Setting Up Your Google+ Business Page

Here is a tutorial to set up your Google+ Business Page.

Connect4 Consulting Google

Before you do anything, create a Google+ Personal Profile. You will need to have a gmail account to get started with creating a personal profile. This is as simple as signing up for a Google+ account. Make sure you use your real name when signing up for this personal account, as it will help serve to verify your business for Google+.

Once you have a personal profile, on the left hand side menu you will find a “Pages” button. Select “Pages” and then choose “Create a New Page”.

After you select “Create a New Page” you will be given choices to what category best describes your business. If you are a bricks and mortar business who relies many on local customers select “Local Business or Place”. Otherwise, select another category that fits your business best. You will be prompted to submit various pieces of information depending on the business category you selected. It is important this information is accurate so Google can verify it.

You will want to enter a well-thought out description of your products and services to help Google users find you. You can also enter a photos or a logo that will serve as visuals for your Google+ business page. You will also want to make sure you fill out all links to other social media and your business website. Brand your business accordingly with your logo and colors.

Keep adding content! Add videos and more photos. Google+ loves graphics and content, but make sure it is all consistent with your branding.

Of course, you will want to let everyone know you are on Google+, and Google+ will help you through its own network of Google products.

Getting your profile set up is the easy part, consistency will be the key to your success. Google loves content, update regularly which will help with your business ranking on Google.

Google+ Business Page – Why It’s Important

If your business doesn’t show up on Google, it’s as if your business doesn’t exist. A website will help you for sure, but creating and maintaining a Google+ page will literally put your business on the Google map. It will help you build your brand awareness online, allow you to share content, and essentially gives you another billboard to get your message out.

If you’re still skeptical or reluctant to create yet another social network page for your business, consider the following reasons why it’s critical that you set up your Google+ business page.

Connect4 Consulting Google

Google Search Visibility

Search engine optimization is all about getting your website found by your potential customers, and Google has the majority market share when it comes to search. If Google offers you additional tools for free, you have to use them.

Blended Search Results

Google+ content – the content that you post on your Google+ business page – can rank in search results separately from the content that is on your website.

Google+ Factors Into 3-Pack Results

google-3-pack

google-carousel

Earlier this year Google dropped the Carousel and replaced it with the 3-Pack display of organic listings. Currently there are five factors that influence the 3-pack results:

  1. location, location, location – local search favors results located in a 25 mile radius
  2. strong social signals – Google+, Yelp, Facebook, TripAdvisor
  3. reviews – businesses with plenty of positive reviews are favored
  4. scheme and citations need to be accurate
  5. good SEO – credible backlinks

Authorship and Publisher Markup

Authorship and publisher markup can increase your search engine reach now that semantic markup has been adopted by the major search engines.

Authorship

Google+ Pages and personal profiles can be linked with a website to generate even greater reach on search engines using Publisher and Authorship markup, respectively. As a result, your headshot and Google+ profile stats can show in the search engine results page when your content ranks!

Google+ Authorship connects a Google+ personal profile to an individual webpage, blog post or article. This is great for gaining exposure and building a personal brand, especially if you’re in an industry that makes you the face of your business.

You should consider creating a Google+ Profile for yourself and connecting it to quality content you write or distribute online, especially if you are a:

  • doctor
  • lawyer
  • realtor
  • insurance agent
  • consultant

Publisher

Google+ Publisher connects a Google+ Local page to your website. People searching Google for your business name or other brand signals will see a “Knowledge Graph” of information pulled from Google+ about your business. You can take a look at HP’s knowledge graph below and can easily imagine how this helps them stand out from a smaller brand that has not yet set up its Google+ business page and activated any of these fundamental marketing features.

google-search-rel-publisher

When Publisher is implemented correctly, branded searches may show your visual branding, the number of Google+ followers you have, recent Google+ posts and even reviews.

However, it is important to note that Google penalizes Google+ pages without new content. If you don’t update your content frequently, you may see competitors listed at the bottom of the knowledge graph.

Integration With Other Google Platforms

You can increase your exposure even more by integrating your Google+ business page with other Google platforms like YouTube and Gmail. YouTube has more than one billion users. If you have videos on YouTube and aren’t yet on Google+, now is the time to set up your Google+ business page and connect the two platforms.

