TEST Page Redirect Post

You’re correct that using each of your services as a page, instead of posts would make more sense. But unfortunately, since the theme’s default design only allows to show posts in that specific format, that’s why the workaround of using “Page Links To” plugin is suggested. So for this steps would be:

1. Create a page for each service
2. Add a relevant post to show in home middle widget
3. Redirect that post to the service page using “Page Links To” plugin.

This would mean some extra work, but result would be that look of the homepage will be retained and uniform for both posts and pages.

I hope this helps! Please let me know if you need any further assistance.

For the fastest assistance with a new question, please open a new ticket at http://my.studiopress.com/help/.

Thank you for being a StudioPress Customer, and have a great day!

Regards,

Ali
Customer Success Specialist

Social Media Marketing

Once you have a content marketing process in place, the ongoing promotion of your content (and business) on social media platforms can ensure an ongoing connection with your audiences.

Which social media platforms are most important to your business is the first question to answer (you do have a content marketing strategy in place, right?). Then we need to look at both free and paid opportunities on each network.

Your unique and valuable content will be promoted on the most important social media sites for you. This will both increase the number of people engaging with your content and increase the social “signals” picked up by search engines and, in turn, help in your ranking efforts. The best content will also lead users to interact with other content, both on and off your website.

We also train your team. Social media marketing is not a solo effort and you should leverage the power of your team there. We’ll develop a concise and effective training program and walk your team through what they need to do to make your marketing efforts more effective.

Each social media network has its place but the priority you set on each is highly dependent on where your audience hangs out. (Not just your customers.) Here are the networks we most frequently use with our clients:

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is great for B2B lead generation and authority building. We start by reviewing (and usually revising) your company page. Then we promote your content on that page, including blog posts, press mentions, guest articles, and videos.

We look for other thought leaders to follow and interact with and identify the most relevant and valuable groups to your business to join. Sharing of content happens here too.

If your industry niche does not have a group with a strong leadership position, we’ll consider starting a new group to further enhance your position as an authority in the industry.

Facebook

A B2C superstar, there are some B2B opportunities as well on Facebook. Of all the social networks, Facebook might be the most social. Sharing content is at the core of the ongoing activity here.

Finding and engaging with non-competitive pages is also important. It can garner attention from complimentary business offerings and potential partners as well (who can, of course, also share your content).

From a brand advocacy perspective, Facebook is a great tool. Customers, both happy and unhappy, often use Facebook (and Twitter) to express how they feel about your product or service. It’s important to monitor that activity AND respond to it in a timely manor.

Facebook ad targeting is second to none. If you have a clearly defined customer persona, the paid promotion opportunities to reach a very targeted audience are outstanding.

YouTube

The second largest search engine in the world, YouTube is not to be ignored. It is an opportunity to both promote your content and further engage with your target audience (whether B2B or B2C).

Many companies are unclear about how to leverage the power of this video platform and, as a result, end up missing much of the opportunity.

Your videos can be short and to the point (product feature demonstrations, for instance) or long and highly engaging (episodic video marketing that brings users back over and over). Your only limited by your creativity and budget on this front.

For the right products, YouTube ads may also makes sense.

Twitter

The well know Twitter hashtag has now become part of our culture (#ourculture). Regular tweeting should be part of your company’s ongoing social marketing strategy but the trick is keeping up. (That’s why we’re here.)

Promoting both your content and taking the opportunity to establish relationships with industry influencers are the main objectives here.

And, as mentioned above, using Twitter as another channel to communicate with customers and prospects is a good idea. If they are tweeting about you and those tweets fall on deaf ears (keyboards?), then you are hurting your brand.

What’s Next for Your Company?

If you’d like to learn more about how Niche Player can help drive your social media marketing, please schedule a call and we’ll discuss your needs and how we might be able to help.

Content Creation and Promotion

Once we determine clear objectives for your content (based on your content marketing strategy), we can then begin the process of content creation and promotion.

Although it’s easy to say “we want to drive more traffic to our content,” the truth is most content out there is… well, ho hum at best.

