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Get Started with Online Marketing

5 Ways Small Businesses Can Get Going with Online Marketing

You did it and got your business online. Your website is in place, you have a hosting account and you may have even set up a way to take online payments.

But, what about your marketing plan? Often times businesses are so busy with getting all of the pieces in place that they forget about one of the most important items, the marketing plan. Thought needs to be put into how are you going to market your business effectively and affordably.

When you’re starting out, you have to watch your money! Let’s have a look at some first steps when it comes to starting to market your business online.

5 First steps to small business online marketing

Begin with a Blog - A blog is an excellent way to start building an online following for your small business. A blog is a great way to help brand yourself and gaining the trust of others – it allows you to be seen as an expert if you provide great content to your readers.

Take social media seriously - We live in a world where social media rules the day. Stats don’t lie and they show that people are on social media. Social Media must be a part of your marketing mix, because more than likely it is part of your competitors.

Keep an eye on your online reputation - It’s a good idea to set up Google alerts so that you’re notified each time there is a mention of your name or company online. This makes it so much easier to reply to issues or problems, resolving them before they become large.

Begin building an email list - The number one thing successful online marketers say when asked if they could do one thing differently, is that they wished they’d started building an email list from Day One.

Use online directories and be consistent - Leverage the numerous and influential online directories, such as Yelp, Google My Business, Merchant Circle and others. Make sure your information and locations are correct across each platform.

#Marketing #online marketing #Marketing Tips

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How Has Google Pigeon Impacted Local Search

What Impact has Google Pigeon had on Local Search

In the past when we have seen an update made to Google, including Hummingbird, we have not seen a lot of volatility in Local Search, but that may not be the case with the Pigeon update.

One of the top goals of Pigeon is to more closely tie the local results with the standard web ranking signals. This is being done, presumably, to make rankings more consistent and improve the quality of the results. At this time we can’t be clear if this update will succeed in improving those areas, but there are several ramifications that are clear and some local businesses are having some real issues.

Let’s take a look at 3 ways Pigeon is apparently impacting local search, and what if anything there is to do about it.

3 Initial effects Pigeon is having on local search

Strong brand directories are winning - Directories like Yelp, TripAdvisor and Yellowpages.com are seeing up to a 10 percent bump up in traffic and rankings, often showing up multiple times for a local search.

Smaller map radius - The view shown by Maps is now in many cases much smaller, reducing the number of businesses found in an area, and consequently opening the door for more directory results in order to have something to show at all. This makes it problematic for locations just outside the exact search area to be seen as a choice in a neighboring locale search.

Phasing out of the 7 pack - Far fewer local search terms are benefiting from the increased visibility of the 7-pack. Even though some larger search terms still show this, most now show a 3-pack with a reduced map radius, or nothing at all. The real world traffic loss experts are reporting that a local business not showing up any longer in the map pack is losing 16 percent a month. Quite significant.

As the Pigeon update plays out and the dust settles, and goes through a few incarnations, it will be more clear what the lasting impact will be for your local search results. Right now, making sure you are optimizing your local directory listings for all they’re worth appears to be your best defense.

If you need assistance with your Local Directory Listings we have several options to assist businesses in ensuring you are set up properly.

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#Google #Google Pigeon #Google Update #Local Search Marketing

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How to Effectively use Facebook in your Business

Do’s and Don’ts to Effectively use Facebook in your Business

Everyone knows that Facebook has an an incredible reach and this means it has the potential to be a great tool for your business. It is import though to know how to effectively use Facebook in your business.

There are some key do’s and don’ts for Facebook use when you start using it for a marketing tool. These tips should help you ensure you are using Facebook effectively and don’t end up doing it wrong.

Have a look at what to do and what not to when marketing your business on Facebook!

Do…

Respond quickly - Don’t leave people hanging for days. Try to respond within an hour if possible.

Make shorter posts - Studies are showing that posts of less than 80 characters get 66% more engagement.

Grow your page naturally - The best way to grow your business page is by having fans that share your information for you. Asking your readers to share, perhaps running a Like campaign to a targeted group.

Be sure to ask questions - A surefire strategy for greater engagement.

Post interesting content - The best way to get your links shared is to come up with killer content that people can’t wait to share.

Post often but not too often - Once a week is too little, and more than ten times is probably too much. Test and find the sweet spot.

Use Facebook ads - Strategically using Facebook ads can be a great way to reach followers and a potential new audience with content and offers.

Share - Be sure and share your best around all of your channels.

Engage with Fans - Responding and talking to your fans is a great way to build your brand.

