Your website is the hub of your B2B marketing efforts, so it’s critical that it be found on search engines. As a marketer, increasing your website’s search engine rankings should be a focused, ongoing endeavor. One of the simplest, yet most important steps to improve your B2B website’s search engine rankings is to optimize the page title.
It’s in the Little Blue Bar
The page title is the phrase that shows in the blue bar at the top of your browser when the web page loads. People rarely read page 
titles because their eyes are drawn to the actual page, but search engines use them to determine which keywords each page should rank for.
SERP’s Up
The page title is also the bold text that shows up on a search engine results page 
(SERP) when you rank in a search engine. If the page title is not well-written, visitors may not be as enticed to click through to your site. So your time and efforts toward ranking well won't generate much traffic.
Power Tips for Page Titles
When writing page titles, consider that the page title should:
- Accurately reflect the content of the page.
- Be unique for each page on your site, not duplicated.
- Use weighted targeted keywords. Keep in mind that the earlier words in the page title are given more weight than the later words.
- Separate keyword phrases with the vertical pipe character ( | ) or hyphen ( - ).
- Be brief. Search engines gauge the importance of a given keyword in the page title depending on the total number of words in the title. If a page title has 10 keywords, each word is about half as effective as if the title only had five keywords. So eliminate unessential words, e.g., “and,” “with,” “or,” etc.
- Limit length to about four keywords. 70 characters is the maximum length that will be shown in SERPs.
- Be written for click-through appeal for the aware human visitor who actually reads page titles.
Because you almost always rank for your company name, you may choose to leave it out of the page title, especially on interior pages. If you have the space, though, it doesn't hurt to add it.
Start with your homepage, then work through the most trafficked interior pages. For most businesses, optimizing the interior pages can yield significant traffic increases with just a few optimization efforts.
Need help optimizing your B2B marketing website? MLT Creative can give you a lift. Click here
/mh
You might also like:
Martine Hunter is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
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“What's up, Blog?”
"Not much. How’re you doing?"
"All right." Pause. "So what's new?"
"Nothing. You?"
"Same."
Is this how you greet your blog?
So you haven’t written a blog post in a few days, weeks or, maybe, months. Unfortunately, this happens, even to the most prolific business bloggers. Blogging is hard work. You must consistently create relevant compelling content. But, you get a little get busy, then even busier with other marketing tasks. Your priorities shift to other B2B work. Sometimes, you have few or no interesting new ideas. Perhaps Twitter’s dominating your social web activities (140 characters is a lot easier than writing a 400-word blog post, right?). Maybe you think an intern or junior associate should do the social media stuff; you’re busy with more important marketing projects. You’re not sure if B2B blogging really works anyway. Meanwhile, your blog sits idle.
Studies confirm that B2B blogs with optimized content are effective at attracting prospects to corporate websites. And more than 90% of B2B buyers begin their research for purchasing decisions online.
If your blog is quiet, your site’s visitors click on the blog button hoping to get a glimpse of your company’s thought-leading perspective—only to see a dusty post about the launch of a “new” product dated six months ago. This potential customer could perceive your abandoned blog as an indicator of how you conduct day-to-day transactions. Not a good way to do business online.
Here are seven ways to get you and your blog engaged again:
Refresh old blog posts: If they are still relevant, update old blogs with a new image, a different headline, edited body copy or a new call-to-action. You may have a broader audience and many new readers now, so it’s quite appropriate to repost an oldie, but goodie. Use undated, evergreen topics.
Prepare an editorial calendar: Pick five to seven general topics in your area of expertise with which you know you can generate good, customer-focused content. Create relevant themes or columns that you can repeat regularly. Brainstorm several headlines for each month. Post them on a calendar and share with your writing team. Click here for brainstorming methods...
Shorter is better than none: Don’t worry about writing a 500-word essay for every blog post. Consider a concise list of links, five or six ideas/trends/observations, or a short comment on another blog or article. Maybe plan a related series of short posts. Small snippets of content can still keep your community engaged.