You need to create content that is remarkable and attracts the attention of the right audience; whether influencers or your end customers (again, refer back to your content strategy for that answer).

Niche Player has created content for clients that:

Drives search engine rankings
Captures leads
Educates customers
Positions clients as thought leaders
Builds their brand

Our promotion efforts are targeted based on your objectives. It’s not about the number of page views (although that is one measure), its about the impact of the content on your goals.

Once you have content worth engaging with, we can then:

Reach out to influencers in the market
Create targeted paid campaigns to improve visibility of the content
Develop lead capture mechanisms as part of the content
Promote the content in email and social media efforts

The deliverables for our content creation & promotion projects include:

Research the topic to gather data for content creation
Design and build the content elements
Apply the necessary creative elements to make the content more shareable
Publish the content on the necessary site(s)
Promote the content to industry influencers and potential customers

What’s Next for Your Company?

If you’d like to learn more, please schedule a call and we’ll discuss your needs and how we might be able to help.

Content Marketing Strategy

Any smart content marketing effort should begin with developing a content marketing strategy.

The overall goal of your content marketing strategy project is to identify the goals you are trying to achieve then develop the topics and structure of content with the highest likelihood of hitting those goals. It’s a simple concept but it’s not easy.

When most businesses think about “content marketing” they think of creating content for their end users in order to generate traffic to their sites and fill their sales pipeline. This is mixing objectives and usually ends up not achieving the desired result.

At Niche Player we take a different approach.

By clearly defining the objectives, we can develop a content marketing strategy that hits the bullseye.

The BIG question is: Do you want more traffic or more customers? Those are two very different objectives for a content marketing effort.

And your answer might be… BOTH. Which is fine but understand that mean you need a two pronged approach to your content marketing. (BTW if your content marketing agency can’t explain this, it might be time for a change.)

The result of our Content Marketing Strategy Project includes:

Clearly defined objectives
List of industry influencers to develop relationships with
Competitor content assessment
An assessment of your current content performance
Prioritized list of content to create
Timeline and budget for content development and promotion
Step by step content promotion plan

What’s Next for Your Company’s Content Strategy?

If you’d like to learn more, please schedule a call and we’ll discuss your needs and how we might be able to help.

Episodes as Ads

Have you seen the newest ad format? Full length episodes that auto play.

What? Two rules in effective advertising broken at the same time?

Yes, that’s right.

Often times, what is most effective is zigging when everyone else is zagging. That’s what these ads do. And they are mighty effective.

I keep seeing these full length episodes as ads on Google Play. I’m telling you, there is something here.

When I want to listen to my “free” music and a video starts playing about a woman’s trip to Barcelona and playing as a local… living the local life… it catches my attention and I watch for much longer than I would any traditional ad (or click on some image).

This one was really well done and it was for AirBNB. It creates great emotional connection and makes you think, “I’d like to rent that room.”

The ad generated the exact response they were hoping for.

There’s a lesson here and even small businesses can take advantage of this. I don’t think it needs to be Hollywood-level production. It just needs to be authentic, tell a story and elicit emotion.

That’s the real opportunity here.

Can’t Spell Usability with YOU

One of the most common comments I hear from clients is, “When I am surfing the Web, I don’t like when a site has…” The truth is your personal opinion doesn’t really matter.

Just because you don’t shop on Black Friday or even think about Cyber Monday, doesn’t mean those are not the most significant days in retail. Just because you never use PayPal to buy anything doesn’t mean your target audience won’t. Just because you don’t like a color, banner, button, right/left hand columns, don’t assume your target market feels the same way. It’s not about you.

When designing your site for web usability, your personal preferences need to be put aside. Focus on the target audience, what each page needs to accomplish and then test different designs to determine which converts the best. Sure, you should look at other sites and see what they are doing to help identify options for your site but be careful of your personal biases in the design process.

