SearchCap: Penguin & link building, PPC leads & social

Below is what happened in search today, as reported on Search Engine Land and from other places across the web. The post SearchCap: Penguin & link building, PPC leads & social appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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Bees buzzing on sugar can experience emotions like happiness and optimism, scientists say

Everyone knows sugar makes us feel good.

Studies have shown that sweet foods can improve adult humans’ moods and reduce crying and grimacing in babies when they are poked in the foot by researchers. But does it work on insects?

Researchers at Queen Mary University of London wanted to see whether they...

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How to Turn a Blog Post into a Video in 5 Minutes [Traffic Hack]

The post How to Turn a Blog Post into a Video in 5 Minutes [Traffic Hack] appeared first on TrafficGenerationCafe.com. Don't miss Ana's free Bite-Size Traffic Hacks email series - short actionable traffic tips to double your traffic in no time.

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How Analytics Is Transforming Customer Loyalty Programs

Customer loyalty programs are crucial.

The goal of loyalty initiatives is to engage, not pander more products to frequent buyers.

But how do you determine if your loyalty program is working well?

Use data to steer your customer loyalty program in the right direction.

McKinsey found that “executive teams that make extensive use of customer data analytics across all business decisions see a 126% profit improvement over companies that don’t.”

“By instituting a loyalty program, you not only improve customer appreciation of your business, but you also increase the chances that existing clients will share this joy with those close to them,” says Steve Olenski, a senior creative content strategist at Oracle Responsys.

Upgrade your loyalty program. Let’s explore how.

Focusing on Retention

One primary mission of loyalty programs is to increase customer retention. You want buyers to remain with your brand after they make a purchase.

For your business, higher retention means a steady flow of revenue. And it cuts down on your costs to constantly acquire new customers.

Therefore, your loyalty programs must be effective. They need to serve a real purpose for the consumer, not just your bottom line.

To provide the best customer experience, fuse data into your retention strategies. It will impact how your team approaches the buyer.

“Influencing customer loyalty in this way doesn’t require magic, it requires data – usually data that you already have but aren’t using to full advantage. Regardless of industry, most organizations today generate mountains of data,” writes Mike Flannagan, vice president and general manager of Cisco.

Uncover the correlation between customer characteristics and purchasing behavior. Assign your team to analyze the current data of your most valuable customers. And learn which characteristics these customers have in common and which traits are dissimilar.

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Consider data an ongoing process of observing, acting, and learning. Improve your loyalty programs by taking action on your insights. Measure success by monitoring your customer lifetime value, loyal customer rate, and redemption rate.

Start with retention. And let the data guide you to customer loyalty.

Targeted Product Recommendations

Research shows that “customers that are actively engaged with brands and their loyalty programs make 90% more frequent purchases, spend 60% more in each transaction and are five times more likely to choose the brand in the future.”

Sending targeted product recommendations is one way to keep customers engaged. Because if they are not receptive to certain products, consumers will feel more inclined to take their business elsewhere.

Integrate real-time purchase data with historical purchase data to make specific recommendations. For example, if a small business bought payroll software from you, their team might be interested in purchasing your series of on-demand accounting webinars.

“Consumer data must be analyzed to create highly targeted product recommendation offers. Analyze consumer data such as demographics, lifestyle, products purchased by category and type, frequency of purchase, and purchase value,” states Larisa Bedgood, director of marketing at DataMentors.

It’s key not to draw wild conclusions from one piece of data. Just because a Florida resident buys a winter coat doesn’t mean he wants to be flooded with similar recommendations. The consumer might have bought it as a gift for a friend living in Michigan.

So, gather multiple data points in order to make intelligent recommendations. You don’t want to frustrate loyal customers.

Your brand also can take a different approach. Use social proof to your advantage. If consumers are hesitant about particular products, remind them that other people are buying the product, too.

Home Depot uses this tactic by displaying a list of bestselling inventory. It persuades the customer to join the crowd.

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Sift through your analysis reports. Uncover the best product recommendations for your customers.

Timely Promotions

For customers, loyalty takes effort. They receive lots of promotional ads everyday to try products from other brands. Appreciating your consumer’s urge to resist the hype is important.

Mobile phone carriers lead the way in baiting consumers to switch their services. AT&T offers cell phone users up to $650 in credit just to say bye to T-Mobile, Sprint, or Verizon.

To keep their loyalty, customers will hold your team accountable. They expect timely promotions that not only fit their buying habits but also their lifestyles.

At the end of the day, you want to deliver the right offer at the right time. This will increase the likelihood of the promotion redemption.

Monitor the sales data to learn when promotional codes are redeemed. Do your consumers use promotions more often in the morning? Right after a sales announcement? Or during summer months?

“By creating a time-sensitive sales promotion and having a good grasp on your target customer demographic, you’ll be able to incentivize the right actions, get them to respond, and grow your business in the process,” states Humayun Khan, former content marketer at Shopify.

Moreover, analyze your reports to discover the best product promotions. A timely discount matched with the wrong product won’t be useful for the consumer or your company.

