Website Magazine February 2014

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5 Tips to Grow a Local Following (Organically),

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FEBRUARY 2014

EVERYDAY DIGITAL

OPTIMIZATION Inside This Issue...

>> Your Content Marketing Blueprint

>> The Science of Email Subject Lines

>> “Brainy” Tips to Improve Online Forms

PLUS:

al 50 Top Digit

S D N A R B D A o Know t

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Cover Story

Everyday Digital

OPTIMIZATION

Digital optimization can open up a world of possibilities for the average online enterprise, but many website owners delay improvements citing lack of resources, from money and support to tools and time. There are, however, entirely too many virtual elements waiting to be made better, and too many offerings available to help, to wait until tomorrow.

Explore the Website Magazine

Departments

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Domains of Interest

The Modern Affiliate

Check out Website Magazine's picks for the hottest gTLDs in 2014.

32

The Key to Native Advertising

Learn how to successfully capitalize on one of the hottest ad strategies of the year.

Email Data Science

Receive some “brainy” tips on making Web forms effortless to complete.

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Enterprise Ready: Men vs. Women on Mobile

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Small Business Lab: Content Marketing Blueprint

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50 Top: Digital Ad Brands to Know

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Mastering Search: Structured Data 101

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E-Commerce Express: Retail Product Feed Standouts

& Development Digest: 20 Design ‘Net Redesign in Focus

40 Commentary: Contagiously Optimistic

Improve the performance of your email campaigns with a little subject line science.

Organic Fan Growth

Improve Online Forms

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Know more about the performance marketers promoting your products today.

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Discover what your brand can do to naturally grow a local-social following.

Get the Digital Scoop Check out Website Magazine’s email newsletters covering e-commerce, search, SoLoMo, design and more at wsm.co/webscoop.

F R O M T H E E D I TO R

With Peter Prestipino

Commit to Everyday Optimization in 2014 If you are like most Internet professionals, creating new digital products or services, designing wildly impressive virtual experiences and interacting with modern Web users in the myriad channels available is what excites, motivates and compels you to move forward.

Visit Website Magazine at these upcoming Internet tradeshows:

eTail West March 3-6 San Antonio, TX SMX March 11-13 San Jose, CA Conversion Conference March 17-19 San Francisco, CA PubCon March 18-20 New Orleans, LA LeadsCon March 25-26 Las Vegas, NV AdTech West March 26-27 San Francisco, CA

When it comes to smaller — perhaps less immediately noticeable — incremental improvements, however, you are probably more than willing to leave those modifications to someone else. Making the commitment to optimize a website and its broader digital presence every day though is what makes the ’Net such a powerful force.

A popular trend over the past few years has been that of life hacking, which refers to the tricks, shortcuts, skills and methods that can be used to increase or optimize efficiency on a personal level. Website Magazine Editor Amberly Dressler provides relatable stories from 'Net professionals like you who are doing the same, but for their websites. In our February 2014 issue, readers will discover how to find their own “inner optimizer,” and how to master the optimization opportunities in front of them and every Internet professional.

This edition of Website Magazine includes additional guidance from top minds in the ’Net community, including Charles Nicholls of SeeWhy who explains the gender differences in the mobile shopping experience, while Tim Ash shares some “brainy” tips on making Web forms effortless to complete.

Website Magazine’s newest issue also includes tools for getting started with structured data in search marketing initiatives, tips on effectively using product feeds and advice on redesigning your website. Website Magazine readers will even find some rather interesting predictions about the new generic top-level domains and fresh takes on affiliate marketers, native advertising and email subject lines.

Enjoy this issue of Website Magazine and make sure to visit us at WebsiteMagazine.com for our daily coverage of all the news that matters to your Web success.

Best Web Wishes,

Peter Prestipino — Editor-in-Chief, Website Magazine Peter@WebsiteMagazine.com

Access the February 2014 issue online at wsm.co/wmfeb14 or by scanning the QR code below.

NOTED & QUOTED Discover the companies detailed in this issue of Website Magazine, and the executives who provided their insights, by visiting our online Success Corner at wsm.co/nqfeb14.

The Magazine for Website Success Reaching the largest audience of Web professionals of any Internet industry publication 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018 Toll Free: 1.800.817.1518 International: 1-773-628-2779 Fax: 1-773-272-0920

PUBLISHER: Susan Whitehurst susan@websitemagazine.com EDITOR-IN-CHIEF: Peter Prestipino peter@websitemagazine.com GENERAL MANAGER: David Ruiz druiz@websitemagazine.com MANAGING EDITOR: Amberly Dressler adressler@websitemagazine.com ASSOCIATE EDITOR: Allison Howen ahowen@websitemagazine.com *CONTRIBUTORS: Tim Ash Charles Nicholls ART DIRECTOR: Janet Crouch www.grafikadesign.net GRAPHIC DESIGNERS: Jesse Erbach jesse@websitemagazine.com Shannon Rickson shannon@websitemagazine.com ADVERTISING: Kelly Springer kspringer@websitemagazine.com Brian Wallace brian@websitemagazine.com Bill Scothorn bscothorn@websitemagazine Barry Cohen bcohen@websitemagazine.com SUBSCRIPTIONS: Sandra Woods sandra@websitemagazine.com

Website Magazine, Volume 9, Issue 5, February 2014, (ISSN# 1942-0633) is published 4 times per year in February, May, August and November with 8 special issues (January, March, April, June, July, September, October and December) by Website Services, Inc., 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018. Periodicals Postage Paid at Des Plaines, IL and at additional mailing offices.

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Website Magazine, 999 E. Touhy Ave., Des Plaines, IL 60018.

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*The opinions expressed by contributors are not necessarily those of Website Magazine.

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PLAs

DOMINATE 2013 Google’s Product Listing Ads (PLAs) significantly outperformed its own text-based search advertising formats in 2013 according to a new study from digital marketing firm IgnitionOne. In fact, the click-through rate (CTR) for Google PLAs was 47 percent higher than the click-through rate of traditional pay-per-click ads: the CTR for PLAs during the year averaged 2.8 percent compared to 1.9 percent for the PPC ad units. Advertisers in the U.S., in particular, got their money’s worth in Q4, with impressions for the ad product growing 380 percent, clicks improving by 312 percent and spend increasing by 618 percent compared to the same period in 2012.

Consumers turned to Amazon not only to buy products, like clothing and electronics this holiday season, but also to purchase Amazon Prime memberships. Amazon reports that its annual membership program received more than 1 million new customers from around the world in the third week of Dec. 2013. Interestingly, Amazon reports that through its Prime platform, the company shipped enough items during the holiday season to deliver at least one gift to every household in America.

$1 Billion December Apple’s App Store had an exceptional year, with the technology company announcing its customers

Twitter Broadens the Reach of Keywords Twitter is helping advertisers better reach their ideal audiences on the social network through a new targeting

spent more than $10 billion on mobile applications in 2013. In fact, Dec. 2013 alone saw almost 3 billion app downloads with customers spending more than $1 billion —

feature called “broad match for keywords.” The feature allows advertisers to target

making it the most successful month in

consumers based not only on keywords, but also on terms closely related to those

App Store history. These numbers are

keywords. For example, a coffee shop that uses the broad match keywords “love cof-

seen as a positive sign, despite a recent Gartner report predicting by 2018, less

fee” can use the feature to connect with users who are tweeting or engaging with

than 0.01 percent of consumer-facing mo-

tweets containing related keywords, such as “luv coffee” or “love latte.” The feature is

bile applications will be considered a fi-

currently available through the social network’s ad platform and advertiser API.

nancial success by their developers.

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m o b i l e a p p wa tc h Toggl Timer

Facebook decided to give back during the 2013 holiday season, introducing a new feature that allows nonprofits to collect donations on the social

Start 2014 with a focus on better time management by downloading the Toggl Timer app. Users, who must sign up for a Toggle account before use, will be able to track time spent on tasks with one click. All tracked data in the mobile app is available on the Web, where users can also view reports and export timesheets.

network. The “Donate” button appears next to posts in the news feed that are shared by participating nonprofits, as well as atop their Pages. When people click

Google Places for Business

“Donate Now,” they have the ability to choose an amount, enter their payment in-

Google launched a new “Places for Business” app back in Oct. 2013 for Android devices, which enables business owners to keep their listings up-to-date while on the go.

Users can update information including hours of operation, contact numbers, as well as photos and descriptions. Plus, the app allows users to respond to comments, and +1 posts, as well as view critical business insights like how customers find and interact with their businesses.

formation and the donation is complete. The posts with the donate call-to-action can also be shared, which can increase visibility and contributions for nonprofit organizations.

Shopify

It is now easier than ever to add Flickr photos to websites, as the Yahooowned service recently introduced new embed functionality. Through the feature, publicly shared photos and videos can be embedded on external sites and automatically displayed with full titles and the author’s Flickr name. Flickr keeps track of views on embedded photos and videos so that authors can monitor the popularity of their content. The new feature is also contextual and interactive, which means that if an embedded photo is part of a set, photostream or group, people will be able to browse through the entire collection.

To kick off 2014, Shopify overhauled its mobile app to include new features to help merchants increase sales. The most exciting part of the update is that merchants can now accept cash and credit card payments from within the app, a feature particularly helpful for merchants who change venues frequently, like those selling at farmers’ markets, trade shows or pop-up stores. The app also offers a few other interesting store management features, including the ability to send shipping notifications as well as manage inventory remotely.

Quip

More News of Note: Show Me the Images!

Gmail is displaying images automatically, but is this a good thing for marketers? Find out at wsm.co/gmailimages Instagram is Getting Direct with its Users.

See more at wsm.co/directinstagram The Top Domain Sale of 2013 was NOT a .Com Address.

Is this a good sign for the new gTLDs? Read more at wsm.co/2013domainsales

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Work on projects from your smartphone or tablet with the Quip app for iOS. The app combines documents and messaging into a single chat-like thread of updates, enabling users to share folders with colleagues or clients. The app can be used to edit offline, create checklists, see who is online and link to people with @mentions. Moreover, users receive notifications when a document is opened and can get read receipts, so they can see when edits have been viewed by recipients.