Conclusion – Set Up Your Google+ Business Page

If all of this makes perfect sense to you but you don’t have the time to implement any of it, consider contacting us – Connect4 Consulting – to help you find your way. We specialize in websites, social media, and communication. A Google+ Business page is truly a blend of website, social media, and communication.

 

Eight Steps to Improve Website Marketing Using Pop-Up Ads

Pop-up ads are becoming a very popular marketing tool on a broad variety of respectable websites. A decade ago – eons in Internet years – popups were one of the most-hated online advertising technique, and a residual hatred of the marketing tool lingers today.

Reasons Today’s Pop-ups Are Very Different From the Pop-up Ads Ten Years Ago

1. Internet browsers are much more sophisticated and prevent pop-ups from opening new windows. Instead the new pop-ups open in the same window and are very easy to close.

2. Marketing pop-up ads can now be controlled entirely by site owners who can take their on-site user experience, audience loyalty, and long-term brand into consideration to determine when and where to use pop-up ads.

3. Website technology now lets site owners to be very selective about who is shown marketing pop-up ads and who isn’t.

4. Personalized messages can be served on a dynamic basis.

5. The timing and activation of the pop-up ad is very sophisticated so the pop-up can be displayed after a user has been on a particular page for a certain period of time, for example.

For these reasons – as well as the fact that implementing these pop-ups is cost-effective (contact us at Connect4 Consulting if you’re interested) – marketing pop-ups have returned and are becoming more popular. But they aren’t suitable for every site or brand or audience. A site owner needs to think long and hard about their particular audience and ask whether a pop-up will annoy visitors.

When done right, marketing pop-up ads are a great way to engage visitors, drive sales, increase email subscriber lists, and generate tons of new leads.

When done wrong, however, pop-up ads annoy visitors, degrade user experience, and fail to convert prospects into paying customers.

superoffice-pop-up example

Eight Steps to Improve Website Marketing Using Pop-up Ads

Step 1:  Figure out what your audience values

Before writing your ad, you need to understand what your audience wants. Google Analytics is an excellent resource for determining what your users want to read, buy, or subscribe to. Next, your messaging should meet these three standards: It must be clear to the user. It must be concise. And, it must convey maximum value.

Step 2: Be flexible with your offer and provide different offers to different customer segments

A first-time visitor is better suited to an email signup. Once you have their email address, you can use that to provide valuable information as you build the customer relationship.

Step 3: Don’t over think the design

Remember the Keep It Simple Stupid mantra? Same concept here. Effective pop-up ads grab attention by conveying value without distractions.

Step 4: Think Win-Win

If your “$10 Off” offer isn’t converting, think about changing the campaign to an email sign up in exchange for something of value to your users. The trick is finding out what type of offer works best for your traffic. Sometimes, quick sales are just not feasible.

Step 5: Put your pop-up ad on high profile pages and make sure you promote high value items

Since your end goal is to generate leads, signups, and new sales, make sure that the pop-up ad is on the right page and promotes purchase of the right item. To find out which pages get the most traffic, open up your Google Analytics and run a traffic report for the last 12 months.

Step 6: Make sure your goals are in sync with your visitors’ goals

The marketing pop-up ad will generate the best results when users want to do the same thing you want them to do. Once again, Google Analytics is the best way to find out what they want to do. Once you know what your users want, you need to ask yourself whether your goals line up. Is this a product you want to promote? Is it an email list that’s valuable for you to build?

Step 7: Optimize and refresh your offer over time

All offers eventually go stale, so periodically refreshing and updating your offer is critical to maintaining effectiveness.

Step 8: Get in front of visitors before they leave and do so without disrupting user experience

When you launch your pop-up ad is just as important as your message.

If you launch the pop-up too early, you might interrupt users naturally on the path toward your desired action. Launch too late, and a good chunk of users will leave before they see it.

There are 5 ways I know of to activate your marketing pop-up ad:

  1. Upon entry
  2. Upon exit
  3. After “x” number of page views
  4. Scroll-activated
  5. Time-activated

Which one will work best for you? Only your tests will tell.

