blogs to get your teeth into
Feb 24, 2009 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Marketing & Communication
About a month ago I asked for suggestions on blogs to read since I have been able to keep my Google Reader pretty low on the unread items since my big reorganization.
Here are some of the suggestions I received:
Remarkablogger : Blog Consulting, Blog SEO, Blog Tools. Essentially all about Blogging. Looking forward to checking out his blog and learning more about essential blog tips and tricks.
Corporate Dollar: “Social Media for small non-profits” with lots of good stuff for bloggers.
MintBlogger: Blogging know-how from domain help to web tools.
Janet Fouts: Tools, tips, and thoughts on social media
hubbub: Some really interesting thoughts on advertising (then and now). In fact there is a very cool list of brands and their “character” - how many do you remember?
Socialized: Social media and PR. A thought provoking article on the demise of the newspaper and the implications for freedom and diversity of opinion and news
F.A.D.S. (Fight Against Destructive Spin) – PR and media.
Don’t Drink the Koolaid: Branding, social media, advertising…a little bit of everything. I have read some interesting posts here, looking forward to more.
Blogcampaigning: I was getting this blog via a PR blog aggregator, but I stopped getting that feed after my reorganization – opting instead to subscribe to individual blogs instead. Needless to say I subscribed to this one where they talk about everything from gaming to social media.
I have also added a new page to my blog: Reading List where I list a few of my long time favourites.
Popularity: 23% [?]
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Tags: Advertising, Blogs, great blogs, marketing & communication, reading
Looking for Reading Material: Suggest Blogs Here
Jan 6, 2009 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Social Media
Well, not sure if it is because people weren’t writing as many blog posts in December, or that my super organization skills with Google Reader are working but my blog aggregator has ZERO unread items.
So dear faithful readers…can you suggest some good blogs to subscribe to? Perhaps reading 107 blogs is just not enough.
So, suggest your blog…suggest your friends, or suggest a blog you just love. If I get more than one suggestion I will post the list for others to read.
I am not particular…I like blogs on just about anything but my favourites are about politics, marketing, digital and social media, parenting and mom blogs…and shopping. However, I am always interested in expanding my horizon.
So, let me know your favourites. Ask a friend their favourite. E-mail me or just add in the comment section.
Popularity: 9% [?]
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Lessons in Driving Traffic and Engagement to Blogs
Dec 29, 2008 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics, Microblogging, Search Marketing, Social Media, Web Analytics, social networks
The Lineup: Courtesy Stock.xchng KLatham
Traffic and engagement are not the same thing. Likely you know that. Quality vs Quantity…
Having people visiting my site looking for Chia Pets and Chicken Recipes and Fred Flinstone is ultimately not my goal. People who visit my site using these search terms don’t tend to stick around very long, but they show up in my ‘traffic’ report nonetheless.
Quite some time ago Avinash Kaushik from Occam’s Razor gave me access to Google’s Custom Reporting and Advanced Segmenting which were at the time in beta. I had played with the new features quite a bit with my work websites, but not with my blog. I decided it was time to do so, with the goal of figuring out how to grow my community of readers, and engage those of you who are regular visitors – for example getting you to comment, visit regularly etc. Using the extra reporting functions I was able to find out some interesting stuff:
- My most valuable new visitors were referrals (visiting from another website) and most were visiting from blogs I had commented on. These visitors, over visitors from Facebook, Twitter, Technorati or Blog directories; spent more time on my blog and visited a higher number of pages.
LESSON
- Commenting on other blogs drives interested and engaged traffic and hopefully subscribers - Most returning visitors (those who aren’t subscribed via RSS, visiting directly or via a bookmark) visit again from Facebook, Twitter, Google and MichelleKostya.com
LESSON
- It is worth promoting blogs on social networks such as Facebook and Twitter by linking new posts. - The keywords that drove the most valuable search traffic (pages/visit and time spent) to my site over the last few months were to posts on politics.
LESSON
- Posts on current events drive traffic. - Keywords including “mego”, MEGOAgain”, “Mego Michelle”, “Michelle Kostya” etc spend the most amount of time on my site compared to site average. Duh…they were looking for me. Other keywords that engaged my visitors: Facebook advertising, Facebook ignoring friends, jetblue twitter duty, corporate tweet, Loblaws, Sony, Sheridan
LESSON
- Optimize site and posts around keywords that engage.
- Brand names are often searched and can drive traffic although not all engage readers enough for them to stick around.