S TAT

W AT C H

The Search Experience Search engine marketing (paid and organic) has been a mainstay of the digital promotion toolbox for years, but the practice is changing. It's not just about optimizing a website for the results pages but also committing to the user experience. With comScore reporting smartphones have a 62 percent mobile market penetration, it's time brands starting developing smartphone-optimized sites. Luckily, the search engines have provided suggestions.

Specifically, Google suggests using responsive Web design (RWD) rather than a separate mobile URL, because it saves resources for both a company's website as well as Google's crawlers. Similarly, having a single URL (as opposed to separate mobile URLs) makes it easier for users to interact with, share and link to content.

It may come as a surprise, however, that of the 100 largest multichannel retailers in the U.S., only one site used RWD, according to The Search Agency's “2013 Mobile Experience Scorecard.” As for which site that actually did, The Search Agency indicated it was a retailer for kids. Based on Website Magazine research, Carter's was the only merchant that fit the bill, while others like Toys “R” Us, Gymboree and The Children's Place did not implement responsive Web design.

Of the remaining companies in the report, 91 used dedicated mobile sites (like CVS, Walmart and Nordstrom) instead of RWD, while the remaining eight did not provide a separate mobile experience from the desktop versions of their sites.

Find more useful data and valuable insights at WebsiteMagazine.com.

50%

Half of companies with self-defined “inferior” SEO strategies are not integrating social media with SEO strategy and tactics according to a July 2013 survey from Ascend2.

33%

A website with the first position in Google search results average roughly 33 percent of the traffic share as opposed to 18 percent for the second position. Similarly, 92 percent of Google traffic comes from the first-page results. (Source: Chitika, June 2013.)

34%

Through Cyber Monday 2013, brands set record highs for increases in retail paid search, including year-over-year spikes in clicks (26.9 percent), impressions (12.5 percent) and spend (34 percent), according to 2013 holiday data from Kenshoo.

$7,000

SEMPO’s 2013 salary survey showed the average salary for search marketers dropped nearly $7,000, from $75,543 to $68,600.

13%

Covario issued its “Global Paid Search Spend Analysis” for Q4 2013, reporting that spending on pay-per-click (PPC) advertising by its global technology, consumer electronics and retail clients rose 13 percent from Q3 and 7 percent year-over-year.

F E B R U A RY 2014

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ENTERPRISE

Men Buy, Women Shop on Mobile Devices Ever since childhood, we’ve known that there are big differences between the sexes.

They show up not only in play but also in shopping behavior.

The latter is especially true when it comes to mobile.

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By Charles Nicholls

To understand desktop and mobile shopping behaviors better, website managers and online marketers must learn to cater to their target gender, optimizing the digital experience for how they interact with brands. Below are a few key takeaways from our own internal research, which address important questions every enterprise must answer.

What Motivates Men and Women on Mobile Devices?

When it comes to shopping online, gender affects the way we purchase. Women still outpace men, with 57 percent of respondents indicating they made an online purchase in the last year, compared to 52 percent of men.

However, men slightly outpaced women when it came to purchasing on mobile devices.

Results showed that 22.2 percent of men made purchases on their smartphones versus 18.2 percent of female respondents. When using tablets, 20.4 percent of men had made a purchase this year, compared to 16.9 percent of women.

While men are making more purchases via mobile devices, they are less tolerant of negative experiences in the mobile shopping process. Slow Internet connections, small screens and navigation issues cause men to give up far faster. By

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contrast, women are more patient and willing to persevere. Women are much more likely to abandon a potential purchase on a tablet, however, due to indecision rather than frustration with the device, speed or navigation. Women indicated they weren't ready to buy two times more than male respondents, with 62.5 percent of females, versus 24.7 percent of males, revealing a desire to browse more before buying via their tablets. We can consider this classic shopping behavior, where the shopping process is considered by many women to be recreational, “retail therapy.�

In addition, the study indicated that women respond slightly more favorably than men do to marketing campaigns, like social media and email remarketing. And, while using a mobile device in a store, females looked for promotion codes and vouchers 43 percent more than male respondents.

This suggests a recreational, but savvy approach to shopping using mobile devices.

Converting Mobile Shoppers into Mobile Buyers With these gender-specific insights, how do you adapt your website and marketing strategies to drive conversions for these distinct segments?

Here are a few recommendations:

■ Boost buyer confidence for female shoppers.

Women are two times more cautious to buy on mobile devices, but make more purchases on desktops than men. A business with a primarily female audience may want to increase email marketing campaigns, as well as add social proof and security seals to their mobile websites to reassure female customers during the purchase process and increase conversions.

■ Businesses with male-dominated audiences should make their mobile commerce sites easy to use and optimized for small screens. While Internet speeds are largely out of a company’s control, brands can address men’s greater frustration with technological challenges and errors. Providing free and easy-to-access Wi-Fi in store and shelf-edge QR code links to online product reviews may drive in-store conversions. Optimize your mobile site by reducing resolutions and image sizes, leveraging existing account details at login and eliminating extra steps during checkout. Offering alternative forms of payments, such as Google Wallet and PayPal, can also have significant impact on conversion for mobile devices.

■ Leverage social media, email and ad retargeting, all of which keep the brand top-of-mind and drive repeat site visits. One-to-one triggered marketing based on browsing behavior makes it easy for customer unwilling to convert on a mobile device to complete the purchase on a desktop later. Also, make it painless for shoppers to save their carts and retrieve their items across different devices.

Couple’s Therapy Discover five way s to cater to males AN D females online at wsm.co/coupleth erapy

Understanding what deters and motivates buyers is key to lowering abandonment online – and even more so via mobile . Adapting navigation and interactions for your target demographics will help drive conversions, improving both the user experience and sales. While men tend to research intensively then purchase fast, by contrast, women shop, increasingly in the evening, using a tablet in the living room, perhaps while sipping a chilled glass of Chardonnay. Oh, how the fairer sex is so much more refined!

Charles Nicholls is Chief Strategy Officer of SeeWhy, the market leader in online shopping cart recovery, and is Chair of The SeeWhy Conversion Academy.

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WEBSITE MAGAZINE’S

SMALL BUSINESS LAB

CONTENT MARKETING

BLUEPRINT

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

There are two different types of Internet professionals — those who focus on the technical and those who focus on the creative. There is, of course, quite a bit of overlap for those within small and mid-size businesses — particularly at enterprises with employees who find they must increasingly wear multiple virtual hats in the pursuit of Web success for their individual organizations.

That was perfectly illustrated in 2013 with the rise in popularity of content marketing – the technique of creating, designing and distributing content to engage an audience with the aim of driving profit for an enterprise.

Content marketing has quickly become part of the digital lexicon (and the long list of responsibilities for your average digital marketer), but in reality, it is something that most businesses have been doing every day for many, many years, whether they know it or not.

The Secret of Content Marketing Success Most are likely familiar with the importance of being an “authority” and a “thought leader” in the niche or vertical they are operating within, but may be unclear on what it really means and further, what it means to the bottom line of a business (as well as the steps required to get there).

An authority, a thought leader (some even use the term “influencer”) is an entity (a group or individual) that is recognized as one of the foremost experts in a select area of specialization, resulting in that entity being the “go-to” resource. The way to become a thought leader today (as it always has been) is to publish unique and authoritative content. The trick is not to be so linear in the execution.

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There are hundreds — if not thousands — of success stories when it comes to content marketing but one of the earliest examples might just be one of the best as a means of illustrating the power behind the approach. Around 1900, Michelin developed the “Michelin Guide,” which offered drivers information on auto maintenance, accommodations and other travel tips (like where to dine). It has long set the precedent for enterprises looking to benefit from the production of informative and useful content as a means of marketing a brand and it’s served that company exceedingly well for more than a century.

Content Marketing in Action!

Discover some modern content marketing success stories from brands both big and small at wsm.co/modernCM.

What was, and is still, so special about the Michelin example is that “hotels” and “dining” are not directly related to the company. Would Michelin have had as much success with its early content marketing initiative if it had been “Tire Maintenance 101” or “The Secrets of Fixing a Flat”? Probably not. Michelin didn’t cater to their clients immediate needs but rather their desired lifestyles. That's the secret of content marketing, make it aspirational.

While most small businesses certainly won’t fall into the Michelin category, you have to start somewhere. The following will provide a useful introduction, a blueprint and some useful tools, to help you navigate the road to content marketing success.

Address the OBSTACLES Anything that is worth doing is worth doing right, but there isn’t really an actual blueprint for content marketing success, as each company, product and service that needs promotion is different. The obstacles that

enterprises interested in content marketing face are many and quite substantial. Reduce and remove them and you’re well on your way.

Most of the challenges that are routinely encountered have to do with the deficiencies of the brand responsible for creating, marketing and distributing the content. For example, there may be a significant problem when it comes to producing original content (or a shortage in general), a lack of an existing social following to consume the content that is created or perhaps a budget shortfall preventing content from being distributed in a greater number of “premium” channels.

Find Content Developers Discover how Web-based services, including Scripted, Contently, Skyword, Zerys and WriterAccess, are making short work of content development for brands at wsm.co/getwriters.

The first obstacle enterprises are likely to face is the overlap between the work being performed internally and the work being developed externally at an agency or consultancy. An SEO adviser might be currently leveraging content marketing to support its link building initiatives, while an advertising agency might be engaged in developing some native ad assets to support its efforts to raise awareness for a business. Understanding who is doing what and when will prove beneficial to the efficiency of your overall marketing strategy.

Another obstacle is in not knowing the sales cycle of prospects. For example, long and complex sales cycles, which involve multiple decision makers, are far different from shorter, more direct sales cycles where only one or two decision makers may ultimately be involved. The reason this is important to the success blueprint of your content marketing initiatives is that it impacts the formats you select, the distribution channels available and methods used to analyze performance.

