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45 Ideas to Please Google and Up Your Game

Last night I took a rare moment to clean up the desktop on my laptop and discovered a few interesting pearls. Specifically I found a some notes from Wordcamp Denver last June (2015). First of course I had to figure out what the heck I was looking at, and next I realized… damn, there is some great stuff in here.  I always like to share great stuff. Happily this is all still relevant, so here it is.

I had to do a little digging to find out whose session my notes were from but thanks to Google, not too difficult. These gems are from Cyndie Shaffstall, founder of Spider Trainers whose talk was entitled “50 Good Ideas for Getting to Google’s Page 1”. I didn’t get all 50, but here’s what I did get. I’ve highlighted a few of my personal favorites…

“Tell a good story, understand who is coming to your site and use relevant keywords for that audience.”

  1. Benchmark where you are now, use analytics (Google Analytics is free) – also check out this tool from MOZ
  2. Block your own IP from analytics so your data is not skewed
  3. Avoid influencing your competitors site or your own site, stop clicking on them
  4. Keywords and keyphrases are still important, don’t abandon
  5. Your company name is easy to get, move it down the priority list
  6. Your domain should be easy to type and remember
  7. Get relevant links (from others) to inside pages not to your homepage
  8. Be professionally visible as a person (LinkedIn profile, bio on your website, etc)
  9. Know your personas
  10. Use & love Google Analytics and Webmaster tools (again, they are free!)
  11. Map and remap your content – make sure you are using a sitemap and that you have submitted to Google Webmaster tools
  12. Be professional! @gmail is a NO NO. (Note: you can still use the gmail interface with your own domain – see Google Business Apps)
  13. Tell a good story, understand who is coming to your site and use relevant keywords for that audience
  14. Have a set of keywords for every persona
  15. Use alt tags, title and description on every image – use your keywords. This is SO easy, but tedious.
  16. Create targeted landing pages and squeeze pages with consistent design (should be no links on a squeeze page, focus on your conversion goal)
  17. Leave a trail (everywhere you can on the web ie. comments on other sites, email signatures, traditional marketing), promote your blog
  18. Reciprocal linking is a good strategy only if RELEVANT.
  19. Share and share
  20. Ok to take up to 2 sentences of third party reviews and use them on your own website.
  21. Be social
  22. Automate! Check out Social Oomph or Buffer App
  23. If you use Google Adwords, setup phone extensions to track calls from your ads
  24. Create a news section
  25. Do online press releases
  26. Use a testimonial widget
  27. YouTube is #2 search engine, get up with video
  28. Repurpose, repurpose (your content)
  29. Offer a downloadable resource center
  30. Use progressive forms (smart, only show new fields to return visitors)
  31. Use inbound to email RE: specific interests. I heart INBOUND!
  32. Have a privacy policy
  33. Have a cookie policy
  34. Put an arrow on your buttons, they will always performs better. Simple, so simple.
  35. Use CTAs throughout your website (calls to action)
  36. Note: I’m adding this. Email is a viable and inexpensive marketing tool – use it people!
  37. Use lead scoring for email signups (will help you understand who to market to)
  38. Use drip marketing – drip hi, drip hi, drip hi, consistent and predictable
  39. Use nurture marketing – hey thanks for buying X, did you know we also do this?
  40. Make sure your campaigns are consistent (design, message, headlines)
  41. Create multi-touch campaigns
  42. Employ surveys, how often would you like to hear from me?
  43. If using QR codes, use targeted landing pages
  44. Do A/B testing, change one thing ONLY at a time
  45. Consider PURLs (Personalized URLs)
  46. Participate in groups, Linkedin, Facebook, etc.

How many of these things do you employ in your online marketing mix? Never heard of some of them? Get with the game or get left behind! We can help

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