Build up your resources: Enlist other colleagues in the other areas of the company to support blog writing tasks. Share your editorial calendar. Check with your colleagues who may have a penchant for writing but it may not be a primary job task. You may uncover hidden talent.
Add keywords that are driving traffic: Take a look at your analytics. Edit older posts by adding important keywords or phrases that have been driving traffic to your website.
Got news? Turn a press release into a blog article.
Enlist a guest blogger or ghost writer: You may have friends in your industry who would gladly contribute a blog for free, so why not give them a call? Take a look at our ebook for guest blogging ideas. You may also consider hiring a ghost writer to develop a post. Hey, it’s better than having an inactive blog with stale content. You may have to use additional funds, but it’s worth it to maintain your site’s reputation.
So if you and your B2B blog are estranged, shake hands and get reacquainted. Keep your blog site relevant and fresh to engage with your community and help generate visits and prospects.
Have any other suggestions for reviving an idle blog? Send a comment along, I’ll blog about it later when I run out of ideas for this blog.
/mh
Martine Hunter is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
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In B2B marketing, creating a buyer persona is key to understanding your audience. Really using that persona can help your B2B company realize its full potential and speak to the needs and goals of your prospects. Going beyond general demographics to fully identify with the persona as an individual will allow you to personalize your message, focus on a niche and match goals.
Consider age, title, publications read, key concerns, degree of influence, web habits, association memberships, salary, etc. Personalize your personas by giving them names and a quote each one might say. You might even give them each a face using headshots from stock photography.
In action, you could be working on a high-level presentation that your CEO or sales director might deliver to top-tier prospects to close a deal.
As an example, consider Morton, the Motel Owner persona, created specifically to personify the B2B commercial building materials target market segment. In brainstorming sessions, his name should pop up often.
"Does this matter to Mort?"
"I think too much technical detail will bore Mort."
"Mort cares about the comfort of his guests, so let's highlight the product's thermal performance properties."
"A key pain point for Mort is addressing the concerns of his investors. Let's make him look good by focusing on ROI."
"Mort would respond to that because he's concerned about saving on utilities."
Bringing up a fictitious character might seem a little silly as first, but it can quickly evolve into a serious effort to actualize the persona and develop a message targeted specifically toward it. Concentrating on Morton (or your B2B marketing persona) and what he might do can help produce communications that truly address the needs of the prospect.
/mh
Martine Hunter is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
Get your B2B LinkedIn Toolkit
The OMS 2010 23-City Tour stopped in Atlanta last week at the beautiful Hotel Palomar. The tour had already visited cities across the U.S. and Canada, and includes 400 expert speakers, exclusive OMI training workshops and countless peer networking opportunities.
Billy Mitchell, Glenn Taylor, Dave Morris and I thought we’d share our 40 takeaways for B2B marketing from the day. Here's a random collection of our notes, tweets and observations:
- The single answer to problems around the world, in your company and with your marketing efforts is EDUCATION. -Aaron Kahlow of Online Marketing Connection
- Write guest posts to build links. Submit ideas to other blogs within your industry. Begin by following and commenting.
- The center of customer engagement is now online.
- Behavior can be changed, just like habits.
- Calls-to-action should be specific, measurable and achievable, with measured goals.
- States of change model starts with "A-ha!" moment, then preparation, then trial and moving to a new habit (maintenance).
- Health model starts with education, adds motivations offset by barriers, which moves to the recommended action.
- Volitional control - have to demonstrate you can make things easier by using your product or service.
- Out of market > learner > shoppers > buyers > current customers. All of these groups are reached through marketing efforts.
- Marcom systems need to have patience. Most all contacts are learners. They need engagement, nurturing.
- It's a buying cycle, not a sales cycle.
- Apple.com - example of container-only site.
- Right-hand side items are not seen very often, lower conversion.
- Search box for sites over 25 pages is critical.
- Blogs are expected to have right-handed navigation, etc.
- Touchscreen usage is different based on context, need and control differences.
- Scoreboard footers work very well. Dell is an example.
