Kansas City SEO and SEM

by: Anne Haynes

In the last 6 months my consulting experiences have positioned me to truly educate; lunch session with how-to-guides to follow, evening meetings to audit SEO and PPC campaigns and weekend meetings to review results! Through the successes of my clients, I’ve been introduced to new clients and everyone just needs checks and balances to make sure their content, design and development teams are on board with search marketing. It’s been an exciting time for me because my clients’ development teams want to learn and with my education we all experience the excitement of success together!

Last year when I was invited to speak at Dee Sadler’s KCWebCore/Adobe Web Community meeting, I introduced the concept of Company Keyword Missions. The Company Keyword Mission is designed from the top-down and it’s dictated by senior management and/or business owners. Let’s face it, if you have a website and are an organization of 1-100 million, you and your employees post to the internet about your company. And a Keyword Mission supports natural posts by employees for your product or service with the rankings in mind. Many SEO consultants will say this happens anyway, but I say more education is needed. I just had a client ask if they needed to add image ALT tags to a 2,000 page website. Let’s remember back in 2006 when Target was sued for lack of image ALT tags. Image ALT tags were designed for the handicap and specifically the blind. Programs like JAWS read the ALT tags and digitally speak the words within the tags to help the handicap make decisions on the web. With this said, if you have a content management systems with a staff member writing content for you site, create the Company Keyword Mission with details on image ALT tags.

The concept of Company Keyword Mission is about all departments staff knowing the Company Keyword Mission. When the staff posts on the web they will have those keywords in mind.

Here is my Company Keyword Mission Statement

What do you think? I like this concept, but it’s a tough mission to sell when C Level management is not on board.

Many people will receive Hallmark Holiday cards with augmented reality treats inside this year. And this blog post will help you figure out the technology! What I love about augmented reality is the experience, especially when children are around. In my opinion the best gift for adults, trying to mingle with other adults, is a holiday card filled with hours of computer fun for the kids.

1. Download the software from the location on the back of the card. It’s generic, so you need to navigate the process and find your card. When you get to the site you will see the following image and click “GET STARTED”:

2. You will go to the next screen with an option to print the instructions, don’t do that keep it green and select “CONTINUE”:

3. On the next screen make sure to select “HOLIDAY” and then find your exact card.

4. The next display will give you an option to download for MAC or PC.

5. Now the rest get’s fuzzy. If you are on a PC, know you can’t have your camera running at the same time the Hallmark application is trying to access the camera. If you do this and receive errors, just close your camera and “Retry”. And if “Retry” doesn’t work, reboot your computer, use IE and download again.

6. At some point for PC users you should receive the following Setup message:

7. If the install is going well, you will receive a License Agreement, select the radio button “I accept the terms of the License Agreement” (or not).

8. Next screen will be “Completing the Setup”.

9. At this point your computer should detect your camera if it’s built in or connected via USB. If your computer is giving you issues, close all browsers and restart with your camera off.

10. Have the card it hand, don’t open it or try and use the back of the card like I did:

11. Just use the front of the card. And you should see something like this:

And This:

And This:

And This:

HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!!

I’m helping a friend find an Information Technology position and a recruiter contacted me last night for a Business Systems Analyst position with SQL and MS Office requirements at the expert level. My friend is perfect, so I logged into Linkedin. To my amazement, when I found a position I couldn’t “Send to Friend” from the list view, see below image.

How is it, that Linkedin overlooked a key social usability feature, to send a job posting to a friend? It seems obvious to me and other job posting sites. In the Time Magazine, Person of the Year article, Mark Zuckerberg speaks of the information age paradigm shift from crowds to friends; page 5 paragraph 6.

In my opinion Linkedin is using apps to allow the code base to appear social. Fundamentally, the site hasn’t integrated important features; helping exceptional friends find exceptional business opportunities.

What are your thoughts?

Outsourced and Not Ordinary Family are my favorites for non-reality TV shows in the 2010 season. While I’ve disliked reality TV, I’ve been sucked into it and it’s all good. What I enjoy about non-reality TV shows is the no reality; I can chill and relax.

I love Outsourced and following are my faves from Outsourced episode 2.

