How To Make Facebook GIFs Work For Marketers!

"A photo GIF is worth a thousand words.

Have you considered using  animated Graphics Interchange Formats (GIFs) in Facebook News Feeds?


Facebook now supports animated GIFs in its News Feeds.


What’s Animated GIFs?

You’ve probably seen an animated GIF, but may not have known what it was called. Animated GIFs are short clips of images (from movies, individual pictures, etc.) that play on a loop.

Animated GIFs have  made a resurgence in popular culture, becoming a quick way for avid social networkers to share opinions, reactions, and to relive moments on platforms like Twitter and Tumblr.


How To Use Facebook GIFs?

To try the new feature, Facebook users can paste a link to a GIF hosted on an external website like Giphy, Imgur, Tumblr, or elsewhere, into their status update box and then publish. The GIF will be animated inline after you post. You can’t currently upload GIFs directly, however, and see the same results.

The best part?

The functionality couldn’t be easier.
 
How It Works

1. Copy the link to your favorite GIF

 

2. Paste it into the status update bar

 

 

(It’s important to note that when you paste the link and the GIF populates, you have the option to delete the URL that appears in the status update box to eliminate clutter.)

3. Post

  

 In terms of choosing a GIF source, Facebook supports the whole gamut — Tumblr, Imgur, Giphy, Google Image search, etc. As long as you have the direct link to the GIF image file, you’re golden.

What This Means for Marketers

For marketers animated GIFs can  play an important role as a storytelling tool in emails. GIFs provide quick ways to tell an effective story, show off multiple products, or highlight a specific area in the email without having to deal with bulky videos or Flash.
With attention spans shrinking, these short video clips provide marketers with the perfect way to capture the attention of their audience in a otherwise noisy feed. GIFs are super easy to consume.

The Bottom Line?

It’s worth a try.

Overall, GIFs can be a valuable tool for marketers hoping to make a splash amongst consumers. In the Vine and Instagram video era, consumers are becoming more comfortable with the way these images are served up, and will likely be more comfortable seeing them appear in emails.
Apart from adding visual interest, GIFs are an excellent way to highlight products or create a clear call to action while keeping the file size down. With widespread support across platforms and preference over video and Flash, the GIF is a valid choice option for the modern day e-mail marketer.


So if you’re going to use animated GIFs on Facebook, treat them as  any other marketing tactic: identify your goals, monitor their success and fit them seamlessly into your Facebook posts’ schedule.


What are you waiting for marketers? Hurry up  and take advantage of GIFS in Facebook News Feeds to promote your products and excite followers so they take action.


How about you? Are you going to use cool animated GIFs in Facebook? Do you have ideas you’d like to share with us? Let us know in the comments below!

This article was originally posted on MarkCommPitch Blog

 

Top 10 Important SEO Guides for Marketers

In today’s competitive market, investing in organic Search Engine Optimization (SEO)is very important and you  need to have an SEO strategy in place,  if you are interested in succeeding in terms of online marketing.

Search engines serve millions of users per day looking for answers to their questions or for solutions to their problems.

SEO is one of the single most important components of any organization’s branding efforts and online presence. If you have a web site, blog or online store, SEO can help your business grow and meet the business objectives.

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) increases the amount of visitors to a site by getting a high rank in the search engine results page. It ensures the accessibility of the site and improves the chances that the site will be found by the search engine.

For different search engines, different factors are important and to conquer more than one of them is really a hard nut to crack unless you optimize carefully.

Thus without understanding all the aspects of SEO, it is difficult to drive traffic to your site. To help you out, there are some guides which will give you a clear idea about how to approach search engine optimization.

1. Search Engine Optimization Starter Guide-Google

This guide was initially created to help teams within Google. However, later it was considered useful to webmasters that are new to the topic of search engine optimization and also want to improve their sites’ interaction with users as well as search engine. The guide will help you understand the best practices to make it easier for the search engine to understand your content.Download this guide.

2. SEO: The Free Beginners Guide from Moz

This guide gives you an insightful knowledge of the most effective practices of search engine optimization. This guide presents comprehensive information on SEO. It is an in-depth tutorial on all the aspects of search engine optimization. It shows the fundamental strategies which are going turn your website into a search engine friendly one.  Check out this guide here.

