Why You (Yes, YOU) Need to Create More Landing Pages

220
inShare

 

"Who, me? More landing pages, you say? But I've already got some of those floating around my website." Sure ... BUT WHERE ALL THE LEADS AT?!
Several months back, I wrote an article about why landing pages are an indispensable part of marketing. And for all you marketers out there who have been going inbound for a while, you probably 'get' why they're important. But are you creating enough of them to really scale your lead generation efforts? For many of you, probably not. Let's find out why -- at least in the case of landing pages -- more is better.

Why You Need More Landing Pages

First, I'm going to throw some brand spankin' new data at you, straight from our Marketing Benchmarks From 7,000 Businesses report, which you can download in full here for free. Just have a look-see at the graph below:



While most companies don't see an increase in leads when increasing their total number of landing pages from 1-5 to 6-10, companies do see a 55% increase in leads when increasing their number of landing pages from 10 to 15. And look how that leads index number spikes even more when a company has 40 or more landing pages on their website. And here's how it breaks down for B2B and B2C businesses:



While both B2B and B2C companies seem to benefit from having more landing pages, it seems to be even more advantageous for B2Bs to hit that 40 landing page threshold.
As you can see, it's hard to deny there's a pretty strong correlation between the number of landing pages you have on your website and lead generation. But why is this so? Here are four good explanations why the more landing pages, the better your leads number.

1) More Landing Pages Means More Conversion Opportunities

Quite simply, the more landing pages you have on your website, the more opportunities you have to convert site visitors into leads. There's also a huge SEO benefit to having more landing pages, which can have an impact even before visitors land on your website. Think about it: The more landing pages you have, the more landing pages will be indexed in search. And if a searcher stumbles upon a search result that directs them straight to one of your landing pages, you'll have essentially cut out the extra step of a visitor perusing your site and needing to click on a call-to-action to get to that same landing page. In other words, the pathway from discovery to conversion has much less friction. And do you know what happens when there's less friction? You generate more leads.

2) More Landing Pages Means More Variety

You've all heard that saying, "variety is the spice of life," right? Yep -- it applies to marketing, too. Consider it from your visitors' perspective. Say you're visiting a business' website, and you surf on over to its "Resources" section (you know, where a business might organize all its offers and their respective landing pages). Now let's also say that "Resources" page only features 5 -- or even 10, according to the research cited above -- offers because, well, those are the only offers this particular business has available. And maybe none of those offers really appeal to you, because well ... there's just not enough variety. So you go on your web browsing way, abandoning the site without converting on anything. And hey, the same thing will happen if that business only has CTAs for a few offers placed throughout your website or promoted via their other marketing channels. If none of them tickle your fancy as a visitor, you're probably not going to convert.
In a nutshell, don't let this happen to you. Creating more landing pages means you'll have a wider variety of offers for your visitors to convert on and for you to promote, which leads us to reason number three ...

3) More Landing Pages Means More Marketing Collateral

The more landing pages you have, the more offers you'll have to fuel the rest of your inbound marketing efforts. Remember, content is the heart and soul of any successful inbound marketing strategy. Without it, you'd have nothing to email your contacts, nothing to share with your social media fans and followers, nothing to promote through your website calls-to-action, nothing by which to get found and rank for your keywords in search. The more offers -- and landing pages to house those offers -- you have, the more (and more effective) inbound marketing you can do. And because reason number two (variety) is also a big factor in this, the more landing pages you have, the more prospects you'll be able to capture as leads for your business.

4) More Landing Pages Means More Targeting Opportunities

Segmentation matters -- and not just when it comes to email marketing. But when you identify various different buyer personas and segments within your audience, you have the opportunity to better appeal to those different audiences' interests and needs with more targeted and relevant offers. And to leverage this savvy thinking, face it: You need more landing pages. So what naturally ends up happening for marketers who build up a big arsenal of 40+ landing pages, is they start to create more segment-specific content that, because it's highly relevant to different parts of their audience, is much better able to convert visitors into leads.

How to Increase the Number of Landing Pages on Your Site

"I get it, I get it: More landing pages is better. But how can I go about cranking out more of those bad boys?" So glad you asked!

1) Invest in a Landing Page Creation Tool (And Control Over Your Website)

Let's address one of marketers' biggest landing page creation roadblocks first. According to MarketingSherpa's Landing Page Handbook (2nd edition), the number one reason businesses don't use landing pages is because their marketing department doesn't know how to set them up, or they are too overloaded. If you're nodding your head in agreement, you absolutely positively need to invest in a tool that enables you to quickly and easily create optimized landing pages. This involves taking control of your website, so if it takes you weeks to get a landing page created (or even just edited) because you have to go through some third party resource like a webmaster to make changes for you, put an end to that as soon as possible. Inbound marketing requires agility, and you'll never become an agile marketer if you're dependent on someone else to get things done for you. Plus, I hear HubSpot has a pretty sweet and easy-to-use Landing Page tool (*wink wink*).

2) Create More Offers

I'm just gonna give it to you straight. You can't just go around slapping together a ton of new landing pages, no matter how motivated you are to reap those "more is better" results. You're going to need offers (and good ones, at that) to go along with them. Keep in mind that landing pages are simply the gateways for your marketing offers, so in order to increase your site's number of landing pages, you need to increase offer creation, too. And don't get me wrong, this is going to take you some time and effort, but it's also absolutely necessary if you want larger gains in lead generation.
Before you start creating new offers, take a look at the offers you already have, and identify where you might have some holes. Do you have offers to suit prospects at each different stage in your marketing and sales funnel? Do you have offers in a variety of different formats (e.g. webinars vs. ebooks vs. templates vs. videos, etc.)? Do they cover various different topics your target audience cares about? Once you've identified what your holes are, then you can start filling in the gaps. To learn more about offer creation, check out this blog post about how to create marketing offers that don't fall flat.

