SEO in 2014: How to Prepare for Google's 2014 Algorithm Updates

It has been an incredibly eventful year in terms of updates from Google. Major 2013 changes included further releases of Penguin and Panda, Hummingbird taking flight, and the shift away from providing keyword data thanks to encrypted search.
Many have gone so far as to ask whether SEO as a profession is dead: for one interesting perspective, see my recent Forbes interview with Sam Roberts of VUDU Marketing. My own take is less alarmist: Google has taken major spam-fighting steps that have shifted the playing field for SEO professionals and anyone trying to get their site on the map in the year ahead.
At the same time, the need for an online presence has never been stronger, while the landscape has never been more competitive. The potential to make a real ROI impact with your company's online marketing initiative is greater than ever. But defaulting to so-called "gray hat" tactics no longer works. Instead, SEO professionals need to step up and embrace a more robust vision of our area of expertise.
You might call it a move from tactician to strategist: the best and most successful players in our space will work to anticipate Google's next moves and respond to them with laser focus. In a sense, the infinite digital game of chess that is SEO will continue, but the rules of the game have become more complex.
Through a mix of what I'm observing and reading and what I'm seeing working out in the field today for my clients, here are some suggestions for companies and SEO professionals that are thinking ahead to 2014 for their digital strategies.

Everything You Learned in 2013 is Still Relevant, Just Amplified

When you look closely at the targets of the 2013 updates (ie, websites that cheat their way to the top of the rankings or provide no value to visitors), I anticipate seeing these carried forward throughout 2014. We can continue to expect micro adjustments to Panda and Penguin that continue to target both link quality and content quality.
Smart marketers will benefit from keeping a close eye on their link profiles, and performing periodic audits to identify and remove inbound links built unnaturally. High quality content investments will remain critical.
A solid SEO performance in 2014 is going to be built on a foundation of really understanding what happened in 2013, and what these changes mean both strategically and tactically for SEO. SEO really has changed in critical ways.

Content Marketing is Bigger than Ever

Content marketing will move from buzzword to mature marketing movement in 2014. From an SEO perspective, Google will be looking at companies that have robust content marketing efforts as a sign that they're the kind of business Google wants to support.
Think of all the advantages of a good content strategy:

• Regular, helpful content targeted at your audience.
• Social signals from regular sharing and engagement.
• Freshness or signs that your site is alive and growing.
• Increasing authority connected to your body of work.

Sound familiar? It's the very approach to SEO that all of Google's recent updates have been designed to shape.
What changes you need to make in 2014 depends largely on where your company stands now in relation to an active content marketing strategy. Companies with existing content strategies will need to assess the role of mobile, specifically.
If you've just begun to move in the direction of content marketing, it's time to really commit and diversify. If you haven't started yet, it's time to take the plunge.

Social Media Plays an Increasingly Visible Role

Social media has been a major player in the digital marketing landscape for the last few years. First we saw the rise of mega platforms like Facebook and Twitter. In the last couple of years, visual content from networks like Pinterest, Instagram, and various micro-video services haa swept through.
Today, diversification is a major trend: depending on who you're targeting, it's no longer enough to be active on a single network. In fact, The Content Marketing Institute recently released a study that the most successful B2B marketers are active on an average of seven networks. Companies and SEO professionals will need to be asking the following questions in the year ahead:

• Are we taking our social media seriously? Are we employing the pillars of strong profiles, good content, reciprocity, and engagement?
• Is easy social sharing enabled for all of our content?
• Does our content strategy include a dissemination phase that includes maximizing its potential for distribution through social networks?
• Are we active on the social networks that matter in our industry?
• Are we active on the social networks that matter to our customers?
• Are we active on the social networks that matter to the search engines? (See below for more thoughts on making that strategic investment).
• Does our social media marketing strategy stimulate the level of social signals required to achieve our goals?

Google's updates are likely to increasingly rely on social signals as active human curation of good content.

Invest in Google+

In addition to strengthening your overall social media marketing position, it's going to be absolutely critical that you are investing in your Google+ presence.
Moz's most recent study of ranking factors confirms that Google+ is playing an increasingly significant role in a solid SEO ranking. The immediate areas to focus on include:

• Establishing Google Authorship of your content, and tying it to your Google+ account. Authorship, which brings your body of content together, will play an important role in the SERPs as well as strengthening your Author Rank.
• Those +1's add up. It isn't clear exactly how much Google +1's directly contribute, but it's fair to say that it's a major factor in the "social signals" component of Google's algorithm. I expect this to increase in the year ahead.

