You know that saying – belt and braces – well having a couple of blogs at the top of a 100 and something million search needs a bit of that

When my Pinterest page suddenly dropped out of the Google search for Sales and Marketing Expert post the Hummingbird revision I had already planned for it – thank goodness !!

You have to plan ahead in most things and certainly when it comes to protecting a top ranking position in Google for a competitive search term like Top Digital Sales and Marketing Expert you do.

The Centripetal Network Consulting blogs that are currently ranking at the top of Google are the ” belt ” and this blog is the ” braces “. I do actually have a 3rd ” back-up ” which is a Pinterest page which complements an older Pinterest Page   which has been ranking very well for searches on Digital Marketing Expert UK fort some time. However, as I mentioned it fell out of the rankings recently. It might return.

http://www.buckarooleather.com.au/miners

Why so important ??

Obviously it is important to be found for the things that you do and provide. When you are providing a service that includes being found in search engines then clearly it is important to be found and to be found easily and quickly.

The top 5 or 6 positions of the first page of Google are the sweet spot and that is where the current blog posts are. Around 40/50% of all the traffic goes to the top position and the remainder is spread between the rest – typically.

Of course the reason why we want to rank high in Google is because it is a major source if not THE major source –  of traffic to our blog and website.

Everyone that wants visitors to their web or blogsite needs to spend time working out what they want to rank or be found for and then how easy or difficult it is to do that. There are various tools that we can use to help with that task.

Of course Pay per Click is one way of getting found on Google but it is an expensive way and we always recommend that you build a strategy around ranking naturally for key words and phrases.

I wanted to do a blog on Traffic Sources and Streams for a client who is just launching a revamped website and we want to decide which traffic sources to use and which ones to use first.

I always like to check my thinking with what others are saying and I came across information from Derek Gehl ( 2012 )  Andy Crestodina ( 2013 ) and Randy Bess ( 2013/14 ). Randy’s video’s are very comprehensive and wide ranging.

In my summary I am going to start with

1. Search ( SEO )

The 2 forms of search traffic are Organic and Paid ( eg Pay per Click ).

We like to see a website being closely aligned with your main keywords and phrases. We advise people to do this thinking and analysis early on in the design of a website. Those keywords and phrases will then be used in Titles, Metatags( Tags ) , page and blog content. Not in a completely over the top way but just with these in mind. Remember you are creating a web and blog site that will hopefully become an authority on your chosen subject. If you put relevant, valuable, interesting information in your site people will return to it and they will link to it RSS  to it etc etc  This will give you organic rankings which are the best and most effective ( Derek says that Organic traffic is  worth 7 times that of Paid traffic . This means that if you get a Google listing on Page 1, first say 5 or 6 results then you will get a lot of traffic ). This is going to give you long lasting relatively ” Free ” traffic. ( There’s no such thing as free traffic as it all takes time and effort ).

You can also do additional SEO work to boost your rankings particularly when you are trying to get a top ranking for very competitive keywords and phrases.

Certainly, if required you can advertise using Pay per Click e.g. Google Adwords or Bing. Obviously this is going to cost money and how much depends on how sought after the keywords are.

2. Email List

Often people will not have an emailing list. In fact they will have built and use their website to collect email addresses. However, some people will have an email list and this can be used to drive traffic to the website initially and on an ongoing basis. As more email addresses are collected, by whatever means, then they can be used to continually drive traffic to e.g. blogs on the website and the website itself.

3. Social Media

Again there are free and paid options with social media.

It takes time to build a social media following – on whichever social network we are talking about.

It took me years to build up my Facebook following to just over 3000. On the other hand I have very quickly – in a matter of a couple of months – built a 2500 following on my 9 Figure Mentor page using some paid advertising. Not huge amounts of money but still paid. Growing any Facebook page quickly requires some technical knowledge and some promotional or advertising payments. It is similar for other other social networks. Growing a network ” organically ” is going to take some time and will require time for interaction and relationship building.

Blog posts from your website can be posted to social network pages as soon as they are established although if you have low numbers of followers only a few of them are going to see these posts ( on Facebook for example only about 12% of your followers or friends will see your posts ) unless you pay to ” promote ” your posts to a wider audience.

These Top 3 sources of Traffic are our favourites – and they are endorsed by many other social media and Digital Marketing experts.

We built the Digital Marketing Ecosystem to incorporate these key Traffic generators and to rapidly increase site visitors, leads and sales.

CNC Solutions – The Digital Marketing Ecosystem

The CNC approach blends a variety of digital media platforms, sites and aggregator sites to create a powerful and integrated system producing increased traffic and  sales leads.  CNC  reuses content where possible and appropriate and where new accounts must be created.

The following outlines each phase of digital business, driving traffic, creating leads and generating sales and/or sign ups.

To accommodate the goals, CNC  creates LeadGeneration engines (LGe’s).

The LGe comprises of processes to drive interested potential customers/candidates via a series of information media through a short process to purchase/discussion.  This is not a replacement for direct sales but is a high volume-potential augmentation and in reality forms part of a fully formed DME.

