A tremendous part of your Online Marketing strategy is to put industry relevant content onto your website and the Internet on a continual basis. Blogging is super important, but if you don’t enjoy writing, fear not! There are other ways to get your information out to the world.

The other benefit here is that if you diversify how you put out your content, it allows for a broader audience that you may not quite reach if you only stick with one medium.

Podcasts

The word “Podcast” derived from the combination of the words iPod and Broadcast (though, no iPod needed). Any computer, phone, mp3 player, etc, will play podcasts just fine. Podcasting is just like having your own radio show that your audience can download and listen to anytime, anywhere they want.

Podcasts are convenient because it allows people to listen anytime, anywhere- in the gym, on boring train ride to work, or wherever. Give them some good content to listen to! Just like these other ways to establish yourself as an industry leader, podcasting allows you to broadcast entertainment, education, and information.

You can talk about the latest news in your industry, law changes, speak with guests that your targeted audience would like to hear, review products you’ve used, the list goes on and on.

Google Hangouts

For those not addicted to Google services like myself, Google Hangouts are part video chat, part video conferencing, part screen sharing, part live stream and part video recording. Got it? If you’re on a Google Hangout the screen will show everyone on their webcam, and puts the person speaking in a bigger frame up at the top. You can start your own live show and get it to the world.

Never underestimate the industry knowledge that you carry with you all day. There’s plenty of knowledge that people want (and need) to know.

Write a Whitepaper

People search for answers online, not necessarily knowing that they need your services. Why not offer them a step-by-step “101″ of what they’re looking for? A downloadable whitepaper is a lot like a Blog article, very authoritative, but more polished.

Whitepapers help people and businesses solve problems. Make them into pdf’s and make them downloadable. If people are interested in your Whitepaper, they’re probably looking for your services. Ask the visitor to give you their email address to get the download. Setup an email autoresponder that’ll email them with the whitepaper after they submit it.

Remember to tag your whitepaper links so you can track your visitors in analytics!

So there are some other ways to help you be known as that “Go-to Person” when people think of anything in your industry!

Have any others that you like to use?

The post Become The Authority In Your Industry Part 2 appeared first on Dot Xero.

One of the best way to establish yourself as an industry leader is to help your target audience solve common problems they’re facing in their industry with valuable information on a consistent basis. There are so many different platforms and websites to get your valuable content out to the world! Most of those channels can now be branded to match your company. Smartphones keep people connected 24/7. So if they’re already on there, you just need to put your great content in front of them. Use your Analytics to see what’s working. So how should you start?

Blog

Let’s start with the center of your company’s online world- your website. The basics of your website are who you are, what you do and how people can find you. However, it can’t end there! You need to have a Blog. A Blog is just part of your website that allows you to post articles anytime you want, without having to know any website code. As a business owner, you need to Blog on a continual basis with relevant information that your target audience needs and wants to hear. I know your next statement- “I don’t want to give them everything, or they won’t need me”. Don’t worry, people won’t be able to capture your talent, skill, years of experience and enthusiasm for your industry, just by reading your Blog. I’m allowed to represent myself in a Court of Law, but never would.

What should you Blog about? You can start your Blog with (change the %’s based on results along the way):

• 50% posts about your industry. That would include news, law changes, common questions people ask you.
• 25% posts about your company, like awards your company has won, conferences someone from your company has spoken at, maybe some video or photos of that speech.
• The last 25% of posts should be loosely personal. The Internet is a cold, dark, impersonal place. These loosely personal articles allow people to get to know you a bit more beyond the business. If you’ve ever been out business networking, you’ll see that you get to know more people by establishing a relaxed relationship first. Light conversation as opposed to trying to hammer every person you see to give you business. By loosely personal blog articles- if you’re on a cruise and you met someone else in your industry from another part of the world- you may want to talk about how you met, and their views of the industry- maybe even have them guest blog on your website.

Guest Blog

Maybe your website is still being developed and you don’t have your company Blog up yet. Not to worry, there are still ways to get your word out. Writing a guest blog for another person’s website is one of the best things you can do to bring yourself credibility. Think of yourself as being brought in as the Industry Expert, which is a tremendous referral from the website owner. Run with it. Be that Industry Expert with confidence. You’ll also get a link from another website to yours (you have a website, right?). Not to mention, you’re doing a favor for the person whose website you’re blogging on because you’re adding good content to their website, which will keep people coming back for.