Conclusion

If you’re interested in learning more about the feasibility of marketing pop-up ads on your website, we are here to help you. Contact Connect4 Consulting at 202-236-2968 or send us an email. Remember that the details are what separate successful campaigns from those that fail to generate results. When done wrong, this marketing tool won’t help you at all. But when done right, it can engage visitors, drive sales, and help you build your email list.

Get Free Publicity for Your Website Using HARO

Wouldn’t it be spectacular to get free publicity for your website with a link and a quote on a major news publication like the Washington Post or Huffington Post? It’s actually easier than you might think and it involves using a website called “HARO” or “Help A Reporter Out” – www.helpareporter.com. HARO is a service that connects journalists in need of sources and marketers hungry for publicity.

Get Free Publicity for Your Website

HARO is a great way for small businesses to get free publicity. All you need to do is sign up and choose between the free or paid plans. The free plan subscribes you to 3 emails a day that you have to comb through and respond to. The paid plans allow you to go on the HARO website and search and filter to the specific category that you might respond to with a pitch. The paid plan also gives you a profile on the HARO site.

Whenever there is something that is relevant to your business in HARO, you can respond with a pitch. Many small businesses have been featured in local newspapers, on blogs, and in several online news magazines. If you’re lucky, you can build up a relationship with a specific journalist. 

How To Boost Exposure For Your Website Without SEO

There are many ways to boost exposure for your website. SEO or search engine optimization is one method, but for some online businesses – particularly ecommerce businesses – there’s too much competition for first page search results. This post discusses four proven methods for driving referral traffic to your website and building brand exposure even if your site doesn’t appear on the first page of Google search results.

Four Methods for Increasing Website Exposure & Referral Traffic

1) Build an email list from your existing website visitors

This is something of a no-brainer. Every website should have an email signup. If you don’t, please contact Connect4 today (202-236-2968) so we can help you set it up. However, this method is slightly different because it offers a purchase incentive to visitors. This can be a coupon that the visitor can use immediately on the site to buy something. For example, REI.com offers people 15% off select products if they sign up for the email list.

2) Incorporate products into your blog

Another way to build exposure and referral traffic is to create a blog with great content that features some of the products that you sell or services that you provide. Zappos is a company that excels at this approach. If you go to Zappos, it looks like any other ecommerce site that sells clothes and shoes. However, if you go to the Zappos blog, they do a great job of incorporating their products into great content. They also give how-to tips. If your blog isn’t getting much traction, you might want to shift away from product announcements and try a Zappos-type approach and integrate your products or services into great content.

3) Create expert advice videos

Another way to get exposure for your website without SEO is to create content that appeals to your target audience but doesn’t even talk about the products or services that you offer. Once again REI does this really well with their YouTube channel. They’ve identified their target market and then created expert advice videos. They are assuming that people will watch the expert advice videos and then be reminded about a purchase they intended to make and be reminded that REI is a place to go to make such a purchase.

4) Guest posting

Yet another way to boost exposure for your website without SEO is to guest post on someone else’s blog. What you’d first want to do is to do just what REI did and identify your target audience. If I were doing this, I would search Google for something like “small business technology” + “guest post”, and then I would go through the various sites and pick the site with the most comments.

As you can see, the key to promoting your website without SEO revolves around creating great content. You want great content that appeals to your target customer and a variety of vehicles for getting that content in front of them.

Comment Spam: What Is It and How To Control It?

If you have a blog or WordPress site, chances are you have encountered comment spam. Unfortunately, the more popular your blog becomes, the more spam it is likely to get. There is nothing more frustrating than having to spend time moderating your comments to determine which ones are spam and which ones are legitimate. The good news is that this unethical approach to search engine optimization is used less and less frequently thanks to Google cracking down on the process and not rewarding fake links.

In today’s post, we are going to look at:

  • How to identify spam.
  • Settings and plugins you can use in the base WordPress comment system to help moderate spam.

Comments, Trackbacks, and Pingbacks

Before we go any further we need to define a few terms that are related to blog comments.

  • Comments – Comments are created when someone uses the comment form on your blog post to engage with your content.
  • Pingbacks – Pingbacks are automatically created when someone links to your blog post from one of their blog posts.
  • Trackbacks – Trackbacks are manual notifications by one blogger that they have linked to your blog post within theirs. Pingbacks were created to automate this process.