Hummingbird Was Just the Tip of the Mobile Iceberg

2014 will be the year of mobile SEO. Hummingbird was just the very small visible tip of a very large iceberg as Google struggles to respond to the rapidly shifting landscape where half of all Americans own smartphones and at least one-third own tablets. Those statistics will probably shift upward, maybe dramatically, after the 2013 holiday season.
As a result, your site's mobile performance matters to your SEO rankings. Properties that you're trying to rank need to be designed first for mobile and then scaled up for the big screen. If you don't have a mobile-optimized website, this needs to be your top priority in terms of SEO and design investments for 2014.
Some underlying changes that happened with Hummingbird, including the increasing importance of both semantic search and Knowledge Graph, will continue to grow in influence. Practically speaking, this is to help prepare the search engine for the rise of voice search associated with mobile. But it also has direct implications (which we're still learning about) for broader SEO. This is one area that you should pay close attention to, from how you structure your content to what content you choose to put out.

The Long Versus Short Debate

Which is better, long content or short content? The answer depends on who is creating the content, who is reading it, what it's about, in what context it's being consumed, and how you define "better."
For the purposes of this argument, which form of content will help you best prepare to rank well in 2014? Frustratingly for some, the answer is more "both/and" than "or."
Vocus recently cited a study that showed that the top 10 results for a specific keyword search tended to be more than 2,000 words in length. The validity of that study has been debated, but it's probably fair to say that length is a proxy for depth of expertise and value delivered to the reader.
Google values both expertise and value. As a result, we've seen a trend where the "minimum desirable length" for text-based content has shifted from something in the range of 550 words to articles in the range of 1000-plus words.
Yet we're also confronted with the reality of the mobile device: if I'm reading about something I'm only moderately interested in, there's a high probability that I won't want to scroll through 2,000 words on my iPhone. That leaves content marketers faced with the challenge of producing mobile-friendly content, which tends to be (in a sweeping generality) much, much shorter.
Proposed solutions have run the gamut from content mixes to site architectures that allow you to point readers to specific versions of content based on their devices. This is great for the user experience, but where it all comes out on the SEO algorithm front remains to be seen. For now, I'll just acknowledge that it's an area of concern that will continue to evolve and that it's something you should keep your eye on.

Advertising and PPC has a Shifted Relationship with SEO

Since Google made the decision to encrypt the vast majority of its searches, our ability to access keyword data for research purposes has been restricted. However, there's a loophole. Keyword data is still available for advertisers using PPC on Google's platform.
More SEO budgets may be driven toward PPC simply because access to the data may otherwise be restricted. It's also possible that we'll see the release of a premium Google product to give us access to that data through another channel from Google in the year ahead.

Guest Blogging Remains One of the Most Effective Tactics, With a Caveat

Guest blogging has exploded in the past year, and it's going to remain one of the most effective means of building quality inbound links, traffic, and branding exposure in 2014. However, it's absolutely critical that you're creating high quality content, and using extremely stringent criteria when selecting your target sites.
In other words, you need to apply the same high ethos approach to guest blogging that you do to the rest of your SEO efforts. If you dip a toe into spammy waters where guest blogging is essentially scattershot article marketing with a 2014 update, you're likely to be penalized in a future Penguin update.

Conclusion

This has been a year of significant change in the SEO industry. Even contemplating strategies for 2014 can feel staggering.
The good news is that looking back, it's easy to see which direction the trends are heading in terms of the years ahead. Staying the course on solid white hat tactics and paying attention to a few priority areas that are shifting rapidly should give you the insights needed to improve your organic search visibility in 2014 and beyond.
What trends do you anticipate seeing from Google in the year ahead? How are you preparing?

