What is SEO and how does syndicated content affect it?

SEO stands for search engine optimization and refers to all the things you can do on the internet to raise the quality and indexability of a website’s individual pages. SEO is organized into two categories — on-page and off-page. On-page refers to all the things you can control on your website, including content, images, code, meta data, keywords, etc. Off-page refers all the things you can do outside of your website, including building links back to your website from other sites, social media efforts and other third party interactions. Syndicated content is part of on-page SEO and it may or may not affect your website’s pages depending on the content your vendors choose to push through.

Overall, syndicated content has the ability to positively affect your search rankings over time if placed on a page by itself. Likewise, placing syndicated content on a new page will not negatively affect any of your existing pages’ rankings. For more information, see SharedVue’s Search Engine Statement.

Some SEO experts place paid search (like Google Adwords) as a third category. SharedVue is currently experimenting with paid search programs and syndicated content.

Will placing SharedVue syndicated content on a new page on my website affect my search engine rankings negatively?

No. Google ranks pages on your website on an individual basis. In fact, SharedVue recommends you add a completely new page when you add syndicated content to your website. This eliminates the risk of deleting content that already ranks well in searches. The syndicated content will receive its own ranking for your website and as long as you do not edit or change any existing pages, you will retain your SERP rankings.

Does syndicated content help improve my current search engine rankings?

If vendors have enabled their SharedVue syndicated showcases with varying content sets, keywords and partner information, your new syndicated page may rank high in SERPs (search engine results pages). Since Google ranks pages on an individual basis for any given search term, the syndicated content will not affect your other product, solution or service page rankings.

How does placing syndicated content on an existing page of my website affect that page’s rank?

Any time you change the content of an existing page, whether it’s text, an image or anything else, the page is indexed differently. Adding new content to an existing page, syndicated or otherwise, on your website may affect that page’s rank. That’s why it is always a good idea to place syndicated content on a new page on your site, and link to it from an existing product or solution page.

Is there any way to place syndicated content on an existing page on my website without affecting that page’s search engine rankings?

No.  Adding new or modifying existing content always changes search engine indexing.  The best way to place content on an existing page of your website without affecting its current page ranking is by using SharedVue’s “basic implementation” method. This method embeds content on your website using an iFrame. Search engines do not guarantee support for iFrames because they don’t adhere to Web standards (each page should displays only one URL).

Pages that use iFrames display several URLs (one for each frame) within a single page. However, this does not guarantee your page isn’t affected by the content. The best way to implemented syndicated content is to place it on a new page.

What if I don’t want search engines to index SharedVue syndicated content?

If you wish to place a SharedVue Vendor Showcase on your website without affecting search rankings, you can simply link to the syndicated page with a “nofollow” link. Nofollow links allow you to add entire pages of content without search engines being able to index them. If you add a SharedVue Vendor Showcase to your website and want to guarantee only your existing pages are visited by search bots, be sure that every link to the showcase is a “nofollow” link.

Additionally, you can add the <meta name=”robots” content=”noindex, nofollow”> tag to the header of your syndicated page. Using either of both of these methods will ensure visitors to your website are receiving the most updated, relevant information without search engines indexing the content.

How do I make sure my syndicated content is being indexed by search engines?

Search engines are able to index any of SharedVue’s server-side (preferred method) and CMS plugin implementations. This is because these methods literally embed the content directly into the coding of your website. Using SharedVue’s basic method simply frames the content on your website and does not place it into the code. Thus, search engines are not able to index it. If your vendor showcase is enabled with SEO content, it is recommended you use one of these methods.

What can I do to improve the SEO of my website?

Aside from adding a vendor showcase with SEO content, there are several things search engines recommend you do to improve page rank. Google has great resources available in their Webmaster Tools.

SharedVue, a division of UBM, LLC and UBM Channel announces the promotion of Marie Duncan to the position of Key Account Manager. Marie was originally hired by the founding parent company of SharedVue, Strategic Insights, as an account executive working with several key clients including Cisco. As her work progressed it became apparent that she could be a valuable resource for SharedVue so she moved to an account manager’s position. As that department grew and Marie took on much more responsibility, she was promoted to the position of Senior Account Manager working with Cisco, IBM, Xerox and SAP.

Marie graduated from the University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and is an enthusiastic Tar Heel fan. She began her career with the NC Department of Commerce as a marketing manager and later worked with a large law firm in marketing prior to taking the job with Strategic Insights. She is active in the community serving as Secretary of the Poe Health Center Board and in a leadership position for the Junior League of Raleigh.