WordPress refers to Trackbacks and Pingbacks as Pings when you attempt to filter your comments.

 

You can recognize the difference between the two visually like this. Comments will have the comment author’s name, email address, optional website link, and IP address listed along with their comment.

 

Trackbacks and pingbacks (Pings) will only have the title of a blog post, a link, and an excerpt from the external blog post as the comment.

 

Unfortunately, comments, trackbacks, and pingbacks are all used frequently as spam. There are ways to even automate the spamming process which adds to the problem. So let’s look at some ways to identify spam.

Why Comment Spam Is Harmful

Some people, in an attempt to inflate their number of comments, will approve comments that they know are not legitimate. Why is this bad? Consider these things:

  • Google is cracking down on bad links. This doesn’t just include sites that buy bad links, it also includes sites that allow bad links. The last thing you want is Google to think that you are allowing bad links on your website, even if they are just in your comments.
  • Comment spam shows lack of moderation. Imagine that you’re buying a home and you drive through a neighborhood and there’s a house that’s unkempt at totally overgrown in weeds. That’s the impression you are giving to your visitors if your blog posts are littered with comment spam – that no one is actively taking care of it.
  • Your readers might lose faith in you. What if one of your readers clicks on a comment link and is taken to a site they don’t want to be. If you wouldn’t link to a viagra website in your own website, you shouldn’t let a commenter link to one either.

How to Identify Spam

How do you know whether a comment on your blog is spam or legitimate? This is tough and it’s really up to you. Some blog owners will read every comment and consider it legit if the comment shows that the reader actually read the post. Other blog owners will dismiss a comment as spam based on the fact that the link does not match the same industry as their blog. Here are some questions you can answer when looking at a comment that will help you determine whether or not you should approve it to go live on your blog.

  • Is the author using a real name or a bunch of keywords? The use of keywords in a name in a comment field without first or last name is always the sign of an SEO spammer.
  • Would I want my blog readers to click on the comment author’s link? If the answer is no, don’t approve the comment.
  • Is the comment specific, or could it apply to any blog post? 
  • Has the same comment author been using several different email and website addresses? If John Doe comments one day linking to an outdoor store and then the next day linking to an automobile supply store, you know it’s spam.
  • Does the comment author use a legitimate email address? If you see someone commenting using an email address like email@email.com then chances are it’s spam.

Settings to Control Comment Spam

WordPress has some basic settings that you should use to control comment spam.

Moderate Comments from First Time Comment Authors

Not only will this prevent your blog from becoming a spamfest, but it will also allow people who have been approved once to be approved for future comments, leaving less to moderate. Comment authors who change the way they enter their name, email address, or website link will be placed into moderation again. This keeps someone from being approved once with a good website link from coming in and using one you would not approve of in future comments.

To hold a first time commenter author in moderation, go to your WordPress dashboard > Settings > Discussion. Under the Before a Comment Appears section, check the box for comment author must have previously approved comment. Make sure the checkbox above it for an administrator must always approve the comment is unchecked.

Turn Off Trackbacks

Trackback spam is sometimes worse than comment spam. So you have to consider whether or not having it on is even necessary. You can still find out who is linking to your blog by looking at the Incoming Links portion of your WordPress dashboard.

Turn Off Comments After 30 or 60 Days

People who comment for link building purposes (SEO spammers) typically look for blog posts with high PageRank – Google’s 1 – 10 scoring of authority. Typically, blog posts start out at a PageRank of 0 and only gain PageRank after a few months. This means that SEO spammers are going to be targeting your older blog posts.

Typically, the height of popularity for a blog post is within the first two weeks. That will also be when you get the majority of your comments (unless you don’t update your blog that often). Hence, if you close blog comments after 30 – 60 days based on your preference, you will have a lot less comments to moderate.

Plugins to Control Spam

At Connect4, our WordPress sites all come with the Akismet comment spam plugin installed. It filters all comments and acts like a junk email filter for WordPress comments. It is not perfect, however, and you still have to moderate the process and approve some comments identified by Akismet as junk, but it is far better than not having any plugin to control comment spam.

 

The Ideal Length For Online Content

I think we all can agree that different audiences and medium require different types of writing, but it turns out that there are ideal lengths for online content such as tweets, Facebook posts, Google+ headlines,  and blog post headlines.