3) Tweak the Offers You Already Have to Cater to Individual Personas

Okay -- so you're going to have to create a bunch more offers to leverage the lead-gen power of an increase in landing pages. But here's a little saving grace: not all of these offers need to be created from scratch. In fact, if you already have a few general offers on your hands but also know that you have a few different buyer personas that you market to, one great way to increase your number of offers (and as a result, landing pages) is to tweak your existing offers to cater to each of your different personas. As you're doing this, reposition the content and create a landing page that caters to that persona's individual needs, problems, and interests; adjust the offer's formatting, depth, and length; modify language and tone; and incorporate industry/persona-specific examples -- all of which we elaborate on in this very post about how to tailor offer content to suit individual personas.
And once you have a variety of persona-specific marketing offers, then you can segment your prospects by persona and nurture them with the right offers through tools like email marketing, or dynamic CTAs on your various web pages.

4) Repurpose Content You Already Have

While we're on the topic of tweaking existing content, don't overlook the fact that there are a lot of different ways to create new offers using content you already have, saving you the time and effort of building a brand new offer from the ground up. Some great offer ideas pulled from our article, "The Time-Crunched Marketer's Guide to Creating Lead-Gen Offers" include creating a blog bundle by pulling together a compilation of your best blog posts around a given topic, making a data compilation of interesting industry research and data you've already collected, turning an educational PPT presentation you've given into a downloadable PDF or a live webinar, recording an interview, creating an FAQ-driven ebook, etc.

Why B2B Marketers Might Want to Cozy Up to LinkedIn Ads

 

0
inShare

 

When it comes to pay-per-click (PPC) ads, Google is the undisputed heavyweight champion. In Q2 2012, Google racked up a 42% year-over-year increase in paid clicks.
But if you’re not Google -- so, pretty much all of us -- the odds of your PPC ad being seen and clicked on via a search just got 42% harder. Maybe more. That number doesn’t include the skyrocketing cost of PPC ads on Google, or the increased spending by big companies for whom bidding higher is easier than the typical small or mid-size business.
Still, all eyes are on the web. So to attract new business, especially if you’re a B2B player, you need alternative ways to reach customers. For B2B companies, increasingly, that means shifting some ad dollars to LinkedIn, the networking site for professionals that has garnered 175 million users (40 million in the U.S.) since 2002. Let's break down some of the benefits of using LinkedIn PPC ads, and dive into how you can use them effectively.

Why You Might Benefit From Using LinkedIn PPC Ads

There are several benefits to moving some of your PPC marketing dollars to LinkedIn:

• The PPC ad program at LinkedIn is relatively new. That means fewer advertisers competing for users’ eyeballs, so your ads have a better chance of being seen.
• Better yet, LinkedIn’s PPC ads let you target specific job titles, job functions, industries, or company size, to name a few options -- you know, the people who are more likely to need what you sell. Whether you sell uniforms or janitorial services, LinkedIn lets you more narrowly target the people who buy those things. That’s powerful stuff compared to Google’s increasingly crowded, more expensive PPC landscape.
• As your inbound marketing initiatives gain traction and the percentage of new business you get from organic search results increases, doubling down by placing costly PPC ads alongside your free organic links makes less and less sense. When it’s the same set of eyes seeing your ad and your organic search result, there’s at least a 50-50 chance that users will click on the ad first, costing you money you may not have needed to spend. If your PPC ad is on LinkedIn, your reach is expanded.

How LinkedIn Ads Work

The general principle behind LinkedIn PPC ads works much the same as PPC ads on Google, Bing, Yahoo!, etc. You target a demographic and location, then set a budget for individual clicks and total expenditure. Your ad then competes on LinkedIn pages with like-minded advertisers. LinkedIn also offers a program where you pay for ad impressions -- how many people are exposed to your ad.
LinkedIn requires a minimum budget of $10 per day and $2 per click (Google has no such minimums). There is also a one-time $5 activation fee to get your PPC account set up.
As with any marketing initiative, you’re going to want to closely monitor which ad campaigns and keywords are most effective. As a benchmark, LinkedIn says clickthrough rates above 0.025% are good.
Still, return on investment matters more than CTR, so even if your CTR is double that rate, unless you’re seeing more sales as a result of your investment, figure out what might be lacking -- the ads themselves, the cost-per-click, or some other factor adversely affecting your efforts.

Your LinkedIn Ad Choices (Lots), and What to Do With Them

Unlike search engines, LinkedIn offers several unique PPC advertising opportunities -- poll ads, social ads, 'Join Group' ads, and video ads. Since much of inbound marketing revolves around deepening the relationship between you and your leads and customers, these alternatives are worth considering. Here's a breakdown of what you could do in terms of paid LinkedIn ads:

• Poll Ads - As the name suggests, these let you conduct market research while creating awareness for your brand. You can uncover customer preferences, change perceptions about your company's thought leadership, and, because the poll results page is exclusively yours, your brand is all users see there.
• Join Group Ads - These help you deepen the connection between customers and your brand, position your brand as a thought leader, and provide an ongoing channel -- the LinkedIn Group -- through which you can keep the conversation going.
• Social Ads - With social ads, you can target buyers by using what LinkedIn knows about your social network and integrating them into their ads, a la Facebook. The ads integrate member activities and information into advertising. Highly controversial when first introduced in June 2011 because they co-opted users’ names and photos into the ads (implying their endorsement), LinkedIn quickly opted out of that practice for these ads.
• Video Ads - These are the latest offering from the LinkedIn advertising platform. The interface lets you use your YouTube videos or ads you create (in 300x250 format) in 30 second spots that bill and place the same as any of the other ads you place on LinkedIn.

