Looking Back: 30 Years of the World Wide Web

Today marks the thirtieth anniversary of the birth of the World Wide Web. 30 years ago, Tim Berners-Lee submitted his proposal titled “Information Management” to CERN, a European physics lab.

The proposal asks the reader how scientists would manage increasingly large projects in the future. The proposal outlines the answer to that question. Which is what, in just a couple of years, would become what we know as the World Wide Web: a connected system for sharing information that would lead us into a communication revolution.

Thirty years ago, computer network systems had already been running and growing for years. Emails, message boards, shared files, and emoticons were not a strange concept to many, but the internet as it is today didn’t begin to take shape until the World Wide Web was introduced.

Open source code made it possible for anyone to create websites or browsers, and these web pages, browsers, and hyperlinks made the information available easy to find and easy to navigate.

The internet has reshaped itself in the last 30 years, but there are some really great memories of the World Wide Web of the past that we still are amused at, influenced by and have learned from.

This is just a short list of some of the influential sites and tech that has put us where we are today.

LiveJournal

One of the first variances of a social network was LiveJournal, a blog site where users could debate in comments as well as post original content, from writing pieces like fiction and poetry to visual art. LiveJournal still exists but is now owned by a Russian media company, with most of its original users scattering to Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, and other social platforms.

Flickr

Photo sharing site Flickr was one of the web’s first forays into photo sharing since platforms like Friendster and MySpace were not photo-focused. The simple online gallery was a great platform for both pros and amateurs without the noise of other platforms that was the typical fare for sites in the early 2000s.

Amazon

Originally an online bookstore, Amazon was not always the giant retail/tech/entertainment conglomerate that it is today. Though it did take down some major bookstore chains early on, it was hard to predict that Amazon would become the phenomenon it is today.

CSS

Cascading Style Sheets or CSS made it easy to learn how to create usable and attractive webpages, separating HTML from how a page looks. CSS also allows you to inspect a site’s code, and with that function, you’re able to change just about anything with a small edit to the code.

Yahoo

Yahoo is one of the longest surviving search engines, and even with a dwindling influence, to this day remains a top visited website. Search engines really built the web, and Yahoo was a major player, bringing users news, sports, market reports, and email all in the same space.

eBay

eBay lingers in the strange space between a free-for-all like Craigslist and the more organized Amazon storefront. eBay is the go-to place for buying just about anything you could want (most of the time used) online, and the mass of items in the site’s catalog is still as obscure, useful to just about anyone, but also just as downright weird as it was at its inception.

Internet Archive

Internet Archive is exactly what it sounds like, an archive of the internet itself. Take a trip back in time to see just what the web looked like in years past. In Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine you can check out the 349 billion web pages that the archive has stored, and reminisce about internet days-gone-by.

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Marketing Tips: Keyword Research and Planning For Improved SEO

If you’re looking to improve your SEO and haven’t done much research into keyword planning, you might not realize how important it really is. Knowing how to use and find the right keywords is arguably the most important skill a marketer can hone when it comes to search effectiveness. The start of effective SEO comes from a well-built keyword map or keyword plan.

What is keyword mapping?

“Keyword mapping is the process of assigning or mapping keywords to specific pages on a website based on keyword research. Based on your mapping process you are able to then make specific on-page SEO recommendations to help make the page more relevant to the mapped keywords.” Says Adam Bate of SEO Brothers.

How to start keyword planning

Step One: Research

Put together a list of all of the words you might want your business to appear when someone searches that word. It would be nearly impossible to achieve getting your business to rank on the first page of search results for every word you choose but here you can shoot for the stars.

Tools like Moz, SEMrush and the Google keyword planner can help you expand your list and include faceted keywords you may not have initially thought of.

Step Two: Filter

Work on removing any duplicated words, as well as any that you know for a fact you won’t rank for (taking out branded terms from competitors is usually a good starting point).

Now set your keywords into sets: Priority, Secondary, and Other Terms.