Article Source: http://searchenginewatch.com/article/2308896/SEO-in-2014-How-to-Prepare-for-Googles-2014-Algorithm-Updates

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10 Extremely Hilarious SEO Memes

Ok SEO’s & Webmaster’s i know you all have have been working very hard to get some backlinks for your site, you must be busy writing great content, internal linking your older content as a reference so that reader can find all the information he is looking for at one place, submitting links in directories (not crap one’s), tweaking your anchor text, making new strategies, reading every post from SEJ, SEL etc etc, optimizing your website to load fast, being active across all social media platform and engaging with your readers BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA BLA.
Phew, that’s one hell lot of work, right? :O
I request you all to stop everything you are doing right now, Just sit back grab some snacks and coffee if you prefer having both at same time and enjoy this seo meme post. Have some fun.

Why Memes has become so popular lately?

IMO Answer is simple, “you feel connected”. Yes, you feel connected to it, Don’t you? Let’s take this as example, the moment you see this Meme given below you go back to the time and recalls doing it and says, yeah “i did that too”, “it happened with me too”. Memes are entertainer in true sense, aren’t they? They carries a message with them, they are a kind of graphical satire which usually caught attention because of it’s quirky nature.

What is SEO Meme?

There are memes for every kind of industry,  like memes on Doctors, lawyer, engineers etc etc then why should SEO  Industry remain untouched?
SEO industry is full of surprises not only because of the algorithm updates but also because of the ever changing “SEO Strategies” from people and SEO Guru’s. SEO Meme is just like an inside joke which happens in office/colleagues where a bunch of people know what they are taking and referring to.
Here are some hilarious SEO Memes. I’m sure you all will find these Memes extremely amusing and howlarious just like i did.

So called SEO Guru’s ?

This happens most of the time

Ohh Google Analytics

Don’t Buy Links

 Really, Not Sure What it is

Making and Uploading Videos in Youtube and helping SEO’s  i guess!

Sometimes #TrueStory

Spammers, Please Note

Without a Doubt This is my personal Favorite

Did you like this post? Please share  your views with us or if you have any SEO meme to share, do let us know. Sole intention of this post was to create some laugh in air for SEO’s
Keep coming here, I’ll update this post soon!

Article Source: http://www.searchramble.com/extremely-hilarious-seo-memes/

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Social signals can enhance your SEO campaign: here’s how

The digital world is evolving at a rapid rate and change is constant with digital marketing. 20 years ago, no one could have predicted where we are today and that we would have a “Google” that can determine the success of a business online. No one knew back then that a couple of keywords relevant to the services and products of a business could either create major success, or be their downfall. Change is imminent online and if you are in the SEO game I’m sure you have seen an article or five stating that SEO is dead. Rest assured folks, SEO isn’t dead — it’s evolving.
 
It’s estimated that Google changes its search algorithm approximately 500-600 times a year so that it can provide the best experience to its users and the most relevant, up to date, and accurate information. With this, it makes sense that Google has to constantly update its algorithm. For all the major known algorithm updates on Google, view this page on Moz. All the updates have a massive effect on SEO and business as new strategies and methods have to be implemented to get organic rankings and to maintain them.
Google isn’t the only channel that keeps on changing. Look at how social media has evolved over the last couple of years and how it is now an integral part of business for many. It’s impacting how we communicate online and do business. Social media has also opened up the floodgates where anyone can now be a citizen journalist and publish anything about anyone online. People are also more likely to trust a recommendation from a friend or a family member than by a search engine. This means that if the search engines aren’t embracing social media, they are going to lose out big time.

With this, Google integrated social media into their core search algorithm and in 2010, the famous Matt Cutts announced that Google is using “social signals” in their search algorithm, and they have been doing this for a while. Social signals play an important part in increasing website traffic and to obtain organic rankings and have been doing so for a while, but many are only starting to realize this now. What does this mean? It means that SEO has evolved once again and is now working hand in hand with social media.

What are social signals?

Social signals are votes and recommendations generated on the social web in the form of likes, shares, retweets, mentions, pins, and +1′s that are generated from top social media channels like Google+, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and even Pinterest.

Social signals also play an important part in your online reputation (digital footprint) among consumers. Having a good reputation online and on various social media channels can improve your organic rankings because this is directly seen by Google as trusted recommendations that you receive from people online.

