Common Keyword Research Mistakes You Need To Avoid

There are several mistakes a digital marketer can carry out which may lead to unfavourable outcomes in terms of directing traffic to their websites and gaining business exposure. We will briefly go through the common keyword research mistakes you need to avoid.

1- Choosing a word which is highly competitive: Just because a word has a large number of searches does not mean that using that word in your website will increase traffic flow! Choosing a highly competitive word means that there are a large number of websites out there also using the same word. If your website is fairly new, the chances are that you won’t have much luck driving traffic to it using these types of keywords. Choosing a keyword which is less competitive will give you a much better chance in appearing higher up in search engine rankings, even if there are less searches for that particular word.

2- Inappropriate keywords: When using a keyword research tool for your campaign, there is a possibility you will lose sight of what you are looking for. When you search for a word in a keyword research tool , most of them bring up other words which can be associated with the word you typed in, but that does not mean that it has the same meaning or that it suits your website and what it is you are promoting. Just because a word has more searches does not mean that using it for your website will increase your profit. You want to find a word that is most relevant to your product or service, this way when people use this word they are most likely seeking your product or service and thus more likely to be willing to spend money on it.

3- Using keyword people do not use: A big mistake that seems apparent in some websites is that they use keywords that users are not likely to search for. Using terms which are unique to your business will work against you especially if you are a new business that is just starting out. It would be a different story if your business/brand is well known then people will be more familiar with your brand and any terms associated with it. You may wish to use a brand name as a keyword for your website, but if people don’t search for that word, how will they ever find you? You need to focus on words or terms that define your product or service. You need to put yourself in the customer’s shoes, if you were looking for your products/services, what words would you choose to search for them? Look for the most obvious words. Keyword research tools are particularly useful to help you in this area.

4- Using single word keywords: Think about it, when you search for something, how often do you use only one word to carry out your search? Unless you are looking for a particular well known brand or website for example eBay or Amazon, the chances are that you will need at least 2 words if not more! So it’s not a good idea basing your keyword research campaign on a single word. Also, single words are a lot more competitive giving you a lower chance of being found by customers.

5- Not spending enough time carrying out your research: Not spending enough time and resources on your keyword research campaign can lead you to achieving nothing! It’s not something that should be rushed. Choosing the right keywords can be the difference between your business making a profit and a loss so don’t you think it’s worth looking into properly? Not enough time spent on your campaign may lead to you choosing keywords that are not popular, that people don’t search for, or choosing words that are highly competitive and so give you a lower chance of success.

How To Manage Your LinkedIn Group Effectively: There is a massive opportunity in using LinkedIn groups. However, only a few individuals/companies take full advantage of it, the main reason being is that they don’t know how to manage their LinkedIn groups effectively.

By creating your own LinkedIn group (relevant to your business) you are creating the opportunity for thousands of people from the same business background to connect with you. You’ll be able to share and gain knowledge with your group members so it’s a win-win situation.

If you are thinking of starting a LinkedIn group but not sure how to run and manage it, here are some pointers to get you going.

How To Manage Your LinkedIn Group Effectively

1. Be active: and this is probably the main and most important step to bear in mind. Sending your new group members welcome emails when they join would add a personal touch that no doubt they will appreciate. Communicate with them how they can use your group and they can get in touch with you.
2. Show your members support and offer them help by sending them emails offering valuable information and advice.
3. Engaging with your group members is also vital making sure you participate as much as possible. Start discussions/conversations and make sure you add value, don’t focus too much on promoting yourself or your business.
4. Join in other group discussions and offer help and assistance whenever you can. This way your group members will gain your trust and.
5. Point out new LinkedIn features and how to use them so your group members can take full advantage of the features.
6. Promote your group on LinkedIn and ask your group members to do the same. Another idea is to post your LinkedIn group URL on other social networks and on your main website.
7. And finally enjoy the group experience! Have fun communicating, sharing and learning with others.

So hopefully now you can take away the seven points above and know how to manage your LinkedIn group effectively. Also, don’t forget to join the Connect Wisdom LinkedIn Group for any digital marketing and social media discussions.

