Hello everyone. Wow what a crazy September it has been! Fortunately we’ve I finally have a break in my schedule  so I get to share with you another aspect of My “Google Search-less” marketing strategies that I like to call my “Google Free Marketing Diet”. Current SEO techniques are always in danger of going extinct and although SEO is still important to me and should be to you as well,  my mission is to help my clients and you to not be so dependent on Google for your digital marketing. I would love for you to get to a point where instead of stressing out about the latest updates etc from Google. I want you to be able to breathe easy knowing that a larger potion of your traffic and marketing strategy is independent of Google Search. This will give you the breathing room you need to adjust your strategies calmly and logically when trends, and algorithms change instead of panicking like your Google-centric competitors.
In earlier articles we discussed the first ingredient you can utilize other than simply Search. VIDEO! If you could get a quarter of your traffic via online video what a colossal asset that would be! Now lets discuss the second “staple” in the “Google-Free Marketing Diet”. Its not some amazing new cutting edge tech. Not some fresh faced “killer app”. In fact its been with you probably from the time you started using the internet. The next key asset to leverage in your “Google-free” strategy are your “E-mail” assets.

Why email?

Its simple! Everyone who uses the internet uses Email. Plus Email is an incredibly resilient technology. Despite all of the changes to the internet over the years and the wellspring of new ways to connect with people, we all use Email and we use it ALOT!

If you think about it, you can spend a huge amount of time on Linked in or Twitter trying to build a following and yet you could spend just as much effort on leveraging your email and you would likely end up with better results. Why you may ask? Well consider Emails big arch rival “Social Networks”. What is it that makes these networks have so much reach? Email! In fact email is plays such a vital role in the reach and power of these social networks that other than your name, your email is the first piece of info they want from you. Then what do they do next? They try to delve into your email accounts to try to capitalize on your email assets. They do this because Email as a whole is still the worlds largest social network. Everyone knows how to use it, its user friendly and its simple. Plus I believe email has staying power because its been built right into the DNA of the internet.

Still think Email isn’t important? According to this article 2.4 billion people are on the internet. Of that 2.2 billion use Email. Isn’t that an absolutely astounding figure?

Basically if you aren’t factoring your Email assets into your making strategy, you aren’t just missing out on some small aspect of your marketing plan, you are missing our on the most far reaching marketing tool the world has probably ever seen.

 Ask yourself these 5 questions…

1. Do I have an Email marketing list?

2. How could I leverage that list and how much of a boost would that be to my marketing?

3. What would it take to get that list 2, 5, even 10 time bigger?

4. What are some ways I can make my Email marketing as effective as possible?

5. What is not having an effective Email strategy potentially costing me?

Now I have a question for you? Would you like to learn a few ways to really utilize your Email assets?

In the next article I will share some simple and effective steps you can take to really get going on your Email marketing strategy.

For now let me give you one quick tip to get you started until the next article.  Take a hard brutal look at your website.  How geared is it towards getting people to sign up for your lists? Is your site cluttered, full of random useless info that is distracting users from signing up rather than leading and guiding them to sign up? Do you have a “call to action button” on every page asking users to sign them up to your lists?

If not add one today, and if your site is cluttered start prioritizing and eyeing up the parts that aren’t necessary so you will be ready to “cut the fat”.  Doing this first step is a crucial  step in leveraging Email to implement your overall “Google-Free” strategy.

Stay tuned for the next article and I hope that even just reading this one article has inspired you to take some action.

“Grab” “Engage” and “Hold” Your Audience

After a brief hiatus we are back!  And we’re serving up our next post in our series on harnessing the power of online video in your online marketing.

In the previous article we talked about some of the ways you can “grab” viewers by optimizing your video in your online marketing.   Now I’m going to give you some more tips to make your videos as effective as possible. 

