Uniqlo – creative campaign on Pinterest

Uniqlo, (“unique clothes”) the Japanese clothing retailer and the New York based digital agency Firstborn took over Pinterest to create a scrolling animation and promote its new Dry Mesh t-shirt range. This creative campaign caught the attention of the wider web, so I just couldn’t help writing something about it too. It was crazy and funny and some say even a little spammy! Personally, I admire their work and I’m glad that so many people responded positively to this campaign and there were only a few haters that found it „spammy”. Dan LaCivita, president of Firstborn, declared in a phone interview „To be honest, I thought there were going to be more negative reactions. Some people are saying we hacked Pinterest, but we didn’t change or alter their system.”

You may wonder....How did they do it? They used hundred different accounts on Pinterest to pin Uniqlo images simultaneously and create an animation-like effect. As they realized there was no limitation on the lenght of a image a user can post on Pinterest they used the power of Pinterest’s scrolling to create colorful mosaics and promote their new Dry Mesh t-shirts. The images were posted in specific Pinterest categories – women’s apparel, men’s apparel, geek, fitness and sports, reaching their target audience. They found a new way to advertise and they made a pretty good job.

 

The Japanese retailer Uniqlo is known for its creative digital work and I think we all agree that they earned their popularity with their really innovative campaigns. (In 2010 Uniqlo ran the Lucky Counter Twitter campaign reducing the price of clothing when they were tweeted about. This campaign ran while its website was down. Turning a negative situation into a pretty cool promoting idea it’s really clever, don’t you think?)

Check out this video about the Dry Mesh campaign and let me know how you feel about it! Do you think it’s really creative or rather spammy? 

Landing page analysis

We recently talked about the importance of page titles and I even gave you some tips on how to create clickable titles. Today we’re going to SEO chat about something just as important as page titles (for you and your visitors) - the landing page.

Every time someone goes online and visits your website, that first page they are directed to is the landing page. If your landing page provides high quality content and it’s offering a solution for your reader’s problem/concern, than it’s very likely that he will continue to stay on your website and explore it.

It now becomes clear that landing pages are responsible for the success or failure of a website, so how are yours? Are they easy to read? Do they load fast enough? Are they providing your readers with the content they need? The key to creating great landing pages is definitely page analysis, and a lot of it.  If you want to understand what your visitors are looking for and if you strive to get drive traffic to your website, than landing page analysis is definitely a must. You may need to make some changes to your page’s layout or to some segments of text, as long as you find the issue and fix it, you’ll soon have great landing pages that really engage your readers. 

Website owners and webmasters are always interested in growing their site’s performance, but we all know that they can’t control landing page content. On the other side, you could consider doing a complete landing page audit. Here’s what you should check:

·         Do you provide contact information? Your contact details or even a contact form should be easy-to-find on every page of your website.

·         Does your website loads fast? Make sure it loads as fast as possible (no more than 3-4 seconds).

·         Is your content optimized for a pleasant online reading experience? We all know that online readers might find it difficult to read every line from along text, so don’t write more than 3-5 paragraphs and also use bullets whenever you can.

·         Did you test it? Testing your pages is always the most effective method. The whole process starts with two pages that are running in the same time, the original one and another one that features a minor amendment. Using a special program, your visitors will be split between those pages and as the time passes by, a specific viewing pattern will be formed. Knowing which page converts better, you will have the best chance of improving your website’s performance.

·        Did you check your statistics? Use the power of statistics to find out things that you’ve never been aware of. Information is power! You might discover the root of your problem and then you’ll be able to fix those elements that are undermining your website. 

Always keep in mind that if you want to convert you traffic, you first need to start with your own landing pages. A landing page is the first part of your website that your visitors will see, so do everything you need to improve your landing pages so that both you and your visitors can enjoy it.

Content marketing better than link building?

Lately many webmasters have talked about the differences between content marketing and link building. And although they are really two different separate elements in your search engine optimization campaign, many agree that creating content for visitors is more beneficial to your website than trying to target search engines. It’s all about long-term results. And if we think about the fact that Google pays attention to our content and any search action is based on content and keywords, than we will surely agree that content is still king!

One of the reasons people agree that it’s better to focus on your content is that hiring a good and creative copywriter is or can be cheaper than contracting a good link builder. Of course nowadays more and more people develop their writing skills and everybody puts an emphasis on creativity, but let’s face it, it’s not that simple to find really good writers. So although it can be cheaper than hiring a SEO specialist, it’s much harder to find people with really strong copywriting skills. On the other hand, if you do find a great copywriter that’s good on blogging and has relevant social media experience, they could write high quality content that people will actually share and they will build trust and authority to your website and company.

Writing content and generating links in a natural way it’s much better than link building. Why not make an effort to offer quality information for you visitors and to encourage them to share your content and gain traffic through natural links? There are so many wonderful (and yet addictive) social networks - Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest - that people use daily to find and share information. And there are so many sharing buttons and applications, that is almost impossible not to spread your news in the online world. You just have to provide high quality content that could go viral, in any form that suits you: images, videos, articles.

Another advantage you can benefit from when you focus on content in your search engine optimization efforts is that it is easier to measure the value of content than the value of links. When you post an article, you know exactly how many keywords and links you inserted, how many links that articles had generated and how much search traffic was generated by that specific content.