5 Reasons Why WordPress Rocks and You Know it

I love WordPress and I think it’s a very powerful open source content management system (CMS). Not only can you set up a blog, you can also set up WordPress to act as a website. Better yet, it can be used as a website and blog. This is the power of this blogging platform.

I have been using WordPress for several years and I don’t think I will be choosing another platform any time soon.

Previously, I used to develop websites from scratch, which was time consuming. However, now I used WordPress as I can have a website up and running within minutes.

Being able to use different themes and plugins to customise the look and feel as well as extend the functionalities of WordPress, makes it even more powerful.

So below are 5 reasons why WordPress rocks and you know it!

SEO – WordPress as a platform provides good search engine optimisation. You can make a few tweaks such as using different plugins to enhance SEO. Also, Google loves WordPress which means your website gets indexed right away

Content is easily updateable without having to know any HTML. Therefore you don’t need to rely on a web developer.

Plugins/Exensions/Themes – a massive plugin directory of free plugins to extend the functionalities of WordPress. Also being able to change the look and feel of your website/blog without affecting any of your core code/content.

Support – the availability of support is huge since there’s a massive online community because WordPress is open source.

One click installation – you can quickly install WordPress with several web hosting providers such as JustHost and BlueHost.

If you haven’t got a WordPress website, this is a good time to set one up.

So what is the point of web analytics, you ask?

The main reason for using a web analytics is because it gives you a very good indication of your website’s visitor behaviour. How many visitors you get a day, the average time that visitor spends on your website, how many genuine visitors you get and how many of those visitors revisit your site at a later date.

Probably the most important advantage of using a web analytic is to observe your visitors buying trend. It allows you to observe what visitors have viewed and whether or not they have purchased one of your products/services.

There is no question that web analytics will no doubt help your online business and help you take the required actions that will ultimately lead to generating better traffic to your website. More traffic means a greater chance of making money regardless of what you are selling or promoting.

Learning about and observing your customers’ buying behaviour can be the difference between making a profit and a loss!

Web analytics can help give you a better idea on where you are possibly going wrong. Once you know that, you can start planning and designing changes and alterations to your website and how to go about making these changes. Once the changes are made, you can use your web analytics tool again to review how the changes have affected traffic to your website and whether visitor behaviour has changed.

If the outcome of the changes aren’t desirable then other changes can be made until you do reach your target goal.

Web analytics have proven to be highly useful when it comes to creating and managing your landing page, if you have one. It will show the percentage of conversion. You can learn more about landing pages and their importance for your business here.

When you write a post in WordPress and hit publish, WordPress pings many search engines to come and index the post right away. Depending on which search engine, but majority of search engines index your newly posted article right away.

I just want to post this as a test and if you search “Google Loves WordPress – You Get Indexed Right Away” as an exact search i.e. using the quote marks, then you should find my post there after this article has been submitted.

This exercise is not show that I can rank number 1 in Google, this is just to prove that I can get index straight away after I publish my post.

Click here to find the search results.

This is very powerful as you do not need to submit your posts/pages to search engines; WordPress does this for you.

I just wanted to share this little piece of knowledge with you

I have something to share with you, something that will take your Twitter bio to a whole new level! This is something many aren’t doing and it’s not being shared openly. I call it: Twitter bio optimization.

In my previous post about Twitter SEO Tips I mentioned that your Twitter bio is a space for your keywords, acting the same way as your meta tags do on your website. This doesn’t necessarily help you rank higher in search engines, however it will definitely add value to your Twitter bio.

Get Ready To Optimize Your Twitter Bio

Before we start, I want to show you how my Twitter bio previously looked like before I optimized my profile:

As you can see, my Twitter bio was pretty much standard; it described me in a nutshell as well as having some keywords.

I decided to go down the route of optimizing my Twitter bio; to really take advantage of what Twitter has provided. So I began my Twitter experimentation and my results were as followed:

Adding Hashtags to Your Twitter Bio

You can add hashtags to your Twitter bio just like you would do in your tweets. Not many are aware of this but this is good if you want to associate yourself with popular hashtags/trends.

When you click on the hashtags in your Twitter bio, you will be taken to the Twitter search like you would do with hashtags that are in your tweets. One thing to bear in mind is that your newly optimized ‘hashtagged’ Twitter bio will not help your profile appear in the Twitter search, like your tweets do.