“Engage” your audience

Google tracks how many people have viewed and showed interest in your video.  They track commenting, sharing and likes.  Therefore you want to work hard to keep your audience as engaged as possible. Encourage them to like and comment on the videos and be sure to interact with them in the comments section. One way to further push commenting is to team up with other video makers to create a “response group” whereby you comment and interact with their videos and they in turn do the same with yours.  

Always strive to be unique, set yourself apart from the rest of the herd.  And please please PLEASE keep your videos to a reasonable length.  A major difference between the “winner” videos and the “loser” videos is length. You could be sharing some amazing information, but if you drone on and on for 5, 10, 15 mins  your audience will either start skipping through the video or leaving altogether. Either way they will definitely not be looking for more of your information in the future.  A good rule of thumb is to keep your videos to 1-2 mins if you can.  And if you are doing a video that is more “educational” in nature keep it around 3-5 minutes depending on how engaged your audience is.  

Energy = engagement

It takes a LOT of effort keep people engaged nowadays. So you will need to “amp it up”  if you are truly going to hold the attention of your audience. Try to push your enthusiasm to the edge of where you feel comfortable and then bump it up another 3 notches. Friends of mine in the cinematography business say that the camera sucks out about 60% of your on screen energy and presence.   Therefore you need to make a conscious effort to push your enthusiasm while in front of the camera. 

“Hold” viewers Through Consistency

The next step is to create a consistent schedule for your videos.   Why have TV  shows worked so well for the past few decades?  Its because they keep up a consistent schedule and their viewers are more likely to tune in because they know that there is always fresh new content.   This isn’t always easy to do, which is why being organized and maintaining a schedule is vital.  It can be as simple as using a spreadsheet to plan out the next few weeks of videos.  I encourage my clients to plan and shoot a bunch of videos in one day so they always have a buffer of videos post over the next few days and weeks.   This kind of planning and consistency will do wonders for your online video marketing. 

Now go get your camera!

Now its time to stop thinking about doing a video and just do it!  Remember to apply what we have discussed. You want to “grab” the audience with promotion and optimization, you want to “engage” them with killer content and interaction. and you want to”hold” onto them with consistency and usefulness.

Next we will talk about how to take these videos and use them effectively reach your online marketing goals. 

Well here we go, you’re on your way to going “Google Free” with your online marketing campaigns.  As I mentioned in the previous post; ranking on Google is great, but why not try to get yourself into a position where you don’t even really need to worry about your rank on Google! Think of how liberating that would be.   Well by reading this post you are on the right track. So lets jump right into the first ingredient in my  “Google Free” plan.

The Unstoppable Power of VIDEO!

You’ve already heard it a million times before.  Video is an enormously powerful way to market online.  And of course this makes logical sense and the majority of people have now been raised with television and in many ways prefer to learn and take in information via video.  So the question is “why aren’t  you making the most of online video?”.   If you need any more convincing pay attention to the following interesting statistics.

– “89 million people in the United States are going to watch 1.2 billion online videos today!” (ComScore)

– As of August 2012 87.3 percent of the U.S. Internet audience viewed online video. (ComScore)

Just think of the audience you could be either reaching or missing out on if you aren’t utilizing Video.   Now I know You-Tube is owned by Google, but we’re talking about avoiding having to worry so much about ranking on Google search. Making the most of YouTube and numerous other video sites are a key way to accomplish this.

One  thing you may not have realized is that YouTube is the worlds second largest search engine!  Still not convinced of the power of online video?  Consider this interesting statistic I found.

“Watching a minute of video is the equivalent of reading 1.8 million words” – Dr. James McQuivey of Forrester Research

People watch video for a very important reason.  Because they can consume so much more information than text or even pictures ever could. If a picture is worth a thousand words then a video is worth 10 times that!  Now if you are still reading this and haven’t already ran off to watch some online videos lets talk about how we can harness that power and use video effectively online to reach our goal of being“Google free”.

Optimize Optimize Optimize

A key point to remember is that YouTube and other video sites are essentially search engines.  Therefore an important part of your video marketing strategy should be to concern yourself with optimizing your videos for search.  Here are some quick video optimization tips to get your video seen!

