Inbound Marketing, Revised and Updated

Foreword xi

Acknowledgments xv

Introduction xvii

Part I Inbound Marketing 1

Chapter 1 Shopping Has Changed . . . Has Your Marketing? 3

Who Moved My Customers? 6

Inbound in Action: Barack Obama for President 6

To Do 8

Chapter 2 Is Your Website a Marketing Hub? 9

Megaphone versus Hub 9

It's Not What You Say-It's What Others Say About You 10

Does Your Website Have a Pulse? 10

Your Mother's Impressed, But . . . 11

Tracking Your Progress 13

Inbound in Action: 37Signals 14

To Do 15

Chapter 3 Are You Worthy? 17

Creating a Remarkable Strategy 17

Tracking Your Progress 19

Inbound in Action: The Grateful Dead 19

To Do 20

Part II Get Found By Prospects 21

Chapter 4 Create Remarkable Content 23

Building a Content Machine 23

Variety is the Spice of Life 24

You Gotta Give to Get 24

Moving Beyond the Width of Your Wallet 25

Tracking Your Progress 25

Inbound in Action: Wikipedia 26

To Do 27

Chapter 5 Get Found in the Blogosphere 29

Getting Your Blog Started Right 30

Authoring Effective Articles 30

Help Google Help You 32

Making Your Articles Infectious 33

Give Your Articles a Push 34

Starting Conversations with Comments 35

Why Blogs Sometimes Fail 36

The Gift That Keeps on Giving 36

Consuming Content with RSS 37

Subscribe to Relevant Industry Blogs 37

Contribute to the Conversation 38

Tracking Your Progress 39

Inbound in Action: Whole Foods 40

To Do 43

Chapter 6 Get Found in Google 45

Paid versus Free 45

A (Brief) Introduction to How Google Works 48

Picking the Perfect Keywords 50

On-Page SEO: Doing the Easy Stuff First 53

Off-Page SEO: The Power of Inbound Links 58

Black Hat SEO: How to Get Your Site Banned by Google 61

The Dangers of PPC 63

Tracking Your Progress 64

Inbound in Action: LinkedIn "Elite" 65

To Do 66

Chapter 7 Get Found in Social Media 67

Creating an Effective Online Profile 67

Getting Fans on Facebook 69

Creating Connections on LinkedIn 73

Gathering Followers on Twitter 77

Gaining Reach from Google+ 80

Being Discovered with StumbleUpon 82

Getting Found on YouTube 84

Tracking Your Progress 86

Inbound in Action: FreshBooks 87

To Do 89

Chapter 8 Visual Content 91

SlideShare 92

Visual.ly 92

Pinterest 93

Instagram 94

Snapchat 95

Vine 96

Chapter 9 Software and Tools as Content 99

Writing Code Instead of Text 100

Replace Humans with Machines 101

Provide a Next Step 102

Kill Bad Tools Quickly 102

Tools Don't Market Themselves 103

Inbound in Action: Wealthfront 104

To Do 105

Part III Converting Customers 107

Chapter 10 Convert Visitors into Leads 109

Compelling Calls-to-Action 110

Mistakes to Avoid 113

Optimizing Through Experimentation 113

Tracking Your Progress 113

Inbound in Action: Google 114

To Do 114

Chapter 11 Convert Prospects into Leads 115

Landing Page Best Practices 115

Creating Functional Forms 119

Going Beyond the Form 122

A Word of Caution 122

Tracking Your Progress 123

Inbound in Action: Zappos 123

To Do 124

Chapter 12 Convert Leads to Customers 125

Grading and Scoring Your Leads 125

Nurturing Your Leads 128

Broadening Your Reach 129

Tracking Your Progress 131

Inbound in Action: Kiva 131

To Do 134

Part IV Make Better Decisions 135

Chapter 13 Make Better Marketing Decisions 137

Levels and Definitions 138

Campaign Yield 138

Tracking Your Progress 140

To Do 140

Chapter 14 Picking and Measuring Your People 141

Hire Digital Citizens 142

Hire for Analytical Chops 142

Hire for Their Web Reach 143

Hire Content Creators 145

Developing Existing Marketers 145

Tracking Your Progress 146

Inbound in Action: Jack Welch and GE 148

To Do 149

Chapter 15 Picking and Measuring a PR Agency 151

Picking a PR Agency 152

Tracking Your Progress 153

Inbound in Action: Solis, Weber, Defren & Roetzer 154

To Do 155

Chapter 16 Watching Your Competition 157

Tools to Keep Tabs on Competitors 157

Tracking Your Progress 158

Inbound in Action: TechTarget 159

To Do 161

Chapter 17 On Commitment, Patience, and Learning 163

Tracking Your Progress 164

Inbound in Action: Tom Brady 164

To Do 165

Chapter 18 Why Now? 167

Tools and Resources 171

Inbound.org 171

Advanced Google Search 171

Tracking with Site Alerts 173

Bonus: Entrepreneur's Guide to Startup Marketing 175

Startup Marketing Checklist 175

18 Simple Tips for Naming a New Company 180

Insider Tips on Buying the Domain Name You Love 184

Get Inbound Certified! 187

Index 189