parent, you simply don't have a lot of
personal experience to draw from. It's a complete trial by fire, full of
missteps, emotions, andanxiety.
In a way, starting Greenlane was a similar experience.Greenlane Search
Marketing, LLC is my startup boutiqueSEO agency. It started in 2005as asole
proprietorship consulting practice.It was my baby, and I had to let it grow up.
Now it's a partnership between myself and a long-time colleague Keith Urban (not
the singer). However,differing from the parenting example, I did have some
practical experience to guide me this time. I ran an SEO department in a major
digital marketing agency. Regardless, it became very clearwe didn't know a thing
about truly running an agency.We were new parents.What to expect when you're
expecting
We expected to be busy. We knew we'd make mistakes, and we thought we had a
solid business plan in place. In the end we were busier than expected, made more
mistakes than we care to admit, and our plan fell apart on a weekly basis.
ButI'm proud (and relieved) to say we're successful. We have a great staff of
smart SEOs and digital marketers. We have happy clients. We have a great network
of people to tap into. We're profitable, targeting half a million in fee revenue
by the end of 2014. We survived year one, where 25% of startups crash. We're on
yet another phase of growth, with our legal and taxation items well managed, our
employment under control, and the company as a whole being positioned to
overcome year two.
For me, that's an enormous win.
Specifically, what was our secret? Hell if I know. But I think it's this fuzzy
formula: Take what you hear, mixed with what you've experienced in life,
multiplied by your best guess, and divide by quick, brave decisions. But we also
had a motto, one that became our backbone:"Always make it better!"Making it
better for you and your clients
This is a post about some of the more conceptual, "outside the normal" things
we implemented to constantly improve our company from the start. These arebased
on my life experiences and recent business victories.My hope is thatthis will
serve asfodder for your own company, even if you're not theproprietor. This post
is not about tax management, or accounting, or filingsthis is about the
day-to-day behavioral things that can make your digital marketing company a
great place to be, to the benefit of you and your clients.
And to sprinkle in a little fun, since I said life experience fed into many
ofour first yeardecisions, I'll supplement each section with something from my
own awkward photo album.
On to the tips#1 -Think about your group experiences
For those who played team sports, remember when your parents said, "One day
this will make you better at your job!" Go tell them they were right. Working as
a team is an invaluable skill, improved onlythrough experience and
introspection. We've all engaged in group experiences, from grade school to our
earliest jobs. Everyone has some kind of group or department participation
todraw on. Maybe it's as simple as cub scouts, a yearbook committee, or in my
case, a rock band.
Additionally, we've all either seenor have beenthe flunky in the group, doing
the least amount to make the group as a whole succeed. There's also the
oppositea "Johnny-Come-Lately" who shows up with good intentions but sticks a
giant crowbar into the gears, grinding progress to a screeching halt. We've seen
the drama and anger that comes from personalities that just don't mix. Nothing
slows down momentum more than an unfocused crew rowing in different directions.
An agency isno different. You will always have bosses, clients, and employees
that behave or think differently than you. You simply need to learn how to
overcome.
Someone once told me you can't be a boss and a friend. I've never disagreed
with something so hard in my life. A friendship presents an amazing bond of
trust.At Greenlane we've carefully selected co-workers who we enjoy being
around. We all have different talents and roles in the company, but you see
virtually no instances of "pulling rank" over anyone else. There's a respect
that drives each of us to do a good job for each other. It creates more open and
creative dialogue. If you don't feel like you have anything to prove, you can
more easily pause,listen, and learn. We don't want to let each other down, but
we all feel empowered to counter an idea without fear. The best idea wins, and
our clients (as well as ourselves) become more educated. We've nurtured a really
powerful environment. The bigger your group, the harder this is, but certainly
not impossible.
We take the same approach with bringing on clients. We call them partnersa term
I took from an old gig. Just as we are being paid to help businesses be
successful, their actions have a lot of bearing on our success as a vendornot to
mentionour own happiness. I'll often tell a prospective partner, "just as you're
auditioning us, we're auditioning you too." That could come off cocky, but any
prospects we lost for that statement were probably not going to last in the long
run. In fact, I ask all prospective clients to first read our website, where we
openly talk about the kind of clients we're looking for. About two-thirds return
superqualified, with the remainder vanishing forever. Those that return often
say, "you are exactly what we're looking for." It's a bit like online dating.
I wish we could say we've never lost a client due to poor performance. We have.
Two of them actually. But in retrospect, this providedgood lessons on where we
needed to improve. In one case it was due to never being on the right wavelength
to begin with, and the other was simply based on poorcommunicating. We largely
(and swiftly)pivoted internally to make sure we never make those mistakes again.
