“How to Build a Dominant Google+ Presence” plus 1 more |  |
| How to Build a Dominant Google+ Presence Posted: 08 Nov 2012 12:05 PM PST This guest post is by Ryan Howard of Denver SEO Kings. Google+ is the hottest game in town when it comes search engine placement gains—at least for the time being. We’ve run multiple tests and so have a few other agencies we know, almost with unanimous consent that preferring Google+ for the hours you dedicate to social media offers the greatest ranking benefit. In this post we’ll discuss the top 5 ways to make Google+ work for you. When we talk about Google+ (Google Plus) there are a few different areas we need to address. That is to say, there are a few different ways that you can eke out some positive signals to aid in your search engine optimization promotion program, build your trust with Google, and move you up in SERPs. They are:
Google+ sharesThis is the best way to get Google’s attention. At least, we’ve seen the greatest gains from this effort in particular. A share means that someone shares your link on their Google+ profile by posting to their wall. Good quality content that you post to your Google circles or on your blog will do the trick. One thing that we’ve been doing lately is to host funny images on our site and then share them on Google+. When people +1 the posts, or reshare them, we get credit, since the image is hosted on our site. In addition, if people navigate to the image itself, we’ll get more site visits. Here’s a video I made to show exactly how to host images on your site to get traffic. Google+ counterThis is the little widget that you add to your site so that visitors can +1 your content when they are there. Adding this widget will let people vote your site up with +1s. When they do so, Google will give them the option to post their vote on their individual Google+ profiles, which gets you a link on their profile and also exposes your site to all of their followers. Plus 1 votes are also a ranking factor in Google’s search algorithm. The addition of the +1 counter widget is very simple and excellent documentation on it can be found at the Google Developers site. You can alter how the button looks, change its width and annotation, and try some advanced options as well. Pro tip: Under the Advanced options dropdown, be sure to enter your website’s URL in the “URL to +1″ box. This will make doubly sure Google properly counts all of you +1s. Once you have the +1 tag and script written into your code, the counter widget will display on your site wherever you decide to place it. It’ll look like this: It shouldn’t be too difficult to get your friends to help you get started with +1′s. Don’t overdo it, though. Going from 0 to 100 in a day will surely send up a red flag in the Google Search algorithm. Google circles addsIn addition to shares and +1s, you also want your personal profile to link to your website, and having a more powerful profile gives you more clout (or Klout). You’ll want to add excellent content to your profile to keep people engaged and interested, commenting on your posts, and so on. But you’ll also need an audience to reach. Here’s how to get started. First, add all of your gmail contacts to your circles—hopefully they’ll follow you back. That’s a great start. After that, we want to add more shared circles, which will cause people to add you back. Here are a few recommended searches to help you find more shared circles:
Having a built-out profile with a good profile image will help you get more people to add you back. No one wants to add a profile that looks empty or spammy. Google+ company pageAs a Google+ user, you can also create and manage a company page tied to your site. From your profile, click your small profile image at top-right. The dropdown that appears will allow you to add a page. Otherwise, you’ll see the link to “View all of my pages”. Click that to go to the Page add screen. Here are a couple screenshots of the initial setup process: Setting up a Google+ page is very similar to setting up a personal profile. You’ll want to be sure to include your URL so that the page links back to your site. Also, you’ll want to add an icon on your website that links back to the Google+ page. The main difference between a page and a personal profile is that you can’t follow individuals as a page unless they follow you first. You can, however, follow other pages. This will make getting page followers a bit more difficult, but the solution is quality content and regular posts. Keep the content that you post relevant to your business. We like to add snippets from our website blog, funny internet-related images, and so on. Google authorshipGoogle authorship ties all of these elements together and really connects your Google profile with your website. Search results that have an individual’s image next to their blog, post, or website are all utilizing Google authorship. Google even lets you sort results by only selecting things from that author. The technical integration of Google authorship requires an entire post of its own, and the best and most easily followed guide we’ve found is How to Set Up Rel=author. Are you making the most of Google+?That concludes our survey of the ways Google+ can help your site earn additional trust signals in the eyes of Google’s search algorithm, and improve your site’s visibility. We covered the following methods for promoting your Google+ presence.
These really are the top five. You should have each of them working for your Google profile, and linked to your website where possible. Following these steps will not only increase your reach into additional markets, it will also give your website a nice boost in the SERPs. Ryan Howard is Head of Search for Denver SEO Kings a WordPress digital refinery and search strategy firm. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger How to Build a Dominant Google+ Presence     |
| Work With Private Advertisers to Keep them Coming Back Posted: 08 Nov 2012 12:01 PM PST This guest post is by John Burnside of moneyin15minutes.co.uk. If you have a blog or website then I'm sure that you will have looked at various ways to earn a bit of money for all your blood, sweat and tears. There are so many ways to do it. You've got pay per click, affiliate programs, or advertising to emailing lists, plus dozens of other methods. But if you take a look at some developed blogs within your niche, you are likely to see an Advertise With Us page in their top menus. This is where private advertisers will come to find out prices—and where you can start earning a more stable living online. Let’s look at a few key things you can do to target these advertisers, and start building relationships with them. Set up your Advertise With Us pageIf you don't have one of these on your blog, you need to build one. If no one knows you’re selling advertising space, you’re not going to get any customers. This page should include pictures of where the adverts will be placed, explain what type of ads you’re selling (e.g. text links, banner ads etc.), and provide a contact box so that would-be advertisers can contact you straight away. I believe that you should also include the pricing for each advert slot on this page because this can smooth the communication that follows. But if you have confidence in your blog, you could simply say, “Please contact me for details on pricing.” If you’re happy with your site’s traffic, include those details on the page too. If an advertiser knows how many views they are going to get for the price, that will give them more confidence in purchasing. Another tip: label the ad spaces that have already been taken up by other businesses. This will show potential advertisers that your site is in demand. Excellent Advertise With Us pagesWhat does a great Advertise With Us page look like? Here are a few choice examples: clear and concise pages that will attract a lot of business.