1. Priority terms: Should be keywords you want to appear for right away. They need to imply that you have the answer to a question or the ability to fulfill a need; be a high volume keyword that is worth the investment, and need to be related to current and upcoming (near-future) business.
2. Secondary terms: These will come into play later on, once priority keywords are locked into optimized pages that are query-responsive. These should be keywords that relate to your site, have a decent volume and imply questions you don’t have the expertise to answer.
3. Other terms: You’ll ignore these for now, and note why you may or may not want to re-evaluate these keywords later on

Step Three: Map keywords to pages

The first thing to do when mapping is to scrape Google for your keywords and current rank. You don’t have to do this, but generally, it is useful to be able to keep things simple, rather than to manually map each page, regardless of how Google feels about scraping and rank tracking (the general consensus is not incredibly positive). Now you need to ensure that the content on the page that the clickthrough directs to actually answers what is being searched for. Sometimes your map will work perfectly, and other times, Google gets it totally wrong, so remapping is necessary to close the gap. You’ll go through this same process when you’re working with mapping URLs, starting new pages, as well as when optimizing content and existing pages.

Keyword planning is a big job, but when done right can get you noticed and moved up in the ranks of the SEO world. For a more in-depth walkthrough of keyword mapping for SEO and content creation, see this blog post from Moz that will give you a map to mapping.  

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Marketing Trends To Expect in 2018

As 2017 comes to a close it’s time to look to the future to predict what will be the biggest trends in marketing. With only a month left in the year, now is the time to reevaluate your current strategies and start working on new ones to match the technologically focused consumer. Here’s what you should be looking for this coming year.

Death of organic reach on Facebook

In the past, it was easy to see results when marketing on Facebook just by having a page out for people to find. Those days are in the past, as many marketers are reporting decreased organic traffic, leading to slowed growth and decreased conversions from social media to the website. This is due to changing algorithms that make it more difficult for non-sponsored posts to reach into the newsfeeds of consumers, but also because of the steadily increasing presence of businesses on social media.

What to do:
Start investing in a paid Facebook strategy. Over 50 million businesses use Facebook, and most are feeling the effects of the shift from organic to paid reach. Buffer’s Facebook advertising guide is a great resource for those new to the process.

Landing pages

The landing page is often overlooked, but it is one of the fastest and least expensive ways to increase conversions. A website is always a necessity, but a landing page is a focused way to ensure that your customer is seeing exactly what they want or need to see without distractions and multiple calls to action that distract from the main goal.

What to do:
Build focused landing pages for each campaign. Follow these steps for great form optimization. Build more pages for more conversions. This Hubspot article will tell you why this is so important for growth.

Integrated influencer marketing

Influencer marketing has become increasingly important to marketers, and because Instagram is becoming (for many) one of the top social media platforms, the use and understanding of influencer marketing in all verticals is becoming a valuable tool.

What to do:
Prepare for a boost of companies using influencers, especially on social media. Many companies will begin building long-term partnerships with influencers, allowing them to become brand ambassadors. However, be aware of the FTC’s strict rules and regulations about endorsement posts. The key measurements to track this year for influencer marketing are KPI and ROI.  Learn the basics of influencer marketing here, and learn how to find the right influencers here.

Personalized content

Personalized content has been having a moment lately, and the moment will continue into the new year. Hubspot reports that personalized content does 42% better than non-personalized content. It is important to understand your audience and to use the new shift towards emotional content to engage with your customers and to increase that “shareability” of your content. Storytelling with creative content will be a big theme this year.

What to do:
Begin with gathering information about your audience, even if it is as basic as their name and email address. Make the content you use to acquire this something relevant that will grab attention and encourage conversions. With the information you gather, you can begin to target your users, and provide them with content that matches their needs and lifestyle. Read more about personalized marketing here.

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Marketing Trend: Data Driven Content

Looking to make your marketing efforts a little more streamlined? Or just trying to create content that is easy to scale, right for your audience and optimized for search purposes? Data-driven content is the way to go. The biggest hurdle for most marketers is leaving the creative brain behind and getting into a quantitative mindset that allows you to look at your metrics and analyze how to improve those numbers and statistics.

It may sound scary, but using data can really improve your content, SEO and more. Try these tips and tricks from JBH: The Content Agency to get started!

If you still aren’t convinced that data is changing the way marketers think and execute their strategies, take a look at these examples that prove that data-driven marketing and content can work in any industry.

Fitness Tracking: Jawbone

Because fitness tracker Jawbone’s purpose is to collect data for consumer use, it makes sense that their marketing efforts are also highly data-driven. By collecting the data from their customers, the content that is produced is much more relevant to the lifestyles of the entire user base.