Traditional SEO

Traditional search engine optimization consists of on page optimization tactics, content, keywords, and links to determine your organic rankings, but now that Google is using social signals as a ranking factor, why should you only focus on traditional SEO methods? You shouldn’t. This doesn’t mean that you should stop what you are busy doing with SEO. You should just change your strategy and tactics to include social media to take advantage of social signals.
In 2007 Google registered a patent called “Agent Rank“. Here’s the abstract directly from Google about “Agent Rank”:

The present invention provides methods and apparatus, including computer program products, implementing techniques for searching and ranking linked information sources. The techniques include receiving multiple content items from a corpus of content items; receiving digital signatures each made by one of multiple agents, each digital signature associating one of the agents with one or more of the content items; and assigning a score to a first agent of the multiple agents, wherein the score is based upon the content items associated with the first agent by the digital signatures.

What it basically means is that your Agent Rank or “AuthorRank” will be determined by your reputation online as a content creator and it will influence the results on Google Search. AJ Kohn summed it up quite nicely on a blog post he did in March 2012 where he explains Author Rank: “…verified content by an author will be graded and it is that grade that influences the rank of content in search results.”

Why do you have to verify your content and what does it have to do with social signals? Through Google+, the all-knowing social network, you should verify your content. This means that the Google+ social network directly provides social signals to Google that can affect your organic rankings. This is just one of many social signals, but I believe it’s going to play a bigger role in the future.

Why you should start focusing on social signals with your search engine optimization strategy:

• More votes online means more social signals
• Having lots of Twitter retweets and Facebook likes won’t get you to the top organic rankings, but it can help.
• Focusing on social signals will help you generate repeat visitors.
• Google uses social signals to find out what is happening on the social web and what content is valuable.
• Social signals can help improve the visibility of your brand online

People are visiting certain websites because more people have recommended that particular site by a friend, family, and colleagues through social media or directly. Websites that are socially active have better conversion rates and at the end of the day better brand loyalty, which contributes highly in getting “social votes” that, provides social signals to Google.

I love reading. Before I buy a new book I search on Google for the book and usually one of the first results that pops up is a listing from Amazon. On Amazon I’ll read the comments of the book and make the final decision based on the recommendations provided by real people who have read the book. This is powerful, as I started looking for the book on Google and ended up on a website that focuses on social signals directly. How can you take advantage of this?

SEO and social media keep on evolving at a rapid rate and social signals can play a huge role in your search engine optimization strategy.

Article source: http://memeburn.com/2013/11/social-signals-can-enhance-your-seo-campaign-heres-how/

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Google’s Hummingbird Update is More Significant than Businesses Think

Hummingbird is the biggest iteration of the Google algorithm since Caffeine in 2010. It is, however, going to have less impact immediately on search marketing than the Panda and Penguin updates. Amit Singhal, of Google, said 90% of searches have been affected by this algorithm change. It was interesting to note, however, that very little was said within the industry about affected rankings before the announcement was made.

The details of the Hummingbird amendments are provided below, detailing what has changed and how it impacts search marketing strategies.

In general terms, Hummingbird is a step towards the Google algorithm becoming artificially intelligent. Google’s goal is to be able to serve content based on what the searcher wants. A key performance indicator of this development is surely the number of searches a user makes in a short space of time (the higher number of searches denoting that the content is not relevant to their query) and also the number of pages a user visits per search term.

For example, 8 years ago 30% of searchers would look at search results past page one of Google. Today, it is only 10% and it is likely to decrease as Google improves the indexing of searches against the real intent of the search (thus making it even more significant to increase SEO rankings).
So let’s have a look at Hummingbird in detail. What are the changes and what does this mean for search marketers and website owners.

Semantic Search
Semantic search will be discussed more and more in regards to SEO over the coming years, particularly as search devices change, search queries evolve with the technology, and Google and information retrieval technology adapts to changing hardware.

Semantic search is where an algorithm, like Google’s, retrieves information based on the meaning of the search as opposed to matching the content against the search term. Google’s aim is to index all content based on semantics and it will continue to improve in this regard.
Before Hummingbird, Google was indexing content by using pattern match to marry up content within its database against the search query.