Don’t…

Constantly sell - If all you do is pitch your audience, they will inevitably move on.

Ignore people - Don’t answer people and you’ll never see them again.

Post lengthy posts - Shorter work s better here. What you should do is tease your longer content and link out to it.

Buy likes - A fake audience is worse than no audience. We’ve all seen Facebook Pages with thousands of fans and zero interaction.

Post irrelevant content - Don’t treat this as your personal Facebook page: this is for your business so keep it relevant.

#Facebook #Social Media

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What Services NOT to Buy For Your SEO

If you’re simply trying to rank your site and you run into offers to help you do precisely that for a measly fee of $299 (or a lot more) it can be difficult to know what to do. After all, not all of us are exactly up to date on what’s working and what is not when it comes to ranking in the search engines. These offers sometimes sound great, but you have to use caution on this.

When you are looking for SEO help you need to make sure you are working with someone that understands SEO and stays on top of all of the changes. What may have worked before may not work now and in fact may actually hurt you.

Before jumping in and allocating money in your marketing budget towards SEO be sure to take a look at these SEO services that we know are no longer working.

SEO Services to No Longer Buy

Avoid search engine submission services - You can do this yourself, and the good news is you really don’t need to. The search engines, especially Google, want to find your pages on their own. Just give full attention to creating great content, and announcing it via your social media platforms, and the hard work is done. Not so hard, right, and it was free.

Don’t spin your content and spew out all over the web - One time someone thought that since a little content was great, a lot would be better. Doesn’t work that way. This was the basis for the recent Google Penguin update that purged the internet of many sites containing duplicate and spun content.

Don’t build link farms - Farms are great, for food. Thinking you will game Google by building linkwheels and site pyramids is a fools game. This did work for a while, but that was a long time ago.

Don’t buy links - Google knows if you purchase links, and the best you will see from that is that they won’t do you any good; the worst, well, you won’t be able to find your site in Google. Enough reason? Thought so.

#marketing budget #seo #Search Engine

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Here Are Some Our Favorite Social Media Tools

Here are some of our Favorite Social Media Tools

Did you know that there are as many social media tools as there are pictures of the Kardashians circulating the Web?

This makes it really hard to decide which Social Media tool to use and why you should use that tool.

Tools are a key part of properly managing your Social Media in addition to having a great strategy, dedicated staff or other assistance and a budget.

Let’s take a peek at several of the best tools out there presently, and how they can aid you with managing your social media.

Great Social Media Tools and What They Do

The very first thing to do is determine which of the many social networks you are wanting to try and make use of. Then we can determine which of these tools might be best for your business.

Tweetdeck - A excellent tool for Twitter that organizes all of your Twitter activity onto one “deck”. This gives you the ability to see at a glance what’s going on.

LikeAlyzer - A pure Facebook analytics tool, this one gives you the ability to take an in-depth look at your Facebook pages and even provides suggestions on what you can do to improve them.

Klout - What’s your Klout? This tool gives a score based on your social profiles and reach, and spits out a number between 1 and 100.

Mention - Mention tracks anywhere that your name or your company could be mentioned online, and delivers them to you in a daily email.

IFTTT - This very unique automation app works with more than 90 different channels including Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Instagram to automatically update your services using “formulas” you concoct. (If this, then that)

Buffer - An execllent automation tool that gives you the capability to schedule out social media posting and update to your various accounts. This works well with Facebook, Google+ LinkedIn and Twitter, among others.

Hootsuite - The most well-known of these tools, Hootsuite is an incredible social media management tool that allows you to keep track of up to 100 accounts on many social media sites, all from one centralized dashboard.

#Social media #social media tools #Social Media

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Have You Noticed a Drop in Your Website's Ranking? Time For SEO Troubleshooting

SEO Troubleshooting for Local Sites

Have you ever experienced that dread and panic when the ranking of your local website begins to drop? A good ranking in the local area is something that is key for exposure for your business and a drop in this can often cause some panic.

So what do you do when your rankings begin to drop? What was previously a steady stream of leads and customers has turned into a trickle, and you don’t have a clue why.

Often the solution to fix your local SEO issues is an easy fix than can push you back where you need to be in a matter of days. In other instances it may be a bit more in-depth.

The first step is to take look at the possible reasons why your local SEO rankings may have taken a hit and began to drop.

Several reasons your local rankings sometimes fall

Violating the Google Places Quality Guidelines - Thankfully for us, Google provides a list of all the things they expect of a site to list in their local listings. If you violate these guidelines, you’ll likely begin a decline in your rankings.

