Monday, February 16, 2015

eWatchFactory Classic Stainless Steel Watches

eWatchFactory Classic Stainless Steel Watches

The eWatchFactory Classic Men's Stainless Steel Watch is built for adventure. Designed as a nod to classic diver and military watches, it features 100% stainless steel construction, adjustable bezel, and water resistance to +300 feet. Fully customizable watch face. Stainless steel case and adjustable bracelet with trifold closure. Three-hand quartz movement. Adjustable bezel function. Powered by battery (included).




15% Off All Business Cards


VIEW ALL CARDS








$60.05










$60.05










$60.05










$62.55










$60.05










$60.05










$60.05






$60.05










$52.55










$52.55










$60.05










$60.05



Sunday, February 15, 2015

Use This Word to Motivate Your Online Marketing in 2015

 

links

A quick online search will yield hundreds of ways to improve your online marketing. Some common tips include using link building to improve your SEO, adding visual content and focusing on ad retargeting. All of this can be helpful, but if there’s only one thing you focus on this year, it should be engagement. Channel your energy into being more engaged on popular websites, social media and other content distributors.

Understanding Engagement
In a world where social media has driven companies to compete for ‘likes’ and ‘shares,’ the true meaning of engagement has become lost. Genuine engagement has been replaced with shallow involvement and has, unfortunately, set some organizations back.

While viewing a marketing piece, liking, and sharing are all key components to a successful campaign, they are not the be-all and end-all. According to Christopher M. Litster, “The next step is to find meaningful ways to engage those customers over the long-term.”

In other words, you have to find a way to get beneath the surface level gimmicks and actually get to know who your customers are. For most companies, this comes down to managing your time well, covering all your bases, and learning to pursue as opposed to push.

Managing Your Time
One of the most challenging aspects of marketing can be time management; ensuring you are spending the right amount of time on the right projects. This is especially true when working to increase engagement. How can you do this without putting in a plethora of hours? You can take comfort in the fact that everyone, from small businesses to large corporations, struggle with this. While there is no simple answer, there are some helpful tips you can implement to make sure you’re reaching optimal engagement with your audience.

One way to avoid wasting time while making the most of your effort is to set SMART goals. This memorable acronym stands for Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Time-Bound. By paying attention to each of these elements, you’ll be able to use your time more efficiently.
A second way to better manage time is to know your audience. If you’re wasting time trying to pinpoint your target market, when they’re online, and what they’re searching, you’re a step behind. Spend the money on the front end to figure these things out, and the time you save later will make up for it.

Covering Your Bases
If you’re managing your time well, you’ll be able to actually focus on engagement. Start by making sure all your bases are covered. Do you have the right social media accounts set up? Is your blog active and consistent with your brand’s message? Are your ads consistently pushing people through the sales channel? You need all of these things in place to be capable of pursuing high-level engagement with your customers.

Pursuing not Pushing
Finally, if your time is managed well and all your bases are covered, you’re set up for success. The last step involves pursuing, as opposed to pushing. Find tangible ways to build an online community that’s conducive to free-flowing conversation. You shouldn’t be pushing content or calls-to-action onto your customers. Instead, you should gently encourage them to pursue your resources as valuable answers to their pressing questions. For a good example of this, check out Park View Legal’s Facebook page. It offers helpful tips, curates valuable content, and asks engaging questions.

By managing your time well, supplying yourself with the right tools, and pursuing not pushing, you will be better able to engage with your audience this year and improve brand visibility.




15% Off All Business Cards


VIEW ALL CARDS








$60.05










$60.05










$60.05










$62.55










$60.05










$60.05










$60.05






$60.05










$52.55










$52.55










$60.05










$60.05



Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Social Signals: Do They Impact SEO Rankings?

 

search engine rankings

Just beginning to tread the murky waters of social signals in relation to SEO rankings? It can seem like quite the daunting task considering the amount of confusion surrounding the topic. There seems to be a great deal of conflicting information put out by various respected sources, the SEO community, and even industry leaders themselves.

But first, what exactly are social signals?
Social signals is the term describing any activity by users that advances web content across social platforms. For instance; shares, Facebook likes, +1’s, and retweets could all be considered social signals. It was previously thought that these signals weighed heavily in favor of a business’s SEO ranking, essentially bolstering their position simply by acquiring more likes or +1’s on social media sites than their competitors. We now know that this not the case at all. Just a little bit of sleuthing can quickly uncover that at this point in time social signals are still not a serious factor in SEO rankings, despite the prior belief and hooplah. And that’s not likely to change any time soon.

So where did all of the confusion come from?