Music: Spotify

Spotify users see curated playlists and song suggestions based on their listening history, and via this post from 2013, it’s clear to see that Spotify doesn’t take their analytics lightly. Spotify also has a “Found Them First” feature, that lets you know if you were an early listener of emerging artists that are now big.

Home Search: Trulia, Zillow

Zillow and Trulia are two giants when it comes to online house hunting, but also when it comes to using data to improve customer experience. From amassing crime data to pricing and neighborhood demographics, the data compiled on these sites and individually compiled from users’ browsing sessions can help homebuyers find the perfect place.

Ridesharing: Uber

Ridesharing app Uber does the typical promotional posts and company updates but also uses the data they compile to create great human interest pieces, like this article. The data Uber uses to create content used for both societal and human nature research.

Data drives the world. How will you use it to create better content?  

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Twitter is Dying, and Other Social Media Rumors

Social media gets a bad reputation for promoting the spread of fake news, but even the sites themselves get rumors spread about them. “Twitter is dying” has been a phrase that has been tossed around for years. The social media superpower has over 300 million active users, and more than 30 offices, so it certainly doesn’t seem like it’s dead. Find out what’s true and what’s false in the list ahead.

TWITTER

Twitter boasts a huge global reach and influence, but the reason people say it’s dying is because there have been numerous problems that have come up over the last few years. From issues with abusive users to leadership that makes decisions users dislike there seems to be a large disconnect between corporate decision makers and the users on the site. From a move to an algorithmic timeline (which introduced #RIPTwitter) to the potential introduction of a 10,000 character limit from the original 140 characters, taking away the core of what Twitter started out as, there is a general agreement that there is an inherent issue with how the platform works with those using it.  Twitter isn’t dead yet, but there have definitely been moves made that could cause a decline in use and eventual exodus from the microblogging platform.

VINE

The 6 second video sharing app and twitter go hand in hand. Twitter purchased Vine in October of 2012.  The short videos matched the short text posts perfectly, and the creativity began almost instantly. But the magic couldn’t last forever. In October of 2016, Vine announced that it would be phasing out its mobile app. This decision made users not only question Vine, but the longevity of Twitter as well.

FACEBOOK

No stranger to the rumor mill, Facebook and CEO Mark Zuckerberg are under constant scrutiny.  There have been numerous claims that the platform will start charging for having a profile (untrue, but continues to come up), or that privacy and ownership of content rules will be changing (the site released a statement in 2012 saying that their policies have been and will continue to remain the same as they have always been), and most recently the rumor that Zuckerberg will run for president in the next election (which he denies).

SNAPCHAT

Snapchat is one of the most popular photo sharing apps, and as such has been in the news for all sorts of reasons, good and bad. New features, the whispers that the introduction of Instagram Stories has hurt the quick sharing app, an IPO which many are calling a flop, and the rumor that the apartment spaces the company was using as offices in LA were not being lived in, not complying with regulations. Snapchat is known for secrecy, but when the entire world is online, no one is immune from rumors.

What social media rumors have you heard over the last year?

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Insider Secrets For Great SEO

Search engine optimization (SEO) is one of the most used tools for anyone in marketing, but how many marketers actually understand it? Or go back and learn how to adapt to changes made in search behavior? The last few years have brought up some major changes to the way SEO works, and how to use it to its full potential. The changes made to Google’s algorithm, more use of anchor text within posts and increased security measures are all things that need to be taken into consideration for anyone looking to up their searchability, increase organic traffic, or even just have a better ranking on Google.  Here’s what you need to know to become an SEO expert.

Just Starting Out

If you are just beginning your journey into the world of SEO the task at hand can seem daunting.  Building a sitemap? Submitting a sitemap to Google? Where do you even begin? First things first, the sitemap is important to the general start of good SEO. You don’t necessarily have to update and resubmit your sitemap every time you publish new content, but it is a good measure if you ever put out any important updates or major changes.

The next change to think about is Mobile-First Indexing. In a mobile facing world, the importance of having a mobile friendly site is something you can’t ignore. Google prefers mobile responsive designs, so if you’re building out or re-designing your site, take that knowledge into consideration, especially due to the change that Google announced in November:  the search results index will be prioritizing mobile results first. This change is still being tested, but the update is likely to happen.  Another important thing to keep in mind is that AMP-enabled pages are treated as mobile pages as well, which will get them indexed first.

