The short answer to this is – no. There is no one-size-fits-all keyword density, no optimal percentage guaranteed to rank any page at number 1. However, I do know you can keyword stuff a page and trip a spam filter.
Most web optimisation professionals agree there is no ideal percent of keywords in a text to get a page to number 1 in Google. Search engines are not that easy to fool, although the key to success in many fields doing simple things well (or, at least, better than the competition).
I write natural page copy where possible always focused on the key terms — I never calculate density to identify the best % — there are way too many other things to work on. I have looked into this. If it looks natural, it’s ok with me. I aim to include related terms, long-tail variants and synonyms in Primary Content — at least ONCE, as that is all some pages need. Optimal keyword density is a myth, although there are many who would argue otherwise.
‘Things, Not Strings’
Google is better at working out what a page is about, and what it should be about to satisfy the intent of a searcher, and it isn’t relying only on keyword phrases on a page to do that anymore.
Google has a Knowledge Graph populated with NAMED ENTITIES and in certain circumstances, Google relies on such information to create SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages)..
Google has plenty of options when rewriting the query in a contextual way, based on what you searched for previously, who you are, how you searched and where you are at the time of the search.
Can I Just Write Naturally and Rank High in Google?
Yes, you must write naturally (and succinctly) in 2016, but if you have no idea the keywords you are targeting, and no expertise in the topic, you will be left behind those that can access this experience.
You can just ‘write naturally’ and still rank, albeit for fewer keywords than you would have if you optimised the page.
There are too many competing pages targeting the top spots not to optimise your content.
Naturally, how much text you need to write, how much you need to work into it, and where you ultimately rank, is going to depend on the domain reputation of the site you are publishing the article on.
Do You Need Lots of Text To Rank Pages In Google?
User search intent is a way marketers describe what a user wants to accomplish when they perform a Google search.
SEOs have understood user search intent to fall broadly into the following categories and there is an excellent post on Moz about this.
Transactional — The user wants to do something like buy, signup, register to complete a task they have in mind.
Informational – The user wishes to learn something
Navigational – The user knows where they are going
The Google human quality rater guidelines modify these to simpler constructs:
Do
Know
Go
As long as you meet the user’s primary intent, you can do this with as few words as it takes to do so.
You do NOT need lots of text to rank in Google.
Optimise For User Intent & Satisfaction
When it comes to writing SEO-friendly text for Google, we must optimise for user intent, not simply what a user typed into Google.
Google will send people looking for information on a topic to the highest quality, relevant pages it has in its database, often BEFORE it relies on how Google ‘used‘ to work e.g. relying on finding near or exact match instances of a keyword phrase on any one page.
Google is constantly evolving to better understand the context and intent of user behaviour, and it doesn’t mind rewriting the query used to serve high-quality pages to users that comprehensively deliver on user satisfaction e.g. explore topics and concepts in a unique and satisfying way.
Of course, optimising for user intent, even in this fashion, is something a lot of marketers had been doing long before query rewriting and Google Hummingbird came along.
Optimising For ‘The Long Click’
When it comes to rating user satisfaction, there are a few theories doing the rounds at the moment that I think are sensible. Google could be tracking user satisfaction by proxy. When a user uses Google to search for something, user behaviour from that point on can be a proxy of the relevance and relative quality of the actual SERP.
What is a Long Click?
A user clicks a result and spends time on it, sometimes terminating the search.
What is a Short Click?
A user clicks a result and bounces back to the SERP, pogo-sticking between other results until a long click is observed. Google has this information if it wants to use it as a proxy for query satisfaction.
For more on this, I recommend this article on the time to long click.
Optimise Supplementary Content on the Page
Once you have the content, you need to think about supplementary content and secondary links that help users on their journey of discovery.
That content CAN be on links to your own content on other pages, but if you are really helping a user understand a topic — you should be LINKING OUT to other helpful resources e.g. other websites.A website that does not link out to ANY other website could be interpreted accurately to be at least, self-serving. I can’t think of a website that is the true end-point of the web.
A website that does not link out to ANY other website could be interpreted accurately to be at least, self-serving. I can’t think of a website that is the true end-point of the web.
TASK — On informational pages, LINK OUT to related pages on other sites AND on other pages on your own website where RELEVANT
TASK — For e-commerce pages, ADD RELATED PRODUCTS.
TASK — Create In-depth Content Pieces
TASK — Keep Content Up to Date, Minimise Ads, Maximise Conversion, Monitor For broken, or redirected links
TASK — Assign in-depth content to an author with some online authority, or someone with displayable expertise on the subject
TASK — If running a blog, first, clean it up. To avoid creating pages that might be considered thin content in 6 months, consider planning a wider content strategy. If you publish 30 ‘thinner’ pages about various aspects of a topic, you can then fold all this together in a single topic page centred page helping a user to understand something related to what you sell.
New Markets merge into record shattering success for seasoned entrepreneur
“With the advent of a real Market Network (Markethive) and a real emerging Customer Centric network marketing giant (Valentus) even I was surprised with the ease of building a new empire in this industry”. Explained Thomas Prendergast, Entrepreneur, Internet Innovator and CEO and founder of Markethive.
“I have been an advocate for ending the business practices of buying and selling leads. And calling for an end to spam email, spam faxes, telemarketing, ending popup ads, bill board ads, you know, the practice called outbound marketing”. He continued to explain. “It was heavily relied upon in the days before the Internet a long time ago and has suffered a long painful death since the Internet was released to the public in 1991, I know, I was there and have continued to ride this journey called the Internet.” Mr Prendergast emphasized.
10 years before the Internet Thomas Prendergast ran an Ad agency in the Silicon Valley and was very aware of tech and the emerging Internet. “Which is why I was on the Internet almost the moment it was available to the public in 1991” Mr. Prendergast revealed.
Within years of immersing himself into the Internet, he became aware of Network Marketing. He found it fascinating that anyone with some skill and determination could reasonably build a living income. This idea supported his empathetic support of struggling prodigies, up and coming entrepreneurs and anyone who had greater dreams than the typical job afforded them.
“Although I was aware of buying mailing lists for my ad agency in the 80s I was not aware of the pushing of buying names and phone numbers for MLMers to call on people supposedly interested in a business opportunity”, Thomas Prendergast said. As he become more aware of the MLM industry, he also found that most leaders who had working spheres of influence, would tell those they recruited into these pyramid schemes (the majority of these people did not have large spheres of influence) to buy these leads and cold call them.
Mr. Prendergast continued, “My instincts told me this was a bad idea and a serious mistake. But these “leaders” promoted this technique because they had no real option, ability or intentions on helping these people that just enrolled into one of their pyramid schemes “that really was just another “Hopes and Dreams” pitch, and that is another story”.
This became painfully clear when Thomas was witness to such a salesman, we will call him David, who had a talk show, had published many books, had a strong following, had joined a newly launched MLM deal, was conducting a teleconference call with all the people David had recently recruited into this new opportunity MLM. On that call, David told all the 1000s of listeners to go to his friend John and buy the leads they had allegedly pre interviewed at about $100 per 10 leads.