I believe that there are still many business owners out there that are stuck in the early 2000’s when it comes to web design. Just look at the number of sites that still have the stock photo of the multi-cultural, mult-gender team in suits and standing in a white conference room. Ugh! Who are these people and what the heck do they have to do with your business?

We, as business owners, still spend too much time on getting the look of our sites just right. Then, we spend too much time looking at our own site after the design is complete.

In today’s Web, it is more about what is going on outside your site than on your site. Of course, take care of the basics. Yes, you need to have your product or service complete, you need to be able to take an order or provide information.

Then, move on. Get relevant traffic to your site. Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and news sites are a great place to start building your own social media channels. Let your target audience decide what changes need to be made to your work of art based on click and conversion patterns. Test, test, and test.

With data in hand, you can then determine which conversion rate you like best. At that point, go with your personal preference. 😉

A Lesson in Web Design – Keep the User in Mind

I’m looking to take my family back to Dave and Busters (it’s been quite a while) for some family fun. I have one of their “power cards,” which is where game play credits are stored. Before we head out, I wanted to check the balance on the card – simple enough, right? Wrong.

Turns out, visiting DaveandBusters.com was a frustrating experience and a lesson in weak site design and usability. Finding the site was easy (thanks to the new Google predictive results feature – see video). What is interesting is that even after watching annoying flash commercials and fumbling through inadequate navigation, the answer was to call an 888 number and leave a voice message with personal information for some woman in the “corporate office”.

Welcome to the age where databases are hooked to websites and user experience is important. Here’s the 5 min video, “Dave and Busters – a lesson in designing for the user.”

Be Careful Where Your Online Ad Lands

With so many online marketing opportunities to choose from these days, you really must be careful with where you want your ads to show.

Check out this 2 minute video of a message received from the Wall Street Journal. It shows where good intentions can go bad and makes a suggestion about using news outlets for your message.

Google AdWords Traffic Sources Explained

I get a lot of questions regarding the various sources of traffic from Google AdWords pay-per-click ad campaigns. Here’s a 5 minute overview of the three different sources.

I hope this helps!

The Rocket Science of SEO

Search engine optimization done right requires a well thought out strategy, relevant content and consistent effort. Is it rocket science? No. Is it easy? Absolutely not.

The key to success is focusing on the business goals. If the goals are clear and the potential upside to a successful online marketing effort is quantified, then you can build a marketing strategy that is optimized for ROI. Building relevant traffic will result in more conversions – however your business defines conversion.

The search engines (and the people behind them) are trying to make search results as relevant as possible. Although there are some proven tools of the trade, there are no silver bullets, and tricks of the trade are simply that – tricks, and do not to work long term. Basically, your online marketing strategy should be one of relevance. Your site’s relevance should really be developed at the page level, as each of your pages should have a single purpose.

How to improve your site’s relevance?

Content. Yes, content is still king… at least a prince. Solid content drives good inbound links to your site. And quality inbound links are a vote of confidence that the search engines tally. Remember, you can have the best content on the web but if you don’t promote it, no one will know… including the search engines.

Keywords. Already have a list of 2,790 keywords you are optimizing for? Don’t kid yourself, the 80/20 rule absolutely applies here (or, in some cases, 95/5 rule). Much has been written on developing a target list of keywords. Work with your online marketing firm or use some of the tools such as WordTracker or Google Keyword Tool.

Anchor text. When links to your site use anchor text that is relevant (in your list of targeted keywords), the search engines read this text as pointers to relevant content. The more certain terms are used as links to your site, the more important your page becomes in the search results for those terms. Again, not rocket science but, all too often, we find inbound links using terms that lack any relevance to the page’s purpose.

Promotion within your niche. Blogs, associations, schools, networking groups and directories. Think about all the players in your industry. How can your site contribute to their efforts? Is there an opportunity to provide some content to a trusted industry site that would result in a link back to your site? This targeted approach pays off in a big way in online marketing.

These are some strategies that simply don’t change with changes in the search algorithms. Stay true to the goal of becoming relevant in your niche and, in the long run, you will be pleased with the results.

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