If you haven’t thought about using Schema before (yes, that’s a real word), now’s definitely a good time to make sure you have the proper markups installed on your website or blog. If you need help adding the code in or determining what’s best for your site, good luck! Kidding - just let us know and we’ll be happy to sit down with you to go over all of the markups that Google supports and how they can benefit your bottom line!

Sample code:

<div itemscope itemtype="http://schema.org/Organization">
  <a itemprop="url" href="http://www.example.com/">Home</a>
  <img itemprop="logo" src="http://www.example.com/logo.png" />
</div>

We’ve yet to see the organizational logo in actual search results, but did get a glimpse of what it could look like using the Rich Snippet Testing Tool:

The post Google Now Supports Schema Markup For Organizational Logos appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

1. Use Multiple Online Marketing Channels

Be sure to use more than one marketing platform to get the word out about your event.  Use  your blog, e-newsletters, press releases, social media sites, your website and more for consistent branding of your event.  By using  multiple platforms, you can reach more people and hit many potential attendees more than once.

2. Exclusive Secret

Market an exclusive secret that will be revealed at the event.  By promising attendees something they won’t get anywhere else, you can get their interest.  For example, provide the top 5 tips or trends that they will only get if they are in-person at the event.

3. Giveaway for Attendees

Who doesn’t like winning a prize?   Offer a giveaway to all people that attend and choose a winner during the event.  A giveaway adds hype and excitement to your event and may give someone interested an extra push to attend.

4. Teaser Posts

Teaser posts on a blog provide an introduction or overview to what the event will offer.  Have a presenter or speaker do a teaser blog post so possible attendees get a sense of what the event will be about.  For example, a basic tutorial on a topic so attendees are prepared to build upon information at the event.

5. Utilize E-newsletter Lists

Use existing e-newsletter lists to target people already interested in your services.  Send an e-newsletter to current customers letting them know why they should come.  You can also send a different newsletter to someone that has attended past events to let them know how this event will be different.

6. Involve a Cause

Donating registration fees to a local non-profit shows you care about your community and that you aren’t focused solely on event profits.    You can also give free admission to a non-profit representative and ask them to spread the word in exchange.

You work hard to plan events, and with a few simple strategies, you can have maximum attendance.  Try our modern day event marketing tips before your next event.  Do you have any event marketing tips that have worked for you?

The post Modern Day Event Marketing – 6 Tips To Get Registrants! appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

At last week, Twitter 101, introduction to Twitter Seminar, one of the participants said, I need one sheet with all this vocabulary, so… here it is folks, compliments of Scott Stevens, Project Manager @MannixMarketing.

>> Twitter Vocabulary and Glossary of Must Know Terms

Twitter “Follow Me” image by AHA-Soft

The post Twitter Vocabulary 101 – what you need to know about MT, RT, @, FF and Verification appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

M2Con, our first ever Digital Marketing Seminar was a huge success last week! One popular session was “Facebook Marketing: Big Brand Secrets for Small Businesses,” led by our Social Media Strategist, Amberly Rundell.

Attendees enjoyed learning 10 simple tips to rock their fan pages and get more customers. Tips included creative ways to engage their customers with polls and contests as well as easy tools to create eye catching images that go viral. Interested in getting her PowerPoint slides? Click here!

Favorite Quotes from Amberly’s Presentation:

• “Welcome to the Social Media Revolution.”
• “We don’t have a choice whether we do social media. The question is how WELL do we do it?”
• “We’re living in a digital battlefield. Every day I wake up I’m going to battle. It’s a battle for eyeballs. You’ve GOT to stand out.”
• “How many of you would like to get your business in front of millions of customers? Well, then you have to go where are millions of people are. And that’s on the internet.”
• “Be shocking. Nobody clicks on boring.”
• “Ask yourself this before you post on Facebook: Am I posting something appropriate or awesome? Take that extra 5 minutes to make your image go from boring to amazing. Use picmonkey.com!”
• “Use Woobox.com for giveaways and photo contests.”

Click below to watch the video she played titled “Social Media Revolution.”

Is your Facebook page awesome? Put it to the test! Here’s the handout attendees received:

A Simple Checklist To Evaluate your Facebook Fan Page

Have a question? Interested in a 1:1 Social Media Consultation? Connect with Amberly at ARundell@mannixmarketing.com or call her (518) 743-9424 today!

The post Facebook Marketing with Amberly Rundell: M2Con Recap appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

At yesterdays M2Con, someone explained that they didn’t use Twitter as they didn’t want every crazy person following them.  So the answer to those that want to maintain privacy yet microblog on Twitter is simple… Protect your Tweets.  Here is how you do it:

Step 1:  Click the GEAR ICON

Step 2: Click on Settings

Step 3:  Click Protect my Tweets

The post How to make your Twitter Account Private appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

The idea behind linking your Google Analytics account to your AdWords account is that it helps you analyze where people who click on your ads go once they reach your website. This information is useful because it can assist you in improving your ads and your website.