Segment your customers to offer relevant discounts for multiple channels—in-store, online, and mobile. Every loyalty member doesn’t have to receive the same offer.

For instance, Starbucks offers its Gold members the opportunity to earn double stars. The coffee company surprises its loyal consumers on a different day each month. This technique increases the excitement and prepares customers to spend more money on a particular day.

Don’t wait for your competitor to offer your customers a good deal. Start creating your own timely promotions.

Personalized Rewards

Everyone likes to be rewarded. It signifies that you’ve done something commendable. And incentives compel you to continue the rewarded behavior.

Recognize the value of your customer’s actions. Because that’s what you’re rewarding.

You can offer perks based on monetary transactions, shopping frequency, or even survey responses. It’s all about showing appreciation for consumers’ actions.

But it’s your team’s job to appropriately reward customers. Don’t expect people to buy $1000 worth of services in one month if your highest service retails at $10.

In addition, manage your loyalty members’ expectations. They shouldn’t expect your brand to give away free Beyonce tickets every day.

Personalized rewards ensure you’re giving your customers what they desire. It also shows that you are truly invested in the customer experience.

Send a simple email survey asking consumers what type of incentives excite them. Or conduct social media listening to identify useful prizes that can make your customers’ lives better.

Dick’s Sporting Goods sends emails asking customers for their opinions. The company uses the information to improve its inventory and customer service.

Remember to focus on maintaining positive relationships with your consumers. Because that’s the ultimate goal for loyalty initiatives.

You want people to feel comfortable with your brand. Aim to offer rewards that bridge the gap between the consumer-brand relationship.

“A significant aspect of customer loyalty comes down to your likability. People will almost always remain committed to a brand if they believe they’ve developed a genuine and mutually beneficial relationship,” says Entrepreneur contributor Dave Thompson.

Tailor your rewards to satisfy your customers. Offer them something special.

Analyze Customer Loyalty

Customer loyalty can lead to retention. That’s why your team must use data to drive your loyalty programs.

Give consumers targeted product recommendations they can’t resist. Send promotions at the right time. And personalize rewards so the customer feels part of the brand.

Look at the data. Improve customer loyalty programs.

Did you know? With Kissmetrics, you can find your most valuable customer segments. Analyze customer behavior to understand where they’re coming from and how to acquire more of your best customers.

About the Author: Shayla Price lives at the intersection of digital marketing, technology and social responsibility. Connect with her on Twitter @shaylaprice.

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What’s new and cool at Google from SMX East 2016

At this year's SMX East, Googlers Jerry Dischler and Babak Pahlavan shared recent updates and what's coming to AdWords and Google Analytics. Columnist Mark Traphagen was on hand to cover the highlights. The post What’s new and cool at Google from SMX East 2016 appeared first on Search Engine...

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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CMS Awards $347 Million for Patient Safety Initiative

(MedPage Today) -- Money will go toward reducing inpatient harm, readmissions

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Up close at SMX: Using paid search and social together

Columnist Kristi Kellogg recaps a session at SMX East that dives into how marketers can integrate their paid search and social efforts for better marketing results. The post Up close at SMX: Using paid search and social together appeared first on Search Engine Land.

Please visit Search Engine Land for the full article.

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Link Building Mistakes and Penguin 4.0: Weekly Forum Update

The aftermath of Penguin 4.0 has been…surprisingly peaceful! In the days after Penguin was announced last Friday, many members of WebmasterWorld reported that instead of a hurricane, all they got was a stiff breeze.

But Penguin 4.0 also seems to be a slow beast – Gary Illyes only recently announced on Twitter that the penalty-lifting part of Penguin should be taking effect soon.

So I hope you’re ready to follow the news for the next couple of weeks! It could be a bumpy ride, and our communities are a great place to get caught up.

Everything We Know About Google Penguin 4.0 So Far

If you were asleep or on vacation last week and missed the announcement, Penguin 4.0 is here. You can catch up with the above article by my colleague, Ann Smarty. She’ll be updating it as new questions and answers arise. You can also get links to news and discussion in SEO Chat’s Penguin 4.0 discussion thread.

If WebmasterWorld is more your style, the experts are watching their sites like hawks as Penguin continues to leave its impact.

September 23rd, when Penguin was announced, ryandiscord and ThomasHarvey of SEO Chat were looking at the SEO weather forecasts. As ryandiscord phrases it, “Nothing crazy,” was happening. But the theory of Penguin 4.0 was appreciated. Ryan also wrote,

“What I like about this update is that the results of a clean up can happen much sooner. I think it may even be easier to spot which links are being caught if it is page level.”

Users on WebmasterWorld had a similar reaction. SnowMan68 wrote,

“Well that was underwhelming. WTF!”

Ebuzz lent credence to the idea that Penguin is rolling out slowly. They wrote,

“I’ve not seen ANY change in my Penguin hit sites. It might as well not even be announced,”

on September 25th. Robert Charlton had exciting news to share on September 29th, though:

“Gary Illyes in ongoing discussion with Barry at SERoundtable, as clarified that the algo has been rolling out in phases, and that the phase in which demotions will be removed started late yesterday afternoon, ie Sept 28, 2016.”

