Take this same concept and apply it to your SEO strategy on your blog or website. Before you start generating a blog post or landing page, revert back to your elementary school eduction for a second and recall that basic outline structure you wrote out hundreds of times.

SEO is just like writing an outline, and page rankings are just like those letter grades you used to receive. Set up your page headings correctly: Get an A+ in rankings. Set up your page headings incorrectly: Get a C- in rankings. In order to achieve SEO greatness, you have to have a plan of action – And that starts with figuring out the purpose and set up of your page.

Writing Your Page Outline

Writing an outline for your blog or webpages not only helps your rankings, but it helps you figure out the purpose of the page and what your main message is going to be. It’s really like laying out a blue print, a plan, a strategy. And it really does help in the writing process.

The first thing you want to do is think about the purpose of the page. What information is going to be delivered?

Then, list a title for the page followed by possible headings. These will become your H1’s, H2’s, etc. While you’re doing this, remember your keywords. Your page title and headings should contain keywords that help boost visibility and give your page “SEO juice.”

Along with laying out your title and headings, think about what your meta description should be. Your meta description is equivalent to a thesis statement when you’re writing a paper. A thesis statement is a short description of what the overall paper is going to be about, and the same goes for the meta description for your webpage. The meta description is what will show up in the search engines below your link. If you write a good one, people are more likely to click on it.

You will also need to consider links that will appear on your page. This is similar to pulling in outside sources, quotes and supporting information when writing a paper. Search engines like when you add links from other sources as well as links to other pages on your site. It adds to your reputation and contributes to your site authority.

How to Implement Your H1, H2 Tags

It’s easy to add the H1, H2, H3 tags into your webpage. If you use WordPress, they give you the option to create headings in the front end. But if you need to go into the backend to implement, this is just a matter of entering a little HTML code that correlates with your CSS.

Example:

<h1>Big Numbers Lie – Always</h1>

<h2>Lessons Learned about Big Numbers</h2>

<h3> Context sheds light on big numbers</h3>

As you can see, the H1 is the main title of the blog post, followed by the H2, which is a main heading within the body of the post, and the H3, which is a sub-heading to a main heading on the page.

Remember, you only want one H1 on a page. It won’t do your SEO any good to have multiple H1’s – Search engines see through you trying to put multiple H1’s in front of them. It will probably actually hurt your rankings in the long run.

Headings Help Usability

Using headings isn’t just beneficial for SEO and visibility, it also helps visitors read your page easier. By breaking up a blog post or webpage into sections using headings, bold text, links and images, they are more likely to read the entire page and take the action you want them to. If your page is just a huge block of text, visitors will probably just skim through, and end up leaving rather quickly.

So next time you sit down to write a blog post or create a new landing page for your site, take yourself back to Mrs. Smith’s English class and remember that SEO doesn’t have to be scary or overwhelming – You’ve already done it hundreds of times, you just didn’t know it.

1. Segments

It can be very easy to get caught up in the overall data provided on the dashboard or in any standard report. However, the key to fully analyzing the data of your business lies within segmenting out your traffic. One quick way many users segment their data is through the filter within each standard report.  For the purposes of this section I will be segmenting search data for the term “football” as this is the most popular sport for my website.  Below you can see the segmented data:

At the top you can see the total metrics for the entire segment as well as the top 10 keywords that contain “football” with their own corresponding data.  Even though this is a simple example, let’s say that this segment is one that you use on a monthly, weekly, or even daily basis for your reports.  You can easily use this segment at anytime by recreating it under advanced segments.

Click on “Advanced Segments” at the top of analytics and then on “+New Custom Segment” button on the bottom right corner of the drop-down box.  You will then be taken to this page:

First name your segment in the top form box.  Then choose the type of traffic you want to filter in the green box, which in this case is “Keyword.”  Fill in the rest of the necessary information in order to create your segment and under more options select which profiles you will be using this segment on.  Unless you have several related sites, you will likely want to chose the second option with the website you are working with.  Click “Save Segment” and your segment will be created.