- Top of page is scanned 17 times more than lower items
- Trend is to use home page as brand engagement and not as much for SEO.
- Use natural language instead of industry jargon - better for user and SEO.
- Task-based architecture. Example: Rail Europe - I have a ticket, I don't have a ticket.
- Engage customers with conversation, build communities, listen and respond.
- Audience-based navigation is good if you know your customer mix well.
- Images trump text for attention. Size is king. Think newspaper layout.
- Use controls on rotating graphic fields to allow user to go back and forth, etc.
- Give clear clues to next steps and call-to-action.
- Long info forms kill interaction rates - just get the basics.
- Denote clicked and non-clicked items.
- Divide info into five to nine meaningful chunks. The brain works this way. Example: phone numbers are not ten numbers, but groups of three to four digits.
- Create a mobile version of website. Big opportunities here and in the future.
- Free your content, long content is going away, shorter/versatile is better.
- Integrate to innovative online and offline.
- Be mobile, be everywhere, be relevant.
- Tear down the silos, all messaging must be consistent across barriers.
- Automate the science of marketing. Be maniacal, prove ROI.
- The accessibility of your website, including the download speed, is increasingly impacting Google rankings.
- User actions – specifically, your click-through rate from Google results pages – can affect your organic rankings.
- Google’s recent “Mayday” algorithm update mostly affected “long tail” (multiple word) searches. Previously, a poor-quality web page could rank high for a long tail keyword fairly easily, simply by working that keyword into its content. Now, the entire site must be of good quality in order for that page to rank high.
- Google’s new left sidebar, which allows searchers to choose from social results, images, shopping sites, etc., reinforces the notion that you really need to have all your digital assets optimized for a wide variety of types of searches.
- Social media has surpassed corporate websites as places people go for information about a company, so you must ensure that your social media content ranks high as well as your website!
As you can see, the Online Marketing Summit presented a balanced and focused online educational experience. Highly recommended.
/mh
Martine Hunter is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
The last day of the BMA Engage 2010 conference in Chicago last week began on a high note, with
Chris Brogan delivering a rousing keynote. His easy glibness, dry wit and a delightful proclivity for tangents delivered valuable insights into B2B and the social media world. He was hilarious, creative and unpretentious, genuinely thrilled and honored to be presenting to more than 600 B2B marketers.
The energy of the conference led Brogan to scrap his proposed presentation and put in an all-nighter to draft a new one specifically for the BMA Engage audience. With just a Sharpie, a digital camera and a copy of Trust Agents, he delivered an innovative, one-of-a-kind presentation. He even gave the scribbled book away as a gift.
Here's a collection of my tweets and notes from Chris's presentation:
- First word: "Sawubona" (Zulu for "I See You") - It's time to see people and get back to being human and treating people like they matter.
- How do we build relationships that go beyond a single transaction?
- "No letter my mom ever sent me started with, 'If you can't view this in a browser, click here.'" LOL
- Subscribe to your own email newsletter on multiple mobile devices to ensure that it's viewable. Go back and look at your stuff on all of them.
- You don't have to do what everyone else has done-set your own rules.
- Huffington Post is outperforming most newspapers, print magazines, etc.
- You must differentiate your product, even if you're selling something really boring.
- If all you link to on your website and your blog is your website and your blog, people notice that. Use your own social platform to provide insight.
- Blog commenting is reciprocal. Go comment on other blogs, and you'll better your chances of receiving comments on yours.
- Put "human heads" on your "About" page. Not clip art, and not glamour shots.
- Be there before the sale. Shared a story about Blue Sky Factory sponsorship of PodCamps. Greg from Blue Sky Factory was there before the sale, hanging out and buying people beer. $1k worth of beer created an ROI of nearly seven figures.
- Agent Zero is the person who always knows how to connect other people. It's the person who's at the elbow of every deal. Be Agent Zero. Connect people with other opportunities, and they will remember that you helped them.
- Build your network before you need it - one of the most important activities for marketers. Your network is one of your greatest assets. Make friends with people way outside your sphere, expand your universe. @JDGershbein and @LewisHowes are great resources for LinkedIn.