YouTube

For some people, writing is like torture. Fear not! There’s still a way to get the great information from your head, to your audience. Video. YouTube is like having your own cable channel. Some quick YouTube stats from YouTube’s Press Statistics:

• 800 million unique users visit YouTube each month.
• Over 4 billion hours of video are watched each month
• 72 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute

People are watching! You can do whatever you want on your videos (within the law). You can promote products, start your own talk show, interview people in your industry, show your past presentations, do screen casts and much, much more. So if you don’t like to write, grab your video camera, webcam or phone camera and just record what’s on your mind, and upload away. Spoke on a webinar? Get the correct permissions and upload the webinar to YouTube. YouTube is the second most used Search Engine, right behind Google, so use it! Want more info? See Why you should have your own video channel.

Slideshare

You gave a great presentation, and uploaded the video of your speech to YouTube, though people can’t make out the slides behind you. No problem. Slideshare is for sharing presentations of any type, be it Powerpoints, PDF’s, webinars, videos and documents. Sync mp3 sound files with your slides, then embed them right onto your website, share slides publicly or privately. Upgrade to the Pro version of Slideshare for more branding, analytics and much more. Slideshare even has a Slidedeck on why you should use Slideshare (embedded below).

In closing, until I post a Part 2, set yourself a goal. Pick one of the above platforms and start establishing yourself as the Industry Leader you were born to be. This will help your business because: Authority + Trust = Conversions.

The post Become The Authority In Your Industry Part 1 appeared first on Dot Xero.

The post How To Make A Blog Post On WordPress appeared first on Dot Xero.

Content marketing includes promoting your businesses’ Blog, sending out emails, Social Media management, Video marketing and more. The one I wanted to go over today was Video marketing. Video websites like YouTube allow you to start broadcasting your own content- much like on cable. You can run all of your own programming, have advertising, show screencasts, and pretty much, anything else you can think of. The best part? Video marketing doesn’t have to cost you a dime. It’s easy, convenient, it doesn’t have to be professionally produced, and it’s great for connecting with prospects.

Think of how incredible that is. YouTube, Vimeo, Viddler and many more, allow you to upload your videos and let the world watch and it doesn’t cost you anything. At last count, YouTube users upload 72 hours of video each minute! That’s up from 48 hours a minute a year prior.

Let’s explore YouTube a bit further.

• Until YouTube feels that they can trust you, you’re allowed you to upload videos 15 minutes long. This is to prevent the uploading of any pirated, copyrighted content. Once they like you, you get up to one hour. To get them to trust you, your account must be in good standing, you nned to have verified your account with a mobile phone, and your account has no worldwide ContentID blocks on on any content.
• The Social Aspect of YouTube – YouTube allows viewers the ability to subscribe to your video channel. Subscribers are alerted when you upload new content. They’ll be updated through email after you upload each video, or in “Subscription Updates” emails, which come once a week. Users can also “like” your videos, put a comment under them, share them on their Social Platforms and embed the video on their website. Obviously sharing them on their favorite Social Media platforms is a big part of how a video goes “viral”. Going “Viral” means that your video catches on like a virus, from one person to others. Keep in mind- one “share” on Twittter or Facebook can be seen by hundreds, possibly thousands of other people. Those others can do the same.
• The ease of YouTube – You can record videos with your webcam right from the YouTube website. You can also upload videos you’ve recorded already. Just click the upload link to the right of YouTube’s search bar. Our phones have truly amazing cameras these days. Not only can they take great pictures, but they can record great video as well. All you need to do is record from your phone and use the YouTube app to automatically upload the video.
• Annotate your videos. Talking about a specific topic ? Make it a point to give your viewers a link to the info by having the link show up when you talk about it. Besides links, you can also add notes, speech bubbles, titles, spotlights, labels, pauses and causes. Learn more about annotating your videos here.

At the end of your videos, make sure you ask people to subscribe to your channel, share your videos, like your videos, favorite your videos, comment on your videos. You want people to watch and interact, share, etc.

Though, even if you ask people to subscribe, not everyone will. You need to get people to watch your videos through other means- Email marketing, Social Media… and yes, word of mouth. Keep in mind- straight from YouTube’s mouth “All user Channels with greater than two uploads are indexed in search results.”.

What type of videos should you make? I’ll tackle that in another post!

What types of videos get your attention?

The post Why You Should Have a Video Channel appeared first on Dot Xero.

“Approximately 102 million mobile MAUs [Monthly Active Users] accessed Facebook solely through mobile apps or our mobile website during the month ended June 30, 2012, increasing 23% from 83 million during the month ended March 31, 2012.”

