5 ways your merchandising strategy is affecting SEO performance

How does your merchandising strategy affect SEO? Columnist Stephanie LeVonne describes the various challenges that can arise if you overlook the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy with your SEO team. When optimizing an e-commerce website for SEO performance, you’ll often notice that the product being sold (i.e., the bread and butter of the business) is generally not a focal point in the SEO discussion. After all, SEO recommendations aren’t necessarily based on a brand’s product mix, but rather a strategy is developed based on the holistic needs of the website. While it’s important to understand the product and how it’s positioned in the marketplace (luxury product, discount product or something else), that’s typically where the conversation ends. Often SEOs liaise directly with marketing managers, and because of this, there’s generally little discussion around the merchandising strategy and how it can affect SEO. Below are five common, yet overlooked, scenarios which detail the importance of communicating your merchandising strategy. Challenge 1: Inventory issues & negative reviews What does inventory management have to do with SEO? Turns out, a lot. While I think it’s safe to say that most brands use a live inventory system, meaning that stock-status is updated in real time, some companies haven’t yet adopted this technology. And for this reason, order fulfillment can become a real challenge. One consequence of having loosely managed inventory is overselling merchandise. While this is undoubtedly a huge problem, it may not seem like one that affects SEO, until of course, we examine the trickle-down effect. Essentially, orders that cannot be fulfilled will need to be refunded in a timely manner. While this might not seem like a criminal offense, telling someone that the sweater they ordered for Christmas is now on back-order probably isn’t going to make them a brand advocate any time soon — especially if this is their first interaction with the brand. While some customers might call to voice their concern, many will likely take to social media or Yelp to air their grievances. What was once a problem with fulfillment has now turned into a full-fledged issue of reputation management. Challenge 2: Out-of-stock products & schema markup Perhaps your brand has implemented “stock” schema markup which allows you to display whether products are in stock or out of stock directly in the SERPs. This nifty little enhancement gives consumers information at the tips of their fingers, without ever interacting with your landing page. Going back to the inventory management discussion, the real problem begins when products that are frequently going out of stock aren’t updating their stock status on the back end as they are replenished. This can result in incorrect “out of stock” messaging appearing in the SERPs. In the most extreme cases, depending on how your products are set up in your CMS, one color variation going out of stock could trigger all instances of the product to appear completely out of stock. Not only will you lose sales, but your traffic will likely take a hit as well. As a best practice, continually check the appearance of your schema markup on a regular basis. If worse comes to worst, you can always temporarily disable the schema until you get a handle on the situation. Challenge 3: Product variants & canonical tags One common issue that many websites face is URL confusion (i.e., multiple products or pages competing against each other in the SERPs). In the case of many e-commerce sites, these are often products which are identical but differ in color. An easy way to mitigate this issue is to use color swatches on each page and ensure that when a color is selected, it does not generate a dynamic parameter in the URL. Color swatches allow for consumers to browse all variants of a product — and since only one URL is created, you reduce the chance of duplicate content. Source: Nordstrom.com While this would be deemed a “best practice” rather than a strategy, there are still some websites that create individual URLs for each different color of a product and each different size. For instance, if you offer the same shoe in red, gray and black, and it’s available in six different sizes, imagine the number of pages that would generate! (Hint: It’s a lot) Another common scenario that can have major implications is the following: Product goes out of stock and page is taken down, and product comes back in stock and new page is created. Firstly, let’s address the fact that taking down a page or removing it from your navigation does NOT mean it’s gone. In fact, that page is likely still live and being indexed, especially if it’s in your XML sitemap. Without a solid canonical tag strategy in place, you will inevitably create pages and pages of duplicate content. If this is an issue for your brand, it’s essential to make sure you have canonical tags in place. Ideally, you should try to have one product page where users can select multiple colors. In the event that the product goes out of stock, you could change the on-page messaging to say something like, “This product is temporarily unavailable — check back soon” rather than remove the page in its entirety, especially if there is a slim chance you will remember to reinstate it. Challenge 4: Never-ending sales Whether your brand plays in the luxury space or targets the bargain-savvy shopper, you understand the power of a good promotion. Sales generate a sense of urgency which entices consumers to buy now. With many retailers trying to take advantage of unofficial holidays (think “national ice cream cone day”) it’s easy to get overzealous with your promotional calendar. Running promotions too frequently can cause consumers to become immune to your messaging and tune you out. Rather than take out their credit cards, consumers are more apt to debate the necessity of the purchase — and even delay the sale if they know they can expect another in a few

Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content

Essential Search and Social Media Promotion Tips for News Content Lee Odden on Apr 17th, 2017 Content Marketing, Online PR, Social Media Serena Ehrlich BusinessWire Marketing and PR greatness must include equal parts intelligence, creativity and a focus on results. But there’s one more important ingredient necessary to help you stand out: enthusiasm. Serena Ehrlich from BusinessWire has all of these characteristics and at the Digital Summit LA conference, she shared a cornucopia of practical advice about media relations and promotion of news content with zest and gusto. Here are a few highlights. Serena EhrlichIt’s common sense and supported by research that industry media is a source of news and trusted information for buyers of every kind. Consumers and journalists have changed right along with the technology used to discover, consume and engage with content. Therefore, it’s essential that marketing and communications professionals empathize with their audience to understand their preferences and give them what they want. Because newsrooms have shrunk and journalists are overwhelmed with bad pitches along with a news cycle that runs 24/7 it’s a challenge to stand out. But no fear, you can really increase your chances of successful media pickups by following a few news release tips from Serena: Include usable support data Be interesting Be relevant to target audience Be catchy Include quotes Include multimedia Of course, outbound media pitching isn’t the only way journalists can be exposed to your news content. Search engines and social networks can deliver thousands of additional readers that are actively looking for information that your brand has to give. That means making sure news releases and newsroom content is optimized for the right keywords and promoted through social media. Serena suggested using Google Trends to find keywords to add to your release headlines to increase opens, which is great. You can also use tools like keywordtool.io, Moz Keyword Explorer or if you have a Google AdWords account, their Keyword Planner. (we’ve covered press release optimization extensively here in the past in case you want to venture that way) Serena brought up that since journalists are increasingly judged on the traffic or page view performance of the articles they write, be sure to let them know when they cover your story, that you will share what they write across your social networks. If they know you’ll help promote the article, they might be more inclined to use you for the story and again in the future. When it comes to social media promotion, Serena stressed the importance of earning trust. How do you do that? Here are her tips: Share smart content: – News releases and coverage – New ideas – Stats and data – Ask provocative questions Share happy content: – Case studies – User generated content shares – CSR content – Employee life Share negative-fix content: – How can you solve this pain point? – Share consequences Social networks are where people spend their time, period. And to engage with customers, brands need to be where the customers are. To help you promote your news content where people are actually spending time, Serena shared these tips for LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Reddit, Instagram, Pinterest, Snapchat and YouTube: LinkedIn Tips: Professional Competition – Link with coworkers: Trigger LinkedIn’s algorithm by sharing updates simultaneously – Include contact information in your release: LinkedIn promotes people mentioned in news releases – Use LinkedIn blog opportunities to reach new audiences and drive traffic via company blog teaser – Write content that includes the 6 Ws, you, lists, hacks, psychology, careers, talent and multimedia Twitter Tips: Smart, Clever, First – Format: 118-character count – include a headline, link, comments – News content types to post on Twitter: Stats, releases, coverage – Don’t forget to use relevant hashtags – up to 3 – Include up to 4 images, GIF or video – Join hashtag chats – Add Influencers to Twitter lists – Create RT DMs groups – people you can reach out to for mutual sharing of content Facebook Tips: Personal, Smart, Visual – Increase Your Reach – Facebook parses content by type – Facebook matches word use in updates – Use free audience targeting – Upload video in early afternoon Use Facebook Live for reach: – 10 minutes in length – Include surprise material – Comment pinning pending Be sure to try Facebook Notes for the SEO value Reddit Tips: Passionate, Smart, Informed – Reddit has a large audience with 45,000 targeted communities – Share links to drive traffic, but be sure to participate with the Reddit community first to build relationships (don’t just dump your links) – Only share relevant information Instagram Tips: Fame, Recognition – Instagram is a visual social network, so be sure to use high quality or interesting imagery – Showcase behind the scenes, physical products, physical locations – Highlight employee engagement On Instagram, be sure to: – Sign up for a business page – Drive traffic via URL in profile or Stories – Be descriptive – Use hashtags (up to 30) – Like other people’s images to increase interactivity Pinterest Tips: Showing off + Smart – Pinterest is the most aspirational network – It is very focused on B2C, but there are opportunities for B2B – Extremely high CTR On Pinterest, be sure to: – Fuel the smart board – Be hyper-targeted – Be descriptive – Use hashtags Snapchat Tips: Unvarnished Truth – 71% of Snapchat users are 18-34 years old. – Users have an average of 15 friends – To maximize your impact on Snapchat, buy a geofilter! On Snapchat, be sure to: – Provide VIP/exclusive access to content – Be highly relevant with real time discussion – Include offers and coupons – Consider takeovers YouTube + BizWireTV Tips: Video News – 33% of YouTube searches are for news – YouTube TV is launching in 2017 On YouTube, be sure to: – Create content for all sales funnel steps – Determine what your audience watches in long form and shorten it – Create a video of text