Takeaways:
- Search Google for "grow bigger ears," and learn about listening tools.
- Spend 25% of your time listening, 50% connecting with people and 25% publishing.
- Who cares how many friends you have if you didn't sell anything? Metrics should be about sales.
- Build blogger relations before you need them.
- Humanize your profiles. Human beings innately look for and identify with faces.
- Take a look a my case studies for more information.
/mh
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association (BMA) as a member of the board of directors.
Dribble, pass, shoot. The buzzer blares: in-and-out heartbreak. Rebound, dribble, pass,shoot: Swish – nothin’ but net. A pick-up game at the gym, or networking at a business-to-business conference? Different scenarios, but similar tactics apply to both.
Although networking through the use of social media can have incredible benefits in the world of B2B marketing, sometimes it feels like riding the bench in the middle of the playoffs. So get in the game by getting away from the computer, because face-to-face interaction is still the best way to make connections and build your B2B business.
Sure, the idea of walking into a room where you don’t know a single person can be pretty daunting, but with a game plan, a goal in mind and a pocket full of business cards, you can work the room like a pro.
Here's a few tips for scoring at networking functions:
Check your attitude. It's key to get mentally geared up before you even show up. Since your attitude often guides your behavior, you must overcome any self-doubts that might hamstring your efforts.
Smile. Here’s a rule that is so simple and self-explanatory, it sometimes slips people’s minds. Some of us are so focused on networking that we don't realize we have frowns on our faces. Scowls and furrowed brows are forbidden. People are more likely to warm up to someone who says “Good morning” with a broad smile than they are to someone with a dour countenance.
Have a game plan. Know who you want to meet in advance, be it a specific person or just a certain type.
Introduce yourself. Don’t wait for an introduction. Before sitting down at the table, tell everyone your name and the name of your company. Be sure to talk to the people sitting next to you.
Ask questions of the people you meet. Never lead with your "elevator pitch." People are more interested in themselves than they are in you, so ask them questions to get them talking.
Have a clear understanding of what you do. Also why, for whom, and what makes your doing it special or different from others doing the same thing. In order to get referrals, you must first have a clear understanding of what you do that you can easily articulate to others.
Put your technology away. Don’t run to your phone. When you’re fiddling with electronics, you look busy and unapproachable. Wait until the next break to break out the Blackberry.
Introduce others. When you meet cool people, make an assist and connect them with others who might be beneficial to them. This includes others at the conference, as well as other people you might know. If you ask the right types of questions, you will easily spot connections that can help others. Don't ever worry about what's in it for you -- just be the person who helps others. You will see over time that others will return the favor.
Follow up. If you meet interesting people and you never follow up, it makes no difference. Own the follow up after you meet people, and send them an e-mail (or, better yet, a handwritten note) telling them how much you enjoyed talking with them, and plan for future discussions.
Read their stuff. Many people are active bloggers, Twitterers, authors, etc. If people create the written word, seek out their work and read it. It’s a great way to get to know people, plus they’ll be honored when you ask them about it.
And just like your lucky pair of Jordans, don't forget your business cards.
Have a networking story to share? Please leave a comment.
/mh
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
With the ever-changing marketing landscape, B2B marketers should always be in a learning mode. There's nothing like a good business book to help you uncover the latest tactics, research, commentary or discussion surrounding our chosen field. It's important to stay current. Here's a some marketing books that address current topics in B2B marketing. Whether I've read, reviewed, or want to read them, I find all these books interesting and containing actionable content.
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Lead Generation for the Complex Sale: Boost the Quality and Quantity of Leads to Increase Your ROI Brian J. Carroll The complex sale, a synthesis of consultative, competitive, and team selling, that targets potential buyers for team service solutions, is the norm in today's B2B environment. In this bestseller, you'll learn how to target prospects early in the buying process and make the most efficient use of sales productivity and marketing resources.
