It’s the holy grail of many a marketer’s aspirations: making a video that will go viral. But what is it that makes millions of people watch and share clips of the Old Spice Guy, cute kittens or Psy’s Gangnam Style?

Alas, there is no straightforward answer. But here, at least, is some food for thought…

Think about what makes you share-worthy

It’s rare that people trawl YouTube simply looking for the next great video. The vast majority of people will ‘stumble’ across something because one of their friends has shared it on Facebook or Twitter, or in the office. This is most likely because it is one of the following:

• Funny.Humour is one of the top drivers of sharing. Whether a video is purposely funny (like The Dollar Shave Club ad, or the Old Spice series), or accidentally funny (like an unsuspecting father getting punched in the groin by his toddler), laughter is something people want to share.
• Weird/Quirky/Unexpected. Whether it impresses the hell out of you, or freaks you out, weirdness is strangely compelling. And sharable. (Think: Jackass, or the people who can ‘pop’ their eyes out of their sockets. Our friend Psy might even fit into this bracket…)
• Cute. Kitten videos. Babies. Do I need to go on? The ‘Awww’ factor is a powerful force when it comes to sharing videos. Think about it. How many videos have your friends posted on Facebook captioned “So cute.”?
• Amazing/Heartwarming. Again, this is a prime candidate for sharing. From Frisbee trick-shots and Wayne Rooney wonder-goals to the heroism of strangers trying to help the Boston bombing victims, we all love to marvel at the human capacity for extraordinary feats.
• Useful. Ever watched a how-to video? Thought so… Heard of the TED talks series? Probably… Whether it solves an immediate need or is part of an ongoing series that you’re following, useful videos will be shared amongst like-minded people.
• Outrageous/Controversial. Remember Kony 2012 and how quickly that whipped round the social networks? And then all the fall-out after it? Pretty much the definition of a topic going from zero to viral hero.

Kony 2012 Campaign Video goes viral.

YouTube, Vimeo and other video platforms have opened up our world in an amazing way. No longer do you need to go to the library to understand how a helicopter works – you can watch a quick video from a leading aeronautical engineer. You’re not limited by what is on TV that week, or the music that has made the charts – you can tap into a whole new world of entertainment that is generated by everyone from the professionals themselves to incredible undiscovered talent.

And human nature dictates that if we find something ‘Amazing’, we want to be the first to share it with our friends. Because that reflects well on us. But amazingness is not the only factor at play when it comes to a video going viral.

People are Awesome 2013

Do the groundwork

Yes – if you have share-worthy content, you are half way there. But there’s still a LOT that you can do to help your video on its way.

• Keep it short. There are lots of different theories on the ‘perfect length’ of a video – and of course, it’s highly dependent on the content. But don’t be self-indulgent. Keep it sweet, otherwise people will lose interest and not hit the ‘Share’ button.
• Keep it professional. Your video doesn’t need to be shot in high-def, but it should be professional. Unless you’re relying on being fortunate enough to catch a moment of unanticipated brilliance, you’ll need to have plans, scripts, directions and an editing process in place.
• Ensure people can find it. Being findable will help get the ball rolling. Make sure you optimise your video with the appropriate tags, descriptions, transcripts etc so that it can be found on YouTube and also within the search engines (see our blog on optimising videos for search). Be intriguing too – use a captivating thumbnail and title to entice people’s clicks.
• Be a big fish in a small pond. YouTube has a series of categories for its videos. Think carefully about which you should put yours in based not only on relevancy, but also the likelihood of being able to make the most-viewed lists. (For example, on the day of writing, it would require 11,921 views to make the most viewed list within YouTube’s Comedy category, but only 353 views to get into the Pets & Animals list. Conclusion? Perhaps that funny video of your cat would do better on Pets & Animals.)

Share it yourself

It sounds obvious, but the best way to help a video go viral is to get the sharing ball rolling yourself. Share to your own network and ask them to re-share it with their friends and followers. Spend some time identifying influencers and sharing your masterpiece with them (and requesting that they re-share in turn).

Competitions and promotions encouraging people to share can also be a great way to build momentum. Encourage engagement too – whether it’s comments on the video itself, or through Facebook, Twitter or any other medium.

As for the rest? Well, although digital marketers will tell you that you absolutely can ‘create’ virality, there is no doubt a certain amount of luck involved too. That, and the need for a brilliant video in the first place.

Key Takeaways

• Videos go viral because they are share-worthy. It sounds obvious, but make sure your video is genuinely funny, useful or interesting.
• It does depend. But as a general rule, keep it short.
• Make sure your video is easily found – both by viewers and the search engines.
• Videos don’t go viral by themselves. Share it with your network – and identify/encourage influencers to share it with theirs.

If you found this article interesting or useful, please don’t be shy. Give the author a “tip” by Liking, Tweeting or +1′ing at the top! Also, if you have any additional thoughts, please head over to our Facebook page and start a discussion – we’d love to chat with you!