Once your site itself is optimized and submitted, you can start creating your content on the site. Anchor text, Some people argue that keywords are becoming less and less important, as in the very first days of SEO you could put as many keywords as you could possibly fit into a title or a post and still make it onto the front page of Google with that as your only SEO technique. That is a strategy unlikely to work today, as the technology has advanced far beyond where it once was. Now it is likely you will see top ranked pages all without targeted keywords anywhere in the content.

This is not to say that keywords are not important! Whether they are in a custom URL, in anchor text links, in a title of a post, or just located in your content anywhere, keywords can get your content to show up on a page that may or may not even be an exact match. Using a keyword research tool can help you find and utilize the most effective and relevant keywords for your content. But remember: top search terms only make up for about 30% of web searches, while unique searches that usually don’t contain popular keywords make up that remaining 70% of search traffic. Because of that large differential, it’s important that you use keywords from both ends of the spectrum, regardless of the diminished value of “Exact Match Domains” (EDMs). Branded keywords (keywords in the brand names of companies) can still be highly ranked even with the 2012 Google update against EMDs.

Sound Familiar?

If you’re already well versed in SEO you probably already know that keywords, backlinks, submitting your site to a search engine, and having a fully mobile responsive site are the first steps to higher ranking and increased traffic. What else can you do to keep ranking higher to a bigger audience? With every year and with every update to the parameters of the search, what can marketers do to continue the process of establishing great SEO? As of 2017, what will make a difference is going to be increased security measures, post content and user experience optimization.

Security and SEO

In a world full of online fraud and theft, Google gives a slightly better standing to those who use higher security settings on their pages, for example: using HTTPS versus HTTP links. When you obtain a certificate to verify the extra security of an HTTPS page, you become a “trusted third party”. Essentially, with this verification you get three types of security: encryption, data integrity and authentication. The process to switching from an HTTP address to an HTTPS address can be tricky for someone without an IT background, but this Ahrefs blog gives a great and simple explanation of how to get started, covers more SEO benefits and explains how to avoid any SEO concerns that may arise during a transition.

Post Content

The ideal content length used to be a short and sweet 500 words, but today, posts that are longer (around 2,000 to 2,500 words), and contain in-depth, comprehensive information are getting ranked higher and seeing increased traffic. The SEO trend Forbes says to watch for this year is dense content or posts that don’t have a specific optimized length, giving the most information in the smallest space needed, packing in the knowledge into a piece completely different than the small snippets or the huge novels of information we are familiar with. Remember also, as we shift into a mobile focused world that mobile content is usually shorter, and to be an authority on a topic does not always mean the need for long-form content. Consider using video and audio along with a transcript as a means to great SEO and mobile optimization.

User Experience

The amount of time a user spends on your site is a vital sign of your site’s engagement rate and can indicate to a search engine as to how highly the site should rank. Important factors in getting visitors to stay on and interact with your site are loading speed, appealing content, and, once again, mobile optimization. If there is no traffic to your site it may not matter how good the rest of your SEO is, so make sure to keep your audience in mind as you move forward.

Ideas of what the future of SEO will hold will continue to change as the world we live in changes. Be sure to keep checking in to learn about what you can do to ensure your business’ success.

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Social Media For Business 2

ow that you’re familiar with the basic benefits of Social Media For Business, it’s time to dig even deeper into the question of “What can social media do to better your business?” See what else this multifaceted tool can do and start seeing results like:

1. IMPROVED CUSTOMER INSIGHTS

Monitoring customer insights gives you an unfiltered view of what people think of your business, and this is only one small facet of the kind of customer insights that can come with social media. Through social listening you can gain valuable first hand knowledge about what your customers like, are interested in, and how they behave.

2. BETTER SEO RANKINGS

Strong brands have strong social media. Long past are the days where an updated blog with optimized titles and meta descriptions are enough for high rankings, the requirements for Google (and other search engines) search success is ever changing. SEO is the best way to capture traffic, and being active on social media can play a significant factor in creating a brand signal to search engines proving brand legitimacy and relevance.

3. HIGHER BRAND AUTHORITY

Brand authority is nothing short of a commodity at this point in the social media game. When people want to compliment or complain about a business they often times turn to social media first. The more your brand name is talked about the more valuable it will seem to new and existing users. Interacting with your customers often, as well as reaching out to interacting with your industry’s influencers will help boost brand authority and create clout.