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Emerging Business Online : Global Markets and the Power of B2B Internet Marketing Lara Fawzy & Lucas Dworski
Publish Date: October 25, 2010 This is the first comprehensive guide to Internet B2B marketing in emerging markets. The authors introduce their proprietary ebocube ("Emerging Business Online") approach: a comprehensive, applications-oriented method that covers every stage of the marketing process. Using their framework and methodology, business leaders can implement a low-risk, high-reward business model, penetrate the world's fastest-growing markets, and create significant value where it never existed before.
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The New Rules of Marketing and PR: How to Use Social Media, Blogs, News Releases, Online Video, and Viral Marketing to Reach Buyers Directly, 2nd Edition
David Meerman Scott This new second edition paperback keeps you up-to-date on the latest trends. New case studies and current examples are included to illustrate the very latest in marketing and PR trends. Completely updated to reflect the latest marketing and PR techniques using social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Includes a step-by-step action plan for harnessing the power of the Internet to communicate directly with buyers, increase sales, and raise online visibility. First edition previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz
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Get Content Get Customers: Turn Prospects into Buyers with Content Marketing Joe Pulizzi & Newt Barrett Previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz 
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Digital Body Language: Deciphering Customer Intentions in an Online World Steven Woods
Today, B2B marketers must decode a buyer s digital body language to understand the roles, information needs, timing, and buying intentions of its largely faceless and elusive target market. Steven Woods helps B2B marketing professionals understand the new dynamics of marketing complex products and services. He walks through the new tools available to buyers, how to read digital body language, and how to respond most effectively to maximize the volume and quality of leads.
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Socialnomics: How social media transforms the way we live and do business Erik Qualman
Socialnomics-where consumers and the societies they create online have a profound influence on our economy and the businesses that operate within it. Online word of mouth and the powerful influence of peer groups have already made many traditional marketing strategies obsolete.
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Putting the Public Back in Public Relations: How Social Media Is Reinventing the Aging Business of PR Brian Solis & Debra Breakenridge
This book shows how to reinvent PR around two-way conversations with traditional and new influencers, bring the "public" back into public relations-and earn a new level of results that just wasn't possible before now.
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eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale Ardath Albee Previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz. 
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The New Community Rules: Marketing on the Social Web Tamar Weinberg
This book offers crucial advice and strategies for marketing products and services on today's social web, with case studies on what really works and what doesn't. Many consumers today use the Web as a voice. The New Community Rules demonstrates how you can join the conversation, contribute to the community, and bring people to your product or service.
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Inbound Marketing: Get Found Using Google, Social Media, and Blogs Brian Halligan & Dharmesh Shah
Previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz.
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Trust Agents : Using the Web to Build Influence, Improve Reputation, and Earn Trust Chris Brogan & Julien Smith
This book is your guide to a new form of power broker--web natives who trade in trust, reputation, and relationships using tools you may never even have heard of. You will learn what you need to look for in such an agent for your business or how to become one yourself. Trust Agents is your guide to the deep end of meaningful relationships on the web.
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Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies Charlene Li & Josh Bernoff
Previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz.
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Crush It!: Why NOW Is the Time to Cash In on Your Passion Gary Vaynerchuk
Do you have a hobby you wish you could indulge in all day? An obsession that keeps you up at night? Now is the perfect time to take that passion and make a living doing what you love. In Crush It! Yet another rallying cry to the banner of turning your passion into a career,
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The 4-Hour Workweek, Expanded and Updated : Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich Timothy Ferriss
Forget the old concept of retirement and the rest of the deferred-life plan-there is no need to wait and every reason not to, especially in unpredictable economic times. Whether your dream is escaping the rat race, experiencing high-end world travel, earning a monthly five-figure income with zero management, or just living more and working less, The 4-Hour Workweek is the blueprint.
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The Zen of Social Media Marketing: An Easier Way to Build Credibility, Generate Buzz, and Increase Revenue Sharma Hyder Kaban Social media marketing isn't like traditional marketing-and treating it that way only leads to frustration. Let Shama Hyder Kabani, president of Web marketing firm Marketing Zen and social media expert, teach you the "zen" of social media marketing: how to access all the benefits of social media marketing without the stress!