“This was mid-1990s. I bought 100 of them costing me $1000 and called them all (another article) and the results were 80% insults, 15% hang ups and the rest no answers. Not one was aware of any interview and the rejection level was as high as it gets. This was a process that would eliminate anyone new to the MLM process from continuing on in any business. Rejection is a process only boiler room telemarketers and well-seasoned sales people can withstand. It is death to the average Mom and Pop trying their hand at MLM”, Mr. Prendergast revealed.
Emerging Markets, Paradigm Shifts, Trends and all the other annoying clichés.
There are two firmly entrenched trends that have been born in the Internet, because of the technology, the reach of technology and the emersion of the masses into the technology, primarily due to the Social Networks, that Customer Centricity and Inbound Marketing emerged. Think of them as brother and sister.
Customer Centricity (Think Amazon):
Thomas Prendergast has been advocating Customer Centricity for the Network Marketing industry for over 10 years now. Mr. Prendergast explained, “Less than 1% of said industry understands it, the rest uninterested, and continue to promote the failed process of selling “Hopes and Dreams” of thinly veiled pyramid schemes with over priced products that rarely accomplish what they claim they do”.
However there have been a few that moved towards the “customer centric”, but not fully; with one in particular, abandoning the entire concept, only to find that decision is destroying the company as we speak, with commissions being cut consistently for the past 3 years, causing a drastic end to growth and a company in disarray. The other company built a customer option with infomercials, as a reward for their peak performers to acquire said such infomercial leads, which has dwindled due to current trends away from traditional Cable TV and Dish TV. Those 2 companies are Trivita and Beach Body.
Here is the summary of Thomas Prendergast’s Customer Centric proposal for this industry.
First and foremost the company’s focus must be to “Serve the Needs of the Customer” not the distributors!
Products that cost the distributors less than they sell them for on the open markets (like Ebay auctions, Amazon stores, Craig’s list)
A virtual warehouse that supports the distributor allowing purchasing in bulk, at lower wholesale prices, keeping the inventory at the company, allowing for drop shipping.
Offering co-op Advertising partnerships, to the distributors, allowing distributors to receive smaller shares of that traffic, that being customers and distributors from the results of mass marketing on the Internet. This has been done by a few other companies to great success. In other words, it works.
Other mass marketing technology that now comes to full force are, 800 number platforms, self-replicated Amazon, Ebay, etc. accounts, shopping cart widgets for 3rd level distributors domains, and Social Marketing aps allowing purchase within Social Markets.
Summary:
With the accelerated market place awash in innovation and technology, technology that puts the human element right into the center of the equation, you can understand why you see the MLM industry sluggish and many companies dying on the vine and others falling flat on their faces with their much heralded launches. Entrepreneurs (distributors) that once upon a time, a flashy video, a charming pitch man, and a compelling comp plan, worked to explode the next greatest MLM launch. Not anymore!
Not today.
It is only a matter of time a young bold, innovative entrepreneur launches the first true customer centric MLM similar to the framework Mr. Prendergast has discussed here. And when they do, the world will quake, the swamps will empty and the first multi trillion MLM enterprise will rise to stand head to toe with the great innovations today like Facebook, Google, PayPal etc.
Inbound Marketing:
Inbound Marketing is the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight quickly.
This is exactly what Markethive is but more. Markethive is the first newly discovered Market Network
What Is A Market Network?
“Marketplaces” provide transactions among multiple buyers and multiple sellers — like eBay, Etsy, Uber and LendingClub.
“Networks” provide profiles that project a person’s identity, then, lets them communicate in a 360-degree pattern with other people in the network. Think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
What’s unique about market networks is that they:
Combine the main elements of both networks and marketplaces
Use SaaS workflow software to focus action around longer-term projects, not just a quick transaction
Promote the service provider as a differentiated individual, helping to build long-term relationships
Mr. Prendergast enthusiastically continued, “The amazing timing of this entire process is the emerging of the first Market Network; “Markethive” and my friend “David Jordan’s” company Valentus the first real Customer Centric Company”.
Thomas Prendergast summarizes it by saying, “Valentus is experiencing record growth and record time and by all indications is about to enter into “Momentum”. I credit all of this to the fact that Valentus has the foundational product that the markets support the retail priced organically where distributors buy the product well below the market retail”.
Thomas continued saying, “I know this all seems so complex, but in reality it is quite simple. Valentus’ explosive growth is because it is a real business based on Economics 101. Buy low sell High!”
Mr. Prendergast adds credit to the story saying, “With the fusion of these two huge trends found in Markethive and Valentus, I give credit to this phenomena as to my ease in exploding the growth of my little “distributorship” in Valentus, breaking records in the first month and the meteoric growth of this organization because Inbound Marketing (Markethive) has found Customer Centricity (Valentus) and the rest will be historic”.
If this article finds you the least bit excited, curious or at least amused, we invite you to find out yourself more about these two incredible trends and how they complement each other. Your curiosity will cost you nothing. Sign up for these two companies at the below addresses (If you have not already):
New Markets merge into record shattering success for seasoned entrepreneur
When the advent of a real Market Network (Markethive) and a real emerging Customer Centric network marketing giant (Valentus) even I was surprised with the ease of building a new empire in this industry. Let me explain.
I have been an advocate for ending the business practices of buying and selling leads. And an end to spam email, spam faxes, telemarketing, ending popup ads, bill board ads, you know, the practice called outbound marketing. It was heavily relied upon in the days before the Internet a long time ago and has suffered a long painful death since the Internet was released to the public in 1991, I know, I was there and have continued to ride this journey called the Internet.
10 years before the Internet I ran an Ad agency in the Silicon Valley and was very aware of tech and the emerging Internet, which is why I was on the Internet almost the moment it was available to the public in 1991.
Within years of immersing myself into the Internet, I became aware of Network Marketing. I found it fascinating that anyone with some skill and determination could reasonably build a living income. This idea supported my empathetic support of struggling prodigies, up and coming entrepreneurs and anyone who had greater dreams than the typical job afforded them.
Although I was aware of buying mailing lists for my ad agency in the 80s I was not aware of the pushing of buying names and phone numbers for MLMers to call on people supposedly interested in a business opportunity. As I become more aware of the MLM industry, I also found that most leaders who had working spheres of influence, would tell those they recruited into these pyramid schemes (the majority of these people did not have large spheres of influence) to buy these leads and cold call them.
My instincts told me this was a bad idea and a serious mistake. But these “leaders” promoted this technique because they had no real option on helping these people that just enrolled into one of these pyramid schemes “that really was just another “Hopes and Dreams” pitch, and that is another story.
This became painfully clear when I was witness to such a salesman, who had a talk show, had published many books, had a strong following, had joined a newly launched MLM deal, was conducting a teleconference call with all the people he had recently recruited into this new opportunity MLM. On that call, he told all the 1000s of listeners to go to his friend and buy the leads they had allegedly pre interviewed at about $100 per 10 leads.