As a company, we were all just rowing the wrong way. Catching it early allowed
for a very quick adjustment.
By the way, I'm well aware that some internal hierarchies don't allow you to
have a say on the clients that come in. While that is unfortunate, it is
alsocommon. But what's to stop you from climbing the totem pole and pleading
your case?
The TL;DR tips:Don't just act like you're interested in every word of your
clients and employees, trulybeinterested. This is their time to talk, and your
time to pause,listen, and ask valuable questions. Work together!
Ask your clients questions. Let them understand it's your job to pull
information out of them. Don't be a yes man; be a friendly challenger in order
toget everyone nodding in the same direction.
Work with your team, not against them. If you're not actively on the account and
their day-to-day work, be careful not to break the flow of the meeting throwing
out ideas that counter the direction the account managers want to go. Get
yourself on the same page, even if you're the boss.
Have a postmortem on every lost employee or client account, and drop your
defenses. Try to figure out what could have been improved as a group.
You've been an SEO for over 15 years? Good for you. Now sit down and listen to
everyone else's ideas. Be an equal.#2 - The people you meetcould become
important
I'm often asked how we perform lead generation. Our primarily lead source is
our network. Keith and I are very lucky in that regard, both coming from the big
agency world. Big agencies seem to organically create seedlings that go off to
start new companies or work withother established businesses. From former
clients to former co-workers, developing serendipity every chance you get,
should be a 24/7 goal.
You never know when someone you've met will hit it big. If you leave a
goodimpression, they may invite you to their next party.
Digital marketing is one of those rareindustries. There are millions of lawyers
and accountants, as well as designers. There are relatively few SEOs,PPC experts
or affiliate marketers. Make the right impression and your name will get passed
around quickly. If you have a bad reputation, or are generally unliked, the word
spreads just as fast. I've picked against vendors for my clients (or when I
worked in-house) simply based on how phony they came off. I'll probably have
this put on my tombstone because I say it so much, "Perception Is Reality." Let
that onesink in. It doesn't mean "fake it," but be genuine and supportive.
I wrote a post that I still think about often. It was called "
Create Your Own SEO Serendipity." I don't know how, or where, or why I started
doing it, but I've been in the "serendipity" game for a long time. "Karma" might
be a possible synonym. Building up your network is one part of the puzzle, but
building it so you're memorable is a whole other piece that may require a bit of
introspection on your end.
In hindsight,Ispent my entire professional career mirroring my personal lifebe
good and helpful to everyone you meet. Sure you get burned if others take
advantage, but when a referral comes in from an old colleague, I'm thrilled.
It's that warm feeling that makes "doing business" pretty damn fun.
The TL;DR tips:Stay in touch with everyone you can by any means necessary. The
tiniest little gestureslike endorsing a skill or expertise on LinkedIn, or
buying someone a beer at a conventioncan sometimes bring you top of mind when
you need it most.
In my experience jobtitlesdon't necessarily mean everything. Personality and
kindness go further. Always be willing to support someone's little needs. Free
advice or work can turninto major opportunities.
Answer everyone's emails, tweets, texts, whatever. Very few of us really can't
find the time.
Don't just wait for people to call you. If you generally feel good about all
your encounters, there's nothing wrong with reaching out and saying, "Thanks for
the great talk at the meetup last night. I wanted to see if I could help you
solve that problem we were talking about."
Create serendipity every day.
Create serendipity every day (worth mentioning twice!!!).
#3 - Hire people smarter than you
Around 2009, I remember the
CEO of GSI Commerce said this at a company meeting I attended (paraphrasing)"I
built this companyby hiring people smarter than me."This off-hand comment was a
real wake-up call for me. He's since sold his company to eBay, and moved on to
restart something new. If this tip helped make someone a billionaire, there must
be something to it
My partner and I didn't read many business books. Personally, I tried, but
rejected most of them. I stubbornly refused tobuy into some ofthe concepts.
However, there were a few where I recognized common threads. Books like
Good to Great, How To Think Like A CEO, The Outsiders, and The Corner Office
didn't have a "fake it until you make it," or "kill or be killed" lesson.
Instead, they highlighted leading by example, taking calculated risks, being
human, and learning from everyone around you.
We candidly tell our prospects that we hire people with unique experience for
the sole purpose of supporting the clients. We reveal that Keith's background is
in data and analytics, Mike's is in design and development, Jon's is in PR and
outreach, and so on. We're not all experts at everything.We're very clear that
any of our team may work on an account dependent on a given strategy. It's
honest and realistic, and goes over well with prospects. Meanwhile, in the
office, we have a lot of co-mingling, where each teammate may join another to
work out a specific problem. I'm the old dog in the group, but I'll tell you the
honest truthI learn something every day from this team.