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The Social Media Bible: Tactics, Tools, and Strategies for Business Success Lon Safko & David K. Brake
This comprehensive guide shows you how to build or transform your business into a social media-enabled enterprise where customers, employees, and prospects connect, collaborate, and champion your products, your services, and your way of doing business.
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Hope Is Not a Strategy : The 6 Keys to Winning the Complex Sale Rick Page
Provides your team with B2B sales strategies and techniques that will make them more consultative sales professionals. It is a book for the strategic thinker and will enable you to build a world class sales organization.
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Winning with Customers : A Playbook for B2B D. Keith Pigues & Jerry Alderman
Publish Date: August 9, 2010 Without a deep understanding of where and how it creates customer value, a company is blind as to where necessary cuts could and should be made. Filled with case studies, interviews, and solutions from business, operational, and IT leaders, worldwide, Deliver More for Less provides practical and proven guidelines of how leading companies use deep customer understanding to reduce their cost of serving customers and increase revenues.
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Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die Chip Heath & Dan Heath Previously reviewed by B2B Book Buzz.
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Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference Malcolm Gladwell
Defining that precise moment when a trend becomes a trend, Malcolm Gladwell probes the surface of everyday occurrences to reveal some surprising dynamics behind explosive social changes. He examines the power of word-of-mouth and explores how very small changes can directly affect popularity.
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Twitter Power 2.0: How to Dominate Your Market One Tweet at a Time
Joel Comm
In this revised and updated edition of Twitter Power, online marketing entrepreneur Joel Comm explores the latest trends, methods, and practices for making Twitter work for your business. You'll see how businesses and marketers are building a loyal following among Twitter members, expanding awareness of their product or service, and even handling negative publicity due to angry or disappointed customers. Updated with the latest business applications for Twitter, recent case studies, and other relevant social media info, Twitter Power gives you everything you need to tweet your way to success.
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Do you have suggestions for the next Big A List of Marketing Books?
/mh
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
Download our B2B Blogging Webinar and eBook:
Our recent webinar on corporate blogging resulted in more questions than we had time to answer so we'll provide a personal reply on our blog to each question over the next few days.
Question #2 comes from Michelle:
I hate the blog I started for our company now. It has become completely disconnected from our strategy as I've found my voice and learned about blogging, tagging, SEO, organization, etc. Even the name of the blog is no longer connected to what we're doing! I want to just start over, but my partner disagrees. Would you start over?
Mark Schaefer: If your blog is as bad as you say, I'm wondering why you have continued it this long? I mean, the blog didn't go off strategy -- you did, right? The blog doesn't write itself. So why can't you get yourself back on track?
As a company's strategy changes over time, the blog should change too. My own blog has evolved and adapted over a period of time as I've found my voice. I mean changing isn't hard to do. You just start writing about something else. If your blog sucks, just un-suck it.
Even if you change the name of the blog, the URL will be the same so people who were coming to the blog even when it was bad can still arrive safely at your landing spot.
So what's keeping you from nuking the thing? I don't see a downside. I have a hunch the real issue isn't the direction of the blog, it's agreeing about the direction of your company with your partner. Perhaps he doesn't think it is off-strategy. In that case you might have bigger problems than the blog!
As I said in the webinar, everything starts with strategy. If you and your partner can agree about the strategy of the company, the direction of the blog should flow right with it.
Martine Hunter: I can relate to your frustration, Michelle. Changing your blog URL does affect its built-up SEO; however, if getting found with your current look and disjointed content turns off visitors or prospects, perhaps a change is warranted.
Questions to ask yourself:
- Is a new strategic direction and focus worth the temporary loss of page rank?
- Can you resuse/edit/refresh old blog posts with new knowledge of your company's building/changing keyword list?
- Would a new blog title better address your purpose, ongoing content and future blog topics?
- Are there limitations or restrictions to your blog that you'd like to change or upgrade?