Today, Hummingbird is more intelligent, and now indexes content based on the query intention. This includes some key elements such as the context of the search and the searcher’s requirements. For example, the context of the searcher can include variables such as the device a user is searching from, the time the search was made (local) and/or the frequency of similar searches from the same device, allowing Google to understand more about the search habits of that user. With a better understanding of searchers, Google can make better judgements about search intent and improve the content served from the index.

Website Content

As Google continues to improve its semantic search algorithm, websites will need to continue improving content for end users.
Providing the best content for basic brochure websites may be the hardest since a large majority are relying just on textual content.

Gone are the days when SEOs could focus on keyword density and target keywords within alt tags, meta tags and H tags. More granular research is needed into multiple keyword variations, although this recommendation isn’t a result of the Hummingbird update.

Webpage content breaks down into only three core sections – images, text and video – and a combination of all three determines the theme of the page. It is important that companies, SEO practitioners and in-house marketing teams see that each page has its own theme of which all content types contribute to improving.
For example, if I have a page about “Mailing bags” then I want to give as many signals to Google as possible that this page is highly targeted for all relevant search terms. Therefore, from a contextual point of view, I want to ensure it is optimized for all search variations for this product, including mailing bags, mailing cartons and mailing pouches. I also want to make sure the text content covers important practical information – for example, the uses of the product and application. This is particularly important with the Hummingbird update because Google is specifically looking at how it can serve content better for practical searches beginning with things such as “how do I… ” or “what is the… “. More information on this below.

Secondly, you want to ensure that you have relevant images on the page, for example, maps. 20% of all searches have “local intent” in the UK, and it’s even higher on mobile. So maps are a significantly important element to add to websites.

Another important factor to help serving content against intent is schema markup, specifically for videos.
All of these elements contribute as signals to Google to say “Hey, this page is very relevant to that search term”.

Material Searches and Application Searches

This is an aspect we have been working on with clients for a while and we are not surprised that Google has covered it in the Hummingbird update.
We have worked with clients to optimize their websites which contain multiple bespoke products and have seen that there are clearly two types of searches being made. Material searches are searches for a certain product based on what it is – so for example, a search of “cardboard boxes” is a material search. The searcher is clearly describing the product that they are looking for in the search term. Similarly, a search for “coffee table” is someone looking for a very specific item.

Application searches, on the other hand, are queries made by users who are looking for something or someone to do a required job, but the searchers are not sure exactly what they are looking for. For example, the search phrase “packaging material for moving house” may be used by someone wanting to find packaging solutions to meet their house moving requirements, but the searcher may not know exactly what is needed. The searcher is, in effect, asking Google to provide the answer. This is where Hummingbird is enhancing its semantic understanding of search queries and improving the indexing of content for each user. Google may consider factors like past search history, the device used, and even elements like personalized search with “Search Plus Your World” which is another change similar to Hummingbird that also contributes to better indexing of content based on a user’s needs.

So, in short, focus more on searches to do with the usability and performance of your products and services (applications), rather than material searches which just describe what you do.

Knowledge Graph Tap In

Google is also ranking sites based on information in your Knowledge Graph. This is probably more relevant to larger companies or brands. Do not, however, underestimate the significance that local search and Knowledge Graph are likely to have on impacting rankings.

Use of Mobiles

More and more people are speaking searches into mobile phones which is where Hummingbird determines the meaning of a search. These spoken searches are invariably longer search phrases and mainly contain a question. Google’s search results need to be able to answer these questions so the focus for Hummingbird is to understand the semantics of the search term, be it by location, device and/or search intent of the text query, to serve the most relevant results.

Use of Local Searches on Mobile Devices

40% of searches made on mobile have local intent. Therefore, think about the content on your website and how it appears on mobile. Does it format correctly? Is it easy to use? By this I do not mean is it responsive and built in HTML5 because that is only a temporary solution. Consumers on mobile are in a different buying mode, so content on your desktop website may not be relevant to a consumer on a mobile device.
For example, your store locator links are going to be very important to mobile visitors but, if your store locator links are buried in the footer of your desktop site and they are regurgitated the same way through your responsive design, then this just isn’t good practice.

Google will be making changes in the coming year to give increased weight to mobile optimized content. Hummingbird is, effectively, the first step towards this goal. Google wants to see content created to best serve a user’s “intent”. This includes the device used to perform searches.