The client wins, my company improves, and my own personal development grows.
What more could anyone want out of a job?
The TL;DR tips:Let smarter (or more experienced) people help guide you. It's a
win-win situation for everyone involved.
Don't act like you know it all. Your employees and your clients will see right
through this.
If you don't know the answer, let your clients know that you may have someone in
your fold that might have the answers. When your company is hired, so is your
entire organization. There's nothing wrong with this!
Encourage your team to speak their mind, take a chance, and kick your ass. When
they do, give them a high-five.#4 -Don't be so serious
Last but not least, have fun.
Keith and I don't need to remind ourselves why we took this risk. It's fun
every day. Business is a game, and we're enjoying our time on the field. No more
toxic relationships, no more loss of control, and no more sitting in the "peanut
gallery" watching otherpeople do it wrong.
Be serious enough to hit your deliverables, make your marks count, and help
your clients win. But why not do it with a smile? I've always heard that working
in marketing and advertising is one of the most stressful jobs you could have.
It doesn't have to be.
We didn't build our company with a textbook or a degree. The more I experience,
the more I see most people in our field didn't follow a rule book either. Great
businesses are managed by CEOs who take chances, with varied personality traits
and levels of intelligencesomething school doesn't necessarily teach anyway. For
years I thought I'd have to be an "American Psycho" type business-genius with an
MBA, a big vocabulary, a clean haircut, and a country club membership. I have
none of those. In the end, I honestly believe we were guided by our own
experience, serendipity, and common sense. It's been a great ride so far, with a
lot more learningsand laughsto be had.
Besides, if the business folds tomorrow, at least I achieved the biggest thing
on my bucket list. So there's that.Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly
mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad
links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff
you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Jwt3-JhHMNQ/how-our-agency-survived-year-one
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
Posted by Bill.Sebald
There are some things in life you don't truly understand until you experience
them. I was given plentyof parenting advice when my son was born, but it only
took me so far. Nothing prepared me for the first time our babydecided to roll
over right off the bed onto the floor (luckily we had a pile of laundry serving
as a cushion). If you've never been a parent, you simply don't have a lot of
personal experience to draw from. It's a complete trial by fire, full of
missteps, emotions, andanxiety.
In a way, starting Greenlane was a similar experience.Greenlane Search
Marketing, LLC is my startup boutiqueSEO agency. It started in 2005as asole
proprietorship consulting practice.It was my baby, and I had to let it grow up.
Now it's a partnership between myself and a long-time colleague Keith Urban (not
the singer). However,differing from the parenting example, I did have some
practical experience to guide me this time. I ran an SEO department in a major
digital marketing agency. Regardless, it became very clearwe didn't know a thing
about truly running an agency.We were new parents.What to expect when you're
expecting
We expected to be busy. We knew we'd make mistakes, and we thought we had a
solid business plan in place. In the end we were busier than expected, made more
mistakes than we care to admit, and our plan fell apart on a weekly basis.
ButI'm proud (and relieved) to say we're successful. We have a great staff of
smart SEOs and digital marketers. We have happy clients. We have a great network
of people to tap into. We're profitable, targeting half a million in fee revenue
by the end of 2014. We survived year one, where 25% of startups crash. We're on
yet another phase of growth, with our legal and taxation items well managed, our
employment under control, and the company as a whole being positioned to
overcome year two.
For me, that's an enormous win.
Specifically, what was our secret? Hell if I know. But I think it's this fuzzy
formula: Take what you hear, mixed with what you've experienced in life,
multiplied by your best guess, and divide by quick, brave decisions. But we also
had a motto, one that became our backbone:"Always make it better!"Making it
better for you and your clients
This is a post about some of the more conceptual, "outside the normal" things
we implemented to constantly improve our company from the start. These arebased
on my life experiences and recent business victories.My hope is thatthis will
serve asfodder for your own company, even if you're not theproprietor. This post
is not about tax management, or accounting, or filingsthis is about the
day-to-day behavioral things that can make your digital marketing company a
great place to be, to the benefit of you and your clients.
And to sprinkle in a little fun, since I said life experience fed into many
ofour first yeardecisions, I'll supplement each section with something from my
own awkward photo album.
