These marketing tools take only seconds to use. Although many of these have paid options, they each also have useful free versions, even if the options are limited. Notice how each tool answers a specific question.

1. Is anything happening today for me to talk about in social media?

Something is happening somewhere in the world. But how will you know if it’s “World Bacon Day” or the birthday of Adam Sandler? This is a great web marketing tool for anyone using social media.

Check an event calendar to get ideas for the day: Chase’s Calendar of Events.

2. Are my top phrases becoming less popular over time?

It’s possible that your content is focused on a phrase that is trending downward. If so, you’ll want to adjust the language you use on your pages and diversify your blog post topics. See trending over time with a keyphrase research tool: Google Trends.

3. What phrases are my competitors ranking for?  What Pay-Per-Click ads are they buying?

Understanding how your competitors attract visitors is an important part of search marketing. There are tons of competitive analysis tools available. But here’s a simple online marketing tool that will quickly show what SEO and PPC phrases your competition is focussed on: SpyFu.

4. Is someone copying my website content?

It’s possible that competing sites are plagiarizing your content. This kind of duplicate content can confuse Google and hurt your search rankings. It’s also annoying. If you’ve ever been the victim of website plagiarism, you know what I mean.

Use a plagiarism checking tool to find copycats: CopyScape.

5. Are there too many links on my homepage?

Your homepage has earned trust and credibility in search engines through incoming links. This credibility gets passed down to your interior pages through links. But having too many links dilutes this “link juice” and reduces the chance that your interior pages will rank. Even a huge site like Amazon has only around 100 links on their homepage.

Use an internal linking checking tool: Ecreative Link Juice Calculator.

6. What is Google telling my audience to search?

Finding the right topics is fundamental to content marketing and an important part of keyword research. As soon as your audience begins typing, Google starts suggesting search terms. Wouldn’t it be nice to see them all in one place?

Use this keyword discovery tool to find topics that Google suggests related to your keywords: UberSuggest.

7. Is my site loading quickly?

Slow loading sites are bad for search marketing and terrible for visitors. If a site is slow, visitors tend not to stick around. If you know precisely what is slowing things down, you can fix it quickly.

Use a page load analyzer tool to see the load time for each element on each page: Pingdom Tools.

8. Is my site accessible to the visually impaired?

All visitors are welcome to visit, right? But is your site welcoming to the visually-impaired? Making your site accessible is a smart way to not lose potential visitors. It’s also the right thing to do.

Check the accessibility of your website with this accessibility validation tool: WebAIM Wave.

9. How can I unfollow some of these old Twitter accounts?

Hopefully, Twitter is already a part of your web marketing. But if you’ve been at it for a while, you may be following people who aren’t that relevant. Some of them don’t even follow you back. It’s good to purge sometimes and bring your following/follower ratio into balance, but it can take hours to go through Twitter, find, and unfollow these accounts.

Use this tool to quickly see who’s not following back and possibly unfollow them: ManageFlitter.

Bonus Marketing Tool

How can I quickly create visual content?

Visuals communicate quickly and get shared often. Word clouds make a great alternative to stock photos for blog posts. Wordle makes it easy to create word clouds, but here’s a marketing tool that goes a step further: Tagxedo makes word clouds in specific shapes. (Note: this requires the Silverlight plugin.)

Use this tool to make Word Clouds in specific shapes: Tagxedo. That’s how we made the puppy word cloud for this post!

What Did We Miss?

Ok, I’m sure you’ve heard of at least a few of these. Did we leave out any good ones? Share your favorite online marketing tools with us and with your fellow readers by leaving a comment below.

Andy Crestodina is the Strategic Director of Orbit Media. You can find Andy on Google+ and Twitter.

They are not only one of our favorite clients, but they are really good at what they do. They work with you to evaluate your individual needs and natural biomechanics to help select the running shoes that offer the best fit and function for you.

They ask you for some basic information about your running habits, look at how your current pair of shoes are wearing, and then they watch you run. Then they find the best shoe in their stock to match your specific needs, your legs, and your feet.

What they will never ask you is, “What color shoe do you want?” In fact, they might even look at you funny and give you directions to a big box sporting goods store if you make too big of a deal about color.

Why do they do this? Because they are in the business of helping your running, and they are laser focused on that goal. The color doesn’t help your feet endure a couple more miles, run faster, or avoid an injury.

What does this have to do with a website?

We employ a similar tactic for designing websites. We have realized over the years that people can’t think clearly about how their website will function when they have colors in front of them. Especially when those colors are in the form of pretty pictures. The attractive pictures trigger parts of their brains that don’t allow them to focus on the layout and usability.  

A website is highly dependent on a successful layout in the wireframe – or template – design process. At this stage, color is a siren of bad decisions or, at least, a major distraction during the decision process. 

Like Fleet Feet, we structure our process and client approvals to help them focus on the right decisions to get a website that fits their business and, more importantly, their clients.

We are a little different than Fleet Feet because, obviously, we think an attractive website is important to its success, so we add color into the process after we’ve nailed down the wireframes. We want to look good AND function well.

Remember, the next time you buy running shoes (or build a website), don’t focus on the colors!

Todd Gettelfinger is the CEO at Orbit Media. You can find Todd on Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

The Frontal Lobe (planning, logic, motivation)

The frontal lobe is associated with “executive functions” such as motivation, planning, attention, and short-term memory. It considers options and the consequences of actions.

1. List Order and “Serial Position Effect”

When ordering your navigation (or any lists within your copy), put the important stuff at the beginning and end. The readers’ attention and retention are lowest in the middle. As visitors scan the page, the first and the last items are most likely to stay in short-term memory. ^[1]

Also, don’t include too many items. Short term memory can only hold around seven items. If your navigation includes more than seven links, break it up into smaller groups.

2. Marketing Copy and “Loss Aversion”

Humans are not efficient cost/benefit calculators. We tend to overvalue losses and undervalue gains. In other words, losses are more painful than gains are pleasurable.

This aversion to losses can be useful to web designers and copywriters. Here are some tips for writing copy with loss aversion in mind. ^[2]

• Emphasize the costs of not using your product or service.
• Group costs together, list benefits separately.
• Emphasize immediate gains.
• Create urgency with limited time offers. If the product is scarce, say so.

3. Social Proof and Supportive Content: Herd Behavior

People tend to do what other people are doing. So giving evidence that others have selected you makes choosing your company seem like a good choice. The goal is to make any decision other than using your company seem outside the norm.