Regardless of which type of PPC ads you place on LinkedIn, remember that all these usual best practices still apply:

Target the Right Audience

When building your ad campaigns, make your ads specific. Target by job function, seniority, geography, or group interests. After all, is your offer really applicable to everyone? Most likely not. Identify which offers are more identifiable with a CMO versus a CTO, for instance, to see higher returns on your ad spend.

Keep Your Messaging Consistent

With LinkedIn, you typically only pay on a cost-per-click basis, which means that you won't be charged for impressions. This is a great feature, because it means that users who clicked your ad saw something in your ad that sparked their interest. This also means, however, that they have a high expectation for your user experience So make it a good one! If your ad promises a free 30-day trial, don't have a free 7-day trial on your landing page. Whatever you say in your ad, be sure to have identical promises and offers on your landing page. Just do what you say you will. Good advice in general, really.

Identify and Provide Solutions to Customers’ Problems

LinkedIn ads are a form of display advertising. Even though they are highly targeted, they are still display. Users didn't "search" for anything about you on LinkedIn or ask to see your ad. This doesn't mean that they are opposed to seeing ads ... if they help them solve problems that are sticking in their craw. Doing that will help you increase your CTR significantly. For instance, if your product helps make sales teams more efficient, then make sure you target a sales director, call out the job title in the ad, and illuminate a problem that they most likely have, such as "how can you work your most qualified leads faster?"

Test & Track Results With Unique Landing Pages

Test, re-test, and test some more. Try different hero images, headlines, and copy on your landing pages. Also, be sure to use tracking software to ensure you can measure the success of your efforts. After all, if LinkedIn is working well for you, you'll want to know that, report on it, and then scale to the best of your ability.

8 Reasons Even YOU Can Be a Kick-Butt Business Blogger

0
inShare

Without a doubt, the most common refrain I hear from businesses trying to adopt an inbound approach to their marketing is that they just can't blog.
"I don't know how. Blogging's for young people. I'm not a good writer. I wouldn't even know how to begin. It's too hard."
Wow. How self-defeating, right? Well the truth is, I know any one of you -- yes, even you -- can be an amazing business blogger. You have all the tools you need to do the job, you just have to recognize that you have them. That's why I want to point them out to you. But I'll warn you ... once you read this post, you're not going to have those excuses left. You'll actually have to (gasp!) blog!
Are you ready for that? Alright, let me explain why you -- and anyone else in your organization (seriously, the time for excuses is over) -- has the capacity to not only blog, but to also blog like a rock star.

1) You are a subject matter expert.

You didn't get where you are because of that pretty face of yours. You have your job because you know how to do your job. That means if your job is to provide customer support for an SEO software company, you have the subject matter expertise to write a blog post like, "3 Advanced Hacks for Finding New Keywords for Your SEO Strategy." Or if your job was to sell that SEO software, you'd have the knowledge to write a post like, "How to Use Search Trends to Identify New Potential Markets." Or, if your job was to market that SEO software, you'd have the knowledge to write a post like, "How Long-Tail Search Helps You Get Found Faster in Competitive Markets."
See what I mean? Whatever it is you do for a living, you are good at it -- better at it than a lot of other people out there. The world wants your expertise! Put it down on paper (or a computer, rather) so the rest of the world can benefit. You probably don't think it's that groundbreaking because the information is second nature to you, but if you have leads and customers asking you these questions day in and day out, there are hundreds -- if not thousands -- of people to whom your knowledge is groundbreaking. Do us a favor and blog it, won't you?

2) You're a good researcher.

Sometimes when you sit down to write a blog post -- even if it's about something you know a lot about -- a tangential question might pop up in your mind. One that you don't know the answer to. Some people see these questions as indicators they should stop blogging, because they must not be qualified enough to write on that topic. That couldn't be further from the truth.
It's also why Google was invented.
Okay, not exactly, but you know what? Most business bloggers can very rarely sit down to write a blog post without conducting some research along the way. I just scrolled back through the last five blog posts I wrote for this very blog, and guess what? I had to conduct research for each and every single one of them. In fact, there are some blog posts that I sit down to write specifically because they're a challenge, forcing me to talk to subject matter experts in other departments within my organization.
Just because you don't know the answer to everything doesn't mean you shouldn't be blogging -- it means you're like every other person in the world, and certainly every blogger on the internet. The difference between a good blogger and a bad blogger is, the good blogger recognizes an information deficiency, and researches the correct answer to fill in the knowledge gap. That's also what makes their content the go-to in their industry!

3) You don't actually have to write that much.

People often get extremely hung up on word count. Great blog content does not have to be long. In fact, it's usually better that it's brief -- people don't like to read, and are often just scanning your content, anyway. Give the people what they want! And, likely, what you want ... namely, to be doing anything other than writing a blog post.
Now, this isn't to say you can write 100-word blog posts. Your content still needs to be helpful, otherwise your readers (and Google's crawlers) will stop showing you any love. Aim to keep most of your blog content at a 500-600 word minimum so you have enough space to develop some helpful advice. Of course, there will be occasional exceptions to this rule. That's alright, as long as you keep up your reputation as a provider of valuable content, regardless of length.

4) Sometimes, you don't even have to write at all.

