Popular Articles on Business 2 Community

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• The Psychology of Color
• How Effective is Your Content Marketing? [Infographic]
• Speed Up Your WordPress Site
• How To Optimize Your Content Marketing For Organic Search (Quick Tips)
• 3 Reasons Why Your Organization Should Consider Jumping On Pinterest
• How Twitter Is Used In Content Marketing
• Five Ways to Lose Your Customers

The Psychology of Color Posted: 23 Jan 2014 09:11 PM PST Imagine this scenario: you're out house hunting and the realtor is showcasing what could be your next home, room by room. As you enter the living room you may think you love the space, but there's something off about it: you just don't like the color. It may not be a deal breaker, but you know that you're going to have a new project on your hands when you move in. Besides the size of a room, the color of the paint is often the next priority for homebuyers. Why is the color of a room or house of such importance to us? The psychology of color reveals that different colors can have variant affects on our mood, and even on our physiology. With a house being a long-term investment, you want to be sure that each room creates the right environment for family and guests. Colors like blue and green are more calming and easier on the eye than other colors. They are peaceful colors, which actively produce chemicals in the brain to sooth us. Blue is often used in bedrooms, but also in studies, as blue helps us concentrate and stay productive. Green can also help you relax, which is why television studios and hospitals use green in waiting areas to relax people waiting to go on television or anticipating a diagnosis. Conversely, colors like red and yellow have been found to make people emote more, as they are harsher on the eye. Red and yellow are more likely to attract attention, and speed up heart rates. People are more likely to lose their temper in yellow rooms, and babies tend to cry more in rooms painted yellow. Meanwhile, red has also been found to increase a person's appetite. Looking for a more "safe" or neutral color? White goes with everything, and a light or dark browns are also more noncombatant colors for interior painting. See more on the infographic below from Units Portable Storage:

How Effective is Your Content Marketing? [Infographic] Posted: 23 Jan 2014 08:32 PM PST In this infographic, we break down the Impact of Effective Content Marketing on your demand gen and lead nurturing goals. Use this data to show the benefits and average ROI of strategic inbound content marketing efforts as compared to outbound spending when planning your 2014 marketing initiatives.  Are Your Marketing Campaigns Leaking Leads? You spend a lot of time and budget on your content marketing efforts. Don’t let your content go underutilized! Web personalization ensure your website always provides with the most relevant and engaging content each time they visit, accelerating leads through your sales funnel more quickly and efficiently. Content personalization enables marketers to maximize content marketing efforts while also increasing the effectiveness of their website as a demand gen and lead nurturing tool. Click Here to Learn How to Get Started With Personalization

Speed Up Your WordPress Site Posted: 23 Jan 2014 06:28 PM PST No one like a slow WordPress site. No one. The need for speed isn't just a line from a movie, but it's a real necessity. Speed is what sometimes separates the WordPress professional and the hobbyist (and it shows.) The benefits of a fast site (whether on WordPress or other platforms) and the work it takes to get your site "up to speed" outweighs ignoring the problem. The benefits of a speedy site include bettering the user experience, improving your AdWords quality score and improving your organic SEO rankings. (Need we say more?) (see Marketingland article on this topic) While a number of things may contribute to your site's page load speed, there are things you can do to make big improvements. I'll lay out what you can do to make your site faster with a general level of difficulty after each recommendation. Try tackling a couple of these at a time and benchmark improvements. Plugins Before reading any further, please know that the number of plugins you are running greatly affects the speed of your site. Check now — how many plugins are you running? If your answer is 15 or more, see what you can do without. Delete plugins not being used and delete all plugins that you do need. Strip this number to as low as you can go without hindering the site's functionality. WARNING: If you have a plugin to share posts, this will make your site run slow. If you are ok with that, keep it on the site. [Difficulty: Low] Hosting If you are on a shared host, it's a fact your site speed will suffer. That is a fact. Too often people look to hosts for their pricing and never pay attention to what kind of hosting service they are actually buying. The average WordPress site uses one of these three hosting solutions: Managed, Dedicated or Shared. If you are looking for speed look towards Dedicated or Managed. [Many hosts will migrate your site for you if you are a new customer. Difficulty: Low] Image Sizes I can't tell you how many times someone calls Marketing Press because there site loads super slow. It's no surprise that many of these sites have large images on site. Blog posts with featured images that are 275k or larger. Now multiply that times many blog posts and you can see the problem. Make your images for posts and pages as small as possible. Use Photoshop or another image manipulation application and resize those suckers. Also, you can run you images through apps like ImageOptim before you post them or use WP Smush.it to condense images without losing quality. [Difficulty: Low] Use a WordPress Caching System Are you using W3 Total Cache? No? Why not. Start there and work from that point. If you don't believe me, check this W3 Total Cache post from Yoast. This will help you minify things running on your site and reduce the page load speed. Not only is this plugin free and great, but it's also easy to connect to a CDN (content delivery network.) [Difficulty: Moderate] CDN (Content Delivery Networks) A CDN is a large distributed system of servers deployed in multiple data centers across the Internet. This makes your site go faster — much faster. We like MaxCDN for it's price point, value of service and ease of set up. [Difficulty: Moderate] Make a couple of these improvements and then TEST, Test, test. Marketing Press uses both tools.pingdom.com, and gtmetrix.com to test our site periodically or when we make site changes and/or improvements. A little goes a long way. If your site is slow, this article will help get you on the right track.

