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Practical Tools for Increasing Traffic to Your Corporate Website Using “Earned” and Paid Techniques

November 17, 2008

Presented by Chris McBride, CEO, Savory Cities

www.savorycities.com

SEO “Starter Guide”Create unique, accurate page titlesMake use of the "description" meta tag

Improve the structure of your URLs

Make your site easier to navigate

Offer quality content and servicesWrite better anchor text

Use heading tags appropriately

Optimize your use of images

Make effective use of robots.txt

Be aware of re="nofollow" for links

Promote your website in the right waysMake use of free webmaster tools

Take advantage of web analytics services

Regularly Publish Targeted Content

Go To Where Your Audience IsPromote your RSS feeds

Offer email updates:

Cross-post links to your content on top social bookmarking and social media sites:

Cross-post to micro-blogs:

Syndicate your images:

Syndicate your videos:

Image syndication with targeted anchor text = top ranking

Video syndication with targeted titles = competitive ranking

Encourage Discussion on Your Blog and Beyond

Respond quickly to user blog comments and email inquiries

Track relevant discussions with web alerts

Join the discussion on influential blogs

Engage friends and followers on Twitter

Be human

Be informative

Be entertaining

Be responsive (leverage search)

Early Twitter success:

Starbucks 11,752 followers

“Starbucks is the largest buyer of Fair Trade Coffee. Read Dub Hay's blog about this: http://tinyurl.com/64vsth” (TwitterFeed)

RileysCafe 194 followers

“Our first official "Twitter Tuesday” is tomorrow (11-11) all day: 25% off your bill (not your tip people). Spread the word! See you there!”

“Twitter truth: reputation is just not # of followers, its # of followers x avg posts per day.” - fredwilson

Target Influencers with BlogAds

What works:

Engaging image

Strong testimonial

Mirrors blog format

Provocative copy

Lots of link options

See also: Federated Media Publishing, Feedburner (Google), Weblogs Inc., Buzzlogic

Barter and/or advertise with email marketers

Measure Results

Set up a free web analytics package

Email reports to key stakeholders

Identify and improve on key metrics, e.g. bounce rate, conversion rate, etc.

A few options: Google Analytics, Clicky (targeted to small sites & blogs), Feedburner (blog stats), 103bees.com (SEO keyword analysis), Clicktale (form usability, heatmaps)

Improve Engagement & Conversion through Testing

A/B test the impact of your call to action, headlines, copy, images and offers on your desired user action, for example:

• site membership

• newsletter signup

• request for product sample

Key Takeaways1. Audit your web site and blog and make quick and easy SEO improvements

2. Regularly publish targeted content and syndicate widely

3. Proactively engage in discussions about your brand, product or service

4. Measure results against your goals and test frequently to improve

ResourcesGoogle's SEO Starter Guide: http://googlewebmastercentral.blogspot.com/2008/11/googles-seo-starter-guide.html

Successful Blogads with comments: http://ww3.blogads.com/examples/nominees

TwitterFeed: http://www.twitterfeed.com

Local restaurant's 'Twitter Tuesday' draws social networking fans by Jeff Raasch: http://www.gazetteonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20081111/NEWS/711119929/1001/NEWS

Google Website Optimzer: 7 Free Resources: http://www.grokdotcom.com/googlewebsiteoptimizer/