I am currently marking my 4 month anniversary of employment in the digital marketing industry, albeit as an intern. I’ve been right through the whole education system, from school to college and now, even in my final few months at university, it still astounds me how much more there is to learn outside of the academic environment. Marketing is always where I wanted to go, the psychological side of it never ceased to intrigue me; from store layouts to colour coded campaigns, I knew it was what I wanted to do since our first marketing class in college. But through digital marketing lectures and both my current internships, I’m seeing not a whole new avenue of marketing, but an entire universe which, up until the beginning of third year, was completely unbeknownst to me.

For me, marketing has always been the department which forms the basis of a company, in other words, a company would be in a far worse position in the absence of a marketing department over any other department. This view has only accentuated since working with the masterminds of Reload Digital. The transition between academia to professionalism was always a slight fear of mine, but I’ve been humbled by the generosity and understanding at Reload, as well as my other company.

Digital marketing is such a meticulous and intricate game, which made the learning curve very steep, but it’s been manageable so far. To be honest it was helped by the fact that I managed to acquire, perhaps unknowingly to Reload, a Google pen on my first day. It was just purple pen with the Google logo, but it was the item which cemented the beginning of my first professional role, whilst turning some jealous heads during lectures!

One thing about digital marketing is that social media plays a significant role within it, which aided my understanding of how it works. In saying that, I used to think that social media was core to the construct of digital marketing before starting work here. I had heard of SEO, PPC and email marketing, but didn’t think they were as huge as I now know them to be.

It was the amalgamation of my leisurely activities online and what I’m currently learning about in class that eased my entry to digital marketing, but with every door I open, another two doors present themselves. This is what I love about the industry so far, there’s so much that I’ve yet to learn in an industry which has so many dark areas within it. Also, the wide range of skills needed to make a digital marketing campaign successful is another upside that I’ve come across. The more skilled the workforce is, the better the outcome of a campaign. The option to divert into any of the wide range of specialities in digital marketing is what justifies the field for me. This not only amplified the changeability and diversification of the field, but also helped me to see the effectiveness of teamwork in the workplace. The Reload team is relatively small, yet the countless skills and capabilities in our office is just immense.

With regards to the future, I can only talk out of inexperience and mention the growing Impact of mobile marketing. At the risk of repeating sections of my dissertation, I think that social media and mobile technology is not the next step in communication, rather the contextual evolution of communication. Ever-advancing technologies were always going to have an effect on human communication. Dare i say it, it was meant to be. This will probably be the next big step for marketers.

An idea that I’ve had is that marketers will turn to one of the most abundant resources in city environments for the next-next big marketing platform: glass. Buildings are everywhere, and they all have glass windows, glass doors, the works. I think one day, scientists will be able to replicate the one-way viewing of blacked-out windows on to glass, so when people walk past shops or office blocks, they’ll be faced with video adverts, either national or just of the company behind the glass. It makes sense to me, but the pragmatism of the idea is up for discussion. And if the new Google offices at Kings Cross have a little pen dispenser than that wouldn’t be half bad either.

Don’t worry, I am going to stick to the title in this article – there’s no big expense in these ideas. 

However, the first big myth about social media is that it is free. Well, the big myth is that you can be successful on social media quickly for free. The second big myth is that if you build it, they will come.

In reality, without a piece of content happening to go viral, some heavy press coverage behind you or a retweet from Justin Beiber, Lady Gaga and Ricky Gervais, you’ll need a design, promotion and advertising budget combined with time and resources to make a swift impact on social media.

But what if you don’t have a budget for these items at the moment, and what if you aren’t on first name terms with Stephen Fry? Start by asking yourself these 2 questions, then follow my top tips for building your Facebook followers for free!

1. How are people going to find my Facebook page?
2. Why will people want to ‘Like’ and engage with my Facebook page?

Website Integration:

• Include a Facebook stream on your homepage. Enable your website visitors to see that you’re on Facebook and that you’re posting great content that they’ll just have to follow!
• Go further than social media buttons. Most business’ websites have social media buttons on them these days, but how often do they actually cause you to divert from the real reason you visited the site and decide to follow the brand on Facebook? Hardly ever. So, ensure you have an effective call to action and make sure you promote your social profiles with more than just social buttons, for example, with an image banner on your homepage that visitors can’t ignore.
• As well as applying the above to key pages of your website, make sure you apply them to your blog too and any other key pages.

Email:

• In your mailing list you have a collection of people who know who you are and hopefully like what you do. Having bought something from you or signed up to your newsletter, there’s a reasonable chance that they might also want to follow you on Facebook too, so send out an invitation to announce to your opt-in subscribers that you’re taking to social media and that they should ‘Like’ your page for all the reasons you’ll list. Why not offer an incentive, such as exclusive content, a promotion or discounts. N.B. Be sure not to abuse this channel by repeatedly begging people to ‘Like’ you, although a sporadic reminder can be effective.
• Within regular emails/newsletters, include links to relevant content on social media.
• Within post-purchase confirmation/Thank You emails, make sure you provide an unavoidable message and reason to follow you on Facebook – that’s your big opportunity to capture customers whilst you’re top-of-mind and have their interest.
• Add social media profile links to your personal email signatures. Your friends and business connections may well be keen to ‘Like’ your brand if they have a vested interest in you or your company.

