seo

Posted by MiriamEllis

If you work in Local SEO, chances are you’ve been fielding tons of questions from clients since Google rolled out the Pigeon update in late July. Need a little extra support providing sound advice in what are still the early days of this development that has caused both organic and local ranking shakeups? Here’s your chance to learn what six of the finest Local SEOs on the map are telling their own clients and readers about Pigeon, followed up by a checklist aimed at helping you Pigeon-proof your local presence. Read closely, and I believe you’ll find some gems of wisdom from these generous pros!

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Mike Blumenthal says…

With Pigeon, it’s important to understand that several things happened at once and you need to understand which of those things happened so that you can respond appropriately.

One major change was a shifting of the calculations for distance around a search. Typically, but not always, Google reduced the search radius.

If you are no longer included in the search radius you have several choices (besides opening another office). The one that makes the most sense is learn what geographic areas you are showing in and emphasize those AND find the less competitive categorical searches where you can compete to get some visibility. “Jewelry Appraisals” might not be as lucrative as “Jewelry” in a given market, but if you can dominate the search, it can lead to long term sustainable client acquisition. Figure out what these phrases are and be sure that you have both the right site content AND the right categories at places like YP.com and elsewhere.

The other change was a reordering of search results with some listings losing rank even though they are still within the new search radius.

If you lost rank but are still within the search radius then you need to do the things that Google is looking for. When in doubt, go back to the basics of internet marketing and be sure that you are participating in activities that make your business more visible on-line – becoming more citation worthy and linkable in your local market. In essence become newsworthy in your local market.

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Mary Bowling says…

This is the gist of what I have found myself saying repeatedly over the past few weeks to clients:

1. Just because obvious spam is being rewarded in the SERPs, don’t think that you should spam, too. If you’re concerned about spam in the local packs that affect you, report it. The more people you can get to report it, the more likely it is to be examined and, hopefully, demoted.

2. Brands with their own directories of locations (or store finders) should do whatever is needed to boost their potential for ranking well, which will help both the brand website and the individual locations. The website needs to be structured to push PageRank down to all of the location listings. The directory section must be thoroughly crawlable and well-optimized at every level. The location listings themselves must have plenty of unique, location-specific content that visitors find interesting and valuable.

3. Make certain you are in the directories that are ranking in or above the local packs for the terms you’d like to rank for. Regardless of your feelings toward Yelp, most businesses need to maintain accurate and complete listings there, preferably accompanied by good reviews.

4. To appear in the shrunken local packs, you must now rank in the top 3 positions, which are usually influenced by organic rankings. So keep working on your organic rankings via valuable, well-optimized content and incoming links from other good websites.

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Linda Buquet says…

My advice? The Pigeon has flown the coup, but has not landed yet! There is too much flux for any of us to make sense of yet. I’ve been sharing tracking screenshots at the Local Search Forum and we have 200 Pigeon analysis posts so far. All I can say is that hopefully by the time this bird is tested and/or trained it will settle into something equitable for users and business owners alike. So no solid advice can be given now, except to keep working on best practice strategies, which will always help in the end.

A couple of unique and more recent observations:

1. After doing lots of Pigeon analysis, I’m almost positive that Google is testing at least 3 versions of Pigeon on different datacenters and rotating results – maybe for AB testing. I say this, in part, because all the Google datacenter IPs I can find are still showing the old pre-Pigeon results and many of the tools I use that send me screenshots or ordered pack results are still showing the old algo ranking order as well. Classic Google maps is showing the old ranking order too, because it’s using a different datacenter than Google search. Here is a detailed post with all my observations and screenshots to back them up:

Pigeon Analysis – New Insights about this Crazy Google Local Algo & the Constant Flux

So that would account for the crazy constant flux we are seeing. Depends on which of the rotating datacenters you hit. I repeat – the Pigeon has not landed!

2. Duplicate discovery has changed and Pigeon is now hiding lots of dupes. Those dupes can still rank and mess you up but are just harder to find. (h/t to Joy Hawkins for this discovery.) The old map search for phone # may only surface 1 listing even though there are 6. There is a long post about the various ways to search now, including a couple new ways at my forum. So if you deal with doctors, dentists, attorneys, just be aware that if your standard method of dupe discovery shows 0 additional listings – it does not mean they are not out there. They are just in hiding! (Plus Pigeon is handling dupes differently too, but I think going into that will make this too long.)