On to the tips#1 -Think about your group experiences
For those who played team sports, remember when your parents said, "One day
this will make you better at your job!" Go tell them they were right. Working as
a team is an invaluable skill, improved onlythrough experience and
introspection. We've all engaged in group experiences, from grade school to our
earliest jobs. Everyone has some kind of group or department participation
todraw on. Maybe it's as simple as cub scouts, a yearbook committee, or in my
case, a rock band.
Additionally, we've all either seenor have beenthe flunky in the group, doing
the least amount to make the group as a whole succeed. There's also the
oppositea "Johnny-Come-Lately" who shows up with good intentions but sticks a
giant crowbar into the gears, grinding progress to a screeching halt. We've seen
the drama and anger that comes from personalities that just don't mix. Nothing
slows down momentum more than an unfocused crew rowing in different directions.
An agency isno different. You will always have bosses, clients, and employees
that behave or think differently than you. You simply need to learn how to
overcome.
Someone once told me you can't be a boss and a friend. I've never disagreed
with something so hard in my life. A friendship presents an amazing bond of
trust.At Greenlane we've carefully selected co-workers who we enjoy being
around. We all have different talents and roles in the company, but you see
virtually no instances of "pulling rank" over anyone else. There's a respect
that drives each of us to do a good job for each other. It creates more open and
creative dialogue. If you don't feel like you have anything to prove, you can
more easily pause,listen, and learn. We don't want to let each other down, but
we all feel empowered to counter an idea without fear. The best idea wins, and
our clients (as well as ourselves) become more educated. We've nurtured a really
powerful environment. The bigger your group, the harder this is, but certainly
not impossible.
We take the same approach with bringing on clients. We call them partnersa term
I took from an old gig. Just as we are being paid to help businesses be
successful, their actions have a lot of bearing on our success as a vendornot to
mentionour own happiness. I'll often tell a prospective partner, "just as you're
auditioning us, we're auditioning you too." That could come off cocky, but any
prospects we lost for that statement were probably not going to last in the long
run. In fact, I ask all prospective clients to first read our website, where we
openly talk about the kind of clients we're looking for. About two-thirds return
superqualified, with the remainder vanishing forever. Those that return often
say, "you are exactly what we're looking for." It's a bit like online dating.
I wish we could say we've never lost a client due to poor performance. We have.
Two of them actually. But in retrospect, this providedgood lessons on where we
needed to improve. In one case it was due to never being on the right wavelength
to begin with, and the other was simply based on poorcommunicating. We largely
(and swiftly)pivoted internally to make sure we never make those mistakes again.
As a company, we were all just rowing the wrong way. Catching it early allowed
for a very quick adjustment.
By the way, I'm well aware that some internal hierarchies don't allow you to
have a say on the clients that come in. While that is unfortunate, it is
alsocommon. But what's to stop you from climbing the totem pole and pleading
your case?
The TL;DR tips:Don't just act like you're interested in every word of your
clients and employees, trulybeinterested. This is their time to talk, and your
time to pause,listen, and ask valuable questions. Work together!
Ask your clients questions. Let them understand it's your job to pull
information out of them. Don't be a yes man; be a friendly challenger in order
toget everyone nodding in the same direction.
Work with your team, not against them. If you're not actively on the account and
their day-to-day work, be careful not to break the flow of the meeting throwing
out ideas that counter the direction the account managers want to go. Get
yourself on the same page, even if you're the boss.
Have a postmortem on every lost employee or client account, and drop your
defenses. Try to figure out what could have been improved as a group.
You've been an SEO for over 15 years? Good for you. Now sit down and listen to
everyone else's ideas. Be an equal.#2 - The people you meetcould become
important
I'm often asked how we perform lead generation. Our primarily lead source is
our network. Keith and I are very lucky in that regard, both coming from the big
agency world. Big agencies seem to organically create seedlings that go off to
start new companies or work withother established businesses. From former
clients to former co-workers, developing serendipity every chance you get,
should be a 24/7 goal.
You never know when someone you've met will hit it big. If you leave a
goodimpression, they may invite you to their next party.
Digital marketing is one of those rareindustries. There are millions of lawyers
and accountants, as well as designers. There are relatively few SEOs,PPC experts
or affiliate marketers. Make the right impression and your name will get passed
around quickly. If you have a bad reputation, or are generally unliked, the word
spreads just as fast. I've picked against vendors for my clients (or when I
worked in-house) simply based on how phony they came off. I'll probably have
this put on my tombstone because I say it so much, "Perception Is Reality." Let
that onesink in. It doesn't mean "fake it," but be genuine and supportive.