On Facebook:

• Create a custom welcome page to encourage visitors to ‘Like’ the page, using content such as a call to action and reasons to ‘Like’ your page.
• Offer exclusive content to your Facebook fans to encourage new ‘Likes’ and to maintain engagement with existing fans e.g. linking from you website and emails to videos or tools that can only be viewed by visiting and ‘Liking’ your Facebook page.
• Offer Quality content. As well as exclusive content, it is crucial to offer relevant, valuable and high quality content to your fans. This will encourage them to share your posts with their friends and connections, thus spreading the word of your brand and your Facebook presence. With Facebook users’ being confronted with more and more businesses vying for their attention, you’ll need a top notch offering for them to decide that you are worth a ‘Like’.
• Network and collaborate with other complimentary pages. Why not try finding similar or related Facebook profiles to develop a relationship with; share each other’s content or even put together a piece of content together that could be promoted via both your Facebook pages. This will highlight your presence to relevant Facebook users and they may be more likely to show interest in you based on the recommendation from a page they already ‘Like’.

Social Networks:

• Social media users often use multiple networks and may well want to follow your brand on several of them. Make it easy for them to know which networks you’re on and for them to find you by adding links from your social profiles to your other social profiles.
• Why not further this by including your Facebook URL in your Twitter background!
• You can also use your social media content to encourage users to visit your profiles on additional networks, for example, promoting your Facebook competitions/discounts on Twitter.

Offline/Other:

• Offline integration can be crucial to achieving a successful Facebook presence. Make your social media presence evident and provide a call to action on all appropriate print materials, and be creative – if you’re a retailer, why not do the same on your customers’ purchase receipts and at the bottom of your bags and on packaging?
• Keep up to date with latest social media updates and promotion opportunities. Good starting points are Social Media Today and Social Media Examiner.
• One of the biggest stumbling blocks for small and medium sized companies trying to establish a Facebook presence from scratch and with no budget is that they don’t 100% buy in to it. A company needs to understand and embrace social media from top to bottom to get the best out of it. Have a detailed social media strategy, a well-defined direction and your whole team behind you.

Ultimately, the most reliable, effective and efficient method of building a Facebook presence is through using Facebook advertising to publicise your page or a promotion you are running on it. This costs money, but so does your time, and either way you’ll certainly need to invest non-financial resources. However, if you want to take on Facebook without advertising and expenditure on design and promotions, follow the above tips and you’ll be well on your way!

Facebook Promotion Checklist / Key Takeaways:

Website Integration:

• Facebook feed
• Facebook buttons
• Call To Action
• Attention-grabbing imagery

Email Integration:

• Email signatures
• Invitation to join
• Refer and Link

Use Facebook Itself:

• Custom Welcome Page
• Quality Content
• Exclusive Content, Apps and Tools
• Networking and Relationship-Building

Use Other Social Networks:

• Refer and Link
• Use profile imagery

Use Offline Media:

• Printed Media and More
• Be Creative

Embrace Social Media Fully:

• Ensure 100% Company Buy-In
• Have a full strategy
• Have a clear direction

Visual content, and videos especially should form part of your content strategy now that we’re well into 2013. People digest content in many different ways and if you are not presenting content to them in a way they enjoy consuming they will simply move on without a further thought. This means you can lose out on links, shares, sales and future visits. This article looks to explain how to get the most out of your existing videos, or build a sound video content strategy from scratch…

Contents

• Video SEO Strategy
• Video Hosting Options
• Creating a Video Sitemap
• Video Sitemap Upload & Tips
• Optimising Video for YouTube (and Organic Search)
• Promoting Your Videos
• Video SEO F.A.Q
• Video Ideas & Inspiration
• More Video SEO Resources

Video SEO Strategy

Producing videos is costly and time-consuming and doing so with no forethought could lead to pointless footage that is un-findable by the intended audience and simply yields no end gains. On the flip side, many site owners who put love and care into producing videos don’t even realise the full potential of their videos! I have listed four possible strategies below:

1. Increasing brand awareness

With so many competing businesses operating online, doing something to stand out from the crowd and burn your brand into the consciousness of your customers is important. Videos can be a great medium for this aiding brand recall - providing the videos themselves are memorable. Videos that solicit humour, controversy, awe or shock value work particularly well and hosting these videos on YouTube or other popular video platforms will mean people will naturally find them, engage with them and share them. This viral effect can work wonders for getting your brand in the public consciousness.

2. Showcasing products/services to improve conversions

People often say a picture is worth a thousand words – if this is the case, videos are worth a million, seriously. Text and images often can’t explain a product as effectively as a video can. Videos can help bring the viewer as close to the product as possible without physically touching it and research suggests that conversions can dramatically increase when supplementary informational (and not overly promotional) videos are used. However, product or service-specific videos often need the context of the product website and supporting information to work effectively in getting a sale and as such won’t work well on public video sites, so consider self-hosting these videos rather than posting to YouTube.