This was mid-1990s. I bought 100 of them at $1000 and called them all (another article) and the results were 80% insults, 15% hang ups and the rest no answers. Not one was aware of any interview and the rejection level was as high as it gets. This was a process that would eliminate anyone new to the MLM process from continuing on in any business. Rejection is a process only boiler room telemarketers and well-seasoned sales people can withstand. It is death to the average Mom and Pop trying their hand at MLM.
Emerging Markets, Paradigm Shifts, Trends and all the other annoying clichés.
There are two firmly entrenched trends that have been born in the Internet, because of the technology, the reach of technology and the emersion of the masses into the technology, primarily due to the Social Networks, that Customer Centricity and Inbound Marketing emerged. Think of them as brother and sister.
Customer Centricity (Think Amazon):
I have been advocating Customer Centricity for the Network Marketing industry for over 10 years now. Less than 1% of said industry understands it, the rest uninterested, and continue to promote the failed process of selling “Hopes and Dreams” of thinly veiled pyramid schemes with over priced products that rarely accomplish what they claim they do.
However there have been a few that moved towards the “customer centric”, but not fully with one in particular, abandoning the entire concept, only to find that decision is destroying the company as we speak, with commissions being cut consistently for the past 3 years, causing a drastic end to growth and a company in disarray. The other company built a customer option with infomercials, as a reward for their peak performers to acquire said such infomercial leads, which has dwindled due to current trends away from traditional Cable TV and Dish TV. Those 2 companies are Trivita and Beach Body.
Here is the summary of my Customer Centric proposal for this industry.
First and foremost the company’s focus must be to “Serve the Needs of the Customer” not the distributors!
Products that cost the distributors less than they sell them for on the open markets (like Ebay auctions)
A virtual warehouse that supports the distributor allowing purchasing in bulk, at lower wholesale prices, keeping the inventory at the company, allowing for drop shipping.
Offering co-op Advertising partnerships, to the distributors, allowing distributors to receive smaller shares of that traffic, that being customers and distributors from the results of mass marketing on the Internet. This has been done by a few other companies to great success. In other words, it works.
Other mass marketing technology that now comes to full force are, 800 number platforms, self-replicated Amazon, Ebay, etc. accounts, shopping cart widgets for 3rd level distributors domains, and Social Marketing aps allowing purchase within Social Markets.
Summary;
With the accelerated market place awash in innovation and technology, technology that puts the human element right into the center of the equation, you can understand why you see the MLM industry sluggish and many companies dying on the vine and others falling flat on their faces with their much heralded launches. Entrepreneurs (distributors) that once upon a time, a flashy video, a charming pitch man, and a compelling comp plan, worked to explode the next greatest MLM launch. Not anymore!
Not today.
It is only a matter of time a young bold, innovative entrepreneur launches the first true customer centric MLM similar to the framework I have discussed here. And when they do, the world will quake, the swamps will empty and the first multi trillion MLM enterprise will rise to stand head to toe with the great innovations today like Facebook, Google, PayPal etc.
Inbound Marketing:
Inbound Marketing is the most effective marketing method for doing business online. Inbound marketing focuses on creating quality content that pulls people toward your company and product, where they naturally want to be. By aligning the content you publish with your customer’s interests, you naturally attract inbound traffic that you can then convert, close, and delight quickly.
This is exactly what Markethive is but more. Markethive is the first newly discovered Market Network
What Is A Market Network?
“Marketplaces” provide transactions among multiple buyers and multiple sellers — like eBay, Etsy, Uber and LendingClub.
“Networks” provide profiles that project a person’s identity, then lets them communicate in a 360-degree pattern with other people in the network. Think Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.
What’s unique about market networks is that they:
Combine the main elements of both networks and marketplaces
Use SaaS workflow software to focus action around longer-term projects, not just a quick transaction
Promote the service provider as a differentiated individual, helping to build long-term relationships
The amazing timing of this entire process is the emerging of the first Market Network; “Markethive” and my friend “David Jordan’s” company Valentus the first real Customer Centric company.
Valentus is experiencing record growth and record time and by all indications is about to enter into “Momentum”. I credit all of this to the fact that Valentus has the foundational product that the markets support the retail price organically where distributors buy the product well below the market retail.
I know this all seems so complex, but in reality it is quite simple. Valentus’ explosive growth is because it is a real business based on Economics 101. “Buy low sell High”!
With the fusion of these two huge trends found in Markethive and Valentus, I give credit to this phenomena as to my ease in exploding the growth of my little “distributorship” in Valentus, breaking records in the first month and the meteoric growth of this organization because Inbound Marketing (Markethive) has found Customer Centricity (Valentus) and the rest will be historic.
If this article finds you the least bit excited, curious or at least amused, I invite you to find out yourself more about these two incredible trends and how they complement each other. Your curiosity will cost you nothing. Sign up for these two companies at the below addresses:
Markethive Groups The Champion of the Cottage Industry
cot·tage in·dus·try
noun
noun: cottage industry; plural noun: cottage industries
a business or manufacturing activity carried on in a person's home.
Like Facebook, Groups is a more focused culture gathering to have topic discussions based on the Groups theme.
Unlike Facebook, Groups is the center of all the tools of the system. Let’s start with the blogging platform.
The Group blogging platform is a unique platform published to from the group members who choose to publish to that platform. The Markethive blog system also utilizes plugins so that content can be directed to one or more WordPress blogs.
This allows you to build a team of marketers all working together for a common cause contributing content for the Markethive blog platforms and WordPress distribution (reach).
SEO Backlinks management is another group function where the group organization utilizes the Backlinks system to build white hat links for specific campaigns.
Co-op Advertising Campaigns Financing: Press releases, Youtube video ads, Facebook Ads, Google ads can easily be financed with an internal co-op campaign.
Membership Management Reports: As Admin, you can review activity reports for the members in your group. Login activity, blogging in the group, Backlink activity, Massaging responsiveness, etc. Allow decisions based on activity to determine ejecting non responsive members.
Rotators: Used to distribute traffic coming to the Group blogs, or Co-op traffic to designated sites or capture pages. Or distributed traffic for any reason. Similar to the Co-op campaign is the ability to acquire leads, customers or distributor in a co-op function and distribute the leads, customers, etc. accordingly.
Asset Map: A management system whereas displays the relational connections between, capture pages, profile pages, blogs, social networks, press releases etc.
Group Messaging: Communication with your group members is well managed with the group function messaging system.
Replicating PDF documents:
A Markethive group is like a Cottage Industry. You can use Groups to build a startup business, a professional service, a power network marketing team, nothing like it before, like building a startup service with no overhead. This is the promise of the new Market Network (contrasted to the old Social Networks) That is exactly what Markethive is.
Case in point: Chris Corey, Annette Schwindt, Stephen Hodgkiss and I have formed a new corporation called Wavefour Inc. This corporation is negotiating a marketing campaign with a new client that is hiring us to run an agent acquisition, reach, Craigslist, capture page campaign, having the potential to create over $500k for us when we reach target. This is exactly why we built Markethive, a market environment designed to incubate, support and enable small, moderate and large business.
And Markethive Groups is the epicenter of all of this. Welcome to the new Market Network of the future. Markethive!
When Out Bound Marketing and I separated our ways for good!
