The process is similar to optimizing any website, but with a WordPress installation you can customize many of your pages' SEO elements, as well as automating them to cut down on the time it takes to post a new item to your site.

WordPress vs. WordPress.com

Templates

Having your blog hosted at WordPress.com limits the changes you can make to your page template. But more importantly, it restricts your SEO. Having your site hosted on WordPress.com only benefits WordPress.com in terms of backlinks generated.

Make sure that from day one you're in control by hosting your blog on your own domain. That way you get all the credit for backlinks generated and reap the rewards for strengthening the overall reputation of your domain in the search engines.

SEO Plugins

SEO plugins can be a great way to optimize you site and make blog management much easier.

There are several useful WordPress plugins, so it's a case of finding the ones that work best for your needs. The ones which stand out for SEO, to name just a couple are:

• All in One SEO 
• Broken Link Checker
• SEO Smart Links
• Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARRP)
• Urban Giraffe Redirection

Stay up-to-date and Avoid Malware Google Alerts

WordPress hacking for malware is common. Google now provides alerts on this within Webmaster Tools as it causes big issues to the quality of their results shown to searchers.

Make sure that you stay up-to-date and check those malware reports in Google Webmaster Tools just to make sure everything is safe.

SEO for WordPress

WordPress is naturally very well set up for SEO, in terms of header optimization, title tags, internal/cross-linking, etc. The plugins, such as All in One SEO, will go a long way toward improving this further.

However, WordPress doesn't do it all for you. You still need to keywords after all!

Plus, you need to make sure you put effort into optimizing URL structure and internal linking, to make sure your blog is as well optimized as possible.

Great Content = Great SEO

In terms of optimizing each page or post within the main body text, there are again several key areas to focus on, such as including target keyword phrases in headlines and the body of the post.

More importantly, make sure you write for users. SEO is important when running a blog - but I would always sacrifice SEO in favor of writing a post that has the potential to generate attention and go viral.

Links are obviously the most important single ranking factor in SEO, so well-optimized content with no links is still likely to be out-ranked by un-optimized great content with lots of links.

You might get some good "freshness" rankings in the short-term - but as with Google's Panda update, we all know that longer-term quality content will succeed.

'Optimization' at its Best

To really achieve true optimization, your content needs to be great - that's why the likes of ProBlogger, SEOmoz, etc., will rank for so many long-tail searches. Yes, they use keywords - but more importantly they write great content that attracts thousands of links.

But there are still a few quick wins, too. Use the SEO plugins. Even if you think your site or blog is optimized, look again at its URL structure, the title tags, the use of internal linking, image alt tags, and text formatting.

You could find that, somewhere along the line, you've missed that game-changing SEO technique that could take your page from the middle of page two to the top of page one in the search engine results pages.

Proactive

Being proactive is fundamental to being a good SEO for a couple of key reasons:

Latency Effect Between Work and Results

Any SEO work done today likely won't affect traffic or revenue today. When it comes to SEO there is a latency effect as new changes to your website or your off-site profile (backlinks, social activities, etc.) get indexed by the search engines and filter into the SERPs.

How long the latency period is depends on the situation. If you put up a new targeted page on your site that gets indexed quickly, you could indeed start to see some new traffic from new keywords within a day. If you've made a lot of sweeping on-site and off-site changes to your website, it might take a month to see the results you're looking for.

The idea here is that it will almost always take longer than you would like to get the results you want from the activities you're doing today, no matter how hard and smart you work. Think and plan ahead. Make sure you factor in the long-term into your day-to-day activities.

• Actionable tip: Use a calendar to plan all SEO activities ahead. Compare this on an ongoing basis against results tracking to make sure your plan is consistent with your SEO gains. This may also help you see whether you have space for innovation within your tactics.

Stay Ahead of the Curve

The other key point here is to be proactive as opposed to reactive - do your best to keep yourself ahead of the curve. Time and time again I see knee-jerk reactions to changes in the SERPs, and that is the worst thing you can do because new changes are made to the search algorithms all the time.

Firstly, you should have seen the changes coming and changed your strategy months ago. Secondly, if it's already too late, you're just going to need to accept reality and adjust your strategy accordingly.

You might be able to get back to where you were before, but it won't happen overnight - sorry. Engaging in a huge flurry of SEO activity immediately following an algorithm update, for example, has a good chance of doing you more harm than good.

• Actionable tip: Meet with your team regularly to discuss the trends and whether your strategies require adjustment. Where do you see the industry in two years? Five years? Make sure your strategies are in line with long-term trends and are built to last. That way you'll be more likely to ride out the future Panda-type algorithm updates with no trouble and stay ahead of the curve.

Persistence

SEO isn't something you can spend a few weeks doing, and then sit back and watch the money roll in. In just about any given niche, several or even dozens of other individuals or groups are attempting to beat you.

In competitive niches, the competition is going to be doing something every single day to reach that goal. Unless you're doing the same or better, you'll simply fail.

You need to work every single day at something that contributes to your SEO success. That could be something as simple as publishing new content or developing your branding, but it should all be considered within the scope of your global SEO strategy.

• Actionable tip: Work harder than the others! The minute you stop working is the minute you stop winning, even if it takes a few months for it to become apparent.

Perseverance

No matter how strong your SEO strategy is, you don't control the SERPs, the search engines do. What that means, fundamentally, is that you're investing resources into something you have absolutely no control over. Yes, you can influence it (sometimes very heavily), but you can't control it.

What that lack of control means is a high potential for volatility. Inevitably, you're SEO campaign is going to have highs and lows. You might have huge successes, with money pouring into the coffers, followed by catastrophic losses that set you back months or even years (think of some of the Panda losers).

OK, those are extreme cases, but you need to be prepared to not always be winning, and to ride out the tough times. Those who persevere in SEO are those who eventually win.

• Actionable tip: Ensure that you are prepared for possible periods of no-growth or decline. Preparedness will help you understand the reasons behind the poor performance, which in turn will help you to respond faster and more effectively to get back on track.

Patience

This is maybe the toughest of all the Ps. No one is really patient, especially in business - everyone has bills to pay, executives to report to, investors to satisfy... considering that financial planning typically works on a quarterly basis, it can often be difficult to justify SEO spend in one quarter when results might happen the next quarter.

The fact about SEO is that results happen on their own timetable, and that's just the way it is. Results sometimes come later than expected, particularly if you are taking a softer, lower-risk approach.