Add supportive messages:

• Testimonials from clients or reviews from customers
• Social media widgets showing the size of your following
• Endorsements from relevant influencers
• “As seen in…” logos of media where your company has been mentioned
• Trust seals, including association memberships, security certificates, and awards

These elements improve the initial value judgement of your website and your company.

Temporal Lobe (language)

Together with the frontal lobe, the temporal lobe plays a key role in language comprehension. This is where language and meaning is processed.

4. Word Choice and Readability

Labels in navigation and copy in pages must be easy for visitors to understand. Use the common words that visitors expect. Avoid long sentences. Don’t use jargon. Long sentences and fancy words force the temporal lobe to work harder. Not good.

Copy that works well for “low literacy” users works well for everyone. It’s not about dumbing it down; it’s about using simple language that everyone can understand. Even PhDs prefer to read at an 8th grade level. ^[3]

A big word might make you sound smart, but it risks making the reader feel dumb. A reader who doubts themselves is unlikely to take action. And you want to inspire action, right? Be simple and accessible in your writing.

Occipital Lobe (vision)

This is the visual processor of the brain, handling spatial, color, and motion perception.

5. Colors and “Von Restorff Effect” 

In the 1930’s, German scientist Hedwig von Restorff discovered that when given a list of ten items, people remember items if they are a color different from the others. This is because the occipital lobe is sensitive to visual differences, or “pattern interrupters.”

Web marketer, Paras Chopra, conducted experiments that showed how standout colors aren’t just remembered more, they’re clicked more: 60% more! ^[4]

Pick an “action color” for all of your links, buttons, and rollover effects. Make it a color that’s distinct from the brand colors used throughout the design (these are the “passive colors”). Use the action color nowhere else but in the clickable items.

Amygdala (basic emotions)

The amygdalae (there are two) are key in the formation and storage of emotional memories.

6. Headlines: Emotion and Virality

According to eye tracking studies, headlines aren’t just the first thing seen on a page, they’re looked at more than anything else. ^[5] And not all headlines get shared equally.

Headlines and images can quickly spark emotions. Research shows that emotional headlines get shared more. ^[6] A lot more. The three types of emotions that get shared the most: anxiety, anger, and inspiration.

Especially for blog posts, write headlines that trigger very positive (or very negative) emotions. In the words of Antonio Damasio, “We are not thinking machines that feel, we are feeling machines that think.”

Results May Vary

Web marketing is a science, and science is about testing. Try these techniques in your web design and web marketing, and measure the results. You may find that some tips work better than others. But any technique that takes brain anatomy into account is likely to work well!

So, how do you tell which email marketing campaigns were successful?Easy. Use the Google Analytics URL builder to track your campaigns.

Note: There are many ways to use campaign tracking. In this post, I am only going to focus on campaign tracking as it relates to email marketing.

What is Campaign Tracking?

Campaign tracking simply allows you to add special tracking code to your URL, also known as ‘tagging’ URLs, to identify how users are getting to your site. For example:

Instead of using this link in your email marketing campaigns:

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/inaccurate-google-analytics-traffic-sources

You would use this tracking link:

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/inaccurate-google-analytics-traffic-sources?utm_source=march7-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=ga-lies

See all of those extra goodies in your link? That is the campaign tracking code.

Where Do I Find My Campaigns in Google Analytics?

If you want to see email deliverability, clicks, and open rates, just log into your email service provider and view the reports. If you want to see who actually converted, log into to your Google Analytics.

Here are some examples of conversions you should track:

• contact form submissions
• newsletter subscribers
• product purchases

Once you’re logged into Google Analytics, go to:

 Traffic Sources > Sources > Campaigns

Here you’re going to see how many visits you received from your campaign, how long they stayed on your website, how many pages on average they visited while they were there, and the bounce rate (the percentage of people that saw just one page and left your site).

Are My Campaigns Converting? 

To find actual conversions, look towards the top left of the report, above the line graph. You’ll see Site Usage, Goal Set 1, Goal Set 2, and so on. Click on “Goal Set 1.”

Now you’re able to see visits and goal conversions for each email campaign. We have two main conversions that we track:

1. contact form submissions
2. newsletter subscribers

You can see in the image below, we had a slightly higher conversion rate for newsletter subscribers (.70%) than we did for contact form submissions (.14%).

If you go back and look at trends over time, you can see what types of articles people spend more time on and which ones are more successful. To find out what type of visitors your site has, you should read this post on visitor personas and 80’s video games.

How Do I Use the Google Analytics URL Builder?

Go to the Google Analytics URL Builder and follow these super simple steps.

Step 1: Enter the link you want to use to take visitors to your website.

http://www.orbitmedia.com/blog/inaccurate-google-analytics-traffic-sources

Step 2: Add the three main parameters that you’ll want to track.

• Campaign Source: This tells Google where traffic is coming from: march7-newsletter.
• Campaign Medium: This tells Google what kind of source it’s coming from: email.
• Campaign Name: This simply describes your campaign. We are using the blog post that we wrote on Google Analytics lies, so I used ga-lies as our campaign name.

Step 3: Click on “Submit”

Step 4: Copy the link that you just generated, and paste it your email newsletter instead of your regular “untagged” link.

Step 5: Repeat these steps for all of the links that you want to track in your email marketing newsletter.

Voila!

Now you’ll be able to see who is actually converting from your email marketing efforts and adjust you messaging accordingly. If you have any additional tips, please leave them in the comments below!

Amanda Gant is the Marketing and Relationship Manager at Orbit Media. You can find Amanda on Google+ and LinkedIn.

Here’s a quick way to think about visitor personas, content and design:

1. First, look at your Analytics and get a sense for what kind of visitors you have.
   Do your visitors average more than 2.5 pages per visit?
   Do your visitors spend more than 1:45 on your site  on average?
2. Next, use this guide to see what kind of content is most effective.

Soon you’ll see how to improve your classic 80’s video game website. Ready Player One!

Mario Visitors

The original Donkey Kong game (1981) was the first appearance of Mario. To this day, Mario mostly does one thing: he jumps around. He has a goal (save Pauline), and he’s in a hurry to do it. These visitors make quick, emotional decisions.