Keep in mind that these obstacles are faced by every enterprise interested in content marketing. In short, know that you’re not alone and that you can learn quite a lot from the experience of others.

Content FORMAT Diversification Finally, a significant obstacle faced by many brands interested in leveraging content as a marketing tool, is selecting a format that aligns with the consumption preferences of its audience and their needs based on their location in the sales cycle.

Infographics and videos, for example, could be appropriate for an audience that is just exploring their brand options in a specific vertical, whereas case studies, research reports, webinars and white papers are better suited to those consumers who are further down the

sales funnel and closer to a purchase. Content marketing doesn’t end once a prospect becomes a client however. This is where product demos and illustrative graphics could come into play.

The objective when selecting a format is to understand what will prove most effective and balance that with the difficulty in executing (creating and distributing) that content asset.

Content marketing

DISTRIBUTION & Location are Everything

of its more vocal

The beauty of the Web is that there is a near endless supply of destinations where your message can be seen, your content consumed and channels from which new clients can be acquired.

The website itself is obviously the optimal place to position content, as well as within its own weblog and email initiatives, but many other distribution techniques are important to consider — social media networks perhaps being the most common option. “Social” is not necessarily the end-all, be-all of distribution though. Keep in mind that the aim of content marketing is to drive engagement while driving profit for your brand — not the brands of Facebook or Twitter. That means the first place your own content should be placed and the place all traffic should be directed to should be that of your own website. Having a central location for your content enables you to filter users through a sales funnel.

doesn’t need to be as complicated or mysterious as some

proponents make it seem.

Fundamentals of Online Events Interested in running a webinar or video hangout? Find out the content you’ll need to make your event a digital success at wsm.co/runevents.

ANALYTICS: Measure to Manage In order for content marketing initiatives to be considered successful, it’s essential those efforts are measured — because what can be measured can be managed. But what specifically should you be measuring or monitoring?

The list is endless, from a greater number of website visitors or the number of leads generated, to upticks in social media engagement or direct sales; in short, increases in the ROI of marketing in general. Other improvements, including the sales-readiness of leads, client retention or higher search engine rankings, are also cited as reasons why brands are quickly becoming involved in content marketing.

The Blueprint is Yours Content marketing doesn’t need to be as complicated or mysterious as some of its more vocal proponents make it seem. It’s about providing an authoritative voice, producing content in a way that it can be consumed most easily by its intended audience and measuring its impact so that future efforts can be managed and optimized.

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50

TOP

Digital Ad Brands to Know in 2014 On the ‘Net, there are numerous ways to improve brand awareness and increase the number of website visits your business receives. Social media and search marketing are two that dominate the virtual headlines for Internet professionals, but for those really looking to accelerate their success — the choice is clear: Internet advertising.

Advertisers have long spent big dollars on “digital” and there does not seem to be any reason to slow down their pace. A market forecast from eMarketer and Starcom MediaVest released in late Sept. 2013 indicated that spending on digital is expected to reach nearly a full quarter (24.4 percent) of all advertising spending in 2014. So where is the market expected to grow and into what channel should your advertising budget flow?

There are several trends that digital advertisers should be familiar with in 2014 (and beyond). Mobile advertising, which accounted for just 2.7 percent of the global ad spend in 2013, will rise to 7.7 percent over the next two years according to ZenithOptimedia, making it the fourth largest ad segment overall. General display advertising also appears strong and will account for 26.6 percent of all advertising spend in 2016, although programmatic buying and real-time bidding will likely force CPMs (cost per 1,000 impressions) to rise dramatically.

To help navigate the complex and rapidly moving ‘Net advertising industry, in this issue Website Magazine focuses on 50 of the top digital advertising brands (platforms, solutions, networks) Internet professionals like you must know about and begin to use in 2014. These networks are shaping digital advertising of all sorts — mobile networks like InMobi (#17), display stalwarts like TribalFusion (#2), in-text leaders like InfoLinks (#3), performance solutions like 7Search (#9) and many more. As Google and Bing (and Yahoo) and Facebook and Twitter have a strong virtual hold on most digital ad dollars in search and social, respectively, this month’s edition of Website Magazine looks beyond the big networks to profile those your brand should consider in the coming year.

Don't Miss!

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Stay up to date on many of these brands in Website Magazine’s ‘Net Advertising channel, available online at wsm.co/DigitalAdChannel.

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Clicksor.com TribalFusion.com Infolinks.com Criteo.com 247media.com Bidvertiser.com SiteScout.com Chitika.com 7Search.com AdRoll.com Advertising.com ValueClickMedia.com RubiconProject.com OpenX.com YP.com LiveRail.com InMobi.com BurstMedia.com ReachLocal.com PulsePoint.com AirPush.com Clickbooth.com BuzzCity.com Adap.tv Kontera.com Infinityads.com PubMatic.com VibrantMedia.com AdClickMedia.com MobFox.com Turn.com Adblade.com Yodle.com RocketFuel.com CasaleMedia.com LookSmart.com BrightRoll.com ReTargeter.com SpecificMedia.com MillenialMedia.com Adconion.com RadiumOne.com Appia.com SpotXchange.com Bizo.com YuMe.com LeadBolt.com Chango.com AudienceScience.com Mojiva.com

mastering

search

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Organic Search & the Tools for Structured Data Success Search engine optimization

Reacting to each and every move of Google and Bing, however, isn’t always the best professionals are forced to place course of action as these search engines must also evolve (sometimes quickly) in response a great deal of faith in the digital to market developments, which often seems marketing powers that be, trusting to happen without much in the way of warning. The problem is that any move they make that the guidance they so graciously can absolutely destroy search marketing efforts if you’re not paying close attention. provide is going to lead to a better SEOs, for example, have spent a lot of experience for search engine users, time, energy and resources over the past few years implementing schema.org’s data as well as better results overall markup standards on their own websites — within ratings/reviews, product listings, profor themselves and for the most files, events and the like — only to find in part, trusting in the system has some instances that their marked up listings on the search results pages have almost enworked quite well. tirely vanished. So what’s going on?

SEOs started noticing that authorship markup in particular was being “dialed back” as long ago as April 2013 (likely as a result of some over aggressive use by spammers). Recent developments (specifically Matt Cutts speaking at Pubcon in late 2013), however, highlighted the scope of the issue and made clear what Internet professionals can expect in the coming months/year — change.

Cutts essentially suggested that in the next few months rich snippets (particularly those for authorship) could receive a revamp and will likely be dialed back on a number of websites — by as much as 15 percent. More credible websites will likely continue receiving the rich snippet treatment, while less reputable ones will see theirs removed but count on this: in the future (perhaps the very near future) Google will be tightening the qualifications for earning one of these rich results.

So should you and your SEO team abandon its semantic markup and rich snippet initiatives? Not in the least. While the practice can be abused, they have never been proven to influence the position of a website on the search results anyway. Google’s requirements for being a trusted authority will likely increase in stringency, but the advantage of using rich snippets is in

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their ability to differentiate a site on the sometimes crowded/muddled search results. That alone should be reason enough to continue leveraging these supplementary forms of data within your website code.

Open the Structured Data Toolbox for SEO The role of an SEO is to make sure that a website can be crawled and understood by the search engines.

Their mission is one of adding value — connecting users to information and resources — as well as increasing visibility. That’s the way ROI is achieved in the modern search marketing landscape. Without question, one of the most powerful means to actually do that — and increase qualified organic search traffic in the process — is to leverage structured data. The previously outlined benefit should be obvious (that it can still play a significant role in helping your listing stand out against the competition) so it’s definitely something you’ll need to convince others within your enterprise to pay more attention to in the future. So how can you get started?

Website Magazine published a detailed starter guide to structured data (wsm.co/semanticcourse) back in April 2013 and nothing has really changed about the actual markup structure since that time — making it a useful resource even now. What has evolved (and improved) are the tools and resources available to Internet professionals that help them make the most of this SEO tactic.

The first step that search engine optimization professionals should take is to familiarize themselves with the Structured Data Dashboard in Webmaster tools (initially released in 2012). It’s one of the most valuable features available on the platform and it just keeps getting better. For example, in mid-Dec. 2013, Google announced that webmasters can now see items that have errors in the dashboard. For those that haven’t spent the last few years tweaking their pages and are only now jumping on the schema.org bandwagon, fear not, because there are some powerful tools at your disposal as well.

Google’s Structured Data Markup Helper for example, eases the trials many face in actually creating structured markup. The tool can be used to markup website data for articles, events, book reviews, local businesses, movies, products, restaurants, software applications, TV episodes (with ratings) and even includes several email markup options. In the case of Google, this will enable Gmail users to perform actions like setting up reminders.

Once a category is chosen and a valid URL is entered, the Web page is loaded and webmasters can highlight specific item properties they want to showcase by using a simple point-and-click method. If an item is unable to be highlighted, which is common with images, it is possible to enter the data manually.

Once all the appropriate item properties are included, a user clicks on the red “Create HTML” button and the marked up HTML code is generated.

The Google Data Highlighter is another tool that can be found within the Webmaster Tools platform.

Similar to the Structured Data Markup Helper, the tool does not require any actual modification of a Web page’s HTML code. The Data Highlighter tool is essentially a visual editor for structured markup, enabling authorized site owners to add rich snippets to Web pages by, in effect, teaching Google the structure of their websites. Previously, this had to be hand coded and added to pages on an individual basis.

To tell the Data Highlighter which pages on a site contain data (data that can be used for rich snippets that appear on the search results), webmasters must create one or more “page sets.” These are a collection of pages on a site that will display data consistently (possibly generated from the same template) and are organized so that URLs follow a simple pattern. Keep in mind that the Data Highlighter can only access pages that have recently been crawled by Google. If Google has not or cannot crawl pages, such as those behind sign-in forms, the Data Highlighter can't be used for those pages.