102 million people only used Facebook through mobile. That means we must be able to track referral traffic from Social Media Apps as opposed to just from the Social Media mobile website.

You, the business owner need to know what’s working and what’s not. Google Analytics give you a wealth of information, but it won’t know where to put referral traffic coming from offline (read: not in a browser) sources. So what’s the answer? Fortunately you can get a better grip on tracking these different visits. How? Tag everything! The UTM tagger (Urchin Tracking Module), named from Urchin, the company that Google bought the Analytics platform from in 2005.

UTM tags can be setup to track different parameters. Before throwing these parameters together, it’s best to think of the big, long term marketing picture. How your online marketing will be in the future so you can be consistent with the tracking. Here are the parameters:

Source- utm_source: This is the site you’re putting this link on. Examples are Facebook, Twitter, Email, etc. So, you’ll want to create a different one for each platform you want to track. So you may not want to be broad and use “Social Media” for all of your profiles, you’ll want to specify which one to target in the future- so make different tags for each and post them separately.

Medium- utm_medium: What medium are you using? This is where you can put Social, Email, payperclick, etc.

Campaign- utm_campaign: What promotion are you running? Is this seasonal- like: Summer Special, Cyber Monday, etc.

Term (not necessary)- utm_term: paid keywords for your pay per click campaign- Example-  golf course las vegas

Content (not necessary)- utm_content: For split testing, for separating 2 ads that may go to the same landing page- one would be Google and another Yahoo for example.

Here are some URL builders to make building your URLs a snap:

• Google’s URL Builder
• UTM.to which gives you the shrunken URL
• Using Chrome? Use this addon

To check the traffic you’ve received from it, log into Google Analytics and go to Traffic Sources > All Traffic > Secondary Dimension. If you’d like to sort it by a secondary dimension, click Secondary Dimension > Traffic Sources and select which one you’d like to sort by- Source, Medium, Campaign, etc.

Do you have a favorite URL builder that you use? Maybe another tip that I’ve missed? Put it in the comments!

The post Google Analytics – Tag Everything! appeared first on Dot Xero.

I’m here to tell you that over the years, I’ve evolved along with our constantly changing Internet. The goal now is to have your content found everywhere your prospects spend their time online. That can be many, many places.

Let’s step back and see how Businesses want a prospect to find them.

People will search industry keyphrases to find what they need- like Las Vegas Commercial Real Estate, Las Vegas Auto Insurance or Stupid Bumper Stickers. They’ll eventually narrow down the results to businesses they’d like to deal with. When they want to go back to one of  the businesses they’ve picked, they’re going to type your company name into a Google search bar as opposed the exact url into the url address bar.

Before they click your company (which should be result #1), what else do they see? Do they see some not so flattering newspaper articles about your company? Maybe where you’ve worked previously? How about the oh-so-common Ripoff Reports that all businesses just love? Your mission, if you choose to accept it is to take control of page 1 of Google when someone enters your company (or your personal name).

You must own the first page of Google for your name

There’s no question, you want to be on the first page for your targeted keywords and phrases, but just as important is when the searcher looks up your company, or your name.

Go ahead, do a search. I’ll bet you see a lot of the results of pages of where you’ve already been. That’s because Google uses your IP address and your Google account’s past history (if you’re logged in), as well as other factors (Google +) to give you results based on your previous clicks. Here’s how to get unjaded results in your web browser:

Chrome: Wrench > New Incognito Window

Firefox: Firefox Dropdown > Start Private Browsing

Safari: Edit > Private Browsing

Internet Explorer > InPrivate Browsing

Now, do the search. Results are differnt, huh? This is a better example of what someone who doesn’t have your search habits will see.

How can you own it?

If you’ve ever looked at your Analytics, you’ll see that many people search for many different mind boggling things. Now with all the social sites, you have to incorporate into your thinking that many people spend their time on many different websites/social networks. From YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and the new Google Plus.

Start a Blog? Google changes their algorithm all the time – (500+ times in the last year), but the thing that will always help is good, original, industry relevant content. You can easily contribute good content with a simple Blog on your website. I always say, Social Media starts with your Blog. Are you a resource for your industry? No? Then be one. Be the go-to-person that people automatically think of when they think of your industry. Contrary to popular belief, knowledge isn’t power. It is the use of knowledge that is power. Very easy- Post good content on your website on a consistent basis.