3. Achieving a ‘rich snippet’ in the search engines

When a XML Video Sitemap is submitted it is possible to obtain small video thumbnails in Google’s search engine results. Where YouTube videos are embedded, the link will more-often-than-not point to YouTube itself meaning traffic is potentially lost. However, rich snippets of self-hosted videos will point to your site that command an excellent CTR, regardless of ranking, as the eye is drawn to the thumbnail over standard text snippets. Combining self-hosted videos and XML Video Sitemaps to obtain rich snippets is a great way to drive traffic to your conversion pages.

Pro Tip: Even poor quality videos can achieve a rich snippet (Google can’t read video content yet) – keep in mind that poor quality videos can be detrimental to conversion rate. [Tweet This]

4. Attracting links and shares

As with any stand-out, memorable and unique content, videos have the potential to attract links. Most video players will have embed functionality so that viewers can place the videos straight into their blogs and websites, which can be an excellent opportunity to ask owners for a link. In addition, players often have in-built functionality to share and promote on social media channels, while most social media platforms also make it extremely easy to post videos direct to feeds which can mean even more views of your content.

Getting eyeballs on your content is key to success and fortunately video is a very versatile medium that attracts attention almost by default. Think about what you are hoping to achieve with your videos before committing to the clapper board.

Video Hosting Options

There are two main ways to present your videos and both have their merits depending on what you are looking to achieve; You can self-host your videos on your own website with custom players integrated into your key pages or you can use public hosting channels such as YouTube and Vimeo.

Self-hosting is great for videos that have limited appeal – i.e. those that will be enjoyed by your website visitors but largely ignored by the general public. These may be videos that promote a specific product or service you sell for instance, or solve FAQs on a niche topic. They are not videos that will have mass appeal outside your customers, evangelists and fans and therefore will not likely attract many views and ‘thumbs up’ on YouTube. However, showcasing your products, service or knowledge with videos CAN greatly increase conversion and appreciation of your brand. Additionally, with Video Sitemaps (more later) you can achieve a ‘rich snippet’ in the search engines which can increase SERP CTR to your website in the first place, meaning more potential customers.

Video hosting sites such as YouTube, Vimeo, MetaCafe, DailyMotion and other niche/industry video sites allow you to reach a much wider (previously unobtainable) audience and increase brand awareness and referral traffic to your site. Public hosting is great for quirky/humorous/attention-grabbing videos (did someone say Old Spice?) where the ultimate aim is to get your video content in front of as many eyeballs as possible. People often forget that YouTube is the 2nd largest search engine in existence with many hours of footage being watched daily, and natural reach is aided by ‘suggestions’ and links to similar videos. Additionally, blended search means that popular videos can even be found directly in Google.

However it is important to remember that Ads are served with YouTube videos which can interrupt your message and any links that your video attracts will often point to the hosting site and not your own website.

Pro Tip: Got a long video? Consider creating a chapter list – a list of links which each point to a different start time within the video. [Tweet This]

Creating a Video Sitemap

Video Sitemaps help Google index information about your video that it otherwise wouldn’t be able to obtain, and is crucial to achieving a rich snippet. You can add information such as duration, a keyword-rich description, title, a custom thumbnail image and more. Here is how to manually create a Video XML Sitemap in a .txt file.

Video Sitemap Upload & Tips

1. Create Sitemap (as above) and populate red areas with appropriate data
2. Save as .xml and upload to server (Save the file in your root directory or wherever your index file resides)
3. Check URL (e.g. go to www.mysite.com/video-sitemap.xml)
4. Upload to Webmaster Tools (Webmaster Tools > Optimisation > Sitemaps > Add/Test Sitemap)

• If you have more than one video on a page there is no need to duplicate the <url><loc></loc></url> sections. Simply repeat the inner tags for the next video
• Image thumbnail should be 160x120px upwards
• Save file as a .xml (with an appropriate file name such as “video-sitemap.xml”)
• Avoid special characters such as ‘&’ as your file won’t be properly parsed when uploaded
• It doesn’t matter whether you combine your video sitemap with your standard XML sitemap – whatever works best for you
• Make sure you get the right video URL from YouTube – the URL should not contain the words [embedded] [share] or [list]

Optimising Video for YouTube (and Organic Search)

Like any optimised content, conduct research to identify the best keywords to make sure your video is found. Beware, the language and queries people use to find videos may differ from content in other formats so be sure to check out the YouTube Keyword Tool.

1. File Name – Before upload, make sure the video has an appropriate file name and not simply “video1.mp4”.
2. Title – The title is extremely important and must intrigue the viewer. Along with the thumbnail, this is the most prominent element that shows in YouTube in listings, related videos, playlists etc. Like a website page title, include keywords towards the beginning and limit to < 60 characters.
3. Description –  The amount of visible text description varies from Google search results, YouTube search results, mobile search results etc. Use as much of the 5000 character limit as you like, but bear in mind often c120 characters will be shown. Include link in first line if objective is to draw traffic to your site.
4. Tags – Use 5-10 appropriate keywords to describe your video.
5. Geo-tagging – Great if your video/website has a location-based audience. In Advanced Settings add lattitude and longitude co-ordinates by configuring the interactive map.
6. Closed captions/Transcription – Uploading a .txt file containing a transcript of the content including timings is great way to give crawlers something to index: How to make a transcript
7. Thumbnail Image – When uploading a video to YouTube you get given the option of choosing one of only 3 generated thumbnails. With self hosted videos you have much more control; YOU upload a chosen thumbnail image to your server and tell Google via a Video Sitemap.
8. Category – Chose your video category wisely as it can appear in related playlists.
9. Popularity – Views and comments are powerful ranking metrics so promote as much as possible on external sites.