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Phil Rozek says…

You have to figure out which strain of Pigeon Flu has got you down. 

Is Google showing only 3-packs, and now your #5 ranking doesn’t get you on page one? Don’t panic and change your strategy; you’re on the right track.

Have you been knocked out of the 7-pack by spammy results? Not much you can do, but Google will probably fix it anyway. Hang tight and work on your non-Google Places visibility efforts.

Lost your rankings in the big city? Well, your first priority always should have been to be King or Queen of your immediate area first and foremost. (And if that doesn’t bring you enough phone calls, then you
need to earn more reviews and make your site stickier.)

In my experience, Pigeon is a wake-up peck.

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Andrew Shotland says…

Our best advice to clients is to keep calm and carry on. We are still seeing a lot of changes in the local SERPs on almost a daily basis. So adjusting tactics while the game board is still moving seems ill-advised. In cases where things are really broken – and we’ve seen a bit of that (e.g. multi-location brands that have a 100-mile-away location ranking for <brand>+<city> queries even though they have a location in the searched city) – we are definitely hitting Google My Biz Support and making sure there’s nothing screwy on the NAP side that could be causing this. 

Thus far the big fix we are seeing to defeating spammy results in the local packs is to get links, which unfortunately is going to lead to a whole new wave of local link SPAM, because it appears to be working, for the moment.

My best advice to clients would be to do “real local SEO sh*t”. Lots of local SEOs, especially at large firms, have focused on the local part of the algorithm to the exclusion of localized organic search. The Pigeon update, with its fusing of the local and organic ranking factors, appears to push us back to basic SEO tactics. Get good, local, links. Create quality content. Eliminate technical issues on your website and Google My Business page. Do this and you will be ahead of the vast majority of local businesses in the turd covered post-pigeon landscape.

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Nyagoslav Zhekov says…

I do believe it is very early to comment on an update that appears to be as impactful as “Pigeon” (I really dislike the name, and I don’t think it fits too well), partly because I do not even think the SERPs have settled down yet, and partly because very little targeted testing and research has been done to date.

The only thing we know for sure is what Google shared ( indirectly):

“Google has released a new algorithm to provide a [sic]more useful, relevant and accurate local search results that are tied more closely to traditional web search ranking signals.”

“…Google said that this new algorithm improves their distance and location ranking parameters.”

The first part could be interpreted as Google now giving more value to the “traditional” organic ranking factors (website-related ranking factors). This could be seen as a sort of a “follow-up” on Venice, which significantly impacted the type of local SERPs (major shift from “pure” to “blended” SERPs). Pigeon had significant impact on the display of local “packs” in the local SERPs, too (23.4% drop in local packs display).

The second part of Google’s “announcement” could be interpreted as an attempt to further “localize” the search results, wherever it might make sense. There have been observations of “tightening” of the radius of the displayed local search results, and experts generally agree that the update had a serious impact on the hyper-local search results.

What a business owner should do? My advice – do what you have been doing up to now. A strong, end-to-end, local SEO campaign, without cutting corners, and without stressing on one aspect while neglecting the rest, is the most sustainable way to win in the long term, and practically the only way not to have to worry every time Google update their algorithms.”

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My 6-point Pigeon-proofing checklist for local businesses

Stay alert. Experts agree that the dust has not settled on this update, so this would not be the right time to react with a complete 180 in your marketing strategy. Stay tuned in to local blogs and fora and monitor the SERPs on a regular basis to watch things progress in the coming weeks and months. Based on past experience, I would not be at all surprised to see Google continue to turn dials up and down with this update. Don’t panic like a birdbrain and start making major changes, but do keep up-to-date!

If your radius has shrunken for your core terms, you may need to consider focusing more effort on less competitive terms to try to make up the difference. Among other things, this could include changing a category on your Google My Business page, building new content that proves your relationship to these topics and earning new reviews and links that cement your presence in reference to these somewhat lesser terms.