You really want results next month? Sure, go ahead and build 200 new backlinks this week with the exact same anchor text for the big-money keyword... and see what happens (hint: don't do that).

Want to win in SEO? Create a solid foundation and gradually - patiently - build on it.

• Actionable tip: Take the evening off and smoke a cigar. You've got a lot of work to do tomorrow and if you're smart about it, the eventual payoff might be big.

In fact, the redesign process can do more than improve a website's look and feel; it might be intended to enhance functionality, make the website more user-friendly, remove deficiencies or even change underlying concepts. Redesigning websites isn't a frequently occurring process; designers usually do it when it's necessary, which is usually every two or three years.

In this article I'll showcase some examples of redesigned websites that might inspire you as you work on your own redesign projects.

Crazy Egg

Old Design

New Design

Both the new and the old Crazy Egg designs have some user-friendly features, but the new design is more subtle and elegant--and the new feature ("view demo") is a creative idea. The old design took advantage of call-to-action buttons and was more colorful. Both present a similar thing in different ways. This is a well-executed redesign that doesn't affect functionality while changing the appearance.

Official Site Link

Change.org

Old Design

New Design

Change.org has done a dramatic redesign. It has added some new features that reflect its new capabilities and provide opportunities for users. The new call-to-action button is used more than the old one was, and the new footer contains a well-placed sitemap as well as some description about the organization. The only drawback, perhaps, is the long home page; it increases initial load time.

Official Site Link

Electric Pulp

Old Design

New Design

Web development studios like to show off their ability to design outstanding websites in their own website's design. It looks good for them, and it makes prospective clients want to work with them. In the case of Electric Pulp, we can see it. The new design, despite its length and multiple pictures (of completed projects), features a simple navigation menu at the top of the page and complete contact information in the footer section. Personally, I liked the old design; it was alive and captivating.

Official Site Link

Evan Eckard

Old Design

New Design

In this example, the designer has tried to maintain the identifying elements of the original design. The design elements include: use of lines, style of navigation menu and colors for background, text and introduction block (which are almost are as they were, though they are now more subtle). Using big typography and sliders injects new trends and technologies into the design. It's a great example of a redesign.

Official Site Link

Linked In

Old Design

New Design

Websites like LinkedIn, whose users are professional folks, have to maintain certain aspects of the user experience over time while continually increasing functionality and efficiency. It's done properly in this redesign; every working part of the old design is still in place. The only altered section is the navigation menu in the header, and there are two new things: a log-in box for registered users in the header and a one-line description just below the search box. There are also new items in the footer. This is a functionally improved redesign effort.

Official Site Link

Bose

Old Design

New Design

There are instances in which the redesign process can degrade a design's efficiency.

Bose's new website serves as an example: many working features of the old design have been lost. Comprehensive navigation, a search box, the ability to sign up for an email subscription and the shopping cart have been omitted, and it negatively affects functionality. In fact, the new design seems to be an intro page rather than a home page. The old design's look and feel was more user-friendly and appealing. Let this redesign warn you about potential dangers.

Official Site Link

Veerle's Blog

Old Design

New Design

Both the old and the new are well designed. Both are attractive and appealing, and they reflect the designers' skills. The useful navigation bar from the old design header has been omitted in the new. Of course, the ability to search ability can compensate for lack of clear navigation, and the new design also makes use of the footer. Overall, the new design is elegant, well structured and easy to use. The old one was a bit distracting.

Official Site Link

31Three

Old Design

New Design

The only thing that has changed is the look and feel. Everything else remains unchanged and in its place, and yet the design has become more beautiful and pleasant. Round corners play a key role in that.

Official Site Link

Blue Flavor

Old Design

New Design

Blue Flavor's new design has some advantages over the old one--but it also has disadvantages. From the appearance perspective, the new design is brilliant and has personality; it showcases designers' abilities, which is important for any Web design company. From the perspective of usability, the old design ranks higher because its navigational items were in a good place (the header). Of course, the new design has good navigation in the footer. Frankly, neither are great designs, but the new one is far better.

Official Site Link

5th Column Digital Design

Old Design

New Design

This is an evolutionary redesign that turns a simple design into a notable one. The old design was basic and a bit strange in spite of its creative nature. The refreshed design has suitable navigation and a clean design, and the slider in the header and the log-in section are good features for user experience.

Official Site Link

Convex Digital

Old Design

New Design

This company's website, like other commercial websites, has to present the services it provides as well as support for clients. In the previous design, this was done by providing live chat (a great feature) for customers. In the new design, complete contact information is provided in both the header and the footer. The navigation in the old design was more readable, and it was placed well. Both used design trends that were common at the time of design: big header and tag cloud in the old, and a slider, call-to-action buttons and a big footer in the new. The new design attempts to be informative and user-friendly, but the old one was far tidier and better structured.

In my view, a combination of the two would make a great design.

Official Site Link

Philips

Old Design

New Design

The changes in this redesign seem trivial. Everything is the same as it was. The only added feature is the "Our Vision" section and some informational videos. The new design is more delicate, though. The two designs aren't perfectly similar, but the accustomed users won't get into trouble when they try to use the new design. It's a beauty, and a great example.

Official Site Link

Hicks Design

Old Design

New Design

The old design was clean, concise and pretty. Every necessary feature was there: navigation, introduction and contact information. Recent projects were showcased in an appealing manner. The new design is still somewhat clean, but it's essentially a very long home page that increases page-load time and is difficult to use for all the scrolling. In this case, the old design is far better than the new one.

Official Site Link

Clay Ant Creative

Old Design

New Design

Here's another example of a website that was degraded during the redesign. The old design was attractive and had good structure and well-formed navigation. The new design has its own style; in spite of its creative layout, there is nothing similar to the old design. Perhaps that is rooted in the changing ideas of the company? In any case, the only upgrade seems to be the proper use of the footer.

Official Site Link

Cabedge

Old Design

New Design

The refreshed version of Cabedge's website is an instance of minimal design that seems to be the incorrect choice for business activities. It's nice, but its drawback is the lack of essential elements. The old design was a general example of Design Company. It had a good introduction, links to (recent) works and explicit navigation--which are essentials. The new design looks more professional, though, which could be its winning point.