Well, you need to have SOME words. But blogs are home to all sorts of content other than the written word! For example, you might make your blog posts more design focused if that's your forte -- one of our in-house designers contributes his blog content to us in the form of content visualizations, for instance.
Similarly, we have a fantastic "video guy" that, instead of writing blog content, creates helpful marketing videos. Perhaps you'd rather shoot a short video for your blog content, and then simply transcribe it so you can get some of that nice SEO juice and cater to people who prefer text, too?
But wait, there's more. Let's say you're more of a math geek. Why not write content that focuses around the "mathy" (you might have figured out that I am not one of those math people by now) side of your business? For instance, our marketing operations folks use their super powers with numbers to create blog content about how to perform marketing calculations -- you know, the kind of content that would take other people on the team twice as long to whip up. Take a look at Alison Savery's blog post about how to calculate and track a leads goal each month, for example.
This is all to say that blog content creation doesn't have to be all about writing, writing, writing. If you cringe at the thought of pounding out hundreds of words of blog content, remember that there are other forms of content with very minimal writing that you have the power to create -- and that your audience will love.

5) You probably already have a lot of the content.

Sales and marketing collateral is everywhere. Whether it's in various folders in your email, saved on your desktop, in printed brochures from that trade show you sponsored, in old whitepapers you haven't promoted in years, case studies you never quite put the final touches on -- for most businesses, the content's there. It's just up to you to either repurpose it, or if it's already looking pretty fly, to excerpt and re-promote that content on your blog.
Here's a perfect example of doing just that -- and I know you can do the same. Several years ago, a HubSpotter created a calculator in Excel that helped people figure out what their monthly traffic and leads goals should be. We promoted it once upon a time, but then it kind of just ... fell off our radar. Well, one day, for some reason, we uncovered it. And we decided to brush it off, give it a little makeover, and re-launch the offer. And of course, we promoted it on the blog, too! Now, we couldn't excerpt a section of the content like we would with an ebook, so what did we write about in the blog post? We wrote about how to use the Excel template! Take a look at a snippet from the post:



It was a piece of cake to write -- you might notice it doesn't have a boat load of text, all you writing-averse out there -- and it provided helpful content. And it was all based off an Excel file from several years ago!

6) It doesn't have to be Shakespeare.

In fact, it's better if it's not. Many marketers get caught up in the idea of being a writer, but blogging doesn't have to be a creative exercise; it can simply be a documentation of information. Instead of trying to flower up your language, just focus on writing like you'd speak. You'll find that content is not only easier to write that way -- most people don't have much trouble talking, after all -- but it sounds more natural, too. That means your readers will enjoy reading it, because it isn't some high falutin' content that tries to sound all smart and fancy. It's just straight-forward, easy-to-get-through blog content that answers their questions ... and maybe converts them into a lead, while you're at it ;-)

7) There are proofreaders and editors in the world.

Remember, you're a subject matter expert -- that's the biggest value you bring to the role of business blogger. So if you're worried that you can't blog because you're not good at figuring out where in the sentence a comma goes, don't let that deter you; simply recruit a grammar-savvy friend or coworker to look over your content for you before it's published. A quick proof of a blog post takes no more than 10-15 minutes! You might also even download our handy Internet Marketing Written Style Guide for some helpful reference.
If you're less concerned with grammar and punctuation, and have more difficulty getting into "story-telling" mode, an editor might be for you. Again, you have the subject-matter expertise to write the blog post, you just might not have a knack for figuring out in what order your information should be presented. If your blog posts have a ton of juicy information, but they read a bit more like a brain dump, find a colleague -- or even a freelance editor -- to help you sort out your thoughts. You may also find that writing an outline before you start blogging helps you establish a good order. In fact, most HubSpot bloggers start with an outline before they begin writing (it's usually the big, bold subheadings you see in the published blog post) to figure out what points should be hit in the post, and in what order. Then when it comes to writing, they just fill in the blanks!

8) There are freelance writers in the world, too.

If you're really quite writing averse, your blog doesn't need to go hungry. There are plenty of skilled freelance writers in the world who make their living wordsmithing! I recommend a content marketplace called Zerys -- Often, the best approach has been to seek out a writer with familiarity in the subject matter you want to write about on your blog, and combining that with an edit from you. Not for grammar, punctuation, or editorial guidance, but for your (say it again now) subject matter expertise.
For instance, if we were to commission a blog post for our blog about how email spam traps work from a freelance writer, I'd select a writer with familiarity in email marketing, sending them a specific blog post working title, like "How Email Spam Traps Work: A Guide for Marketers." I'd also recommend a word count -- say 600-700 words -- and if I had any documentation that would be good to pull research from, I'd send that along, too. This all simply helps set the writer up for success, providing direction and context. Then when the blog post returned, I'd have one of the people at my company who knows the most about how email spam traps work review the content for accuracy, making any final tweaks or additions before publishing.
This kind of collaborative blogging approach typically yields the best content, anyway, and it's an approach that's appropriate for both small and enterprise level companies. There's no one that can know everything about, well, everything. Write about what you know, and when you don't know it, ask the person who does for their take on the subject. There should be a point-person, sure, or you'll suffer from the 'Too Many Cooks in the Kitchen' syndrome, but if you stop blogging in a silo, I think you'll find the whole endeavor is much more manageable, and your content is far more valuable, too.

12 Great Places That Your Business Should be Collecting Online Reviews

 So here's a list of 12 great places that your business should be collecting online reviews...

 

Angie's List

Geared toward service-based businesses, Angie's List is a "higher end" review site, because users actually have to pay for membership. But you get what you pay for, because the reviews, given on an A-F scale, are typically very well-thought out -- not a lot of that ranting and raving that's more common on free review sites. The reviews cannot be anonymous, which helps cut down on fake or misrepresentative reviews, and companies are allowed to respond to the reviews posted about them, too. Set up a free account with them, and then encourage your customers who are on Angie's List to leave reviews there ... because members are the only ones allowed to do it!

Yelp!