This Whiteboard Friday video from SEOmoz contains some great tips on YouTube Optimisation:

Pro Tip: People often include the word [video] in their search query. Make sure to include this in tags, description, meta data and title where appropriate. [Tweet This]

Pro Tip: Encourage users to rate/comment on the video by incorporating an annotation towards the end of your video [Tweet This]

Promoting Your Videos

Spending time, money and effort to produce your videos is a waste if no-one will see them. Ensure you promote the hell out of them to ensure as wide an audience as possible;

• Email/Newsletters – When a new video goes live, send an intriguing email shot or newsletter that contains the embedded video or a link to the video page depending on your strategy goals.
• Social Media – Utilise as many platforms as possible to get your video in front of fans
• Affiliate Sites – Videos can help affiliate sites sell more for your products for you while also notching up views – win, win.
• Bloggers/Journalists – Reach out to influential bloggers, and those that have written posts based around the topic of your video and ask them to embed it. Be sure to argue why this visual content can make their blog more engaging.
• Supplement Existing Content – Is your video related to your existing content? Inject your site with this appealing content.
• Organic Search – Make sure you optimise all available elements (explained above) of your videos so they are as visible as possible in the search engines
• Pinterest – This fast growing social media site has a dedicated video section – use it!
• Multiple Platforms – If your strategy is findability, upload your video to MetaCafe, Vimeo, DailyMotion and any other public/niche video sites you can find. Else concentrate on building views, comments etc on one platform only.
• In-showroom – ‘Virtual Salesman’ style videos work great in offline situations such as in showrooms and shop floors. Consider where else you could benefit from playing your videos.

Pro Tip: Playlists tend to rank well in YouTube’s results. Consider creating a playlist including popular, hyper-relevant videos including your own video for extra views and exposure. [Tweet This]

Video SEO F.A.Q

Q. What formats does YouTube support?

A. .MOV, .MPEG4, .AVI, .WMV, .MPEGPS, .FLV, 3GPP and WebM

Q. Can you upload the same video to YouTube, Vimeo etc without duplication issues?
A. Right now, the search engines cannot understand video content so duplication is not the issue. However, if # of links, views, shares, embeds, ‘thumbs up’ etc on YouTube is your goal, this could be cannibalised by the various other platforms.

Q. Should I self-host my videos and post on YouTube?
A. No, as YouTube will likely outrank your self hosted videos. Also as mentioned above this will result in cannibalisation of links & shares etc. More importantly your website and YouTube have different audiences (e.g. product videos will make little sense outside the context of a website) and unpopular product/specific videos can potentially hinder the success/visibility of the rest of your YouTube channel.

Q. Which is better; Self hosting or YouTube?
A. It depends on what you are hoping to achieve. Use YouTube for maximum viewership, self host for direct traffic to your website.

Q. How long should my video be?
A. Ultimately it depends on the subject and goal of the video. However, research suggests that digestable bites work best, so consider breaking up your video in part 1, part 2 etc. The other great thing with online video is your audience will effectively TELL you how long videos should be. Check Analytics for drop off points and engagement stats and create future videos accordingly.

Video Ideas & Inspiration

So by now you may be convinced about the power of video content but don’t know how you could utilise videos on your own site. Consider these video ideas for content…

1. Video Infographics & Typography – Make data and stats come alive with infographic-style animations that come to life. You can even re-purpose any of your popular infographics as videos.
2. Encourage your happy customers to send in review or testimonial videos that can be used on your product/landing pages. Not only is this excellent social proof, but other potential customers get to see a product in action (eg GoPro). Consider incentivising this with a contest.

3. Showcase boring & plain products in fun ways. A little imagination (like the guys at willitblend.com) can go a long way!

4. Video resources – Boring text-based documents such as manuals, articles, case studies, FAQs etc can be brought to life and re-purposed as videos

Final thoughts:

• Surround videos with relevant, readable on-page content to stand the best chance of ranking for relevant searches
• Consider include words such as [video] [demo] [review] [test] etc for added ‘findability’ in blended results
• Worried about the cost/learning curve of producing videos? Advertise for a video production intern at your local college/university. They will be thankful for the real-world experience (and you may even get a link from the college/university!) [Tweet This]

Resources & Further Reading – The best of the web!

• SEOmoz – Hosting & Embedding Video for SEO
• Distilled – Getting Video Results in Google
• HubSpot – SEO for YouTube
• Invodo – Cool Video Statistics
• KissMetrics – Product Videos for Conversion

You can now simply import your existing Google Adwords campaigns into Bing Ads without the need to export CSV files from Google AdWords Editor and upload them into Bing Ads – which often requires subsequent amendments due to compatibility issues. The same process is also possible via Bing Ads’ Desktop Editor, and it is no longer in beta and is now much more reliable. (If you haven’t downloaded the desktop editor, you can do so here.)