4. DECREASED MARKETING COSTS

Social media is by far one of the smaller investments of both time and money that you can make in your business to generate traffic. As little as an hour a day on content and strategy can yield noticeable results. Even paid advertising (now available on nearly all major channels) is relatively inexpensive. Start small, figure out what works,  adjust accordingly and you’ll never have to fear going over budget.

5. RICHER CUSTOMER EXPERIENCE

The customer is always right. Right!? Well one thing for sure is that the customer always comes first. Every single customer interaction is a public display of your customer service skills. How efficiently do you deal with a customer tweeting their discontent? How gracefully do you thank a customer and hopefully interest them in another on of your products without coming off as greedy? Social media in its purest form is a communication channel, and has the ability to make your customers feel valued and appreciated not only because it’s good practice but also because prospective customers are watching!

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Content Curation For Beginners

In the day and age of “Content is King” creating all your own fresh, relevant and engaging content can be very overwhelming if not often impossible. This is why content curation is a great way to share powerful content created by industry experts and thought leaders. Sifting through the black hole that is the internet to find that perfect blog or video to share with your audience can be a daunting task, here are some options to make it a little easier!

Google Alerts

By far the easiest way to find content is to have it sent to you directly. Google has the “Google Alerts” option where you can set keywords you’re interested in receiving notifications on. Every time new content is created be it an article, blog or webpage Google sends you an email.

Social Media

You can get content from your audience directly via social media. Using Twitter’s List option and searching through relevant hashtags is a great start. Although this is a “roll your sleeves up” method, that can be tedious and time consuming, it can often be the fastest and most cost efficient.

Pocket

Having a way to save and organize your newly found content can be invaluable. Pocket gives you that option, save its button directly to your browser and start saving relevant content. Pocket also gives you the option of organizing by tags for easy future reference.

Newsletters

Newsletters and email blasts can be annoying to some, but for curators they’re shoe in. Getting on the mailing lists of some of your favorite publications is a great idea especially for those short on time. Most companies do daily or weekly recaps of their blogs, making it easy to sift through more content in a shorter period of time and pick up on what you may have missed through the other social listening tools.

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8 Options for Free Online Courses

Smart people and great entrepreneurs know that knowledge is key. Key to life and especially key to business. Here is a list of online and FREE education sites where you can hone skills in marketing, business practice and nearly anything else under the sun.

1. Hubspot

Hubspot is a company that creates software technologies that revolve around inbound marketing. Their inbound certification is a well known and respected industry standard and can be a great jumping off point for those just starting off.

2. edX

edX is a massive open online course provider. It hosts online university level courses from some of the best known and reputable schools in the world, in a wide range of disciplines, including some courses at no charge.

3. Coursera

Coursera is often a fan favorite; courses are taught by top instructors from the world’s best educational institutions. Courses include recorded video lectures, auto-graded and peer-reviewed assignments, and community discussion forums. When you complete a course, you receive a sharable electronic Course Certificate.

4. Alison

Alison is an e-learning provider created by a serial entrepreneur focusing on basic education and workplace skills.

5. Youtube

Youtube, the world’s biggest video sharing website isn’t just for watching dancing cat videos, it also happens to have how-to’s and DIYs on anything you could possibly think of, most notably in tech and business management.

6. Lynda

Lynda, now under the umbrella of Linkedin, is a video based online education provider that leans very heavily towards software, creative, and business skills.  

7. Khan Academy

Khan Academy is a non-profit used by students all over the world from elementary through graduate programs. Courses are taught by educator Salman Khan in a very simple, hands on and personalized approach.

8. Udemy

Udemy, is an online learning platform created for professional adults that want to hone career skills, spruce up their resume, or discover/rediscover their passions.

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PR Tips for 2017

How important to your business or personal image is public relations? In the digitally focused world we live in, PR and and reputation management are more important than ever when it comes to growing your business and staying relevant to your audience. These are some insider tips on how to both improve upon and understand your PR strategy this year.

Know the Value: Earned Media versus Paid Media

Build up your reputation and your content by building up relationships with other influencers. The more influence you have the less you have to pay to get your name or brand noticed as a thought leader. This is especially important this year as the fake news conundrum continues and reputation management grows in importance.  By connecting with others and networking your worth as a credible authority on the topics you know about you are a much more reliable source of information which will allow for you to pay less to gain more publicity.