Should you actually choose to go it alone, do make sure that you leverage Google’s Structured Data Testing Tool as well, which allows users to check the markup in a live environment to ensure it can be read properly by Google and other engines. Testing will show how structured markup will appear and how it enhances a listing, enabling you to diagnose errors and make corrections quickly.

Search’s Future Structured data is the future of search engine optimization but it has a long way to go, from the perspective of the search engines and for websites as well. Make structured data a priority in your organization and you’ll enjoy the benefits of doing so for years to come.

SEO News to Know Website Magazine’s Mastering Search column also has a dedicated channel on the Web at wsm.co/MasterSearch.

Here are some of the most important Bing has joined developments in Google and is now the world of search encrypting keywords marketing over through SSL-enabled the past month. search results.

Google is now offering more detailed information about search queries reported within its Webmaster Tools platform.

Alternative search engine DuckDuckGo reported over 1 billion search queries were conducted on the site in 2013.

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e- c o m m erce

express

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

DEVELOPING A

STANDOUT RETAIL PRODUCT FEED Product feeds are an Internet

The top 10 comparison shopping engines (CSEs), including Google Shopping, Amazon, Nextag and Bing, reach more than 300 million unique visitors monthly, meaning merchants neglecting these sites are missing out on additional conversion opportunities.

The challenge when it comes to data feeds, however, is maintaining these files so that inventory is up-to-date, accurate and compelling enough to sell products.

retailer’s most valuable marketing resource because they are jam-packed with data that can be submitted to comparison shopping platforms and affiliate and search engine ad networks,

Managing Data Feeds

allowing these merchants

As you might imagine, managing data feeds can be an onerous task — especially for merchants with large inventories. Yet, disother storefronts on the tributing feeds that are not current or comWeb and attract users with plete can result in frustrated customers and wasted opportunities. less effort.

To obtain the best performance from these marketing initiatives, Rakuten PopShops’ Managing Director Ashish Pandey suggests several feed management tips, including refreshing data feeds daily, ensuring landing URLs lead to product detail pages not category or generic landing pages, checking for broken image links, filling out the manufacturer/brand name fields and removing out-of-stock items from feeds.

Merchants should also optimize the content within their data feeds to help their products stand out from the competition, such as including unique product descriptions and images, as well as filling in all optional data fields.

“Specifically, when consumers are shopping online, the quality of the data feed directly influences the likelihood of purchase,” said Pandey. “Inaccurate, incomplete or outdated information results in lost sales. Yet

to compete with countless

WebsiteMagazine.com Stay up to date on the important trends in Internet retail at wsm.co/EcommerceExpress.

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being able to provide accurate and optimized information is an extremely time-consuming process. This is why advertisers and publishers rely on automated data feeds to continuously provide refreshed product, coupon and deals information.”

Data Feed Automation

Data feed management solutions simplify the distribution process, as they typically allow merchants to export products from their stores and import the data into a solution, which then optimizes the attributes for each marketing channel. This is particularly helpful because manually submitting data feeds to multiple channels is not only time consuming, but also difficult, as each platform tends to have its own specifications. Plus, it is important to note that most automation solutions refresh the feeds at least daily.

Take GoDataFeed as an example. The solution enables merchants to import their product data, perform a one-time campaign setup and send optimized feeds to more than 70 different channels, including Google, Shopzilla and LinkShare. GoDataFeed also offers analytics so merchants can analyze their shopping campaigns, track their best-selling products and make better decisions on how to spend ad dollars.

Conversely, data feed management platform SingleFeed works with 21 channels to distribute a retailer’s data feeds, including Google, TheFind and PriceGrabber. Plus, SingleFeed’s partnership with mShopper offers merchants a combined service to help them deliver products to CSEs and create mobile-optimized stores, which can be integrated with any e-commerce site. That said, GoDataFeed and SingleFeed are far from the only data feed management platforms available. Discover five more at wsm.co/managemyfeed.

Staying Competitive To successfully market products online today, merchants need to pay close attention to one specific resource — their product data feeds — because it may be the most valuable means to acquire orders now and in the future.

de s i g n & de v e l o pment

digest

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

BREAKING UP WITH YOUR SITE’S DESIGN Breaking up is hard to do, especially when it’s with your website.

After all, it is more than just a random digital property; it’s a place that you visit every day. You have watched it both flourish and struggle, and you have a whole lot more invested in it than just time and money. Simply thinking about throwing all of that away feels like a punch to the gut.

Yet, all good things eventually come to an end.

Your business has grown and has new needs that your current website just isn’t capable of fulfilling.

Plus, you’ll always have the memories. But how can you be positive that it is time to dump your site’s old design in favor of something new?

Red Flags There are numerous indicators that signal it is time for a redesign, but for concrete evidence, it is best to look to your analytics. Slow load times, high bounce rates, a gradual decline in website traffic, lackluster engagement metrics or even an uptick in visitor complaints are all good signs that your digital business could benefit from a visual change.

A

Online studying platform StudyBlue, for example, knew that it was time to part ways with its old site after it became cluttered with features and the objective was no longer obvious to site visitors.

“As we’ve added and removed features from the core product over three years, the site has changed,” said Christopher Klundt, co-founder and president of StudyBlue. “A redesign is important to make sure our narrative remains clear and simple.”

In addition to establishing a clearer message for its new site, StudyBlue knew that a redesign would allow the learning platform to offer a streamlined experience across devices to its audience, which is essential in today’s marketplace.

“The redesign is focused on aligning the experience of studying on the Web, studying on a tablet and studying on mobile,” Klundt continued. “We’re evolving the Web app look and feel to reflect our mobile and tablet strengths, because we want users to encounter a similar experience whether they’re creating study materials on a laptop or on a phone during a bus ride home.”

While there is a laundry list of reasons that could indicate a site is ready for a redesign, the key is to identify the most pressing issues, as StudyBlue did, so they can be dealt with during the rebuilding process. Otherwise, you stand to face the same problems once the new site is live. But just because the decision has been made to go in a new direction, doesn’t mean you must lose everything you and your old site worked toward.

Holding On Unlike real-life breakups, it is important to hold onto parts of the past when you breakup with your website. This is

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B

What are the Top E-Commerce Redesign Challenges?

Find out how product pages, shopping carts and navigation are influencing the modern buyer's experience at wsm.co/7edesign.

especially true for established sites with loyal followings, as throwing away a fan-favorite feature may frustrate your audience and discourage them from visiting again. In fact, finding a balance between new and old is a struggle StudyBlue faced during its redesign process.

“Maintaining an old codebase and integrating it with a new one is like dropping a Ferrari engine into a Fiat, so that’s been the biggest challenge so far,” said Klundt.

“Then, there’s the basic challenge of balancing old and new. We want to make sure we address and improve upon usability concerns from our current site, without disrupting users’ familiarity and love for the app.”

While StudyBlue is still working on finding that balance eight months into its redesign process, mobile payments platform Flint is leveraging testing to finetune its newly designed site.

“Balancing different aspects of the website, such as brand messaging, feature content and user conversion required some iteration and we’ll continue to test to find the right balance,” said Greg Goldfarb, CEO and co-founder of Flint.

It took about two months for Flint’s design team to launch its new site (image B), which is actually a pretty fast turnaround. The mobile payments company streamlined the conversion process on its new site by prominently displaying its sign-up form on its landing page. This form enables visitors to take immediate action, unlike the old site (image A), which

required visitors to click “Get Started” before they could even view the registration form.

Going Public Revealing a brand's new website to the general public actually represents the very beginning of a project.

Regular testing and monitoring analytics are required to ensure your new digital property reaches its goals going forward.

For instance, if the initial goal of the redesign was to increase traffic, it is important to monitor this metric once the site has gone live. The same is true of other key performance indicators, such as conversions and engagement. You can also consider implementing a solution like Usabilla to learn how the new site is resonating with your audience. The Usabilla platform enables websites to collect both qualitative and quantitative feedback from their visitors through surveys and A/B testing. It is important to note, however, that some initial feedback may be negative, as loyal visitors might feel overwhelmed upon arriving at a completely different site.

In the end, the optimization period of a redesign is a continuous process. By testing new features and monitoring customer feedback, however, your new site will be able to evolve with consumer preferences, which means you won’t have to deal with another gutwrenching breakup anytime soon.

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EVERYDAY DIGITAL

OPTIMIZATION

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

Walk into any office on a Friday, and you are likely greeted with genuine good cheer from the individuals who work there. For most, the last business day of the week means wearing jeans to work (kind of a big deal), making weekend plans, and chatting or lunching with colleagues. Aside from categorizing those moments of happiness as “what grownups like,” Fridays are fun because they’re casual and optimistic, contagious characteristics that may even spark a certain degree of creativity not seen Monday-Thursday.

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Doubling Conversion Rates: “To optimize our PPC campaigns we set up landing pages on Unbounce for A/B testing. We try to match the keywords used in the ads pretty closely with the headlines and images that appear above the fold on the landing pages. For some ad groups we were able to double our conversion rates.”

Doug McLennan VP of Marketing at Zaplee

Almost by definition, Mondays can be the complete opposite.

People are often dressed more formally, tired from their busy weekends, feeling the pressure of the week ahead and typically less social. Mondays can be formal and dreaded, which is also contagious and stifling.

Digital optimization is a lot like our workweeks. With enough cycles of optimism and dread, Internet professionals begin to meet the act of optimizing something (anything really) with trepidation citing bad timing or lack of resources (time, money, support, tools) as to why something cannot be made better than it was yesterday.

Each professional has a different definition of “optimization.” For someone in Web development, it could mean to code for faster loading times. Similarly, some readers are responsible for increasing visibility on the search engines and finding ways to do that, while others must improve the digital experience to yield better engagement from users. These three areas, if you will, of optimization will be detailed in this month’s feature article complete with stories of professionals who have gone before you to make something better and to reach an optimal state of doing business on the Web. These tales of “everyday optimization” should prove useful to each reader willing to be positive, work hard and collaborate every day. After all, there are entirely too many virtual elements waiting to be improved and too many offerings available to help.