– Keywords in your video name: Just like you need to optimize the <title> tags on your website or blog to help your SEO, you also should optimize the title of your video by incorporating your target keywords.  For examples your title could be

“ Donkey Taming – Learn to become a Donkey whisperer in 5 mins!”

Notice how the keyword “donkey taming” is right at the beginning. Then the word donkey is repeated again.  Also all the keyword targeting in the world won’t help if the title of the video doesn’t draw in your target viewer to actually view it.  So try to show the user both the benefit and the time involved in one hyper effective “supertitle”.

– Utilize your description: Make sure you have your target keywords included in your video description as well as any URL’s you would like to have associated with the video that will benefit your overall marketing plan. Also be sure to include your keywords in the videos “tags”.

– Have a call to Action:  I will discuss this further later on but you should always include a call to action, not just in the video but also in the description. Have a BOLD call to action that draws attention like …

“VISIT DONKEYPOWER.ORG TO RECEIVE EVEN MORE AMAZING DONKEY INFORMATION”

Never forget that the best way to get people to do what you want is to simply ask them to. So use calls to actions in your video description and frequently in your videos.

– Optimize using transcriptions: Did you know that YouTube includes a transcription with every video.  Did you also know that you can edit that transcription to ensure that it is correct.  A correct transcription is an important part of optimizing your video as YouTube looks at the transcriptions to determine a videos relevancy.  Another great tip that I sometimes use is to have a brief summary of the video in the description (Along with a great call to action of course).

Guess what! there are many more great tips just regarding Online video alone that you can use. Stay tuned for my next post where I will discuss even more helpful tips to build up your online video marketing strategy as part of my “Google Free Marketing Diet”.

The “Google-Free” Marketing Diet

I want to start off this series of articles by stating that I am a massive Google fan!  I use Google for everything. I was one of the first Gmail adopters, I love Android, I have been using Google drive since its inception and I have actively promoted it to all of my friends and clients ever since. Back in the 90’s when I was in high school I was one of the first people in my school to start using Google instead of Yahoo and I routinely touted the superiority of Google to all my friends. I still routinely consult businesses on SEO and we manage many Adwords accounts for clients.

But I’m going to let you in on a secret that I have been developing over the last year or so…

You don’t need Google to market your website!

“pish posh” you might say. “SEO marketing and Search is stronger than ever and growing by leaps and bounds every day!”  You are absolutely right. Search is massive!  SEM and SEO  (if done right) can do wonders for your site or business.  But I’m going to say it again you can go it without Google if you need to.

Why would anyone want to do that?  Well for starters search can be an extremely crowded place. Search is more competitive than ever and the SEO strategies necessary to keep up with all of the other players are becoming increasingly complicated and (potentially) even more expensive which can be rough for startups or businesses in tough industries like real estate.  SEO is not dead, however other forms of inbound marketing have more potential than you may have ever thought possible, and may even be superior to traditional SEO.

Sadly, perhaps because of bad or outdated SEO practices that were implemented on their websites, many business are being punished by Google. I have started to receive more and more interest in  businesses requesting consulting on how to repair their search rank after being punished by Google for SEO strategies their  SEO “ expert” implemented that have since left their traffic taking a nasty nosedive leaving their whole webmarketing strategy in shambles.

But there is hope!!

 What if you put your marketing on a “Google free” diet for a time and focused on some other amazing inbound marketing strategies that could end up bringing even more traffic than Google could with twice the effort!  Think about how much less anxiety you would have if you didn’t have to constantly agonize over your Google rank and if you are fitting in with its policies and latest updates.  Following this “Google Free” marketing Diet will force you to become more diversified which will put you in a much stronger and more flexible marketing position.  Then ranking well on Google would become a “nice bonus” instead of a “desperate need.”

Over the next while I will be sharing points from my upcoming book, sharing ways that you can succeed in marketing online without even needing Google.

So stay tuned for my next post or Click Here to sign up to receive free updates!

