Information overload to blur truth

     This week was all about optimizing our site and traffic through SEO optimization, social media and analytics.  A few things really stood out.

     Everyone is susceptible to a scam these days.  While some are easy to spot it’s somewhat disconcerting that the rules of how to fool the internet into believing a false claim is so readily available.

     For example, site checking tools are cross referencing each other and  their paid and affiliated sites to prove whether a site is valid or not.  On the surface it would seem that as long as a fraudster is thorough in not just making a bogus site, but making a consistently bogus Facebook, Twitter and Instagram account linking to the bogus site, and cross linked from the bogus site to the social media page, there is a higher probability of being accepted as legitimate.  That paid services can also boost the credibility of a particular site.

     As we get more saturated with information that may or may not be true, but appears as credible and cross referenced as any other page, finding the truth can be nearly impossible.  I think a few things that can help are to look for the spirit to guide us as to whether the content and purpose of the site is intended to uplift and inspire and could have been created under inspiration or not.

Social media for SEO and Social Networking

Some great new concepts this week,  keeping stats on prior weeks, and a few "aha" moments.

Some of the new concepts that we had regarding social networking were kind of repeats, or a variation on the theme of internet marketing that we have been doing all along.  Keeping your site, titles, tags, photo naming, and social media consistent is such a big deal.  If you want your entire network (not just a single site like facebook) to work for you, you can't have substantially different content in each location. 

Imagine if Coca-Cola called itself by a different name (Coke, Cola, CocaCola, Pop, Soda) in each site.  If you wanted to see their content in facebook you need to search Pop, while Instagram is CocaCola, and LinkedIn is "Soda".  Even your biggest fans would probably give up in frustration.

It will also help the sbots and spiders that try to make sense of all the content on the internet happy; and who doesn't want happy spiders? 

Statistical analysis of the changes to our google ads campaigns over time came in.  While I didn't have great success in conversions (paid sales).  I did manage to create a massive increase in the number of impressions and clicks.  It gives me some new respect for marketing folks.

The big "AHA!" moment of the week was reading a classmates post.  He described how I have typically felt about social media after a bad MLM experience.  Feeling like he didn't want to exploit his personal followers/network for his business venture. 

Short version is that people are following YOU, not the memes you find and repost, not the political re-tweets, the whole reason any of us signed up for social media is to connect to each other.  Telling your social network about your life (starting a business is a major life event) is sooo different than selling your social network.  I truly want to hear about your graduation from whatever school, and your new life as a  whatever you just got trained on.  

It really helped me to log in more than the couple times a year that I currently do and want to share more, but in the right way.

SEO and ad optimization

A very interesting week. 

As we continue to work through ways to improve our site and ad performance, consistency is key.  Keeping keywords, content, titles, image tags, as much as you can consistent and true to your message and purpose, the more relevant your site will be.

It was also interesting to think through the visual heat maps for our landing pages.  Whether by color, or through the subjects of the photos and artwork, having them point to the action that we want our site visitor to take will improve our profitability, performance and the flow of the site.

When it comes to ads, it really makes you think about ads as a customer funnel. 

• Impressions are like number of people that have a newspaper delivered and open the paper to the page you are on.  They may or may not read your ad on that page, and even if they do read your ad, they may not respond.  
• Clicks are like people that see the bold part of your newspaper ad and choose to read more than the bold part.
• Conversions are like the people that actually call and order your product because of the ad.

Improving the success of any part of the funnel is critical to creating a successful internet business.