Let’s get started!

The first step is to make sure that you are an Administrator of the Analytics account you want to link to AdWords. You can find out if you are an Administrator by logging in to your Analytics Account, Clicking Admin in the top right corner. If you are an Administrator, it will note it as seen in this image. If you are not an Administrator, you will not be able to complete these steps.

Once you determine that you are an Administrator, log in to your AdWords Account. Click on the Tools & Analysis Tab at the top of the page. From there, click on Analytics.

Next, click the Admin button in the upper right corner in the grey bar. This will bring you to an Account Administration Page. Here you will click the name of the account that you want to link. Next click the Data Sources tab.

Stay within the Google AdWords Tab and then click Link Accounts. A pop up box will appear with two tasks …

You’ll need to determine how you would like AdWords to track your clicks. The default setting is set for an Auto-tag. If you choose the Manual tag option, you will need to append your links yourself by adding tags to your destination URL’s. This unique information attached to your Ads allows Analytics to determine which Campaign and Ad your traffic came from. Secondly, you’ll need to choose the Analytic profile from the drop down. After you have finished, click Continue.

If you see the green Success button, you have successfully linked your accounts. Congratulation! The more information you can gather about your traffic and traffic sources, the better you can shape your marketing campaign.

Should you need assistance with Google AdWords or Google Analytics, please give Mannix Marketing a call! We are AdWords Certified Company and offer consulting packages as well as monthly maintenance programs. If you encounter a problem while trying to link your Google Analytics to AdWords, please leave a comment so we can help.

The post How to Link Your Google Analytics to Your Google AdWords Account appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

Authority

Demonstrate your authority by showing your expertise in an area.  After a site publishes your guest blog post, the site is recognizing you as someone they trust to share information.  By writing about the area you specialize in, you build your credibility and readers will see you as the “go to” person for information.   Ideally, when readers need the services you provide in the future, they will remember you!

Branding

Build your brand by guest blogging on websites to increase your exposure.  Find popular websites or sites that are relevant to your business and request to add a guest article or blog post.   After your guest blog post is published,  new visitors will be exposed to your business.  This gets your name out to a new audience and helps you brand your brand.  No matter what site you guest blog for, putting your knowledge in writing  serves as advertising for you and your business.

Google Authorship

By guest blogging, you can attain Google Authorship, letting Google know who you are!  If you are using Google+, you just add the blog post to the “contributor to” section in your bio.  This helps you attain Google Authorship, allowing a picture to appear next to your name in search results for each post your write.  Google Authorship improves your rankings in Google search results as well as click-through rates.

Improve Your Writing Skills

Guest blogging is a great way to put your ideas in writing.  When a site publishes your blog post,  you begin to build a portfolio of articles.  You may even gets comments that inspire new ideas for things to write about or services to provide.

New Leads

Visitors that read your blog post can turn into new leads for your business.  When you guest blog you are networking with new potential leads.  The visitors that are exposed to your guest blog post might be impressed with your knowledge and reach out to you for more information about your services.  Even if they don’t reach out to your now, they have made a positive association between you and the services you provide.  If you are not looking for leads, guest blogging can also help you build relationships and new contact in the industry you work in.

Website Traffic

An important aspect of guest blogging, is the increase in  traffic to your website.  When you write a guest blog post, be sure to ask for a link to your website in exchange.  This link will send quality traffic to your website after someone reads your blog post.  An increase in website traffic means more people are coming to your website to learn about your services.

Whether you are looking to gain recognition for your expertise or build your business, guest blogging is a great means for exposure.  Wondering how to guest blog?  Email a related site and ask to contribute an article or blog post.  In return for writing an article, be sure to request a direct link back to your website.  This will allow readers to associate you with what they learn in the post.

If you already have a blog, find out how to build you blog readership base!

The post Importance of Guest Blogging appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

How do you know if an SEO is not Good at SEO or is Scamming you?