Get Social. There’s big controversy about Google having/not having access to Facebook and Twitter’s data, but one thing is for sure, Social Profiles show in Search. Get them. Claim your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and especially Google+ accounts. Track down profiles on Social Media sites that list your business- like Avvo which is for lawyers, doctors and dentists. These websites will find your business, have it listed and show it as unclaimed. Claim it and fill out the profile. At least you’ll have a bit of control over it.

Get your content out there. Believe it or not, people search other places than just Google. People looking for Presentations will probably look on Slideshare. Slideshare is one of the most popular places to store presentations. Anytime I speak, I always have people come to me after and ask for the slides. Get your presentations online, and once again, make sure you fill out your profile. Here’s a good example:

I always bring up a Realtor friend Dru Bloomfield.I know Dru through other connections and now keep in touch on Social Media. Dru loves taking pictures and uploading them to Flickr, which is a social media photo repository website. She had someone contact her about buying a home on a golf course in Arizona. She said, “I just uploaded pictures of that golf course to Flickr“. The prospect then said, “I know… how do you think I found you?” Fill out your profiles, include your website.

We all know people that would rather watch a quick video on a subject as opposed to reading about it. Get a YouTube video channel and ask yourself: “What would I do if I had a 24/7 cable channel?” YouTube is now serving an insane 60 hours of video uploaded per minute and 4 billion video views a day. It’s the second largest search engine (behind Google, the company who owns both). Attache a video camera and mic to your computer and record away. The videos don’t have to look professionally produced. It’ll actually be better if they’re informal as people can relate better.

Google realizes that people have different channels where they like to get their information. That’s why they use them in their search results. Make use of the profiles on these social media websites and link them up to your website. So when people find them on page 1 when searching for you… you’ll have your best foot forward.

What online channels do you like using for your business?

The post Your Company’s Online Footprint appeared first on Dot Xero.

So you’re at the point where you see the need to update your website, but aren’t sure what to change. Here are some of the things you should explore when redesigning your website.

Break down your Analytics – Whether you use Google Analytics or another Analytics program, this information gives you a wealth of information. Some of the things you can check are

• Where are visitors spending most of their time? Do these pages have calls to action? An example would be your Blog. If people are continually going to your website to read your Blog, do you have a call to action in the sidebar? If you’re writing about Health Insurance, do people know you’ll give them a free quote (if you do)?
• Where are people leaving your website? Are they consistently leaving the site from the same pages? Do those pages need to communicate better? Are those pages directing people to other area that can give people more information?
• Services like ClickTale, track and record your visitors website movements. I’ve literally seen people watch the recording and say “It’s right there!! Click it!!” With that being said, make sure your visitors can easily find the content you want them to find.

Check your Blog comments – Blog, blog, blog… I know, I always say it. You can get a lot from reading your blog comments. Are people asking for anything specific? Blog about it! If they’re asking about it enough, write a Whitepaper about it. To get the Whitepaper, just ask for their email address.

Does your website match your business model?

If you’ve had your current website for a couple of years, there’s a good chance your business may have changed a bit. You may want to put more focus on different services than you had with your other website. Think about setting up the direction you want to send your visitors based on the percentage of each service you want. You may be a corporate tax attorney and a bankruptcy attorney, and you want to get more clients in the corporate tax arena. Take that into consideration when you redesign the website.

Technology -

• Do you have someone in the office who is in front of the computer most of the day? You may want a Click-to-chat.
• Do you have a website that is mobile specific? Mobile websites are paramount now.
• If you Blog, do you have a way for your visitors to share it with their Social Media connections?
• Do you prefer to update your website yourself? You may want your website in a CMS (Content Management System) which allows you to easliy update your website on the fly.

There are plenty of other things you can look at when redesigning your website! Have anything to add? Throw it in the comments below. As always, contact me for more information.

The post How To Determine Changes On Your Website Redesign appeared first on Dot Xero.

At Google’s latest event, we’re shown how our search habits have been changed by our mobile devices.

Google has shown what most of us have already known. We use our phones for more that just making calls. A lot more. Not even including Social Media, we search the heck out of everything, all day and all week long- on different hardware.

As you can see from Google’s graph, search on the desktop/laptop starts strong on Monday, continues throughout the week, then drops off on Friday as we leave our jobs. Search drops off even more on Saturday as we spend time with our family and friends and away from our computers.

However, when we’re away from our computers, you’ll see that we still have the need to search. We still have the need to Google something- if you’re like me, you’re searching for places to eat, directions, pulling up a search to prove to a friend that you’re right about something.