Adding URLs in Your Twitter Bio

Yes you can! Do you know what this means? It means you can have more than one URL on your Twitter profile by utilizing the space of your Twitter bio. Not many are aware of this. So you can promote your other websites or social profiles, such as your Facebook and Linkedin profiles. All you have to do is add your URL without any HTML and Twitter will automatically turn the text into an active link.

Adding @mentions in Your Twitter Bio

Yes, this is something you can also do. This is perfect when you want to promote another Twitter account that you have or are associated with. You can also building your own little ‘link exchange circle’ with other Twitter users, just like some websites do with each other. Remember that you only have room for 160 characters.

Note: You can’t use HTML in your bio as Twitter will remove any HTML tags you attempt to insert.

Don’t Spam Your Twitter Bio, it’s Ugly!

Remember folks, don’t over do it and get too excited! Do everything in moderation. If you try and hashtag every single keyword in your bio, or put loads of weblinks, one after another, then it will look too spammy. No one likes a spam-looking Twitter profile. In fact, some people will find it difficult to read.

The whole point of the Twitter bio is to tell the world what you’re about.
Remember: you only have space for 160 characters so it is vital to only put what you really need.

Alternating Your Twitter Bio On A Regular Basis

If you want to take your Twitter bio space to a whole new level, then perhaps you can try and change your bio on a daily or weekly basis. For instance every Friday you can have #FollowFriday, (or #FF) in your Twitter bio where you put your top tweeps of the week.

Another way of utilizing the space is to make deals with partners to promote their sites or Twitter profiles for a day/week/month etc and have them promoting you, or even charge people for the space to promote them

If you have a hashtag, which you want to promote then take advantage of using your Twitter bio for maximum exposure. If other Twitter users find your hashtag relevant then most likely they will also use that hashtag. Before you know it, your hashtag may become a popular trending keyword.

Finally, you can also put special offers or competitions if you have regular followers visiting your profile. Your Twitter bio becomes like a ‘sticky’ tweet.

Twitter Bio Optimization Summary

Your Twitter bio is a place where people look to see what you do, so utilize this space effectively. Have a look at my Twitter bio (it’s nothing special but just to get you started) and do bear in mind that you have to optimize your profile depending on what you are trying to achieve.

The purpose of sharing these Twitter SEO tips (SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization) is because Google shows tweets in the search results, and I’m not talking about the Realtime section of Google. I mean your Twitter account and your tweets appear in the actual search result. This means your tweets can be used as a fantastic way of driving traffic to your website, if they have a good PageRank.

I want to show you the power of Twitter and how you can appear in Google straight away. This is how much Google values and love your tweets! Below is a screenshot of a tweet which I posted and then Googled myself and my tweet then appeared in the search results RIGHT AWAY. See below:

The Five Twitter SEO Tips You Need To Know

The purpose of this article is to help you increase the efficiency of your tweets by applying some Twitter SEO, so below are five Twitter SEO tips:

1. Optimizing Your Twitter Account

The first of five Twitter SEO tips I want to start with is your twitter account, since you need to have this done first. Make sure you have the following in place:

Your Twitter username

Your username will appear in the URL as well as infront of each of your tweets. It is therefore vital that you choose a username which is relevant to your brand, company, website, blog or product/service depending on what you do. The reason why this works is because the username which is also the keyword you’re targeting will force Google to rank your tweets higher as you’re laser targeting the keyword using your username and your tweets.

if you have already created a Twitter account, you can always change the username in Settings > Accounts. Remember you only have 15 characters to choose a username so don’t use names that are too long.

Your Twitter Biography

Your bio is like the meta description of a website. Make sure your bio is full of relevant keywords related to your brand or business as this improves the indexing results. Keep in mind that your bio has a 160 character limit, so keep it short but keyword rich. Search engines are constantly indexing your bio so do not neglect this part.

Website Address

Make sure you include your website address on your Twitter profile. Although the link has a “nofollow” attribute, it is still a useful source of driving traffic to your website. Afterall if you have an interesting Twitter profile and interesting tweets, people are most likely to take a peek at your website.

2. The First 40 Characters of Your Tweets Matter The Most

When it comes to optimizing your tweets for Twitter SEO, it is the first 40 characters that matter the most. This includes your username as well. So try and include the most important keywords you are optimizing for in the first 40 characters of your tweets for better search results.

