XML sitemaps - Do we need to add it to our website??

Hi all, did some research on XML sitemaps. See below.

 

Google introduced Google Sitemaps so web developers can publish lists of links from across their sites. The basic premise is that some sites have a large number of dynamic pages that are only available through the use of forms and user entries. The Sitemap files contains URLs to these pages so that web crawlers can find them. Bing, Google, Yahoo and Ask now jointly support the Sitemaps protocol.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_map#XML_Sitemaps

 

>> A site map is basically lists of links across their sites. XML sitemaps differs from a basic (manual) sitemap in that it contains metadata on each URL .. see below…

 

In its simplest form, a Sitemap is an XML file that lists URLs for a site along with additional metadata about each URL (when it was last updated, how often it usually changes, and how important it is, relative to other URLs in the site) so that search engines can more intelligently crawl the site.

-http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html

 

It is strongly recommended that you place your Sitemap at the root directory of your web server. For example, if your web server is at example.com, then your Sitemap index file would be at http://example.com/sitemap.xml. In certain cases, you may need to produce different Sitemaps for different paths (e.g., if security permissions in your organization compartmentalize write access to different directories).

-http://www.sitemaps.org/protocol.html

 

If we do not want to add sitemap to our sites, we still have to add a file to prove ownership of the site.

http://jazzymarketing.com/lc/0811/how-upload-xml-sitemap-google-yahoo-and-msn

 

XML Sitemaps have replaced the older method of "submitting to search engines" by filling out a form on the search engine's submission page. Now web developers submit a Sitemap directly, or wait for search engines to find it.

-http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site_map#XML_Sitemaps

>>or we could do away with XML altogether and just submit site manually to search engines. 

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Free Keyword Density Tool: Measures the most frequently used words on your site.

http://tools.seobook.com/general/keyword-density/

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Is there a difference in link juice weightage for links in pull-down menu and anchor text on the site?

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Check this box to show only results that include your original keyword

On Google Keyword Tool. 

(x) Only show ideas closely related to my search terms

Include or exclude words using the "+" or "-" sign: Your results will be updated to include only keyword ideas that contain at least one of the terms you added. 

Use the "Match Types" filter at the left column. 

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Avoid keyword stuffing with tags

"limit up to 25-30 tags on sites which don’t have main subjects to have concerns..."

"...you can easily no-follow it"

http://www.dailyblogging.org/seo/avoid-tag-clouds-to-prevent-keyword-stuffing/

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Most important digital channels for product awareness:

July 2012 reseach.

Most important digital channels for product awareness:

1. internet sites

2. email, newsletters, offers

3. In-store technology eg kiosks

4. social media

5. smart phones eg apps

6. phones eg call centers

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

The Most Interesting Ad Video for a Keyboard Shortcut

http://www.clicktoapp.com/videos/clickto-google.mp4

I could watch this a million times cos its just so entertaining. heehee. It's like cartoon for grownups. 

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Free Digital Marketing Event in SG

http://www.helplearn.asia/

March 13^th and 14^th at Genexis Theater, Fusionopolis, Singapore

From $115.00

Topics: SEO, SEM, Social Media, Analytics, Mobile Ads, Online PR

With Thanks, Andrea Ng

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

Mobile marketing 101: Mobile marketing is not ad placement.

Mobile marketing is NOT ad placement in a content provider platform. This is considered passive and not making full use of the strengths of a mobile device, a not matured usage of the mobile platform. 

 

There are 3 advantages that we should take note of, of the platform - a mobile device. 

•                It is an immediate reach to the customers. Dannie suggests that mobile be made the primary vehicle to reward and interact with customers. 

•                It is a personalized platform whereby services can be provided to the customers. 

•                And therefore, it is a tool to create an ongoing relationship with the community.

 

This, compared to streaming ads like on a one-way street, is a far cry. 

 

Some of the strategies mentioned are: 

1.             Push messaging – e.g. push notifications from an app.

2.             SMS marketing – text messages.

3.             M-coupons – mobile coupons pretty much like a banner add in the design of a coupon on an app or on mobile sites.

4.             QR Code – quick response code, squarish matrix code that can be read with a QR code app, e.g. loyalty and rewards for customers, scans from magazines.

5.             NFC – near field communication, 2 devices communicating by touching them together or being close e.g. mobile payments, share files by bumping phones.

6.             Geo-fencing and Location-based targeting – gen-fencing is a predefined set of virtual boundaries on a physical location, such that when a user using with location-aware device like foursquare, enters the “zone”, he is being “location-based targeted”. You get the idea.

 

Question: Do the strategies mentioned above require an app to begin with? E.g. mobile app, ipad app.

 

Yes and no.