In 1996 or there about, I was approached by a well-known marketer, David D’Arcangelo. We were associates at that time in the Network Marketing business and we both lived in San Diego. He pitched me on a new deal he felt was a considerable advantage in the industry, had an organization begun (He has a large sphere of influence from his radio shows). He was proposing he run major ads in papers like USA Today, etc. and round robin the incoming leads to the new distributors. He felt that he and I could work together on this and build a sound solution for the ‘rank and file” recruits. With his name and advertising and the advantage I had because I owned a big marketing system (which came to be known as Veretekk).
I enrolled about 10 people based on this agreement and we scheduled our first tele bridged conference call. My wife Annette (my girlfriend at the time) and I were excited before the call began. On the call nothing was said about a Co-op distribution round robin. What did transpire, was David took control of the call from me, then quickly introduced his friend John Green and pitched the leads John Green was selling from CuttingEdgeMedia (This is my recollection). John Green and David claimed they were awesome pre interviewed leads and cost $20 each.
Annette immediately expressed her anger that we had been baited and switched, and the call was a disaster. I was also angered as I have always found buying leads a foolish pursuit. Ho9wever, this time< I wanted to use these leads to conduct a real survey.
I paid for 100 leads, about $2000 for the 100 super hot, pre interviewed hot ready to join my business leads. I also bought the USA Today white pages on CD Rom as a control subject.
I spent 4 weeks and tracked the results in an Excel Spread sheet. I called every lead in that database. I called everyday of the week. At 3 different times for each lead at 10am, 2pm, and 6pm. I also called Saturdays at 12 noon and 8 pm in their time zone until I actually talked to someone.
Of the John Greene leads 80% of the list was contacted. 20% never answered or numbers were disconnected or wrong numbers. Of the remaining 80% I was able to talk to 80% said very nasty profanity at me, demanded I remove them from the list, and were extremely angered and some threatened me with legal action. Even when I explained I was doing “lead” research, told them who sold them and that they were supposedly interviewed.
Not one was interviewed. Either they called me a liar or the provider a liar or said they had no recollection of being interviewed. There were 2 out of the 100 who expressed some interest in the business, but further calls were never answered and nothing ever came from these halfhearted interests.
USA Today leads
In sharp contrast I must report on the 100 names and phones numbers I pulled from the USA Today white pages disk as a control to the research. Of the 100 I called on the same routine, 97% connected. Not one of them expressed anger, called me names or hung up on me. Most of them were still not interested, but I did get 12 very interested to join and 3 actually did join.
This is Outbound Marketing
This technique to cold call is a daunting process even back in the days, even for professionals. Today it is virtually a total waste of time. When people do answer and don’t know who you are 96% just hang up. The others usually take some time to insult you. It is over. Outbound marketing is now a total waste of time and money.
It is time to understand Inbound Marketing
So I have produced this blog and video for the Dummies out there. It is Inbound Marketing for Dummies. If you are ever going to find success, you are going to have to embrace, understand and intitiate the process called Inbound Marketing.
You are in luck, because Markethive is one of the top state of the art, “Inbound Marketing” platforms in the world and it is the only one that is free!
Inbound Marketing For Dummies
By now you probably heard some of the buzz about inbound marketing. But just what exactly is it?
Inbound marketing is like marketing with a magnet vs. a megaphone. Its marketing based on quality content, that attracts a steady stream of qualified leads.
At this point and time outbound marketing has completely lost it edge. Did you know that the average person sees anywhere from 3000 to 20,000 outbound advertisements per day? No wonder no one is paying any attention.
Shouting at your audience with a megaphone is no longer the most cost-effective or productive way of marketing your business, Inbound Marketing is. The cool part is that inbound marketing methods are almost always less time-consuming and less expensive than traditional lead generation methods.
Not only are they cheaper but they are more effective. Inbound leads are eight times more likely to become customers, and close at a much higher rate. In fact while outbound marketing has an average closing rate of 1.7%, inbound marketing has an astounding closing rate of 14.6%.
All that savings means the companies that Focus primarily on inbound marketing, typically spend 62% less per lead than companies that don't. So how does it work?
Think of it like a giant funnel, prospects come in at the top, happy customers come out the bottom. Today 88% of consumers are conducting their own product research online before making a purchase.
Therefore the key to being found and trusted on the web is generating relevant content to what people are searching for. This is the first part of our inbound marketing funnel. Once you have their attention we need to capture their information.
Generally this is done with more awesome content in the form of digital media such as free offers, articles, case studies, videos, free services and more. The next part of our marketing funnel is where we create an automated system, by which we turn these qualified leads which came in from our offers into Happy paying customers, who refer more new customers because of all the awesome content you're putting up.
At Markethive we deliver inbound marketing methods such as SEO, Broadcasting, Capture Pages, Social Media, massive reach, Work Groups, Co-op Advertising videos, and so much more, to establish you as the authority in your industry, and create a client magnet that will generate a constant stream of qualified leads just for you. Let us help you to establish an online presence, attract new leads, and convert prospects all on autopilot.
Social network. Marketplace. SaaS. These buzzwords are no longer synonyms of massive business opportunities.
The gold rush has already happened.
But a new business model has emerged.
Market-networks are hybrid animals: part social network, part marketplace, part SaaS. [1]
It’s a social network. Professionals use profile pages to showcase their work and demonstrate their credibility. They also connect with each other and build relationships.
It’s a marketplace. Professionals come online together to find other parties with whom they can do business.
It’s a SaaStool. Professionals use the tools on the top of the marketplace to negotiate, do the job, or manage the paperwork.
Social networks are designed to connect people. Marketplaces are built to sell simple products and services at scale. SaaS tools are here to make your job easier.
Market-networks focus on more complex services; the types of services that are not easily scalable and require more human collaboration. [1]
So get your pick-axe and prepare yourself for the next gold rush.
Think about the number of opportunities in M&A, scientific research, construction, management consulting, marketing, media production…
[1] Thanks to James Currier for sharing his thoughts on this emerging business model.
[2] Here are a couple of examples:
AngelList is a market-network.
It’s a social network for startups and investors. It’s a marketplace where business angels can find startups to invest in and startups can post job openings. It’s a SaaS tool that helps business angels create syndicates and startups get introduced to business angels.
Contently is a market-network.
It’s a social network for freelance writers. It’s a marketplace where companies can find writers to create content—articles, eBooks, and other kinds of marketing collateral. It’s a SaaS tool that helps content marketers organize their editorial calendar, manage the writers’ work, and track the performance with analytics.
Guerric de Ternay is an entrepreneur
and digital & marketing strategist. A large
chunk of his work focuses on behavioral
science, customer experience, and digital
strategy. His passion?
Helping people and businesses level up.
Markethive did not invent the blog, but we certainly have made it exponentially more powerful. We certainly have added fun, understanding, reach, groups, daily workshops, understanding and power to the process.
Markethive has successfully combined all the technical and tactical aspects and requirements into one system, but have also overcome the obstacles to make blogging a group process, combined with motivated mentors to help the newbie easily immerse and embrace the process.
We did not invent Word Press, but we have significantly taken Word Press serious and made it exponentially better. This blog’s focus is to help you understand the paradigm dynamic shift Markethive has brought to marketing, blogging and the individual within the hive.