I wrote a post that I still think about often. It was called "
Create Your Own SEO Serendipity." I don't know how, or where, or why I started
doing it, but I've been in the "serendipity" game for a long time. "Karma" might
be a possible synonym. Building up your network is one part of the puzzle, but
building it so you're memorable is a whole other piece that may require a bit of
introspection on your end.
In hindsight,Ispent my entire professional career mirroring my personal lifebe
good and helpful to everyone you meet. Sure you get burned if others take
advantage, but when a referral comes in from an old colleague, I'm thrilled.
It's that warm feeling that makes "doing business" pretty damn fun.
The TL;DR tips:Stay in touch with everyone you can by any means necessary. The
tiniest little gestureslike endorsing a skill or expertise on LinkedIn, or
buying someone a beer at a conventioncan sometimes bring you top of mind when
you need it most.
In my experience jobtitlesdon't necessarily mean everything. Personality and
kindness go further. Always be willing to support someone's little needs. Free
advice or work can turninto major opportunities.
Answer everyone's emails, tweets, texts, whatever. Very few of us really can't
find the time.
Don't just wait for people to call you. If you generally feel good about all
your encounters, there's nothing wrong with reaching out and saying, "Thanks for
the great talk at the meetup last night. I wanted to see if I could help you
solve that problem we were talking about."
Create serendipity every day.
Create serendipity every day (worth mentioning twice!!!).
#3 - Hire people smarter than you
Around 2009, I remember the
CEO of GSI Commerce said this at a company meeting I attended (paraphrasing)"I
built this companyby hiring people smarter than me."This off-hand comment was a
real wake-up call for me. He's since sold his company to eBay, and moved on to
restart something new. If this tip helped make someone a billionaire, there must
be something to it
My partner and I didn't read many business books. Personally, I tried, but
rejected most of them. I stubbornly refused tobuy into some ofthe concepts.
However, there were a few where I recognized common threads. Books like
Good to Great, How To Think Like A CEO, The Outsiders, and The Corner Office
didn't have a "fake it until you make it," or "kill or be killed" lesson.
Instead, they highlighted leading by example, taking calculated risks, being
human, and learning from everyone around you.
We candidly tell our prospects that we hire people with unique experience for
the sole purpose of supporting the clients. We reveal that Keith's background is
in data and analytics, Mike's is in design and development, Jon's is in PR and
outreach, and so on. We're not all experts at everything.We're very clear that
any of our team may work on an account dependent on a given strategy. It's
honest and realistic, and goes over well with prospects. Meanwhile, in the
office, we have a lot of co-mingling, where each teammate may join another to
work out a specific problem. I'm the old dog in the group, but I'll tell you the
honest truthI learn something every day from this team.
The client wins, my company improves, and my own personal development grows.
What more could anyone want out of a job?
The TL;DR tips:Let smarter (or more experienced) people help guide you. It's a
win-win situation for everyone involved.
Don't act like you know it all. Your employees and your clients will see right
through this.
If you don't know the answer, let your clients know that you may have someone in
your fold that might have the answers. When your company is hired, so is your
entire organization. There's nothing wrong with this!
Encourage your team to speak their mind, take a chance, and kick your ass. When
they do, give them a high-five.#4 -Don't be so serious
Last but not least, have fun.
Keith and I don't need to remind ourselves why we took this risk. It's fun
every day. Business is a game, and we're enjoying our time on the field. No more
toxic relationships, no more loss of control, and no more sitting in the "peanut
gallery" watching otherpeople do it wrong.
Be serious enough to hit your deliverables, make your marks count, and help
your clients win. But why not do it with a smile? I've always heard that working
in marketing and advertising is one of the most stressful jobs you could have.
It doesn't have to be.
We didn't build our company with a textbook or a degree. The more I experience,
the more I see most people in our field didn't follow a rule book either. Great
businesses are managed by CEOs who take chances, with varied personality traits
and levels of intelligencesomething school doesn't necessarily teach anyway. For
years I thought I'd have to be an "American Psycho" type business-genius with an
MBA, a big vocabulary, a clean haircut, and a country club membership. I have
none of those. In the end, I honestly believe we were guided by our own
experience, serendipity, and common sense. It's been a great ride so far, with a
lot more learningsand laughsto be had.
Besides, if the business folds tomorrow, at least I achieved the biggest thing
on my bucket list. So there's that.Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly
mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad
links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff
you don't have time to hunt down but want to read!
You may view the latest post at
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/seomoz/~3/Jwt3-JhHMNQ/how-our-agency-survived-year-one
You received this e-mail because you asked to be notified when new updates are
posted.
Best regards,
Build Backlinks Online
peter.clarke@designed-for-success.com
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