Poor site information - Getting your NAP info wrong or inconsistent is a very common and easily correctable error. Be sure you have accurate names, addresses and phone (NAP) information on every platform you’re on. Luckily there are several online tools that help you find any errors in this regard, and quickly fix them.

Inadvertent duplicate content - For those who have a site with multiple locations, it’s very likely you have at least been tempted to re-use the same content on each site. Don’t make this mistake. Make each page unique, and avoid this completely.

Nothing fresh in ages - Two reasons for this: first Google likes to see fresh relevant content, and second, your competition is doing it, and you will eventually be eclipsed by them if you stand still and do nothing. Constantly seek to add new content, seek new reviews and citations, and share socially. This will benefit your site in numerous ways.

Once you have reviewed the above items set aside some time to correct any items you have found. If you still don’t see any improvement you may want to consider reaching out for help. We wold be happy to perform a FREE review of your site and let you know what we see.

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#Local SEO #seo #SEO Fixes #Search Engine

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Learn What SEO Strategies No Longer Work in 2014

Stop beating these SEO tactics to death: they no longer work!

Google is an always changing animal and so are the strategies that are used to increase your rankings for your website and other online profiles. If you have been doing any form of online marketing for any period of time we are sure you have picked up some tricks that you use for the sole purpose of increasing your rankings. Unfortunately, over time some of these tricks that you have used in the past have become ineffective. We have seen where a strategy that worked last year not only no longer works, but it can in fact now hurt your ability to rank your online properties.

It is time that you review some of these SEO tactics that worked before and see what you should stop using as part of your strategy.

What’s no longer working with SEO in 2014

Overusing or stuffing of keywords – In the past you could stuff your pages with a lot instances of your primary keywords, and see your page rank well for these keywords. This no longer works. In 2014 the best practice to use is to include your primary keyword in the title, and a few other places on the page, but you MUST be writing for your readers first and not for Google. Having relevant content is much more important than the number of times your main keyword appears on the page.

Micro content – In the past in searching Google you would see a lot of sites/pages on the first page that contained small amounts of content and typically content that was of poor quality. Today what you will see on the first page of Google are pages with in-depth content, content that has been written for the reader an not Google and other search engines. There is a place for micro-content and that is primarily your social sites which should be used to help drive traffic to your main website and pages.

Article marketing – Article Marketing used to be a great way to drive traffic to your website, but since the Panda update from Google it is less effective than before. We feel it still should be used as part of your strategy, but more focus should be placed on blogging on your main web properties.

Keyword anchor text - Google’s algorithm has become smarter, and now understands that if every link into your site has “Your main keyword” as the clickable anchor text, something is afoot. Strive for a more natural link footprint, using keywords, your site URL, as well as some random phrases that make sense, such as “click here” and longer, post specific terms.

The absence of social media - Not so long ago, if you were completely put off by the idea of dealing with social media on your site, you didn’t have to. Now, you may as well start selling shoes. (Offline) Be sure and make your posts and pages socially sharable and start your own social sites if you haven’t already.

Link building – Link building used to be a great way to get the attention of Google. The more places online that linked back to you with your keywords helped increase your search ranking. In fact many times people often paid for links. This is now a horrible strategy and can get you penalized. Links are important, but they should come from your great content that you have written for the reader getting shared and liked in a natural organic way.

#Search Engine tips #seo #SEO Tps #Search Engine

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Why Pinterest Should be Part of Your Marketing Plan

Have you incorporated Pinterest into your Social Media Plan Yet?

Pinterest is a great platform to use to help drive traffic to your website and according to Shopify the average spend from a Pinterest referral is double what comes in from Facebook.

#Pinterest

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Create a Content Marketing Initiative

Learn How to Create a Working Content Marketing Initiative for Your Small Biz

Content marketing is where it’s at nowadays, and for good reason. Done correctly, it can produce large amounts of links, traffic and the resulting authority and rankings that go together with those. However many small businesses find themselves in the position of having a wealth of great ways to market, and not nearly enough time or resources to make them happen.

Let’s avoid that by having a quick look at five ways you can energize your small business content marketing, as soon as possible!

Five tips for content marketing in your small business

Use this plan as a place to start for creating your own content marketing initiative.

Know your strategy - Develop a working plan that takes into account all the various forms your content marketing takes. This can mean textual content, as in blog posts, ebooks and more. Video, infographics, podcasts and other forms can also be part of your strategy. Know your goals and time frames for this plan and make this a flexible strategy, able to adjust as necessity and data demands.

Create a budget - You will have to spend a couple of dollars here, in people hours and other costs, and you should know what you’re willing to commit and budget it beforehand.