“Why is there a deer on the wall?”
“Babies don’t suck pacifiers they suck on ribs.”
“You take a bite man, its good. It’s a lentil burger.”
“The Indian head-shake it’s a way of answering without answering”
“How many Indians does it take to sell Novelties?”
“I heard the barbecue in KC saying someone is going to be fired.”
“I can look at a herd of elk and pick which one I’m going to shoot.”
“You know what you problems is, your too close to your employees, you need some distance, guys that work for me, I don’t even know their names, that’s Frodo, Morpheus, Indiana Jones.”
“Hey, don’t bobble me”
“The lips, that’s what the mustache is for.”
“They kill the cow, then they age the meat, why not just let the cow live a little longer?”
“I’ve never been out of Mumbai, now I’m talking to all these women from exotic places like Des Moine, Fresno, Chattanooga.”
“Janet that’s filthy, I can’t make a cute little teddy bear say that.”
“Maybe an inflatable punching bag that says, “Men suck will ease your pain.”

Are you a company or individual trying to make a presence with Facebook (FB)? Well I’m this person and I find it interesting when implementing FB advertising campaigns because the platform is amazing. Follow me here; let’s say I want to target people whom only “Like” X Fan Page, or are friends with X, and live in LA or Silicon Valley or Kansas City? You can do that in FB. It’s the hottest and easiest platform I’ve seen in a longtime.

When I think of social media, I think pain or pleasure. The 1 Facebook Ad tonight which caught my attention was the evil eyes!

Facebook Ads for Conversion

I’ve written blog posts about the FB user interface and how much I disliked the features, but I love it now. Cheers to making the peanut butter in the grocery store easier to find. Understand my 2010 New Year’s resolution was to give up FB games. I’m glad I made this decision; it keeps me focused on what I’m doing with FB; nurturing, likes and leads.

How big are the millions? It’s interesting to see the dynamics of the recent issues with schools. People learn in different ways and it’s clear that learning with video, audio, and virtual workbooks works. It’s not about where you live or how much money you make, you can give your children an education online. But you need to be online!

I’m a lifelong student with a technical degree from SJSU and it’s amazing the resources students have now at their fingertips. I really don’t understand why there is an issue with our schools. I went through grade school and college sifting through microfilm. Now, the students have information a click away with the internet.

If we are fighting to make the unions more accountable I agree. But how bad is it really?

Check it out the KhanAcademy.com, you can become the Genius if you put in the time!

I hope this summer is treating you well! I have a treat for you regarding web lead tracking and email marketing nurturing. In the last two months I’ve been working with interesting software services. One in particular does what every marketer wants; track web campaigns to users’ contact details and streamlines communications through email marketing and lead nurturing. I’m working with a conservative budget, so these solutions are working for a small to medium size company. The final piece I’m working on is tying the phone leads, to the web leads and associating these different buckets at a campaign level, without massaging data and being a spreadsheet jockey. Understand keeping the costs down is essential to staying within budget when building the tracking architecture. If money and time wasn’t an issue, I’d be using Eloqua. The tracking architecture I’m implementing and will be discussing; is still in a testing phase; does not integrate with a CRM using an API and it does not require IT resources to implement. It’s the easy button for lead tracking and nurturing.

Many of my clients use Google Analytics for tracking lead conversions and sales. But what Google Analytics won’t give you is the name of the person submitting their contact details on a per campaign level. Google finds this a violation of privacy and I understand this reasoning. Many times, clients want to know the name of the lead which came in through a pay-per-click campaign so they can nurture the lead. As marketers we know that giving a contextual experience is the difference between acquiring a customer and pissing them off.

I’ve been working with a web lead tracking solution; HubSpot. HubSpot gives you what Google Analytics will not; first name, last name, email, phone number and anything else you want to know tied to a specific campaign. Within minutes you’re able to generate standard and custom fields to create a web form. Once you’re happy with the form, you cut and paste the JavaScript code into your web page and/or blog post and your done. It’s that easy and it works.

Some kicking features about HubSpot:

Once a lead comes in through a form, the lead details are sent to an email or alias. The cool thing; if a lead has a Twitter, Linkedin or any other public social media profiles these profile links are presented in the lead details. Let’s take a moment and think about how this could change your sales experience. Imagine if a sale person could browse a potential customer’ social media profiles before making that sales call? You know the potential client is interested, but now you know they love cats. Mind you, I don’t recommend the sale person disclosing they’ve researched the client’s public social media profiles, but in conversation, the sales representative could mention how much he/she loves cats.