The Inner Optimizer Like the attitudes associated with Mondays and Fridays, cycles can help us or hurt us. They can serve as positive reminders that it’s time to clean out the garage in the spring, celebrate a loved one on a birthday or perhaps to reflect in a new year.

Online companies, however, fall into negative cycles with decision makers only thinking about website performance before the holidays, their marketing collateral in preparation for product launches in the spring or their relationships prior to industry tradeshows in the fall. Instead, optimization should be engrained in a company — daily improvements made for the greater, everyday good.

Finding a company’s “inner optimizer,” means thinking of optimization as a never-ending cycle because one improved element, improves another and improves another. When thinking that way, it’s tough to justify waiting to optimize X in the summer if it’s going to improve Y and Z in the spring.

To get a better idea of how one element impacts another, let’s turn to Marc Ostrofsky, the New York Times bestselling author of “Get Rich Click” who wrote that good website practice and optimizing for conversion usually makes for good search engine optimization. He continued that “these work together to ensure you drive quality traffic and can persuade that traffic to help you meet your business goals.” Those thoughts — that there is an intuitive domino effect to

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optimization — make it pretty convincing to approach optimization more often and more holistically.

a second website to drive more traffic to a company’s main site. Get a “Crash Course on YouTube for Business” at wsm.co/youtube4biz.

Conversion Everyday Optimization Tip: Nearly every type of business can benefit from using project management software to identify inefficiencies and improve workflow and access to information. Check out “10 Project Management Tools for ‘Net Professionals” at wsm.co/pgmt10.

Optimization Opportunities Optimization is clearly a necessity to doing business on the modern Web, but, as Shutterstock Branded Content Producer Daniel Reiss advises, the first part of moving any needle is establishing baseline metrics.

There are countless quantitative and qualitative tools to help those responsible for a company’s Web success understand how their digital assets are currently performing and get an idea of how they can perform better.

Let’s explore a few real-world scenarios of readers like you who have leveraged a number of products to gain insights into their website performance and how they optimized based on those observations.

Engagement Internet marketing agency Geek Powered Studios uses a variety of practices and tools to optimize its company website as well as those of its clients, but in order to gauge which pages needed to be optimized first on its own site, the “geeks” needed to measure interaction within its Web pages.

These tools, according to “geek of all trades” Jason Whitt, included: Google Analytics, mainly to measure the page flow and amount of time visitors spent on its site; Crazy Egg Heatmaps, to see where interactions on a particular page are taking place; and Wistia for videos, to gain some insight on video interaction such as return views and how far into the video people actually watched.

By gathering all this data, Whitt and his team were able to see just where visitors were “falling off” or leaving their site and then split-test changes using a tool called Visual Optimizer. By running A/B split tests, Geek Powered Studios was able to gather data on how people adapt to the page changes it makes.

These methods are also used to help improve the websites of Geek Powered Studio clients. From testing video thumbnails and video interaction, to image placement and text structure, the “geeks” have no limit to the variety of tests that they run to optimize results.

Everyday Optimization Tip: Over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube—that's almost an hour for every person on Earth, and 50 percent more than last year, according to the Google-owned website. enLocal DC, an online marketing company specializing in Google Local Search Listings & YouTube videos, recommends using YouTube as

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Reiss from Shutterstock took his own advice of establishing baseline metrics before making changes when he was part of the stock photography agency’s blog relaunch. Shutterstock used reporting tools to understand how the current blog was converting before making any actual changes and adopted the same proprietary tracking technology used on its main site for its blog platform.

As a company that is successfully selling millions of photos, illustrations and video clips, it make sense to use the same software that is working on Shutterstock.com to improve conversions through Shutterstock.com/blog, which ultimately shows existing and potential customers how to put the Shutterstock library to work for them.

Along with adding instantly deployable marketing modules for category and article pages to quickly test and tweak imaging and messaging, the Shutterstock blog simply found more opportunities to lead readers back to the main site to begin registration. Overall, Shutterstock is headed in the right direction to make the two properties work as one cohesive unit, improve the user experience and increase conversion along the way.

Regardless of what enterprises use to improve conversions (Shutterstock uses its own proprietary technology), brands need to be able to test and optimize at will. The Jan. 2014 issue of Website Magazine featured 50 of the top testing and optimization solutions and is available on the ’Net at wsm.co/jan50.

Everyday Optimization Tip: In-content linking is an optimization opportunity many organizations ignore or misuse, but every content creator should have a steadfast process for in-content linking that is strategic, consistent and helps readers discover more relevant material. Website Magazine contributor Greg Keller of LinkSmart shares five power tips to pick in-content links at wsm.co/incontent.

Search Engine Optimization At USNetting.com, its Web development and SEO team have gone through the process of optimizing just about everything, every day, including its digital media such as images and videos, page titles and description tags, image alt tags, contact forms, backlink profiles and the code of its site. And, while some of these optimization efforts could certainly fall under the “performance” umbrella, rather than SEO, it’s important to remember that X affects Y. Many of the performance audit tools that Brandon Shallenberger and Ed Wieczorek of USNetting.com have been using in the past few months have provided detailed metrics and error reports that helped them find exactly what is slow-

search engine views pages, which can give insights into website problems, such as 404 errors, spammy backlinks and missing title tags.

(Note: Bing Webmaster tools also apply to the Yahoo! search engine.)

Tripling Conversions “Our client is a shared office space in Chicago’s Loop, and hired us at Matchnode to generate more leads that were interested in becoming tenants.

Their legacy Web page (Image A) wasn't optimized and lacked Web development resources, so we cut coding out of the process, using our favorite landing page platform (Unbounce) to shorten it and to add a button above the fold (Image B).

Conversions have increased 3x.”

Chris Madden Matchnode

A

B

ing down their site and what could be holding it back from ranking in the search engine result pages (SERPs). While they have been jumping around to see what tools give them the most concise and accurate information, here are some free tools available for all Web developers that they recommend for everyday optimization: Google/Bing Webmaster Tools Two of the most important tools on the market are the Webmaster tools offered by Google and Bing. Both allow brands to see how each

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W3C The http://validator.w3.org/ site audits Web validity of Web pages and returns comprehensive error reports with line references and explanations. Brands looking to validate an entire site can use the new premium model that allows companies to run more than one page at a time.

Screaming Frog This is one of the “coolest” tools Shallenberger and Wieczorek have come across, and they have only began to understand its capabilities. Its most simple function crawls a site and finds any resources and pages that may be attached. This is helpful for finding 404'd images and URIs, missing title or alt tags, and managing 304 redirects. The paid version allows complete customization, turning it into a brand’s own Web crawling bot. So why does this matter for search engine optimization? Search engines want to provide an optimal experience and need to be able to access information quickly to determine its credibility. Multiple redirects, broken links and missing information hinders those efforts and the user experience.

USNetting.com also uses a variety of paid tools to perform site performance auditing and search engine ranking tracking functions, including Raven tools (their favorite), SEMrush, cognitiveSEO and Moz. With all of its optimization efforts, Shallenberger and Wieczorek have seen a huge increase in their site’s page loading speed across all devices. Additionally, the site is steadily moving up the ranks in search engines, even for high competition terms.

The pair said that their predecessor made some “really bad SEO decisions,” and USNetting.com was certainly penalized in the past for them. These errors in judgment or knowledge can be hard to recover from, but with constant diligence, they have started to reclaim USNetting.com’s spot atop the search results.

“One thing to keep in mind from this is that when it comes to non-technical factors there is such a thing as over-optimization,” said Shallenberger. “Don't spam keywords in your title, description or alt tags. This may move you up slightly but Google finds out really quick in most cases who is gaming the system. Always focus on user experience and providing useful and unique content. If you do that, top rankings will follow. And never purchase links. Just take a look into what happened to Rap Genius in January for an example of what link schemes will get you.”

Everyday Optimization Tip: For a “BIG List of Tools for Professional Search Marketers” visit wsm.co/searchlist.

Investment Woes In the examples from Geek Powered Studios, Shutterstock

and USNetting.com, optimization was a team effort. Collectively, they evaluated what wasn’t working, took action and then evaluated again. Sometimes, however, things aren’t so cut and dry when there are different powers at play.

“Each client really has their own unique challenges and issues but we are seeing that fairly consistently across all verticals, companies run into challenges of internal buy-off in order to meet the needs of the project,” said Jason Squardo, executive vice president of optimization at ZOG Digital. “We recommend that clients communicate internally to their technical and website teams so that all stakeholders on the project are aware of the digital marketing plan and how their role impacts the process.”

Oftentimes “buy-in” or getting people on board a project relies on how educated the employee “pitching” is on what needs to be tweaked or completely overhauled. We all are not, however, cut from the same cloth. Some Internet professionals prefer to present an idea in a written report, while others may want to present their ideas face-to-face. To help with both, Website Magazine has compiled, “6 Ways to Pitch a Project” available on the Web at wsm.co/pitchperfect6.

Power of One Companies, regardless of size or vertical, are sometimes not managed the way employees think they “oughta be.” This can discourage employees and over time, turn them indifferent (hands down the worst characteristic anyone can bring to the table, virtual or otherwise).

Brands should empower their employees to take action and to voice their ideas. How a company does that depends on its own culture, but there should always be a way to address an issue, make a plan to fix it and, of course, see it through.

As individuals, however, there is a lot we can do to optimize our accountability, creativity and productivity without approval from above. Here are few ideas for individual optimization: Use Free Services Much to the chagrin of some employers, a person’s smartphone is typically never 2 feet away from them, even at work. This can improve a person’s output if they put their smartphone to work for them. For example, using Toggl Time Tracker, Pomodroido or Jiffy Time Tracker apps can help them manage their time better.

Net professionals looking to create content that matters can turn to InboundWriter to optimize their writing for better visibility and conversions. With free and premium plans, writers can use InboundWriter to optimize their content and share their findings with their teammates later on. Other free tools that can help optimize content for both creativity and “findability” are Prompts, iThoughts, If This Then That (IFTTT), PRLog.com and Portent’s Title Maker.