Yelp! is a free review site that lets consumers rate businesses on a 5-star scale. Any business can set up a profile on Yelp! for free, and any user can set up their own free profile to review a business. You're free to respond to reviewers, too, but I recommend taking a balanced and polite approach to any negative reviews you receive, as Yelpers are in a pretty tight-knit community.
Yelp! has also come under fire over the past four years for some slightly shady practices, like incentivizing businesses to advertise with them in exchange for gaming the search results for their business ("pay us money and we'll push bad reviews down!"), so savvier consumers have learned to look at Yelp! reviews as a whole and with the reviewer's clout in mind, instead of getting turned off by a business because of one bad listing. That being said, it's still to your benefit to get a constant stream of positive online reviews coming to your business' Yelp! account so happy customers are always at the top of your review feed, especially is you're a location-based business; Yelp! profile information contains things like store hours and location information, so your profile will often turn up when people Google your business.

Google Reviews/Local/Places/+

You may know it as Google Local. Or Google Places. Maybe you just call it Google Reviews. Or, if you're ridiculously up to date on Google's bevies of updates, you might know it as its current name, Google+ 'Local.' But those reviews that show up when you conduct a Google search for a business? Yeah, those things, are on this list in a big way.
If you have a page under Google+ Local, anyone can leave a review for your business. Because Google+ has resulted in a lot of changes to the way Google's search results look, here's a screenshot of what you'd see if you searched for your business in Google's search engine, the location of your Google reviews called out in the orange box:



Sometimes the reviews may be featured in the main search results, too, and not to the right as you see here.
If you click into "Read more info," you'll go to the 'Local' tab of the business' Google+ Page, where more reviews can be seen and posted. Because this is a restaurant, you also see Zagat review information here ... that's obviously only relevant for, well, restaurants. You may also notice a score next to your business. Here's a handy little guide to just what those numbers mean:

Yahoo! Local Listings

Similar to Google+ Local reviews, Yahoo! Local reviews let users post reviews of businesses with a 5-star rating system. Here's what the results might look like:



According to The Marketing Zen Group, Yahoo! still receives about 13.5% of search engine share. So while you might not want to invest time figuring out the intricacies of Yahoo!'s algorithm, obtaining some favorable reviews on the Yahoo! Local Listings sure couldn't hurt for that 13.5%!

Insider Pages

Another local, user-generated review site, Insider Pages, lets anyone share reviews of local businesses for free. They've been at it since 2004, so they've amassed millions of viewers over the years -- plus their results get indexed in the SERPs. That is to say that even if your target audience isn't using Insider Pages to find and compare businesses, they may still stumble upon an Insider Pages review in the SERPs. Their reviews also work off of a 5-star rating system.

Citysearch

Incredibly similar to Insider Pages, Citysearch is a free, user-generated local review site that, again, operates via a 5-star rating system. While people may navigate to their local Citysearch site to check out your reviews and compare you with competitors, it's more likely a Citysearch review will pop up in a searcher's results in the SERPs. It'd look something like this:

Consumer Search

Consumer Search also provides reviews and reports of products on a 5-star rating scale, but their approach to the process is pretty interesting. Instead of growing their own user base, they take reviews from the internet and print publications, analyze the reviews and the sources, and rank them for credibility. People can then come to the site to search for products and get a distillation of all the opinions floating around in the world on those products. They state that they "have the most respect for reviews that cover multiple competing products -- and when a reviewer can demonstrate testing. We also listen carefully to a reviewer who has tested many products, and then makes an assertion that the product he is reviewing today beats other products he has reviewed in the past." That seems to be a general way of telling us they don't listen to the rants and raves of lunatics, but rather consider the quality of the reviewer in their assessment. Other criteria they consider are:

• How up-to-date the review is
• How credible the reviewer's top picks are in relation to the top picks of other reviewers
• The reviewer's expertise
• How extensive and convincing the reviewer's methodological approach is compared to other reviewer's

Wicked Legit Review Sites

Then, there are some review sites that go beyond your average online review site, because of the amount of clout their names carry. Here are two sites you should consider establishing a great reputation with -- particularly if you're a service-based business, B2B, or your product or service carries a high asking price.

Consumer Reports

A nonprofit organization, consumerreports.org is an independent product testing organization that tests, rates, and recommends products based off their unbiased testing of those products. They have 7 million subscribers, accept no advertising, and pay for all products that they test. This is about as legitimate as it gets. As such, there's not much you can do here except, if you sell a product, make sure it's really, really good.
If nothing else, you could take this website as a lesson in excellent content creation. For each product they review, they provide the review criteria, product overviews, a buying guide, social sharing buttons -- it's all quite comprehensive and, well, helpful. Pretty much the key to great content, am I right?

Better Business Bureau (BBB)

Another nonprofit site, the BBB evaluates all types of businesses against a set of best practices for how businesses should treat the public. They don't directly recommend or endorse any businesses, products, or services; they simply provide the public with the information on their site about businesses, and whether they have met the BBB's accreditation standards. They will also review both accredited and non-accredited businesses.



As you can see, a business' profile listing on the BBB contains general overview information, like a short company bio and the company's accreditation status, a history of any complaints made about the business and whether they were resolved, customer reviews, and the BBB's A-F rating of the business.

Properties You Control(ish)

Online reviews exist on sites that aren't necessarily built just to publish online reviews. Some businesses use their social presence and website to encourage online reviews ... and some brands just get them unsolicited, for better or for worse. Here are some sites that, if you choose to (please, choose to) can serve as additional hubs for online reviews. And they're awesome, because they have enormous reach, and you have some -- if not entire -- control over these properties!