Much Ado About Nothing?
In 2010, Google spokesperson Matt Cutts was featured in a video endorsing the fact that Twitter and Facebook links were, at that time, being used as SEO signals. Shortly after in 2011 Google launched Google+ and set in motion their “authorship markup” campaign which was a way for authors to be connected to their content. These changes provided access to, and complete oversight of, a social media platform by Google. This was a dramatic new step for identifying and authenticating influencers online, and of course was aimed to further Google’s dominance across search and social platforms. These announcements contributed to convincing the world of SEO marketers into believing that social media was going to become a greater influence on Google’s algorithms.
This was later recanted in early 2014 by Mr. Cutts in a Google Webmaster series video where he was asked, “Are Facebook and Twitter signals part of the ranking Algorithm?” He responded by saying:
“Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index so if something occurs on Twitter or occurs on Facebook and we’re able to crawl it, then we can return that in our search results. But as far as doing special specific work to sort of say “you have this many followers on Twitter or this many likes on Facebook”, to the best of my knowledge we don’t currently have any signals like that in our web search ranking algorithms.”

Despite the fact that Google is not currently using social signals in their algorithms, some may still argue that there is a definite correlation between the number of shares a business receives on a piece of content versus their SEO ranking. While this may seem to be true, correlation does not necessarily equal causation as Matt Cutts pointed out. The relationship between these points toward the fact that great content inspires people to like it not only in Google, but on Twitter and Facebook as well. This is the key takeaway here; to simply focus efforts on creating great content that is relevant to your audience. In doing so, content will get shared more frequently, ultimately creating more traffic for your site and elevating your SEO ranking. This means that indirectly, social shares do help SEO, but the core is about great content, not social presence.

Social Media is Still Your Friend
This is not to say that you shouldn’t be on multiple social media sites, or that it won’t benefit your endeavor. Although social signals are not factored into SEO rankings directly, they still play a pivotal role in furthering a company’s brand. A compelling social media campaign can impact your SEO, which is one of the most significant reasons for building a solid foundation on social platforms.
Although not all shares are created equally, (meaning someone with 100 followers does not have the same influence as someone who has 10,000) the number of your followers isn’t as crucial as the interactions with them. It is all about engagement. Active engagement creates brand awareness among consumers where that truly great content is being produced; this results in more shares, likes, and retweets. Some of the additional benefits that may be received from a stellar social presence include:
  • Rapid exposure of content – instant eyeballs to your fabulous creations.
  • Referral traffic to content boosts the chances that people will link to it.
  • The potential for an upsurge in followers which leads to higher visibility and an increase in return traffic.
  • Content being shared at a greater rate increases the probability of it being seen and shared by a major industry influencer which can have a much larger impact.

Conclusion
The verdict is still out about whether or not Google and other search engines will incorporate social signals as a sincere ranking factor. Many SEOs and marketers hypothesize that these signals will one day play a more direct role on rankings, but for now it has still not come to fruition.

Although social signals are not currently incorporated in Google’s algorithms (at least not yet) for SEO rankings, they absolutely have an effect on how much traffic a site can generate based on brand awareness, in turn boosting rank. Social media remains an invaluable marketing tool that should be utilized to create awareness, trust, and loyalty for your brand. Just be aware of its power and limitations.




15% Off All Business Cards


VIEW ALL CARDS








$60.05










$60.05










$60.05










$62.55










$60.05










$60.05










$60.05






$60.05










$52.55










$52.55










$60.05










$60.05



Sunday, February 8, 2015

Talent Solutions a Big Money-Maker for LinkedIn in 4Q

 

Photo by Ben Scholzen.

Powerhouse professional network LinkedIn continues to surprise Wall Street, posting a 44 percent leap in quarterly revenue for its final quarter of 2014.

The company’s shares jumped eight percent in after hours trading Thursday, after the company reported revenue for the fourth quarter came in at $643 million compared to the $447 million it posted in the 2013 quarter.

Jeff Weiner
Jeff Weiner

Revenue for the year came in at $2.219 billion, a 45 percent increase compared to $1.529 billion it posted in 2013.

“Q4 was a strong quarter, bringing to a close another successful year of growth and innovation,” said CEO Jeff Weiner in a conference call with analysts.

“One year ago, we began a number of multi-year strategic investments in the platform. We continued our transition from desktop to mobile, and also focused on initiatives in jobs, content, and global expansion. While still early, we made significant progress on these priorities in 2014, and maintained solid growth across all member ecosystem metrics while delivering record financial results.”

A big part of LinkedIn’s success this year is more and more companies are using its service, Talent Solutions, to hire employees. Revenue in that division hit $369 million, up 41 percent compared to the fourth quarter of 2013. Talent Solutions revenue represented 57 percent of total revenue in the fourth quarter.

And LinkedIn sees that upward trend continuing as the company expands internationally, garnering new memberships from multiple countries. LinkedIn just entered the Chinese market earlier this year and already China is a large source of new members.

“In the fourth-quarter, more than 75 percent of new members came to LinkedIn from outside the United States,” Weiner said.

Premium Subscriptions are also on the rise, making the company $121 million in the fourth quarter, an increase of 38 percent compared to the same quarter in 2013.




15% Off All Business Cards


VIEW ALL CARDS








$60.05










$60.05










$60.05










$62.55










$60.05










$60.05










$60.05






$60.05










$52.55










$52.55










$60.05










$60.05