Official Site Link

Robert Goodlatte

Old Design

New Design

Rob Goodlatte's new design is clean and captivating, for a personal website. The old design had more features but was a bit distracting because of its layout. The old navigation tool has been omitted in new version, but the well-designed layout, big search box and footer links work well. Personal websites get a different type of visitor, so there are fewer constraints when designing them (as compared to websites with many users from different groups or commercial ones that must maintain a professional image).

For example, optimizing the filename of your profile picture is one popular piece of advice that doesn't really matter, considering Facebook just renames the file something like 198135_10150109366....jpg. Another popular tip: you should link to your main website from your Facebook page. Yes, you should for visitors. But this doesn't optimize your fan page because Facebook just nofollows, redirects, and clusters your URL in a mess of code anyway.

So let's take a different approach to Facebook SEO today.

I want you to imagine that your Facebook fan page is your website - or another website for your brand at least. While it may not ever rank first for a keyword, you still want it to be optimized.

If you want to keyword optimize your Facebook fan page, these are the areas that actually pull SEO elements from your page's content for additional optimization.

Your Facebook Fan Page SEO

• SEO title: The name of your page plus | Facebook.
• Meta description: The name of your page plus the About description of your page, followed by | Facebook.
• H1: The name of your page.

This is like the search optimization of the homepage of your fan page / website. If you didn't consider keyword optimization when you created it, and you have less than 100 fans, you're in luck. You can still change your page's name.

Two things to keep in mind aside from search optimization includes:

• Branding: It may be more important to have your page as a recognizable brand than a specific keyword phrase.
• Appearance: Whenever you comment as your page, or people tag your page, your entire name will come up, so if you're page is Your Brand - Keyword, Keyword, and Keywords it might look a bit excessive (and lead to less tagging).

Your title can be as long as you choose, but keep in mind the standard length of SEO titles (70 characters) before getting too crazy. Also, since your page name is also a part of your meta description, you might not want it to make it too long and overshadow that.

To edit your About information to make a great meta description, go to your page and Edit Page > Basic Information, and fill in the About field with a 140 character description like you would with any website meta description.

Facebook Fan Page Updates

• SEO Title: The first 18 characters of your update.

If you're posting a standard status update, the SEO title will be pulled from the first 18 characters (approximately 18 characters, sometimes a bit less). The following update by Search Engine Watch's fan page has a title of Yahoo Search, which is pretty good.

If you're posting a link to your fan page wall, you'll have an option to "Say something about this link..." - the first 18 characters of what you enter in this field are going to be the SEO title for the individual page of that status update.

If you don't post something there, the SEO title for your update will just be Facebook. Plus it won't take up as much real estate in someone's news feed, which means it will be less noticeable. So I would suggest that, regardless of whether you care about the SEO, you fill this part out when adding a link to your wall.

If you're concerned about optimizing your updates while considering them as individual pages for your overall fan page / website (click on the timestamp for any update to see it on its own page), then you might want to consider sticking some keywords right at the beginning of your comment.

Using the above example, I could simply put the post category / main keyword as start the update such as Google Analytics and then write the rest of my comment. If I continued this trend with my updates, my fan page would have lots of "pages" underneath it optimized for my main keywords.

The best part is, unlike Twitter status updates that don't go that far back, you can see your Facebook fan page updates at least two years - mine go all the way back to when I created my fan page, which was in February 2009.

Facebook Fan Page Notes

• SEO Title: The title of your note plus | Facebook.
• Meta Description: Your page name wrote a note titled the title of your note plus | Facebook.

Facebook notes - they don't get a lot of love anymore, but they do have a more controllable SEO title when you create them and, of course, they add to the additional "pages" underneath your fan page / website. Notes allow you to add lengthier updates to your fan page without having to take your fans offsite to get more of your content.

Some people use them to syndicate their blog posts on their fan page, but I find this feature is a little inconsistent. Unique notes, on the other hand, could add more value to your page.

Facebook Fan Page Discussion Topics

• SEO Title: The title of your discussion's topic | Facebook.
• 
  

Ever wanted a little forum / discussion board, but don't want to invest in forum software? Facebook has an often-overlooked discussion board, with each topic giving you a little SEO title credit.

It might be a nice place for you to have discussions with your fans that they don't necessarily want on your wall. If you don't have one on your profile already, you can get it by going to the Discussion Board and using the Add to My Pagelink to add it to your pages.

Your Facebook Fan Page SEO Tips

Those are the parts of the Facebook fan page that I've found specifically have controllable SEO titles, descriptions, and so forth. What other parts of the Facebook fan page have you tried optimizing for SEO, and what results have you seen?

Blogging isn't a short cut to success in the social media world. In fact, it demands more perseverance and hard work as compared to other social media channels. I've come across a number of bloggers who've gone broke simply because they couldn't get things right. They claim that traffic is good and so is reader engagement, then why is it that they go broke?

In this post, I walk through the top 5 reasons why bloggers go broke.

Quality

Setting up a blog is as easy as you'd like. While that's good for businesses, it also means that anybody and everybody can setup a blog in virtually no time. I reckon 90% of all blogs of the Internet are below-par on the quality scale. If you do not provide quality content, you simply can't engage users on an ongoing basis. The golden rule #1 of being a successful blogger who makes money - ensure the quality (content) and the quantity (readers) shall follow!

Frequency

While it sounds obvious, I'm amazed that a number of blogs aren't updated at a well-defined frequency. The ideal frequency is to post at least once a day. Readers quickly tend to disassociate themselves from dead blogs. As a blogger, make sure you stick to posting every day. Any significant hiccups in the regular posting schedule and your blog's appeal diminishes faster than you can imagine.

Conversation

Contrary to public perception, I strongly believe blogs are meant to be two-way communication. If your audience doesn't engage with you through comments and trackbacks, there's something wrong with your blogging strategy. If you can engage your readers in a meaningful dialogue for each post, half the battle is already won.

Excess Advertising

I've come across several blogs which are guilty of excessive advertising. While there's little doubt that advertising is a valuable monetization channel for blogs, overdoing it annoys readers. The best policy is to make ads easily discoverable yet non-intrusive for readers. Avoid using too many flashy banners; they are irritating for most users.

Poor Promotion

It's often said that a blog is only as successful as the promotion policy behind it. If you build a great looking blog with high quality content but you don't promote it enough, it will never gain traction. Be smart in how you promote your blogs. Use email and social networks for virally marketing your blog.