Also, with all the penalties websites suffered after the latest Google Penguin update, it’s much safer to focus on content marketing than link building. When the next algorithm update will launch you won’t search for SEO tactics to fix your problems, you’ll just enjoy the benefits of your long-term strategy.

Content marketing it’s clearly more useful and rewarding than link building and we could say it’s definitely more fun. Besides the fact that Google prefers this strategy, it’s also fun to write creative content, to socialize with your visitors or clients, to be part of online communities, to make connections, to build your brand’s name in the online world. Anyone will agree it’s much more interesting than dealing with rows after rows of Excel data and submitting links all day long.

All in all, I think it’s a matter of choice. Some will agree content marketing is more effective on the long run than link building, but some will still be stuck on the fact that link building can generate better sales volumes and revenues. After all, you know what’s better and what works for your search engine optimization campaign, right?

Stay tuned! I’ll be back soon to talk about more SEO tips and tricks for your business! 

Google optimization tips

We all know Google is one of the top search engines on the web, and we also know how important it is for your website to be ranked on Google. With the latest Penguin and Panda updates, many website have been hit hard by Google and lost their top positions, so now webmasters would do anything to regain their prime positions.

Remember that Google is getting more and more intelligent and its algorithm changes will affect all those websites that break its rules. All website owners should consider changing their strategies and developing really high-quality websites to conform to Google’s standards. So if you want to improve your rankings on Google’s search results and get more traffic to your website, check out these Google optimization tips:

-          Put yourself in Google’s place and review your content. Is it relevant? Is it of high quality? How would a major search engine view your content? If you want to improve your rankings and visibility, reviewing your website’s content and structure it’s the first thing you should do. 

-          Put yourself in your readers’ place and think about what type of information do they need, what do they search, what would they recommend to someone else? This way you will know what to provide for your visitors and how to write useful content that people will actually share with others. 

-          Write high-quality and original content and update it as often as you can to add value to your website. How do you expect readers to come back to your website if you constantly post content they have already seen before? Believe me, they will eventually give up on checking your website and you’ll lose traffic and even potential clients. So just make yourself a favor and be original. And one more thing, don’t repeat yourself over and over again. If you write once or twice about a subject it’s ok, just don’t recycle your content to add more page to your website. It will only keep readers away.

-          Select the most relevant keywords for your business and insert them in your website’s content because you should know that the relevancy of you website is determined by Google only for specific keywords. Include them in your page titles and in your URLs, and don’t forget to check your competitor’s key phrases to make sure you select the most relevant keywords.

-          Remove your pages that are not indexed, if you keep them just the way they are, they won’t do you any good, but if you remove them, you could even improve your rankings. But you could try a better solution – improving them! Keep those pages and change their content and this will increase your chances to achieve better rankings.

-          Respond to your readers’ needs and provide interesting and useful content. It’s the only way you can become an authority in the online world. Your goal is to become a trusted source of information, because your domain authority is essential to your rankings in Google’s SERPs.

Follow these tips if you’re sick of constantly having to jump though Google’s hoops to improve your rankings. I promise you’ll build the trust and authority your website needs! Good luck everyone and see you soon with more SEO tips and tricks!

 

Source: http://www.rankedhard.com/

Creating clickable titles

Headlines are the most important elements in ads, I’m sure you’ve all heard about a bunch of headline strategies, but what about page titles? Do they have the same importance? Of course they do, the titles of your articles are an important part in search engine positioning, they need to be interesting and to instill curiosity. Think about your titles as your “hooks”. With great and creative titles you can hook readers to check out your content. And remember that your page titles also serve as the first conversions opportunity on the SERPs and can improve your website’s click-thru rate, so let’s find out how to create really compelling, clickable titles:

 Learn about great titles

·         First of all you should know where your page title is, so look above your browser window and that’s where you’ll find it. In the backend code it appears framed as <title> My Cool Web Page < title>.

·         Include one or two keywords you used for your page, it will help you with your rankings

·         Keep your titles around 60-69 characters, including spaces. Titles are usually limited to 50-75 characters, but Google displays up to 70 characters in their search engine result pages.

·         Write unique, descriptive page titles and always watch out for duplicate page titles. It can be difficult to determine the page you want to read when more than one search engine results pages have the same title.

·         Make your title a benefit statement. We all know (or should have known by now) that a good title offers readers an answer to a problem, concern or question. Searchers will click on you website only if your page titles promise to provide useful information.

·         Use “How to” or “Tips” in your titles as often as you can because most people are looking to learn something and they will visit your website as soon as they’ll see those phrases

·         Always include “methods”, “secrets” or “strategies”, these words really make readers check out your content

Bad titles – or what you should avoid when writing your page titles

·         Titles that have nothing to do with the content of that page

·         Obscure or unclear titles that make people wonder if your content has any value

·         Boring or sophisticated titles

·      Keyword stuffing - Stuffing your page titles with too many keywords to improve your search engine rankings

In an average person’s day to day life, more than half of all first impressions are based on how you look, so in the same way, in the online world the first impressions of your websites are based on your page title! Keep in mind these tips I’ve shared with you, they will help you with your positioning in search engine pages and always, but always use the right keywords.