Inbound Marketing From a Maui Beach by FatIguana

Aloha from Maui, Hawaii! This week in our world of Inbound Marketing, Bing released another user interface update, Facebook was busy launching App Center and Google rolled out Google+ Hangounts On Air. Catch up with this week's Inbound Marketing Recap from Maui for the week ending May 12, 2012:

With more than 80% of purchases beginning on the Internet, your content must do more than simply provide information about your business along with a sales pitch. Consumers are more savvy than ever and expect your business website to contain information delivering what they are seeking. Successful website marketing efforts must reach consumers as early in their decision making process as possible. Your business website must generate trust in your business and position you as the thought leader to count on. To maximize the benefits of business website marketing, use the following four tips:

Among the interesting stories included in this week's Inbound Marketing recap you'll find a summary of Facebook's new Active Link feature, Google's April algorithmic changes likely to affect SEO and information with news about another Facebook acquistion. I hope you enjoy this week's collection of Inbound Marketing stories from the week ending May 5, 2012:

Have you been to a business networking function or social party and someone asked why don’t you like me on Facebook? Or, why didn’t you follow me after I followed you on Twitter? Maybe it was I sent you a LinkedIn Invitation or I added you to a circle on Google Plus, why didn’t you connect or circle me? Sound familiar? My Inbound Marketing agency clients often ask: For my business social media marketing, should I follow, friend or circle anyone and everyone who follows me? Each time I’m asked this question, my answer is a resounding without hesitation NO, you should not follow, friend or circle everyone!

Some SEOs were chilled when their website traffic dropped significantly. Did your business website loose traffic due to the new Google excess optimization penalty? This weeks most important Inbound Marketing stories include Google releasing an over optimizaton penalty update and an interesting comScore study demonstrating why local search marketing efforts are necessary! In addition to the important SEO update, my weekly Inbound Marketing recap focuses on metric data geek news about analytic tool developments and a couple social media marketing stories. Read about the Google Penguin and more in my Inbound Marketing Recap for the week ending April 27, 2012:

Content Creation! That’s it, two words! CONTENT CREATION is the single best way to create valuable natural inbound links! Internet marketing success really is that simple: Create great content people value or enjoy. Publish the content where it will be found and you will be rewarded with valuable one way inbound links. If you give people what they want where they are looking to find it, they will return for more and they are very likely to link to your content and share it with others who have similar interests or needs. When others share and link to your content, you have earned valuable one way natural inbound links the search engines love! Building links through content creation not only provides natural link benefits, the content has the potential to generate more links over time with only minimal additional effort. My Inbound Marketing agency clients hear me say natural inbound links built through content creation are the marketing investments that keep giving and keep growing!

I'm opening this week's Inbound Marketing Recap by saying 'Aloha'. Since I write my weekly recap articles from the beach or from the office of my West Maui Inbound Marketing agency across the street from the beach, it seemed especially fitting to open with my greeting. Without further ado, my recap of the latest SEO, Social Media news and stories affecting our world of Inbound Marketing from the week ending April 20, 2012:

It pains me when I see an attractive business website with high quality content and generating traffic only to miss opportunities to convert traffic into leads and sales! It reminds me of business' sending marketing and sales teams to trade shows without bothering to figure out methods to capture targeted qualified leads from their trade show marketing investments. Like many who visit a web site, most attendees at trade shows are simply not ‘buy ready’ prospects yet. Instead, they are still in the research process or information gathering phase of their buying process with decision making process. Meaning, they are visiting the trade show or visiting your business website for the purpose of collecting information or performing research to further their decision making process. Website marketers who want to grow their business through strategic Internet marketing opportunities know that just like those memorable old trade show days, website visitors must be given reasons to be willing to provide their contact information. On the web, the reason is usually to get whatever information or content they are being offered, and thus converting into a lead. The 4 things a website must include to convert visitor traffic or increase the website conversion ratio:

This week's Inbound Marketing recap is highlighted by aquistions, earnings and user interface updates. Read about the new Google+ website design, Facebook's acquisition of Instagram photo social sharing app, Google Q1 earning report and other important Inbound Marketing stories from the week ending April 13, 2012:

1. Who are the people you want to attract to your business? Customers are people and modern marketing requires you to think about customers as people making the decision to utilize your business. Attracting more of the ideal people you want to buy your products or utilize your services is necessary for business growth and sometimes business survival. Attracting people matching your ideal customer profile requires an understanding of the ideal customer persona being sought. The more you understand your ideal prospect’s purchase decision process or buying process, the more you will be positioned to deliver content closely matching and aligned to what they are seeking and at the correct point in their buying process.
   
   
2. What do your ideal customers care about and what information are they looking for? If you want to be a thought leader in your market and the ‘go to’ business relied upon when potential customers are learning about the products or services your business provides, you need to understand what they are seeking and provide informative content aligned to reach them early in their decision making and buying process. You must provide the information and content that truly answers the questions they have or answers questions their customers have. Once you understand who your ideal customers are and the information they are seeking, content marketing efforts become focused on producing content matching what your ideal prospects seek and positioning your content to be ‘findable’ where they are searching for it. Doing so produces the highest ROI from your Inbound Marketing efforts.
   
   
3. Where are the customers you want finding the information they are seeking? If you want to be found by the customers you want, your content must be found where your prospects expect to find it. Since more than 80% of all purchase decisions begin on the Internet, your business needs to be visible where your audience will find it. Your content needs to be positioned so your ideal prospects will find it and want to consume the content once they find it. Rather than attempting to manipulate search engine marketing or fixating on high page rankings for search terms you think your best prospects are using, determine exactly how your ideal prospects are already finding the content they are looking for and where they are getting it from. Once you know what and where, placing your own content where it will be found is far easier than guessing. Utilize website analytics tools to determine how your best customers found your business. Discover new streams of prospect traffic by learning where else (other than your website) potential prospects are finding the information they are looking for. Website analytics tools such as Google analytics, Alexa.com, compete.com and others can help you discover new sources your prospects are using to answer their questions or get information they want. Ideally, your analytics tools will be able to report how and where your existing customer first found you; the exact path used along the way with all touch points including social media and email; and content pages consumed throughout the purchasing process. Modern marketing solutions such as HubSpot’s all-in-one marketing automation software suite provide this type of multi-channel attribution reporting beyond on site analytics. Data Geeks like me help you make sense of the data resulting in highly actionable opportunities to increase ROI before competitors. Read Meghan Keaney Anderson's article on website analytics vs. marketing analytics if you are confused about the differences.