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SEO Doesn’t Look Like It Did Last Year

A perfect search engine optimization strategy has been the stuff of dreams since, well, the beginning of search engines. Since that time, SEO has gone over so many facelifts and iterations that seemed to completely reinvent what it meant to maintain “best practices” when it came to search engines. As recently as a couple years ago, “link building” was hailed as SEO king, and link building networks found themselves in high demand.

Too often, the trend of providing SEO work became about ‘tricking’ the search engines, particularly Google. Funny, since what search engine companies have always wanted hasn’t really changed in two decades: Google and its competitors simply want to provide the best, most relevant search experience for their users. This is what keeps searchers coming back for more. Over time, they’ve perfected their search algorithms to better achieve this goal by excluding results which try to game the system.

Professional SEO outfits know this, and have for some time. More and more, working in SEO means becoming proficient in a larger number of tasks than ever before in order to guarantee Google’s good graces.

First of all, if you want to be working in SEO in 2018, you’d better know how to write and prepare some great content. More and more now, SEO positions look for someone who can create the actual content that will help to populate, update, and keep their web properties valuable. This means that being able to write blog posts, scripts videos, create images in Photoshop, and more should be in your CV’s skill list. Let’s face it, SEO now is an aggregate of other tasks and companies aren’t looking to pay four different salaries to have them accomplished when one ambitious employee with a bit of know-how can make it happen.

You also need to be a strong team leader. This is truer if you’re working in a brick and mortar company than if you’re doing SEO for your own blog, but it’s still relevant to enterprises of any size. A large part of an SEO expert’s job is educating others. Because content creation, social engagement, and more all tie into SEO these days, it’s important than anyone and everyone on a team have a basic working knowledge of what SEO is and how you seek to achieve it. In a sense, your job is to help instill SEO into workplace culture so that employees are keeping search engine impact in mind when they work on their own projects. Even if you’re a solo marketer working from home, instilling SEO smarts in any freelancers you hire or business partners you might be taking on can be invaluable.

In the old days it seemed to be that everyone was preaching the “building” of links, when what they should have been on about was the “attraction” of them. Now, more people are catching on, and so should you. Create content that is so good it has to be shared, and make good use of social channels. Your goal should be to attract links from other people who want to repost and talk about your content – what was once limited to syndication is now expanded into the entire arena of social media.

And finally, always keep your eyes peeled for the next trend – the most successful SEO’ers don’t chase waves after they crest, they ride them as they form.

If your websites are WordPress blogs you may want to look into the “SEO Pressor” WordPress plugin that helps with Google ratings for your blog.

Check it out now!

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Facebook PPC – What Works, What Doesn’t Work, What’s Profitable

Facebook-PPC-What-Works-What-Doesnt-Work-What-Profitable

Facebook is one of the largest additions to the advertising giants of the world. Yet many internet marketers still haven’t made the most of what this platform has to offer. The reality is, most people are so used to the PPC model that they haven’t quite gotten their minds around how Facebook works just yet. Advertising on Facebook, though it’s charged by PPC, is really a completely different ballgame.

Understanding Facebook PPC shouldn’t be understood based on a “what’s different from AdWords” framework. Instead, it should be learned from the ground up. The psychology that goes into it is completely different, as are the methodologies you need to succeed.

Understanding Interruption Marketing

The most important point to understand about Facebook PPC is that you’re doing interruption marketing, not permission marketing.

With AdWords, you’re presenting people looking for a service with a solution. For example, someone types in “Cheap Web Hosting” and you advertise your hosting services. Your CTR’s going to be high, because people are looking for you.

With Facebook, you don’t get to target people who’re looking for you. You only get to target people who’re likely interested in what you have to offer – And you have to interrupt them as they’re browsing friends’ profiles, posting updates or uploading photos.

Targeting on Facebook

Facebook ads targeting works based on two primary factors: Demographics and keywords.