10 easy steps to help your business flourish on Facebook

Whether your business is new to Facebook marketing or just in need of a refresh, columnist Will Scott’s Facebook tips will help you build a vibrant and engaged Facebook presence. If your business isn’t making itself visible on Facebook, then you’re missing out on one of the most cost-effective places to meet new customers. Everyone is aware of the popularity of Facebook, but not as many people appreciate the opportunities available to businesses that develop a social media presence. With social media, you have unprecedented control over your brand image, and you can put your message in front of the users who are most likely to be interested. Use these simple tips to take advantage of the internet’s most popular social media platform. 1. Flesh out your Facebook page Even if you already have an engaging and user-friendly website, take some time to completely fill out a Facebook page for your business. Include pictures of your storefront and staff, to make your business trustworthy and relatable. Your Facebook presence gives you a foot in the door with social media users who are looking to learn more without leaving their social media app. Be sure to include contact information, hours of operation and a link to your website. 2. Schedule frequent and consistent posts Once you have pictures and information about your business, an active page should also have relatively frequent posts. Try to post original content at least once a week, but prioritize quality over quantity. Posting several times a day might annoy your fans, causing them to unlike or unfollow your page. When you post blog updates or other business announcements, Facebook posts allow you to amplify that message to a wider audience. Direct social media users to visit your blog or special offers page. 3. Learn about your customers Once your page has attracted some attention, the Audience Insight tools gather quantitative information about the people who like and visit your page. Learn more about their demographics, and use that information to reach out to new groups. If your page is attracting more middle-aged women than expected, for example, then you may want to include posts that are particularly relevant for those potential customers. You can also make a point of reaching out to customers in other age groups to explore untapped markets. 4. Pay attention to — and encourage — reactions and comments Pay attention to the posts that get reactions and comments. Comments generally indicate a higher level of engagement because it takes more time to type a response than to simply hit “Like,” though the variety of new reactions provide more information than the older “likes.” Depending on your target audience, you may want to elicit a wide range of reactions to make your brand more relatable. Be careful about responding to negative comments, but invite dissatisfied customers to call or email directly. When your business does engage, interaction should be succinct and professional. 5. Post content that gets shared Even for a business page, social media can feel like a popularity contest. When more users share your post, your message goes a lot farther, hopefully generating leads for your business. Of course, not all popular content will be appropriate for your brand. Be especially careful of posts and links that could have political implications or alienate potential customers. It’s best to avoid controversial subject matter and stick to your area of expertise. 6. Stay engaged If your business replies quickly to messages on Facebook, then others will be able to see that your page is active and responsive. Make sure your posts are relevant to your target audience in order to get a response, and try to focus on things that readers will genuinely find useful or newsworthy. Present yourself as a resource for timely and interesting industry news. Consider engaging with your employees through their social media pages, too. 7. Connect with the community Stay relevant by posting information about local festivals and other regional news. If your business is connected with charitable organizations, then social media gives you an opportunity to highlight that connection. Post photos of your employees when they volunteer with local non-profits, and show the community how your brand has a positive impact. As a bonus, when you have an active Facebook page, other businesses and profiles can link their posts and thank-you announcements to your page. 8. Post and share events Create Facebook events for your next big sale. When events are happening in the community, you can draw attention to those as well. Many businesses fail to leverage events as opportunities to promote their social media page. Given the number of people on Facebook, creating an event page can also increase the turnout for your real-world event. Facebook events make it easy for users to invite friends and see how many people plan to attend. 9. Pay for advertising Once you collect a few hundred fans on Facebook, you’ll notice that your posts don’t seem to get as many views as they should. Your posts don’t necessarily get 50 times more exposure when your page has 50 times more followers. This gives new pages and startups an advantage when they first develop a following, but larger business can still have a big impact on Facebook. Paying for advertising allows you to target people with interests relevant to your industry. You can also target specific demographics and areas to maximize your advertising dollar. 10. Build social media into your SEO budget Like updating your website for search engine optimization, social media is a long-term project for your business. You may not have anyone experienced or qualified to manage your social media presence, and few businesses can afford to hire a new employee for this highly specialized job. Many managers have a hard enough time keeping employees off of their personal Facebook pages. Creating engaging content takes time, and the simplest option is often bundling social media maintenance with other SEO services. Final thoughts Maintaining an online presence

