Weekly Marketing Skinny: May 18, 2013

Weekly Marketing Skinny: May 18, 2013

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get the skinny on marketing events of past weekIn the spotlight this week:

  • the future of Google SEO;
  • slew of Google+ changes;
  • Facebook fun;
  • Google Glass (who cares anyway; most of us won’t see one any time soon!);
  • Rob Schneider (yes, that one) and Microsoft bashing Google Docs;
  • and more.

But first, an update from Traffic Generation Café.

At TrafficGenerationCafe.com

orange check10 Ways to Explode Your Web Traffic Conversions Today

Consider this scenario:

  • Your blog is getting 10,000 new unique visitors per month and is converting 1% of them to email opt in (100 signups). This is a common conversion rate for unoptimized blogs.

  • Pretty easily, without using aggressive techniques, you should be able to boost that to 5% or higher (500 signups).

If you focused on traffic for your low converting blog instead of focusing on the conversion rate, you would need an additional 40,000 monthly new unique visitors to boost your optins to 500.

I can tell you boosting your conversion rate from 1-5% is infinitely easier and cheaper than acquiring 40,000 targeted new visitors.

Here are 10 things you can do right now to get more visitors converting.

orange checkWeekly Marketing Skinny: May 11, 2013

Catch up on the previous week’s news:

  • Paid YouTube?
  • Klout Experts answers shoot to the top of Bing results;
  • new Twitter API restrictions that affected Tweet Adder;
  • The complete history of social media;
  • responsive web design;
  • and much more.

SEO

The Future of Google SEO

Google has a lot of stuff in the works that will have a direct impact on webmasters and the search engine optimization community.

In a seven-minute “Webmaster Help” video, Google’s Matt Cutts ran down much of what Google’s webspam team has planned for the coming months, and what it all means for webmasters.

It involves the Penguin update, the Panda update, advertorials, hacked sites, link spam, and a lot more.

Social Media

Google+ Changes

Google announced dozens of changes and upgrades to Google+, its social network, today.

Some of the changes include:

  • More “Pinteresty” look
  • Multi-column layout
  • Left menu slides out, top navigation bar “sticks”
  • Related hashtags: here’s an interesting big: Google will actually tag your content with hashtags for you. You can remove the Google hashtags if you wish. Learn more about related hashtags.
  • Hangouts get improvements
  • Photos get more storage, smarter features

Here’s a great post from Kimberly Castleberry on the new G+ updates:

Google+: Content Recommendations for your Mobile Website

Google has brought together elements of Google+ and Google Search to suggest the right content from your mobile website.

For example: Forbes visitors can now more easily discover other Forbes articles based on Search Authorship signals and other articles with lots of Google+ activity (including +1′s and shares). In all cases, recommended content is based on the specific page the visitor is viewing, to boost the relevance of recommendations. And they only appear when people tap for more, so as not to interrupt their browsing experience.

Facebook Exodus?

Guardian newspaper last month reported that Facebook was hemorrhaging members. The trouble is, the numbers were flawed.

SmallBizTrends.com delved into other numbers provided to them by Facebook and in Facebook’s quarterly earnings call, to uncover the true state of small businesses using Facebook.

And they discovered 16 million small businesses have Facebook Pages, up 3 million in one quarter alone.

Buffer: Schedule Retweets

Buffer has finally released that long-awaited and requested feature: the ability to schedule retweets.

You can learn more about it on the official Buffer blog.

The Comedy Tour Of A Facebook Update [Video]

The folks from sketch comedy group Extremely Decent have personified the frustration many users have felt upon seeing yet another update to the Facebook UI.

Marketing This and That

Microsoft Negative Campaigns

Silly me - I didn’t expect to see any ads throwing mud at their opponents/competition till the next elections…

In a new series of ads, Microsoft is taking on the reliability and productivity of Google Docs.

The spots featuring Saturday Night Live alum Rob Schneider (and in one case retired baseball great Pete Rose) argue that Google Docs is too much of a “risk” and “not worth the gamble.”

Congress Concerned about Google Glass Privacy

Google CEO Larry Page received a formal letter from eight-members of congress addressing Google Glass privacy issues. (more on the story)

It humors me to think that there’s so much talk about Google Glass, yet at about $1,500 a pair, plus the exclusive pilot release, mean that most of us won’t have to worry about seeing it in our surroundings for a long time.

Send Money through Gmail

You can now send money through Gmail with Google Wallet

Google Fiber

Google on Monday announced that Gladstone, Missouri will receive the company’s Fiber Internet service.

Five days ago, Grandview, Missouri joined in a similar manner and five days before that, Shawnee joined the list of upcoming Fiber cities.