If your 7-packs have shrunken to 3-packs, striving to build greater organic authority may help you more than purely local signals like citations and reviews. No mystery here – make your website as clean, fast, usable and rich in information as you possibly can, and brainstorm for those ideas that will set you apart from more sluggish or boring competitors, making your business link-and-shareworthy.

If more spam seems to be rearing its ugly head in your important SERPs, report it! You have several vehicles for doing so. In Google Mapmaker, search for a spammy business, click the ‘edit’ link and then the ‘report this’ link. Provide as much detail as you can, documenting and proving that the listing contains spam. Or, while signed into your G+ account, find the spammy Google+ Local page, click the downward pointing in the row of icons beneath the business NAP, choose the report/block option and then fully describe the issue. If you notice widespread spamming, you might want to consider reporting it via a thread at the Google And Your Business help forum in hopes of getting the attention of Top Contributors and/or staffers.

Because Pigeon appears to be giving more emphasis to local business directories for more searches now, it is more important than ever to have clean, consistent citations across the board. Do your most important keyword searches and see which directories are appearing high in the SERPs for these terms. Be sure you’ve got a fully-filled out listing on these directories and that the data on it is good and correct.

Local SEO strives to build a web-based mirror-image of local business communities – but don’t forget that it is only a reflection of the offline world. Citation building, content development, link earning, review acquisition – these are all incredibly important tasks, but they do not take the place of the service you offer and relationships you are building in the real world with face-to-face customers and associates. 

Becoming ‘a name’ in your neighbors’ households by dint of your excellence should always be your #1 priority. So, give that better-than-expected customer service, launch that new in-store campaign, join that local business association and go to those local events and seminars! Become a vital local resource to your neighbors and you’ll be standing in a strong place, no matter what updates may come your way.

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Posted by Isla_McKetta

In a post-Hummingbird world, we all know content matters. But many SEOs are still trying to work around this update because we think we don’t have the tools to gauge content quality.  If you’ve said, “I’m not a writer,” or, “How do I know what will resonate with my audience?” And even, “Content is hard and takes time; do I really have to?” You might be suffering from content anxiety.

Content quality anxiety can come in many forms:

1. What is content, really? 
2. I hired a content team or agency. How do I know if they’re any good? 
3. How can I calculate the value of content?

Help is available.

Read on for your guide to understanding what makes good content (and improve your SEO in the process).

1. What is content, really?

First, just to make sure we’re on the same page, a quick operational definition: Content is the sum of all of the words, images, videos, and audio on your site, social pages, emails, and beyond. A good content creator is thinking about everything from the language on your newsletter subscription text to the tone in your order confirmation email or even the wording on your delivery envelopes.

2. I hired a content team or agency. How do I know if they’re any good?

In-house or agency, knowing if a content creator or team is up to snuff can be one of the most intimidating things for non-creatives. While there are a lot of tips and tricks to creating great content, there is no secret code for recognizing great content. Use these guidelines and you’ll be golden.

Are the ideas original?

If you want your content to stand out in the crowded Internet (and who doesn’t), you’re going to need original ideas and content. Before you even decide whether you like the ideas, do a quick pass through your memory. If your content team’s first set of big ideas sounds uncannily familiar, dig deeper.

The tricky part about this is that every wedding provider in this SERP is trying to speak to a very common need that brides have: finding creative ideas for a fall wedding. But your content team or agency should be able to help your customer find that information in a new and exciting way. It’s okay to insist on originality.

Is the content appropriate for your audience?

You also don’t want your ideas to be so shockingly original that you and your audience can’t relate to them. For example, if I was to suggest an interactive game based around Waiting for Godot for your dog food business, I’d expect you to cry bullshit unless your audience is entirely composed of literary professors and playwrights.

Do you feel like the content adds value to your site?

Shiny objects can be great for attracting new visitors to your site. Make sure that big new idea attracts the kind of attention you want.

Big content is an investment. And while it’s great to take some risks, your content team should be able to convince you what value that content adds and make a case for how it might be received.

Does your content tell a story?

This one isn’t strictly a necessity, but do not underestimate how far a good story can go to making your content memorable. This can take the form of an anecdote that illustrates the point, or the whole page can be a story in itself. 

In the case of Warrior IPA from Left Hand Brewing, the beer becomes a character. And while it would have been hard to fit a full beginning, middle, and end in one paragraph, hints of this warrior’s story pair perfectly with the illustration on the label. This product description is so good that the beer nerd info is purely a bonus.