Your segment now appears under “Advanced Segments” in the “Custom Segments” section.  You can simply click your segment and hit the “Apply” button and your segmented data will be filtered out throughout all of Google Analytics.

2. Custom Reports

Using Custom Reports is another feature that Google Analytics provides to save you endless amounts of time.  This will particularly help if you are generating reports with the same basic data month-to-month, week-to-week, or even day-to-day data.

To create a custom report click to go to the “Customization” section of analytics and then click “+New Custom Report.”

After that, you can edit your custom report to include whichever metrics you want to show as well as how you want your data to be drilled down.  For this report, I chose some basic metrics to show which mediums were the most successful in attracting, keeping, and converting visitors on my site.

From this sample report we can see that referral traffic brought the most visitors to the site and generated the most overall goal revenue.  However, it was organic that converted the best overall.  So if we click on “organic” we can narrow our data down even more:

After sorting by “Goal Value” we can now see which keywords generated the most goal revenue overall.  As expected for this local site, most of these keywords are branded terms.

You can also sort by referrer or other mediums to see which sites are bringing in high converting traffic, the most visits, etc.  All the data will be there in the custom report and you can return to it anytime under the “Customization” tab.

3. History

The way I see it, life can be broken down into the segmented graph below. Life can be distracting and getting sidetracked in analytics is no different.  Whether a co-worker presents you with something more pressing to take care of or the clock strikes 5:00 signaling the weekend, you can very easily lose your place in analytics.  Luckily for us marketing analysts, Google has created a new tool to help us remember what reports we were previously viewing.

In the upper left-hand corner there is a reports search box.  Simply click on the search box in the upper left-hand corner that reads “Find reports & more” and the last five reports that you were working on for that particular website will be displayed.  Click on any of them to simply revert back to which report you were on in analytics.

4. Shortcuts

Similar to the history feature, Google Analytics also allows you to save shortcuts to any report within analytics.  This feature works like saving a bookmark and can be very useful if there is a report that you view on a regular basis.

As a basic example above, I have filtered out URL’s that contain “soccer” within them.

I can then click on the shortcut button at the top of the page to name and create this shortcut that will take me to this exact filtered out report.

The shortcut will then appear on the left sidebar under “Shortcuts” and then I can easily navigate to this “Soccer” report at anytime.

Diving into Google Analytics can be stressful and tedious, but it does not have to be.  You can save time and stress if you learn to use the tools and features provided, or just ask an analyst. Leave your analytics comments or questions below.

Lessons Learned about Big Numbers

In a phenomenon that is not just peculiar to the digital marketing industry, people love big numbers. Big numbers communicate a sense of accomplishment, movement in the right direction, and that things are “good.”

Context sheds light on big numbers

However, I have learned one important principle during my years in online marketing, and that is that big numbers always lie. They lie because they lack context. The more context added, the more numbers become smaller, more understandable, and then finally: small numbers that tell the true story, and communicate the Why? How? and What? which all enable you to take action.

Those numbers are great, but what’s your ROI?

I learned this principle very early in digital marketing as I was building websites to sell real estate properties in the mid 1990′s. I sold a number of properties based from the leads generated by those websites, and one day I decided to analyze the numbers. Starting out, the numbers were impressive. 95% of my leads were generated from search referrals. The sheer number of search referrals was impressive, and I averaged 20 leads a month from these sites. However, that big number told a boldfaced lie.

When i compared my sales to those leads, I learned a harsh lesson. Not one of those hundreds of leads turned into a sale. Nope, not one.

All of those #1 rankings, high lead conversion rates, tens of thousands of search referrals, impressive visitor numbers, and pages viewed meant nothing because none of my search traffic generated any sales. So where did they come from?

Every sale generated in one year came from a link that I purchased on another website for $25/year. While not generating nearly as impressive numbers compared to search, it was steady, substantial, and the best source of quality leads generated by my website. The return on that investment was one of the best I have ever seen, as the $25/year investment generated over a million dollars in sales.

