ENLARGE
YOUR
DIGITAL
FOOTPRINT
!

f eldmancreat ive.com http://feldmancreative.com/2013/05/enlarge-your-digital-footprint-for-more-effective-online-marketing/ Enlarge
Your Digital Footprint for More Effective Online Marketing May Your digital f ootprint is huge. Okay, well, truthf ully, I don’t know what size it is. But here’s what I do know: your digital footprint has a huge effect on your online marketing. When it comes to f actors you can control to improve your website traf f ic, it’s Mr. Big. You do want to improve your website traf f ic, correct? Let’s have a look at how it’s done. Take charge, woman. Get large, man. Why do I f eel like I’m hawking Viagra? But seriously ladies and gentlemen, we have one humdinger of a topic, which in my biased opinion, has yet to inspire a truly helpf ul online article. So, here and now, I set out to of f er you the ultimate list of easy and ef f ective ways to enlarge your digital f ootprint, increase your f indability f actor (otherwise known as search results), and drive traf f ic to your website. We begin with the easy ones.

The f ollowing f our
ideas—and the ideas within the ideas—are absolute musts. 1. Comment on relevant blogs—It doesn’t get any easier. You’re reading them, right? Now write something. In the process, you’ll be asked to input your URL. Repeat af ter me now: world’s easiest backlink. Make a habit out of this practice. And, of course, of f er a usef ul idea or web page. Can you say “double backlink?” 2. Get an about.me account—At about.me, you’ll f ind the world’s easiest web page generator. And with a large collection of graphically pleasing templates, they’ve made it so the page you produce has to be elegant. It’s a f ill-in-the blank exercise. You create a pile of links that point to your site, blog and social networks. If you don’t have an about.me account by this time tomorrow, you’ll have a hard time convincing me you sincerely want to grow your digital f ootprint. Here’s my about.me page. 3. Microblog like a maniac—There are probably 1,000 and 1 reasons to be active on social media, but even if deep down inside you’re anti-social, get your hands on additional social media accounts and your f ootprint grows. No social media list can be all-inclusive, but you most def initely need the f ab f our: Twitter—No brainer. It’s as now as now gets. LinkedIn—The world’s greatest business center. (Have you and I connected on LinkedIn?) Google+—The online space f or everything. Facebook—I predict this thing catches on. 4. Be a picture publisher—You have a smartphone and you use it to take pictures. Now publish them. Of course, you’ll want to use discretion. Only the photos you shoot that are relevant to your business or personal brand are the ones you’ll use as f ootprint f odder. Consider any or all of the below: Pinterest—A true game changer. You’ll f ind some usef ul stuf f at my Pinterest page. Instagram—Soon to outrank television. Google+/ Picassa—The authority f or authority. Tumblr—Any dummy can produce a smart site here. Flickr—Where Yahoo! Still matters. Intermediate domain(s). These strategies assume you’re a content marketer, or soon will be, and are meant to point out places where your content can reside to help expand your digital f ootprint. 5. Make video—Don’t like having your mug online? Get over it. Don’t f eel comf ortable competing with the world’s best documentary makers or TV producers? Get over it. Get some video together and get it on: YouTube—The #3 website in the world. Here’s Feldman Creative TV, a work in progress. Vimeo—Another powerhouse. (“Absence of Light,” a short f ilm I wrote and acted in.) Social media sites that host video—Which is pretty much all of them now. 6. Do picture shows—It’s stunning how many people I talk to that aren’t using SlideShare (or have never heard of it). It’s the quiet giant of content marketing generating 60-million visits per month. With an immense digital library (over 100 million f iles), sharing f eatures, lead capture options f or prof essional use, and serious search prowess, SlideShare should be home to your slide decks, inf ographics, videos, and documents. Take it seriously and you’ll see some serious growth in exposure and inbound traf f ic.