What do you think are the reasons why most bloggers are broke? Please share your experience by leaving a comment.

The focus of this rapid audit is to identify issues at a strategic level - either because they are big impact items or may require large development team efforts to address. Given the one day restriction, we'll focus on identifying problems, not fixing them. This plan is not thorough, because you can't be in a day.

The major elements are:

1. Look at Google Webmaster Tools For the Site

If Google Webmaster Tools isn't currently set up, then get it put in place. The list of great data you can get from this is long, but here are some of the most important things:

• Are there are any messages for the site in the opening screen? Hopefully not, but if there are, you want to see these first.
• Check out the crawl errors. One of your first recommendations is going to be to clean these up. Not sure this will impact SEO? Check out this case study.
• Check out the sitemaps to make sure there is no problem there (Site configuration -> Sitemaps).
• Check out your Robots.txt (Site configuration -> Crawler access). Any content blocked that you didn't expect?
• See what the most popular search queries are (Your site on the web -? Search queries). Of particular interest here is the ranking data that Google provides. Search on some of the more popular terms and see if your titles and descriptions look like they can entice more clicks if you adjust them. Look for opportunities. Something in the 4th spot? Might represent an opportunity to get it to move up.
• Look at your crawl stats (Diagnostics -> Crawl stats). Drops in pages crawled per day, or increases in time spent downloading a page are a warning signal.
• See how fast your site is running (Labs -> Site performance). If you see something like the screen shot provided below, you have found something for people to work on. Google Webmaster Tools will give you some specific suggestions on how to do it.

2. Look at Bing Webmaster Tools for the Site

Think there is no value in looking at a second Webmaster Tools? Think again.

Google does a nice job with their tools, but allows you to get the viewpoint from a second search engine, and you will see different things. For example, even their 404 report will show different 404's than Google's. The main elements you are looking for here are:

• Pages Crawled to see if there is a noticeable drop.
• Pages with Crawl Errors - this may report different errors than Google
• Sitemaps to make sure they are properly recognized by Bing.
• Look at the Index report to check if there are any noticeable changes. The go deeper and look at Index Explorer, which is a neat tool for seeing how Bing sees your site hierarchy.
• Traffic because you can check out the search phrases bringing traffic. Of particular interest is the Average Impression Position and the Average Click Position, as these can tell you if rankings are moving up or down over time. Pages that are going down are probably offering a poor user experience compared to competition. That's a problem.

3. Perform a site: Check on Your Site

See how many pages Google has in the index for the site. Compare that result to the number of pages you think you have.

With larger sites it is often difficult to know exact page counts, but you should have a general idea, such as its between 30,000 and 40,000 pages. What you are looking for is a huge discrepancy. If you think you have between 30,000 and 40,000 pages and Google reports 100,000 pages you probably have a (potentially massive) duplicate content problem.

If you see a large discrepancy, then you know you have some work to do to figure out the nature of the problem. You can look at the pages returned in the SERPs for the site, and you may get your answer there. If that doesn't work, go back to Bing Webmaster Tools and look at Index Explorer as it may show the problem there. You can see a screen shot of what that looks like here:

4. Crawl the Sites

There are a number of crawling tools you can use to help you with this. These can help expand your duplicate content checking efforts as well as a number other checks that include:

• Duplicate titles
• Missing titles
• Duplicate meta descriptions
• Missing meta descriptions
• Crawl depth
• Other similar items.

This type of data can be invaluable. Companies that offer these types of tools include:

• SEOmoz Crawl Test Tool (requires membership in SEOmoz Pro).
• Raven Internet Marketing Tools (requires a fee to use).
• Screaming Frog SEO Spider (a free tool that looks like it provides some great metrics, though I haven't tested it personally). Let me know in the comments if you have and what your experience has been.

These are just some examples of the more well known tools that you may have that don't cost an arm and a leg. SEOmoz and Raven provide a lot of functionality beyond a crawl that you can use in a rapid audit as well. Some SEO agencies can provide you with a proprietary crawling tool as well.

5. Perform Some Title Checks by Hand

Spend 30 minutes flipping through various categories of pages to see if you see clear title problems, such as titles for pages that are not unique, or titles that don't properly use keywords. Given the limited time you have, this will be a spot check, but it should help you determine if you have any major problems on your hands. If there are, you can write this up as part of your report.

6. Check the "Keyword Space"

Use a tool like the Google AdWords Keyword Tool. Based on your review, get a sense as to the most sought after search phrase for your market space (that is likely to convert). Is that in your home page title?

Then look at the next level down. What is the first level of refinement that users make after they progress past the top level term? Do you have pages for each of those at the next level? Perhaps you should.

Then take it one level further. This will tell you if you have a site hierarcy with holes in it, or if the hierarchy is misaligned with the way that users think (which is a bad thing).

7. Compare Your Backlinks vs. 2 or 3 Top Competitors

Use Open Site Explorer or Majestic SEO to pull the reports and get a quick sense to see if you have a link building program problem.

Getting crushed by the competition on the link building front? If so then all that on page SEO won't save you and you have to plan on fixing the link building plan as quickly as you can.

Summary

With those seven steps you should be able to get a top level look at a site. If you're looking at the site for the first time, you should also add a step (make it the first step) of interviewing the team responsible for the site to see what you can learn that way. Sometimes you can get invaluable information without involving a computer or the web at all.

As I mentioned before, this plan was not intended to be a complete SEO review. These are the sorts of things I like to do if have to make a rapid fire evaluation of a site, regardless of the reason for the need.

Once this is done, you can go back and explain all the other work that still needs to be done, such as working through the solutions to the problems found, and the other auditing that needs to be done to complete the job.

Doing a comprehensive job takes far more effort than one day, and on complex sites can take weeks or even months to do. But the process outlined above will peel back the covers and get you started.

Today's up and coming market represents the collision of social, local, and mobile media. The numbers translate why mobile marketing was named by many SES Conference speakers as a key component of the future of search.

Mobile Soars, PC Crashes

Have you looked at the mobile stats on your Google Analytics lately? Android, iPad, and iPhone visits are creeping up the online totem poll...in a three screen kind of way.

As experts crown mobile as king, PCs become so yesterday as iPads, iPhones and other mobile devices become the "go to" technology for everyone from business executives to students. Recent numbers reported in a USA Today Money article illustrate a massive shift to handheld devices and for the first time ever, the smartphone market is outpacing PCs.

