SEO Guide
18 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in HOME, SEO Tags: advertising, blog tips, business strategies, charitable social media, creative juices, denise hood, Guide, informative, marketing, Optimization, Search Engine, SEO, strategies, Tips, www.creativejuicesmarketing.com
Search Engine Optimization: Code Optimization
What they don’t see, matters. Code is the most neglected aspect of search engine optimization campaigns. Well-written, standards-compliant code makes your site load fast, and opens it up to search engines.
Code optimization is part of successful SEO; it removes browsing obstacles from people and search engines. Pouring a solid foundation. When conducting a search engine optimization campaign, ignoring the HTML code is like leaving the foundation off of your house.
Search engines read the HTML that drives your site and use that code to drive critical decisions in your site’s eventual ranking. When search engines index your site, they look at several factors:
1. Content to code ratio: They want to see the highest possible ratio of code to content.
2. Code accessibility: Search engine ‘spiders’ are very simple, and generally fairly standards-dependent. They need code that’s standards-compliant in order to access all areas of your site.
3. No funny stuff: More advanced search engines, such as Google and Yahoo, look for any attempt to deliver one set of keyword-rich but hard-to-read content to search engines, and another, more people-friendly version to everyone else. When they find this type of search engine spam, they may demote or ban your site. No long-term search engine optimization strategy should employ these kinds of tactics.
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How To Boost Your Tweets
08 Apr 2012 Leave a Comment
in HOME, Twitter Tags: advertising, Blog, blog tips, business, business strategies, charitable social media, creative juices, creative juices marketing, denise hood, marketing, social buzz, social media strategy, twitter, www.creativejuicesmarketing.com
Attracting more people who like what you are posting is essential to success on Twitter. From content to context, hashtags to @ tags, there are many methods to coax your Twitter audience into tapping that left mouse button.
1. Write persuasive tweets
Tweets are just like headlines; the best ones state a benefit and generate curiosity. Make them easy to read; get rid of complicated words, because people scan on Twitter. The easier a tweet is to read, the better the chances of them clicking the link.
2. Focus on keywords
People are always looking for good content on Twitter. If their Twitter feed doesn’t deliver what they are looking for, they go to the search box and enter a keyword for a topic. Make sure your tweet includes relevant keywords so people find them.
I’ve found “How To” and “Guide” keywords work extremely well. They also deliver great conversion rates.
3. Use hashtags
Some people search for hashtags instead of words. If you’re tweeting something about Twitter use the hashtags #Twitter, #sm or #socialmedia; if you’re tweeting something on copywriting, use #writing or #marketing, etc.
Hashtags can make a huge difference on your click-through rate.
4. Post when most of your followers are online
Click-through rates are normally highest in the afternoon, according to Dan Zarrella, but those are just general stats for a general audience.
Figure out the time your target audience prefers by using tracking software such as bit.ly or a service like SocialBro, which figures out your best times to tweet.
5. Place the links early in your tweets
Dan Zarella found that tweets with a link one-quarter through the tweets had a higher click rate. Therefore, place links up front instead of at the end, which is commonplace.
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Top Ten Tumblr’s
06 Mar 2012 Leave a Comment
in HOME, Tumblr Tags: advertising, best blogs, Blog, blog tips, business strategies, creative juices, creative juices marketing, denise hood, informative, social buzz, social media, social media strategy, socialbuzz.biz, tumblr, writing, www.creativejuicesmarketing.com
TEN – Secret Republic
(Secret Republic is a cascade of ideas centered around the sustainability of our urban environments.) Kasey Klimes, who currently resides in the Nørrebro district of Copenhagen, studies urban design and sustainable development. He has an outstanding blog and his passion for improving urban ecosystems is evident in every post. Our two-wheeled friend, the bicycle, gets a lot of coverage, but there’s far more going on, with human scale cities, green roofs, and sustainable economics getting exposure.
NINE - Urbnist
I don’t think there’s a better blog on Tumblr for urban photography. Urbnist posts beautiful photographs of city scenes at an impressive frequency, and would be a fantastic addition to anyone’s Tumblr Dashboard.
EIGHT - Captain Plan it
Any blog that describes itself as ‘Ctrl+v’ing ideas (which, in case you didn’t know, Ctrl and V are the quick keys for paste), innovations, knowledge and pretty pictures from cities around the world’ gets a thumbs-up from me. But Captain Plan it is a worthwhile read because it’s doing a great job with the Ctrl and V buttons. Anything remotely urban gets a reblog, resulting in a varied and exciting selection of urban ideas.
SEVEN - City Breaths
Mark Minkjan looks at ‘respirations of the urban environment’ with City Breaths, exploring the everyday of our cities. City Breaths shares videos, images and links, and Mark is unafraid to challenge urban flaws despite seeming pretty captivated by them.
SIX - Entrapped Spaces
A Tumblog where ‘all comments are made purely of kick-ass’. Entrapped Spaces rethinks the city, finding fun in the everyday and sharing some great quotes. They use YouTube videos to make it even more fun. Check it out.
FIVE - The Museum of Reclaimed Urban Space
Our only region-specific entry on the list, MoRUS aims to ‘preserve, research, archive, and exhibit the historical squats and gardens of Manhattan’s Lower East side’, and the visual end result is pretty captivating stuff you can appreciate whatever part of the world you’re in.
FOUR - Human Scale Cities
No prizes for guessing the topic of this Tumblog. Manu Fernández presents a ‘sketchbook of ideas’ exploring scale and the human side of cities, leaning heavily towards literature on the topic. If you’re after some reading material beyond blogs, this would be a good site to follow.