Long and Short Tail Keywords

We are going to see Hummingbird have a more significant impact on long tail search terms (longer string search terms where there is a question or element of uncertainty within the searcher’s mind) than on head terms (short tail). Head terms and generics may be affected within certain industries, but greater variations will be seen for longer terms.

This is because of conversational search.

Conversational Search

Use of voice search creates longer search query strings and it is important to serve content to match these searches. Think about user guides and how-to guides, if you have products with multiple applications.
Ikea is a great example of a website that has good video content showing how to put together each furniture type. This is great content to index for conversational search.
Some people recommend making text content more conversational. We do not, however, see this making a difference in regards to ranking effectiveness.

In Summary

Make sure your content is geared towards a user’s intent. Think not only about what is being searched for, but also about what searchers are trying to find based on contingent factors such as location, search device and time of search. Match your content and increase semantic signals to assure better indexing.
Hummingbird is the beginning of some major changes to content indexing. Google will become better at determining user intent and semantic understanding, and with changes in consumer habits across multiple channels – particularly mobile – search marketers will need to adapt as well.

Article Source: http://www.sitepronews.com/2013/11/15/googles-hummingbird-update-significant-businesses-think/

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How to Track the Online ROI of Offline Advertising

While I love online marketing and often times think that is a much better marketing investment than offline marketing and advertising, offline ads are important and add value. While we are going to see budget shift significantly from offline efforts to online campaigns, there is still going to be a ton of money going into offline ads.
Much of the value from offline advertising is actually online and is typically attributed to the direct channel. If an ad gives out a website URL, they almost always send visitors to their homepage. When ads don't give users a website to go to, typically one of the search channels will receive credit for the value created by the ad. The KTM ad below is a prime example of a print ad that will create value, but the value will be attributed to either the search channel or direct channel if the user is already aware of (or simply searches for) the URL for KTM.

As you can see below, in 2012 82% of ad-spend was offline; that is a lot of visitors and conversions that aren't being properly attributed.

This isn't just a problem for companies with big ad budgets. In fact, this is more important for small businesses with smaller budgets because often times these expenses come out of the owner's pockets. Real estate agents are probably the best example of why this is so important. If my friend Hailey is a real estate agent and if she wants to market her self and her properties, she has a lot of options. She could advertise on a big real estate site like Zillow, a niche site, through SEO or PPC, and it's easy for her to track leads from these. It gets harder, though, when she invests in offline efforts like signs, door hangers, print ads, or any other form of offline advertising. Hailey, and almost all real estate agents, are doing their marketing campaigns on a tight budget, so it is critical for real estate agents (and professionals in many other industries) to understand exactly what is producing value and what isn't.
The good news is that it's actually pretty easy to figure out which offline ads are helping you and which ones aren't doing anything.

Create a custom URL for your ads

The first step is to either buy a vanity domain or to create a unique landing page for each offline effort.
Depending on your niche and ad, it can be important to incentivize the user typing in the full URL (and not just stopping once they type in the homepage) if you are not going to use a vanity domain. This can mean offering the user a special promotion or gift. You would want to reinforce the offer with the URL as well, using something like /free-gift or /special-promo.

Set up redirects and campaign parameters

Once you've created your vanity domain or landing page, you'll need to set up a 301 redirect to the page you want visitors to land on (your home page or a specific landing page) AND include Google Analytics campaign parameters (shown below by ?utm=*)

If you're not super familiar with Google Analytics, this guide is a good starting point. If you need help creating the campaign URL, the Google URL Builder and GA Config are really useful tools. Keep in mind, while there are five different parameters you can use, the following three are required at minimum:

• Source – This should be the specific source of the ad and referral such as "Seattle Times," "For Sale Sign," "Flier," etc. The source parameter will allow you to assign conversions to a specific source.
• Medium – The medium is simply the high-level channel that your effort is part of. Some examples of good mediums would be radio, magazine ad, or TV. When you consistently use the medium attribution parameter, over time, you will be able to see what high-level channels produce the best ROI for you.
• Campaign name – The campaign name should refer to specific campaign you are running. You can use this to pull together ads across mediums and sources that are part of a larger campaign, or you can differentiate between different campaigns within the same source.