“I can’t say enough about what Marie has meant to our organization. She is organized, understands our technology, relates well to her co-workers and has the respect of her customer group. In short, Marie is a leader in our organization and a necessary ingredient to our success. In her new position we will be looking to Marie to continue her work with current customers and we will involve her in more strategic management activities.” commented M. Reid Overcash, Sr. Vice President of UBM Channel and founder of SharedVue.

Marie offered, “I continue to enjoy the challenges SharedVue’s impressive growth presents as we find better ways to improve the client experience. SharedVue has provided me valuable opportunities in the past and I am excited to explore new ones to help drive my passion for serving clients.”

When I talk to channel IT vendors they almost always tell me how important their partners are to them.

They tell me 50%, 75%, and sometimes even 100% of their total business goes through the channel — the lifeblood of their business. Often times, a channel partner is where a prospective customer has the 1^st interaction with a vendor brand, product or solution.

Vendors mention customer relationships, sales and technical staffs, market presence, and other strengths when it comes to their channel community. Representing the vendor brand  in the channel, however, is all but a fairy tale. When I ask how these important business partners are representing the vendor brand to prospects and customers, the answers usually aren’t nearly as complimentary.

In a recent UBM Channel study, nearly two-thirds of all solution providers said they lack an internal resource for marketing.  Without sufficient marketing expertise on staff, how can vendors expect channel partners to do their brands justice?

What kind of impact does this have on the vendor brand?   If your channel is made up of hundreds, or even thousands of participating solution providers, then think about how many different ways your brand may be suffering. Because of the lack of resources in the channel, there is serious confusion in the marketplace.  Loss of sales? Other things you’d rather not discuss?

If you want your channel partners to “mirror” (pun intended) what you’re seeing when you look at your brand, then content syndication could be a good fit. Think about the value a vendor gains if their brand is consistently represented channel-wide! And what about value for channel partners?  By taking the effort of representing and managing multiple vendor brands and products out of their hands, partners would have more time to connect with customers, build pipelines and sell.

All of a sudden, the inconsistent brand image vendors have seen looking back at them from the channel begins to reflect a little more accurately.

Matt Nisonger to the newly created position of Director of Customer Engagement. Previously Matt has served SharedVue as the Director of Technology reporting to John Brown, Chief Technology Officer.

M. Reid Overcash, Sr. Vice President of UBM Channel and founder of SharedVue, stated, “In his new role Matt will be responsible for managing the inside processes and people who work with our most valuable asset, our customers. Matt’s new position will include directing the Facilit8 account management team and the partner support department, the content web production group and interfacing with the platform technology development team.”

“Matt has proven time and again that he brings fresh ideas to our company and understands the need to create processes and training that enhance the overall customer experience with SharedVue products and services. We feel making this move now is a re-affirmation of the SharedVue commitment to our customers and their channel partners.”

“I am thrilled at the opportunity to build on SharedVue’s industry leading service levels. By nurturing our valuable customer relationships, we will continue to develop innovative products backed by intelligent, analytics-based execution that demonstrates clear value. Our customers can look forward to a smart mix of cross channel integrated marketing strategies touching on all the interactive platforms that drive sales for their partners.” states Nisonger .

In a related development, SharedVue announces the promotion of Sara Bryson-Wheelan to the position of Director of Strategic Projects. She previously served as Director of Facilit8. Her job will entail directing new customers through the on-boarding process with SharedVue as well as managing the integration of outside resources and partners with SharedVue technology.

“Sara is the first employee of SharedVue and knows our products and processes as well as anyone in the organization. She is an excellent project manager and has exhibited outstanding judgment in her previous positions with us. Sara is a very special and important person with our organization and we feel her skills are perfect for this very important new position,” states Overcash.

Wheelan will transition fully to her new position in the next few weeks as she completes several projects she is currently finalizing.

Wheelan commented, “As SharedVue continues to develop strategic integration points and grow its reputable client base, the creation of this position solidifies our commitment to driving market innovation and continuing to bring industry leading products to our customers.”

Working at SharedVue I have spoken to hundreds of channel and partner marketing professionals. I learn something new on each call yet one thing that always stands out is the variety of ways these companies, both big and small, manage their channel.

If any company has a channel strategy or see’s its channel as a significant part of their overall revenue then it should be important to them, right?

Nine times out of ten, when talking with clients and prospects I hear, “Well, we have a partner portal where we have a secure log-in for our partners to download or upload assets and company/product information”.  They also use a variety of content or marketing solutions which they believe satisfies the tactic of empowering their channel partners web presence. What I hear most often are CRM solutions such as Salesforce and ERP solutions such as SAP, Eloqua, Lyris or Constant Contact.