1. They cold-call you:   Beware of companies that cold-call for SEO, unless you know the business and they are local to you. Most decent SEO’s are growing so fast they don’t have time to cold call nationally. Those are usually scams. We have seen so many people get scammed, 1/2 of them never knew it.
2. They don’t ask for FTP information:  How do you know if you’ve already paid for work, if they are doing it, besides results of course.  The quickest way to pick out scammers, is that they don’t even ask for FTP login information for your website, and they actually don’t do any work (this happened to a bunch of hotels in Lake George who were promised SEO for a $500 flat fee by a cold calling company).  When I showed the hotel owners that it was impossible for the company to do onsite SEO without login information, they were astonished and unsuccessfully tried to get their money back.
3. They don’t know what Schema is:  Ask your to SEO define “G+, authorship and author and location schema” and why you need it. If they can’t answer this correctly, they haven’t been keeping up.
4. Reputation and Reviews are not discussed:  If you are a local company, they will talk to you about your online reputation and how to monitor it and the importance of positive reviews and review schema.
5. You only talked to the salesperson on the phone:  You should be talking to your SEO specialist.  If they are far away they should be able to do a Google Hangout or Gotomeeting and help YOU understand what they are doing, how it’s being tracked.
6. Their references “don’t understand SEO”: Asking for 3 happy clients is not enough, there are many people who are easily duped and paid for. If you don’t know the business I would ask for at least 6-10 references and if each one claims to know nothing about SEO, then you are doomed as they only target “easy picking” clients and dupe them.
7. You don’t have real conversations about keyword selections: You know they aren’t good at SEO if they ask you for your keywords and don’t come back with a different list.  They should start their SEO campaign with keyword research and help you understand how they selected the keyword phrases and they should be geographically relevant. You should have input, but they should come back with a better list and reasons why that list is best.
8. They don’t ask about your target market or your buyer:  They should talk to you about who your client is before they offer any results. If you don’t have at least a one-hour conversation about your business, your competitors, your unique selling points etc… then they really don’t get their role.
9. They don’t have impressive search results: No one can promise search engine placements like #1,2 or 3 but a good SEO can show you many clients with great results in the top of the search engines (I’m going to be unpopular for this comment) and the keywords should be competitive (at least 20,000 search results) and case studies, testimonials etc.
10. They Guarantee Top Placement in the Search Engines: Sounds counter-intuitive, right? But anyone who guarantees you top placement for a specific keyword is most likely scamming you.  A long time ago, you could guarantee certain placements, but now that has changed, search is personalized and results change from person to person etc.

How do you find a GREAT SEO Company? Their clients have real results. Guess what, you just found one.  We’d be happy to show you results, case studies, testimonials, video testimonials and have you talk to our clients.  Let’s talk: 518-743-9424.

The post How to tell Great SEO Companies from Terrible Ones appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

Leveraging SlideShare and Bit.ly to Optimize Your Presentations

With your presentation now available on SlideShare this expands the digital reach of your content to a highly trafficked social sharing platform.

But there’s still another opportunity to extract value from your presentation materials…

Tying Your Presentation to Your Website

While the presentation will reside on your SlideShare profile we all know that one of the the primary goals of SEO and content marketing is to drive qualified searchers directly to your website. In order to get people to your website, it needs to show up in search and social channels when people are looking for your presentation.

One of the best ways to help your presentation content get found is by writing a post about the presentation on your website’s blog, and then embedding your SlideShare presentation directly into the post (just like the embedded presentation within this post!).

Benefits of Posting your SlideShare on a Blog

Blogging has an array of benefits to your business from an inbound marketing perspective. Knowing what topics to cover on your blog can be a challenge- however, your conference presentations definitely warrant a fresh post topic. Here are a few specific benefits that come from incorporating your SlideShare presentation into your blog:

1. Fresh, Quality Content for Search Engine Optimization: That’s right- by blogging about your presentation you are showing search engines that you have something of value to say about hot topics in your industry. In addition, the presentation probably has a lot of the keywords for which you’re trying to rank higher, which can improve your competitiveness for those search phrases.

2. Market Your Business: Keep your current and prospective customers in the loop with the latest happenings, while showcasing your prominence in the industry.

3. Authority through Authorship: Authorship and other special markup languages can add a major visual appeal to your website content when it appears in the search engines. The more articles you post to your company’s blog, the more content Google can attribute to your Author profile.

For those of you who happen to have an Author profile connected to your company’s blog, your content has a better chance of standing out in the search engines as the special markup language displays your author profile next to your listing in the SERPs.

Now, when people perform a search for content related to your SlideShare presentation, your Author photo has an opportunity to show up in the search engine results page, potentially resulting in a higher click-through-rate.

What Other Tips Would You Recommend?

This is just one of many strategies designed to extend the life of your content and improve your inbound marketing efforts. What other strategies have you found helpful for marketing your content?

The post How to Optimize Your Presentations with SlideShare and Bit.ly appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.

If you missed it, no worries here are the helpful links:

Pinterest Marketing 101 (PowerPoint & Audio):
http://bit.ly/14OfnQf

Pinterest Marketing 101 (PowerPoint only):
http://www.slideshare.net/MannixMarketing/pinterest-marketing-101-final-presentation

Pinterest Marketing 101 Checklist:
http://bit.ly/Xqfdwd

If you want to catch Amberly Rundell’s presentation live and meet her for one-on-one advice, please come to M2Con, the Mannix Marketing conference for small businesses to learn the basics of digital marketing and how to market your business and grow in this digital world!

Pinterest logo by Dakirby309

The post Pinterest Checklist, Webinar and Pinterest 101 Slideshow appeared first on Search Engine Optimization, Internet Marketing & Website Design Blog From Mannix Marketing.