Well this is it, the final strategy in our series on “Analog” SEO strategies.  Strategy #5 not only puts you in the drivers seat as an authority in your industry, it also paves the way to create backlinking opportunities and natural traffic.  ASEO strategy #5 is .

Create an Industry Conference

This strategy is not for the faint of heart but it is a powerful way to gain “social proof” with your customers as a leader in your sector but if you play your cards right it will also drive links and traffic to your site.  Now creating your own conference is very daunting and may not be possible for you if you don’t have the connections or resources. However if you can accomplish this feat it will be a valuable tool you can use for ASEO. So where can you start?

How to start your own conference

To get a conference off the ground you will need to get in touch with everyone you can who may be interested in attending your conference.  You will first need to establish a committee to get started planning the event.  give yourself at least 6-8 months to plan.  The next thing you will need is money.  I would say you will need to drum up at least $1500-2000 in seed money to start.  You can do this by calling potential sponsors who would be interested in helping with the conference for the same reasons you want to create it in the first place.  Another idea would be to try to raise some seed money using a crowdfunding site and then promote the crowdfunding project it to others in your industry using LinkedIn and other Social Media.  Also at first don’t make the attendance fee to exorbitant.  Remember these things need to start small before they can really take off on an annual basis so focus on driving attendance and providing valuable information before you start handing out “gift baskets” and hiring “the B-52’s” to provide dinner entertainment.

Get a room

Next you will need to find a venue.  If you ask around there may be tonnes of great affordable venues you have never heard of.  One tip I can give you is to ask wedding planners or wedding photographers.  They usually know every venue in the city and if you buy them a cup of coffee or take them to lunch they can give you some great advice regarding local venues.

Promote, advertise, tweet, post, network and then promote some more!

I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but this strategy will never succeed unless you promote the stink out of it! But believe me its worth it.  If your website is the primary host of all things to do with this conference then all the other representatives will be backlinking to your site as they talk about it and promote it on their websites and social media.  Also I would suggest creating an appealing  “badge” graphic that delegates can show on their websites indicating that they will be attending or sponsoring the event that also links back to your site. Your website will essentially become the “hub” for the conference so you will be getting a boost in traffic as people look to your site for information regarding the event.  

Provide great value

The next step is to try to line up some amazing speakers in your industry. If you’re going to spend your budget somewhere this should be your highest priority.  If people attend your conference and they come away feeling like they genuinely learned something that excited them and brought real value to their business then they will be more than happy to attend it again in the future. Plus they will sing its praises to others.

While feeding the mind don’t forget the belly

Everyone loves food!  If you feed people well they will have great memories. If you can’t afford expensive catering then hit Costco for food  and rent basic catering equipment. Just because you can’t give them 5 star gourmet doesn’t mean you still can’t provide a nice spread that makes people happy and provides a lasting impression.  If they remember nothing else they will still remember a great meal.  

Learn to delegate

If you try to micromanage you will quickly find that you will not only start to burn out but you won’t be able to put on a very good event. If you’re not good with people or delegating then simply find one capable person you trust and delegate the management to them and let them look after all the delegating. If you have a good budget you can also hire a pro event planner. Believe me, its worth it.  

Get feedback

Don’t ever forget the value of feedback. If possible have attendees visit your website to fill out a short form about how to make the conference better and what they would like to have next time. Not only does this give you valuable information but (you guessed it) it drives more traffic to your website!

Try it!

I know this all may sound a bit overwhelming but you don’t have to start out big.  Your first conference could be a simple one day affair with 50 people in a $350 room rental with lunch coffee and tea provided via Costco.  If used correctly you will not only boost traffic to your site, but your conference may grow into a major event that provides not only amazing networking opportunities but will boost the view of your brand as a major player in your industry.

I hope you enjoyed this series on what I like to call “Analog” SEO (ASEO).  We will be posting in greater detail on the strategies discussed here in the future. So be sure to  sign up for free updates by clicking the button below!