Facebook

Did you know there's a place on Facebook for fans to leave recommendations of your business? There sure is ... it's named, aptly, Facebook Recommendations. It'll show up if you're viewing your timeline as 'Highlights' (you can change that under your cover photo if you're not):



Then you should see a box with recommendations on your Timeline -- though it's incredibly easy to breeze past is if you have an active Timeline. I mean, the recommendations kind of just look like any ol' post.



Actually, that's really what your entire Timeline is -- a bunch of reviews of your business. So if your Facebook Recommendations section isn't exactly hopping, that's alright. Just don't forget that your entire Facebook presence is a living, breathing recommendation engine every time someone posts on your wall or comments on your content!

LinkedIn

You might know about the LinkedIn recommendation feature that lets one individual leave a recommendation for another -- that's good for your own personal marketing, no doubt. But businesses have some recourse of their own to gather reviews of their performance! When you visit a company page on LinkedIn, you should see a 'Products and Services' box in the right navigation. If you click into it, you'll see a company's user-generated reviews of that product or service! What's really cool is, not only can you have your product or service reviewed, but you can also get reviews of your content assets -- notice the last review in the preview below recommends one of our free ebooks, How to Generate Leads Using LinkedIn!

Twitter

The ridiculously fast-paced nature of Twitter makes it seem like a weird place to try to accumulate reviews. But while users might not search for reviews on Twitter (unless you started some kind of review hashtag, perhaps), tweets are still indexed in search results. That means a user's tweet, whether complimentary or less-than, could pop up in the SERPs when someone's searching for reviews on your business.
Not only that -- there's things you can actively do with the positive tweets coming at you! For instance, recently at HubSpot we tested the element of social proof on conversions, attaching three tweets that gave positive reviews on an ebook we were promoting. Guess what happened? The CTA with the three tweets converted better than the CTA with no tweets! If you start to 'Favorite' tweets that could serve as positive reviews in the future, you just might find a place to reference or embed them that could come in handy in your marketing.

Your Website

Finally, the one place where you have total and utter control -- your website is an excellent place to publicize reviews you receive (perhaps embed some of those tweets you favorited?) You could carve out a section of your website dedicated just to reviews and testimonials, and even include a form so happy customers can submit their reviews unsolicited. But if you're actively campaigning for positive online reviews and you encounter happy customers that want to leave you a positive review, but don't have accounts on sites like Yelp!, Angie's List, LinkedIn, or Google, it's handy to have a place on your website to publish their kind words. Consider adding testimonials to landing pages and product pages, too!

Don't Forget to Subscribe to my BLOG!

12 Revealing Charts to Help You Benchmark Your Business Blogging Performance

The Effect of Blogging Frequency on Website Traffic

The first of our blogging benchmarking charts highlight the impact that the number of monthly blog articles a business publishes has on inbound traffic -- overall, divided up by B2B and B2C companies, and split up by company size.







After seeing these charts, you've probably never been more convinced that when it comes to the effectiveness of blogging in driving traffic to your website, frequency matters. In fact, according to the charts above, companies that blog 15 or more times per month get 5X more traffic than companies that don't blog at all. And if you're a small business, increasing your blogging frequency can move the needle even more. According to the third chart, small businesses (1-10 employees) tend to see the biggest gains in traffic when they publish more articles.
Make a commitment to regularly publishing content to your blog to reap the biggest rewards in terms of website traffic. To learn more about how you can boost your blogging frequency by never running out of blogging ideas again, check out this blog article.

The Effect of Blogging Frequency on Lead Generation

The following three charts feature the impact that the number of monthly blog articles a business publishes has on inbound leads -- overall, divided up by B2B and B2C companies, and segmented by company size.






As you can see, blogging frequency matters not just in terms of the impact blogging has on driving traffic to your website. It's also critical when it comes down to the effectiveness of blogging in generating actual leads. In fact, companies that increase blogging from 3-5X/month to 6-8X/month almost double their leads. And if you still need to be convinced that you should start a business blog to begin with, keep in mind that B2B companies that blog only 1-2X/month generate 70% more leads than those that don't blog at all. In other words, blogging even just a little bit can make a big dent on your leads goal if you previously weren't blogging at all.
To get the maximum amount of leads from your blogging efforts, check out our ultimate guide to mastering blogging lead generation.

Blogging's Overall Impact on Website Traffic

Our next three charts emphasize the overall impact of blogging on inbound traffic. In other words, how does the total number of blog posts you've published to your business blog -- past and present -- affect traffic?







Remember, because the articles you publish get indexed in search engines and shared through channels like social media, the impact your business blog has on traffic isn't just limited to the articles you publish this month. By committing to regularly publishing blog content, over time you'll have built up a powerful arsenal of content, with each article you publish creating another inroad to your website.
Not convinced? As indicated by the charts above, an average company will see a 45% growth in traffic when increasing total blog articles from 11-20 to 21-50 articles. And for all you B2C companies out there, keep in mind that B2C companies see a 59% increase in traffic after growing total blog articles from 100 to 200 total. Sure, blogging is a big time commitment, but sticking to it can generate tremendously valuable marketing results.

Blogging's Overall Impact on Lead Generation

The last of our blogging benchmarking charts show the overall impact of blogging on inbound leads. That is to say, how does the total number of blog posts you've published to your business blog -- past and present -- affect lead generation?







In a nutshell, making your blog a long-term asset by publishing a lot of content over time makes a big difference. This is evidenced by the fact that the average company with 100 or more total blog articles is more likely to experience continued lead growth, and even more compelling -- companies with over 200 blog articles generate >5X the leads than those with 10 or fewer.

Don't Forget to Subscribe to my BLOG!

Create a Facebook Business Page and Tap 53 Million Users (For Free!)