The LinkedIn Top 5% – Small Numbers Lie, too

Then last week I received an email from LinkedIn. Let me preface the rest of this article: I love LinkedIn. Of all social media, LinkedIn is my favorite.

Now, this email was interesting as it congratulated me on being in the top 5% of LinkedIn profiles. It then asked me to Tweet or Facebook this congratulatory message. I was just about to press Tweet This!, when the analyst in me took over. LinkedIn was also announcing that they hit the 200 million member threshold as well as announcing their top 5% of profiles. SO, on to the maths!

Crunching the numbers

If there are 200 Million members, then 5% of 200,000,000 = 10,000,000. I like the sound of being in the top 5%. But the top 5% is 10 million people. I liked the ego boost initially, but it wore off fairly quickly. To put it in even greater context, the population of the State of Ohio is 11.5 Million. The population of the US is estimated at slightly over 300 Million.

To say it in context, being in the top 5% is exclusive, as exclusive as living in Ohio.
Don’t get me wrong. I love living in Ohio, but I think you see my point.

However, it’s a brilliant campaign

Congrats to you LinkedIn, on a brilliantly conceived and executed marketing campaign. One of the methods of persuading people is to sell the “exclusivity” of the product. LinkedIn, being open to all, found a way to position itself to a finite group of people as being “exclusive.” Then, by positioning itself and offering a great ego boost (seriously, it’s an ego boost) to those members, LinkedIn was then thrust into the conversation on Twitter and Facebook, as millions of users announced their profile as being in the top 5%.

Brilliant. Making others do your link building, announcing and marketing for you. And, what’s even more, they are self-rewarded by doing so.

Brilliant.

With a new year, there comes new trends. Every 12 months (or 12 minutes) there’s something new grabbing our – and our clients’ – attention. Based on these new channels, methods or trends, we can start to shape our marketing goals to be more effective and profitable in 2013.

When’s the last time you created an annual content plan for your website, blog, email and social media channels? 

With so much out there competing for your audience’s attention, you need to have a plan in place that includes all of your marketing efforts. You also have to keep in mind that plans can and will change – keeping us on our toes and forcing us to capitalize on opportunities that were unforeseen during initial content planning stages.

A Blog Content Plan

Writing a blog on your website is one of the best ways to attract new visitors to your site and educate them on your brand’s unique positioning. Pair a blog post with a good call to action, links to other pages on your site, and useful content, and you’re on your way to becoming a thought leader in your industry – and to making more money with your website.

But first you need a plan…

1. Know Your Audience.

What do your clients or customers look for? Who are they? What will compel them to read something you have written? What topics will encourage greater interest in your products or services? Knowing who you’re writing to is the first step in creating a successful blog content plan.

How do you figure out who your audience is? Talk to your salespeople, read what people are saying about you on social media and in forums, have a focus group, do a survey, dig into your Google Analytics. 

2. Know Your Business and the People in it.

Sometimes we get tunnel vision at work and only think we need to talk to people who are in the same department as us. The truth is, to have a successful content plan, you have to know what’s going on at your company as a whole.

Communication is key – Talk to other departments about what their yearly goals are, what events are happening, trends, or if they have any ideas for blog posts.

3. Plan According to Seasonality, Events, and News.

Have a column in your marketing plan that is designated for events that you know will be happening throughout the year. Your blog can be a great place to inform people about your accomplishments, or where they can find you. Also be aware of seasonality. For example, you might have a lot to write about during the winter months if you are selling snow gear. Plan to write articles 4-6 weeks in advance for event specific or seasonal topics.

A simple blog post about a company event or accomplishment is a simple way to keep content fresh on your site.

4. Optimization.

Include a column in your content plan for “keywords.” Optimizing your blog posts is essential. Sometimes keywords can change throughout the year or might be different according to the topic of your article. Writing out the words that you need to focus on will help you and your writers create a post that is web-ready instead of having to have your SEO person go back through and optimize on every single article. This will also help you lay out your keyword strategy, targeting different keywords on each article and avoiding cannibalizing your own rankings.

Do keyword research every so often to see how people are searching for you or the topics you are writing about. Google Trends is an easy tool to see this information.