 

Browser-based mobile advertising is only limited to the traditional web online advertising methods such as SEO and SEM. In other words, it is the same as full browser advertising. Whereas an app would give greater control and creativity when it comes to mobile advertising can do activites like Push messaging, m-coupons, QR Code, NFC, Geo-fencing, Location-based targeting.

 

However, some techniques like SMS marketing and QR code do not need an app to carry out. Some techniques like NFC and location-based targeting can be carried out using already existing popular apps such as Foursquare, m-coupons can be inserted into popular mobile websites etc.

 

In response to Dannie Francis's blog post, Mobile Marketing Isn't Mobile Advertising, http://www.thecellcity.com/mobile-marketing-isnt-mobile-advertising/

Mobile marketing 101: Mobile marketing is not ad placement.

Mobile marketing is NOT ad placement in a content provider platform. This is considered passive and not making full use of the strengths of a mobile device, a not matured usage of the mobile platform. 

 

There are 3 advantages that we should take note of, of the platform - a mobile device. 

•                It is an immediate reach to the customers. Dannie suggests that mobile be made the primary vehicle to reward and interact with customers. 

•                It is a personalized platform whereby services can be provided to the customers. 

•                And therefore, it is a tool to create an ongoing relationship with the community.

 

This, compared to streaming ads like on a one-way street, is a far cry. 

 

Some of the strategies mentioned are: 

1.             Push messaging – e.g. push notifications from an app.

2.             SMS marketing – text messages.

3.             M-coupons – mobile coupons pretty much like a banner add in the design of a coupon on an app or on mobile sites.

4.             QR Code – quick response code, squarish matrix code that can be read with a QR code app, e.g. loyalty and rewards for customers, scans from magazines.

5.             NFC – near field communication, 2 devices communicating by touching them together or being close e.g. mobile payments, share files by bumping phones.

6.             Geo-fencing and Location-based targeting – gen-fencing is a predefined set of virtual boundaries on a physical location, such that when a user using with location-aware device like foursquare, enters the “zone”, he is being “location-based targeted”. You get the idea.

 

Question: Do the strategies mentioned above require an app to begin with? E.g. mobile app, ipad app.

 

Yes and no.

 

Browser-based mobile advertising is only limited to the traditional web online advertising methods such as SEO and SEM. In other words, it is the same as full browser advertising. Whereas an app would give greater control and creativity when it comes to mobile advertising can do activites like Push messaging, m-coupons, QR Code, NFC, Geo-fencing, Location-based targeting.

 

However, some techniques like SMS marketing and QR code do not need an app to carry out. Some techniques like NFC and location-based targeting can be carried out using already existing popular apps such as Foursquare, m-coupons can be inserted into popular mobile websites etc.

 

In response to Dannie Francis's blog post, Mobile Marketing Isn't Mobile Advertising, http://www.thecellcity.com/mobile-marketing-isnt-mobile-advertising/

Publish your own online magazine.

http://www.3dissue.com/3-easy-steps-to-create-an-online-magazine/?utm_source=BlogGlue_network&utm_medium=BlogGlue_Plugin

-Andrea 

Publish your own online magazine.

http://www.3dissue.com/3-easy-steps-to-create-an-online-magazine/?utm_source=BlogGlue_network&utm_medium=BlogGlue_Plugin

-Andrea 

Competitive Analysis (summary from Hubspot)

1. Gather your manna. 

It starts with research and then a series of questions to ask. 

1a. The Words

First log into competitor's website and any other external blogs and sites they own, go for all the content, look under footer and sitemap. 

Eg blog posts white papers Ebooks Videos webinars podcasts slide decks static visual content (i.e. infographics, cartoons) fAQs feature articles press releases Kits Case studies buyer guides Use cases Data sheets

Content is King!

1b. Next, read the content you found and assess them according to quantity, frequency and distribution of topics. Why?

>> Quantity, frequency: are we on par with them or do we need other types of materials or higher frequency?

>> Distribution: insight to their SEO strategy and thought leadership focus. 

1c. Evaluate the content. 

• How accurate is their content??
• Spelling and grammatical errors?
• What tone and approach do they adopt in their content???
• How readable is their content??
• Is their content mostly controlled by their "own" or open to social?
• Who are the writers? Internal writing team? Guest posts? Senior management?
• How engaged are the public to their content? This would determine the quality of their content. 
• How keywords are used in the content

1d. The Aesthetics

Look into: Blog structure Social media share buttons Content Categorization Bios How good are they are promoting their content via design

1e. The Unseen

Page Title URl architecture Title Header tags Copy’s keyword density Image AlT text Use of internal linking

1f. Social Media

• Are they on Facebook Twitter LinkedIn YouTube Google+ Pinterest? 
• Are they geting results using these channels?
• Number of fans/followers
• posting frequency and consistency of publishing
• Content engagement
• Content virality (such as shares, repins, or retweets)

1g. Evaluate your competitor's buying and customer service support process

• Use a secret shopping service (pay $$)
• Interview your customer base to see which ones came from that particular competitor (free)
• What is your competitor doing, where they are falling short, how they operate, what they value?