Story source.

Thank You

To all of you who mentioned Traffic Generation Café in any share or form in the past week, my whole-hearted THANK YOU.

Traffic Generation Café would NOT be what it is today without you.

Here are just some of the mentions I came across in the past week:

orange check23 Steps to 100,000 Visitors (Step-by-Step Guide) - Kim Roach at her new MyTrafficMentor.com

Have I missed your mention? Let me know in the comments!

Want to see your name here? Mention Traffic Generation Café in your next blog post!

 

To an even better next week,

traffic generation cafe

traffic generation cafe comment below

Google+ Comments

27 Comments (click here to leave a comment)

  1. It is interesting to see that businesses using Facebook pages is up 3 million over the course of a quarter. Even though Google+ has made many modifications and is trying to position itself as an alternative to Facebook, the truth is, Facebook is still one of the most popular networking sites out there. Not everyone may like the direction Facebook is going in, but it is still, for all intensive purposes, one of the market leaders in social media.

    • Ana Hoffman

      That’s true, Nick, but G+ does have the trump card: search engine rankings. I think they’ve got a very good chance to turn it into more of a social network for internet professionals, if I may call us that :), by scaring or “enticing” people with a possibility of better rankings as a result of making G+ a priority. Heck, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing thus far and fairly successfully I might say.

      No, it might not become a Facebook, but it might actually turn into something better…

  2. Hi Ana,
    I must say that I have learned a lot from just reading this single post of yours! I have been quite busy in the past few months because of work, so my online reading, learning new things and commenting on blogs have been put on hold. I haven’t heard of sending money through Gmail and Google Wallet yet, but I really am curious about it, if it’s possible that it can be a nice alternative to Paypal.

    Thank you very much for sharing this article, and I’ve enjoyed watching the video of a Facebook Update in Real Life. It gave me lots of laughs, especially when they replaced the owner’s cat into a dog!

    It really is annoying when Facebook does updates that you have no control of whether you like it or not, and what’s worse is that your previous Privacy settings are becoming More Public than ever before!

    Have a great day, Ana! :)

    • Ana Hoffman

      I definitely understand how life can get in the way, Emily - it’s not ever easy to juggle everything we need or feel like we need to do.

      Thanks for catching up with Traffic Generation Café!

  3. Luis

    Great info Ana! Google Wallet got my attention: will it replace PayPal? Will it be a good competition for PayPal? Will it make it easier for countries where you can’t withdraw money from PayPal? For example, in my country (Peru), you can’t withdraw directly money from PayPal (I would need to have an US based account)…to make it, you must have an account with Payoneer, then they give you a US based account so you can put that info into Paypal and after all that, with the Payoneer debit card you can finally withdraw money from the payments you receive to Paypal. Do you think Google Wallet will help to avoid all these issues? Thanks and have a great week!

    • Ana Hoffman

      I’ve used Google Wallet for customers from countries where PayPal didn’t do business, Luis. Will it replace PP? Probably not, but they are certainly making it easier and easier for people to use it.

  4. Microsoft’s ongoing decision to sink to the realm of bashing doesn’t seem to be letting up. It’s interesting because I find these less impactful than the new program Bing has where you can earn credits for surfing Bing that are redeemable for stuff like skype credits and movies etc. It seems to me that rewarding something that will become a habit is just a healthier approach. I’m just not fond of negative marketing and would rather see a company showcase what they do well.

  5. The privacy issue and Google glass isn’t that surprising.

    I’ve heard of some bars banning them already. I can’t imagine why(sarcasm).

    So far I like the Google+ changes. They have made the layout pretty slick. Now it is easier to see more information without endless scrolling.

    I wonder what they will do next with it.

    Great round up Ana.

  6. Peter Ryan

    If anyone can help me work out Google it is you Anna! Thanks once again for a great post

  8. Amazingly enough I had heard of most these updates this time around (so no million tabs open, lol) - but you always find funny videos too — makes a girl all happy to come visit!

    Hope your week is an amazing one Ana! ;-)

    • Ana Hoffman

      Glad you are keeping up, Kat; see you around next week - and you have a great one as well!

  9. Very funny and cheerful video of Facebook update and also very interesting about Microsoft Negative Campaigns, thank to giving us successful information Ana, you are nice.

    • Ana Hoffman

      I am waiting for someone to put together a nice synopsis of I/O; too much raw info to go through at the moment.

      And thanks for the video link, Servando; I haven’t seen that one.

  11. “I haven’t talked to you in 6 years, and I don’t know who YOU are!”

    LOL to your video above, Ana.

    And the privacy features only let people see you more haha. Brilliant.

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