Does it raise the hairs on the back of your neck?

Probably the best test of content ever: pay attention to how you feel when you first experience the content. Trust your gut. If you’re engaged and can’t get enough, it’s good content. In this example from the Distilled blog, Harriet Cummings reaches deep into the soul of someone who wants to be a better public speaker and pulls all the right strings to cement that engagement.

You don’t have to know why a piece of content blows your mind (that’s the content team’s job), just pay attention to how it makes you feel.

Is it Internet-friendly?

Reading content online is a lot harder on the eyes than reading on paper. Breaking up the text with headings, bullet points, images, and shorter paragraphs helps keep your customers on your page.

As for non-text content, make sure your images, video, and audio all load well and as quickly as possible.

Does the writer use proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation?

We’ve all seen examples of a gorgeous, well-planned infographic that’s perfect except for just a few typos. You may not be one of those sticklers who judges the work of others based on proper grammar, but you can bet that someone in your audience is using grammar, spelling, and punctuation as a measure of the quality of your content. 

This is my final impression of one of the most gorgeous interactives I ever saw online. Sad face.

Do you immediately want to share the content?

One of your goals involves social shares, right? Or at least you wouldn’t be sad if you got a bunch of them. If you’re excited to share whatever you’re reading, others will be too. If you find it dull, well…

3. How can I determine the value of content?

How do you prove the value of something that’s everywhere, anyway? There are lots of possible answers. As an SEO, you probably understand most of these measures already, but here’s how to tweak them to evaluate content. You’ll likely want to use overall traffic plus a combination of the things below depending on what type of content you’re focusing on.

Attribution modeling

While content is everywhere on your site, the things most of us think of as content (blog posts, landing page text, and yes, even infographics) are rarely the last touch before a conversion. Attribution modeling helps you assign a portion of the value of a conversion to all the pieces of content that a visitor sees before converting.

For example, if they read a blog post, click through on an email, and read an FAQ, you can give each of those touches partial credit. Read more about attribution models.

A/B testing

A/B and multivariate testing are great ways to measure the value of some forgotten areas of content like the text in form fields and pop-ups. These tests can also tell you when you don’t actually need content in those areas. Don’t forget that less can be more.

Social shares

Engagement matters and social shares are definitely one way to measure engagement. Of course social shares are probably a better measure of blog posts and product descriptions than of the copy you use in the checkout process.

Links

In a perfect world, great content earns links. Don’t assume your content is valueless if you aren’t earning links, but do celebrate when it does. Use Open Site Explorer to find and keep track of links.

Comments

Yes, it does seem like fewer people are commenting on blogs these days. But, as with links, this just means the comments you do get, usually a signal that a reader is deeply engaged, are all the more valuable. Dan Shure explains this in depth in The Broken Art of Company Blogging (and the Ignored Metric that Could Save Us All).

One Metric

Our blog editor, Trevor Klein, has developed and refined a personalized metric for Moz called the One Metric. This system combines a variety of the signals above and then weights them to give a quick overview of what’s succeeding and what’s failing. We’ve already been using that information to inform decisions about future content efforts.

Caveat

The success of content cannot always be measured in numbers, and if you invest only in projects that have a predictable rate of return, you’re missing opportunities. Rand calls this serendipitous marketing. Just make sure as you’re considering the value of your content that you leave room for Serendipity.

Is this SEO?

Yes. Remember how I mentioned the Hummingbird algorithm up above? I know that this is the algorithm update most of us would like to forget, because we think it’s so much easier to spot spammy links than quality content. But it’s really a lot simpler than that. Google is looking for content that answers users’ queries. And according to Marie Haynes, “Google’s goal with all of these algorithm changes (Panda, Penguin and Hummingbird) is to encourage webmasters to publish content that is the best of its kind.”

So if you’re an SEO (or anyone else) with content anxiety, let it go. You have the tools to tell when content is good and to select a team that knows what makes it great. Go ahead and let that team try to sell you on an idea. You can trust yourself to make the final call on whether or not it’s actually worthwhile.