Track your ROI

At this point, you've done all the hard work and have everything set up for Google Analytics to be able to track visitors coming to the site from your ads as well as how many people convert in some form. You will be able to find the number of visitors from your ads under the campaigns tab in Google Analytics, and the number of conversions in the Ecommerce, Goals, or Events tab depending on how you are tracking your conversions.

The campaign view in Google Analytics is where you'll monitor the success of your offline campaigns.

With this in place you will be able to better invest your offline marketing budget knowing that the channels and campaigns are going to give you the best online ROI.'

Article Source:  http://moz.com/blog/how-to-track-online-roi-of-offline-advertising

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Content Marketing Minds: A Community of Authority Equals Influence

Building a community of authority.
In marketing today, we toss around words like “influencer,” “advocate,” “guru,” and “thought leader” a lot. Lessons are offered for earning these distinctions and for creating marketing programs to leverage those that have. All good. Without a doubt, you become more known, liked and trusted as your “community of authority” expands.
“Community of authority?” Oy, do we have another lofty term here to add to our new media marketing vocabulary? We might. (Remember where you heard it first.)
Here’s why I couldn’t resist creating the term:

(1) A community can accomplish what an individual cannot.
(2) You can accelerate your influence by leveraging the authority of other authorities.

Consider the plugs you read in the first pages of a book, on the back cover or sleeve. It’s rare they come from unknowns. The author asks other respected authors and leaders to read the book and provide testimonials. If you recognize the person behind the plug it means far more than if you don’t.
But who knows whom you have or haven’t heard of—or what persons you deem experts?
With that in mind, as an author (or speaker, blogger, product evangelist, etc.) you don’t bet the farm on one testimonial. You rally up trusted and influential people to create a community of authority and in doing so, you garner far more authority.
“Influence” starts with “a.”
The “a” in influence is amplification—amplification that comes from having influential friends.
A week ago, I created a blog post on my company’s blog, The Point, titled “26 Helpful Emails I Get, Open and Read (and You Should Too).” The article is a hit beyond my expectations.
I really didn’t do much to promote the piece. I didn’t have to. You know why. The content marketers I wrote about and recommended to my readers—all influencers—promoted it. Truth be told, I got far fewer comments on the blog than I hoped I would (just one), but the tweets and shares across social media blew me away.

My community of authority went to work for me.

In some cases, I’m very well acquainted and am now friends with the content creators I plugged. In other cases, we know of each other ever so slightly. And in a few cases, I began making new friends, such as Greg Linnemanstons, the president of Weidert Group, an authoritative inbound marketing agency (HubSpot Gold-Certified.)
Greg reached out to thank me for including his agency. He promoted the post, of course, and we’re pen pals now. I suspect, he’ll have his eyes open for more content from me and plug my content in the future. It’s called reciprocity, a powerful principle of persuasion.
I like what TopRank’s Ashley Zeckman has to say on “giving and getting” in her post “4 Tips for Becoming a Better Influencer.”

#CMMinds
Let's hash this stuff out together. Use #CMMinds anytime to make comments or counterpoints, add your ideas and ask questions. I'm listening. 

Ideas for creating your community of authority.
Want to create a community of authority? Here are some ideas for making it happen.

• Roundups—A somewhat easy way to connect with and associate yourself with an influential group is to feature their resources and insights in a piece of content you create. Relationships tend to result.
  
  A little over a year ago, when I had begun getting active on SlideShare, I created a roundup style presentation called “Content Marketing Hall of Shame.” I simply asked experts I admired to answer one question, “What is the most common mistake content marketers make?” The seven answers that best jived with my vision for the piece were featured. The presentation garnered a lot of views and shares and I believe it was the start of me gaining traction as a voice of authority in the field—that is, authority by association.
  
  I put a great deal of TLC into the presentation and it paid off many times over. I’ve reused it in many instances and made new connections as a result. In fact, “Hall of Shame” was the topic of the first conversation I ever had with leading author and consultant Jay Baer, who is now a friend, mentor and advocate of my work. (I contribute often to his informative website and blog, Convince and Convert.)

• Events—Nothing I can think of is more meaningful to making important connections that lead to the expansion of your community of authority than attending industry events. However, it’s not enough to attend. You have to engage. Give out some swag. Introduce yourself. Devise a cool icebreaker. (This bird-brained idea of mine was a seriously effective tactic for me making friends at my first New Media Expo.)
  