5. Supplemental Material.

As you are creating your content plan, add a column for supplemental material. Supplemental material can be anything from a video idea, an image, links, or other articles.

Always include internal and external links in your blog posts. You want people to navigate around your site through the blog post and you want to encourage link building by providing external links to other quality websites. Make sure that all links make sense, and are sprinkled throughout the text. A good rule of thumb is to have 70% links internal and 30% external. Avoid linking to generic words/ phrases like “Click Here” or “Check Out.”

6. Bringing in Social Media & Email.

Write example Facebook posts or Tweets that go along with the blog post you have written. Also plan to engage with your audience about things that your email marketing team is sending out, and make sure you let them know to feature a blog post in their next email update.

Social media and emails are some of the easiest ways to get people to see your blog posts. But you can’t simply Tweet a link to the article, you have to have give them a reason to click on the link, and you want the most people possible to see it, which is why using hashtags is important too.

7. Be Prepared for Changes and Additions.

Since our attention is being fought for 24 hours a day, be ready to modify your content plan at any time. Just this past weekend during the Super Bowl blackout, brands were capitalizing on the 15-minute event using clever images, tweets, and posts to further expose their brand (a much cheaper way to communicate with the masses than paying for a Super Bowl commercial time slot).

Don’t expect your content plan to stay the same throughout the year. You can’t predict the news and you can’t predict industry trends. It’s okay to modify, but stay consistent and prepared. 

The bottom line is that no matter what’s going on on the outside, your business should be prepared and working together on the inside. Having a plan of action is essential, and being able to think on your feet is vital. When your staff is working like a team, you’ll be able to pick up on trends quicker and know how to communicate to your audience better. You’ll also be able to optimize your content to not only make sure that lots of people see your content, but that the right people are seeing what you have to say.

If you ever had a bulletin board in your room growing up, it was probably covered with pictures and notes all showing off your personality, hobbies, dreams and ideas. The same goes for Pinterest – A way to organize and share all of the inspiring things you find on the web. Think of it as a virtual bulletin board.

Pinterest is particularly great for small businesses because it helps you reach your audience in a very creative way – Showing them that you as a business have a strong message and personality that has the ability to inspire and visually connect the brand with the targeted audience.

Getting Started

Create a business page.

Make sure you select the appropriate business type and correct contact information.

Fill out a descriptive “about” section along with your location and website.

Also be sure to select “off” under the search privacy section. You want search engines to include your Pinterest profile in search results. Google is indexing and crawling Pinterest and it is a site that shows up quite frequently in search engines.

Not to mention your friends who have been Tweeting incessantly about binders full of women, Obamacare, and anything and everything to try to convince everyone else that who they’re voting for is the best choice.

So you might be thankful that tomorrow is Election Day and you’ll be able to continue living your life “ad-free.” But the truth is, your business can learn a lot from the 2012 Election and how digital marketing helped both party’s utilize their current followers, and convert the undecided to loyal voters.

1. Know Your Message

We can all recite each party’s running slogan:

Obama – “Forward”

Romney – “Believe in America”

Even if you couldn’t recite both slogans, you probably know at least one of them. Sending a clear message to your audience is vital. Make sure that your “about” page on your website and all social media channels are filled out. If people don’t know who you are and what you’re all about, they aren’t going to become loyal customers.

Having a slogan or mission statement also helps your brand stick in the minds of your audience.

2. Know Your Audience

Romney and Obama gather data on all of us in order to figure out what ads we should be seeing. For example, a self-employed 30-something mother will see a different ad on YouTube than the 50-something unemployed male.

While most businesses do not have the access to the kind of data the candidates have, you can still conduct surveys, hold focus groups and explore Google Analytics, and social media Insights for more information on the people who follow your brand.

Knowing your audience is key in your online marketing strategy. If you don’t know your audience, your messaging will not reflect the kind of content that your audience will benefit the most from.

3. Leverage Loyal Customers

When Barack Obama announced that he would be running for president in 2008, he launched a huge social media and internet marketing plan. Some said that that strategy alone helped him win the election to John McCain, who barely had a presence online.