5 Luxury Marketing Strategies – increase your conversions

There’s a reason Gucci doesn’t do infomercials for tiger print duffels. That Equinox doesn’t offer a discount for January first’s newly health-obsessed. That anthropomorphic Hamsters break dance in front of Kia Souls instead of Range Rovers. Advertising for luxury brands tends to focus on, well, luxury. The happiness they inspire. The quality. The sheer opulence that becomes a piece of one’s life when he or she buys free-range leave-in conditioner infused with dolphin tears, or an ornate bottle of some top-shelf botanical cordial. Whether you’re storyboarding a TV spot or building out an ad group, your target audience needs to feel as though your product or service is a physical manifestation of luxury. Now, this sort of strategy (creating the appearance that your product embodies some specific quality or trait) is not exclusive to luxury brands. Taco Bell, for example, is most certainly not a luxury brand, but their marketing efforts (and new product development), are wholly focused on the late-night munchies-sufferers among us. The language and images used in Taco Bell’s marketing materials speak to these consumers; there’s very little pomp, just an often-entertaining reminder that there’s no better place to shove eleven cheap tacos made out of Doritos and meatstuff into your face hole. The ad above exemplifies this perfectly. Cheesy neon signs. Colloquial language. An assortment of various corn or flour vessels oozing tasty mysteries. Now that you’re sufficiently hungry (or repulsed) let’s switch gears and refocus on advertising for luxury brands. Check out this text ad for Rolex, arguably the world’s most recognizable luxury watch company: Notice the language used. “Timeless” and “luxury” and “performance” and “prestige.” There’s an undeniable sense that a Rolex is opulence incarnate and an implication that if you manage to wrap one around your wrist, you are elite. Now, you may not be as recognizable as Rolex, but we can show you how to leverage the same tactics and then some (I’m looking at you, notably bland CTA) so that you can use PPC to grow and market your luxury brand. Luxury Marketing Strategy #1: Account-Wide Negative Keywords The first, and easiest, strategy for marketing your luxury brand is classic “addition by subtraction.” You’re probably already incorporating negative keywords into your optimization routine, but did you know you can save time by uploading them at the account level? Account-level negative keywords are a simple addition to your AdWords efforts; all you need is a CSV file loaded with negative keywords. From there, you simply upload the file in the Bulk Upload tab of the Shared Library and then apply it to as many campaigns as you’d like. Doing so has a handful of benefits, but the most important for marketing luxury goods and services is the ability to weed out unqualified traffic. Think about it. Say you sell shoes hand cobbled by the finest artisans in all of Montana. While the keyword “shoes” will certainly yield traffic, and some of those searchers may very well be interested in buying your exceptional kicks, the overwhelming majority of that traffic falls outside of your target demographic. This becomes even more of an issue as you begin to consider keywords with modifiers. “Cheap,” “sale,” and the dreaded “free” are all words that, when appended to a query, ostensibly eliminate a searcher as a prospect. Account-wide negative keywords ensure you never bid on terms you have no interest in paying for (on purpose or accidentally). Luxury Marketing Strategy #2: Make Bing a Priority For the majority of search marketers, AdWords is the end all be all. Bing and other networks (Yahoo Gemini among them) tend to exist in their arsenal complementarity, if at all. Generally speaking, this is a bad idea. For luxury brands, it’s a cardinal sin. What does that 30% mean, exactly? 