If your visitors are like Mario, spending little time on the site and viewing few pages, you need to understand that he’s likely to bounce. You don’t have a lot of time to impress Mario, so pay special attention to these types of concerns:

• Ease-of-use
  Mario visitors will bounce if anything is the least bit difficult.
• Color and Size
  Balance the visual prominence of design elements to make sure that Marios can find what they’re looking for quickly.
• Price, Discounts
  Mario shoppers like to bounce around looking for deals. They may know what they want and now they’re focused on price.
• Delivery Expectations, Return Policy
  Sometimes, Mario just wants to know when his stuff will arrive. The site that tells him this the soonest will get his order.

Galaga Visitors

Galaga (1981) was all about clearing levels fast. The faster you blow up the bad guys, the more levels you reach.

You know you have have Galaga-type visitors if your Analytics show healthy pageviews but little average time on pages. He’ll cruise through many screens quickly, so you’ll need the right kind of content to catch him.

• Brand
  Galaga visitors like the confidence that comes with a trusted brand. Once they’ve decided they’re on the right site, they’ll keep clicking until they find the right page. Be consistent in your branding.
• Endorsements
  If your product or service us used by recognized people or brands, add quotes and logos to the site if possible. Also, Galaga visitors like to see credentials and industry affiliations.
• Comments, Ratings
  Galaga visitors love to read what other people think.  This may help slow them down a bit.
• Guarantees
  Again, keep building confidence.
• Newness
  Older content gets stale fast for these visitors. Make sure that ever date that appears on the site looks current.
• FAQs
  If they don’t find it anywhere else, they’re likely to fly into the FAQ section and look for answers there. This will help them
• Checklists, Tip Sheets
  They’re in a hurry. Give them a shortcut that helps with the decision making process.

Frogger Visitors

Frogger (1981) was a goal-oriented but patient little guy. He doesn’t rush out into traffic. He takes his time, waiting to make his move.

Frogger visitors make careful decisions. They may spend quite a bit of time on your site, but they don’t see a ton of pages. If you’ve got Frogger visitors, don’t rush them. Gradually build their confidence with these types of content:

• Company Information, Credentials
  Go deep into the history and purpose of your business. Even if the information is way down at the bottom of the page, Frogger visitors will eat it up.
• Testimonials, Reviews
  They need evidence and they’re looking for it. Adding testimonials throughout the site (not on a separate testimonials page) to build trust with Frogger visitors.
• Trust Seals
  Association membership logos, BBB credentials, security certificates and awards all help these patient visitors believe in your business.
• Videos
  Although visitors frequently don’t know the length of a video before choosing to play it, Frogger visitors are fine with that. They want to hear the voice of the brand and they’ll take time to listen.

Pac-Man Visitors

The goal of Pac-Man (1980) is simple: eat everything. Pac-Man doesn’t miss a single dot. He’s thorough. That’s the point.

You know your visitors are like Pac-Man if they spend lots of time reading a lot of pages. These people are methodical and voracious consumers of content. They like big sites, especially sites with these types of content:

• Process, Standards
  Even if the information is somewhat technical, Pac-Man will eat it up. Tell these visitors how you do what you do. Go into detail. Don’t be wordy, but be thorough.
• Specifications
  Details matter for your customers. PDF downloads for spec sheets might be one of the main reasons to visit. Be complete
• Case Studies, White Papers
  Stories sell and Pac-Man visitors will take the time to read. Provide a variety of case studies and white papers, showing how you solve various problems. Link from the product or service pages directly to the related case study.
• Samples, Demos
  Videos or animations will let visitors feel closer to the product or service. Don’t rely on the imagination of Pac-Man visitors. Offer to let them try the actual product or to show them the actual service.
• Competition Solutions, Buyers Guides
  Don’t pretend that you’re the only option. Pac-Man is spending just as much time on your competitors’ sites. Acknowledge this and help them consider all the options, right there on your site. Give them decision criteria and show how you offer stacks up.

Game Over…

If you don’t understand your visitors, you’re going to need a lot of quarters to be successful. Aligning content with visitors is the key to a successful website.

In the end, web marketing should be fun. Try to play it like a game. The better you know who’s playing, the more likely you are to get a high score.

Credits: This article is based on a presentation given by Jenny Magic and Brian Massey at Content Marketing World. The original methodology is theirs. I just added some content types and the video game references. Brian’s got a book out called Customer Creation Equation. Check it out!

Andy Crestodina is the Strategic Director of Orbit Media. This is him playing Frogger in 1984. He’s the author of Content Chemistry, An Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing. Find Andy on Google+ and Twitter.

Google is in the midst of a fight to quality. Panda and Penguin have gone a long way toward cleaning up the perception of the SEO industry by effectively killing off some of the ridiculously spammy tactics that used to work. And we’re on the precipice of even further changes with the implementation of authorship markup and author rank that may drive even more quality into search engine results.

One side effect of these changes is that SEO, as an industry, is beginning to involve more and more tangential professions. This expansion of participants brings both good and bad news along with it.

Bringing new people and professions into the SEO ecosphere is good because it broadens the experience base and creates divergent points of view. It also broadens the talent base. But, this expansion has the potential to create very negative experiences as new consultants lack a certain level of training or the benefit of hindsight involving where we have been as an industry.

Given all the attention being lavished on some of the newer search ranking signals, I thought now would be a great time to remind you to not forget the basics.

SEO Basics – Step 1 – Technical SEO

The first and most critical aspect of getting SEO right is ensuring you have the technical aspects of SEO dialed in. Ensure your content is hosted on a content management system that is easily crawled by the engines. Make sure your content is unique and not duplicated across domains. Make sure 301 redirects are in place so the entire site is not duplicated on the www and non-www version of your domain name.

Generally speaking, technical SEO is a deal breaker if you get it wrong. And getting it right is pretty easy if your website is built properly in the first place. Sadly, many SEOs spend a lot of their time cleaning up shoddy work in this area – from sites that were poorly built. That’s one of the benefits of choosing a reputable web design and development company (like Orbit Media, ahem) – you know the technical SEO aspects are already handled correctly for you.

Technical SEO Basics Checklist:

1. Set 301 redirects so your site resolves on either the www version or the non-www version of your domain, but not both.
2. Make sure you have installed Google Analytics (or some alternative to Google Analytics), Google Webmaster Tools, and Bing Webmaster Tools on your site.
3. Ensure your page level url address strings are as short as possible and include the key words in them.
4. Ensure your site is optimized for quick load times (test this in the Google speed insights tool -https://developers.google.com/speed/pagespeed/insights).
5. Find and eliminate or cleanup any broken outbound links on your site using Xenu Link Sleuth.
6. Go into Google Webmaster Tools and cleanup/resolve any existing crawl errors related to your site. The easiest way to do this is to place 301 redirects from the error path to the new path of that page.