You’ll see that the mobile search graph shows not only are we still searching, but our search increases on Saturday. Time away from our home/work computer = more time on our mobile computers.

Remember, these are graphs of search, not total Internet activity- Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, etc. This is just search!

Let’s take it down to the daily level.

From Google’s above graph, you’ll see that search peaks during the work day, then drops off slightly as the night goes on (we work later and later!). However, as seen below- when desktop search drops off, mobile search picks up.

Want to watch the whole event? Check it out:

Google sees the huge potential for mobile search. When do you do the most searching?

The post Mobile Search Engine Habits appeared first on Dot Xero.

If you want to actively promote your business to the public, a Facebook business page is a great way to do it. Your prospects and clients are already spending time on there sharing photos of last week’s party, lol’ing with their buddies, and checking up on news from their favorite retailers and other businesses. A business page allows you to keep your message in front of your clients and prospects on a consistent basis.

Business pages are public, so you can keep the pictures of yourself by the pool on your private personal page, and allow the people who want to keep updated on your business keep informed just by clicking the “like” button on your business page.

I don’t think Facebook business pages will replace company websites. With all of the changes (which sometimes seem on a whim) to the Facebook rules, layout and privacy, I think people know that leaving their content and functionality in the hands of Facebook decision makers might not be the best idea. However, Facebook can be used as a communication channel to your followers to keep them informed and drive them to your website when they want to inquire more about what your business does and is therefore a great marketing tool.

Business pages are easy to set up. You need an email address other than the email address you have for your personal Facebook page (Facebook currently only allows one email address per account).

Once signed up, you can invite people to “like” your business page. You’ll start with a name like Facebook.com/MyBusiness/1673568487369343
Once you get 25 people to “like” your business page you can get rid of the junk on the end of the URL and get a vanity URL- so it would look like this: Facebook.com/MyBusiness. Ask your existing contacts to “like” your page so you can get your vanity URL quickly, then post it and link to it from everywhere, especially your website.

When a user “likes” your business page, they’re allowing your business updates to appear in their timeline. Please don’t abuse this privilege by spouting out the same sales pitch over and over.

Facebook has different applications that allow your Facebook business page advanced functionality. These applications allow you to:
Give your Facebook page the same branding and look, consistent with your company website.
Import your company blog from your website into your Facebook business page.
Converse with people directly on your Facebook wall page
Put videos, product demos, slides, and more, on your Facebook business page with easy to use applications.

Look at Facebook like a networking event. There are already so many people there that you can develop relationships with to help your business. Though like any networking event, you need to show interest in them as well.
I can’t repeat this enough: Social Media is a two way conversation. Respect your community of followers (and their timelines) by asking for their input on products and services. Invite conversation. Show your interested users that you’re listening to what they’re saying and then build your community.

The post Getting Your Business On Facebook appeared first on Dot Xero.

Jakob Nielsen, the king of website usability (Crowned by Internet Magazine), has completed the study of what draws more visitors further in to your website. His conclusion:

Showing summaries of many articles is more likely to draw in users than providing full articles, which can quickly exhaust reader interest.

Now, I know that eye tracking studies don’t tell you everything, but this is a good indication of what might be better. Jakob Nielsen goes on:

If your first article doesn’t interest users, you lose them by “using up” all their interest as they wade through that first topic… On corporate blogs, summaries are usually superior to full articles because they let you expose users to a broad selection of topics. Offering more topics increases the likelihood that users will find something that really interests them and thus will click through to read more. (As opposed to leaving.)

Make sure you read Jakob Nielsen’s full article which shows the actual eye tracking studies.

The other problem I always had with showing the full article on the main Blog page is the way most Content Management Systems are setup. When your website visitors want to comment on your Blog, they won’t see a comment section even after they’ve completed the whole article. To comment after they’ve completed reading your blog post, they now have to click the title to get to the page where the post is by itself with a comment form at the bottom. I’ve rarely (if ever?… hmmm) seen the comment forms reside on the main Blog page.

You main blog page should function like the front page of a newspaper (yes, I just did use a newspaper as a good website example), showing different articles and letting people decide what they want to read. People can quickly see what article interests them and delve deeper into your website. People with Blog summaries on their blog homepage will be able to have more post titles showing potentially capturing the interest of a wider variety of prospects/clients.

The post Your Main Blog Page- Summaries or Full Articles? appeared first on Dot Xero.