Assign talent - If you aren’t lucky enough to have writers on staff, (as well as videographers and image designers) you will need to find them. This can be a time consuming task when getting started, so take note of this.

Set up tracking - It’s important to make sure to set up tracking so you know what is working and what is not. In most cases, Google Analytics is fine for this purpose, even though there are better paid resources available.

Rinse and repeat - Once you have a handle on the type of content that your audience is responding to, be sure you do it again, but with different twists and slants, based on the feedback you’re getting as you go along. This, incidentally, is what’s known as Agile Marketing.

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#content #content creation #Content Marketing #Content

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How to Measure the Performance of Your Email Newsletter

If you are producing an Email Newsletter typically this takes a lot of effort on your part to put together the content and create a visually appealing publication. But, is it working for you?

Is your newsletter performing for you? Or have you taken a minute to actually measure the performance? If you are not measuring it yet you need to spend some time and look at some metrics to learn how well it is working for you and also if you can improve it. Let’s take a look at what some of those newsletter metrics should be.

Metrics You Need To Measure

Track your clicks and especially conversions -

We assume you’re doing this work for a reason, so it’s crucial to know how many of your readers are clicking and converting, no matter what you’re your conversion goals are. This is the money stat.

Monitor your bounce rates -

A bounce rate is simply the number of emails that aren’t successfully delivered. You can have a “hard” bounce, which is where you have a bad address, or a “soft bounce”, where the inbox is either full or unavailable, or perhaps a server issue. Your email provider will quickly let you know when your bounce rates are excessive.

Check your open rates -

While not as vital as some of the other metrics, purely by virtue of the fact that there’s really no way to get a “real” accurate number because of image loads, it’s still worth using this as a guideline. An average email open rate is usually in the range of 15-20 percent, depending on the industry and the type of email.

Low delivery rates and high spam complaints -

Your email delivery rate should be no less than 95 percent, and if that’s not the case, there might be a problem with dead addresses, or even your email provider. As far as spam goes, if you are receiving more than 1 percent of spam complaints, you’ll very likely be sidelined by your email provider, as they take this very seriously.

Keep an eye on unsubscribes -

It’s normal to have people unsubscribe from your lists occasionally and for any number of good and bad reasons. What you need to know is that a typical unsubscribe rate is less than 1 percent, and if you’re anywhere near 5 percent, you want to find out why. Your messages might have slipped off purpose, or one issue could be that your emails have not been optimized for mobile viewing. Since now half of all email is read on mobile, it is important that your email can be viewed on a mobile device.

#email marketing #Email Marketing Metrics #Email Metrics #E-Mail Marketing

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The Latest Facebook Page Update is Coming - Here is What You Need to Know

The Latest Facebook Page Update is Coming – Here is What You Need to Know

Have you started to relax when it comes to your Facebook page? Well it is time to pay attention, Facebook is introducing a new Pages update that will need your attention if you’re intent on getting the most from your business pages.

The changes are meant to make the page appear more organized and enable people to access your information easier, but there are a couple of details that may be not be 100% welcome to some, even if this update is something of a aesthetic overhaul. Let’s take a peek at how this is rolling out.

New changes to your Facebook Pages

A single column Timeline - The biggest modification you will notice is that your Timeline will now show up on the right side of the page. The left column is going to be devoted to all of your business info, along with pictures and videos.

Significantly wider pages - The Page now measures an astonishing 511 pixels, up from 403 before. This is more than a 25 percent bump over the space you had before. You’ll be able to insert bigger images, and make the post more visually exciting.

Where’s the Like button? - Okay, you may not like this one. The Like button is now getting overlaid on your cover image. So, if you’ve got an image that’s busy or otherwise crowded, the Like button may not be seen at all.

Apps pushed down - Another not so fun one: your Apps are now on the left side of the page, and are vulnerable to getting pushed even further down the page because of the introduction of the new Similar Pages feature.

The new Similar Pages feature - This one enters into view when a person likes your page or one of your apps, and effectively pushes your Apps below it. Even worse, it could contain your competitor’s pages!

Right now you have to choose to use the new design, but it looks like most pages will begin to be moved to this design starting around June 15th. Not everybody will embrace the changes, but it is a cleaner, more organized layout, even if we may not like a few of the placements.

#Changes to Facebook pages #Facebook #Facebook changes #Faceboook pages #Uncategorized

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Today, we are all publishers. From the last tweet you sent, to the last twenty-four hours of likes, comments and Facebook posts – this truth holds true. The self-publisher in each of us is partic...

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