SEO Basics – Step 2 – On-Page SEO

Once you are certain the technical SEO aspects are in place, it’s time to move on and start thinking about a content strategy that will serve your site’s objectives well. Mapping out user personas, lining them up with site objectives, performing keyword research and creating a site map are all important steps at this stage of the game.

This is the step where you write compelling marketing copy that also includes the keyphrases for that page. Ensure the keyphrases are included in title tags and headers. But don’t get carried away! Write your pages for your website’s users FIRST, and sprinkle in phrases for search engines later. For a more detailed explanation of this, check out Andy Crestodina’s recent blog post on keyword research or his excellent book, Content Chemistry.

On-Page SEO Basics Checklist:

1. Perform basic keyword with the Google PPC keyword tool (https://adwords.google.com/o/KeywordTool). Use that research to decide what to write. Select a keyword that is relevant to your business, that will bring the right kind of prospective customers, and that your website can compete for.
2. Write a post/page that is compelling and adds value to your readers.
3. Write a post title that has your key phrase in it and that is compelling to readers.
4. Include your key phrase in the <h1> and/or <h2> tag in the body of your copy.
5. Be sure the words in your key phrase are present a few times in the body of your copy.
6. Ensure any images you use in your page/post are named with your key words where appropriate. Be sure to also include your key phrase in the alt tag where appropriate.

SEO Basics – Step 3 – Off-Page SEO

Once you have technical SEO in shape and your content written and optimized, now it’s time to ensure your content is getting shared and linked to from other places on the web. This is a critical component of getting your content ranked. It’s important that your site be so remarkable and valuable to your users that people will naturally share your content and link to it.

Again, there are many fine points to link building and off-page optimization. I’m not trying to cover all that here, but it is important for you to know that these continue to be very strong ranking indicators.

Off-Page SEO Basics Checklist:

1. Once you’ve published your new page/post, go into your website and look for 2-3 different page locations where an internal cross link makes sense. Link those pages to your new content.
2. Consider internal linking opportunities for this page/post as you add new content to your site as well.
3. Share your content across your social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and LinkedIn – plus any other social network that makes sense for your business).
4. Share the page/post multiple times through the first 1-2 days after it is published. Use a tool like Hootsuite to Tweetdeck to schedule those tweets into the future – using slightly different calls to action.
5. Notify anyone in your network that you think this particular piece would value of its existence. Ask them to share the page/post if appropriate.
6. Notify anyone that you have quoted, used as a source, an example or linked to that the page/post exists. Thank them for the role they played in helping you write the piece.

SEO Basics – Step 4 – NOW Try to Run

Hopefully, by now you’ve followed this step-by-step recipe for success. If you have, then you are in a position to capitalize on some of the new “shiny objects” of SEO – things like authorship and author rank. If you have NOT handled these website basics before trying to implement some of these more advanced ranking indicators, you are setting yourself up for failure.

There is no way your site will rank for much of anything if steps 1, 2, and 3 are not in place and well done. None.

With all the focus on the new SEO factors, it’s easy to forget the basics and hone in on these new SEO shiny objects. But it’s important that you only focus on these new factors AFTER the basics are all completed.

Sean McGinnis is founder of 312 Digital, a Chicago based digital agency that provides websites, seo, copywriting and a full suite of digital services to small and medium sized businesses. 312 Digital also provides digital marketing training for business owners, marketers, consultants and agency employees. Sean lives in the Chicago area and has been involved in Internet Marketing since 1998. He also provides custom training to companies across the US on SEO, content strategy and other digital marketing disciplines. You can find Sean on Google+.

Many times we are at the mercy of those presenting the proposals to decipher the difference. When they explain it, everything they tell us makes sense yet doesn’t help us differentiate and make a decision.  

With our web design business, our proposals occasionally have distinctly different costs than our competitors. Sometimes higher, sometimes lower. We’ve written about how not to buy a website, and we see our potential clients struggle to differentiate between the proposals and making good business decisions about whom to pick.

Here’s a quick guide to analyzing website prices and selecting between multiple web proposals.

1. Establish your key criteria before evaluating any proposal. Write the criteria down and rank them for importance. Website price will obviously be a necessary criteria, but it’s not going to be sufficient to make a good decision. If there are several of you involved in the decision, agree on all the criteria first. Determine if there are some criteria that are non-negotiable. For example, maybe you got burned by a fly-by-night operation in the past, and now you want to set some absolute criteria about the long term viability of your next partner.
2. Educate yourself about the key website price factors for the work. Let’s use a simple construction project as an example. There are really only two price factors, the materials and labor costs. With websites, it’s about features, the associated wireframes or templates, and the design approach. Get a good list of these items, and make sure you understand how the design process works and that it matches your criteria. Ask for explanations of the pricing structure.
3. Compare the key website price factors across the proposals. I’ll bet the lowest priced proposal is missing something. This doesn’t mean they are being deceptive (i.e., bait and switch), but it does indicate that they are prone to being optimistic and expecting the minimal amount of effort, which will likely lead to unanticipated charges later. The highest cost proposals may have included some nice-to-have or unnecessary items that could be left out. For websites, compare the feature and wireframe lists to see what they included (or didn’t).
4. Evaluate the differences in project management, testing, and support. The higher cost proposals often include more appropriate amounts of project management and testing time, and consider that, realistically, things aren’t perfect so you’ll need a little extra support. The companies that are really good at what they do can articulate why they are adding in these costs and why it’s your best interest. Ask them to explain it
5. Understand their organization. Ask how many employees? Who works on the project, and what’s their expertise? How many past clients bought the same services? How do they plan to support you after website is built? What’s their financial situation? Are the owners involved? How long have they been in business? Make sure all these are aligned with your expectations and criteria for a partner company. Remember, an established company that is in it for the long haul will typically have higher costs because they are committed to their clients, employees, and services. Are you looking for a partner or a vendor?
6. Give extra bonus points for like and trust. I rank this higher than any of the other criteria, especially website price. First, don’t hire anyone that you don’t like. If you aren’t comfortable with them during the sales process, walk away. It will never get better. After you know that you like them, do a gut check on their trustworthiness. Do you trust that they will always do what’s in your best interest? If you can answer yes, that will overcome almost any other concern.
7. Last, but not least, check references. You can always ask for them, but you know they’ll give you the good ones. Try looking at their client list or portfolio and start calling the companies directly. Tell their clients that you went rogue but wanted an honest perspective. Focus on finding out if they have effectively delivered the same services you want to buy.