And if you’re part of a content team that’s trying to make the case for your big ideas, please join me on September 9 for “The Storytelling of Content Strategy.” This Mozinar will cover one method of creating more engaging (and persuasive) strategy docs.

Do you ever experience content anxiety? What are your measures of content quality? Has a particular experience with content made you either gun shy or wildly enthusiastic about content? I’d love to hear your stories in the comments.

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Posted by David-Mihm

Hard to believe, but it’s been five months since we released Moz Local into the wild! As I’m sure has been the case for many of you, our summer has just flown by.

While our engineering team has been hard at work on a number of behind-the-scenes improvements since Day One, today marks our first major feature release since launch–and it actually includes three features.

A TL;DR is at the bottom of this post for those strapped for time 🙂

Single-location distribution and editing

The most common request we’ve heard since our initial launch back in March is for a simplified web interface to submit your listings, as opposed to the CSV file designed for agencies and brands with hundreds or thousands of locations.

We realize for some of the formatting constraints required by our system are a bit onerous for those users not already managing their data in bulk at Google My Business.

So with the help of Moz’s tremendous UX team, we’re releasing a dramatically simplified one-page entry form that should dramatically reduce the time involved with submitting listings for the first time, or tweaking listings you’ve already submitted.

The submission form is broken into sections to allow casual users to focus on the most important attributes of their listings, but still gives advanced users the ability to add rich data fields like hours of operation, social media URLs, brands carried, and store code.

For those of you who do have a batch of locations you’d like to upload all at once, you’ll still be able to do so using our CSV template. But you should find the validation of those listings a little smoother. 

All in all, we’re hoping that this makes the onboarding process much less cumbersome and much more efficient!

My favorite parts of this new feature:

• Pre-filled baseline information from what we’re able to find across the local search ecosystem, saving you hours of time if you’ve got multiple locations.
• A snazzy category selection interface on par with Google My Business.
• A killer Hours-of-Operation selector that’s the best I’ve seen (though I am a little biased!)

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Enhanced duplicate listing detection and closure

Back in my consulting days, one of the biggest headaches was always searching for and “nuking” erroneous or out-of-date listings for my clients. I’m sure that’s the case for many of you as well, and for various reasons, not the least of which is the associated boost to the strength of directories, the Pigeon update has only made this task more important.

How this feature works:

Just as before, you’ll see the Duplicates section highlighted in the sidebar of your dashboard if we’re able to find duplicates for any of the listings in your account. But clicking that menu item gives you an entirely different experience.

You’ll now see a call-to-action to add alternates of various NAP attributes, like business name, ZIP code, and phone number. Adding these alternates tells us to search all possible NAP combinations that use these alternate data points on every site we query.

We automatically show you close-match listings to the NAP you submitted in the same or similar ZIP codes. But now if a business has moved, lost a practitioner, or changed its phone number, this feature will find those broader-match listings as well.

And now you’ll be able to request removal of these duplicates (on the sites in our network) right in the dashboard.

My favorite parts of this new feature:

• Gives you the ability to cast a much wider net than our automatic duplicate detection.
• Gives you the ability to ignore close-match listings that aren’t actually duplicates.
• Allows you to close listings directly from the dashboard rather than going to partner sites.

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Our status as a Factual Trusted Data Contributor

Factual–one of the four primary U.S. data aggregators–launched a new initiative a couple of weeks ago called the Trusted Data Contributor program, and we’re excited to be a part of it. The TDC program is a significant indication of Factual’s commitment to an index of accurate and complete location information for businesses of all sizes.

We’ve been working behind the scenes with Factual over the past several weeks to adjust how we send them location data. Our inclusion in this program means that Moz Local customers can expect their listings to go live on Factual with a much higher level of fidelity, although it may take a little longer than it did previously for updated listings to appear in Factual’s index.

A number of you have contacted our Help Team about your Factual listings during this transition, and we appreciate your patience. As part of this update, a significant number of pending listings will go live on Factual in approximately two weeks.

Read the official announcement and learn more about the program here.

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Upcoming price increase

As we’ve learned a bit more about the operating costs of Moz Local over the past five months, and as part of the release of these additional features, we’ve decided to institute a price increase to $84 per location per year. This price remains true to our mission of providing a product that ensures accurate, consistent information across the web at a price point affordable for small business owners, agencies, and large brands alike. The added revenue from this price increase will allow us fund the development of future Moz Local products.