3. The SEO Guide to Getting Started with Google Webmaster Tools

John E Lincoln, in this guide, says that webmaster tools is a powerful confederate but in the wrong hand, it may create problem for your search engine optimization. The guide tells you how to utilize webmaster tools fully.  Learn more

4. The Advanced Guide to SEO- Quick Sprout

Neil Patel and Sujan Patel give their reader the most extensive and in-depth guidelines. On advanced SEO techniques.  All the tactics and immediately actionable things are incorporated in this guide to help you improve the rankings, performance and traffic of your website. Those who have read the previous guides by the same writers and still want to enhance their knowledge on SEO can find this guide really useful. Check this out here.

5. The Guide for Marketplaces and eCommerce Site

This guide is here to give you some tips to face the challenges marketplaces and ecommerce sites, which have list of item and products. In the beginning of the guide, Eran Galperin has defined all the important terms used in the article to maintain clarity. Although, it is abroad area he has tried to focus on the parts which are which are the features of their site. To read this guide, click here.

6. The Complete Beginners Guide to SEO-Buffer Blog

This guide tells us what SEO is, how it works, what factors affect the search, and the kind of changes we can make to improve our search engine optimization. This guide is going to help you in understanding the pros and cons of SEO. Check out this guide.

7. Learning SEO from The Experts

This eBook amalgamates the experts’ observations on best ideas and practices on SEO. The guide emphasizes the fact that the consumer searching landscape has changed and today search engine is the best resource for people who are looking for a product or service. Traditional search methods are replaced by Search Engine. Thus it is important to change the way your company gets found and this book with the help of the experts in this field promises to do so. To download the book, click here.

8. The Definitive Guide to SEO in 2014-Forbes

In this guide, the author discusses the best practices related to SEO industry. The topics covered in this article, are keyword search, on-page SEO, mobile SEO, Google Authorship, link-building and content strategy. Check out the guide.

9. The Bloggers Guide to SEO- by Aaron and Giovanna Wall

This guide tells you how to do SEO for a blog. It is available in several languages and you have the liberty to choose yours while reading this article. It tells you how blog SEO is different from SEO for other websites and other topics related to the field, such as, writing clear and compelling headlines, optimizing site structure, web analytics, etc. Learn more.

10. The Inbound Marketers Guide to SEO and PPC- Marketo

This guide says that to uplift your placement within search engine requires an amalgamated knowledge of math, art, science and creativity. To acquire the inbound traffic to your site you need SEO and Pay-Per-Click (PPC) campaigns. This guide will tell you how to optimize your SEO and PPC for inbound marketing. Download the guide.

The beginners might find SEO difficult and find it hard when it comes to uplift their site’s ranking. They must know all the nuances of search engines, and the guides suggested above are meant for them. The observations and suggestions from the experts are really useful to achieve best SEO ranking.

What’s your take on  these SEO guides discussed here? Will referencing these resources help you drive customers to  your business?

You can also take help from an Inbound Marketing Agency to  implement  SEO for your business.

If we missed including  something that you think is crucial? Leave your comments or questions in the box below!

Image source: marketingexchange

This article was originally posted on MarkCommPitch Blog

The Changes In The Search Engine Results Are Normal Fluctuations - Google

I am still seeing massive chatter around Google's search results changing both in terms of Webmaster Tools showing changes in rankings, in terms of webmasters noticing huge swings in their Google referrals and webmasters noticing ranking changes in the search results.

I covered it on March 25th and on March 20th and the automated tracking tools also confirm what the chatter is showing - but we are all blind. Well - maybe.

Honestly, I would cover it again, as the chatter in the industry is as high as ever but Google's John Mueller said this morning in a Google+ hangout at the 40 second mark that these are just "normal fluctuations" and that they actually did "look at this internally." They did, I know they looked into the reports here and on other sites.

John said:

We did take a look at this internally a bit because people have been writing about it… But from our point of view these are just changes as normal. Normal fluctuations that always happen as we kind of update our search algorithms and update our search data. It is not something specific that we would point out.

Source: seroundtable; Google+

MarkComm Pitch is an Inbound Marketing Agency that provides Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and Web Development services for SMALL BUSINESSES. Contact US at info@markcommpitch.com

2015 SEO ON Page Tips

Some SEO On page tips needs to be remember in 2015

1. First of all finalized the domain you need for business. Make sure to use keyword rich domain but not fully optimized.