- Do your readers and/or subscribers have similar reactions to your blog?
If you answered yes to these any of these questions, maybe it's time to look at redo. Think of it as revamping, not starting over. Plan the launch of the new blog. Do some research on perspective titles. Build out your editorial calendar for the first three months. Invite guest bloggers who mirror your strategic vision. Announce it in a big way and keep up the the content, especially for the first six months. Good luck!
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
Mark Schaefer is Executive Director of Schaefer Marketing Solutions, college educator and author of the blog {grow}. Mark is a regular guest blogger for MLT Creative's Idea's @ Work blog.
Since I jumped on the Twitter track about a year ago, I've discovered a growing number of tools for searching, finding followers, shortening links, monitoring, measuring and analyzing traffic. The list of active twitter tools and apps is growing daily and and has reached almost 3,000. It's a chore keeping up with the best and most useful them, so here's what I've compiled so far.
So Many Friends and Followers...
Twellow
– A Twitter directory.
Mr. Tweet – A recommendation engine that also provides statistics on your Twitter usage.
Localtweeps – Find Tweeps near you.
TweetWheel
– Finds out which of your Twitter friends know each other.
Tweetizen – Lets you categorize your followers and then follow only that feed.
Who Should I Follow? – Find new Twitter friends.
FriendOrFollow.com – Find Twitterers you follow that don’t follow you back. I use this one.
Twitter Friends – Compare your tweeting behavior with others.
Who Follows Who? – Find out the common Twitterers up to five Twitter users have in common.
TwitterSheep – Creates a tag cloud of all the words in the bios of a given Twitter user’s followers.
Qwitter
– Notifies you when someone unfollows you.
Hashing out Hashtags...
Hashtags.org
– Hashtags tracks the most popular Twitter posts that include a #hashtag. You can subscribe to an individual hashtag using RSS.
Twubs – Find hashtags.
What The Trend? – Find hashtags that are rising in popularity.
Tagalus – A hashtag dictionary.
twopopular – Tracks hashtags and keywords in real time or by time intervals.
Find stuff on Twitter...
TweetBeep
– “Google Alerts” for Twitter.
Tweetscan
– Schedule Twitter searches to be sent to your email
Twist – Like Google Trends for Twitter.
TwitScoop
– A real-time tag cloud of Twitter buzz that also allows you to create graphs based on keyword tracking.
TweetGrid
– Creates a Twitter search dashboard that updates in real time.
OneRiot – Twitter search engine.
TwitterLocal – A desktop app that finds Twitter users within a fixed radius of a city or zip code.
Tracking What’s Hot on Twitter
MicroBlogBuzz
– Tracks the most popular links shared on microblogging services, including Twitter, Jaiku and Identica.
Twit(url)y – Tracks popular links and displays them in Digg-like fashion.
ReTweetist
– Tracks the most popular retweets.
Twemes – Tracks Twitter memes.
monitter
– monittor is a real-time keyword-based monitoring service that lets you watch three columns of keyword streams side-by-side. You can subscribe to them using RSS
Spy
– Spy tracks real-time keyword mentions in Twitter, FriendFeed, Flickr, Blog Comments, Yahoo News, Blogs
and Google Reader and allows you to subscribe via RSS.
Twitter Charts – Twitter Charts gives you a visualization of when a particular Twitter user is most active. This is an excellent tool to determine the most opportune time to engage a given person.
twopopular – Tracks hashtags and keywords in real time or by time intervals.
Stunned by Stats...
twInfluence – Ranks Twitter users’ influence.
TwitterGrader
– Grades a given Twitter user according to influence. Includes power users by geographic location; suggests who to follow and allows you to check if someone is following you.
TwitterCounter
– Provides stats on a given Twitter user and lets you compare that user to two others.
TweetBoards
– Compare Twitter users side-by-side.
TweetStats
– Gives you Twitter statistics about a given user.
TwitterMeter
– Twitter Meter allows you to enter a word to graph its use on Twitter’s public feed.