Become a Subject Matter Expert Sometimes we don’t give ourselves enough credit, but each of us

Quadrupling Website Visits “Sideqik has always done well on Twitter, but we knew that there was room to get better. We looked at the analytics to see what was connecting with people.

The tools on the market didn't really meet our needs, so we pulled stats directly from Twitter and Google Analytics into Excel. We realized that our highest ROI came from sharing infographics and when we mentioned our marketing partners. We saw a steady gain in Twitter followers at the end of the year and a 4x increase visits to our website.”

Kurt Uhlir CEO @ Sideqik

has something that we do better or know more about than a friend, family member or even coworker.

This knowledge can help those willing to learn more (using products like Feedly, NewsBlur or Newsle can help) and share their knowledge to optimize self- and brand recognition. Here are 14 places to show off your subject matter expertise: Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+, SlideShare, Quora, PRLog, PRWeb, Scoop.it!, GoodBlogs, NewPitchEngine, Help a Reporter Out, Vimeo, Tumblr and YouTube.

Energy Matters As individuals that make up teams, ideas and projects, we bring energy to every situation. The type of energy we bring — whether it’s Friday-like excitement or Monday-like dread — is up to us, yet our attitudes are contagious.

When online professionals start thinking about how we can continuously improve something to be better than it was yesterday, optimization can truly be an everyday matter. To continue this discussion, please visit this issue’s commentary on page 40.

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DOMAIN MASTERS

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Domains of Interest Website Magazine's picks for the hottest new gTLDs in 2014 The Internet Corporation for Assigned Names & Numbers’ (ICANN) new generic top-level domain (gTLD) program will see the Internet name space changed forever. Top-level domains including .COM, .NET and .ORG will be joined by well over 1,000 new names or strings (although several hundred will be kept for the private use of the brands that requested them) and some will be quite appealing to the business and consumer public at large.

As any savvy Internet professional might imagine, the domain name shakeup is causing as much excitement as it is consternation, and raising as many questions as it is providing answers.

ICANN began delegating the first new gTLDs in late Oct. 2013 and has delegated many more since that time (delegation indicates that the strings were put into the Internet’s Root Zone). There hasn’t been a mad rush so to speak, but for many of the new TLDs the sunrise period has already begun, officially signaling that the longawaited landrush is coming. The more you know about the coming extensions, the better choices your company will make in relation to its own brand.

So, which of the new gTLDs will be of interest to your Web-based company? Website Magazine has grouped the coming domains into categories and picked those that we’re confident will make a big ’Net impression.

BUSINESS: While most of the new gTLDs within the “business” category are incredibly generic (e.g. .company and .services) and won’t inspire much in the way of action, there are some standouts including .studio and .agency that should both see immediate adoption, particularly from newer digital consulting groups desperate to prove they are different from the existing competition.

the r e t s Ma ket r a M n i Doma all Stay up to date on t the latest news abou at s the gTLD s wsm.co/WMdomain

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from the previously restrictive .edu namespace. There are extensions for .degree, .mba and .phd as well as for less formal, but still educational initiatives, including .academy and .training.

FOOD & DRINK: Definitely one of the more appealing categories of the new gTLDs, extensions including .beer and .coffee are expected to draw immediate interest thanks to their mass appeal. Others including .soy are expected to be digital busts, however, as they just don’t have the same level of interest or loyalty with consumers.

GEOGRAPHIC: Without question the most aggressively sought after domains will be those of a geographic nature — from .abudhabi and .zurich to .boston and .vegas. For those brands with a little more international appeal, .world may be of interest.

HEALTH: Although there are not many domain names in the health category specifically, there are definitely some standouts. .Health and .medical will likely be attractive for many in this vertical, but others including .diet could also be appealing as it is so closely related to a multi-billion dollar industry.

LIFESTYLE: One of the broadest categories is that of lifestyle. In addition to being one of the largest, it’s also the most diverse — anything that doesn’t fit neatly within another category ends up here. Some of the standouts include .club and .guide.

MONEY & FINANCE: One of the primary draws toward the new generic TLDs is that specific namespaces can have far greater security controls. That will be ideal for an extension like .creditcard, which could be adopted uniformly across the finance industry.

PROFESSIONAL: The .pro extension (which is not one of the new gTLDs) will likely suffer even more at the expense of the rise in popularity of more specific extensions including .accountant, .attorney and .doctor.

COMMERCE: There are many new domains that fit

TECHNOLOGY: When it comes to which industry ver-

within the “commerce” category, but few will likely see much interest from retailers. There are some exceptions however, particularly when it comes to specific campaigns merchants may be running. .Blackfriday, for example, could prove to be an interesting extension to watch during the 2014 holiday shopping season.

tical will have the greatest adoption, count on those in technology to lead the way. Numerous extensions will likely prove appealing including .click, .codes, .download, .hosting and even .tech.

EDUCATION: There is also a lot of possibility in the education category. Several appealing extensions exist for those looking to branch out

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While one Internet professional’s guess as to which of the new generic top-level domains will be successful is as good as another’s, it’s hard to deny that it is an exciting time for the Web community. Use these domains in compelling ways, and they can serve as powerful channels to differentiate your brand.

PERFORMANCE

INSIDER

THE MODERN AFFILIATE MARKETER Who’s Promoting Your Products?

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Performance (affiliate) marketers are a unique digital breed. They run the virtual gamut in terms of their experience, their motivations and, of course, their skill levels — and the results show. Under-

Current Earnings Slightly shy of 60 percent earn less than $10,000/year, and just 9 percent earn between $10,000 to $24,999.

A full 17.9 percent indicated they did not know what their earnings were.

Website Assets

own brand’s affiliate base could help

Roughly 36 percent of respondents owned just one website, while 42.7 percent owned between 2-5 and 10.4 percent owned anywhere from 6-10. About 4 percent of respondents owned more than 30 sites.

your company assist those marketers

Digital Motivators

standing the general makeup of your

responsible for promoting your products generate better results on your behalf.

Last year Affiliate Benchmarks, the affiliate marketing research division of New York-based digital consultancy House of Kaizen, released its sixth annual research project and Website Magazine has extracted several of the most interesting data points from that report in order to build a profile of the modern performance marketer.

General Demographics Based on the research, affiliate marketers tend to be male (72.5 percent). The predominant age group is that of 25-34 year-olds (29.7 percent), followed closely by those in the 35-44 age range (23.9 percent).

Affiliate Experience Nearly half of survey respondents have been working in affiliate marketing for less than two years. In fact, 21.2 percent indicated they started in 2013 and 21.9 percent indicated they started in 2012.

Commitment & Dedication Just 23.2 percent of affiliate marketers consider the practice their full-time job. Almost half (49.8 percent) indicated affiliate marketing was a part-time commitment and 27 percent said that were dedicated to the practice, but only as a hobby.

MERCHANTS IN FOCUS Affiliate Benchmarks also studied merchants and advertisers and what they found could help you formalize your performance marketing strategies and finalize digital plans.

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and merchants stated the objective for affiliate marketing is to sell products or services to new customers. Other important objectives include generating leads and driving website traffic.

The top three factors in deciding what program to promote include commission amount (45.4 percent), the product being sold and its price (28.5 percent), and the relevancy of advertisers and their products (27.9 percent). Other factors include the advertiser’s reputation (23 percent), the reputation of the affiliate program itself (21.4 percent), the ad units (19 percent), the ability to deep link (16.6 percent), the EPC or potential earnings per 100 clicks (16.5 percent) and the payment terms (16 percent).

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Acquisition Methods Respondents overwhelmingly indicated that Facebook was the primary method used to drive traffic to their website (66.3 percent), followed very closely by search engine optimization (64.9 percent). Twitter (48.3 percent), display ads (45 percent) and email marketing (40 percent) also made a strong showing.

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39.2% of respondents indicated the attribution model currently in use was “last click,” where full credit is assigned to the final interaction.

The reason 38.3 percent of respondents decided to stop working with an advertiser was because not enough revenue was generated.

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8.4% of advertisers/ merchants responded their affiliate efforts exceeded their expectations. Forty-one percent indicated their efforts did not meet expectations.

Shutting Down

Affiliates are a unique breed of marketers, and merchants and advertisers must understand the methods they use and the motivations that drive them. Doing so could result in positive results for everyone involved in the performance landscape.

72.1% of advertisers

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47% allocate less than 10 percent of their budgets to affiliate marketing.

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I N T E R N E T A DV E RT I S I N G

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

The Key to

NATIVE ADVERTISING Native advertising burst onto the scene in 2013, but most Internet professionals find it difficult to come up with an actual definition. The reason is it encompasses so many different practices, techniques and technologies today that it can be hard for even for the savviest and most experienced to pin down.

“Native” is essentially an online advertising method in which the brand being promoted makes a concerted effort to gain attention by providing “content in the context of a user’s experience” — in other words, make advertising seem less intrusive and the likelihood users interact with it increases dramatically. The trend comes none too soon for brands looking to deepen engagement and generate a better response from their campaigns.

“There is a renaissance underway in digital advertising that is driving brands, publishers and consumers to communicate with each other in more personal and natural ways,” said Patrick Albano, vice president, social, mobile and innovation sales, Yahoo, and co-chair, IAB Native Advertising Task Force, in a statement. “Native advertising is an important piece of this evolution.”

The most relatable form of native advertising is that of the “advertorial” — wherein paid ads are positioned as editorial content. In the digital age, however, native ads are taking on a variety of forms. Today, videos, images, widgets, music and even social media updates are being positioned as native formats.

The IAB is well aware of the native advertising trend and recently released its own “Native Advertising Playbook” in order to help the industry establish a common lexicon, an evaluation framework and some disclosure principles. The IAB

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highlighted six core interactive ad formats that are currently being used within the native ad landscape and provided some much-needed guidance for evaluating marketplace opportunities. Read more about these formats and how your company can take advantage in part two of our native advertising primer on the Web at wsm.co/adprimer.