The best process boils down to a balance between working with honest and good people, doing a little homework to compare apples to apples, and making sure they have a track record of doing the work you are hiring them to do.

Don’t buy the cheapest just because you think it’s a deal, and don’t buy the most expensive assuming that it must be the best solution. The real answer lies in the proposal details, the character of the people, and the organization commitment level to your business.

Todd Gettelfinger is the CEO at Orbit Media. You can find Todd on Google+, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

But not all links are created equal. Keep reading, and in 5 minutes, you’ll know all about links:

• How do links work in Google?
• Why are some links better than others?
• How can I tell the difference?
• What can I do to get links and rank higher?

First, a Little History (Don’t like history? Scroll down to the tips)

Using links to measure relevance was Google’s great innovation. It’s how they crushed Alta Vista, Lycos, and everyone else. Those search engines were easier to manipulate. SEOs just crammed in a bunch of keywords and their pages ranked higher. Eventually people noticed that their search results weren’t so relevant.

Then Google started using link popularity as a ranking factor, and rankings became harder to fake. Search results became more relevant and people noticed. Today, Google handles two-thirds of all search traffic. This dominance comes from relevance and relevance comes from links.

Links Are Credibility

	When another website links to one of your pages, it’s a vote of confidence. It’s an indication of relevance, and Google notices.
	When many sites link to one of your web pages, even better. Link popularity works like any popularity contest. You want a lot of votes.
	The best links are from sites that have a high link popularity themselves. These links are worth more. Just like a popularity contest, one vote from someone popular is worth more than a dozen votes from the unknown.
	If a page is linking to several sites, the value of those links is divided. So a link to you from a page that’s also linking to all kinds of other pages isn’t as valuable.Again, in a popularity contest, if the person who votes for you is voting for three people at once, it’s not as good. You’re really only getting a third of a vote.

Keywords: A Million Links Won’t Help Unless…

…your page is relevant for a specific topic for which people are actually searching. This is why researching keywords is so important in SEO. The goal is to align the page with a relevant phrase.

	Choose a keyword for which people are really searching and that is relevant to your topic. Use these keyword research tips.
	You’re unlikely to rank if you don’t deliberately target a phrase. SEO doesn’t happen by accident!
	You could also hurt your rankings if you overuse the keyword on the page. Keyword stuffing is spam. Indicate relevance, but don’t try too hard. Using this checklist will help.
	Links from related sites are generally better. A link from a completely irrelevant site is not as valuable, since that site doesn’t have as much credibility on that topic.

Check the Competition

	Do the high-ranking sites for the keyword have higher link popularity than you? Then choose another keyword.
	If your link popularity is low, start with a narrow niche and target longer, more specific keywords. It’s better to rank first for a less popular phrase than rank on page 50 for a big-money keyword.

Link Text: The Words Within Those Links

The link text (or anchor text) is the word or words that make up the link. The link text for this link is “this link.” Make sense?

Lots of times, link text is simply “click here” or “www.example.com.” But when link text includes a keyword, it can be another indication of relevance. If the links to a page say “flying carpet safety” then Google is likely to believe that this is what the page is about.

	It’s good to have links that include the target keyword.
	When too many links to a page include the target keyword, it may look spammy. Google may penalize you for “over-optimization.”Don’t try too hard to get links with your exact keyword as link text. It looks unnatural. Balance is good.

Measuring Link Value

To see if a link from a website is valuable, look up the site on Open Site Explorer. This “search engine of links” shows the link popularity of any site and measures it as “domain authority” on a scale of 1 to 100. This is the size of the balls in the diagrams above! Keep in mind, the free version of this tool is limited, showing only some links and may be used only a few times per day.

Tip: It’s also valuable for checking competition during keyword research.

Trivia: The Google metric for link popularity is called “PageRank” and is named after Google co-founder, Larry Page. Because PageRank is a scale of 1 to 10, I prefer using domain authority.

How to Get Links

Google has an army of math PhDs working hard to fight anyone who tries to artificially manipulate rankings. Any spammy, unethical attempts to drive traffic to a page could be devalued or even penalized.

Here are some ways to “future-proof” your link building and SEO. Google changes their secret formula hundreds of times each year. It won’t bother you a bit. You’ll be safe and happy if you focus the natural approaches to link building.

Notice how each of these tactics has benefits beyond links.

1. Quality Content

Links happen naturally but only when the page is worth linking to. Google has told us all, time and again, that the key to ranking (and links) is great content. Just make the best page on the Internet for the topic; Google will take care of the rest.

You can deliberately create a “linkable asset,” which is simply high-quality content with a web address on your site. It could be a webpage or blog post (not a PDF), but make it something good, like original research, an online tool, or even a useful checklist or buyer’s guide. If it’s good, the links will come.

Beyond Links: Quality content is effective at getting visitors to act. It’s good for converting visitors, not just for links.

2. Guest Blogging

One of the few ethical, reliable ways to get links is to write for other websites. You will generally get a link in the “author bio,” and you may find a few opportunities to link to other pages on your site.

Guest blogging takes a lot of work. Writing something good enough to get accepted by a good blog takes time. And pitching a guest post is its own skill.

Beyond Links: Guest blogging often has social media benefits. It’s good for networking, not just for links.

3. PR

I don’t mean online press releases, which do not lead to quality links (did you think Google could be fooled so easily?). I’m talking about actual mentions in the media. Press mentions don’t always lead to links, although savvy PR firms know the value and do request a link.

Beyond Links: PR has obvious public awareness benefits. It’s good for your brand, not just for links.

4. Keep Your Eye Out For Legit Opportunities

If you’re part of an association or chamber, request a link. Find websites that already mentioned your business but haven’t linked. Ask nicely for the link. There are at least 131 other ways to get legitimate links. Just be aware, resourceful, and polite.

Other types of web marketing, such as social media and email newsletters, can indirectly lead to links. These traffic sources improve the visibility of your content, and some of those readers may write something and link to you.

Tip: Social activity, such as comments, sharing and +1s, may contribute directly to higher rankings, since Google may see these as evidence of quality content.

And Now You Know

If you made it this far, you now know why links matter to Google and how they can work for you. If you’re like me, you’ll never see the Internet the same way again!

By the way, Google actually wants you to understand this stuff. Google’s own Matt Cutts explains this in this video (skip to minute 7:30), and the Google Webmaster Blog is filled with this kind of SEO advice.