How To Optimize Your Content Marketing For Organic Search (Quick Tips) Posted: 23 Jan 2014 11:37 AM PST One of the great things about Inbound Marketing is that it can provide helpful, interesting content to website visitors AND it can help your organic search rankings. Notice I used the word "can" not "will." If you don't use best practices for both Inbound Marketing and SEO with every blog article, you're essentially leaving money on the table. And if you're consistently blogging even once a week, you're probably spending considerable time writing and publishing those blogs. That time commitment makes it even more essential to leverage that blog content as much as you can. The good news is that it doesn't take much time to optimize your blog articles using best practices for both Inbound Marketing and SEO. Here are 10 tips to help you optimize your blog articles every time. 1. Convey Value Up Front. You can convey that value by writing a blog title that clearly explains what information your reader is going to get from your article. When in doubt, go with a more straight forward title rather than a witty or cute one if you are struggling to communicate value. 2. Do Some Quick Research for your Title. When you're working on the title, do some quick research on Google to see what other related articles are out there. You can also use Google's predicted search to help you come up with titles. 3. Avoid Industry and Company Jargon. We all have acronyms or phrases we use internally. If your visitors don't use those same acronyms and phrases, though, they have no business being in your blog title. 4. Consider the Article Length. Make sure your article has some substance to it without being a novel. It's like Goldilocks and the 3 Bears – not too short and not too long. And if that metaphor doesn't resonate with you – just think of that girl who wears a dress or skirt that's too short. AWKWARD. There are many conflicting reports on how long an article should be, so I always aim with the middle range of 500-700 words. 5. Use Headers. Headers help break up the content and make it more readable. And BONUS – Google likes them too. Use a few H2's, H3's and/or H4's in your article. Make sure not to use more than one H1 on any page, though. 6. Use Longer Anchor Text. There are a few reasons to use longer anchor text. By using a good chunk of a sentence for your links, you're giving your mobile visitors a wider link for them to click with their finger. Longer descriptions for what you are linking to can set more clear expectations for you reader. Google hates unnatural links. By using more text that explains the link, you are being more clear as to what the link is and that it's legitimate. 7. Leverage your Images. Use Image Alt text that is related to your blog content, not literally what the picture is. For example, use "Optimize Content Marketing for Organic Search" not "Harry Potter Wand." 8. Don't Forget your Meta Description. Meta descriptions for blogs are especially important. Not only do search engines usually display these in search engine results, it is also used on social media platforms, like Facebook. Oh – and with Facebook's newest algorithm update, it's even more important to have meta descriptions. 9. Make it Easy to Share. Include social share links for your blog article. People viewing, sharing, and linking to your blog article can only do good things, right? Make it as easy as possible for viewers to share it. 10. Set-up Google Authorship. Although Google cut back the amount of authorship markup on search result pages, they are still useful. Google authorship can help increase your click-through-rate from search. Make sure to only use Google authorship on your blog, though. And one Inbound Marketing tip for good luck… Don't forget to include a Call-to-Action to give visitors an opportunity to download your awesome whitepapers, eBooks or other advanced content. For other tips on optimizing web pages and blog articles, check out my nifty Inbound Marketing Checklist. Do you have any other quick tips for optimizing your blog articles? Photo Credit: S.Tore via Compfight cc

3 Reasons Why Your Organization Should Consider Jumping On Pinterest Posted: 23 Jan 2014 09:43 AM PST So, you have accounts for your organization on Twitter and Facebook… maybe even LinkedIn. But does your organization have an account on Pinterest? If not, you may consider jumping on board, especially since a survey by the Pew Research Center found that Pinterest is more popular than Twitter. Pinterest is no longer a social network for soon-to-be brides and moms looking for recipes. Businesses in retail, event planning and tourism (to name a few) were the first to the Pinterest party. Now all sorts of companies are using the platform to show off company culture and, most importantly, make sales. It's important for businesses to not overlook this photo-sharing social network. Here are three reasons why your organization should consider signing up to Pinterest: Pinterest converts leads into sales: For some businesses, Pinterest has the potential to convert into leads or sales faster than from any other social media network. For example, online bookseller Indigo saw that conversion rates for Pinterest traffic were 50% higher than traffic from any other source. Pinterest has seriously cut down the number of steps it takes for a user to find an awesome product and make a purchase. "Even in cases where the path to purchase is not as direct, rarely do you have social network were linking to a for-sale items is done so frequently, you have clear social proof of the desire for the item, you see a picture of it, and where you are only one or two clicks away from being on an ecommerce site" explains Josh Davis on llsocial.com. To sum it all up, Pinterest converts leads to sales, and super fast. What brand doesn't want that? Pinterest connects with your website, Twitter and Facebook accounts: What Pinterest has figured it out is that social networks don't stand by themselves. To truly be social, it's important for networks to… well, network. Pinterest not only connects with Facebook, but also enables users to automatically post to their News Feed for others to see. This means you save a little bit of time, and have even more eyes on your content. Similar to Facebook, once you sign up for Pinterest, you have the option to automatically share pins into your Twitter feed. You just need to have used the same email address for both accounts. Plus, adding a 'Pin It' button to your website and blog makes sharing your content or products super easy for any site visitors. Find out what your audience is really looking for: Pinterest is an awesome place to find new trends. From tech to fashion (even cute furry animals and DIY projects), you can determine exactly what people love to share. By following your own followers, you can see what inspires them. This gives you a chance to understand what's popular, and use that information to better position your own products or services. Pinterest users have proven that they trust their Pinterest networks to endorse solid products. These people trust their networks so much in fact, that 47% of U.S. online consumers have made a purchase based on recommendations from Pinterest. Do you need another reason to get started on Pinterest? Now you can use Pinterest straight from your HootSuite dashboard. The ViralTag for Pinterest app in HootSuite allows users to easily schedule, share and analyze their pins on the dashboard. Install the App Now