Fast forward four years, and President Obama already had millions of followers online that he could use to build an even larger audience this time around.

Using current customers who believe in your brand for testimonials and interaction on your social media channels will help others see that you are engaging with your audience and that you care about what they have to say. A message or testimonial coming straight from the customer’s mouth goes a long way.

4. Be Consistent

From the font and color choices to the logos and photos, Obama and Romney are consistent across all channels including TV, print and internet.

When you are creating your internet marketing strategy, make sure that the same logo appears on your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest and website. Make sure that you have your CMYK/RGB codes so that you are using consistent colors. Make sure that the voice of your brand remains the same. And pay close attention to who is running your site and social media channels, making sure that they have a grasp on your messaging and voice.

5. Research

In an SEO infographic published by Rise Interactive, the importance of keywords and an SEO strategy for the 2012 election is evident. Each candidate ranks for different hot button keywords surrounding the election including healthcare, taxes and job creation. For some terms, Obama’s site does better. For others, Romney’s. This means that each camp has taken a lot of time to optimize for keywords to make sure that their candidate outranks the opponent in the search engines.

It is important for your business to pay close attention to keywords and optimize for relevant terms that can help your search engine rankings. Roll up your sleeves and do the research!

Having an SEO plan is essential to any internet marketing strategy, and is the difference between converting a customer or losing one to a competitor.

Above all else, remain truthful and honest to your customers. During an election, it’s hard to sift through all of the junk to find the truth. Don’t make your followers do that. Always deliver a clear message and practice exceptional customer service.

Oh, and never bash your competitors…Even if you do have a better product or service than them.

Open Rates

Sunday overwhelmingly beat out the other days with a 12.3% open rate average. This translates into people planning for their week ahead from home. It is evident from this report that emails sent earlier in the week are opened more frequently.

Click Through Rates

Sunday also beat out the other days in click through rates with an average rate of 5.1%. Thursday is the second highest day for clicks, but definitely behind Sunday. This one is probably the most important to pay attention to since it is ultimately the click throughs that will bring business to your site.

Time of Day

The study also took a look at what time of day emails were sent in terms of opens and clicks. There was a definite dip in open and click through rates throughout the middle part of the day. This trend most likely occurs because recipients are more preoccupied during midday hours and cannot check their inbox. Surprisingly, midnight and 4:00am had the highest open rate and the highest click through rate. Doesn’t anyone sleep these days?

So what does all of this tell us? Try sending an email campaign on Sunday at midnight or Thursday at 3:00am and see if you get a better response from your prospects or customers. It is important that you test every day of the week and at various times for your list. What works for you could be very different than what this study found.

Need help with your Email Marketing efforts? Contact SiteLogic today.

Lots of clients come to us and tell us that they make all their money from their PPC campaigns. They’re absolutely convinced that most (not all) SEO measures they’ve taken are just basic tactics to get out of the way and the real money and the ‘real customers’ come from their PPC ads. We always find this incredibly interesting. Mostly because they are so adamant about where their clients come from.

So, like Snoop Dogg on a Martha Stewart episode, we roll up our fair isle sweater sleeves and get to work. We examine the organic traffic’s engagement. We examine the paid traffic’s engagement. We consider the number of times customers have visited the site before they converted (bought the bacon) and how many times they’ve abandoned their chocolate-laden carts.

We look. We think. We analyze. And then, we deliver the bad news. At SiteLogic, we hate to burst bubbles. But we do it everyday. The fact of the matter is that the large majority of your clients that take an action on your site are doing so organically. Sure, they may have clicked through on your ads multiple times. But ultimately, for the most part, they are coming back to your site with new variations of their original search terms or just typing your domain name into their search box. You’ve become familiar after all that browsing.

What’s the point? The point is that all of your online marketing efforts working in tandem produce revenue. And really, at the end of the day, that’s a good thing to understand. Sure, we can segment the conversion rates of paid and organic visitors, but we’d like you to consider all site engagement – no matter what channel customers arrived through -  as total revenue, which is really the name of the game.