So be good, write well, and pay attention to your links!

Andy Crestodina is the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, a web design company in Chicago. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry, An Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing. You can find Andy on Google+ and Twitter.

1. Separate Mobile Website

What is it?

A specific standalone website optimized for mobile users.

What is the goal?

Display website content in an optimized format for as many mobile device users as possible.

How does it work?

Programming logic is used to identify the user’s device, redirecting the user to the mobile website.

When does this approach make sense?

• Your current website is new, very custom, or too complicated and works really well as it is to consider other options.
• The vast majority of your full-site content is not relevant to mobile users.
• If your users are only going to use the mobile site to accomplish specific tasks like getting directions to a restaurant, checking an event schedule at a conference, or getting timely information like the weather or tee times at a golf course.

Pros

• Mobile content is optimized to only mobile devices, so messaging and funneling can be unique to generate conversions.
• If designed well, features function optimally and specifically to the mobile device.

Cons

• Managing sales and promotions on multiple platforms may be challenging.
• Managing content in multiple places is daunting and sometimes confusing to users.
• Ranking in search engines is more complicated. You’ll need to make sure that Google mobile sitemaps must are properly formatted and 301 redirects should be in place for all URLs of one website to the corresponding URL of the other website.
• The experience on a non-mobile device will be very different than the full-site and may confuse the user’s interpretation of the brand. This is especially true for ecommerce.

Conclusion

For years, this approach has been the most respected by both website designers and UX specialists. But as mobile device usage has increased, more devices hit the market, and content marketing has become more sophisticated, the above disadvantages have become surprisingly serious issues. Unsurprisingly, websites have evolved to solve these challenges.

2. Mobile Templates

What is it?

A website that has additional designs and programming to accomplish specific tasks on a mobile device.

What is the goal?

Display mobile-formatted website content and features using the same content and URLs as the full-site on mobile devices.

How does it work?

Programming logic is used to identify the user’s device, browser, and screen size to display mobile website templates.

When does this approach make sense?

If you already have a website that you like, and your content management platform supports mobile templates (like Mighty-Site).

Pros

• All users of mobile devices can access the same content as the full-site.
• You only need to promote one URL to users and search engines.
• You only need to use one CMS to administer all website content.
• Google prefers the same content and URLs for a website regardless of the device.
• The user can expect the content to be the same regardless of the device or browser size they are using.
• The mobile website features will function best on the mobile device.

Cons

• Although the mobile templates are built within the same website platform, there are still two websites to maintain. New features and functional changes would need to be programmed twice.

Conclusion

This is a great option if your website platform can support it and if you are getting the desired results with the full-site. However, while a mobile template may extend the shelf-life, as device standards and capabilities change, you will likely start planning the next version of your website using Responsive Web Design.’

3. Responsive Web Design (RWD)

What is it?

In the purest form of responsive web design, the website content formatting and layout fluidly changes to the browser size.

What is the goal?

Display ALL the same website content in an optimized format for all users on any device.

How does it work?

A clever combination of HTML, CSS and Javascript on one website.

When does this approach make sense?

If you are considering a new website, think responsive.

Pros

• Though the initial cost will be significantly higher than a non-responsive website, the shelf-life and total ROI is much higher.
• Website maintenance costs are likely lower than other options because there is only one website to update (i.e, you only need to use one CMS to administer all web content).
• As other devices or screen sizes become popular, the responsiveness of the website can be changed – do you own a “smart tv” yet?
• All users of all devices can access the same content.
• You only need to promote one URL to users and search engines.
• Google prefers the same content and URLs for a website regardless of the device.
• The user can expect the content to be the same regardless of the device or browser size they are using.
• The website features will function consistently at any screen size.
• It’s really fun to shrink and grow a browser to watch the website change before your eyes!

Cons

• The initial development costs can be very high – especially if the site is built to be fluid for all screen sizes.
• Although the content is optimized to the screen size, the user experience at every screen size is inherently compromised by the content structure, depth and file format of the content. 
• Image size and quality is compromised to accommodate both the design goals of a full website and the bandwidth limitations of mobile devices.
• PDF downloads are not a good experience on mobile devices.
• Video playback will be inconsistent depending on the device, especially due to Adobe Flash being prohibited on iPhones.
• RWD is never pixel-perfect. With so many devices and browsers, there are likely to be unexpected formatting issues unless rigorous testing is enforced for every content change on the website.

Conclusion

Many experts believe RWD is the web design standard of the future. It solves many current web marketing and usability problems. Although it does create a few new challenges and costs more to produce, the results are awesome.

4. Mobile Apps

What is it?

Software built for specific smartphone devices.

What is the goal?

Some experts would say the goal is to create a unique and intimate experience between the brand and the user. The user may feel like they “own” something rather than are “visiting” a website.

How does it work?

Apps are downloaded from smartphone stores like Apple App Store, Google Play Store, and Windows 8 App Store to devices.

When does this approach make sense?

• If you have an established brand and want to increase user loyalty.
• If you want users to pay for the app.
• If there are specific features that can only be accomplished with the device, such as GPS, camera, and saving to the drive for offline availability.

Pros

• Device notifications can remind the user to open the app or push information and promotions.
• App storefronts display user reviews and feedback.
• Apps can have a lasting “viral” nature.
• If done well, the app can be a unique and intimate experience.

Cons

• The time to market for an app is longer.
• Apps are harder to promote.
• The app is more expensive to maintain.
• One must both market the app and the information within the app – does anyone know if it is even possible to create a link to a specific page of content within the app from an email or website or another app?
• Content management must be built into the app, but it is likely limited compared to a website.
• Tracking user behavior within the app must be built into the app and likely not integrated with Google Analytics.
• A user can easily delete an app.
• It is not so easy to share an app with others.
• Total cost of ownership is expensive.
• App costs are in addition to the website (and mobile website).
• Programming and testing app maintenance is very time-consuming and costly considering all the device platform versions.

Conclusion

Practically speaking, anything built for a mobile app can be built as a mobile website. So what companies really benefit from web apps?

• High-end retail establishments may offer a mobile app for ecommerce shopping because it integrates with their ERP and fulfillment systems out of the box.
• BIG brands where web content for consumers matters little, but the user experience matters a lot – like Coca-Cola.
• Newspapers, magazines, and games.

There are probably a lot more details to add to this guide. Please add anything you know that I don’t to the comments of this article!

Barrett Lombardo is the Web Director of Orbit Media. You can find Barrett on Google+ and Twitter.