THREE - Urban Funscape
Another one where the clue’s in the name. Urban Funscape is This Big City’s latest Tumblr obsession (and our final addition to this list), providing a stream of images that never fail to bring out a smile. Cities can be hilarious places – often unintentionally – and this Tumblog has captured moments that most urban dwellers could relate to.
This Big City has been on Tumblr for almost three years now, and as we approach our 1,000th post (tumble?) we thought we’d highlight some of our favourite urbanism Tumblogs. There’s a great community of urbanism bloggers on Tumblr, and choosing our ten favourites was no easy task, especially after we asked our followers to nominate themselves for an extra look-in. But we did it. Here’s ten of our favourite urbanism Tumblogs (in no particular order, I should add):
TWO - Urbalize
Urbalize presents a portfolio of images and videos exploring imaginative use of urban space. Whilst some content is a vision of what are cities could be, a lot looks at what cities have already achieved. A pretty positive vision overall, despite this being their opening quote: ‘It is difficult to design a space that will not attract people. What is remarkable is how often this has been accomplished.’
ONE - SPATIALforces is a lot of fun. I hope that’s the point. A good chunk of their recent posts have been text-heavy images, providing ‘food for thought’, or something to have a chuckle over. See above. Comments like ‘if you want to change society, don’t build anything’ won’t keep the developers happy, but they probably aren’t on Tumblr anyway. Well worth checking out.
Related posts:
- Urbanism in Print: September’s Magazine Review
- Twenty-five of the Best Urbanism Quotes
- Urbanism in Print: A Magazine Review
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Are you engaged?
15 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Facebook, Flickr, LinkedIn, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube Tags: advertising, Blog, blog tips, business, business strategies, creative juices, creative juices marketing, denise hood, engaged, facebook, foursquare, Increase your facebook value, informative, linked in, marketing, social buzz, social media strategy, socialbuzz.biz, strategies, www.creativejuicesmarketing.com
Engagement with your audience is one of great advantages of social media marketing, but creating meaningfuland advantageous conversations is as much an art as it is a science. Engagement increases brand loyalty and public conversations can serve as free advertising.
The team at Awareness, Inc. reviews proven steps and real world examples of how to ignite the social spark with your fans and followers from thier recent whitepaper 11 Strategies to Increase Engagement with Social Media.
Contests and Promotions
Know your audience and provide content that is valuable, useful or interesting. One of the best ways to get the social customer engaged with your brand is to give something they want away through contests, promotions or coupons. 65% of people who follow brands on Facebook are looking to score a deal. When considering your own contest or promotion, think about these two cases and how you can model your own promotion with the least barrier to entry.
Example #1: Healthy Choice, they took the common task of offering a coupon and made a game out of it. Healthy Choice introduced a coupon on their Healthy Choice Facebook Page. With each new “Like” on Facebook, the coupon, first valued at $.75, gradually increased to a “buy-one-get-one-free” deal. In just a few weeks, Healthy Choice’s fan count grew from under 7,000 to over 60,000. More importantly, 60% of new fans subscribed to Healthy Choice’s newsletter, generating fresh new leads for the company.
Example #2: USA Today used a social contest to gain recognition and reposition its brand as the “everyman’s” paper. They created a contest called “What America Wants.” Using the hashtag #AmericaWants, USA Today asked fans to win free ad space in the paper for their favorite charity retweeting the following post: “#AmericaWants (insert charity name) to get a full-page ad in USA Today”. The charity mentioned the most in retweets over a three-day period would win a full-page, full-color ad in USA Today, valued at $189,400. The campaign generated over 60,000 tweets in support of more than 500 organizations with an estimated reach of 67 million users.
Ongoing Social Engagement
Contests and promotions can serve your social engagement well, but variety is essential for a successful campaign. Special promotions need to be balanced with interesting and useful content – only then will brands see the lasting power of the meaningful social conversation. Asking questions, doing the unexpected, and empowering your most passionate followers are three ways brands can enhance ongoing social engagement and loyalty, which eventually leads to more customers and increased sales.
Engagement Trick #1: Keep Asking Questions
This may seem obvious, but many brands continue to post about their products and services without asking for feedback. Asking your audience questions not only shows you value customer feedback, it is also a great way to learn insights from and about your fans. For example, Rue La La, the members-only e-commerce powerhouse, and posts questions daily on both their Facebook pageand Twitter feed. Their questions relate to top fashion statements, trends, and users’ favorite fabrics or designers, keeping their brand top of mind and offering the company a stream of real-time insights on people’s “likes”.
Engagement Trick #2: Do Something Unexpected
Few brands have the guts to try something unexpected and even fewer can be successful at it. Stepping outside your comfort zone and doing something really outrageous can sometimes
Engagement Trick #3: Empower Your Most Passionate Users
Empowered fans will boast about your brand and spread the word and are ultimately your number one asset. Rewarding fans for their passion needs to be a staple in every marketer’s toolbox. Discover your what it is about your brand that ignites your fans’ passions. By fueling the fire you can build a loyal following – exactly like what Fiskars did not too long ago. Fiskars, a scissors manufacturer, discovered most of their customers were avid scrap-bookers. The company saw an opportunity to build a community and launched a new community site Fiskateers. Fiskateers empowers passionate scrapbookers to blog, connect in real-time via chat forums, and share creations online. And in the process Fiskars has helped build one of the most vibrant online scrapbook communities, the success of which has been widely published and followed as a best practice of how a brand listened to its followers, saw a need, and created powerful toolset to benefit their most loyal fans.
There are many more ways that social media can be engaging and I will cover them later… OR, if you have something you’d like to share, PLEASE DO! Engaging your own social media followers is important to you and your business – keep it up!