After you collect all these information.. what's next? ANALYZE THEM.

2. Analyzing the manna you have gathered. 

• Compare your site and theirs. 
• Content publishing volume outpaced?
• Content quality better?
• Embracing new trends? Or realizing people in the "new trends" arent ones you want to reach?
• How does your competitor positions its brand in the marketplace? That affects how YOU will position your brand. Differently or similar?
• Who are your competitors trying to forgo relationships with and who are their existing partners?
• Their technology tools - automation? advanced? basic? Which conveys to whether they are planning for fast growth or keeping their marketing activities status-quo.

3. Continue looking at competitors and be alerted of new compeitors using tools like Google alerts, email notifications, or your own VA. :)

Comparing to ours continuously. 

In conclusion within a breath,

first research their site for content frequency and quality and the topics, then the site aesthetics- how easily are they sharing their content on their site, then the backend optimization of html codes then the external sites supporting them such as social media. You can also go a step further by evaluating their CS support and buying process. How to analyze? Consider their brand positioning message, their relationship partners, and their technology tools. Lastly, make monitoring a habit to keep up and be in the circle!

Download the Ebook Here

With Thanks, Andrea

Digital Marketing Consultant

+8 GMT, Singapore

How I choose which LinkedIn group discussions to receive notifications from.

Whether the recent popular discussions have people posting problems in their SEO/SEM or not...

With Thanks, Andrea

8am-5pm, Mon-Fri, 8pm-9pm (emergency only)

+8 GMT, Singapore timezone. 

How I choose which LinkedIn group discussions to receive notifications from.

Whether the recent popular discussions have people posting problems in their SEO/SEM or not...

With Thanks, Andrea

8am-5pm, Mon-Fri, 8pm-9pm (emergency only)

+8 GMT, Singapore timezone. 

Why you need to go beyond "efficiency" in your operations and instead switch focus to making your business fun!

Why you need to go beyond "efficiency" in your operations and instead switch focus to making your business fun!

"Some businesses are soooo damn boring".

>>do something that resonates with your values. your principles. 

>>create a platform and let them bring their own element into it. you dont have to create the fun. how to have these collaborative efforts to fun. let them talk about it. among each other. 

>>create value for your products by tying it with a philantrophy effort. 

From Yanik Silver

E.g. Host Dangerous Dinners across the states. 

How do you apply this to a virtual business for your online, part-time, work-at-home contractors?

What would add value to their work for you?

Why you need to go beyond "efficiency" in your operations and instead switch focus to making your business fun!

Why you need to go beyond "efficiency" in your operations and instead switch focus to making your business fun!

"Some businesses are soooo damn boring".

>>do something that resonates with your values. your principles. 

>>create a platform and let them bring their own element into it. you dont have to create the fun. how to have these collaborative efforts to fun. let them talk about it. among each other. 

>>create value for your products by tying it with a philantrophy effort. 

From Yanik Silver

E.g. Host Dangerous Dinners across the states. 

How do you apply this to a virtual business for your online, part-time, work-at-home contractors?

What would add value to their work for you?

"Send Again" button.

Hey the "Send Again" button is quite useful especially if I have typed the email address wrongly and do not want the text to appear in quotations like it would if I clicked "Reply" or "Forward".

-Andrea

"Send Again" button.

Hey the "Send Again" button is quite useful especially if I have typed the email address wrongly and do not want the text to appear in quotations like it would if I clicked "Reply" or "Forward".

-Andrea

Google search commands and codes

First, the Basics of Google Search Parameters:

• Double quote mark (") is used when you want to search word for word, the exact phrase. Eg you want the word "delicious curry mixture" to appear word for word in the entire WWW, whether it appears in the web address, or email address, or picture name, or any corner on the website as text. 
• If you just want all the search words to be present, not caring about the order, you can use the plus sign (+) is treated as AND. Eg. facial + tissues + packaging. In this way, as long as those words appear, in any order on any corner of the website, it will show up as a result. 
• Minus sign or hyphen (-) with space in front means to exclude that word from your search result, aka it is treated as a negative word. Eg. tennis -balls, your results will generate anything that matches tennis except for tennis balls. 
• But if there is no space infront of the hypen, it means it is part of the word. eg ice-cream, "cream" is not treated as a negative word, therefore results will pull up the words "ice-cream". 