If you’re not sure how to market an event, here’s a list of 50 event marketing tips.You don’t need a big advertising budget or celebrity endorsements to make this work. Just use this list as your event marketing plan. Here are our best practices for filling a room…

The Event Page (or Website)

The cornerstone of all the promotion efforts is the event page or website. This could be a page or website specific to the event, or if you don’t have a site for the event, use an EventBrite page. Either way, make it compelling by including ALL of these elements:

1. Compelling description: Clearly indicate the topic, time, place and who should attend. The description should include specific benefits for each type of attendee. Make it brief and scan-able. Use third-party endorsements when possible, such as a quote from a previous event.

3. Speaker pictures and bios: Great speakers draw crowds like a magnet. The event page should show their faces and list their credentials.

4. Event image: The image will appear when the page is shared in the social networks. It could be the event logo, a picture of a room full of people, or just a genuine smiling face.

5. Event-related videos: Create simple video interviews of the speakers and post them here. These can be produced quickly using Google Hangouts or Skype. It’s easier than you think and very effective later on.

6. Prominent “register now” button: Without a clearly visible button and a call-to-action, you might not get any action…

Pre-Event Email

If you have a list, email marketing may be your best channel. If you don’t, you may ask partners, speakers, or friends to mention the event in their emails (see “Affiliate Partners” below). Regardless of the list, use these event email marketing guidelines:

7. Subject line: Subject lines that inspire awe, anger, or anxiety lead to higher open rates. Studies have shown (slide 20) that subject lines with lukewarm emotional content are less likely to be opened. Try a subject line such as “10 things you miss if you aren’t at this event”

8. Send during the weekend: Consider sending an email on the weekend. Since few companies do it, open and clickthrough rates may be higher. And when possible attendees see it on a weekend, they may feel less stressed for time and more willing to commit a few hours to your event. They may be in a social mood and even invite a friend.

9. Video thumbnail: Show a clickable image of a speaker interview video in the email. Video thumbnails in emails can improve clickthrough rates.

10. Social proof: If you have positive feedback from previous events or credentials for the speakers, use them as a quotes in your emails.

11. Send and send again: Plan to send an event marketing email several times. For large events, email once months in advance to announce the speaker lineup and to announce early-bird registration discounts.

Email just before this discount ends, and again as the event approaches. Finally, send an email a few days before with reminders of time, place for registrants and a final pitch for new registration.

Pre-Event Social Activity

Events are social occasions. So of course, your event marketing should use social media. Here’s how to promote the event with social media and blog posts:

12. The hashtag: Pick an event hashtag that’s short, and ideally, unique to your event. You’re going to always, always use this hashtag in every tweet and post.

ProTip: If you’re using Eventbrite, you can even use it in the address of the registration page as the subdomain. For example, Orbit runs a monthly event called “Wine & Web”. The hashtag is #wineweb and the registration page is wineweb.eventbrite.com.

13. Links in social media bios: Usually your Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn bios will link to your website. But when you’re promoting a big event, consider changing these links so they send visitors directly to the event page.

14. Find relevant people on Twitter: Use Twitter Advanced Search to find people who are interested in your topic and live nearby. Mention them in tweets about the event or tweet to them directly with a friendly invite.

15. Tweeeeeet!

Unlike email, most tweets are missed as they flow through the social streams of your audience. So tweet early and often. Here’s a list of reasons to tweet before the event. Many of these tweets can be scheduled far in advance, using tools like HootSuite or Buffer.

• Registration opens
• Early-bird registration is ending soon
• Countdown: “Just X days until the event!”
• Reminder of time and location
• Thank your sponsors (mention sponsors)
• “Just saw Jane’s presentation. Wow!” (mention speakers)
• “See you at the event!” (mention registrants)
• Thanks for sharing, posting and re-tweeting (mention anyone who shared)
• Tweets with a testimonial quotes about a speaker (find these on LinkedIn)
• Tweet to the pre-event blog post using a quote from the interview. (mention speaker)
• “Thanks for registering! See you there!” (mention registrants, especially social media influencers)

16. …then follow people: After these tweets, follow a few people who may be interested in your topic. When you follow someone, you might get their attention and they may notice the event. It’s best to follow people when you have a compelling event promotion tweet at the top of your stream.

17. Post the event on Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+: Of course! Make sure that the image from the event page appears. Mention speakers, encouraging them to share it with their networks. Post again with videos and to remind people of registration deadlines.

18. Registration thank you page: On the thank you page after registration process, offer to let them share the event on social media. The tweet will announce that they’re going and include the hashtag and the link to the registration page. Use a Click-to-Tweet link to make this easy.

19. Registration auto-response Email: Once people register, they’ll receive an email. Use this as an opportunity to suggest they follow you on Twitter. Don’t forget to mention the hashtag.

20. Other auto-response Emails: If your website can send people an email when they submit a contact form, add a link to the event here.

21. Cross the streams: If you find that you’re getting traction on one social network, but not others, move the conversation around. If someone shares something on Facebook, thank them on Twitter. If someone mentions the event on Google+, say hi to them on LinkedIn.

As you can see, we’re recommending a lot social media activity, taking advantage of any excuse to connect, mention, post, tweet and link.

Pre-Event Blog Posts

22. Write a pre-event blog post: A week in advance. Like the videos, this could be an interview with one or more of the speakers. Email interviews are an efficient way to product content quickly. Just send a list of questions and post the answers when the speaker sends them back. Link to this post in the emails mentioned above.

23. Invite speakers to write guest posts: Speakers will recognize that although this takes a bit of time, there are SEO and social media benefits to guest blogging. If they do write something for you, encourage them to share that content with their networks.

ProTip: Do a guest blog post exchange with a speaker. Here is an example of how a Content Strategy event was promoted with two guest posts, one written by the speaker and posted on the event site, and another written by the event organizer on the speaker’s blog. 

Working with Partners

24. Photo and video partners: If you don’t have the budget to hire professionals, offer free admission (or even a table in the event space) to a pro photographer or videographer in exchange for services. Make sure they commit to providing you with assets in a reasonable timeframe. And make sure you give them good exposure in exchange for their time.

25. Standardize presentations: Create a standard Powerpoint template and share it with your speakers. It may only be two slides (a title slide and an interior slide) but it will have fonts and colors that match the event theme. This will help things look good later, when you share the presentations after the event (see Post-Event Email below).