The essential challenge here is that using one or more of these solutions as a single company is great, but how do we get our partners to use them? How can we be sure they are actually using them? How can we better manage and empower our partners?

Using all those other tools is great, but guaranteeing partners actually use them — especially when they have a lack of resources — is next to impossible. SharedVue consolidates all of these solutions into one content marketing solution, allowing our clients to effectively manage their partners and their channel as a whole. We provide channel vendors the ability to offer their partners a program that effectively ensures and allows them to manage the content and information for their partners. SharedVue closes the loop between marketing, web content and lead generation through a server-side, cloud-based solution.

When Kevin Kostner’s character Ray Kinsella, in one of the greatest baseball movies of all time, Field of Dreams, begins hearing voices, he thinks he’s going a bit mad.

Ultimately, “If you build it he will come” convinces Ray to use prime acreage on his corn farm in Iowa, to build, of all things, a baseball field. The crop revenue he forgoes to build the baseball field, nearly puts him into bankruptcy and he becomes the laughingstock of the town. He sticks to the power of his convictions, word gets out, and the ball field turns into a cash cow (farm pun intended).

When channel marketing professionals put together plans for their partners, do they follow the same approach? If you build it will they come?

Does a lead gen program, without the proper follow up, deliver the desired results? Do marketing automation programs without partner buy-in and engagement drive revenue?

There are many moving parts required to drive a successful channel marketing program, and often times those moving parts come from multiple vendors.

How do you integrate? Which vendor takes the lead on it? Do these multiple vendors consider themselves competitors, making said integration difficult at best?

At SharedVue (a UBM Channel Solution) we struggle with the same questions.

Our business has been about helping vendors deliver their brand, product, and promotional content to their partner web sites. Content Syndication as it is known, has been the ball field…we’ve built it, now how do you get them to come?

In the movie, Ray’s companion, Terence Mann, played by the great James Earl Jones, tells him:

“Ray, people will come Ray. They’ll come to Iowa for reasons they can’t even fathom. They’ll turn up your driveway not knowing for sure why they’re doing it. They’ll arrive at your door as innocent as children, longing for the past. Of course, we won’t mind if you look around, you’ll say. It’s only $20 per person. They’ll pass over the money without even thinking about it…”

They come for the experience…

At SharedVue we’re always working on improving the experience, and making it so…if you build it they actually will come.

We’ve added platform functionality over the last couple of years to include email marketing tools for the partner to their end user community.

In the New Year, we will be announcing other functionality, including social, press releases, CRM integration and others….and you won’t have to go to Iowa to get it.

PR Newswire CEO Ninan Chacko talks about the importance of content in building relationships with customers and stakeholders:

[From PRN] Marketing, today, is about driving closer, authentic, deep and meaningful relationships, on an individual level, between an enterprise and its constituents – customers, prospects, investors, business partners, key influencers, and more.

These constituents are far more informed; and as such, much smarter than ever before. To that end, if an enterprise is unable to articulate its purpose, its ideals and values and how these impact the products & services it brings to market; if it is unable to offer something more than just its wares; and if it is only interested in being heard but not listening, the enterprise will never establish a true relationship with its constituents.Read More »

I recently watched a great Hubspot webinar by Tim Ash and Mike Volpe on website design and lead generation. The webinar made some great points on how small changes can lead to significantly more leads.

Many of the concepts covered in the webinar can be applied to improve lead generation in your channel marketing program. If you are a vendor using the SharedVue platform, you have control over these factors and can take action to improve your lead gen capabilities for all your syndicating partners at once. If you are not using a content syndication platform, your channel partners can still implement these steps on an individual basis.

Here are three steps to help you generate more leads:

1. Make Call-to-Actions More Prominent
2. Re-evaluate Your Lead Gen Forms
3. Be Concise with Your Product Content

1. Make Your Call-to-Action Clear and Prominent

Your call-to-action is text, a button or graphic that drives customers to your lead generation forms. Whether you are offering a free trial, case study, or whitepaper, it’s important that the call-to-action is clear about what the reader is getting and what you want them to do. Here is an example of a clear call-to-action in one of SharedVue’s content syndication programs:

You also want to ensure your call-to-action is optimally positioned and prominent across your content. Customers should be able to easily identify your call-to-actions as they navigate through your site. [Boagworld has good post on effective call-to-actions, here is an example from their post.]