Market researcher Gartner says that sales of smart phones will soar 56%, to 467.6 million and tablet sales will grow nearly four times, to 69.8 million this year.

Even one of the highest authorities at Google recognizes mobile as the next big thing.

"Tech has exhausted the limits of the PC as a platform and the future will center on the mobile devices," Google Chairman Eric Schmidt has predicted.

The staggering shift from PCs to mobile devices is sending ripples through not only the technology industry, but the online marketing industry as well.

"The cell phone is where people go to fill their down time and find information to guide their daily lives. Get hip to the mobile aesthetic or suffer the consequences!" said Cindy Krum, CEO of Mobile Moxie and author of "Mobile Marketing: Finding Your Customers No Matter Where They Are."

Mobilizing and Publicizing

Publicizing events, news, and promotions to the mobile market becomes increasingly important for online marketers and brands. The social revolution is driving a paradigm shift in technology use and online public relations and social media campaigns need to go with the SoLoMo flow.

3 Ways To Optimize Social PR for SoLoMo

1. Sharing PR in an Instant: Instagram, a photo-sharing app for iPhone users, has become a widespread sensation among individual users. Put your brand on Instagram, sharing news via mobile on the go with cool pictures documenting news, events, people and places? Brands like "The Today Show" and Starbucks are taking the social PR leap reporting the news with Instagram. 
    
2. QR for PR: Recent reports show QR code use has exploded by 1,200 percent in North America. No doubt the opportunity is huge and combines a way to combine a social and mobile aspect. This might be a trend, but considering in 2010 we saw a 1,600 percent increase in number of QR codes being scanned, you can now capture the social signals via QR codes to get the Like, follow or vote. 
    
3. The PR Check ins: Facebook Places, Foursquare, and now Google+ can spread the digital word better than a press release or branded wall post. For Google+ users, Latitude check-ins are also integrated with your Google+ account. When you check in on Latitude, you also check in on Google+.

Happy Landings

The key just might be in the landing pages when it comes to best conversions.

"QR Codes in all forms of PR and advertising will be more and more prevalent as these pixilated boxes can be quickly scanned by smartphones to direct the user to an action or mobile site," said Michael Martin, Senior SEO Strategist at Covario and owner of San Diego-based Mobile Martin. "The key is to provide a mobile optimized landing page for the promotion or mobile coupon."

Taking your search PR campaigns to the SoLoMo market is part of the marketing flow, let's just make sure we capture some happy landings!

So, you SEOed, Tweeted, Facebooked, wrote articles, did PPC, used banner ads, sent out press releases, wrote email campaigns, connected on LinkedIn, commented on Blogs, set up joint ventures. You've done everything possible to drive traffic to your pages, BUT you still don't have sales (or leads or phone calls or whatever it is you wanted from that traffic). Or you've actually gotten traffic, but they just aren't taking action.

There are many possible reasons, but the one you should look at first is your landing page.

In my experience, some people are so focused on driving traffic, they forget to make sure their landing page is prepared to convert that traffic.

Here is a collection of tips and tricks to create Landing Pages That Convert:

• Split test: On my last 2 ad campaigns, look at the improvements in conversions (in this case the conversion was getting an opt-in) - this is all just from split testing and incrementally improving the landing page - everything else in the ad campaign was the same.  I used Google Website Optimizer (a free tool) and played with things like headline, colors, fonts, graphics, placement of form, opt-in button.
  • Landing page one: 45.61% conversion rate
  • Landing page two: 46.78% conversion rate
  • Landing page three:  51.47% conversion rate
  • Landing page four: 60.97% conversion rate
• Keep It Simple: You have about 3 seconds or less to capture people's attention. Keep the page clutter-free, and make sure the benefit headline instantly grabs them.  Don't over share your knowledge - share enough to compel them to take the action you want. Especially if it's capturing a lead - once you've got them, you'll have time to share your expertise and build your credibility. For now, you just need to keep it laser-focused on what you need to share to get them to take action RIGHT NOW.
• Know Your Audience: Use images and text that they can relate to and that talk to their pain. Offer them solutions they can see themselves really using. Are you targeting men, women, college kids? Are you targeting people with money for a high end product or people with lower income? You need to know your prospect inside out and your page needs to appeal to them. They need to see themselves in the problem/pain that you outlined, and they need to be able to imagine the solution you are proposing is something they can use and afford.
• Formatting: Make sure you use bolding, different font colors and sizes, italics, lists and white space as well as strategically placed graphics to catch the eye, BUT don't overwhelm. Draw the eye to one focal point - which is where your strongest call to action should be. I know you want them to see your testimonial, your list of benefits, your offering and your call to action, but if you draw their eye everywhere at once, they're likely to be overwhelmed and just leave. Have one strong focal point, draw the eye there and keep it simple.
• Forget what you like and what you think: Only results matter. You don't have to like the page or relate to the page yourself. It just has to work. This one is tough and it's the biggest way business owners stand in their own way.
• Match your message: Your ad, creative, article or tweet should flow into your landing page. The message, the style, the solution, the targeting - it should all flow.  Don't "leak relevance" in the process. If you got them to click on an ad based on a specific problem and offered solution, take it a step further on the ad. Don't switch tactics and throw a whole new message in there.
• Space Usage: Use the area "above the fold" wisely. It's your most valuable real estate. Use design to enhance the page, but make sure it's your copy that stands out and has the most impact.
• Benefits sell: Focus on benefits, not features, in your copy. Don't know the difference? Here's a quick example: You're selling a vacuum and highlighting the fact that it has an attachment to easily get into the corners. The attachment is the feature. Break it down - how do they benefit from that feature? It's quicker and easier to get the floor cleaner - so they'll save time and aggravation and they'll have a cleaner floor. That's much more powerful. Paint a picture with the benefits. "OK ladies, no more getting down on your hands and knees, hair flopping in front of your eyes, sweat dripping down your forehead, back aching, as you try to wedge your vacuum into that corner - where all the dirt naturally gravitates too. Instead, with a quick flick of the wrist just point the handy new corner attachment in the corner and suck that grime up - keep your hair, back and knees intact and pain free!" Much more powerful than saying "Great attachment for cleaning corners".
• Don't play hard to get: Give your visitors exactly what they are looking for. They landed on the page because your ad, tweet, article, or SEO listing interested them.  Make it obvious and easy for them to get what they need. Make the call to action visible, the navigation simple, and the content relevant.
• Establish trust: Use testimonials; make contact info prominent, display credibility inducing logos/certifications etc. Have a privacy policy, prominently share any guarantees, state how long you've been in business, list awards and accolades. Review what credibility boosting material you have and strategically use it on the page.
• Font and color: When you are split testing, don't ignore the font and the colors. They make a big difference in results. Use opposing colors on the color wheel to create contrast and highlight certain areas of the page.
• Yes!: Ask questions that get your prospects thinking YES.  Examples: Do You Want Top Rankings? Are You Ready For An Explosion Of Traffic? Do You Want To Convert More Visitors? Can You Handle More Sales? Are You Ready To Ramp Things Up? Strategically place these questions on your landing page copy.

