Thursday, November 28, 2013

At last, the 3 Keys to Higher Click Thru Rates



Mastering Language.

Getting more clicks is all about mastering language. If your goal is to get people to click on something you must think about each word and what it does, and you must also think about the structure of what you are saying.

Here are my three rules for getting your click rate up:

1. The Promise. Offer something of value, aimed at your target market. And make it easily understood value. Visitors want to know there will be something in it for them when the click. Make it easy for them. Make people want to click through.

2. Tell a story. Here's a story in six words;  "Baby shoes for sale. Never used." Respect the reader's intelligence. Keep it short and sweet. Stories can inspire and entertain. They can also get people to do things they wouldn't otherwise have done.

3. 5W&1H. Use who, what, when, where, why and how as ways to think about what you are asking people to do. Consider telling us who else likes what you are selling, what they are doing with it, when it will be most useful, where it is made, why it is useful and how to make it work. Then think of your own 5W&1H formula.

These are three ways to sharpen your use of language. You can use them in titles, in videos, in audio and in text.

What do you think of these three techniques for mastering language? Have I missed something? Let us all know in the comments below.

And here is one final thought; what would you do if you woke to find your partner missing? To find out what one person faced when this happened, click here.

Thursday, November 21, 2013

Facebook users in Ireland and the Death of Traditional Media

Source: SocialBakers.com

Over 50% of Facebook users in Ireland are 34 years old or under. If you have any teenagers in the house you will know what a lot of them doing, flirting, and seeing what new clothes or selfies their friends have put up. As the age group goes up people become more serious. They join groups about their work, their hobbies and their sports clubs. Then the check out what their new friends are doing and flirt with anyone who will listen.

The most popular brands in Ireland use competitions, freebies and special offers to keep their follower numbers up. This has to be eating into newspaper, TV and radio advertising revenues. The great money sucking machines that are Google Adwords and Facebook Ads will soon become the largest advertising media in Ireland at this rate.

This situation is most likely being replicated in most developed countries. Local media, television, newspapers and magazines will have to move quickly in the next few years if they don't want to end up as museum-piece rumps of what they once were.

This competitive challenge is little understood in most media board rooms. Like the frog in the kettle who doesn't notice the water around him heating up, traditional media, basking in group-think and high CEO salaries wants only one thing, for everything to go on and before, like in the old days.

But it won't. The money sucking media machines have arrived and they are catching the audience early. And they deliver what the audience wants.

What can traditional media do?

Experiment, fight back, that's what I suggest. Has anyone got any better ideas?

Friday, November 15, 2013

Guest post: Pintrest and SEO by Rob Moore



Rob Moore is a writer for Page One Power , an SEO  company based in Boise, Idaho. He enjoys all things technology, reading and fine wine.

While it was once thought to be the savior of everything SEO, as of March, 2013 Pintrest links are officially nofollow. Many SEO organizations have decided to jump ship on the website, especially those who focus solely on links to their client’s website. However, there are other avenues that creative individuals can take if they want to increase their standing with search engines by using the website.

1. Optimize for Pintrest

This is, by far, one of the best things that an SEO firm can do that involves Pintrest. There are many ways to improve your rankings on the site itself. Most of these are very straightforward, like having an actual human face attached to the account. There is nothing more unappealing, especially if you are looking to build or interact in a community, than having a blank profile picture. I know I’ve been guilty of skipping over content that lacked a profile picture. Haven’t you?

Besides having a picture, it’s important to provide quality content on your page. Let’s use the Youtube for example. The comments section specifically. There seems to be a never-ending stream of comments that say something unbelievably vague regarding a popular video then try to plug themselves, even if they have no content on their channel. The same thing goes for Pintrest. There is no magic method that you can use and instantly gain a huge following that everyone can do. If your content is good, people will follow.

2. Use your keywords

Keywords are another big thing for boosting your ranking on searches. However, they are a double-edged sword. You never want to completely overload something you pin with keywords, especially if they don’t pertain at all to the content of your post. Keep your keywords short, relevant and to the point.

If you have quality content on your webpage then using effective keywords will give you a big boost in terms of traffic. Keywords are another great way to connect with users that are relevant to your industry. Making these connections by actually discussing content will also help people not view you as some kind of spam bot that is only there for the purpose of optimization.

3. Make your profile public

There is a privacy policy that is on by default that will completely shut down any efforts you make to get your Pintrest page on a search engine. Under your profile settings find one that is listed as “Hide your Pinterest profile from search engines” make sure that this is set to OFF! Having this option disabled will allow people that search for your brand, company, etc to find your Pintrest page in the search results.

Yes, the fact that Pintrest no longer has dofollow links on their webpage can make people instantly dismiss in terms of SEO purposes. But, I can’t help but think this is a good thing for the community as a whole. It will encourage more quality content as well as community interaction in the industry for at least one website.

Rob Moore
@P1PRobMoore