The following video attempts to reveal and illustrate how the whole social blogging platform in Markethive changes the entire Internet field of engagement.
Understanding SEO
You can approach the challenge alone, hire a firm and/or a virtual assistance and take the Internet on. This ego centered approach works for many who have the grit and stamina and educated skills of journalism and polished writing (a note here: As the Internet has evolved, the polished blogger vs the blogger that lacks the polish but has the passion, wins in today’s culture).
Approaching the blogosphere as a crew, a group, a gang or a family wins today. Because fresh, new, consistent and current content win and win you combine a social network into a blogging platform, the results are impressive.
Understanding SEO isn’t easy, and Google doesn’t help things much by changing the algorithms and policies on a regular basis. Seems like every time we get a handle on things, the rules change, and we’re all left wondering what we’re doing wrong and what we might still possibly be doing right.
The whole SEO quotient changes when the social network variable is integrated. This is why SEO at Markethive changes the playing field.
So a social network integrated blogging solution is at hand, and, there’s one thing you may have been doing correctly already from the start: That being blogging. You probably have a million reasons to blog, not the least of which include building trust among your buyers, positioning yourself as an expert, and simply sharing news with your company’s followers. Then, of course, there are those activities that help to boost your SEO rankings. These can only help you if you know how to use them, so make note of these 9 reasons blogging can boost your SEO.
Enter the Markethive Social Network Engine combined with the Inbound Marketing Engine. Kind of reminds of the Hot Rods of the 60s like Eddie Hill’s double dragon (see image):
Except with Markethive, the combining the two huge engines of the Internet, Social Networking and Inbound Marketing has an exponential nature to it, not just a geometrical quotient.
This innovative integration of these two power houses has a powerful effect on all that ios Internet Marketing as I illustrate, please read on.
Backlinking
The following is the conventional wisdom perspective to today’s linking approach.
Some of the techniques used for SEO when blogging raise eyebrows, and back linking is no exception. Many will tell you link schemes will get you a slap on the wrist from Google, and they’d be right. Does that mean you can’t build relationships with other companies and blogs by including links and asking for some in return? Not at all.
You can still benefit greatly from being linked and linking to others, but there are some things to keep in mind. First, if you’ve paid for your link, be sure they use the nofollow designation. Otherwise, you’ll be penalized. Next, work with reputable, quality sites that fit your blog’s niche. When links to your blog appear on sites that have nothing to do with your company, you’ll get another ding from Google. Finally, use the same basic rules for any blogs you link to on your site.
Good quality links from popular, well-respected sites can definitely help your SEO rankings, but only if you do it right.
Now, with that said, the amazing change that occurs to your campaign to build organic, condust and create relationships in the blogging power of the Inbound Marketing Social Network of Markethive, delivers a plethora of SEO (Search Engine Optimization), SNM (Social Network Marketing) and the advantages therein if developing unlimited streams of unique content, automated into literally millions of sites, social networks, social bookmarks, blogging platforms from the stream of content that flows out of the Markethive Social Network you are part of or built.
So what does all that mean? As the natural order of our recent tech releases of the Blog Casting (Social Broadcaster) and Blog Swiping (where your friends and other members can easily copy and edit your blog) then publish it and with the advent of this opening the possibility with these new tools produce a cacophony of your content, links, back links, side links, social reaches into the millions. All built upon chaos theory and technology.
The natural organic process to build a huge amazing white hat mass of blog and site links and social reach, thereby, the vision of the Blog Cloud has come to be reality, thank you Markethive, the social networked Inbound Marketing juggernaut.
Simply put, not just combining but fully integrating two platforms, the Entrepreneurial Social Network and a fully appointed Inbound Marketing platform, has opened up doorways not otherwise capable or even aware of or identified in the exponential character of the Markethive Hybrid. Sort of like Twin Towers built on the same foundation.
Actually more like a million communities of twin towers all inter connected and pulsing and thriving with the constant flow of content and videos and communications (comments and messaging) even further empowered with a constant thriving community of live conference room activity.
Guest Blogging
Again Markethive takes the awkward and difficult process of guest blogging and turns it into a graceful social dance. I will explain after I share again the Internet’s explanation of what has been defined as guest blogging.
The latest hoopla suggests guest blogging is dead, but that’s not necessarily true. As with the backlinking, guest blogs can be tremendously beneficial to the SEO of your website. If you work with reputable writers who are indeed experts in their industry, their popularity can only help you.
For this tactic to work, you must be vigilant when screening potential bloggers. Interview them, research their backgrounds, and compare their submission to everything they’ve written before to make sure you get truly unique content. If you follow Google’s quality guidelines, your guest blog from a well-known source will bring you tremendous traffic and boost your search engine rankings.
Markethive has turned this difficult proposition into one of grace and ease. Because the core of your blogging can now be centered within Markethive, which supports and publishes to just about every blogging platform out there. As a social network, you can build a sphere of influence easily with others who are open to and or capable of assisting in your blogging efforts.
Groups also serve as additional blogging platforms, for the individual who keeps track of different campaigns separated by the groups. Groups also parlay into teams of content creators, allow a team captain to manage and lead the agenda and monitor and choose the array of articles by the group to which blog(s) that article automatically gets sent.
The options that the Markethive tools has created for diverse and distributed content is unlimited and better managed than any other option available in the blogosphere.
Group Blogging not only replaces the old guard of guest blogging, it enhances it, makes it easier to, manage and distribute. It changes the entire playing field.
You can integrate single Markethive members, and/or integrate entire groups into as many blog systems you wish. By simply organizing, selecting and developing different cock tails groups for your blogs, you can literally create unlimited selections and unlimited content for unlimited blogs, your blogs, their blogs, unlimited groups of competent writers and marketers. Get into the mix, join some groups, and get into some Workshops and put the system to work for you.
We can even say that you can produce dynamic content on your blog without as much effort as the conventional way.
Fresh Content
Search engines love fresh, unique content. How often do the pages on your website change? Probably not very often at all. That’s why you must keep a steady blog filled with new information every week. Those search engines customers used to find companies just like yours will pull the freshest and most relevant content whenever a search is performed. If your site hasn’t been updated with new information in over a year, you can bet someone else’s will rank higher than yours in the results.
By blogging, you build relationships with your readers, position yourself as an expert in the field, and perhaps most importantly, provide new content for Google to index.
By joining Markethive you build relationships with thousands of others who are actively building business, blogging, researching, etc. basically being “entrepreneurs” and advancing their businesses and agendas. Often you can join with these people as friends, group members and subscribers of theirs via Blog Casting, Blog Sharing and Blog Swiping.
When you are an active member in a good group (active and current), using meetings and live webinars, discussions breed inspirations which support developing new content. Here is a tip I use to help with fresh content. I want to write about the “current trends for the entrepreneur market”. So I go to Google and I search the tail words SEO entrepreneur trends but I designate a small tool many are not aware of.