The ideal length of a tweet is 100 characters

According to Twitter, Twitter’s best practices reference research by Buddy Media about tweet length: 100 characters is the engagement sweet spot for a tweet. 

Creativity loves constraints and simplicity is at our core. Tweets are limited to 140 characters so they can be consumed easily anywhere, even via mobile text messages. There’s no magical length for a Tweet, but a recent report by Buddy Media revealed that Tweets shorter than 100 characters get a 17% higher engagement rate.

Photo by birgerking The ideal length of a Facebook post is less than 40 characters

Forty characters is not much at all. (The sentence I just wrote was 36 characters.)

However, 40 is the magic number that Jeff Bullas, social media marketing guru, found was most effective in his study of retail brands on Facebook.

The ideal length of a Google+ headline is less than 60 characters

To maximize the readability and appearance of your posts on Google+, you probably should keep your text on one line.

Demian Farnworth of Copyblogger studied the Google+ breaking point and found that headlines should not exceed 60 characters.

The ideal length of a headline is 6 words

How much of the headline of this post did you read before you clicked?

According to a blog post by Kissmetrics, you might not have read it at all! According to the post, we not only scan content but we also scan headlines and tend to only absorb the first three words and last three words of a headline. If you can’t restrict your headline to 6 words, at the very least make sure that the first and last three count.

Terrible Web Design Trends and How to Stop Them

From LiveStrong yellow wristbands to Planking, the power of trends is undeniable. In our digital age dominated by social media and audiences with ever-shortening attention spans, these rapidly changing trends extend to web design as well. Continuously developing design and development technologies means that web design trends come and go quickly. While it might be cool to be an early-adopter, it certainly doesn’t pay to be a late-adopter or you will be left with a website with one of the following five terrible web design trends. Thankfully, most of these are not that common anymore.

Splash Pages

We’ve all seen a site that loads with sliding photography, blinking status bars, and a cacophony of visual excess. The thought behind a splash page is “Watch this long ‘short intro’ video to discover how awesome our website is!”

Hoping for a strong first impression, websites that adopt this practice of showing a splash page definitely make an impact. Unfortunately, it’s usually an overly negative one.

Splash pages waste time and delay people from accessing the real website content. Site users just flock to the “click to skip” link, or, in some cases, can’t even find it and decide to leave instead of waiting.

Conclusion:

A good homepage, information architecture (how the information is organized), and content strategy are all you need. Don’t waste precious time by showing users pointless filler content.

Web 2.0 Design

Rounded corners, reflections, drop shadows and gradients say one thing: 2005. As the Internet moves toward a flatter, harder-edged aesthetic, don’t let your site get stuck with an outdated look.

These days, dimensionality and drop-shadowing look soft and tentative. Skeuomorphism for skeuomorphism sake doesn’t really accomplish anything, other than potentially confusing your viewer with an over-complicated design. You can do better. Simplify your designs to make your interfaces more user-friendly and to improve UX.

Conclusion:

With major tech companies like Apple, Microsoft, Google and others going flat, the reality is that this is what users will come to expect.

Stock Photos

Good stock photos don’t actually look like a stock photo, but they can be prohibitively expensive. So, instead, we are often shown cold, lifeless fake photos of people.

Conclusion:

Use stock photography sparingly. If photos are needed on your website, try and take them yourself. If this is not an option, be very selective with your stock photography. Make sure that adding the photo is actually going to improve the look of your site instead of making it look like a joke.

MySpace-ification

Thankfully we don’t see this too often anymore, but in the mid-2000s, internet-savvy users were defined by the amount of personalization in their MySpace profiles. Unfortunately some web designers picked up on this trend, over-designing sites to the point of complete chaos.

Conclusion:

This one is simple. Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.

Flash Sites

The strength of Flash is also its weakness. Though animations and movement definitely grab attention and can enhance the look of your site, they are also incompatible with many Web devices (all Apple products).

What good is a large amount of visually-stimulating content if many of your users can’t even see it?

With the maturation of CSS3 transitions and HTML5 standards, it is now possible to create impressive animated sites without the use of proprietary, closed-source software.