I’d like to think my
SlideShare efforts will help you understand the power of the medium (almost 200K views to date). 7. Squidoo—Master marketer Seth Godin created a place in cyberspace where your content takes a website- like f orm in what Squidoo dubs a lens. They are easy to create, look great, and serve you well. I created a lens with my f ree ebook, “21 Pointers to Sharpen Your Website.” Looks sharp. 8. List.ly—As the name suggests, List.ly is a home f or lists, a wild card in nearly every content marketer’s deck. Your List.ly posts are interactive, optimized, and easy to embed wherever you choose. Here’s a perf ectly good example. 9. Curate like a real publisher—You are a real publisher now. It’s time to toss other experts works into the mix. Try these f un and powerf ul publishing tools: RebelMouse—This newcomer will blow your mind with its social/sharing approach to curation and give you tools to take your publication where you please. My website f eatures a RebelMouse page. Scoop.It—Magazine making made easy. Twylah—As the name suggests, Twylah is a Twitter tool, a twitty damn good one. Paper.li—Niche publishing, content marketing and web monitoring collides in a platf orm purpose built to make your online marketing easy. 10. Get graphic—You might hire a pro to put your content in the raging hot inf ographic f ormat, but you might opt f or the DIY approach. Try these: Piktochart—I experimented with several inf ographics generators and f avor this one. (I Pikto’d f or Valentine’s Day.) Easel.ly. Infogra.m Visual.ly 11. Do eNews—For years, email marketing (managed prof essionally) has been the best way to build a community and your business. It’s permission-based. Interested prospects are telling you, “Yes, send me your stuf f .” Do it. Here’s an archive of my eNewsletters, “Get Magnetic.”

Get Magnetic—Feldman Creative’s very popular
eNewsletter For high achievers. In this second-to-last section I’ll cover some strategies expert online marketers use to expand their digital f ootprint in a big way. Don’t dismiss these tactics simply because your time or skills are limited. Consider hiring a pro (me) to help propel you to higher heights. These techniques call f or having some talent on your team. So they are not f ree. However, they are immensely meaningf ul. 12. Guest blog—Like baseball, in the guest blog prof ession, you have major and minor leagues and levels within. It’s unrealistic to think you can’t publish a thing or two online and then get published by the New York Times. However, if you’re paying close attention to your industry (please tell me you are) and know which publishers have the most powerf ul voices, you should think big. I recommend you think of the path to the top as a ladder and climb it like so: Blog brilliantly—First rung: your blog. Establish super high standards and meet them. Publish a minimum of 10 articles bef ore you begin submitting work to high traf f ic sites. Go where there are no gates—Today, every smart website host recognizes the need to publish regularly, so many accept contributions f rom outsiders with no or low standards. Of course, you shouldn’t have no or low standards, but you should take advantage of the opportunity to publish your pieces at ungated blogs/online magazines. (Scribd.com is always happy to have you.) Apply yourself—The next rung on your ascent will be to apply to the sites you really want to be on. Of ten, an application system is in place f or you to submit samples of your work and answer basic questions about your qualif ications. Pursue these opportunities and you’ll surprise yourself . Beat down doors—This step’s not as violent as it may sound, but you may need to prepare yourself f or the rejection writers learn to live with. ID sites at the top of the ladder, send email or tweets to the curators/editors/owners and of f er them your best, original work, which of course must be perf ectly aligned with their editorial charter. If you’re ready f or the gig, you’ll get it. I can’t say I’m batting 1.000, but

this strategy has served me
well. I contribute regularly to several of the best publishers in online marketing. You’ll f ind a list in the sidebar on my home page. Publish and pray—Really now, divine intervention is not an online marketing strategy. However, setting yourself up f or success is. I wouldn’t include this rung if I hadn’t climbed it. So, I’ll share this f rom personal experience. If you create great content and manage to get it published on classy Triple-A websites, major leaguers will f ind it, read it, and give you the call when a spot opens up. 13. Webcast—I’m using the word as a verb and I’m telling you to get into the inf otainment business. You need not be Oprah. But you need to use the Internet as your platf orm f or: Webinars—Any size business can do this and there are all kinds of tools to get it done. Decide you’re going to teach a valuable lesson, line up the talent and assets you’ll need, and do it. Here’s one of my webinars: “Magnetic Content—Transf orm Your Website Into a Customer Attraction Force Field.” Podcasts—Welcome to radio, online radio. It’s easy. The demand is enormous. Try creating an interview show or giving audio-based lessons. There are a ton of tools f or producing podcasts and publishing them too. I use Spreaker. And of course, in addition to making my website a broadcast channel, I use iTunes, as should you. (My podcast program: Content Marketing Minds.) Video programs—We hit on YouTube and Vimeo earlier. There’s no reason to not charge f orth with video and there’s no realistic barrier. Roll ‘em. 14. Get interviewed—Has this lesson got increasingly scary? You’re good? Cool. I get interviewed f airly of ten now and obviously this helps shine the spotlight on my website, my services and myself . But I want you to know this… Sometimes requests f or interviews just happen, but sometimes I make them happen. You’re an expert in your f ield. People will want to hear what you have to say. So, get interviewed. Speak—Call yourself a speaker and publish inf ormation about subjects you speak on. Ask—Seek out opportunities to speak and tell website owners why their audience will benef it f rom an interview f eaturing you. Promote—Tell everybody via every media outlet you have access to you’ve been interviewed. Good things happen. Trust me. Digital channels multiply. You get on coveted lists. People start believing you know your stuf f . Example of a podcast interview f rom our f riends at Social Media Explorer: “Is Content Truly King?” Example of video interview f rom our f riends at Vertical Measures: “How to Get Started with Content Marketing.” 15. Make books—Your prospects love books. Make them, give them away, and/or sell them. Free eBooks—These are easy to make and you can pretty much create your own def inition of what an eBook actually is. Create a serious collection of helpf ul inf ormation and package it as PDF. Of f er it as f ree download and you’re bound to see it shared all over the place. Purchasable eBooks—The next step is stepping up