It is found in “Search tools” in the Google search as the illustration below demonstrates. Choose last week or within 24 hours to get very fresh current content to use in building your blog article. This way, you are assured to be utilizing current references building current articles, sharing with your groups and creating a dynamic culture. Checking new content with Google daily in relations to your agenda is something that should also be shared (the search link) within your groups for discussion.
Keywords
Keywords go hand in hand with fresh content. It also pays to see what current or newest results are shown for current sites utilizing the same technique for current content for your research and agenda.
Even though keywords really don’t hold the same weight they once did, it still needs your attention. In fact, this is another aspect of SEO you can do really wrong and end up punished for. The age of cramming keywords into a blog over and over, regardless of what they add to the content, is over. Now those keywords have to serve a purpose. You really want to make sure you choose unique keywords that will lead searchers to your site but not so unique that no one thinks to use them. If you choose words that are used too often, you won’t get much benefit out of them.
Your best bet with keywords and search terms is to use long-tail keywords and phrases that people may use when searching. Instead of focusing too much on keyword placement and making sure you include the words a certain number of times, concentrate on simply answering questions. Provide knowledge for those who reach your site. They don’t need a million keywords; they need answers.
For instance, the long-tail keyword “Inbound Marketing” had barely begun trending in 2009 with a slow crawl upward until just recently, with the advent of Markethive’s soft launch and discussions of the definition of “Inbound Marketing” and the increase of Social Network chatter in that regards we are now seeing the current trend start to grow.
My first company invented what we called “Automated Marketing” but today fits the new definition “Inbound Marketing” As you can see the term “Automated Marketing” is trending down from a long crown of being a top searched keyword.
See the trend towards “Marketing Automation” beginning? Why is Marketing Automation trending up and Automated Marketing trending down? Does it deserve research?
In my opinion no, but, what does need to be looked at in my regards is our new pre launched/soft launched company (as of May7, 2016) is the Trademark “Markethive”.
Because if we read these trends right, we want to make sure we mention Markethive often in connection to “Inbound Marketing” and “Marketing Automation”. This will place squarely in front of the trend curve binding the “long tail” keywords together.
Markethive’s SEO keyword system leads us to these research outcomes, but until the Google API is fully integrated to Markethive’s Keyword platform I go to the Google Trend panel here as well.
When your blogs are shared and consequently clicked on, they move up in the search rankings. If you’re providing quality content, your readers will want others to know. Of course, the only way to make sure your blogs contribute to your website’s popularity is to create unique content, provide answers for visitors, and then share your blogs wherever you can.
That key point “Share your blogs wherever you can” is another way of saying “Broadcast” them. And Markethive has taken Broadcasting to new heights with Blog Casting and SNAP. Blog Casting is a Markethive subscribe feature that other Markethive members use to subscribe to your Markethive blog. When they subscribe (and the potential is 1000s of them), your blog posts are automatically posted to their Facebook Newsfeeds, LinkedIn activity feeds and your Twitter tweets feed.
When you understand that this down stream of subscribers, fellow entrepreneurs at MarketHive, are exposing their connections to your message, they are lifting you up, increasing your popularity and building greater branding for you.
Then there is the Blog Sharing feature that also allows your fellow Markethive entrepreneurs to import your blog posts to their WordPress blogs using the SNAP plugin increasing your message (your posts) to another 25 of their social networks, Facebook Pages, LinkedIn company pages, SumbleUpon, Tumbler, Livejournal, Blogspot, ets, exponentially increasing your exposure and adding to your back links.
When you discover the responsibility this represents that you show respect, produce quality content to your loyal downstream, you now have the opportunity to build a huge popular following. Markethive, The Rise of the Entrepreneur. We have put a great future in your hands. Now it is up to you.
Images
Including images in your blog gives you one more way search engines can find you. Make sure you name them according to the search terms or keywords, and then do the same for the alt-text. The alt-text is meant to describe what’s in the image for those who don’t or aren’t able to see images on their computer screens. For this reason, your alt-text must be carefully crafted to serve two purposes: SEO and information.
I search a lot in images and so do others. They may be looking for an image to fill a need, the reasons vary, but a lot of traffic does come from image searching, so do not ignore this small duty. Alt tags serve an important batch of duties.
When installing images in the Markethive HTML control panel, the following Image control panel, second tab, is where to enter your keywords and descriptions.
When looking at the HTML code, this is exactly what ALT tags look like and search engines Index.
Video
As with photos, video simply gives you more dynamic content that you can share with your readers. Remember they’re looking for excellent, unique content, so be sure you include only videos that serve a purpose. Proprietary videos are always the best bet, since syndicated content will show up on several different sites during a search result.
If you have never made a video, get some screen capturing software. I use Camtasia (cost about $300)
I also down load others videos to use them in my final productions. I build titles and other content with Photoshop Software, but there are other cheaper alternatives. Many of my friends recommend GIMP for image editing. https://www.gimp.org/
I recommend you make as many of your videos you can, but do not produce bad or funky videos. Today, you need quality and you are welcome to download and use all Markethive videos I produce for yourself.
Be sure you tag your videos with appropriate search terms before you post. Let readers know exactly what’s going on in the video so they can find your content in a search.
I know video editing and production can be daunting to many at first. However, we have plenty od excellent talent that offer video workshops in Markethive. Just check the calendar or enquire within the membership (Social Network).
Remember we are all Entrepreneurs and most of us are also philanthropic and want to help you succeed. I know I do.
Check the calendar
Social Media
Believe it or not, Google also returns social media search results. If you connect your blog to your Facebook, Twitter, and other social media accounts, you give search engines one more thing to find when people look for your company. As long as you use search terms in your titles and meta descriptions, you’ll boost your SEO through social media listings, too.
A popular set of current wisdom pulled from the Internet void (5 Things to Think About When Considering The Impact of Social on SEO) :
1. Social Links May or May Not Boost Your Search Rank
Okay, social signals pertaining to a profile’s authority are out, but does Google consider links published on social accounts to be credible backlinks? When a blog post goes viral on Twitter, do those new links boost the post’s search ranking?
Many marketers believe that links to your website via social media accounts do have a major impact on your rankings. Says Marketing Consultant Brian Honigman:
Today, links are mainly achieved through developing original content that is in turn, shared across social media. Links to your content on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, YouTube and other social networks help the search engines understand what websites are credible and should be ranked for what keyword phrases.
In Danny Sullivan’s 2010 interview with Google and Bing for Search Engine Watch, Google first says that it doesn’t incorporate the number of times a link has been tweeted into their search rank algorithm, and then it goes on to say that it does (doh). Bing says that it definitely looks at this data:
We take into consideration how often a link has been tweeted or retweeted, as well as the authority of the Twitter users that shared the link.
While Cutts’ 2014 video is crystal-clear about the absence of social signals from the search algorithm, he does say that Google crawls social websites for data in the same way that it would any other site:
Facebook and Twitter pages are treated like any other pages in our web index, and 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.
This leads me to think that while the authority of a social account doesn’t impact search rank, links published on social media could be marked as credible back-links and thus influence a page’s rank.
Takeaways: When Cutts made his statement about Google not factoring in social signals I understood him to mean clues about a particular company’s authority on social media, which, for me, is distinct from the number of times a page has been linked to on social media. Further research didn’t help me get much clarity on this point.