Read a past article I wrote on headlines, which are crucial for your landing page success:

Stay tuned for a future article where I will share successful (and not so successful) landing pages and tell you why they are good (or bad as the case may be).

There is no way one article can cover it all, but I've shared a collection of tips that are a good place for you to start!  Share any tips you have below in the comments.

Here is a rundown of the pros and cons of QR codes, as well as some examples of how to get it right... 

Pros

Ease of use

QR codes can be added to just about anything, from cereal packets to adverts on the Underground, and this versatility can be very useful for marketers. 

Range of uses

There are hundreds of potential uses of QR codes. Here are just ten suggestions for marketers, but they can be used to extend the user experience in restaurants, museums and more. 

QR codes are trackable

Using web analytics, and by using unique codes for different placements, marketers can gain some valuable information about how well campaigns are going, and what works and what doesn't. 

Easy way to send mobile users to online content

The QR code offers, as the name suggests, a quick response mechanism which saves users the effort of typing in a URL or an SMS shortcode.

Used well, and in conjunction with a mobile optimised landing page, it can grab consumers at the exact point where they have shown interest in an ad or video, and get them signed up for an email, tempt them into making a purchase etc. 

They appeal to mobile users' curiosity

Perhaps this will change once the novelty wears off, and codes become ubiquitous, but on seeing a QR code, I have the urge to scan it, just to find out where it leads. 

QR codes can be cost effective

Creating the QR code itself doesn't have to cost anything.

Cons

Other options are available

There are alternatives to QR codes which claim to offer a better user experience. For example, Blippar uses the creative itself, whether this is a logo, product image etc, and makes that the trigger for interaction. 

Users need to download a QR code reader

This is the big drawback for many. Mobile users have to download a (normally free) QR reader app before they can even begin to use them, which limits the audience. 

There are ways around this though. Some retailers, such as Best Buy in the US, have QR readers in their apps, while we my find that smartphone manufacturers will start to build this in to future devices. 

Scanning can be a long process

As Tim Dunn outlined in his recent article on QR, the actual process of scanning a code can be a pain. Users have to get their phone out, fire up the code reader, before scanning and waiting for the landing page. 

With a fast internet connection this may work fine, but on a variable 3G signal, many users may lose patience. 

Lack of awareness

I'm seeing more and more QR codes being used (I saw one on the BBC's Good Cook programme for instance), but only a minority of people are using them. 

For example, while comScore's figure of 14m US consumers scanning QR codes sounds a lot, it represents just 6.2% of US mobile users, and also mixes up barcode and QR scanning. 

People scan barcodes for different reasons (most obviously in store price comparison) than QR codes, which makes the figures a little misleading. 

Best practice examples

There have been some excellent, creative uses of QR codes, and these generally have a number of common factors: 

Give customers a reason to scan.

Curiosity alone may be enough, but if you can provide a more compelling reason, then users will reach into their pockets and scan the code. This AXA TV ad is one great example, but more obvious tactics like discount vouchers and games can also work well. 

Create some added value for users

This doesn't necessarily mean special offers, but extending the experience for mobile users. Radisson Edwardian's use of QR codes on their menus is one such example. 

Another is using QR codes on products in store, as Best Buy does. Customers scanning tags can see reviews and further information about products.

Get the landing page right

People are on mobile, so landing pages, as well as subsequent purchase or sigh up processes, need to be optimised for mobile users. 

This is an obvious point, but not everyone gets this right. In the examples here, both MI5 and VK haven't thought this through. 

Mistakes to avoid

Not optimising your landing page is the obvious one, but there are other common mistakes to avoid. 

Not including a call to action

Explaining why people should scan a code and what they can expect to find helps... 

Give people time to scan the code

They can be a great response mechanism on TV or video, but you have to give people time to pick up their phone, launch the QR reader and scan.

How long this process takes may depend on the dexterity of the mobile user, but I'd say at least 10-20 seconds. 

I applaud the BBC's use of QR codes on the Good Cook programme to allow users to access recipes, but the code isn't on screen long enough, less than five seconds. Unless you can pause, it's useless. 

Don't just use QR codes for the sake of it

If you use these codes, it should have a purpose, not just to show off to your clients or customers.

Let me take you through the history of Sitelinks, even before they were named sitelinks.

In July 2005, Google had this format:

Then a month later, it looked more like this:

Here is one from 2006:

Then can other forms, I'll skip some, but here are the anchor based sitelinks:

Then also the two column view:

Heck, even AdWords sitelinks:

But now the Jumbo sitelinks are here:

The algorithm has changed for how Google handles this, they will show up to twelve results plus likely show less indented results for the same domain. Is this a good thing for online reputation management?

In addition, we're making a significant improvement to our algorithms by combining sitelink ranking with regular result ranking to yield a higher-quality list of links. This reduces link duplication and creates a better organized search results page. Now, all results from the top-ranked site will be nested within the first result as sitelinks, and all results from other sites will appear below them. The number of sitelinks will also vary based on your query--for example, [museum of art nyc] shows more sitelinks than [the met] because we're more certain you want results from www.metmuseum.org.

The power of images is all too often overlooked by many bloggers. A good image not only grabs the attention of the reader and sets the tone for an article, it can make an article look more professional. Since blogging is often used to bring new visitors to a website through search engines, many readers don't see your well designed homepage first but an internal page. As first impressions really do count, it's vital to make an impact on your readers quickly if you want them to stick around.

Using images goes beyond simply how it looks on your site. Many online stories, articles and blogs are now shared through social media, and an image used within an article will often be used as a thumbnail for the link to your website. Having a memorable image here can really make your site stand out amongst the others. With a good image you can attract more visitors from social media even if you are not at the top of the list of topics being discussed.