26. Affiliate partners: Create a unique promotion code for each partner and speaker. They can use this code when they promote the event, offering a discount to people in their social networks. Since the code is unique to that partner, you’ll know how effective that partner was at promoting the event. Now you can pay them a referral fee to that partner for those registrants.

Example: Create a promotion code “BOB50” that gives $50 off to registrants. Share this code with Bob, your keynote speaker. Bob starts tweeting the code to his network and registrations start rolling in. In the end, the registration report in Eventbrite shows you the code was used ten times. Now you can write Bob a check for $500 (and a thank you card) for his help promoting the event.

Incentivize others to market the event for you as affiliates with promotion codes. This can be very effective!

27. Pre-written tweets: Don’t just encourage your sponsors, partners and speakers to help with promotion, make it easy for them. Write a list of compelling tweets and send them along in an email. Now they’re more likely to help and less likely to use the wrong link or hashtag.

28. Dinner and drinks: Invite speakers,sponsors,  influencers and members of the press for a night out before the event. This is a chance to bond and have some fun. If you try this, you’ll likely find people referring to the dinner conversation during the event. “We were just talking about this the other night…” Strong personal connections may lead to better cohesion on the big day.

Submit to Media and Industry Websites

29. Submit to local media outlets:  Many media sites, especially the hyper-local news sites, let you post events.  Find these by searching Google for “event calendars” in your city.

30. Submit to industry associations: Industry and trade associations may also allow you to submit. If the event is relevant to their audience, ask if they will accept, post or promote events from outside organizations. Chambers of commerce are often happy to promote events relevant to their members, especially if the organizers are members themselves.

31. Let the press know: There are likely journalists who cover local events. Find them by searching for similar events in news websites. Then graciously contact them with an invite, press badge or offer of a relevant article. This could be an interview with a speaker or a guest blog post from you for their website. If you successfully get their attention, you may get a bit of press!

Search Engine Optimize Your Event Page

People may be looking for your event right now! Follow these basic instructions to search optimize the event webpage or the Eventbrite registration page.

32. Target a keyword: First, we need to choose a relevant a keyword. The target keyword should combine the event topic, the word “event,” and the name of your city. Examples: “orthodontist event Tulsa,” “campfire safety event Charlotte” or “vegan cooking event Chicago.” For tips on finding more specific keywords, take a look at this post: How to Research Keywords.

33. Title tags and headers: Use a title tag and header that include your target keyword. In the title tag, it’s best to put the name of the event last, so the keyword appears first. This helps indicate relevance to Google. For example, an event for veterinarians in Texas may benefit from a website with a title tag such as “Veterinarian Event in Dallas – PetCon Dallas.”

34. Search-friendly description: The event page should have a nice, detailed event description, which includes the keyword several times. If it’s long, break up the text into short, concise paragraphs. Use lots of formatting, including headers, sub headers, internal links, bullet lists, etc. You can find more advice on this SEO checklist.

35. Linking: Links are important for search engine rankings, so make sure to link to the event page from other pages on your site including older blog posts. This will guide visitors to the page, but also help search engines know that the page is relevant.

During the Event

Live tweeting during events is a huge opportunity for event promotion. Registrants will be watching the hashtag, so fill that stream with interesting content.

36. Tweet quotes: Listen for juicy nuggets in conversations and in presentations. Mention the person who said it and use the hashtag.

37. Share pictures: Make sure to take pictures of people, speakers and attendees, as things are happening and share them on Twitter. Smartphones make this easy. Mention people and use the hashtag.

38. Hold a contest or drawing: Even if you’re giving away something small, like a book or a gift from a sponsor, use this as an opportunity to gather email addresses (with permission of course) and then share a picture of the winner holding the gift on the social networks.

The end of the event isn’t the end of the event marketing. After the event, follow up with activities that will make your next event an even bigger success.

Post-Event Blog Post

Event recap blog posts are often easy and fun to write. Post them on the event site or submit them as a guest post to a relevant blog or local or industry / association website. They can include all kinds of relevant content.

39. Summary of presentations: These summaries can include quotes of positive feedback from a follow up survey.

40. Speakers’ presentations: As with the photos, it’s ideal if the presentations are embedded into the event site or blog post using a tool such as Slideshare.

41. Gallery of event photos: Ideally, these galleries are embedded into the event site or recap blog post using tool such as Flickr. If so, you’ll be sending traffic to your site, rather than a photo sharing website.

42. List the “top tweets” from the event: These are easy to find if you used a hashtag. It’s even easier with Storify.

43. List the speakers, sponsors and attendees: List.ly is a very social way to build lists and embed them into a website. This kind of list may help attendees find each other afterwards and get a better networking benefit from the event.

Post-Event Email

The email follow-up to registrants is a way to say thank you, share important links and keep a bit of buzz going…

44. Link to a survey: Surveys are a great way to get feedback, but they’re also a way to gather testimonials that you can use for future events.

45. Link to post-event blog posts: Since you already gathered up your best content and posted it, linking to it in these emails should be easy.

46. Invite registrants to follow you on the social networks: Some of your registrants may not follow you yet. Never miss a chance to promote your social media accounts!

47. Invite registrants to be notified of the next event: Some of your registrants may not be subscribed yet. Link to your email signup form to grow your list and promote your email marketing.

Post-Event Social Activity

Now it’s time to share stories, say thank you and stay connected. Here are some social media activities.

48. Thank you tweets: Show you gratitude after the event by thanking the speakers, sponsors and attendees in follow up tweets and posts. This is good for networking.

49. Post photos: Put a few of your best photos on Facebook and Google+. Be sure to tag and mention people.

50. Keep sharing: In the days after the event, listen for tweets, mentions and blog posts from others. Hopefully, the hashtag makes this easy. When you see these mentions, share them!

Ready? Let’s Do Some Event Marketing!

We hope there are at least a few event marketing ideas here that you hadn’t tried before. If this seemed overwhelming, don’t worry. You don’t need to do them all. But the more you do, the fewer crickets you’ll hear. So get marketing! Those seats aren’t going to fill themselves.

A quick thanks to the friends who contributed ideas to this list: Dyana, Sean, and Mana of Flanigan Communications, 312 Digital, and Lightspan Digital. Mana recently did a presentation with tons of great advice called Social Media Marketing for Event Planners. Check it out!

If you have have other ideas on how to market an event, please let us know with a comment below…

Andy Crestodina is the Strategic Director of Orbit Media, a web design company in Chicago. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry, An Illustrated Guide to Content Marketing. You can find Andy on Google+ and Twitter.