Just like Christmas sweater-swathed Martha Stewart and Snoop Dogg. Chris Tucker and Jackie Chan in Rush Hour. Hell’s Angels talking up Rodeo Queens during Sturgis. Take our word for it, or just watch for yourselves.

If you aren’t continually changing your website to improve usability for your customers, it’s time to stop resting on your laurels. With the holidays fast approaching, you need to consider these 5 steps to improved customer engagement & more online sales pronto:

Clear your clutter. Eliminate anything on your page that does not contribute to a sale.  And, if it takes me more than 3 clicks to put a product in my cart, enter my billing information and review my order, I’m buying somewhere else.

Trust. Establish it. Clean design, safe online merchant verification, clear return policy. Enough said.

Upsell. Show me what else I’m missing. If you aren’t cross-selling or up-selling me related products to what I’ve already put in my cart, you aren’t befriending me.

Invest in photography. If I can’t see the product up close, spin it around or see it in a room setting, you’re not doing everything you can to convince me I can’t live without that dining room table. I’m ready for the 360 – do you have it?

Tell me if I’ll get it. Immediately. Seriously, if something is out of stock, don’t wait two weeks to tell me. And, if it is out of stock, show me something else I’d love even more and close the sale.

The season is upon us. Don’t wait to make these simple changes and garner higher sales than ever before.

As a rule of thumb, rarely use rankings as a KPI because of the many factors that go into what is displayed in the SERP of Google. If you are dissatisfied with your position in organic search results, Geo-Ranking may be a helpful tool.

Geo-rankings

Geo-rankings at their core are variations in ranking position based on the location the user searched from. You may think of geo-rankings as “Google local search” but it goes much deeper than that. Local search mainly applies to businesses that operate in a small physical location. (restaurants, plumbers, doctors etc).

When you think geo-rankings, think larger!

A very simple example of this is a search query for “NFL Football Team.”

Search Location: Canton, OH

Results: 5 results on the first page for The Cleveland Browns

Search Location: Dallas, TX

Results: 5 results on the first page for The Dallas Cowboys

Sure we would expect to see these results in an NFL franchise, however the same principle applies to any website.

Case Study

SiteLogic conducted a study on a popular website that sells auto and racing parts nationwide. This particular study consisted of tracking 75 different keywords across 7 different locations.

What we found was that while no keyword ranking remained completely stable, there was an obvious difference in rankings per location.  Some of the difference in rank actually pushed the website from page 1 to page 2.

So why is this important?  It’s all about seeing opportunities. Understanding geo-rankings is a way to spot new or missed markets for your client.

Learn more about Geo-rankings in this article from David Towers

Geo-ranking SEO strategies, Where to start?

Now what? There are a number of things that can be done to improve rankings within different locations.

Keyword Research: Keyword research should always be at the top of your list. Learn what people are searching for, understand how they are referring to your products or services. Depending on the area (location) of service, there may be variations in the terminology used to describe what you offer. Track the rankings!

Landing or Custom Pages: Add new keywords to content and key SEO areas on your site such as page titles. Also create new landing pages and find pages on your site that can be edited to add location based information. Use your keyword research to drive this process.

External Links: Build links to support landing page content. Find and build links from businesses or websites that have a strong local presence within the targeted area. These types of links will provide good local “link juice.”  If you don’t have Google profiles create a Google+ Business page and a Google+ Places profile.

Internal Links: After you’ve built or re-optimized a page, be sure to link to it properly from your own site. This will show Google that this page is part of your entire site architecture.

Geo-rankings is a game changer for those who use rankings as a measure of success in their SEO. On one hand, rankings drive organic traffic, and without strong rankings you will never reach your traffic and conversion goals. On the flip side, rankings should never be the ultimate goal of SEO. Good rankings should drive quality over quantity.

Use Geo-rankings to enhance your SEO efforts, find new markets and improve in what you’ve already done.

SiteLogic contributed to the way Linkdex generates data. Jump onto www.linkdex.com to begin tracking your geo-rankings today.