The price increase will go into effect on October 1, 2014 — but any listings purchased prior to that date will be grandfathered in at our $49 rate.

So if you’ve been on the fence about distributing your locations through Moz Local, or have been too overwhelmed by the CSV input, now is definitely the cheapest and most efficient opportunity to submit your locations.

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TL;DR

We’re releasing:

• Simplified web interface for listing submission and editing
• Expanded duplicate listing detection and streamlined closure
• Slightly slower, but more reliable listing updates on Factual
• Price increase to $84 per location per year starting October 1

We’re excited about the reception the product has received so far, and especially grateful for all the feedback and feature requests from our users and the broader Moz community. Please continue to let us know what you think we should focus on next by emailing me or suggesting features in our feature request forum!

Sign up for The Moz Top 10, a semimonthly mailer updating you on the top ten hottest pieces of SEO news, tips, and rad links uncovered by the Moz team. Think of it as your exclusive digest of stuff you don’t have time to hunt down but want to read!

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Posted by JessicaEdmondson

I. Why you should care about blogger outreach

I work at Distilled as part of the Promotions Team where much of what I do is working with bloggers. My job in a nutshell is to make the right demographic aware of my client’s product/services.

When new B2C clients ask me what the benefits are of working with bloggers, I usually say something to the effect of: it’s about marketing to people who will tell others about you (think word-of-mouth marketing).

Outreach let’s you tap into influencers’ reach and communities to get the right niche of people talking about your business, which ultimately impacts product/service trust and consumer purchasing behavior.

But, unless you’re a smooth talker (which, I’m definitely not), then this elevator pitch won’t be enough to convince your client to go with blogger outreach promotion. So instead, I’ve broken down 3 main talking points of why your B2C clients should want to work with bloggers.

Bloggers are mainly influencers

The Word of Mouth Marketing Association’s definition of an influencer: “A person who has a greater than average reach or impact through word of mouth in a relevant marketplace.”

Influencers can be anyone, from celebrities to your next door neighbor. But what’s interesting to note is that Technorati reports influencers are mostly bloggers, as 86% of influencers have blogs and 88% of influencers say they blog for themselves.

And while not everyone who blogs is considered an influencer by definition, bloggers with smaller communities are proving more influential than their celebrity counterparts, as Technorati also reports 54% of consumers believe that the smaller the community, the greater the influence.

All in all: bloggers, even the smaller community ones, are influential. 

When looking more specifically at demographics, Nielsen reports that most bloggers are women, and 1 in 3 are moms. Overall, 52% of bloggers are parents. This is why you’ve probably heard the term “mommy blogger”. But more importantly, this large demographic is perfect to tap into with family-friendly B2C clients. 

Bloggers are trustworthy sources for product/service research

When consumers want to learn more about products they’re thinking of purchasing, IPSOS says 61% of global Internet users do their product research online.

Technorati reports that 31% of online shoppers are influenced by blogs (and only 56% are influenced by the retail sites themselves, so that’s significant).

Image via Technorati

Blog posts are especially valuable for purchasing decisions

BlogHer’s social media survey concludes that 70% of online consumers learn about companies through articles like blog posts, not ads. More significantly, these blog posts lead to consumer action, where 61% of online consumers are reported to have made a purchase based on recommendations from bloggers.

In the same breath, Burst Media’s survey finds that 65.5% of blog readers say brand mentions or promotions within blog content influence their purchasing decisions.

Image via Burst Media

II. What do blogger partnerships look like?

Earned vs. paid

Earned media is free coverage gained through promotional efforts other than advertising. When applied to blogger outreach, it is when bloggers promote your client without getting paid sponsorship fees, post fees, etc. Links and/or ranking for certain terms is never a guarantee with earned promotion. Overall, this form of outreach resembles what many PR and outreach teams do.

Paid media is purchased coverage. When applied to blogger outreach, it can take the form of brand ambassadors, paid-for sponsored posts, appearance fees, etc. Links and/or ranking should never be a factor in this form of promotion, since Google and Bing have explicitly said that this will not be a part of their algorithms (unless it looks like you’re trying to trick them into thinking its earned). But if you want a particular demographic to know about your client’s product/service, where they might not see the client’s ads in TV/Newspapers, then this is a completely valid approach to reach them.