Price your ad space competitivelyIt can seem like the biggest decision you are going to make, to decide on your pricing. But don't spend to long wondering where the threshold is between what advertisers will pay and what is too much. The best way to decide is to see what other people in your niche are charging and then judge your offering against theirs. I would recommend going to at least five blogs within your niche, and checking out their ad pricing. Then use tools like Alexa.com and the social proof (amount of comments, Facebook likes, retweets, etc.) those sites are getting to judge how much traffic they are receiving. Then you can compare those results against yours and make a decision about how much you should be charging for your ad space. Be prepared to negotiate on priceWhen advertisers contact you, they usually are happy to pay the price that you have stated on your advertising page. If you haven't stated a price, or the customer is after a bargain, then they might try and negotiate with you. Keep in mind from the start the price that you would like to get, and your minimum price. If you have these figures in mind, you won't fall into the trap of going lower than you should, and devaluing your advertising space. If this happens, the next time you deal with this person they are going to expect to get the space for the discounted price again. As you’re negotiating, keep in mind how much work this person is either likely to send you, or has sent you in the past. This is particularly important for deals where the advertiser have already tested out your website, and want to come back to you with a longer term deal. For example, if they have tested you previously with one or two tweets and paid the full price, and now they want a series of 15-20 tweets, you may decide this is a legitimate reason for them to expect a discount. Attracting advertisers yourselfSometimes you think you've done everything right. You've got plenty of traffic, set up an advertising page … and yet you're just not getting contacted by anyone. Well, there are things you can do to attract those elusive advertisers to your blog. The first one is a passive way to get more advertising customers, but it can be very effective in the long term: do a bit of search engine optimization on your advertising page. If you target the proper keywords, you could get organic traffic from Google specifically comprising advertisers. Perhaps go for the keyword “advertising on a (your niche) blog.” It's a long-tail keyword, so there probably won't be too much competition for it, but any traffic you get from it should be advertising gold. A more immediate approach is to directly email the types of people that you feel would be interested in buying advertising on your blog. First of all, you want to contact any advertisers that have used your blog before. They represent your best chance of immediate business: you know they’re interested in your service, and hopefully they were satisfied with it. You never know—they may be looking for a site to advertise on, but have simply forgotten about you. If you are just getting to the stage where you think your site is ready for private advertisers, you could consider doing a bit of cold emailing to people who might be interested. Not sure who’d be interested in your ad space? Let me use my blog as an example to explain. I am in the make money online niche, and to attract new advertisers, I would contact people who have sales pages offering make money systems for sale. Look for pages that are selling products, but products that you think your readers would be interested in. Once you have found a few sites, and the email addresses of their webmasters, it's time to send them some tempting emails. Remember while you’re writing the email that you are selling yourself and your site. Sometimes it's hard to do this—it seems like you're boasting—but keep in mind that you have a really good blog that can offer quality, targeted traffic for their product. Once you get going talking about how great your blog could be for them, you won't be able to stop! The final way of attracting advertisers if you don't have the time to search out products and send out emails, is to go to a site specifically designed to sell private advertising space, like Buysellads. This website advertises to a wide audience. All you have to do is place your traffic, your advertising options, your site, and your prices into your listing. They will take a commission on your advertising space, however, so be aware of that. Once you have attracted an advertiser from this site I would heavily recommend contacting them personally so that you can cut out the middleman, and make sure you get all of the money for your advertising space. Offer a good serviceAlways keep in mind throughout the whole correspondence what it is you are doing: offering a service. So, to keep your customer satisfied, you must be quick to respond and polite at all times. I usually start off my first response to a potential advertiser with a sentence like, “Thank you for your interest in my blog.” This shows that you are humble about your accomplishments, and appreciate the advertiser. Someone who feels appreciated will feel much more comfortable contacting you again. If they ask a question, answer it as clearly and fully as you can, and avoid being sarcastic or patronizing. This is an instant turn-off for anyone, let alone someone who you’re hoping to convince to part with their hard-earned cash. When they have asked about advertising, send them a list of all of the services you offer on your site, along with the prices so that if they would like to take you up on one of them, they already know what you offer. If you don't, you’ll create the impression that you aren't sure what to charge, or that you’re trying to hide something. Finally, if you do get work from someone, be sure that you can complete it on time and to the standard that they expect. If you under-deliver on any of your projects for them, they will never come back to you. Make a business partner for the long termThe final goal of any blogger who offers private advertising should be to get advertisers coming back month after month to use your advertising space. The main issue in achieving this will be how much traffic you have sent to their site, but there are some other things you can do to help keep them coming back. If they have used your site once, email them just before their time is up and ask them if they would like to renew their contract with you. You never know when you might make a recurring customer. You might also consider offering them a discount if they sign up for a longer term contract. Everyone likes to find a bargain, and if they know you already, and feel confident that you can deliver a good service, they could well be tempted. The most important thing to remember is that you want to build a relationship with these people. They are the ones who are going to pay for your blogging exploits, and they may well know others who are interested in advertising on your site. If you make a friend in advertising it could open up a world of possibilities for your blog that you don't want to miss out on. Do you allow private advertisers on your blog? Share your tips with us in the comments. This guest post was written by John Burnside a blogger in the make money online niche. If you want to read about earning an income online then please follow his feed. Originally at: Blog Tips at ProBlogger Work With Private Advertisers to Keep them Coming Back     |
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