The arrival of the IAB’s native ad playbook comes none too soon. IZEA released its fourth annual “State of Sponsored Social” report recently and found that “content sponsorship” has become more lucrative than display advertising. In fact, 55.7 percent of influencers now say they make more money from sponsorships than online display ads. Perhaps most interesting is that a majority of brand marketers (61 percent) this year have pursued the compensation of social media influencers (a 5 percent increase year-overyear) in the form of money, goods, services, discounts or other incentives. Among owners of social channels, 92 percent say they would accept compensation to promote something through their own platforms.

“Brand advertisers and editorial are working more closely than ever to develop mutually beneficial, scalable social sponsorship programs that are both high impact for brands and profitable for creators,” said Ted Murphy, founder and CEO, IZEA, about the report. “Increasingly we’re seeing brand marketers dial down their investments in online display, while dialing up a wide variety of sponsored social channels and other native advertising initiatives.”

Of course, native advertising could easily come back to haunt the very advertisers it purports to benefit. ChoiceStream released results of its “2013 Survey of Consumer Opinions on Audience Targeting and Online Advertising” in Nov. 2013,

which took a deep look at the “how and why” of consumer behavior when it comes to digital advertising and purchasing.

Perhaps the most interesting finding is that 86 percent of respondents felt native ads were trying to trick them and they didn't appreciate it. Not exactly a ringing endorsement of the practice — but it is certainly not calming interest.

In mid-Dec. 2013, mobile network Appia announced the launch of Discovery Ads, a native ad format for publishers of mobile websites and applications that could prove quite appealing to advertisers. The new format affords advertisers an opportunity to customize the design of their ads, and experiment with copy, calls-to-action and imagery thanks to Appia's real-time optimization platform and A/B testing environment.

Ultimately, that's the kind of control that Appia hopes will appeal to advertisers who are increasingly demanding greater performance for their ad spend.

“Discovery Ads represent the next generation in mobile advertising formats that we’re confident our customers will be excited to use,” said Jud Bowman, CEO of Appia. “At Appia, we’re consistently looking for new ways to create the best user experience while driving further mobile monetization for both advertisers and publishers. Discovery Ads promise real-time performance insight that will create optimized mobile user acquisition.”

Appia is far from the only player in the native ad space.

Twitter-owned mobile ad network MoPub announced a programmatic-enabled native ad solution for mobile apps recently, which it hopes will provide publishers the opportunity to work directly with advertisers and drive more revenue from the nearly 100 demand partners on the MoPub marketplace.

Native advertising has not been a scalable or accessible solution for mobile app developers to date, but since it offers publishers an opportunity to monetize an app (or website) without the interference of a supply side network and ads can be designed so they match the content, they’re of increasing interest to both publishers and advertisers. Messaging app and MoPub client Tango, for example, is using two native ad units presently — an expanded unit in the news feed and another compact version in the chat tab.

“Working with MoPub means we don’t have to put in the effort to create a custom solution from scratch for every advertiser that we work with, so we can focus on our app and our business,” said Tango’s Head of Advertising Richard Rabbat. “The MoPub Native Ad standard makes it easy for us to both work directly with advertisers like Supercell and with other advertisers on MoPub Marketplace. We’re excited to launch this with a partner that shares our vision to make advertising a great experience for our users and our ad partners.”

Native advertising in the digital age has a complicated future. For every Facebook that shutters a native ad program (such as it did recently with its Sponsored Stories offering), another platform will emerge to give advertisers and publishers an opportunity to attract an audience and monetize interactions. Where there’s opportunity to establish a brand as a credible choice, advertisers will take it and publishers will sell it.

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EMAIL

EXPERIENCE

OPEN RATE AND THE

SCIENCE OF SUBJECT LINES

By Peter Prestipino, Editor-In-Chief

Email subject lines are far more than just random combinations of words; they serve as the digital hinge upon which a message is seen, and directly influence whether an offer is clicked and a user ultimately converted. Subject lines, however, require less artistic or creative muscle than Internet professionals might think.

Nothing is Free: The use of the word “free” in subject lines is hotly contested and more aligned with poor email practices than good ones. There’s certainly a place for its use, but free has been so overused that many marketers shy away from it altogether — and that happens to be to their benefit. Based on MailChimp’s study, we know there is only a negligible improvement in open rate when the word free was used in the subject line.

Symbols for Salience: One trend emerging re-

There’s always been a data-driven science to the email subject lines deemed most effective, and there likely always will be, but more often than not, digital marketers rely on their intuition. Over time, the most successful ’Net enterprises have come to learn, through trial and error, what generates the best response with their own audiences and with each new send have even more evidence to prove their assumptions are correct.

The trouble with email is that as consumer tastes and preferences change, so does behavior. Shifting behavior creates unknowns for marketers, but the savviest base their decisions on data. Email marketing service provider MailChimp’s recent study provides such a data-driven opportunity to influence how our subject lines are created.

Time Sensitivity: Conveying the importance of an

email by expressing the urgency of the digital communication within the subject line is a common practice.

MailChimp found that email subject lines that convey time sensitivity, such as those that contain the words “urgent” and/or “important,” have open rates that are much higher than normal.

Positive Solicitations: MailChimp’s analysis also

found that email recipients are much more intrigued by subject lines that contain positive solicitations rather than negative admonitions. Words such as “announcement” and “invitation” have significantly higher open rates than those containing “reminder” and “canceled.”

Personalized Communication: One of the most common practices of email marketers is to leverage personalization technology within email campaigns. Buoyed by more sophisticated e-commerce platforms and CRM software solutions, integrating personal elements, such as a name, prove effective when it comes to open rates but not as much as is often expected. However, combining a person’s name with some element of time sensitivity can result in much higher response according to the MailChimp research.

cently, and which is currently in use by some progressive email marketers, is to use unicode symbols in their subject lines (think hearts, airplanes, etc.). Their use in the past year was embraced as much as it was questioned. There’s clearly a fine line walked by marketers using unicode symbols as they can turn off a prospective email opener quickly.

Mailchimp’s study will likely debunk numerous longheld myths about subject lines, but for many email marketers it will raise even more questions. If you’re looking for a more straightforward approach for how to best craft email subject lines, consider the suggestion from AWeber that clarity trumps creativity. In fact, according to its own research, clear subject lines outperformed “cutesy” subject lines no matter what metric they looked at — comments, tweets, likes, traffic, subscriptions, etc.

“A lot of people assume that creative subject lines will get the most clicks, but that’s not necessarily the case,” said AWeber CMO Erik Harbison. “People don’t want to have to guess what’s inside an email. They want to be told why they need to read something so they can move on to the next thing. So as a general rule when it comes to the subject lines, specific, clear and concise is the better way to go.”

Harbison suggests that marketers always test email lines because every subscriber base is unique.

“If you’re a company that’s known for being quirky and creative, your audience might be more likely to open an email with a creative subject line,” said Harbison. “The same might be true of a specific group of subscribers that’s really engaged with your emails. They may respond differently to creative subject lines than new subscribers.

So, the real answer to crafting the best subject lines is to get to know your audience and the segments of your audience through testing.”

When you stop and think about how many emails go through a typical inbox on any given day, it becomes obvious how being clear and direct will improve the performance of your campaigns.

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Copy & Paste

Access some of the most popular symbols for use in your own campaigns at wsm.co/symbols14

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CONVERSION

CORNER

Brainy Tips for

Improving Online Forms

By Tim Ash

Have an online form that just isn’t performing?

Wondering what’s wrong? The answer may be simple — you might be designing the form for the wrong part of the brain.

Filling out any type of form, whether paper or online, is a nuisance. People use forms only because they are forced to.

So your mission, if you choose to accept it, is to ease the burden of the form-fill process by turning this bothersome task into an effortless experience.

Forms Are Logical, Your Customer's Brain Isn't Most forms are developed to follow a logical sequence, and they presume that the person filling out the form completely understands what is being asked and why that information is needed. This assumption might be somewhat accurate in the case of a medical questionnaire or a loan application, but most online forms are purely optional. Your visitors don’t need to engage with you — they choose to. And this sets the stage for an entirely different mentality.

To understand this mindset, it’s important to take a brief trek through time to understand the evolution of the human brain. The earliest version of the human brain was designed for survival only, and is commonly referred to by scientists as the reptilian brain. Emotions, preferences, planning and logic all developed later, over millions of years, as a way for humans to interact successfully with the changing world around them. The human brain we enjoy today is actually a mash-up of three evolutionary brains that scientists have come to call the reptilian brain, the emotional brain and the logical brain.

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The Reptilian Brain.

The reptilian brain, or “old brain,” is shared with all animals and has a single purpose: to help you survive. It is responsible for basic functions like breathing, heartbeat, eating and reproduction. This brain doesn’t learn – it does everything based on automatic reactions and responses, and it does so quickly. Anything too complex to be handled quickly will be ignored.

The Emotional Brain. The limbic system is shared by all mammals and is heavily involved in emotions and memory formation. This is the part of the brain that determines likes and dislikes and stores them as an emotional imprint for later recall. The stronger the sensory impressions and emotions around the event, the more likely it will be remembered. Events that are routine or otherwise non-emotional are usually tuned out by the limbic system.

The Logical Brain. The neocortex is the most recently developed part of our brain and is the one responsible for planning and logical thought. It allows us to weigh choices and examine complex problems. It also enables us to plan and to defer short-term gratification in the pursuit of larger payoffs in the future.

If you are wondering what all this has to do with your online forms, the answer is “a lot.” A surprising 95 percent of decisions are made subconsciously, with the reptilian

brain using instinct or impulse rather than logic. When your visitor first encounters your form, he or she may want to quickly tackle it because of the promise of what is on the other side. But once the form becomes too complex, the impulse dies and one of the other parts of the brain has to step in to complete the job. At that point, your visitor’s logical brain has probably kicked in, and it starts weighing whether or not the “prize” is even worth the effort. It also starts thinking about the risk involved in filling out the form. “Will salespeople start calling me?”