Choosing earned or paid blogger promotion really depends on your client’s product/service and the particular demographic you’re trying to reach.

Blogger preferences on campaign opportunities

When pitching bloggers on a campaign, Technorati reports bloggers most prefer receiving a first look or review opportunity for new products, offering prizes/samples/giveaways to their blog’s audience, as well as the opportunity to create custom content.

Image via Technorati

Condensing these findings into 2 themes for your client:

• Give a first look or unique experience: Think bigger than just giving out product for bloggers to review. Instead, create an experience with your product by including them in your new product/service launch, or even creating an exclusive experience just for them.
• Give them an opportunity that goes beyond benefiting themselves: Consider including their audience when designing campaigns for the blogger. Also, leverage bloggers’ passion and expertise, not just their influence, by creating custom content for their readers, or even by providing prize or giveaway opportunities.

To give you a better look at what these two campaign styles actually look like, I’ve listed a few great examples below.

Give a first look or unique experience.

The Surprise Collection by Ariel

Image via Lala Noleto

This campaign involved getting the online fashion niche talking about Ariel and its stain remover product. Ariel sent fashion bloggers surprise boxes of designer t-shirts that were so blotched with stains, that the clothing designs were completely indistinguishable beneath them. The mystery box also contained stain removal product and instructions on how to wash the material and reveal their free piece of designer clothing.

This campaign engaged its target audience and earning notable online coverage by displaying the Surprise Collection of clothing at the São Paulo Fashion Week 2013. Additionally, women could visit stores across Brazil to purchase the stained Surprise Collection with free Ariel samples to mirror the surprise reveal experience the bloggers had.

Overall, the campaign reported reaching more than 3 million women with the story, and more than 4,200 Facebook shares, 15K Instagram likes, an average of 1 Tweet per minute during the Fashion Week event and 1,500 purchased Surprise Collection kits.

Watch below for more details:

Ariel Surprise Collection from Rodrigo on Vimeo.

Give them an opportunity that goes beyond benefiting themselves

DIY Halloween Makeup Tutorials + Instructographics by eBay Deals

Image via eBay deals blog

This campaign involved a collaboration between eBay deals and makeup video tutorialist vlogger Goldiestarling to get in front of beauty enthusiasts and to earn topical holiday coverage in the beauty niche.

This campaign featured a series of Youtube makeup tutorials from Goldiestarling, in which eBay provided complimentary makeup that was necessary to create 3 distinct Halloween looks, including 3D Stretched Lips, Steampunk Cinderella and Anatomy of a Pin Up. Alongside her featured video tutorials were step-by-step instructographics, like this one, featured on the eBay deals blog.

The result was a lot of attention on the professional DIY tutorials, with more than 600,000 video views and over 30 noteworthy posts of organic coverage on niche sites. Overall, this campaign was part of a larger 12-month eBay project where 20 campaigns, including this one, were launched that ultimately drove 390% growth in sales in one year.

Give BOTH a unique experience and offer an opportunity to readers

Fiesta Movement by Ford

Ford gave away 100 new 2014 Ford Fiestas to bloggers and social media influencers in 2013 for 6 months. Those who received the new Fiestas documented their experience for their followers, bringing greater exposure to the new product launch.

Image via Fiesta Movement

What really set this campaign a part, especially to the original campaign launch in 2009, was that Ford only used the content created by these 100 people for the new subcompact’s ad campaign and launch. These bloggers and social influencers got to be part of the unveiling. And while they gave honest thoughts and feedback about the new Fiesta, Ford helped diversify their experience by assigning them missions around broad themes of the subcompact’s features. The goal for this content was to be more authentic (non-salesy) and in line with what consumers are interested in learning about with the new product.

The result of the 2009 campaign was 4.3 million Youtube views, more than 500,000 Flickr impressions and 3 million Twitter impressions, as well as 50,000 interested potential customers of the Fiesta, 97% of which didn’t own a Ford at the time.

While exact sales for the 2013 remix campaign are still unclear, Ford already has unique demo videos and content from its 100 participants and has continued to reach thousands with the remix launch.