Bing Ads Web Editor

Bing Ads Desktop Editor

Having clicked on one of the buttons marked above, all you need to do is enter your AdWords credentials and follow the steps you’re guided through, and all your selected campaigns will be imported. If there are any compatibility issues you’ll have the opportunity to fix them, but in our experience to date, it’s been a lot smoother on this front than uploading a CSV.

Bing Ads recommends that if you optimise your campaign in AdWords you should remember to keep re-importing the campaign to ensure the updates are in place on both platforms. However, Google users’ behaviour can often differ notably from that of Bing and Yahoo! users, for example as Yahoo! has a slightly older user base. Different ad texts and calls to actions may have differing levels of success and different search query variations may also be being used on the different search engines. Therefore, it is recommended that you optimise your Bing and Yahoo! campaigns separately to your Google campaigns, and your actions should not necessarily be replicated across both.

So, especially if your business is already seeing strong levels of traffic and conversions from organic Bing and Yahoo! search, there’s no excuse not to capture more of this audience through PPC advertising.

If you found this blog useful, please let us know with a Like, Tweet or share!

After much discussion in the office, we foresee some major shockwaves flowing through digital in 2013. Some of the anticipated changes and shifts barely even warrant comment – for example, there’s nothing new in the prediction that mobile will continue to grow as a platform of choice. But some of our other thoughts might be a little more surprising.

Reload Digital’s Cara, Rick and Paul put their necks on the block with their predictions for 2013…

Do you agree/disagree with our predictions? Do you have something to add? What are your predictions? Discuss on our Facebook page, we love a good debate!

The event consisted of panel discussions, a live on-air ‘Google Hangout’ broadcast online and presentations by expert speakers from Google’s Engage team from around UK. Through these talks the event covered the topics of mobile, Google Analytics, Video Marketing, tactics for success and new innovations and changes in Adwords for 2013.

The main panel discussion of the day featured Reload Digital’s Paul Jackson, invited by Google to offer expert opinions on the theme of ‘7 Habits of a Successful Agency’. Hosted by Google’s Raja Saggi and with Chris Breikss of Canadian Agency ‘6S Marketing’ also on the panel, the insightful discussion covered the importance of client objectives, focussing on metrics/ROI, adding value, building trust and having fun! As was the case throughout the event, social networks lit up with audience members sharing insights and takeaways from the discussion, particularly enjoying Reload Digital’s international Xbox tournaments and recommendations for continuous improvement in order to achieve the best results possible for clients.

Mobile was another core element of the event, with Google highlighting the need for businesses, whether local or multinational, to be targeting mobile users as smartphone and tablet usage becomes increasingly prolific. Building mobile specific or responsive websites and advertising on Google for mobile are sure to be even more important in 2013, and this is an area that Reload Digital is already making waves in. 2013 also promises much progress and change in Google’s Adwords and Analytics platforms and in the way that online marketing performs and is implemented and measured. Reload Digital will keep you informed and present you with the opportunities you can make use of to drive your ROI.

Yes – we know it’s not terribly British to brag. But when Google asks you to be on a panel sharing your ‘7 Habits of a Successful Agency’ to a room of 200 people, it would be crazy not to shout about it.

Reload Digital chosen from 8,000 agencies

Reload Digital was picked from 8,000 agencies in the UK to talk about the best practices of a great agency – and Paul Jackson, our resident PPC guru, set the social networks alight with his tips and tricks on maximising ROI and meeting client objectives, not to mention having some fun along the way!

Speaking with Google

It’s not the first time we’ve featured in Google’s events either. Back in November, Paul also took part in a Google-organised Hangout with marketing superstar Seth Godin. Our Australian team have been in on the act too, with Paul Goldston, Reload’s Head of ROI, touring Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Auckland to impart his encyclopaedic knowledge of leveraging Google+ for businesses. (Clearly if you are called Paul and work at Reload, Google want you on their panel!)

Check out Paul Jackson’s summary of Google’s event in our next blog. And note his modesty.

Sorry Paul – this is one we want to shout about!

The following 12 ideas should inspire you to kick your online marketing into overdrive and put Santa out of business!

After all…

• 52% of consumers will do their Christmas shopping online this year (National Retail Federation)
• $92-96 billion is likely to be spent worldwide (Shop.org)
• 74% of shoppers search online to get ideas (Catalog Spree)
• 80% of online shoppers say email offers influence them to buy (YesMail Interactive)
• 44% of shoppers have bought a product they’ve seen shared on social media (Steelhouse & Instant.ly)
• 85% of those above found the item on Facebook
• 93% say they’ve purchased a product from a blogger recommendation (Clever Girls Collective)

If you find this article interesting and useful please consider “tipping” the author by Liking, Tweeting or +1′ing at the top! Muchos Gracias

I have ‘borrowed’ the infographic to the right from Scurri. Check it out. It includes:

On the first day of Christmas…Extended Returns Period

Inevitably, many people at Christmas have difficulty buying for their spouse, friend, family member, colleague etc. and risk buying the wrong gift. By announcing an extended returns policy, buyers can purchase now in the knowledge that if the recipient dislikes the present they can return it after Christmas.