Conclusion:

It’s time to stop relying on Flash and get on board HTML5, CSS3 and JavaScript which accomplish many of the same things as Flash with less compatibility and performance issues.

Background Music

Some web designers want to engage their viewers’ senses, so they add some tunes to help build a connection. If you’re considering this, keep in mind two things: 1) some of your viewers have their sound muted and will thus miss out on your awesome jams, and 2) those that do have the sound on are likely listening to something else or looking to hear something specific.

Not to mention the potential issues with site loading speed, licensing, user experience, etc.

Conclusion:

Unless you’re a DJ company or a radio station, please skip the urge to add music to your site.

Popup Windows

I think we have all experienced the frustration of loading a webpage and immediately being bombarded with a trillion unclosable pop-up windows. It truly harms our experience on the site and makes us wary of coming back.

Unfortunately, today, popup windows are being reincarnated in the form of modal window overlays that open automatically and interrupt our reading experience. Check out Tab Closed; Didn’t Read to see a showcase of disruptive window overlays.

Conclusion:

Ads are a part of life, and they’re an important way for many sites to generate revenue. That being said, no one likes an ad that’s overly disruptive. If you’re going to use popups, use them sparingly, strategically, make sure they can be closed and don’t cover the entire screen.

Like any trend, what’s popular in web design comes and goes quite quickly. If you have a robust development and design team, incorporating current trends can make your site look fresh and relevant.

Just remember that trends have a shelf-life, and be prepared when it’s time to make a change. What’s hot right now could soon go the way of sparkly mouse pointers and site visitor counters.

For those who are more risk-averse (or strapped for time or by budget), it’s best to focus on more mainstream design ideas that will always look professional and be effective.

 

How to Push Blog Posts to Constant Contact

Suppose you have a blog with regular posts and also a Constant Contact email marketing account. Since time is money, whenever you can save time doing a repetitive process, you are essentially saving money. In this case what you want to do is push summaries of your blog posts to a Constant Contact email template to reduce the amount of time involved in putting together a marketing email. I will show you how to do this in a few easy steps.

Step 1: Create a Google Feedburner Account

Go to http://feedburner.google.com and set up an account. If you already have a gmail account, just log in with your gmail account and follow the prompts to link the two accounts. Once you are logged in, you will see the following screen:

Enter your sites rss feed link. If we set up your site the link will be http://www.yourwebsite.com/feed

You should see the Congrats! confirmation page. Click the “Skip directly to feed management” link adjacent to the Next button at the bottom of the page.

To complete the initial set up, click the Publicize tab at the top > then choose Email Subscriptions on the left side. From the Email Subscriptions page > click the Activate button located at the bottom of the page.

Step 2: Create Your Email in Constant Contact and Push RSS Feed to Email Template

Go to your Constant Contact account and log in. Find your email template. If you have one you like and use regularly, you can just copy the most recent campaign. Select the area where you want to insert blog content.
Click Blog Content in the left sidebar and enter the RSS feed url from Feedburner.

Then select the blog posts that you want to push from your website to your email campaign. You will see a list of all the blog posts on your website. You can pick and choose whichever posts you want to use.

Then you just need to determine how much content you want in the email. Do you want to use a summary and redirect traffic back to your website? Or would you prefer to give your audience the entire blog in the email. It’s up to you.

When you click submit, the blog posts will appear in your email within Constant Contact. You can then make additional design and content edits. If you don’t like the summary, you can even edit the summary.

New Top Level Domains Available

The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), founded in 1998, was created to ensure a stable and unified global Internet. One key responsibility is introducing and promoting competition in the registration of domain names, while ensuring the security and stability of the domain name system (DNS).

In 2005, ICANN initiated a process to add to the existing top level domains (.com, .org, .net, .edu, etc.). Organizations had to apply to create new TLDs. To see all 1923 of them, visit: https://gtldresult.icann.org/application-result/applicationstatus.

What’s interesting about this is you can now reserve the new top level domains. They won’t actually go into play until the end of 2013, but there are about 1,000 new top level domains. This is interesting for marketing purposes. I could buy, for example, connect4.consulting or a law firm like Arnold & Porter could buy arnoldporter.law. A local pizza place could be mytown.pizza.

Browse the entire list yourself.