3. Remember The Retweets

Part of tweeting valuable tweets is to get them to be retweeted by other twitter users. This in effect allows your tweet to spread and possibly go viral. So bare in mind that you need limit the length of your tweets to make it easy for your followers to retweet. This means leaving room for the retweet phrase “RT @username”. So the maximum length of your tweets is not 140 characters, but 140 characters minus “RT @username”. Does that make sense? Otherwise your twitter followers will find it difficult to retweet and may have to spend time editing and then in the end may just give up with retweeting your tweets. So make sure you leave about 20 characters free.

4. Twitter Hashtags

Hashtags play a big role in Twitter SEO as they act as keywords. The way you create hashtags is by prefixing a keyword with a ‘#’. This will reference your tweets with the chosen keyword to allow other Twitter users to discover your tweets who are interested in that same keyword, which will possibly lead to a retweet. So it is vital that you do not neglect hashtags.

5. Use a Good URL shortener

This brings us to the last of the five Twitter SEO tips I wanted to share with you. Make sure you use a good URL shortener that redirects the user to the URL. This is because not all URL shortener redirect to the real URL. So make sure the URL shortener thst you choose uses 301 redirects, also known s permanent redirects. This is important to bare in mind because this way the search engines will index the actual URL and not the shortened URL. I would suggest using bit.ly or TinyURL.com

Twitter SEO Tips: Summary

So there you go, five Twitter SEO tips that you need to optimize your profile. It is vital that you do so, just like you would do when you optimize your website. if you want to be discovered then apply the above Twitter SEO Tips. Also follow me on Twitter for some more Twitter SEO Tips.

I cannot stress how many people I have come across who say Twitter is a waste of time. “I don’t want to hear what someone is having for dinner”. Well, I’ve got news for you; Twitter is not all about status updates. Sure you get some people that follow celebrities and want to know what they do in their daily lives so status updates excite celebrity fans. But us marketers are not interested in that. We can see the real potential of using Twitter as part of our overall business operation. It’s one of the most powerful digital marketing tool to use, and therefore cannot be ignored because:

1. Use Twitter for Market Research

You can find out what is happening in the market place.  This can be done in two ways;

1. Observing what is currently trending using Twitter Trends.
2. Using Twitter Search to see live searches being tweeted.

Here is a screenshot of where you can locate the trends:

These two ways of performing market research are very powerful as they give you live feeds of the current market. Keeping an eye out on what is going on can help you market your products/services. This ensures  that you never miss the latest buzz.

2. Use Twitter for Lead Generation

After you have completed your market research and found your hungry market. It’s time to follow people.  People will become your followers if they see you’re worth following. Do you add value? Do you have the solutions to their business problems? When they begin to follow you, treat them as leads as you will need to nurture them.

3. Use Twitter for Relationship Building

Every lead needs to be nurtured before they begin to follow you religiously. So stay in touch with your followers, provide them with value and help them with issues they are encountering with their business by giving them advice. This will increase the relationship between you and your followers, because trust is built, which is key. This is necessary as solidifies your position in the market place as an expert in your field. So it’s important to build relationships with your followers. This also gives them comfort that there is ‘someone’ there on the other side for times when they need assistance, advice, support or customer service.

4. Use Twitter for Traffic Building

Once you begin following people and they begin to follow you, you can start sending people to your website using two methods;

1. The first method to drive traffic to your website is to use the website field in your Twitter profile. This will get your followers clicking on your link when they visit your profile. Also, before followers start following you, they usually want to find out what you do and one way of finding out is to visit your website.
2. The second method of driving traffic to your website is when you tweet. Your followers always look for value, so if you send links which interest them or valuable links, which will help them solve their business problems you can be guaranteed to get storms of web traffic.

Here is a screenshot to show you where your web address appears on your profile just in case you don’t know:

5. Use Twitter for List Building

Also, driving your followers to your online campaigns is something you can do as part of your traffic building. This can be a landing page/squeeze page where they have to opt-in to receive information on a particular product, download literature, or simply just join your newsletter. Either way, the potential of building your list using Twitter is immense and should definitely be part of your business operation.