So, where do you go to get a good image for your site? Unless you are a photographer yourself, then like most people you'll naturally turn to the stock photo websites where you can buy royalty free images. The most well known stock photo website is iStockphoto which is certainly an excellent source, but it's not your only option. So, lets take a look at the best stock photo sites, starting with long standing favorite, iStockphoto.com.

istockphoto.com is an amazing website loved by site owners around the world. It quickly changed the way that people buy and sell photography and illustrations online. However, prices for the best photographs are on the rise and sometimes you just want something different. So, here we present a selection of alternative premium stock photo sites, plus some useful tools for finding free photos.

Dreamstime.com is a relatively new player that's built up a very nice reputation. It is a member of the Picture Archive Council of America and is a popular source of photographs for many advertising agencies, magazines and media companies. Like iStockphoto, images are sold on a credit system with subscription options. A selection of over 220,000 free images are available under a Limited Royalty Free License, which restricts you to using the image no more than 10,000 times. All free images are donated by photographers.

Next up is 123rf.com. This site brings a refreshing change and has a great image search engine. Again, images are purchased using credits; although credits can be a little more expensive than some other options. Many of the images are free for the lowest resolution or smallest size, and there's a broader range of categories than some other sites.

Bigstockphoto.com has a set price based on the size of each image and offers credit packs. If you are after one or two photos, then this is a good way to shop since you don't need to remember how the credit system works. They have a very wide selection of photographs, and although it's not the cheapest, the ordering system is smooth.

Depositphotos.com is another competitively priced stock photo business. Individual images can start at 50¢, but having a subscription brings the cost of images down to as little as 10¢ each. They have many illustrations, vectors and backgrounds in addition to images. There's also a greater depth to some categories, for example their medicine and health section contains over 1,000 photos of operations alone.

Fotolia.com is a London-based business with stock photos starting from 11¢ each. Fotalia describes itself as the first worldwide social marketplace for royalty free stock images and illustrations. They emphasize that the site is as much for designers and illustrators as for photographers so, if you are looking for illustrations this should be the first place you visit. They also have a small selection of free images.

Canstockphoto.com boasts 4.5 million stock photos and is one of the few sites where no membership is required. Many of the images are also available on previously mentioned stock photo sites. They also have a large collection of vector images and illustrations.

Finally, we have Alamy.com. Almany boasts 24 million stock photos with 15,000 new images added every day. You can tell from the start that they offer a much higher quality of photography than other sites. Images are often very well composed, artistic and dynamic. On their homepage they showcase some of their top photographers. You can search specifically for model released images too, which is something few sites provide. They also have a "creative" filter which includes more abstract images and some illustrations.

Tools are essential in search engine marketing. They save us time, teach us about our market, help us grow our campaigns and make our job easier. Sometimes, they make the difference between a good search engine marketer and a great one.

Here are 3 absolutely free tools that are rarely talked about but can deliver very useful insights for your paid search efforts.

1. Microsoft Advertising Intelligence

The first on our list wasn't destined to be used with AdWords.

What's cool about it? Enter your keywords and it will show you a great variety of competitive metrics about your market you would have never found otherwise.

For example, you can enter an entire keyword list and learn what the average CTR is for each keyword on Bing. Which means that you can pick and choose only high CTR keywords and easily avoid those that would yield low CTR before you ever advertise for them. This is extremely important for containing your Adwords costs because CTR is the main factor that influences quality scores which in turn influences costs.

That was just one example of how to use the AdCenter tool. Other ways include getting keyword suggestions based on what other advertisers are bidding on or getting the exact search traffic of a keyword by day. Even though this is data from Bing, you can assume that gap differences between one keyword to the other is the same on Google and make decisions based on that. Make sure to watch all the short tutorial videos to understand the effectiveness this tool.

The cons? It's an excel addon. Which means you have to be on windows and you have to download stuff that often bugs. I say that because downloading and installing the addon came with a lot of hassle. It didn't work on my first try but the persistence was worth it.

2. Tenscores Manual Bid Optimizer

This tool has gone under the radar, so did the video that inspired it.

What's cool about it? Enter the predicted bids/clicks/costs by the adwords bid simulator then enter a few of your business metrics, it will tell you what you need to bid for maximum profitability. It uses a methodology that was first introduced by Hal Varian, Google Chief Economist, and makes it simpler to implement.

If you've taken the time to watch Hal's video, you already know what the methodology is:

"While bidding at your value-per-click will generally lead to profitable results, it may not produce the maximum possible profit for your marketing investment. [...] Whenever your value per click is less than the incremental cost per click, it will pay you to lower your bid in order to reduce your cost. Conversely, if your value per click is higher than your incremental cost per click, you should increase your bid."

~ Hal Varian, Chief Economist at Google

Make sure to watch the video on the page first to understand what incremental cost-per-click is and grasp the optimization concept.

The cons? It has to be used in conjunction with the Adwords bid simulator which doesn't always provide accurate predictions. That's why it's always better to take the results with a grain of salt and test them before adopting them. The methodology can also be a little hard to understand but you'll be glad you took the time to learn it.

3. Jumbo Keyword Editor

There are quite a lot of simple tools out there for cleaning keyword lists, sorting keywords, wrapping keywords with match types, etc...

What's cool about Jumbo? It brings a myriad of editing functionalities into one simple interface. Every time you need to remove duplicates from a list of keywords, change them into domain names and vice versa or group them into identical terms, Jumbo comes to the rescue.

The cons? I recently wanted to turn my keywords into modified broad matches and didn't find a way to do it in Jumbo as I expected. It has a lot of simple functionalities but you'll often feel like there's something missing. It's still worth keeping it in your tool set.

If you know of any other useful and 100% free tool that isn't talked about much in our community, feel free to share in the comments.

There's little doubt that Facebook, Twitter and Google+ form the 'Big Three' of the social media world. While Facebook and Twitter have been around for a while, Google+ is a recent phenomenon that's growing at a scorching pace. While I strongly believe that all of these social networks operate mutually exclusively, there's been no shortage of social media experts and critics who've drawn Google+ vs. Facebook and Google+ vs. Twitter comparisons.