- Continue to write posts on social media and Web 2.0! - Unfortunately, since most return visitors came directly to the main page it is hard to determine what content is driving them back via Google Analytics. However, if you I look at my Feedburner stats and refer back to the articles posted around that time my readers enjoyed these posts over the last 30 days (why does Feedburner only allow me to break data by 1 day, 1 week, 1 month or “all time”?) the most popular posts to my return visitors are:
- Social Media’s Next Victim
- Kid’s Say the Funniest Things #2
- My Top 15 Web 2.0 Sites
- 5 Tips to Organize Google Reader
- He Sleeps! A Miracle
Interesting – a mixed bag of social media posts AND parenting. However, one thing I do know about these posts is that they were either short or broken up by bullets or subject headings.LESSON
- Short is good
- Break long posts into sections or use formatting to break the post up into smaller bites! - I have been racking my brain to find ways to encourage commenting, this is a good sign that readers are enjoying what they are reading on my blog. However, this is not the only way to measure this.
LESSON
- Measure depth of visit, number of pages/visit
- Time spent on site
- Return Visitors vs. New Visitors
What kind of lessons can you share about building your blog community? Where do your readers come from? How do you measure engagement?
Popularity: 18% [?]
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Tags: analytics, avinash kaushik, Blogs, commenting, community, engagement, facebook, feedburner, google advanced segments, google custom reports, keywords, search terms, seo, twitter, web 2.0, web traffic
New Theme! Check it Out
Dec 19, 2008 Blogs, Digital Marketing & Metrics
We got snowed in today, so all plans went out the window. With my “free” time I changed my Wordpress Theme.
More reasons to visit my site. I have a new layout. What do you think?
It is called Daily Press and can be found at BlogOhBlog. I think it is gorgeous and simple.
So if you are an RSS or e-mail viewer take a trip to MEGOAgain and have a look. While you are there, join my Google Friend Connect!
Popularity: 6% [?]
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Not a Creature Was Stirring….except those busy Google Folks
Dec 19, 2008 Blogs, Marketing & Communication, Social Media, social networks
Boy, right under my nose Google has been busy giving me more fun tools to play with.
Have you seen my fancy new widget I am hiding on the bottom left-hand side of my blog page? It is Google Friend Connect.
I am hiding it because right now I have no “friends”. So if you wouldn’t mind, dear readers click here to go to my page (if you are reading from email or a aggregator) and join the MEGOAgain network.
What is Friend Connect?
With Google Friend Connect, any website can be “social” or – more social, in the case of blogs, which are already fairly social due to commenting and linking. Beyond the comments section now my readers can connect with other readers in the member gallery. All I had to do was add a bit of code, which was really easy even for me!
So what can you do with Google Friend Connect?
Google Profile
Friend Connect uses your Google profile to sign you up to Friend Connect. Did you know you had a profile? I didn’t! I know I use a lot of Google tools (gmail, reader, docs, and more) but the profile that popped up as a used Friend Connect was new!
A Google Profile is now integrated in most Google services so you have a “coherent identity and a simple way to manage your contacts.” You can add a short bio, pictures and links to your websites. If you already use Google tools, you should be able to find your profile under your “Account” listing, if not visit this help page on Google and it will walk you through the process.
Your profile will look like this:
Also, new on Google Search…
Check this out:
This is a screen shot from a Google Search on “Fireplaces”. Notice Google has added a few new icons to their SERPs. Right beside “Napoleon Fireplaces” you will see an “Arrow” and an “X”. These allow you to promote or delete an item i the results. In addition, at the bottom right hand corner you will see a little talk bubble, if you click this the comment field shown in the above picture pops up.
So, you can now customize your search results with your rankings, deletions, and notes — plus, you can see how other people using Google have tailored their searches. Each of these notes, apparently will appear to other users with your profile attached. I believe this is fairly new, so as of yet I haven’t seen any notes or comments attached to any SERPs.
New on Gtalk
Video. Now you can video chat with your friends on Google Talk.
I am kind of feeling like Google has built a social network…without me even knowing it.
Popularity: 8% [?]
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Tags: Blogs, friend connect, google, google reader, gtalk, profiles, social media, social networks
SEO for Marketers
Dec 18, 2008 Digital Marketing & Metrics, Search Marketing
A lot of marketers are under the false understanding that SEO is just for the tech folks. And, sure it is the web developers who implement and add the meta data, the header tags and such…but Marketing must play a role in SEO.