Not Just For Marketing Anymore: Native Advertising

An extremely valuable tool to your marketing strategy, Native Advertising is useful for PR as well. By paying to place an advertisement within a publication you can increase readership and  engagement. Match a publication’s content with the information that you would put out in a typical release for truly effective and subtle promotional content. There are rules set forth for disclosure, but this is sure to be a highly effective means of PR this year.

Being the Best: Executive Thought Leadership

Everyone knows that thought leadership is one of the first things that companies, individuals and publications try to promote, but it isn’t always easy to execute this. Combine knowledge from bosses or clients’ industries with trending topics to  become relevant and knowledgeable to others in your field and beyond.  In 2017 this could be as important to your image as influencer marketing.

The Standard: Influencer Marketing

A recent Nielsen survey reported that 92% of the population would trust a recommendation from someone perceived as an influencer on social media or otherwise over what a brand itself may say. With that being said, without strong relationships with influencers that can further your brand, you are going to be starting from further behind than you may have in previous years.  Pitch to influencers often, with useful and relevant content and make sure to customize your search to those who are important in your specific vertical. This Forbes article is a great jumping off point for those who are unfamiliar with this tactic.

Numbers Game: Data Driven Reports

Data collection is becoming easier and easier, and with internet processes and online PR tactics more data is available to really shape your public image. You can learn more about your audience and shape your strategies around demographics, types of popular content you have posted in the past and trends of online activity within your audience to find when you should be posting most effectively.

Traditional PR may not be the standard anymore, but the benefits of using public relations and reputation management strategies are far too important to simply cut PR efforts completely.  Implementing these strategies into your marketing plan is just the beginning!

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Useful Insights about How People View Websites and Mobile

Do you know what the first thing a user is drawn to on any given website? How about what the first thing a user will click on or skip over? Who doesn’t love a good eye-tracking study? With the ability to take a lot of guesswork out of conversion rate optimization, eye-tracking software and heat maps reveal startling insights into increasing conversions (and avoiding sales killers) that can benefit every business.

It may surprise you, but most people read websites and web content in a very specific pattern. Understanding this pattern may help you easily improve the usability and popularity of your website.

So, let’s go over 15 important eye-tracking studies that will give you a sneak peek into common browsing patterns and elements of human behavior that all marketers need to know.

Let’s take a look!

1. Text attracts more attention than pictures.

2. People start viewing your website from the top left corner.

3. Readers ignore banners.

4. Fancy fonts are ignored.

5. People only scan the lower parts of your website.

6. Short paragraphs work better than long ones.

7. Ads, that are placed on the top or left part of your website, get the most views.

8. Ads, that are placed inside or below an awesome piece of content, get more views.

9. Big pictures attract more attention than small ones.

10. Also headlines draw attention.

11. Visitors spend more time looking at menus and buttons than other parts of your website.

12. Lists are better at keeping your reader focused than large paragraphs.

13. Some people even completely ignore large chunks of text.

14. White space is good!

15. Menu works best when placed in the top part of your website. 

5 Facts on How People View Mobile Web:

1. The reader’s attention is focused more on the top left corner of a screen.

2. Keep your content short & simple. Reading long paragraphs needs concentration, which is something that mobile users don’t have.

3. Users pay most attention on the top 2/3 of the screen.

4. Mobile phone users absorb visuals more than text or content. (But if an image doesn’t supplement your content, you can do away with it).

5. Short, but hard-hitting headlines draw more attention. Make your headlines count.

Read more about how to make user-friendly mobile website here.

There you go. Some points from this list are pretty basic and elementary (perhaps obvious), but a good reminder never hurts. So the next time when you’re writing an awesome piece of content, or building your new website, keep these points in mind.

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Get Ready for the Future of SEO

Recently, I ran across a blog titled, “Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years,” and it grabbed my attention. As an Internet Marketing guru, I know that SEO is a big piece of the content marketing puzzle. It is always good to stay on top of changing techniques.

Let’s take a look at some statistics around SEO:

According to Impact Branding & Design: “81% of B2B purchase cycles start with web search and 90% of buyers say when they are ready to buy, ‘they’ll find you.’”

According to NewsCred: “57% of B2B marketers say SEO has the biggest impact on lead generation.”

According to NewsCred: “53% of marketers rank content creation as the single most effective SEO tactic.”

So, what do these statistics tell us? First, if you’re not paying attention to SEO as part of your inbound content marketing plan, then you may be missing out on potential customers. Secondly, if you aren’t using current SEO techniques and strategy, then you’re already behind in the game for lead generation. It will only be more difficult to catch up.