Penguin 4.0: Some Things Change, Some Things Stay the Same

So webmasters haven’t noticed many changes to the health of their sites yet. There are other things about Penguin which haven’t changed with 4.0. You can take a look at all the things that have stayed the same in this Threadwatch update. Disavow files, for example, should still be used.

Everyone at Google is firm about the fact that Penguin will not do disavows for you. Google was also quick to add that manual link-based penalties will still be given out to sites that Penguin doesn’t quite apply to.

Link Building Mistakes of the Pros and Newbs

With Penguin rolling out, now is the perfect time to talk about link building techniques!

This is an AWESOME thread from WebmasterWorld where users are talking about what techniques don’t work and what tactics are mistakes in the modern era. I can’t tell you how many newbie SEOs ask on SEO Chat,

“What are the best practices for link building in 2016?”

You can answer that, and more, with this thread. I dunno about you, but I’ll be sharing this link far and wide – and probably for years. So what are some techniques that don’t work? Martinibuster cites “publishing your actual outreach template in an SEO article” as one of them.

“Being transparent makes some people feel good about what they do… However, publishing search strategy specifics in public has been known to cause a response from Google.”

Graeme_p writes that

“One thing I did many years ago was to put footer links in free WordPress templates. People used them and I did get links that helped at the time. It worked for a while…but later on it probably looked spammy.”

Keyplyr agrees:

“I did that back then as well and many years later it has come back to bite me.”

Here’s one of my pet peeves that engine and martinibuster discuss: chasing PR and DA! Martinibuster writes

“Nowadays I know there are many who are chasing DA, even though Rand Fishkin discourages the practice of using Domain Authority for judging a site’s worth, describing it as the number one link building myth…”

Bing Academic and Movie Search Has an Intelligent Autocomplete

Bing has developed an intelligent autocomplete for its academic article and movie database searches. This intelligence

“…understands the intent [of a search], and generates suggestions based upon the user input. It won’t give a response until it reaches a trigger point of understanding the intent,”

writes WebmasterWorld’s admin, engine. It’s a pretty neat paper! We take Google’s autocomplete function for granted, and this paper will help you understand that as Bing details the specifics of its development.

What’s really interesting is that this technology may be the first step in analyzing the web beyond links. Give it a read!

Is AI Getting in the Way of Google Understanding Your Site?

This is an interesting thread from WebmasterWorld, a spin-off of their Penguin discussion. As part of their announcement, Google said that they wouldn’t be commenting on future Penguin refreshes. MrSavage writes that Google’s behavior could be creating too wide of a disconnect between engineers and their product.

“…Perhaps it’s as simple so the staff don’t have to field…questions anymore…They are hardly concerned about whatever results are showing. The fact you can search something and get a number 1 or 2 result that are articles completely void of one or more of your typed in search terms tells me they don’t give a S behind closed doors…”

We see webmasters, all the time, who use automated tools and are then unable to fix the mistakes they create. Is Google doing the same thing?

Perhaps integrating Penguin into the core algorithm and creating RankBrain are the first steps towards an automated (and ultimately inhuman or outdated) search engine. How important is the human element? Share your thoughts!

SEO: So, What DOES Work?

Several discussions on SEO Chat have been popping up in this same vein. SEO is changing – the things that used to work don’t, and the things that do seem to create very small returns.

This is especially true in local SEO. Gazzahk writes,

“Manipulating Google SERPs is an increasingly difficult thing to do. My website used to dominate all my SERPs both locally and globally. Heaps of links to link bait made my money pages dominate…”

Today, though, he ranks better outside of his local area than he does inside of it. Besides content and links, what are the keys to great local rankings?

One thing that KernelPanic, an SEO Chat mod, brought up in an earlier discussion is reviews. Maybe, some day, local reviews will eclipse links in importance. What do you think?

Design Your Marketing Emails For Being Opened on a Smart Phone!

On Cre8asiteforums, user earlpearl tells the story of a recent email campaign they ran.

“On a recent large email blast our email provider gave us info I hadn’t seen before: Percentage of Opens by Device. On that blast 92% were opened on a smart phone…KABOOOM!!”

It was a revelation – turns out that the recent emails were unreadable on a smart phone! The tiny screen shrunk the text down and scrambled it into gibberish.

“Next job: Change ALL the emails. ALL of them!”

earlpearl writes. User iamlost has a TON of great suggestions for how to optimize your responses, newsletters, promos, and more for smartphones. Check this thread out for a mobile UX wakeup call!

The post Link Building Mistakes and Penguin 4.0: Weekly Forum Update appeared first on Internet Marketing Ninjas Blog.

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Massive U.K. Brain-Mapping Project Releases First Results

The UK Biobank Imaging Study aims to track brain health in 100,000 individuals as part of a long-running effort to understand how diseases develop

-- Read more on ScientificAmerican.com

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