“Am I going to get a ton of spam because of this?” “Is this company reputable?” At that point, the emotional brain starts remembering how much your visitor dislikes spam, how fearful he is of identity theft, and a host of other emotions he might have around revealing personal information online — dramatically reducing your chances of getting a completed form.

Are you ready to start designing forms that meet the needs of all three of your customers’ brains? Here’s how.

Be helpful. Use tooltips for any field that might by

“Making your

confusing or raise a red flag in a visitor’s mind. When errors are made, alert the visitor immediately, before he moves on to the next field. Nothing is more aggravating than getting all the way to the submit button before finding out an error has been made.

online forms faster, easier

Be organized. If a lengthy form is required (e.g. for

intrusive can

purchases), you can decrease a visitor’s anxiety by simply grouping fields into several small categories. This visual organization will give the impression of simplicity.

have a huge positive impact

Be transparent. Let people know how their infor-

on your

mation will be used by linking to your privacy policy directly on the form. And make sure it opens in a lightbox “popover” that the user can read, close and then easily return to the form without losing any of the data they’ve already entered.

and less

conversion rate.”

Speed Up Completion Time Settle for Less to Get More Every field you add to your form reduces your conversion rate. The reptilian brain is lazy and will avoid tasks that appear complicated or time consuming. Asking for too much information will not only annoy the reptilian brain, but is also likely to trigger an emotional response from the limbic system. Asking for home address, annual income or marital status could all provoke enough anxiety to cause the visitor to bail. This may be the single most important element in optimizing your form. Be polite and don’t ask for more information online than you would be willing to ask a stranger face-to-face.

Clunky forms cause delays. And when impulse is delayed, people start to ask questions. Your visitor’s neocortex, the part of the brain that is responsible for critical thinking, will start evaluating whether or not he should complete the form. And his limbic system will likely start assigning emotions or preferences to the options. To avoid all this, make your form fast and efficient with some of these techniques.

Allow social connections. For a B2C company, offering one-click Facebook or LinkedIn buttons can speed up the form-fill process by grabbing the visitor’s information and pre-filling the form fields.

Make Your Form Effortless There’s no better way to convince your visitor that completing your form is worth the effort than simply making it effortless. The reptilian brain — the one that handles 95 percent of decisions — acts on impulse, likes immediate gratification and shuns complexity. Your visitor’s reptilian brain wants to tackle your form quickly and unthinkingly.

Use clear, simple language. A hospital client we worked with had an online form that allowed people to request referral to a doctor. The form had very high abandonment rates, most of which were caused by a single field called “Speciality.” In healthcare lingo, specialty refers to the type of doctor (cardiologist, general practitioner, etc.). But most of their senior-aged patients didn’t know that. Changing the form label to “Type of Doctor” immediately reduced abandonment rates.

Be accepting. Is it really necessary to require a phone number or date be entered with specific punctuation like slashes, hyphens or parenthesis? Of course not, so be flexible and use back-end programming to reformat data how you prefer it.

Make a clear path to completion. Let users know where they are in the form by highlighting the current field. This is especially helpful for longer forms. Allow users to tab sequentially through the fields, since many people prefer keyboard controls over mouse movements.

Be intuitive. If you know that most of your visitors come from the U.S., don’t alphabetize your drop-down list of countries. Instead, make U.S. the default option that resides at the top. Apply this same logic to any field that you can.

Making your online forms faster, easier and less intrusive can have a huge positive impact on your conversion rate. Carefully address the concerns of all three of your customers’ brains and you will enjoy higher completion rates and happier customers.

Tim Ash is the CEO of SiteTuners, Chair of Conversion Conference and author of Landing Page Optimization.

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S O C I A L M E D I A M AV E N S

5 Tips When Dave Danhi started the Grilled Cheese Truck in 2009, he had no idea that it would expand beyond one truck, much less that social media would be a huge driver of the company’s growth.

By Allison Howen, Associate Editor

For Growing a Local Following on Social Media (Organically!)

Now, almost five years later, Danhi notes that Facebook and Twitter are “paramount” to his business, and that about 80 percent of his customers get location information from the truck’s constant social updates (averaging about 4-5 updates per hour, per truck). In fact, Danhi says that social media marketing is almost as important as his food when it comes to the success of his business.

Although your enterprise’s daily success is likely not as dependent on social media as the Grilled Cheese Truck’s, that doesn’t mean growing a local following naturally, should be put on the back burner (no pun intended).

1. Optimize Business Info Regardless of the social network, it is vital for brands to include the correct business information within the “about” section of their profiles. Not only does this data help consumers find important information like business descriptions, hours of operation and contact info, but it also makes brands more “discoverable” in the social search results. In fact, Facebook’s new search feature, Graph Search, is particularly beneficial for local businesses. The feature leverages a variety of data, including information from the about section, to provide its members with the best results for their queries. For instance, Facebook members can use Graph Search to conduct local searches by querying “nearby restaurants” or “shoe stores nearby.” In order to receive better placement for this type of search, brands must optimize their Pages with the correct information, including business category and address.

2. Groups/Communities Both Facebook and Google+ enable users to create niche pages where they can publish and distribute content to smaller consumer groups. Facebook’s “Group” feature can be kept private or open to the public, and provides a direct way for brands to interact with audience members. Similarly, Google+’s “Communities” feature offers even more ways for brands to connect with their audiences.

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For example, brands can participate in Hangouts (video chats) with community members, and even have the ability to create community “Events.” By creating an Event, social networking can be taken offline to foster better personal relationships with customers. For instance, a pet supply store could create a “puppy meet and greet” event, which is a good way to invite the local community into the company’s brick-and-mortar location.

3. Ask for Likes and Check-Ins When it comes to social, audience interactions are the modern form of “word-of-mouth” because every interaction amplifies a brand’s reach. With Graph Search, interactions such as “check-ins” and “likes” are especially important, as they influence local search results. For example, consumers can use Facebook’s search feature for queries like “pet stores nearby that my friends like” or “coffee shops nearby that friends of my friends have been to.” In order to benefit from these queries, brands need to encourage their customers not only to like their business pages, but also to use the check-in feature at their stores.

4. Hashtags Hashtags finally received some love from Facebook in 2013, as this feature was supported by the world’s largest social network after gaining popularity on platforms like Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram. Participating with trending hashtags will surely raise brand awareness, but to obtain visibility from locals, it is vital to use hashtags that they will recognize and know to search for. Testing is the best way to see which hashtags garner the best results, but one guaranteed way to gain local visibility is by using area-related hashtags, such as #city, #county or #state.

5. Cross-Platform Marketing Most businesses have spent resources growing a following on at least one social network, and for local businesses, the majority of those audience members are likely within close proximity (at least they should be). In order to obtain the same amount of success on emerging social channels like Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr, it is a good idea to cross-promote social profiles on a consistent basis. Luckily, the Web is full of social media management tools, like HootSuite and Sprout Social, which can help businesses save time in their cross-promotion efforts.

W E B C O M M E N TA R Y

By Amberly Dressler, Managing Editor

CONTAGIOUSLY

OPTIMISTIC “Folks are usually about as happy as they make their minds up to be.”

That famous quote from President Abraham Lincoln is the premise of many self-help books that fuel a multi-million dollar market.

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The reason is that many of us whole-heartedly believe in the power of positive thinking — that if we sincerely believe something will happen it will and that no matter how stormy it is today, the sun will come out tomorrow. Optimism, however, is often not a principle we live our daily lives by, so we turn to authors — strangers really — to figure out how to view the glass fuller, more often.

Why can’t we trust ourselves to continually produce positive thoughts or be a positive presence for ourselves and for those around us? In short, we are products of our environments.

Website Magazine readers, especially those who work in offices, are all too familiar with workplace illnesses. It’s inevitable that if one person in an office gets a cold or the flu, many of their coworkers will too. After all, they work in the same space for roughly 40 hours a week, touching the same door handles, using the same water cooler and sharing circulated air. Like sickness, isn’t it possible that our lack of optimism is contagious too?

In the number one New York Times bestseller, “E2, Nine Do-It-Yourself Energy Experiments That Prove Your Thoughts Create Your Reality,” author Pam Grout talks about how we are all energy. We mold and shape this energy with our thoughts, intentions and actions. How we feel, think and believe affects our energy flows. This affects how we “vibrate” in the world.

What’s most interesting is that Grout writes, “We always attract our vibrational match. We are the initiators of the vibrations, and therefore the ‘magnets’ or the cause.” Grout continues that “there is no you or them.”

We are all connected and therefore we, each one of us, needs to be the change. We need to be optimistic before those around us can be optimistic.

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This month’s featured article, “Everyday Digital Optimization” discusses treating optimization, making something better than it was yesterday, as a daily task. Before we can get our minds around making everyday improvements in our organizations, however, we need to start with our negativity-loving selves. Here are a few suggestions to, well, turn that frown upside down.

Smile: Smiling releases dopamine, which makes us feel good. Try smiling while sending an email or walk into every meeting flashing those pearly whites (bringing doughnuts may help too) and the recipients will likely respond positively.

Change Your Language: Strike “need to” and “try to” from your vocabulary immediately. Say, for example, you have a report due that needs to be worked on over the weekend. Rather than saying, “I need to work on this report,” change the language in your head to, “I want to work on this report, because I want to be recognized, rewarded, etc.” The phrase, “try to” works in the same way. By saying, “I will try to,” you are already admitting defeat. Change this overused phrase to something more positive like, “I will” and you'll be on your way to saying, “I did.”

Know It's You, Not Them: If work is hectic, a project isn’t going as planned or everyone seems like they’re in sour moods, take a break and reflect.

Can you be a calmer presence, are you actually the one dropping the ball and is it you who is really in a bad mood?

As Internet professionals, many of whom work in complex or multi-tasking environments, we can all do our part to bring positive “vibrations” to the world around us and be contagiously optimistic.