by Ana Hoffman 14 comments

Weekly Marketing Skinny: April 13, 2013



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get the skinny on marketing events of past week In the spotlight last week:

  • “Stolen” search engine rankings;
  • Finding WP Plugins is finally easier;
  • How “social shares” and “video” go hand-in-hand;
  • How to use public relations for SEO;
  • …and more.

In the spotlight this week:

(Details below).

At TrafficGenerationCafe.com

orange checkWhen “They” Steal Your Search Engine Ranking and Traffic…

This is a search ranking debate that was started in my post about Slideshare traffic.

What happens when you syndicate your content to a third-party site (Slideshare in this case, but could be anything, like YouTube, any article directory, etc), and that content ends up outranking your original post.

Good for business? Bad for business?

Find out.

orange checkWhat Makes Your Blog Worth My Attention?

This is something that many bloggers miss, yet that’s exactly the reason their (or YOUR) blog might be trailing behind others in your niche.

Why should readers read your blog?

What makes it different, special, unique?

Why are you worth my attention?

It all comes down to your unique selling proposition.

orange checkWeekly Marketing Skinny: YouTube Shutting Down, Google Nose, and More

Catch up on the news from the previous week.

List Building Webinar

Update: this was one of the best list building webinars I’ve ever attended.

You can view the replay here (don’t miss it - it was THAT good!):

List Building Webinar: How to Double Your Subscribers WITHOUT More Traffic

WordPress

orange checkNew plugin repository: RankWP.com

Plugins rock.

WordPress plugin repository doesn’t.

RankWP is an alternative plugins repository developed by Boštjan Špetič (founder of Zemanta) that intends to make browsing for and finding the best plugins a far simpler and more intuitive experience.

Form RankWP “about” page:

“We weekly grab information about ranking of WordPress plugins in the list of popular plugins and their downloads; then we apply some black magic to estimate true number of active users; then we compare them with last weeks numbers to see which are trending, and which are falling; and we manually classify the plugins into the categories that make sense.

We do all that, to make your decision of which plugin to trust easier.

Hat tip to Tom Ewer.

Firefox

orange checkFirefox makes the cookie crumble

Firefox announced its new default setting on upcoming versions of its web browser would block third-party cookies (tracking devices used to target you with ads).

This should only concern you if you use platforms like Adwords.

With this new policy in place, Firefox users will enjoy greater privacy and less targeted ads.

I call it a win-win.

SEO

orange checkPublic Relations for SEO

Spotted an interesting and very much in-depth read on how to use traditional media for SEO and overall branding.

Why should it peak your interest?

Ted Ives, the post author, gives us no fewer than 18,000 reasons:

A few years ago, I launched a website called FindHow, and we gave it a full-court press from a PR standpoint. In this series of articles, I’ll run through all the best practices we leveraged. Before we start, the results we garnered for our launch are shown below.

In the first month of FindHow’s existence, it surpassed 15,000 unique visitors and eventually grew to around the 100,000 uniques mark. After about five months, the Public Relations effort had resulted in a total of around 18,000 links to the site, primarily because of prominent media mentions that boosted the site’s credibility and aided word of mouth.

Video

orange checkAdobe released the U.S. Digital Video Benchmark 2012 Review.

It looks at digital video trends and ways publishers and advertisers can make the most of their video content and campaigns.

What drew my attention the most: content that includes videos creates more engagement and social media shares.

Twitter

orange checkTwitter acquires We Are Hunted

The music discovery service We Are Hunted has announced that it’s joining Twitter.

Together, those two items should open new marketing opportunities for artists to be found and connect with fans on Twitter.

(Source)

Digg

orange checkDigg conducts Google Readers users survey

It’s ironic that the best survey of Google Reader users that’s probably ever been done is being done by Digg.

Last week we sent out a survey to the over 17,000 people who signed up to help us work on our reader.

80%(!) of respondents check Google Reader many times a day. And 40% of users follow more than 100 feeds.

There is no doubt about it — this is a product for power users, and we’ll need to make sure we have some serious infrastructure in place to support that kind of usage for launch.

If you are still undecided about a Google Reader replacement that’ll work best for you, take a look at the alternatives:

Loved it? Embed this presentation on your blog

(just copy and paste the code below)

Bing

orange checkBing announced a new “Pin to Pinterest” feature that allows users to pin Bing image search results directly to a Pinterest board.

One more thing Bing has and Google doesn’t.

Why are we using Google again?

Google

orange checkGoogle purchased YT.be

According to TheNextWeb.com, it appears that Google acquired the domain name YT.be, which was originally registered back in May 2003, from a Belgian Internet entrepreneur, but didn’t make its identity known throughout the purchasing process.

Upcoming Marketing Events

Big thumbs up to Laura Crest of SEOCopywriting.com for curating this even list.

Content Marketing

  • The Neilsen Norman Group’s Usability Week 2013 conferences will be held in San Francisco from April 28th thru May 3rd,London from May 12th thru the 17th, and Toronto from June 3rdthru the 7th.
  • The Ad Age Digital Conference 2013 is scheduled for April 16thand 17th in New York City.
  • Lee Odden shares his April/early May presentation schedule with “Content Marketing & Optimization 6 Ways – Upcoming Speaking Events” at TopRank.
  • Content Marketing World 2013 returns to Cleveland, OH, September 9th thru the 12th.

SEO

Social Media

Thank You

If you mentioned Traffic Generation Café on your blog, retweeted any of my posts, shared them with your fans on Facebook - my sincere and wholehearted THANK YOU.

Here are just some of the mentions I spotted around the web (if I missed yours, let me know in the comments!):

orange checkMYF Approved weekly - MarketingYourFarm.com

orange check15 Non-Native English Bloggers You Should Follow Today - Marya Jan, WritingHappiness.com

Not a native English speaker? Sorry, you don’t have an excuse any longer.