If a lead submits their information and then goes back to your website or blog, you are sent an alert; “Anne Haynes one of your leads is back on the website.” Now you have the creepy factor and can call them right away and answer any questions they might have about your business. I’ve experienced this before with sales people and while I don’t like it, if a lead continues to visit the website, it’s a sign they’re interested. And all this information is tracked in the lead details.

If a lead comes in through one form campaign, you can create lead nurturing campaigns and send automatic emails through timed intervals. This features changes how marketers approach campaigns; sure it’s easy to create a form, cut and paste it into a web page and generate leads through pay-per-click, but managing the experience using automatic emails after a lead shows and interest, this creates a need for communication architectures. And it can become complex. For an example, I will use SEOINC because I use to work there many years ago and they have increased their product offering to include pay-per-click and social media marketing. Now imagine I’m a potential client and I submit my information through the website with a form powered by HubSpot. The SEOINC folks created a nurturing campaign which kicks off an automated email regarding their pay-per-click product offering 20 days after I submit my information the first time. 20 days after the pay-per-click email I receive another automatic email about their social media product offering. It’s all done without you being involved, it happens automatically, so the communication architecture must be designed ahead of time.

HubSpot has API integration with Salesforce and the company will work with you if you have an in house custom CRM solution.

HubSpot features that need some work:

When a lead submits his/her information wrong in a validated field, the user goes to a generic looking validation form. You are not able to apply CSS to the validation form – Yet!

The automatic emails do not have the ability to cut and paste HTML, so the design is limited. However, I’ve been told by my HubSpot consultant this feature is coming out within the next two weeks.

If you’ve built a nurturing program and the lead converts and signs up for other product offers all at once, you must turn off the nurturing program for that lead. This is a process that you want to enforce any way to know your lead to conversion ratio.

Summary:

So far, I really like HubSpot because it’s easy and takes the pain out of reporting. In my opinion, a marketer’s time should be spent optimizing campaigns and not sorting exported spreadsheet data. Don’t get me wrong, I know we need the reporting, but with HubSpot the data doesn’t need cleaning up.

Since I’ve been working with HubSpot there isn’t one person that doesn’t mention SEO to me; critiquing our current ranking with brand only terms, trying to sell the idea of hosting our blog using their blog service. I was raised to know installing blog software on a server gives the search value to the domain where it is housed. I don’t recommend outsourcing your blog using HubSpot. But it’s really good tying contact details to a campaign. There is also a UTM link generator, so you can micro manage your landing page performance and other web activities.

There is more to come as I continue down this process, but know my goal is to tie the phone leads to the web leads and when I get that going on, you will be the first to know!

Are you using a software service that does what HubSpot can do? I’m interested in knowing your solutions

First before this post, I want to do a shout-out to my blog redesign partners. While I try very hard to learn design and coding everyday, I can’t ramp-up to be a designer! In the design world Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) and building a site quickly and properly is tough to do, so I leave that up to the professionals. It’s the same as a designer or developer implementing an internet marketing campaing, the disciplines are very different.

Matt Shepard and Jonathan Goetz from Shepard Advertising & Design made my blog weblift happen! I’m the cobbler with bad shoes and when it comes to helping people with their businesses, I generally put my company site on the back-burner. I’m confident this is true in many industries and it’s why outsourcing makes the world a "happier" place. I’m excited to blog now!! My blog has been going since 2006 and I’ve been burned out on the same design. Now with my weblift, I want to write, write and write more! While I still have some content issues, Matt and Jonathan have given me a fresh start. And that goes a long way!

My inspired blog post is because of my redesign. I started thinking about when I started blogging and then the memories came back. Following is my progression into blogging and understanding the communications are changing and will continue to change. Staying on top of the changes are our jobs as marketers, business owners and participants.

First Blog Post Since Shepard Redesign:

Let’s remember when blogging (officially) came out: Google purchased Blogger it was 2003. For those of us that remember when Yahoo! was the top search engine, we remember the word “weblog” from 1997 when Jorn Barger coined the saying. I remember 1997 well; reading the posts and speculation regarding citizens having a “voice”; people buying products online (Oh Gates you didn’t say that); video and audio communications and the rest. Back in the day these ideas seemed ridicules. And today, these technologies are reality.