Based on “Why You Won’t Recognize SEO in Five Years,” SEO is going to change in big ways over the next five years. Below are three areas where SEO will have the biggest impact.

1. SEO for Mobile Apps 

We all know how popular smart phones are and that people are constantly on them, so why wouldn’t mobile search become a big part of your SEO inbound marketing plan? Here’s the catch though: 85% of the time people spend on their mobile is spent in just a handful of apps. Therefore, search engine optimization for apps and the content within them is going to take on a new role within the inbound content marketing plan.

2. SEO for Social Search

We know that a lot of people rely on social media platforms when doing search on products and companies, so being present on these sites is important for your brand. They drive traffic to your site and create new leads. However, if you’ve noticed many times you never even leave Facebook when you click on a link that someone shared. Now, Twitter and Snapchat have also released features to keep viewers on their sites and apps rather than redirecting them to your website. What does this mean? Content may become more decentralized away from your website, so we will have to adapt to the new ways of optimizing our content for social.

3. SEO for Voice Search & Personal Assistants

The use of voice-activated personal assistants has been increasing over time. There are so many different ways to use these voice-activated personal assistants (computer, phone, tablet, watch, etc.). Most of us have some kind of voice-activated assistant at our fingertips. My niece attends a magnet school where they all get iPads and do a lot of work on the tablet. She uses the voice-activated assistant to search for things online regularly for school. So, why wouldn’t SEO start to take shape around voice-activated searches when a whole generation of future customers are getting acclimated to using them for search?

The newer generations are changing the way SEO will be done in the next five years. Most devices are connected to the Internet and each other. This also plays a part in the whole SEO process because search history and the way we search on each device may be taken into consideration in the overall search engine algorithm. If you’re not SEO conscience with your inbound content marketing plan, then it’s time to take another look and start preparing for what the future holds for your lead generation.

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Why Marketers Should Care About Wikipedia

Creating a good Wikipedia article involves careful research, good grammar, the addition of pictures and using appropriate vocabulary, making Wiki writers a tempting choice for a lot of people. Wikipedia, being an online encyclopedia has a very strict set of guidelines for its content. This means that you cant just write whatever you wish about the company, despite the best of intentions. You need to document your sources and follow the manual of guidelines outlined by Wikipedia for its articles. The stringent standards by Wikipedia can dissuade companies, business people and individuals from publishing Wikipedia articles about their company or selves.

I assume that you’re familiar with Wikipedia; if you’re looking for an official primer, I recommend a look at Learning the Ropes and How to edit a page for all the technical information you’ll need.

Why SEOs and Internet Marketers should care about Wikipedia
The benefits of hiring experts to write your Wikipedia article for you are numerous. First, you will avoid the bias that most people unknowingly put in to articles they write about themselves or affiliated companies. Second, the writers are already well versed in the guidelines and requirements of Wikipedia. They will save you a lot of time and hassle in the creation of an article. Regardless of your own writing skills or English comprehension level, you can get a professional and flawless article published on one of the world’s most visited and respected sites.

To begin, here are things you can do that will always be helpful to your page:

• Search for and fix spelling mistakes, e.g.: site:en.wikipedia.org Tuseday
• Look at the categorized list o articles needing images, pick a topic you are interested in and see if you can provide images for any of these pages. (Read the images and image use policy pages first.)
• Help overcome vandalism by monitoring edits with a tool such asMike’s Wiki Tool. This highlights new edits to you, which you can assess and revert if necessary.
• Think of any specialist knowledge you have, and find ways to add useful content to the relevant pages, particularly if you know of trustworthy references that can be included in the articles. (N.B.: don’t choose a topic like SEO; think of your hobbies, academic subjects, etc.)
• Search the list of Stub categories to find partially built articles that you could contribute to and improve.
• Create new pages (read: Your first article.) You may know of something valuable that is missing from the project, or visit the lists of Requested articles and Most wanted articles to find pages that the community would like to be created.
• Add references from news stories to appropriate pages.
• Find articles that link to disambiguation pages, and link them to the correct article.