III. How to start working with bloggers for your client

Technorati reports that the two top pain points for influencers with unsuccessful brand partnerships are of expectations of their time and irrelevant pitches. Also, what’s believed to be lacking the most with branded partnerships is overall relevancy to their blog and audience.

Image via Technorati

In order to break this down for you to see what unsuccessful opportunities really look like, I’ve defined these pain points below.

Expectations by brands that my time is free
Solution: Offer a win-win

This top pain point stems from offering a one-sided relationship to bloggers, one in which you ask them to promote your client without offering adequate compensation.

Their time is valuable and the amount of time to promote brands is often overlooked. According to Jennifer Lifford, who blogs over at Clean and Scentsible, a blog post takes about 5 hours to write and promote.

In order to make it worth their time, offer a win-win situation–one in which bloggers are adequately compensated for their time and effort.

According to Amy Latta, who blogs over at One Artsy Mama, a means of doing that is either offering great product to review or actual payment.

I enjoy reviews and giveaways if the product is valuable enough to be of interest to my readers as a giveaway and if I am adequately compensated… but the truth is, product doesn’t pay our bills. I love spray paint, but it doesn’t send my kid to school and goodness knows I can’t eat it.

Number of irrelevant incoming pitches
Solution: Write tailored pitches

Irrelevant (crappy) pitches is also a huge pain point for bloggers and one that is easily solvable. Just write tailored pitches.

For instance, Malia Karlinsky, who blogs over at Yesterday on Tuesday, notes that she gets this same pitch every month from a magazine.

Hi there,

The September issue of X is available on newsstands today! Check out the attached highlights sheet for more info on the issue, and let me know if you’re interested in sharing any of the features with your readers.

[Excerpt of magazine interview]

Looking forward to your thoughts!

X

She’d answer the email if it clearly provided a value to her and her readers (could she give a free issue out?).

In order to better your chance that your pitch email will be opened, read and answered, clearly identify the what (project), why (benefits to participate), and how (to get started) for the blogger.

Overall, make sure what you’re pitching is a good fit

As seen in the above chart, Technorati reported that what’s lacking most with pitched partnerships is the relevancy to their blog and audience.

Lisa Wong, who blogs over at Solo Lisa, evaluates the relevance of pitches to her and her audience by a brief Q/A.

Do I believe in this company’s products?

Would I purchase something from this brand?

Does the brand have a good reputation?

Are they a good fit for my blog’s beauty, fashion, and lifestyle focus?

And last but not least, will this be fun?

In order to make sure bloggers answer this Q/A positively about your client’s product/service, I’ve outlined 3 main ways in vetting bloggers.

Check out bloggers’ About Me pages

Lisa’s About Me page shows at the top what her passions are, including reviewing beauty products. Below that, she also notes her influence via Press and Blog Features where you can get a better understanding that she enjoys fashion and beauty topics.

Like with Lisa’s, let blogger About Me pages guide you in vetting what bloggers you want to work with and also in helping you understanding if what you’re pitching is actually a good fit.

Check out their current and previous posts

One of Lisa’s recent posts on her blog is about reviewing makeup products she uses on a regular basis.

Browsing through bloggers’ recent posts like this one is an easy way to discover if the blogger covers similar products and in what way.

Check out their social channels

Lisa’s Instagram also gives good insight into what type of content she likes to share and engage with.

You can browse social channels of bloggers, like with Lisa, to see who they engage with (brands) and what they find value in sharing (posts, pins, tweets, RTs, etc.) to better ensure you’re a good fit.

IV. In short

Blogger outreach is a great way to get the right demographic talking about your client’s product/services. Bloggers will not only expand your client’s brand exposure to their community, but they’ll also affect consumer purchasing decisions.

In order to work successfully with bloggers, though, consider offering them campaigns that give a first look or review opportunity for your client’s product/services. And when pitching them, make sure what you’re offering is genuinely mutually beneficial as well as relevant to their blog and audience.

Overall, this post serves to gives you a why, what and how glimpse inside blogger outreach. For more resources on specific blogger outreach tactics, look here and here. For more information on how to measure success of these campaigns, look here.

Have you worked on successful blogger outreach campaigns before? Tell me in the comments below! 

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