160 million unique searchers. 5 billion monthly searches. But perhaps most important to your business is the fact that Bing allows you to reach 59 million people who aren’t reached on Google. Yes, for the most part clicks on Bing are cheaper than they are on AdWords. This is awesome. But the network’s real value is the fact that you can get an additional 118 million eyeballs (a third of which have are attached to six-figure incomes) on your luxury goods. Luxury Marketing Strategy #3: Elevate Your Ad Copy Expanded Text Ads are now our reality, and there’s never been a better time to market your high-end product using the power of paid search. With all that extra space comes the ability to differentiate yourself from the rest of the SERP with language instead of relying solely on brand recognition. After all, even when you’re bidding on branded keywords, there’s a good chance you’ll be competing with third party distributors and your direct competitors. The copy you use in your text ads will be the difference between earning a prospect’s click and watching them scroll on by. But what does better ad copy look like? Great question! As you can see in the column on the left, STA (what used to be called Standard Text Ads) placed tight restrictions on your ability to say anything compelling in your ad copy. How can you stand out from the competition when everyone’s pigeonholed into using the same five-ish sentence fragments? Off the top of my head, hiring a commercially motivated haiku writer was the only plausible solution. Today, though, with the addition of a second headline and more space in the description (plus the URL pathways), you can parlay your brand’s unique sales proposition without truncation. You can wrap it in enticing, alluring, wholly irresistible copy. Don’t just tell your prospects to buy now: tell them why they have no other choice. Check out this text ad for Chanel. What do you notice? In the good ‘ol days, this is an ad that would fly in the face of best practices. Today, though, I’d say it represents an interesting A/B test. Now, are this ad’s headlines great? No. They lean so heavily

Social Media Marketing: Internet Marketing Objective #1

What is the purpose of your website? What is is supposed to accomplish? What is your objective? Have you ever thought about it? Do you know […]? Specifically!   I’m out talking to people every day about things like social media marketing, online marketing, video marketing, email marketing and even text message marketing. It’s fun and exciting. I love getting specific questions about YouTube marketing, Facebook Marketing and Twitter marketing too. What I’m amazed by is the number of people who can’t answer the most basic of questions though. What is the purpose of your website? I get answers like “Well, I just need to be on the web” or “I need to have a place that tells people about my company” all the time. If you think the conversation should be focused on how pretty your site is, what color font looks best, then that’s fine AFTER you’ve figured out what the primary purpose of your site is and are accomplishing it. I want to know if your site attracts, captures and converts leads into orders. Does it make you money? Does it process orders and ship your products in ways that save you and your employees money? Until you have THOSE objectives identified and your online systems have been built to accomplish those objectives, I encourage you to exercise restraint in your online marketing efforts. As my parents used to say, your cart might be in front of your horse.   Purchase worth products to dominate your niche! Know More…   As found on Youtube

Top 7 Professional Internet Marketing Tips in 2016 – MBA degree online

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