Some quick stats on Facebook which should be of interest to businesses:

1. More than 53 million active users

2. An average of 250,000 new users join every day.
3. About 34% of users work as professionals, sales, executives, educators or are in technical careers.
4. The fastest growing demographic on Facebook consists of users 25 and older.
Though Facebook started in the student demographic, it's quickly growing out of it. So, my guess is that if you have a product or service offering, chances are that at least a few of those 53 million active users (which spend about 20 minutes a day on the site) are prospective customers of your business. The question is, what do you do about it?

Until recently, only big businesses with big marketing budgets could setup a Facebook account for their companies and/or brands. Examples included Verizon, Walmart, Victoria's Secret and other well known companies. For these brands, Facebook users could become "fans" by adding the brand as a friend (much like they would add a person as a friend). This was pretty cool, but pretty expensive for those companies that wanted to tap into this feature.

Now, any business can create a Facebook business page, which any Facebook user can become a "fan" of. You no longer have to be a Fortune 500 company to afford this. It's free.
Here's how to do it:

Creating A Facebook Business Page
1. Visit this URL: http://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

2. Decide what the best category is for your business. (Spend a couple of minutes on this as you can't change it later easily).
3. Enter your business/product/brand name and click "Create Page".

4. At a minimum, I'd suggest entering a short description of your business and a website address. This is in the "Add Information To This Page" area. I'd also advise uploading your logo as a photo/image.

5. Click on your business name in the top left corner (it's a hyperlink) and then click "publish this page" (until you do this, nobody but you will be able to see your new Facebook business profile).

6. Finally, and this is important, from your new profile page, click "Add to my products". This way, you become the first "fan" of your business.

Now comes the fun part. Once you've become a "fan" of your business, your friends on Facebook (some of which are likely customers) will see a message in their home page.  Hopefuly, some of your Facebook friends will befriend your business. Then, their friends will see a message, and so it goes…

 Don't forget to subscribe to my blog!

How to Create Custom Tabs for Facebook Business Pages

Facebook business pages just went through quite a change with the release of the new page design that includes the addition of Timeline. But that also means your old way of customizing page tabs -- the tabs you could use to pull in your own custom content alongside the standard tabs like "Photos" and "Likes" -- has changed. These tabs are important for your social media marketing, because they let you create a much richer user experience on Facebook and control the content that your followers see when they visit your page.
So, with the new layout, how do you create your own custom Facebook tabs? Turns out it's not as difficult as you might think. Just follow these 6 simple steps to creating custom Facebook page tabs.

Wait, Where Do Tabs Exist on the New Facebook Page Layout?

Before we get started, let's make sure we're all on the same page about where tabs now exist since the layout is still new to many. Tabs now exist under your cover photo in a section of your page called 'Views & Apps,' which can be expanded by clicking on the blue arrow on the far right. You can take a look at Coca-Cola's Facebook page for a great example of a company that effectively uses custom tabs (make sure to expand the tab area by clicking the blue dropdown arrow if you're checking them out).

Alright, now that we've got that out of the way, let's start customizing!

Step 1: Log In as a Facebook Developer

Visit https://developers.facebook.com/apps. You'll be able to log in with your normal Facebook credentials.

Step 2: Create and Name Your New App

Click "Create a New App" from the top left-hand corner. You'll need to provide a "Display Name," which is what your "app," or tab, will be called. You'll also need to create a "namespace," which is basically just a unique ID for your app.

You now also have the option to host your app for free with Heroku, a great choice for a serious app developer. For the average marketer, however, it's probably not necessary.

Step 3: Choose an Image and Update Basic Info for the App

Choose an image and icon for your custom tab. Remember, this is going to display at the top of your Facebook page, so think about it like a call-to-action. Choose an image that will get your visitors clicking!
Update your basic info with domain name and category. You can also upload a custom image for your app by clicking "edit icon."

Step 4: Create the Content That Will Display Within the App's Tab

Now create a web page outside of Facebook. This is what will display inside your custom Facebook tab. To ensure the page's content displays correctly on Facebook, make sure that the width of your web page is either set to 100%, 520px or 810px. Make sure all images, videos, etc. that you include on your page are less than either 520px or 810px, depending on how wide you chose to make the content of your tab.
Since you're now using the new Facebook business page layout, I recommend making the content of your tab 810px; the old layout before Facebook's business page redesign was much narrower at 520px.

Think of your Facebook tab like an iFrame that loads inside Facebook -- you can display pretty much whatever content you'd like inside your custom Facebook tab. As a marketer concerned with lead generation, for example, you could leverage the Facebook tab as a way to drive leads, making it essentially a landing page with a form -- thought you'll likely need a developer to help you build that functionality.

Step 5: Tell Facebook What Content You Want to Display on Your Custom Tab

Go back to your app settings in developers.facebook.com, scroll down to the "Select how your app integrates with Facebook" section, and choose "Page Tab." Name your tab whatever you'd like; then copy the URL of the page you just created in step 4, and paste that URL into "Page Tab URL."

To make sure everyone can see your new Facebook page tab, you'll also need to provide a secure URL. This should be the same URL you provided for the page tab, but with "https://" instead of "http://" at the front. If your website does not support https, your app will still work for anyone who has secure browsing disabled in their Facebook settings, but you should look into getting an SSL certificate.
Save the changes you've made to the app.

Step 6: Add Your Tab to Your Facebook Page

This step can be a bit tricky, so read carefully. In order to install your new page tab on your business page, you need to visit a link with several custom URL parameters. The link is:

http://www.facebook.com/dialog/pagetab?app_id=YOUR_APP_ID&next=YOUR_URL

You'll need to replace the parts I've bolded in the URL above -- "YOUR_APP_ID" and "YOUR_URL" with some information that Facebook provides for your app, your "App ID/API Key" and your "Site URL."