From a business point of view, this “safety net” for customers could encourage more people to buy from you compared to other retailers that don’t offer this reassurance.

On the second day of Christmas…Make It Simple to Send Items to Recipient’s Address

Much of what is bought over the Christmas period will be gifts for others. It therefore makes sense to make it easy for customers to ship orders directly to the recipient’s address. It is worthwhile advertising this key selling point prior to the checkout process. Alternatively, buyers may want to be able to ship to a work address rather than home, so that a gift can be kept secret from a spouse.

On the third day of Christmas…Last Order Date for Guaranteed Christmas Delivery

With many shoppers guilty of leaving the arduous task of Christmas shopping until the last minute, it is important to have a clear message about the last order date that customers can buy for guaranteed Christmas delivery. This should be displayed prominently throughout the site, especially on the homepage and throughout the checkout pages. Consider embedding a countdown clock to incite urgency.

On the forth day of Christmas…Clear Terms of Service (TOS) and Delivery Rules over the Christmas period

If any of your service guarantees, policies or delivery information will be temporarily modified for the festive period, this must clearly be stated in the obvious places such as your TOS & delivery information pages. Highlight how these changes affect customers and how it differs from normal service. Highlight key information on prominent web pages with links to the full information.

On the fifth day of Christmas…Highlighting ‘Ideal’ Gifts

If there is a particular product, line or category that would make perfect gifts for Christmas it would be highly beneficial to highlight these on prominent pages such as the homepage or top-level categories as these are often the most ‘landed on’ or popular pages. Consider using attractive images, eye-grabbing headlines and call-to-actions to entice the visitor, as well as reasoning as to WHY they make the perfect Christmas gift for a loved one.

On the sixth day of Christmas…Dedicated Christmas Gift Section

If you plan to dedicate a page or section specifically for festive gift inspiration please consider the following:

• Clear navigation through internal links, banners and page headings.
• Typically “affordable” items and impulse buys work best
• Time-limited offers
• Christmas colour schemes, images and background themes

On the seventh day of Christmas…Up-selling for January

January and February are typically the slowest sales months on the internet as everyone recovers from the festive period. To boost sales, consider offering discount vouchers with all December orders that can only be redeemed in January. This gives the consumer added value in the initial purchase and can result in follow-up purchases a month later. Additionally if buying on behalf of someone else, they may hear great feedback from the recipient that encourages them to splash out on themselves.

On the eighth day of Christmas…Additional Christmas Services

How can you beat your competitors this December? Consider offering an optional gift wrapping service, perhaps with the ability to include a personal message on a Christmas card included with orders. These gestures are relatively cheap (albeit slightly time-consuming) but can mean the difference between making the sale or the customer buying elsewhere.

If you hold any inexpensive stock that you are looking to offload you may also consider including a free “mystery gift” with orders over a certain spend threshold.

On the ninth day of Christmas…Remind Previous Customers You Exist

At a time when shoppers are looking for gift inspiration, you should be reminding them you exist. Use your customer database, social media channels and other outlets to send out messages of your festive deals, added-value services (like those mentioned above) and gift inspiration. Consider designing and distributing an attractive email shot to happy previous customers and newsletter subscribers.

On the tenth day of Christmas…Re-marketing & Data Capture

Implemented through the Google Adwords platform, re-marketing is a highly effective marketing strategy for the Christmas period. Re-marketing works by placing a cookie on a user’s browser when they visit certain pages of your website. Subsequently, if they did not purchase from your website, you can target image and text ads to these visitors when they are on other websites to remind them of your brand and encourage them to return and make a purchase.

The ads could mention an extra discount if they return or a promo code for example. Re-marketing campaigns generally convert very highly and can be used to target visitors before Xmas, or the visitors can be added to a ‘re-marketing list’ to be targeted at a later date e.g. in January if a sale was taking place.

On the eleventh day of Christmas…Gift Vouchers

Gift vouchers are the “go-to” present when people can’t make up their mind. If you don’t already, you may want to consider selling gift vouchers that can be redeemed against any purchase. You can invest in producing physical gift certificates that the gifter can literally give the recipient or simply contain the redemption code in an attractive email that is automatically sent to the recipient on the 25th December (or directly after purchase) with a personal message from the buyer. This will ultimately ensure that a sale is made through your website despite the lack of originality on the buyers part!

On the twelth day of Christmas…Advent Calendar of Offers

Consider offering one spectacular one-day-only deal for each day of December (or the 12 days of Christmas) available on the website. These can be advertised on a daily basis through social media channels, newsletters, site banners, PPC etc to keep keen shoppers coming back to find out what the new daily deal is. Once on your site, make sure they are encouraged to look around with further enticing offers.

You could also tie this in with a competition whereby a secret clue is posted daily and by collecting the clues and solving the puzzle throughout the promotion they can win prizes.

If you found this article interesting and useful please consider “tipping” the author by Liking, Tweeting or +1′ing at the top! Muchos Gracias

For more tips and insights like this, Like my Facebook Page, Life of an SEO.