2. Re-evaluate Your Lead Gen Forms

Once you’ve optimized your call-to-actions, you will have more customers reaching your lead capture forms but that doesn’t mean they will be converted to a lead. Too often, these forms ask for too much information in relation to the value being offered to the customer. This results in the customer leaving the page without entering his or her information.

Take a look across your call-to-actions and match the length of your lead-gen forms and the value they are offering accordingly. If you feel you are offering a lot of value for your customers’ information, then they may be more lenient in filling out a longer form, thus disclosing more personal contact information. However, if what you are offering is not of significant value, don’t expect your customer to take the time to fill out a form at all. Maybe you should offer this download for free.

Another way you can squeeze more leads out of your downloadable assets and call-to-actions is by reducing your forms to the bare minimum information you need right now. Do you need to know your customer’s industry or title right now? Or can you follow up with an email or call and gather more information then?

3. Be Concise with Your Product Content

You obviously want to offer a lot information on your site about your company and products, but don’t get carried away with writing too much. Provide customers the basics of what they need to know, and structure your content in a way that is easy to scan through using headings, bullet lists and hyperlinks.

If you are concise and provide your customers with clear, prominent call-to-actions and contact buttons, customers will be able to reach out to you for more specific questions, which can help generate more qualified leads.

Content marketing is clearly gaining more traction in the B2B space.

1. Improves search engine rankings
Maintaining a regular blog on your website can improve your search engine rankings and boost traffic to your site. Writing quality content relevant to your industry can help attract new site visitors and customers.

2. Helps generate leads
If you regularly post quality content you have an opportunity to capture more leads from your site’s increased traffic. Including calls-to-action at the end of your blog posts and throughout your website can make the lead generation process more effective and efficient.

3. Establishes you as a thought leader
In addition to SEO and lead generation benefits, publishing quality blog posts, whitepapers, and ebooks can establish you as a thought leader in your industry. As thought leader you may benefit from increased inbound links and referrals from those who see your company as an expert in your field.

Content Marketing for Channel Partners

Whether you are emailing channel partners to recruit them to your content syndication program or to let them know of content updates and promotions, the timing of your email significantly affects how many partners read your message.

Dan Zarella, Social Media Scientist at Hubspot, put together a very informative webinar called The Science of Timing. In this webinar, Zarella presents extensive research regarding the best times to reach people through email.

Here are some takeaways regarding email timing that you can apply to optimize communication efforts with your channel partners:

What Time Should You Email Your Channel Partners?

Zarella’s research shows that more people read emails in the morning than at night, with open rates particularly higher early in the morning between 6:00 A.M. and 7:00 A.M.

If you are not in the office that early, you or your channel managers can schedule your partner communications for delivery during one of those times. It is pretty easy to schedule emails with Outlook, and you can find add-on extensions for most other email clients.

What Day Should You Email Your Channel Partners?

Zarella’s research also shows that open rates are higher on weekends than on weekdays. This may not be too surprising since people are usually not as busy on weekends and may have more time to go through all their emails. However, it’s important to note that spam reporting is also higher on the weekends.

Before you start blasting weekend emails to your channel partners, consider the subject of your email and whether or not your partners would be more receptive to reading it during the week.

Put yourself in their shoes. When would you be most receptive to the email you’re sending? Is the content heavy and work related? Or is it just informative and easy to relay?

How Often Should You Email Your Channel Partners?

The research data shows unsubscribe rates are not significantly affected once you get past sending 4-5 emails per month. Surprisingly, there was no substantial difference in unsubscribe rates between companies that sent 4 emails a month to companies that sent 33 emails a month.

A possible reason for this is that most subscribers who are not interested in your content will unsubscribe after the first few emails. Once this initial group unsubscribes, you have a qualified base of subscribers who are interested in your content and are less likely to unsubscribe from your mailing list.

Your channel partners are already a qualified list since they have opted into a partnership. While you don’t have to worry about unsubscribe rates, this data is useful in getting an idea of an acceptable amount of emails that won’t annoy or push your partners away.

While 33 emails a month does seem excessive, the takeaway here is that most companies are not even close to sending too many emails. So unless you’re already sending out a daily email, consider increasing the frequency of your emailing efforts.

Understand Your Partner Base and Find YOUR Optimum Timing

While these are all great starting points, the research data is based on a large aggregate pool. Habits and reading tendencies are likely to differ across different audiences. Use these takeaways as starting points and experiment with sending more emails during different days and times to find the optimum time to reach your partners.

Have any timing insights based on your experiences? Share with us in the comments below.