The DME is created in a number of sequential steps:

1. Create and establish new web presence together with ‘look and feel’
2. Social media sites: set up / optimised (Facebook / LinkedIn / Twitter / Google+)
3. Landing page: set up
4. Facebook ad campaign: create
5. Blog set up
6. Create autoresponder account for email list building and campaigns
7. Process execution
8. Reporting

The LGe will be created in five steps:

1.      Landing pages (a number for each stream) will be created
2.      Free resource give away ( numerous ) will be created or identify
3.      Autoresponder set up
4.      Response emails will be written (for each stream), videos created where appropriate
5.      Sales page created or linked to existing sales links

More detail can be obtained by talking to Centripetal.

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/website-traffic-sources

I already had a top 5 position in a Google search for the highest ranking Digital Marketing Expert but that was with Pinterest which was sort of cheating

A few days ago I decided that it was time for a Plan B and maybe even a Plan C and time to put the Digital Marketing Ecosystem to work again

Some people might have thought that my Pinterest listing at the top of Google was a lucky demonstration of my Internet Marketing skills. I obviously didn’t make a Pinterest page with that title for no reason. However, when I was working on other Pinterest pages recently I noticed a few strange things happening and it got me to thinking that I needed a back-up plan for my ranking for this term so I determined to write a blog on the Centripetal Network Consulting website that would also rank   .

I am also writing this blog as a sort of Plan C !! 🙂

If you read this blog please take at least one thing away with you – to rank today you need a strategy that combines Social Media with a great website. Trust me – you do.

Getting a website or a blog to rank high for a specific term is an art form. Seeing that website or blog there is literally the tip of the iceberg. The part that you see of an iceberg is about 1 Tenth of the overall mass of that berg. Most of it is below the surface.

Most of the reason why my blogs rank so high is ” below the surface ” – you can’t see it even if you know how to analyse websites and blogs. Let me explain something to you. My blogs and websites are not even specifically targeted at Digital Marketing !!!! Obviously Centripetal Network Consulting is a global digital strategy, sales and marketing company. However, in a similar way to us ranking for ” Wealth Management London ” searches if I really wanted to  rank for Wealth Management terms I would build a blog or website focused on Wealth Management. Everything on it would be about Wealth Management. It would be THE authority on Wealth Management.

This site is about M & A ( Mergers and Acquisitions ) but the likelihood is that this blog is going to rank high.

Why ???? QUALITY !!!

From it’s foundations up the Centripetal Network Consulting website is a QUALITY website. It’s content is produced by humans ( mostly me ) and it is relevant to the topic in question if not focussed on it.

There’s something else that very few people talk about because they don’t understand it. If you think about it a web or blogsite is software running on a server ( like a PC or Laptop but built to ” serve ” software ).

Where is this server ?? Well it is usually in some sort of data centre somewhere in the world – could be the U.K. – might be  the U.S. , Europe or India.

Is it a shared server or a dedicated ( to you ) server. ( It is likely to be shared unless you have specifically sought a dedicated server ).

You might be wondering what the relevance of this is ?? You know how your PC and Laptop runs slowly when it has lots of software applications open on it ?? Well if you are sharing with other people with resource hungry web/blog sites your web/blog site is going to run slowly too.

That’s not all – your website can run slowly if it is not configured properly and has too many ” plug-ins ” .

The geographical location of your server and it’s connectivity also affects your website performance.

All of this affects the  ” performance ” of your web and blogsite and is one of Google’s ranking factors.

The positive effect of good website performance is the reason that companies like WP Engine  have started up. On their first page they have this testimonial for example :

“My site loads ridiculously fast, my page views are up, and my business
is seeing the results. I rest easy at night with the level of support.
My only regret: that I didn’t move to WP Engine sooner.”

– PHIL SIMON, AUTHOR OF THE AGE OF THE PLATFORM

We don’t host with WP Engine – we have our own hosting facilities, located in a place where there are high speed internet pipes in and out of the facility and our Chris Butler is always monitoring the performance of our site.

Hopefully you get my point – the foundations of our web/blogsite are rock solid and this is a primary factor in why I can rank so well for something like Digital Marketing Expert.

I started at ” this end ” of the factors because typically most people start at the other end. They have got a requirement for a website and whilst they think about the design of the website and what it needs to say they don’t think much about the ” infrastructure ” of that website.

You can sort of understand that but I didn’t get to the top of searches by worrying about design. WordPress is pretty much our default ” software ” for websites because we know that using WordPress we get great ranking results. We also know that there are a host of great plug-ins built for this environment and that there are thousands of people out there with WordPress knowledge if we need help. There are tens or hundreds of great ” themes ” to use.

Certainly we subscribe to the ” Keep It Short and Simple ” ( KISS ) approach. Over complex websites are going to load and serve slower. You don’t want loads of fancy graphics or plug-ins.

I always say that there are a few different types of people who get involved in website design ( it’s an over simplification ) – Graphic Design and Marketing people. Programmers and S.E.O. people. None of those people have a deep understanding of the true objective of a website which is to sell things.

I am not just a Digital Marketing Expert – I am also a Digital Sales Expert and a Digital Businessman – as are my partners at Centripetal.