How Twitter Is Used In Content Marketing Posted: 23 Jan 2014 05:45 AM PST Businesses use social media as a branding tactic to improve company growth. Social media is a powerful tool to help promote your brand's voice, lead generation and interaction with current customers. There are different ways to leverage specific social media platforms for content marketing. Twitter can be used to generate ideas for content curation, and promotion. We've listed some of the most useful ways to use Twitter to help your business's content marketing strategy. Twitter Chats You don't have to host a Twitter chat to benefit from them. However, if there is an industry topic not being discussed, use Twubs to host or participate in a Twitter Chat. Create a conversation around a popular topic and use a hash tag that people can use to identify with your chat. This is a great way to engage with prospects and industry leaders. Talking with people may raise questions your customers may be facing, allowing you to come up with new content ideas and create solutions. Industry leaders are a great audience to reach, not only for content ideas, but to learn more about your industry. Build An Audience Use FollowerWonk to research people in your industry that you should be connected with. This tool can help you search through Twitter bios and locate people in your industry in near by locations, and help target new influencers. When using Followerwonk, you're able to connect with relevant followers for your business. On other social media sites it's harder to connect with people if you have to wait for a friendship confirmation. Twitter allows you to interact with people you want to target, even if they do not follow you back. When you surround yourself with a relevant group of people, you're more likely to attract more of a following. You're also surrounding yourself with good content. Another good way to get someone's attention is to retweet their content. By showing engagement with others, you'll help bring attention to yourself. Having a social media strategy is important. Social media is a great platform for businesses to use for sharing content. Twitter allows you to provide your own content as well as curate content from thought leaders, influencers, and even prospects. Using Twitter to research more about the people you want to reach, will help accumulate the correct followers for your business. How Do You Use Twitter For Your Business? Has It Helped Your Social Media Strategy? In the comments below, tell us how using Twitter has influenced your content marketing strategy. Do you use any of the tools mentioned above?

Five Ways to Lose Your Customers Posted: 23 Jan 2014 03:55 AM PST Bad Customer Service Want to lose your customer? Deliver a bad customer service experience. And it doesn't really have to be that bad. Sure, if it's flat out abysmally terrible customer service you'll most likely lose the customer, but sometimes it's much less obvious. It can be an attitude of indifference. So, let's get specific. Here are five ways that are guaranteed to make your customers question if they made a good decision to do business with you. Don't acknowledge the customer. Ever walk into a store and see employees standing around. They are paying attention to everyone except for you, the customer. I remember checking into a hotel years ago. I walked up to the front desk with a heavy suitcase in tow, and the clerk was typing away on his computer. After about 30 seconds, which by the way seemed like much longer, the clerk looked up at me and said, "I'll be right with you." About a minute or so later he looked up at me and asked, "Are you here to check in?" I was nice, but I wanted to say, "What do you think?" Don't care about the customer. There's an expression that is attributed to John Maxwell that says, "People don't care how much you know until they know how much you care." If there is one important part of customer service, it is that you care – and the customer knows it. Apathy kills the relationship and true caring and concern for the customer trumps all. Don't listen to the customer. Customers want to be heard, and equally as important, understood. It's one thing to make an error on an invoice. It may irritate the customer a bit to have to call and spend time getting it resolved. But if you have a problem that is due to a breakdown in communication, well that is the worst Moment of Misery you can have with your customer. The customer will say, "I don't like doing business with them. They just don't listen and understand me." Don't respond to the customer. It is so frustrating to leave a message on the phone, send an email or a Tweet, and get no response. A bad customer service situation gets worse when the company doesn't respond to the complaint or problem. Don't appreciate the customer. A fundamental need of most, if not all people is to feel appreciated. Customers want to be appreciated for spending their hard-earned money at your place of business. So say, "Thank you!" Send a thank you note or an email. Let your customers know you appreciate them. So, now I've given you five. How about sharing what you would add to this list.

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