Some tips for making edits to pages:

• Use the talk pages (click ‘Discussion‘ tab above an article) to discuss potential changes to an article, and to catch up on discussion about an article before you make edits
• Check the page history before editing (click ‘History‘ tab above an article) to check you are not jumping into the middle of an Edit war.
• When making edits, do leave an edit summary and do preview changes before you save the page
• Add pages to your Watchlist; this allows you to see edits made to your watched pages at a glance.
• Use the ‘What Links Here‘ sidebar link to see internal links to an article.

Wikipedia for SEO & Internet Marketing

If you have a website that you are promoting, it’s not unreasonable to link to it from Wikipedia, but want to make sure you are not submitting spam. Let’s get back to the bullet points:

• How can your site improve Wikipedia? Check the External link page for the criteria regarding which pages are appropriate to include in the ‘External links’ section of an article.
• Some article have unreferenced facts and need citations. Check if your site is a reliable source on a topic, in which case it may be appropriate.
• Find Wikipedia pages that may be related to the site. Use the Wikirank tool to see the number of daily visitors a page receives.
• Make sure the page is good; it should contain useful, well written content. Make edits to the article to improve it.
• To add a reference within an article, read the page about Citing sources and look at the sample code on the Cite web. Use an accurate title, probably the title of the page being linked to.
• As the guidelines linked to above explain (and as other editors will tell you if you stray into the territory) the project won’t benefit from linking to sites that are not authoritative, or that are very commercial (e.g.: they are sales/promotion pages or exist only to generate advertising revenue.)

Being linked to from a Wikipedia page can bring significant traffic to a site. Here are three of the top reasons why:

1. Referred traffic

This can be particularly true on a short article with only one or two useful looking references.

2. NoFollow does not mean NoUse

Can a link from Wikipedia actually help a page rank? Over at SEOMoz, Will hinted that Wikipedia links may be used for discovery, and may even pass weight.

3. Scraper Sites

Wikipedia is available to copy and republish under a GNU license, so the articles are often available elsewhere online. There are even ‘scraper sites’ that copy most or all of the articles.

4. Bonus: Wikipedia as an authoritative directory

An extra benefit of being linked to from Wikipedia, is that if someone is looking for an authoritative page on a topic to link to, Wikipedia may well be the first place they look to find such a link.

Online Reputation Management and Wikipedia

If you’re managing the online reputation of a company, brand or individual, Wikipedia can either be a blessing (having it ranking highly can reduce the visibility of a less neutral page) or a curse (see: Wiki-Circularity.)

Back to the bullet points, beginning with how to make a Wikipedia page rank higher for your search term:

• Wikipedia is very bad at redirecting pages when titles / URLs change. Hence, decide exactly what phrase you want to rank for before you begin, and make sure that the article page is moved before you begin, if needs be. See: Moving a page and Merging and moving pages.
• To help a Wikipedia article rank for a specific term, work to build internal links to the page. Using appropriate search queries, you could find articles that mention the topic, but that don’t link to the page; update them to do so.

However, if a Wikipedia page is causing reputational issues for you or a client, you have a variety of options.

• To begin: if there are libelous comments on a page about a living person, Wikipedia has very thorough guidelines regarding biographies of living people. This page includes details of how to deal with issues of defamation; the BLP Noticeboard can be used to report and discuss such issues.
• For issues not regarding an individual, you will want to temper or remove the offending content from the page. If the content is not written from a Neutral Point of View, this is a good reason to edit it. Be aware of the project’s rules about conflicts of interest, and do consider Wikipedia’s dispute resolution
• If an issue exists for a brand / person that doesn’t fulfill the criteria for notability, then you could apply for the article to be deleted. This happens via a proposal for deletion or speedy deletion.
• It can be important to respond to such issues quickly. Since Wikipedia is free to copy and duplicate, incorrect information could be scraped from the site and published elsewhere online, and fixing the issue at the source wouldn’t remove all published versions of the false content.
• Before the page is deleted, check the ‘What links here‘ page, to find its internal links. After deletion, remove these links from the other articles.

So, that’s the semi-brief run through. A couple of extra pointers would be:

• Don’t just build content on the site, but build relationships too. If you are friendly with various editors (particularly those who edit the pages of any clients who could potentially suffer from Online Reputation Management issues) then you can call on them to make or revert edits if the worst happens.
• Having a number of Wikipedia users within your organization can be very useful.
• Don’t just use your Wikipedia accounts for client work, as your client list could become very obvious to someone who realizes. Contribute across a range of topics, and try to do it regularly to keep you account strong and trusted.

Leave your comments below!

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