  Don’t be shy at industry events. For instance, if you see an author you admire because you appreciate their book or blog, walk up to him or her and say so. There’s nothing an author likes more than learning his or her writing helped you. Be sincere and you’ll make a friend for life.

• Crowd source—The “Hall of Shame” presentation I mentioned is an example of crowd sourcing content, but just one. Your content need not be a slide deck and your method of gathering content need not be email.
  
  Crowd source ideas by asking topical questions in LinkedIn Groups, other forums such as American Express Open, on Quora or Yahoo! Answers, via your email newsletter, surveys, research or blog. Even a comment stream on a blog post, if it’s interesting enough, can be fodder for a valuable crowd sourced piece of content capable of having a team-building effect.
  
  When you attend an event, have a mini-camcorder or voice recorder in hand (your smart phone will suffice) and ask the experts you meet to answer one quick question. Do it 5-10 times and presto, you have the makings of a piece that will position you as an expert by association and is likely to get shared by each interviewee.

• Create your own community—LinkedIn makes it easy to create a community with a LinkedIn Group. Google+ does as well. How about creating and maintaining a Twitter chat or hashtag? I’ve begun creating a community with this column using the #CMMinds hashtag on Twitter. You can do the same.
  
• Actual partnerships and teams—Perhaps you’re not up for handshaking with strangers or taking some of the advice I’ve given thus far. Okay, build a team of people in your field you already know. Extend an invitation for the players to extend invitations to their associates and friends. Like-minded professionals with common goals can easily forge a team and put their heads together to create influential content.
  
  A simple partnership, even a one-off effort, works too. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve followed/friended/engaged an expert based on something we have in common in our professional lives and asked if they’d do an interview. The answer tends to be yes. The results tend to be powerful. And your promotion team doubles instantly. Should that person have a large following, you’re likely to capitalize on it too.
  
  I’m seeing some wonderful executions of this approach today. This eBook interview series by Everyone Social is A+ awesome. I’ve found it enormously inspiring—so much so, I’ve begun doing something similar.
  
  Of course, podcasts and video interviews are also effective tactics for partnering to create content. Great examples are too numerous to cite. I get asked to do interviews often. Not surprisingly, I accept.
  
  Here’s an interview I did about the power of content marketing with my good friends at Social Media Explorer. (Psst… Hosting podcasts and/or video interview programs gives you a press pass to speak with media figures.)

• Lists—Make a list, as did with the blog post I mentioned above. You can make your list a post, infographic, micro-post series, email, slide deck.(Check out this one, for example, a List.ly page I did featuring many of my favorite one-liners from some of the most well-known marketers. Some even added their ideas to the list, which is a cool feature of List.ly.)
  
  The list approach is not unlike the round-up, however, with proper attribution to your sources, you need not tax anyone’s time or even seek permission.
  
• Gamification—Create a game, contest, or scoring system of some sort. It’s an incredibly common tactic, easy to do and very effective. Make your game map to your sweet spot, a topic you’re an expert in, and gaining authority is inevitable. Want to put an community spin on it? Feature others, invite others to play, and invite others to invite others. Offer an exclusive version of your game to a website or blog you’d like to become a guest on.
  
• Guest post— An enormous number of influential bloggers welcome guest posts on their blog. Generally, you’re not paid, but both parties benefit. The host gets your content. You get the host’s audience. Select your blogs wisely and contribute excellent material of great value to the website’s readers and your community of authority is sure to expand.

Recognition and share—Here’s the easiest and most important tip o’ the day. Simply be a good netizen by recognizing others and sharing their content. It’s an act of kindness and just plain smart social media in action. Your efforts seldom go unnoticed. If they do, try again. If you want someone to become a part of your community of authority—or you want to get in on his or her’s—a thumb up or tweet might be an effective first step.

Maybe you want yours truly to know you, share your stuff, feature your advice, and recognize you as an authority. Join this conversation. Chime in on twitter via #CMMinds, follow me on Social Media Today or a social network, introduce yourself to me, interview me, or tell me why I should interview you

Source: http://socialmediatoday.com/Content_Marketing_Minds/community-authority-influence

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