Twitter Analyzer – The best Twitter analytics
tool I have found to date. Offers a ton of statistics.
retweetradar – Tag clouds and trends of retweets.
Twitterfall – Real-time monitoring.
Twendz – Real-time Twitter search engine coupled with related keywords and word clouds.
Tweetzi – Advanced Twitter search engine.
Tweet Volume – See how often words and phrases are mentioned on Twitter.
TweetEffect – Find out which tweets gained and which tweets lost you followers.
Tweetmeme – Tweetmeme tracks the most popular links on twitter every 5 minutes, categorized by types of content: Blogs, images, video or audio.
Twistory – Pumps your Twitter feed into a calendar application so you can visualize your Tweeting history.
Yur URL tools
Twitclicks – Shortens URLs and tracks clicks.
Bit.ly – Shortens URLs, counts clicks, shows who else shortened a URL and provides metadata about that URL from across the Web.
Twitlinks – Tracks most popular tech links from most popular tech Twitterers.
Twitturls – Tracks popular links.
Tweetburner – Shortens URLs and tracks clicks on Twitter and FriendFeed.
Keeping it all together with desktop managers...
Twittervision – Real-time geographic posts to Twitter.
TweetChannel – Create Twitter channels.
Tinker – Aggregates Twitter conversations around topics.
Splitweet – Multi account manager and brand monitor.
CoTweet – Let’s multiple people manage a single Twitter account in a rational maner.
TweetDeck – An Adobe Air desktop application for Twitter. I love TweetDeck!
Twitter developers are constantly developing new tools, so look for updates to the Social Media Minute categorized tool list in the future.
/mh
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale
By Ardath Albee
Ardath Albee has written a solid reference text of logical strategies that validate the value of intelligent content. Through six different sections, Albee breaks down the concept of eMarketing and its strategic rewards for business-to-business (B2B) marketers. Content strategy is based in the premise that B2B buyers begin their decision-making process with online searches for prospective vendors. Marketing's job is to assist sales by guiding prospects further along the buying process by producing more qualified buyers.
Albee makes a case for B2B marketers to shift their thinking to becoming publishers of a variety content channels to broaden prospect reach. Because the buying process has evolved from sales rep visits and calls to reviewing online resources, B2B companies should address and increase their website content. When prospects show up bearing questions, it is essential to have the answers. A B2B business must be recognized as a source of information. Relevant, contagious content not only pulls prospects into the pipeline, it creates a sense of trust and loyalty that allows sales to enter the conversation.
Albee challenges B2B marketers learn about their customers through the use of buyer personas. "A persona is a composite sketch representative of a type of customer you serve." They extend beyond generic demographics and seek to bring the persona to life with job-situation details, responsibilities and influences on buying decisions. Knowing personas will transform the way you think and talk with your prospects and customers, Albee says. Content development will become more relevant and personalized because you are joining a conversation with a familiar contact, not a stranger. Albee suggests personalizing content based on personas using marketing automation systems that drip nurtured messages along the decision cycle.
Part IV is packed with explanations and applicable steps to creating contagious content and competitive differentiation. Marketers tend to use "gobbledygook," or jargon and terminology that may mask the message to the buyer. Just like it sounds, contagious content gains the attention of prospects and prompts them to spread the message to others. It differentiates your company because it is clearly focused on your prospects' priorities. You company advances as having recognized value, which is shared.
eMarketing Strategies for the Complex Sale encourages B2B marketers to develop buyer relevant, education focused, convenient, compelling, story-based content. Content development should be viewed not as an overwhelming and expensive task, but a required effort to propel marketing and sales results. With actionable suggestion, Albee emphasizes that a well-planned, integrated-content marketing strategy can result in more content with less effort.
I highly recommend this book for B2B marketing pros who need to understand how to engage powerful eMarketing solutions in today's Web 2.0 space.
Martine Hunter
is the creative director of inbound marketing with the Atlanta advertising agency, MLT Creative, which specializes in B2B marketing. She holds the Inbound Marketing professional certification and serves the Atlanta chapter of the Business Marketing Association as a member of the board of directors.