15 successful bloggers who made it despite their accents and not-so-perfect English, with (just to name a few)…

And you can too.

orange checkSEO content marketing roundup, week ending April 10th - Laura Crest at SEOCopywriting.com

orange checkBest Blogs List: International Blogger Championship Tournament Results - Gail from GrowMap.com

Congrats on your win, Gail!

Of course, had I known about this, I might’ve given you the run for your money… lol

orange checkFind And Fix Broken Links On Your WordPress Blog With Broken Link Checker - Kim Castleberry, Just-Ask-Kim.com

Broken links lead to bad user experience and possibly lower search engine rankings.

Highly recommend you check out Kim’s blog post, as well at my post she linked to:

orange checkLower Your Expectations - Lindsey Rainwater, LindseyRainwater.com

My favorite rant of the week:

Utopia would be wonderful, but human nature foils our best efforts, and the fact of the matter is that people value what they pay for. They take freebies for granted. *meaningful stare*

So you SHOULD get paid for what you love, and there are plenty of ways to make that happen. But you need to be doing something that you would do anyway, even if there was no way to get paid for it. Do this, get good at it, and offer value – the money will follow.

orange checkHow to Make a Blog Stand Out Amongst a Sea Of Copycat Blogs - Eric Pangburn at BasicBlogTips.com

orange checkBlog Posts for Rainy Day Blues – Best of the Web - Danny Iny at FirepoleMarketing.com

 

That’s it for today and to an even better next week,

traffic generation cafe


traffic generation cafe comment below

{ 14 comments… read them below or add one }

Eric Pangburn April 17, 2013 at 5:49 pm

This is a beautiful post! I really enjoy looking through all this great information and offering so much here all in one post.

I greatly appreciated it and the mention back to my guest blog post!

Thanks again,

Eric

P.S. Are you going to any of these conferences that you shared?

Reply

Ilia April 16, 2013 at 2:17 am

Thanks for the nice weekly round-up Ana. I particularly took worth in your post on USP’s or distinctive mercantilism propositions. This comes at an ideal time on behalf of me, as I’m thinking of making a page that lists why my web site is totally different from different similar niche blogs. simply downloaded Peter Sandeen’s pdf on Finding The Core of Your worth Prop. trying forward to reading it this quiet Sunday afternoon

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 17, 2013 at 6:52 am

You are so very welcome, Ilia; glad you are making great use out of what you read at Traffic Generation Café.

Reply

Lindsey Rainwater April 14, 2013 at 3:58 pm

Wow! Thanks for the mention Ana. I find it highly amusing that I was your favorite rant of the week.

That happens to me a lot. I rant about something even here at home, and a week later I find out I’m being quoted. I must have a flair for ranting. *laughs*

Off to check out all your other links, as usual . . . (I need to start setting aside three hours a week just for going through your “Skinny” email.)

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 17, 2013 at 6:44 am

Sounds like you’ve found your “voice”, Lindsey. :)

Who doesn’t love a good rant, right?

Reply

Darnell Jackson April 14, 2013 at 9:29 am

Ha haaa! Thanks for the link Ana!

It just shows there’s a HUGE opportunity for next years #IBCT it was a lot of fun, tons of interaction and networking.

The GrowMap readers really made the difference for Gail, it was awesome seeing all of the BUZZ and feedback from people from all over the world.

Reply

Ehsan April 14, 2013 at 9:08 am

Greetings Ana, I love the way you let your readers know about what’s happening around the web, a lot of value can be found in your weekly round-up.

Plus the way you say thanks to those who mentioned you somewhere on the web. Just to let you know that you missed mine! Remember you got featured in my top 10 bloggers to watch in 2013′s list?

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 15, 2013 at 7:03 am

Glad to hear you find value in these posts, Ehsan - the last thing my readers need is a bunch of links to go to to find information on their own.

And of course I remember about your post (definitely a huge ego boost for me! lol); however, I do stick to the post that mentioned Traffic Generation Café in the past week only.

Reply

The Social Yeti April 14, 2013 at 9:04 am

Thank you Ana

I look forward to this arriving in my Email box each weekend.

Have shared for you and now you have given me lots to read

thanks again
Sam Mottram
The Social Yeti

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 15, 2013 at 7:01 am

You are very welcome, Sam.

Reply

Kian April 14, 2013 at 8:53 am

Great that you are organizing a webinar with Shane Melaugh. He is one of my favorite marketers and great communicator on video. I have several of his products and they are very good.

You look like a brilliant clever team already and I reckon your readers will benefit a lot from your webinar-session.

You have many things in common like the way you treat your readers: as intelligent human beings (which is not always the case) and you are also very polished, which I really like and value more, particularly now that vulgarity is at every corner.

Ana, your Weekly Marketing Skinny and Traffic Hacks have become a treasure trove of interesting and much needed information. Also the way you lay it out helps enormously not to feel the usual information overload sickness of our time. Thanks.

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 15, 2013 at 7:00 am

I agree, Kian - Shane has done a tremendous job putting out quality products and I look forward to the webinar; we all have room for improvement, right?

And THANK YOU!

Reply

Liz Hancock April 14, 2013 at 8:47 am

Thanks for the great weekly round-up Ana. I especially took value in your post on USP’s or unique selling propositions. This comes at a perfect time for me, as I’m thinking of creating a page that lists why my site is different from other similar niche blogs. Just downloaded Peter Sandeen’s pdf on Finding The Core of Your Value Prop. Looking forward to reading it this quiet Sunday afternoon. :-)

Reply

Ana Hoffman April 15, 2013 at 6:58 am

You are so very welcome, Liz, and have fun working on your USP!

Reply

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