You may also enjoy: 4 Schweeet E-Commerce Marketing Tips!

]]> http://www.reloaddigital.co.uk/search-insights/online-strategy/12-days-of-christmas-e-commerce-strategies/feed/ 0 http://www.reloaddigital.co.uk/search-insights/seo/link-building-seo/guest-blogging-vs-guest-contributions/ http://www.reloaddigital.co.uk/search-insights/seo/link-building-seo/guest-blogging-vs-guest-contributions/#comments Mon, 26 Nov 2012 12:37:45 +0000 Rick Eliason http://www.reloaddigital.co.uk/search-insights/?p=463 Continue reading →]]>

If you find this article interesting and useful please consider “tipping” the author by Liking, Tweeting or +1′ing! Muchos Gracias

The fall of article spinning and content submission to sites such as ezinearticles.com and submityourarticle.com as a link building tactic lead to the rise in guest blogging (or guest posting) – the act of reaching out to bloggers with content to host on their blog which is still seen as a legitimate way to build links throughout the SEO community. However, with prominence of guest blogging growing and the same spammy mindsets lingering from article submissions of old, alarm bells are ringing with Google.

Check out these two videos by Matt Cutts:

Google’s view on guest blogging	The dangers of spammy guest blogging

What I want to talk about today is an idea that not only helps you avoid falling into the murky grey waters of questionable guest blogging but one that can help improve the web as a whole – thus mirroring Google’s ultimate aspirations. This idea is guest contributions.

Unlike guest blogging, where an article in its entirety is submitted in the hope that the target blogger will upload it to their stream as a brand new page, guest contributing involves building upon existing content and making it better, ensuring its longevity and popularity whilst still obtaining that all-important link.

Guest blogging often suffers from two problems. Either posts don’t have the chance to obtain a thorough readership, as it soon gets buried under newer content and therefore not accruing the direct links, shares and page authority it deserves OR they simply don’t have the quality or originality to attract these rewards. So if you have links on a guest post that suffers either of these outcomes, Google isn’t going to value your links very highly.

So what about contributing something that adds value to an already-great piece of content with an established page authority and readership? For example, Rhea Drysdale at Outspoken Media and Alex Czartoryski at Fresh Air Educators contributed a filtering functionality for Jon Cooper’s amazing “Link Building Strategies” compendium which Jon has duly credited them with a link. To date this resource has a page authority of 60, links from 232 separate domains, 535 Facebook Likes, 1366 Tweets and 642 +1’s – all of this amounts to a helluva juicy link for Rhea and Alex!

The web is saturated with crap content with thousands of extra pages being churned out daily, often rehashes of what already exists. The vast majority of this content will fall by the wayside, lucky to get a couple of views a week. The top content that actually enriches the web-user’s experience is where we should be investing time producing, or adding value to…why not make good content great?

Contributing to existing content rather than starting from scratch means more time refining and less time on padding out, researching, editing, uploading etc that really takes a bite out of your day. Like guest blogging, this is a win-win situation but on turbo-charge. Contributors can reap the rewards of the authority a content piece has accrued which can potentially grow as a result of the contribution. Needless to say, the content owner gets a hall-of-fame worthy boost with no added work on their part.

The visual content revolution is here. With much of the content produced today being text based there are plenty of opportunities to contribute in the form of images, graphics and video. Perhaps your target blogger is a dab-hand at prose but lacks artistic or video production skills. The argument for including visually appealing and engaging content is strong and could be the perfect way in. Nail this and it could also be the start of an amazing on-going relationship.

Finally I will leave you with this – My three top tips when it comes to guest blogging/contributing:

Three

Flattery gets you everywhere. Can you cite the webmaster’s own existing blogs and content within your article? By linking or mentioning content they have produced, you are not only showing that you have researched, read and enjoyed their own content but you are nominating them as a credible source and appealing to their ego.

Two

What can you offer to sweeten the deal? With more and more webmasters realising their blog’s monetary potential, many will be reluctant to accept content for free. Often overlooking the fact that awesome content in itself will help them attract more traffic and better search engine visibility in the long run and therefore should be graciously received, they know that a link to your website is worth a lot to you and dollar signs will appear in their eyes. Consider presenting them with alternative favours to close the deal such as:

• Promoting their blog on your social media channels
• The opportunity to guest post on your own blog
•  Offer to write a second article on a topic of their choice, sans links
• Use your imagination and strengths to think of other mutually-beneficial bargaining chips

…And my number one tip if considering contributing to another person’s blog or website is to consider your own site’s reputation:

• How does the quality of content you are producing reflect your business? Would you be proud of it if a potential customer were to read it?
• When selecting potential blogs/sites to guest post on, how do these mirror your message and relate to your target market? Would you want to be associated with blogs/websites willing to accept crap content?
• Lastly, make sure that YOUR website is worth linking to. Your success rate in getting bloggers to accept submissions involving back-links will increase if links are pointing back to a reputable business and lovable content.

Looking for opportunities? Search Google: “guest post guidelines” + keyword(s).
Good luck.

 

If you found this article interesting and useful please consider “tipping” the author by Liking, Tweeting or +1′ing at the top! Muchos Gracias

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