Can You now See The True Power of Twitter?

It’s not just a website for updating statuses. Also, if you only tweet business related topics on Twitter, then your tweets may become or sound boring and your followers will eventually stop following you. So you need to interact with them with some light entertainment. I will cover this in another post. For now, get your act together and start using Twitter to its maximum potential.

The popularity of social media marketing has got people and businesses going nuts attempting to jump on the bandwagon to try and keep up with latest technologies. However they tend to jump on too quickly and hastely as they do not know or understand the challenges of social media.

I have outlined five social media challenges below that need to be considered and kept in mind when making social media as part of your business operations.

The Five Social Media Challenges That You Need to Know

1. Reputation Management
The purpose of social media is to hear the voices of your customers and what is being said about you, your brand or your company. Remember that social media is a means to understand what your reputation is online. It’s very powerful, as you get first hand insight of conversations taking place. There are several reputation management tools online which lets you monitor conversations. I recommend Google Alerts as one of the tools.
If there is anything negative being said, then it’s an excellent opportunity to step in and turning the negative into a positive by delivering customer service, which brings me to the next point…

2. Customer Service
There are several ways of delivering customer service through social media. The days are gone when you only use customer service via email or telephone. Now, users use social sites, such as Twitter and Facebook, to get their messages/complains across. It may sound strange but it’s true. Some users find this method of communication much easier. You will see that companies such as Dell, T-Mobile and Panic Inc have adapted this method of communication with their customers and it’s keeping their customers happy.
Some companies have still not adapted this method of giving customer service and there are users who attempt to use this channel to contact them, however receive no response. What do you think happens? They lash out and start complaining how their customer service is so rubbish. What happens to the companies reputation? it goes down the drain! remember, customer is king kong so don’t get them angry!

3. Acquiring New Customers
As part of social media is to acquire new leads and then turning them into customers. One way to acquire new customers is to nurture your leads by giving value i.e. free content/help to build trust and also in the process build good reputation. This is one method of using social media to acquire new custimers.
Another method is more beyond your reach and is more dependant on your customers giving you recommendation and good reviews on social networking sites. This method is almost like word-of-mouth marketing where you buy based on someone’s recommendation that you trust.

4. Increasing Conversations From Existing Customers
Now that you have acquired your customers, developed trust and they are now saying positive things about your product, what’s next? Well, social media is about being social so take part and engage in conversations with your existing customers; simply encourage it. The more engagement there is and the more your customers are kept happy, the stronger the relationship becomes. They wouldn’t want to go else where. This kind of loyal following is what you want to ultimately achieve because when you have new products/services, it will be easier to sell to your customers.

5. Analytics Analysis
One important aspect of social media is to understand what is going right and what is going wrong. Analysing analytics, return on investment (ROI) and customer feedback are vital for taking your business from good to better. Only through these analyses can you improve your product, services, website etc. Do not neglect this at the end of the social media marketing cycle.

If you accomplish the five challenges above then you have nothing to worry about. You are on the road to success. How do you use social media?

I thought I’d share this piece of interesting discovery that I made on Google Trends.

I was interested to find out how the popularity of Digital Marketing has affected Internet Marketing. You might ask “what’s the difference between Digital Marketing and Internet Marketing?” and “Why even bother with checking the trends for these two keywords?”. Well my friend,  below that I find fascinating, as it demonstrates how trends affect the way people think and search.

Google Trends: Digital Marketing vs Internet Marketing

Less Internet and more digital

The above graph demonstrates how the popularity of Internet Marketing is decreasing while Digital Marketing is increasing. Now why is that happening? Well, marketing has reached beyond the world of Internet and is now available not only on your computer, but also on your mobile phone (cell phone for my international friends ), Tablets, TV and other means of communications. I mean, digital marketing is Internet marketing, but also much more, as it uses more channels to reach people.

You can see that it’s still early days because the two lines on the graph haven’t met yet. However, give it some time and the two lines will cross. This is serious stuff as it shows how people are slowly moving away from Internet Marketing. What does this mean to Internet Marketers? Well, they will be forced to become digital marketers in order to survive.

Anyway, have another look at the graph (and cry, or laugh) and have a rethink about what you need to do to take advantage of this forthcoming opportunity.