Ever since Google+ launched, several public personalities and celebrities have openly announced their intention to abandon Facebook and Twitter in favor of Google+. Several polls (such as this one) indicate that a substantial proportion of users will abandon Facebook for Google+. Similarly, there's no shortage of Google+ admirers who all of a sudden feel that they don't need Twitter any longer.

As a social media veteran, I strongly believe it's foolish to abandon Facebook and Twitter in for Google+ as they cater to specific social media needs. In this post, I present my case on why you shouldn't abandon Facebook and Twitter for Google+.

It's still early days!

As much as I admire Google+, it's still early days. Google+ is close to 20 million members and it's got there fairly quickly. However, it's still got a lot of catching up to do before it can challenge Facebook and Twitter in terms of user base. Facebook has more than 750 million members and continues to grow at a scorching pace. While Twitter doesn't' show skyrocketing numbers, it still appeals the most to a large number of business users.

Google+ has been around for a month. In contrast, Facebook and Twitter have been around what seems like an eternity. They are the 'been there, done that' boys of social media which can't be written off easily.

Business appeal

Nobody knows what Google+ business profiles will offer. In one of my earlier posts, I presented my thoughts on how Google+ could try to tap the business segment. On the other hand, Facebook and Twitter are proven business success stories in the social media world. From a business perspective, it makes little business sense to abandon your Facebook fans and Twitter followers in favor of a currently unknown phenomenon.

140 Characters!

Twitter is and will always be known for its 140 character limit. Though it initially comes across as a limitation, it is actually a blessing in disguise for Twitter users as they are enforced to use meaningful words to comply with the 140 char limit. That is what makes Twitter simple and effective to use. In contrast, Google+ offers an eat-all-you-can approach where I've been posts which are several paragraphs long.

Advertising

Facebook is the big daddy of advertising in the social media world. It would be a brave assumption to make that Google+ will match or better Facebook's advertising might. Facebook recently announced 'Facebook for Business' - an indication that it is no mood to rest on its current laurels and it's well prepared for the Google+ challenge. Despite its phenomenal growth, it would be challenging for Google+ to match Facebook's advertising strength.

Have you abandoned Facebook and Twitter in favor of Google+? Or do you believe Facebook, Twitter and Google+ can't be replaced with one another? Please share your opinion by leaving a comment.

As social media marketers, we're naturally in pursuit of identifying "who is doing it right." We follow the feeds and influencers that help inspire our creativity, guide our approach, and validate our recommendations.

We whore out our email addresses in exchange for white papers, register for webinars we can't find time to attend, and maintain an insatiable appetite for research and ROI-proving case studies.

In all of this, it's sometimes easy to overlook the lessons learned (and shared) from a single company - even one that's been in business for 125 years. But one thing I've learned about social media is that universal principles apply. Coca-Cola may have far more budget and resources than you - but at least some of the wisdom gained from their leaders and experience can also be ours.

Coca-Cola's View on Media

As Wendy Clark, SVP of Integrated Marketing and Communication for Coca-Cola will tell you, media is viewed as paid, earned, owned, and shared. This is not at all unique to Coke, but certainly sets the stage for understanding how the company views and segments its overall marketing.

Note: For a detailed explanation on differences between media types, check out Jackie Cohen's post on how to define shared media. Her content is specific to Facebook, yet still applicable and relevant to Coca-Cola's approach.

Expressions Trump Impressions

Although Coca-Cola continues recognizing impressions as the "connective tissue" to their overall marketing efforts - they have clearly adopted the greater value associated with their customers' "expressions." The difference is simple: what somebody saw vs. what somebody spent time on (liked, viewed, commented, uploaded, shared, etc.)

Yes, this is Coca-Cola's spin on "engagement" - but because they are so intentional about its value (especially at the executive level), they are in a continual process of analyzing expression data to more effectively drive their actions.

As Jonathan Mildenhall, VP of Global Advertising Strategy at Coca-Cola, said at the recent Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, "data will become the new soil in which our ideas will grow, and data whisperers will become the new messiahs." Think that guy's excited?

Content Must Be Liquid and Linked

Coca-Cola's concept of "liquid" means the company's content is produced in a framework of dynamic storytelling that has a natural affinity to go to the furthest points possible. They are thinking strictly in terms of how the content they produce will be shareable, how it will relevantly flow across networks, cultures, and personal touch points.

Of equal importance is the concept of this content being connected, or "linked" to the brand's strategy and ambition. When I first heard "linked," my mind went to ideas around social search optimization and search engine visibility, but that actually has nothing to do with Coca-Cola's concept of linked.

You can see a snippet of Clark's explanation at the 2011 IAB Annual Leadership Meeting, where she also mentioned that if content created by the brand doesn't ultimately relate to the brand strategy, it is misdirected.

Advocacy Trumps Loyalty

Joe Tripodi, EVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Coca-Cola, recent authored an article in the Harvard Business Review where he also discussed the focus on expressions, liquid and linked.

Another valuable insight he shared: "Awareness is fine, but advocacy will take your business to the next level. I used to think that loyalty was the highest rung on the consumer pyramid until I became the CMO of Allstate Insurance. There, I saw clearly that so much business was driven through personal referrals and advocacy by individuals for their agent."

Tripodi points to the estimation of Coca-Cola creating video content that generated 26 million YouTube views, while 120 million views were of Coca-Cola content created by others.

To say your consumers are the ones that really own your brand might be met with controversy - but also to Tripodi's point, the best Coca-Cola can do is "be a facilitator who manages communities, not a director who tries to control them." Clark also demonstrated this alignment at IAB, indicating Coca-Cola's success has been about "moving from control to curation."

Find the Balance Between Brand Love and Brand Value

Clark refers to Coke's "extrinsic" (brand love) messaging as one that creates emotional relationship with the brand. A good example of this was last year's Coca-Cola Happiness Machine video that not only went viral with zero supporting advertising - but eventually was (very economically) repurposed as a TV commercial.

"Brand value" messaging refers to the intrinsic, or "functional relationship" more closely associated with traditional marketing. This kind of messaging might include a coupon or redemption asset designed specifically to drive a purchase.

'Differentiation Based On Authenticity May Be the Most Powerful Weapon You Have'

The above is a quote from Jerry Wilson, a senior VP who has been with Coke over the last 23 years. As Wilson recently stated to an audience at Terry College, "A brand is nothing more than a promise plus the experience that creates a relationship. Great brands communicate consistently, knowing that everything communicates."

Image Credit: All Facebook