For SEO

• IN ADDRESS BAR:
• Note which country version of Google you are in. Click on "Google.com" below to go to USA. You can also add "geo=LOCATION" to specific the country you want the result to come from. Using "geo=SG" pulls up results from "Singapore" also. 
• Use hl=eng to get sites in English. 
• If we want to find duplicate articles as ours, please note that Google automatically filters out duplicate content, we can then use - filter=0 to switch off this function. 
• Add &pws=0 to the back of your web address bar after you search. This turns off Google personalization of search results. Enter this "http://www.google.com/search=?&pws=0" on your address bar instead of the usual google.com.
• IN SEARCH BAR:
• Find competition sites that uses your keyword in their titles, url, page text and tags, and anchor text : intitle:"keyword keyword", inurl:"keyword keyword", inpage:"keyword keyword", inanchor:"keyword keyword"
• One important way of finding quality backlinks is to know what are those links that Google actually take into account for our competitors. So the easy way is to do a backlink search on Google for the keyword we are targetting. 
• Check backlinks on Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, Open Site Explorer. Or use the inanchor:"keyword keyword". Or check who links to your competitor by using link: "domain.com". Note there is a space after link: . 
• To check backlinks for your site and yet not want to include results from your own site, add "-site:yourownsite.com"

Credits: http://tuljo.com/search-engine-optimisation/google-search-parameters-in-url, http://tuljo.com/search-engine-optimisation/how-to-check-backlinks

List of codes: http://blog.slashpoundbang.com/post/12975232033/google-news-search-parameters-the-missing-manual

If you can understand: https://developers.google.com/search-appliance/documentation/50/xml_reference

Google search commands and codes

First, the Basics of Google Search Parameters:

• Double quote mark (") is used when you want to search word for word, the exact phrase. Eg you want the word "delicious curry mixture" to appear word for word in the entire WWW, whether it appears in the web address, or email address, or picture name, or any corner on the website as text. 
• If you just want all the search words to be present, not caring about the order, you can use the plus sign (+) is treated as AND. Eg. facial + tissues + packaging. In this way, as long as those words appear, in any order on any corner of the website, it will show up as a result. 
• Minus sign or hyphen (-) with space in front means to exclude that word from your search result, aka it is treated as a negative word. Eg. tennis -balls, your results will generate anything that matches tennis except for tennis balls. 
• But if there is no space infront of the hypen, it means it is part of the word. eg ice-cream, "cream" is not treated as a negative word, therefore results will pull up the words "ice-cream". 

For SEO

• IN ADDRESS BAR:
• Note which country version of Google you are in. Click on "Google.com" below to go to USA. You can also add "geo=LOCATION" to specific the country you want the result to come from. Using "geo=SG" pulls up results from "Singapore" also. 
• Use hl=eng to get sites in English. 
• If we want to find duplicate articles as ours, please note that Google automatically filters out duplicate content, we can then use - filter=0 to switch off this function. 
• Add &pws=0 to the back of your web address bar after you search. This turns off Google personalization of search results. Enter this "http://www.google.com/search=?&pws=0" on your address bar instead of the usual google.com.
• IN SEARCH BAR:
• Find competition sites that uses your keyword in their titles, url, page text and tags, and anchor text : intitle:"keyword keyword", inurl:"keyword keyword", inpage:"keyword keyword", inanchor:"keyword keyword"
• One important way of finding quality backlinks is to know what are those links that Google actually take into account for our competitors. So the easy way is to do a backlink search on Google for the keyword we are targetting. 
• Check backlinks on Google Webmaster Tools, Yahoo Site Explorer, Open Site Explorer. Or use the inanchor:"keyword keyword". Or check who links to your competitor by using link: "domain.com". Note there is a space after link: . 
• To check backlinks for your site and yet not want to include results from your own site, add "-site:yourownsite.com"

Credits: http://tuljo.com/search-engine-optimisation/google-search-parameters-in-url, http://tuljo.com/search-engine-optimisation/how-to-check-backlinks

List of codes: http://blog.slashpoundbang.com/post/12975232033/google-news-search-parameters-the-missing-manual

If you can understand: https://developers.google.com/search-appliance/documentation/50/xml_reference

Increase CTR by 1300%: Grab FREE 27 pre-designed calls-to-action buttons!

27 pre-designed calls-to-action (CTAs) just for you, which you can customise and save using PowerPoint! You can also use these on your clients' sites.

By improving the design of the call-to-action buttons on your website, you can increase your click-through rates by 1300% (or more). 

Increase CTR by 1300%: Grab FREE 27 pre-designed calls-to-action buttons!

27 pre-designed calls-to-action (CTAs) just for you, which you can customise and save using PowerPoint! You can also use these on your clients' sites.

By improving the design of the call-to-action buttons on your website, you can increase your click-through rates by 1300% (or more). 

Synonyms really meant additional words around your keywords, and not a brand new keyword that has the same or close meaning as your keyword. For example, keyword "kitten" wont get you "baby cat" but will get you "adopt kittens".

https://www.en.adwords-community.com/t5/Improve-results/Synonyms-does-not-new-words-but-words-around-keywords/m-p/91162#U91162