If there are any SEO experts reading this, I’d love for you to chime in below in the comments.
2. Social Media Profiles Rank in Search Engines
While social shares may or may not affect a webpage’s position in search listings, your social profiles definitely influence the content of your search results. In fact, social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names. When I searched “General Electric” in Google, the company’s Instagram and Pinterest profiles appeared as the 5th and 6th listings, respectively, and Twitter was the 8th result.
Moreover, Google displayed the company’s Google+ profile information in the right-hand sidebar at the very top of the search results page.
While social shares may or may not affect a webpage’s position in search listings, your social profiles definitely influence the content of your search results. In fact, social media profiles are often amongst the top results in search listings for brand names. When I searched “General Electric” in Google, the company’s Instagram and Pinterest profiles appeared as the 5th and 6th listings, respectively, and Twitter was the 8th result.
Social channels can feel more personal than webpages, and they’re a great way to get a sense of a company’s personality off the bat. When I’m researching a company I don’t know much about I typically go straight to their Twitter or Facebook page. So if a social account shows up at the top of the search results, I’m just as likely to click on it as I would be to click on their website.
Takeaway: There’s no doubt that your social profiles matter to Google and especially to people who are looking for you online. A few active social channels can make the experience of getting to know your brand online more fun, engaging and personal. Also, while some may consider Google+ a non-essential social channel, marketers shouldn’t discount the fact that a company’s Google+ profile is one of the first things a searcher will see (and potentially click on). As such, it pays to have a profile with up-to-date info and engaging content.
3. Social Media Channels Are Search Engines, Too
Nowadays, people don’t just go to Google and Bing to look stuff up; they also use social media channels to find what they’re looking for. Patel makes this point in his article on why social is the new SEO: “We need to understand that search engine optimization includes the search that happens on social media search engines.”
This works in a couple of ways: First, if you’re active on Twitter, it’s entirely possible that people will discover your company’s new content distribution app after searching for content marketing-related tweets with Twitter’s search engine. Likewise, brands that lend themselves to beautiful visual content can benefit from making their content visible in Pinterest and Instagram by using hashtags and properly categorizing their pins.
Moreover, as mentioned in point #1, if someone wants to check out your company, they’re likely to open Twitter and Facebook and do a quick search to see what kind of presence you have on each channel. YouTube, and, of course, Google+ are also search engines.
Here are some impressive stats that illuminate just how much people are using social media to search:
As of 2010, Twitter handled 19 billion search queries a month (that’s more than 5x the queries handled by Bing!).
In 2012 Facebook said it got around one billion search queries per day.
As of March 2010, YouTube got roughly 3.7 billion search queries a month. Also, 100 hours of video are uploaded to YouTube every minute, making it one of the largest content repositories on the web.
Takeaways: Companies should expand their concept of SEO to include not just the traditional search engines––Google and Bing––but also social search engines.
When searching for a brand on Facebook or Twitter it’s not uncommon to see several different profiles pop up, and it’s not always clear which one is the real deal. Marketers need to ensure that it’s super easy for users to identify their official social profiles.
This may mean deleting duplicate accounts and/or clearly labeling each social account so that users understand what purpose they serve (for example, accounts for HR or press versus general brand pages).
4. Not Now Doesn’t Mean Not Ever
Just because Google says that social signals don’t currently impact search rank doesn’t mean they never will. Social media shows no sign of becoming a less important part of a brand or person’s online presence anytime soon; moreover, given that link-building strategies like guest blogging have become a less reliable way to indicate the quality of a webpage, it makes sense that search engines would begin to look for other signals of authority and value.
Takeaways: There’s no reason why social signals won’t begin to affect search rankings in the future, so smart brands will continue to build their authority in key social channels and think about social when designing their SEO strategy.
5. Don’t Forget Bing
Google may have back-tracked and changed their stance on social signals, but I haven’t found any evidence that what Bing told Sullivan for his Search Engine Watch interview doesn’t hold true today.
Remember, Bing said:
We do look at the social authority of a user. We look at how many people you follow, how many follow you, and this can add a little weight to a listing in regular search results.
Takeaways: Bing, which is the second most-used search engine, has been crystal clear about how their algorithm incorporates social signals into their search results, and, unlike Google, they haven’t flip-flopped on the issue. With its market share steadily growing, companies would be wise to include Bing in their SEO strategies.
Wrapping Up
Cutts’ claim that Google’s search algorithm ignores social signals should not be seen as an invitation for marketers to dismiss social’s impact on SEO. Instead, marketers should broaden their concept of search and SEO to take into account the myriad ways that people find content on the web. They also need to think about the positive effects that increased traffic from social can potentially have on their search rankings as well as the prominence of social profiles on first-page search results.
Ultimately, the web is all about building relationships, fostering audiences, expressing identity and sharing ideas––it’s inherently social, and there’s no reason that SEO best practices would go against the grain, especially since the rules that govern SEO are ultimately meant to make the web a more enjoyable and useful place.
Indexed Pages
Perhaps the most important reason of all to blog is the fact that each post counts as a new page on your website. Google really does like fresh content and will reward those who share frequently. Those who do include a business blog on their site will see up to 55% more traffic than companies who don’t. The reason for this is the indexed pages. For Google to index those pages, you need to include at least 300 quality words. That means reblogging, short blogs, and duplicating content won’t help you. There is a time and place for the previously mentioned blog types, but not when you’re hoping to boost your SEO.
Now that you understand why blogging is essential to improving your SEO results, you probably want to get started right away. Don’t get bogged down or feel overwhelmed. A systematic approach is what you need, starting with a content calendar. Simply start by answering those burning questions your potential customers have. Plan blogs that will touch on their pain points. You’ll see results sooner than you ever thought possible.
The apex of automated marketing blogging platforms and “weight losscoffee” known as Valentus Slim Roast are ready to launch; however, only those who recognize this unique opportunity are really wanted.
Au Naturale, Markethive and Valentus have joined forces to create a symbiotic relationship between two business entities that are fed up with traditional MLM Industry. Yes, Marketing & weight loss Coffee are about “empowering both the little guy and gal” to market and sell a product the World consumes daily only after water. Try going 72-hours without H-2-0 and watch your body breakdown. Guess what, people feel the same way if, they don’t have their “daily fix” and react like they’re going through withdrawal.
The Digital Age is here and entrepreneurship continues to explode thanks to technology and those innovators who embrace risk, while providing a solution to a problem. Guess what you’re one of them because you became a renegade and willing to face the unknown, while incurring the costs in business. Respect is given to you but, not the industry (MLM), due to its dubious reputation and need for change.