While I was reading all of these non-mainstream blog posts, I became worried about blogging and being transparent on the web. Fast forward thirteen years and I’m available at the click of the mouse.
It’s not easy blogging; accepting your name (not identity) will be easily accessible; taking your personal experiences and crafting them into journalism worthy articles; stepping out on a limb and dealing with criticism. While this may be mainstream for Hollywood, it’s not for me. I’m a technology person not a journalist.

What I see now are people like me blogging and reporting “news” worthy information and the downfalls are typos, grammatical errors and fast pace communications. Here is a great article on the 4 Grammatical Mistakes that can Enhance Your Copy. And this is how information technology has changed the current communication dynamics. You aren’t dumb when you write, you are creative!!!

As a consultant, my intentions are to put my best foot forward when it comes to communications, but now we talk in 140 characters and that’s where things get strange. 2010, the acceptance of grammatical errors, second phase we are OK with not understanding anything?? When I held an IS Analyst role at a company, I remember being in a meeting and the lead of the meeting used the Palm OS Graffiti while communicating on a white board. In my opinion (IMO) this is rude. Today, I make a point to spell out acronyms because I want people to understand. The hashtag is a joke In My opinion (IMO) because search functionality should eliminate the need. With all the communication hoopla now days, a new graffiti has been born; See You Later (CUL8R), Oh I See (OIC), Got to Go (G2G), Be Right Back (BRB), Sign on the Dotted Line (SOLD) haahaa, Ta Ta for Now (TTFN), Too Good Too Be Forgotten (2G2B4G). I fear these slang acronyms will creep into my work life and end up on a whiteboard and I will sit and be clueless and OK – it’s all good (IAG). Do people make themselves feel better when they write using code and/or acronyms?  There are two ways to think about meetings filled with acronyms; first the people use the acronyms to feel bigger and better; second, it’s in their dialect. Be forewarned there is new Graffiti in the works. How it will affect the conference room is still to be determined. I will cry if I go into a meeting with hashtags!

Here is a list of Top 50 Twitter Acronyms, Abbreviations and Initialism

I need your help! Give me your top 2010 acronyms so we can all stay up-to-date (UTD) hee hee, much love – Anne

By: Anne Haynes
If you browse my blog, you will find me bashing Facebook because it’s too complicated and time consuming. But this year, Facebook has a new face in my life.

Follow me back 30 years, when I lived in Florida with my parents; I was 8 years old. I moved to Florida from the Midwest because my father took an engineering position. I quickly became involved in the music group at my grade school and soon enough I met Rachel and Cory. The three of us became good friends quickly and soon enough I moved to Monterey California (age 14). I went on to graduate from high school and college. I’d think of Rachel and Cory from time-to-time. We recorded a record (not digital) together with our grade school music group. I used Google and tried to find them and boom, one day Cory finds me on Facebook then I’m connected to Rachel!

Now after 30 years Rachel and Cory are coming to my 40th birthday celebration in Vegas. While I nitpick at usability and conversions on websites all day long, I can overlook all of this with Facebook now; it’s enriched my life. I’ve learned that Rachel is a concert pianist, CPA and boat Captain. Cory has three children and is studying to get her masters. And now very shortly I will be talking to my best friends face-to-face after 30 years!

Thank you Facebook for opening your community to everyone; giving birth to the Wall; allowing me to control who sees what; blocking games and applications I don’t like; becoming more like Friendfeed and connecting me with people who’ve loved me in my past!

I’ve been in a redesign for a long time and I’m not making enough effort!

I moved to Kansas 3 years ago after being in Silicon Valley for 20 years. Kansas is an amazing technology hub!!! I can even pitch my technology ideas at Start-Up Kansas City weekend.

I’m proud to live in Kansas and I enjoy the light snow we receive during the holidays! I’m more proud of the people I’ve met experiencing the Google Rush. The information is all out there and the community is amazing, so get involved! Check out this video and make sure to hit the Think Big website supporting the Google Kansas or Kansas Google efforts!