For eg. If your business is about SEO Services then don’t use fully keyword optimized domain

Like :- SEOServicesinIndia.com or SEOServicesinDelhi.in
Google is strictly against it.

2. After choosing the Domain design SEO Friendly website with different pages for keyword.
Create descriptive and Short URL for inner pages. For eg. If you are creating page for Freelance SEO Services URL must be like abc.com/(your keyword using hyphen).html

3. Start optimizing the services/keywords which needs to be target.
It can be categorized in two ways:-

• Global Keywords
• Local Keywords

GLOBAL KEYWORDS – These keywords are targeted by globally. For eg. SEO Services, SEO Companies

LOCAL KEYWORDS – These keywords are targeted in cities, particular country. For eg. SEO Services in India, SEO Company Delhi

4. After selecting the targeted keywords write professional meta data (Title and Description) for all pages.
Keyword tag is not necessary nowadays.

5. Star uploading plagiarism free content on each pages.

Keyword Density must be 3% on each page.

6. Proper use of Heading tags (H1, H2, H3)

Make sure to use your main keyword in H1 TAG. For eg. <H1>SEO Services India</H1>

7. ALT Tag is also important. Put your keywords in alt tag. Google doesn’t search by Image. So, use text inside the image using ALT TAG.

8. Make sure your website must be open using www or non www not with both.
For eg. WWW.ABC.COM or ABC.COM not with both URL
This is called canonical issue.

9. After uploading content on each pages with unique meta data and all other ON page activities submit your URL to Google webmaster.

It will help to cache and index fast in GOOGLE.

Source: freelanceseoguru

MarkComm Pitch is an Inbound Marketing Agency that provides Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and Web Development services for SMALL BUSINESSES. Contact US at info@markcommpitch.com

When Will Be The Next PageRank Update? Probably Never - Google

Google has said time and time again that you should not pay attention to the Google

Toolbar PageRank score, but yet they have yet to 
zero-out any of the data, instead, they keep it as it was since the last accidental update back on December 6, 2013.

The last Google Toolbar PageRank update was over 14 months ago and before that, the last intentional update was on February 4, 2013, just over two-years ago.

Google has told us they won't be updating the metric and they probably won't update it in the future.

John Mueller from Google was asked this again at the 53:16 mark in a video hangout from about two weeks ago. The question was "When will be the next google PageRank update?"

John said, "Probably Never."

He said:

    Probably Never

    This is something I think we're stopped updating, at least the toolbar PageRank that is shown. I don't know the future of the Toolbar in general, but at least from the PageRank side, this is probably something we're not going to update.

John then goes on to explain the accidental PageRank update. Then the webmasters ask him what is a good metric to look at instead and he doesn't give a clear answer.

Here is the video, so you can see the confident he had this time when answering:

MarkComm Pitch is an Inbound Marketing Agency that provides Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and Web Development services for Small Businesses. Contact US at info@markcommpitch.com

Image: Flickr creative common via india_7

Now Google Keyword Planner Tool Is Showing Search Volume Numbers

Google has added a new feature to the external keyword tool, it has added approximate search volume numbers. For example, if you do a search for Search Engine Optimization, the results returned you columns for "Approx Search Volume: June" and "Approx Avg Search Volume." Here is a screen capture:

By definition, the "Previous Month's Search Volume" column "shows the previous month's search volume on Google for each keyword, specific to your targeted country and language. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword. The Avg. Search Volume “column” shows the average monthly search volume on Google for each keyword over a recent 12-month period, specific to your targeted country and language. The shaded bar represents a general low-to-high quantitative guide to help you determine how competitive ad placement is for a particular keyword."

There is a Google help page on these numbers that adds:

•         Search volume fluctuation

•          Location and language targeting

•         Match type

These figures come to no one's surprise because Google did release Google Trends with numbers and Google Ad Planner, which hides nothing.

I guess this is pretty good timing, being that Yahoo just killed the Overture keyword suggestion tool.

Source: SearchEngineRoundtable

MarkComm Pitch is an  Inbound Marketing Agency that provides Search Engine Marketing, Pay Per Click, Social Media Marketing, Content Marketing and Web Development services for Small Businesses.

Image: Flickr creative common via oh_tinkerer