Your custom Facebook tab should now be included with your standard tabs like Photos, Events, etc. If you'd like to re-order the tabs on your page, hover over it in the 'Views & Apps' part of your page we discussed earlier in this post, click the pencil button, and replace that tab with another from your list of available choices where it reads "Swap position with." If you're thinking about your custom tab as a call-to-action on your Facebook page, you'll want to make sure it's visible above the tab fold. On HubSpot's Facebook page below, you can see how our social media team has done this for our 'Inbound' event tab as well as our 'Free Ebook' tab.


For more detailed documentation and support from Facebook about creating custom Facebook page tabs, you can reference the official Facebook tutorial here.

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog!

How to Create a Facebook Business Page in 5 Simple Steps (With Video!)

Don't waste another day poking around aimlessly on Facebook, trying to figure out what the heck to do to get your Timeline up and running like a social networking pro. This post will break it down so literally anyone -- novices and experts alike -- can set up their brand's Facebook Timeline 100% correctly. Either follow this step-by-step video tutorial, or read the transcribed steps below, to get your business on Facebook today.

Video Tutorial:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=5s3nohFGiNE

1) Choose a Classification

Navigate to the following URL in a new tab to create your business page on Facebook:

https://www.facebook.com/pages/create.php

Once there, choose from one of the following six classifications:

• Local business or place
• Artist, band, or public figure
• Company, organization, or institution
• Entertainment
• Brand or product
• Cause of community

This classification will help you rank for more relevant searches and provide relevant information fields on your page.
After selecting one of the six, choose the category you're in and fill out your business name (or if you selected one of the other options, your brand or company name). The business option also asks for further location information. Keep in mind that your category and name cannot be changed once your page is created. So type wisely, otherwise you’ll have to delete the entire page and start anew.

2) Complete Basic Information

Upload Photo

Facebook will now prompt you to upload the main photo for your page. This photo will appear as your icon every time you comment on a post or appear in news feeds. Ideally, it should be your company logo. The actual dimensions of your profile picture is 180X180. This will shrink on your page to appear as 125X125.

About Section

Next, you need to write your 'About' information. This small blurb will serve as the main 2-3 sentence description for your company. It will be on your main page, so make it descriptive but succinct. Be sure to include a link to your company website as well. Also ensure that this information differentiates your brand, making your page even more appealing to potential followers.

3) Use Your Admin Panel

Your admin panel is the main hub for managing your business page. It's filled with various features and options to optimize your page and your monitoring of that page.

Edit Page

The 'Edit Page' option in the upper right provides various options. The first option, 'Update Info,' allows you to update the basic information you provided earlier in the tutorial. This will also allow you to enter a description, which is an extended version of the 'About' information you entered earlier. Users only see the description by literally clicking 'About' on your business page, so you should feel comfortable sharing lengthier and more detailed information in your description.
You can also manage the roles of your page administrators. This allows you to invite various employees from your business to be administrators on your Facebook page in order to respond to comments or messages specific to their function, without giving them complete power over your page. The other options under 'Edit Page' allow you to manage your notifications and add page permissions.

Build Audience

Often, marketers get so excited they started a Facebook page that they invite users right away. But challenge yourself to think about a more strategic method for inviting users. First, you want your page filled with content. Then invite your brand advocates to start engaging with that content. Once your page has some interactions, invite more fans and contacts, and they'll be more interested to like the page when they see the buzzing hub it is. From that point, it's at your discretion if you'd like to use Facebook's advertising tools to further promote the page.

4) Fill the Page With Content

Cover Photo

With the introduction of Timeline came the introduction of your best visual real estate on your business page: the cover photo. The exact dimensions of this cover photo are 851X315. Be sure to select a creative horizontal image that will appeal to users who land on your page.

Custom Tabs

Facebook also allows you to have an endless amount of tabs on your page. As you can see in the image above, you can only customize four of them -- meaning only four can appear on the page before the user has to click the arrow to see the rest. Think critically about what you want to appear in these four slots, whether it's events, photos, groups, etc. Keep in mind that if you use third party applications, you should configure the tabs to be indexed on Facebook and not on the third party server.

Posts

When posting on your page, be sure to use a variety of content. What images would your audience like to see? What stats would they like to read? What links would they like to click? You can also click the little star to the upper right of any post to highlight it horizontally across your entire page. Not only will this make it look like you have a cover photo on your actual timeline of posts, but it will highlight the page as a milestone in your company history. Use this feature for product announcements, business anniversaries, and other major events pertinent to your brand.

Monitor

While having a gorgeous Facebook page is awesome, you want to ensure you're monitoring how fans are interacting with it. To the upper right of your Admin panel, you'll see all the private messages users are sending to your page. Meanwhile, the upper left and center of the panel shows all the posts users are liking and commenting on. Be sure to respond to comments and messages as needed to ensure your fans know you not only care about them, but to avoid the detrimental impact of ignoring these folks. In fact, according to Gartner, failure to respond via social channels can lead to up to a 15% increase in churn rate for existing customers.

5) Measure Your Efforts

At this point, you've built and shared a Facebook business page that accurately represents your business. Now you need to measure your efforts to ensure you're making valuable marketing decisions on Facebook. Click on the 'View Insights' option to the bottom-center of your Admin panel. You'll be able to monitor reach, engagement, and the like in order to help you grow and adapt your Facebook marketing efforts around what's working and what's not. And if you really want to spend time perfecting your Facebook content strategy, watch this brief tutorial on how to analyze exactly that.
And voila! You have a Facebook business page. Now go post interesting content and amass a loyal base of fans!

Don't forget to subscribe to my blog!