Whether marketers work directly with web developers to build and create a website, mini-site, or microsite or if they are the content creators – they need to understand search engine optimization (SEO – for those of you who have read to this point without knowing what I am talking about!).
So what does a marketer need to know about SEO?
The basics
Golden Triangle:
Based on an eye-tracking study in 2005 by Enquiro studies they discovered that the the key location on Google for visibility is a triangle that “extends from the top of the results over to the top of the first result, then down to a point on the left side at the bottom of the “above the fold” visible results. This key area was looked at by 100 percent of the participants.” Basically, this area will include the top sponsored and top organic results. Visibility dropped quickly for the rest of the page. Anything below the fold was viewed by less than 50%.
Universal Search
I suspect the Golden Triangle rule has changed somewhat with Google’s Universal Search, which essentially highlights listings from News, Blogs, Video and other verticals.
For example; Google George Bush and you will find:
Google’s Algorithm
What shows up in these verticals (News, Videos, Blogs) is dependent on Google’s algorithm, and this is true for all the search engine results (SERPs). Google uses more than 200 signals to examine sites and determine importance for their SERPs. They keep this highly confidential, and it is always changing.
Some of the key factors that SEOs believe are part of the Google Algorithm are:
(key)Words in:
<li>Internal links pointing to the page
Marketing’s Role
Even if you aren’t directly responsible for web projects you can help with SEO efforts.
Some of the above factors that may be part of Google’s algorithm are in bold. These are ones, you, a marketer can keep in mind as you do your job.
Keywords
Copy
When you write copy for the web, (or if you are writing copy that someone is going to down the road throw up on the web as a product description) try to use words in your copy that your customers will use to search for the product. If you sell bedroom linens, and you use words like duvet and coverlets – but your customers are searching for “blankets” – they wont find you. Don’t try and use all possible words, that will simply dilute your keywords and they won’t be effective either. Talk to your customers, check your Analytics, and use Keyword search programs such as Google’s Key Word Tool to find out what words are used to find your products.
Create More Copy
Articles, blogs, FAQs and testimonials are all great ways to add more information to your website. They also give you the ability to use your key words and add some Google “juice” to your site. Remember words are seen by the “Bots” AND this content is also helpful to your customers.
Don’t Hide Your Words
Marketers, myself included, have fallen for the flashy websites, the cutesy microsite with meaningless navigation. Sites with amazing graphics, and animation, and gorgeous drop menus. They look nice.
But this is what the Search Engine sees:
Which means they don’t have much to go on as far as what this site is about, and when they should serve it up to someone searching. Look at this example – the only link is to an Adobe page, and the only content is reminding the user they need a Flash plugin. Search Engines currently don’t “see” images and Flash so use sparingly.
Meta Information
Give some direction to the web developers on the keywords that will appear “behind the scenes” in the meta information. This includes:
When you are working on partnerships, promotions, advertising and contests make sure your site is being linked, and linked back properly. Talk to your retailers, and partners to see if they have a directory you should be listed in, linking of course to your website.
Finally,
Search is always changing so pay attention by reading some great SEO blogs.
Popularity: 12% [?]
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Tags: Blogs, bots, golden triangle, google, marketing & communication, meta tags, Search Marketing, sem, seo, spider simulator, universal search, Videos
Up and Running Again (finally!)
Dec 9, 2008 Blogs, Family and Friends, New
If you are a subscriber via RSS or e-mail you may not have realized that my site was down for three days! Yes, three days! I don’t know how I lived for 72 hours with no blog. My analytics at Zero visitors for Saturday and Sunday was depressing to look at.
It was especially sad since I just wrote my first guest post on another blog and was hoping some of her subscribers might just find me worthy of subscribing to as well! Now fortunately for me – her site is served by the same host and therefore was down as well. Which means no one new was finding the post and trying to link to my dead blog. However, any of her subscribers would have linked from their reader….to a wonderful error message. Boohoo.
Please check out my guest post on one of my favourite blogs - Mom on the Run. Janice writes about life with her two girls and reminds me how special being a mom is! Even when the kids are at their most frustrating they do something absolutely adorable or funny to make you smile. Oh, and she is a huge NKOTB fan…which is very important. We differ in our favourite member – she prefers Jon – while my favourite was always Jordan (Jon’s brother!).
Popularity: 11% [?]
Tags: Blogs, guest post, momontherun, nkotb
