Leaders Begin at End, Outsmart Google

Leaders Begin at End, Outsmart Google

Be aware of a few key elements to enhance your blog’s performance for Google’s spiders. Build your company’s PR plan with a specific and well-defined end goal in mind. It’s time to step forward as the leader in your business category, and your customers are the key deciding factor.

60-Second Articles:

1. What to Do about Relying on Google for Visibility
2. Build Your Plan from the End
3. The 60-Second Close: Lead Your Category

**************************

1. What to Do about Relying on Google for Visibility

• It happens when you least expect it: a slight Google algorithm change and your website’s rankings drop, resulting in a decline in traffic and leads.

• Even when you look at the new rankings, the results seem unexplainable and contrary to Google’s “rules.” Sites with spammy and low-quality content are at the top, dislodging sites with what Google claims it really wants: high-quality hummingbird content. It’s a game that some companies have to endure, especially if Google is their online lifeline.

• Offset this dilemma with a Wordpress blog with helpful or how-to content that falls under your company’s area of expertise.

• Google prefers to index regularly fresh content, and there is evidence that the longer the content (2,000 words), the better the chances of ranking higher – even higher than your website. Include a comprehensive summary for every post, since most users won’t read lengthy posts.

• Each post must contain your keywords in the title and body copy to have a favorable chance of being indexed and ranked highly. This is critical.

• Another approach to explore: Though most companies make their blogs part of their original websites, keep your blog a separate entity, linked back to your website. This gives you the opportunity to maximize your online presence by doubling your website presence for your relevant keywords. Potential customers will see both your website and blog taking up two of the 10 available slots on the same search results page.

**************************

2. Build Your Plan from the End

• Most companies develop their public relations plans starting with the normal SWOT analysis, objectives strategies and tactics, each item based on elevating the company’s profit structure.

• However, PR plans are not about companies – they’re about customers and what they experience that triggers a purchase and loyalty. Therefore, the development of PR plans – or even singular promotional campaigns – should start with the end, not the beginning.

• The end is the customer who purchases your product or service. Only once you decide what you want your end-users to ultimately feel, experience and share with others can you develop a winning publicity plan for every level of your company.

• Finding what customers and clients like and remember most about purchasing your product is the end-user information necessary to go “back to the start” and develop a successful plan.

**************************

3. The 60-Second Close: Lead Your Category

• It’s not the size of your company or the Fortune 500 that determines who the leader in your business category is – it’s customers. They make that ultimate decision based on the feelings they get from interacting with various levels of your business and from your publicity efforts.

• Nobody remembers the also-rans or losers. Everyone remembers the leader. If your goal is to be the leader in your category, give us a call. We can help you drive sales, convert leads and ring registers, and we can help you get there faster and better than ever.

– Jason Mudd, APR, is CEO of Axia Public Relations. He is an Emmy-Award-winning accredited public relations practitioner, speaker, author and entrepreneur. His public relations portfolio includes work for established national and emerging brands such as American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, Brightway Insurance, Florida Blue, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, It Works!, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Ray Charles, Southern Comfort, Verizon and more. Connect with Jason on Twitter at @jasonmudd9 and Axia Public Relations at @axiapr. Be sure to tweet and share your thoughts below. We’ll read and respond to each of them.