Yes, it’s time for a change because MLM doesn’t have the best reputation as indicated by the recent Consent Decree Settlement between Herbalife and FTC . Hey, $200 million dollars isn’t chump-change and sends a message to the industry that “product and consumers” must exist and not “product and distributors”. Yeah, verification will be needed in the future and old business models will no longer be accepted unless, they can prove that their product is being retailed to the masses. Guess what, old methods of marketing like “Outbound Marketing” are increasingly ineffective in generating sales and more importantly, establishing a trusting business relationships between consumers and proprietors. New business models and new marketing methods like “Inbound Marketing” have emerged and increasingly becoming the norm because educated consumers like Millennials, who have purchasing power of $200 Billion dollars are sick and tired of being sold. Yes, these kiddies are tech- savvy and research everything before digging into their debit/credit-cards (nobody uses cash, anymore) and if, your product or service doesn’t address their needs or resolve a problem then, they happily tell you, “hit the bricks”. Well, if you want to avoid the proverbial MLM Cemetery for Dead Dealers who, operate a Non-Profit Agency then, you better embrace “Customer-Centricity”, like the industry leader Amazon.
Yes, in the Digital Age of Technology for a business to succeed then, it must embrace the idea of the customer being the priority and less so, shareholders, which is a revolutionary concept among corporate profiteers. However, Amazon valued at $230 Billion dollars realized that success was centered upon "focus relentlessly on our customers." Needless to say, title of World’s Largest retailor isn’t by chance.
So, do you want to be part of the “customer-centricity’ trend and be at the forefront of a new era of Ecommerce where relationship building is key to creating a WIN-WIN for both owner and customer. To learn more I invite you to rcontact me.
For most small businesses marketing is either a huge expense or a huge burden. If you are trying to run a small business, or if you are an entrepreneur trying to navigate your way online, the word marketing is kind of a scary one.
You envision yourself or your team spending hours and hours blogging, or creating content on social networks with no guarantee that your time investment will pay off. Or you pay someone through the nose to handle your marketing, not really sure if that investment will work out any better than doing it in-house.
This might be a bit of an exaggeration, but unfortunately, it is the reality that far too many start-ups and existing small businesses face. Here are some excellent tools that you probably have not heard of, that can help ease your burden. Do not worry, relief is on the way.
Markethive – this is a totally free social network for entrepreneurs and small businesses. This network can help you, even if you don't have your own website. If you do have your own website, it can work hand in hand for even better results.
It would take an entire blog post to describe everything that Markethive can do for you, but let's just start with their blogging platform. Simply put I get 10X the post views on Markethive compared to the views I get on LinkedIn Pulse.
Markethive is an engaged social network. This is quite a surprising comparison, despite the fact that I have 10k 1st level connections on LinkedIn, and only 500 friends in Markethive. As they say, go figure!
LeadOutcome — you may or may not be aware that LinkedIn is one of the few social networks that allows the export of names and email addresses. Your entire database of 1st level connections on LinkedIn whether you have 500, 2500, or 25,000 1st level connections, can be exported and sent email using automated marketing methods. This is obviously extremely significant for marketers.
I am not a big fan of autoresponders, or email blasters, as I like to call them. Aside from telling you the open rates and clickthrough rates of email, they really do little else.
No autoresponder I know of can tell you who is "hot", and who is not. There are a number of specialized features that CRM software systems like LeadOutcome offer, but the fact the each action a lead takes is "scored" makes a huge difference.
You now know who is "hot", and who is not. There are a number of additional features of LeadOutcome that make it highly desirable, but given that it's monthly cost is less than most autoresponders makes it a relative no-brainer.
Simple Lead Generator for Facebook and Twitter. Without listing all of the features and benefits, (see the video link for details), this powerful software lets you search for and find groups automatically by keyword search.
You can post automatically to groups, and also to your friends on Facebook. You can also auto-follow on Twitter and auto-like tweets in order to encourage people to follow you back. This can save hours and hours of your time if you are active on either Facebook or Twitter.
Group Messenger for LinkedIn. (see the video link for details) This software allows you to market automatically on LinkedIn. No need for manual messages one by one anymore.
You can auto-invite based on keyword searches and auto-invite group members for groups of which you are a member. You can email open networkers over and above the LinkedIn limits for invitations within LinkedIn.
Of course, you will find quite a large number of rather expensive systems for inbound marketing that will schedule and organize your content, etc. etc. Despite the advantages of these systems, you will find most if not all of what they do in Markethive at no charge.
An essential component of any inbound marketing strategy, or what I like to call automated marketing is about how to gain access to prospects. There are always restrictions to the manual methods social networks offer to contact, message, and connect with friends and potential prospects.
The above-mentioned automated software systems allow you the access that you need in order to market effectively on these major social networking platforms.
You will not find a more powerful or lower-cost suite of tools for inbound marketing on any other list on the Internet that is current for 2016 than this one.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/leadsonline or call 973-259-6055 for more information.
Why is this happening? Reason: Most people on the go are highly visual and don't tend to read much anymore. "A Picture Says A Thousand Words" as the old saying goes, so maybe there is something to keeping it short and sweet and visual.
"Facebook has spread its tentacles into the messaging boom after building the world's most popular social network, buying Instagram for $1 billion in cash and stock in 2012. Facebook also owns two other of the world's most popular apps: WhatsApp, which it bought for billions and has 1 billion users, and its homegrown app, Facebook Messenger, which hit 900 million users in April.
"Facebook itself captures enormous amounts of people’s attention on their mobile devices, and that’s hugely powerful. But there will always be alternatives either in broad use or in use by demographic or geographic segments," said Jan Dawson, chief analyst with Jackdaw Research.
EMarketer forecast for Instagram mobile adverting revenue. (Photo: EMarketer)
Instagram, for example, is popular with teens.
"Facebook has arguably been deploying the candy bar strategy — own as many of the brands on the shelf as possible to maximize your market share," Dawson said.
The exception: Snapchat, the mobile app popular with young people which Facebook tried to buy twice.
"It remains to be seen how important that miss will be, but it’s already clear that it’s a really important competitor to Facebook for people’s time and attention, and for companies’ ad dollars," Dawson said.
SunTrust Robinson Humphrey analyst Robert Peck says Instagram's overall growth is impressive but the numbers suggest growth in the U.S. is slowing as competition from Snapchat escalates.
"We note that most, if not all, of the (monthly active user) growth is coming from international markets. In fact, we estimate the U.S. market likely grew in a range of 0 to 18% on an annualized basis in the most recent 9 month period," Peck wrote in a research report on Tuesday.
The jump in Instagram users — and their advertising-pleasing demographics — has helped Facebook bill Instagram as a buy for marketers looking to increase awareness and spur sales. Evidence of its early commercial promise: Instagram already has more than 200,000 advertisers. Analysts say Instagram's nascent advertising business is growing rapidly.
Research firm eMarketer expects Instagram's global mobile ad revenue to reach $1.53 billion this year and more than $5 billion by 2018. Analysts say Instagram's contributions are already being felt in Facebook financial results even though the giant social network does not break those out.
"What is certain is that Instagram has been a big factor in Facebook’s recent repeated blowing out of its financial results, and its impressive rate of revenue growth in particular," Dawson said."
Can Instagram save Facebook? With Facebook trending down and Instagram trending up maybe it will pick up the loss of Facebook. Pretty smart move Facebook!
Thanks for reading,
David Ogden
PS: David Ogden is a Alpha Founder with Markethive and manages several blogs on the hive. David is a professional Network Marketer. He can be reached through Markethive.
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