eBook: Here’s my latest—and hottest—one.
100% OFF if you ACT NOW! Purchasable eBooks—The next step is stepping up and onto Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and the gamut of online eBook distributors. You have to play by the seller’s rules, but it’s easier than you might expect. You can experiment with prices, selling strategies and outlets and in the end, you may achieve new levels of authority and prestige, new markets and audiences, and possibly, new revenue streams. Advertising may pay too. Ef f ective online advertisers are generally dialing down media spending, but they’re also strategically investing in online media placements. 16. AdWords—Google’s AdWords program changed advertising f orever. As basic and unsexy as it may be, it’s hard to deny it’s the most cost-ef f ective advertising media ever created. Double your search success—Publish content and buy pay-per-click smartly and your company may appear on a page one search result twice, side-by-side with a paid and organic listing. That’s a powerf ul combo. Drift into everywhere—PPC of f ers the option to present your ads beyond Google. Your ads can go the many places their AdWords program is embedded, which can be an amazingly extensive networks of sites where your prospects are. Learn and improve—A seldom spoke of , but immensely large benef it of PPC advertising, is the deep and rich insights you get f rom the reports you’re provided. 17. Retarget—I won’t pretend to be an expert here, but I will tell you this new thing called retargeting makes a lot of sense. You visit a site, but don’t buy and then in your online travels, ads f rom the host of these sites appear. Makes good sense. And finally, you’ll get a little lucky. You know how they say you make your own luck? You put yourself in a position to be lucky? This applies to this lesson. If you’re actively creating content and experimenting with strategies, sometimes your digital f ootprint just expands. Lucky you. I thought bef ore I signed of f of what has become the longest post I’ve ever written (but hopef ully the most helpf ul), I’d scan my analytics to stumble upon some loose ends that help the cause. I did. Here are three of them that were actually in my top 25 traf f ic generators: 18. Bookmark sites—Yup. I don’t know a lot about them or use them much, but they’re f ar f rom dead. So StumbleUpon (which I do use), Reddit, Digg, Delicous and so f orth expand your digital presence too. I don’t believe you have much control over how or when, but I suspect these are reciprocal communities, as are all online communities, so put something into them and you’ll get something out of them. 19. Feeds—RSS f eeds represent this crazy corner of the web where geeks tune in and casual users tune out. But still, you can help your cause with a little bit of understanding of f eeder tools that push your content to

readers that want it or
sprinkle it automatically across social networks. I’ve signed on with f eedburner, dlvr.it and networkedblogs and f ound that these mostly f ree services help f eed my content to hungry readers. 20. Groups—Where good old-f ashioned networking meets good new-f ashioned networking, your digital f ootprint can actually expand. I’m tight with my time and don’t attend a ton of events, but I do attend some conf erences and speak a bit. My involvement in the f ollowing ones generate traf f ic to my website. MeetUps—My tennis and guitar MeetUps don’t help the cause, but my blogging and marketing MeetUps do. Surely, you can benef it of f line and on f rom being involved. SVForum—I’ve made f riends and landed business through my involvement in the Silicon Valley Forum and its cousin, Marketing Camp, which I discovered in the f irst place via a social media-based f riendship. I recommend you connect the old-f ashioned way, shake some hands, share some wisdom, and see how it might af f ect your digital f ootprint. Foreigners—Sorry. I’m no help here, but a site called “seojapan.com” brings a steady stream of traf f ic to my site. Their site’s in Japanese and Google’s handy translation f eature didn’t help, so all I know is by putting myself and my company out there with sensible strategies to enlarge my digital f ootprint, I’ve become a more ef f ective online marketer. You can too. I’ve laid a lot on you. If you have questions, I intend to answer them. And, if you have additions you’d like to make here, I definitely appreciate them. Contact me — or sign up for a free WebVision consultation. About the author Barry owns and operates Feldman Creative, providing copywriting and content marketing creation and consulting. Barry on Google+ Marketing communications pointers, Web-based marketing by Barry Feldman 13 Comments » 10 Reasons Why Your Content Could Be A Bit Too Boring