First, you absolutely need to know your demographics. If you don’t,

Facebook can be a very expensive place to test it. If you have other advertising alternatives, you should probably try those first and get a good sense of your audience before you spend money on Facebook.

Keywords can help you really narrow down a large audience. For example, if you’re advertising an online game, you could easily target people who’ve listed “gaming,” “Starcraft” and “League of Legends” as interests. You could also narrow your demographics to 18 to 28 males. Though there are definitely females who play online games, your ROI is going to be much higher with males.

To succeed on Facebook, you want to start with tight targeting.

Then once you’ve proven profitability, expand your targeting while broadening your reach. Your ROI will decrease, but volume will increase. Keep expanding until the ROI drops to a point where it’s not acceptable.

Creating an Ad That Catches Attention

In AdWords, the most important thing on your ad is your headline.

On Facebook, your headline scarcely matters.

What needs to catch attention on Facebook is your image. Your image needs to jump out and grab attention. Unusual images like babies with four eyes, optical illusions, IQ tests, beautiful girls and other such shocking images have done very well on Facebook because they interrupt people and get them to pay attention.

Your text just needs to play an informative role. Use the image to catch attention, then use the text to tell them what they’ll get by clicking.

If you combine a great image with stellar targeting, you’re likely to have a high CTR campaign on your hands. If you have a solid sales funnel and you split test well, you have a very good chance of landing yourself a very profitable campaign.

For a much more detailed breakdown on how to get massive traffic via Facebook get a free consultation over at FetchFunnel.com.

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Should You Advertise on Social Media?

Putting ads on social media like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter is an effective way to increase followers, build your email list, and to engage with your audience more. At this time in history, you can practically reach out and touch your ideal audience with just a few clicks of the mouse. But first, you must get their attention. One of the best ways to do that is to advertise on social media.

* It’s Inexpensive – You can place ads on any social media platform like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter with as little as 20 dollars and get results. This is amazing because other types of advertising are so expensive. You can test an ad inexpensively, tweak it, make it better, then run it again – increasing your budget based on your desired ROI.

* It’s Effective – Paid ads work very well since so many people are regularly on social media. If you plan the advertisement correctly, it will seem as if you’re just engaging with your audience more. You don’t want the ad to look like a TV ad, but instead more like another share with valuable information.

* Targeting Is Amazing – The way that you can laser target your audience on social media is reason enough to start using paid ads. You can run remarketing campaigns that show an advertisement to people who already went to your site but left without buying, for example.

* It Boosts Brand Recognition ñ Even if someone doesn’t click on your advertisement, they may still see it in their feed. That seeing can’t be undone, and the more times they see it, the more likely they are to act on the advertisement.

* Provides More Opportunity for Your Leads to Convert – If you really want to convert more leads, a direct paid advertisement on social media is an excellent way to accomplish it because you’ll reach more people than a regular post.

* Improves Your Brand’s Authority – Most social media ads will show that they’re ads with the word “sponsored” showing up on the post. While this might seem like a negative, it’s not. If you’re seen as someone who spends money on social media ads, your audience will realize you’re making money in your niche. This will then start to bring you up to authority status in their minds.

* Brings More Traffic to Your Website – Social media advertisements will bring more traffic to your website. Make sure you send them to an amazing landing page, specific to the social media site you’re placing the advertisement on.

* Builds Your Email List Faster – There is no doubt that using social media advertisements to offer a freebie (lead magnet) will help you build your list faster. But, it needs to be very targeted, solve a serious problem easily, and be set up correctly with the social media platform you’re using.

Paid advertising on social media, if targeting is sufficient, is an excellent way to increase brand loyalty while also spreading brand awareness. The more eyes you can get on your offers, the better. Using social media advertising is a good way to do it due to the costs and the amazing targeting technology.

Next…

Start writing your ads. Remember your Headline is the most important part of any ad. If you need some help check out Funnel Scripts. If you’re uncomfortable with selling you can use their templates.

Check it out here