Category: Marketing

    Secrets of Highly Effective Social Media Experts

    Successful social media experts know what it takes to make social media work for you. Aside from including regular updates, relevant posts, and stand-out content, make sure that you stay involved in each social media network in a personal way.

    * Make Your Social Media Profiles Stand Out – Fill out your social media profiles in full, and learn what constitutes best practices for social media profiles on that particular network. Each network has its own personality that you should mind, but let your personality shine through too.

    * Make the Right Connections – If you can connect with other experts and movers and shakers, you’ll be able to get more traction because if you can have a conversation with them, all their followers will see it.

    * Make Your Business Pages Interactive and Informative – Don’t skimp on making your pages represent your business appropriately. On each social media network you can create pages that look awesome and get results.

    * Share Relevant Industry Topics – If you want to quickly become a go-to expert, find relevant industry news and share it with your followers. Don’t worry; giving it away works.

    * Join the Conversation – Don’t just be a robot by posting things without ever commenting and entering into discussions with others. You want to jump right in and talk to others just like you would if you were at a live social gathering.

    * Learn to Use Hashtags Correctly – Hashtags help you organize and search for relevant content on social media. Always use the # before the word, use no punctuation, keep it as short as possible and use letters and numbers.

    * Advertise Strategically – Running advertisements on social media is a great way to get the word out about a new product or service. However, be strategic when running an advertisement so that you know exactly what you expect to achieve with it.

    * Use Sponsored Ads and Posts – When you have something important to get across to your audience, it’s important to use sponsored ads where many eyes are on the post. Mind your budget.

    * Hire an Experienced Copywriter – For some of the posts, it’s imperative that you work with a copywriter who understands your business and your voice, to help you with many of the posts and get them right within the space needed.

    * Be Yourself When You Post – When you are in a discussion on social media, outside of representing your business you are also representing yourself. Be who you are so that your social media presence has a personality.

    You don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you get involved with social media marketing. Follow the experts and do what they are doing. Focus on differentiating yourself and being a real person with a unique voice that represents your business.

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    Strengthen Your Local Presence

    Marketing locally is something that most online businesses should do. Even if your audience is world-wide, you can make a big impact by taking advantage of strengthening your local presence. Having a local presence will help those who are local to you find you easier, plus, it can help increase your expertise quotient. Here’s how to strengthen your local presence.

    * SEO – Search engine optimization consists of a lot of different techniques to get more people to come to your website. The words on your page (keywords), as well as the words and links you earn off your page, are all important.

    * Blogging – The more you can blog about your business on your website and off your website, the more likely you are to get local visitors. You just need to ensure that you use local keywords and a profile that mentions your location.

    * PPC – Use pay-per-click ads that mention location, or target people in your location using the demographic settings that most PPC platforms allow you to do. This is a great way to improve your local presence. Facebook has an especially awesome targeting tool.

    * Social Media – Use social media to tell more people about your business, focusing on local people first, and then allowing it to expand out to other locations. Ensure that you mention your location on all social media sites.

    * Go Mobile – Have all your visitors sign up to receive text messages from you, then separate them into different locations where you can invite them to a special local-only sale. You’ll usually know who they are from their area code.

    * Claim Your Business – Google Business, Yahoo Small Business, Yelp and other local business directories all have listings. Your business might already be listed, so be sure to claim and verify your business listings.

    * Get Listed – Find local directories, including your local Chamber of Commerce directory, and ensure that your website is listed. You might have to pay for some of these, so choose wisely and pick the most frequented and professional websites to spend your money.

    * Fill Out All Profiles – This is very important; you need to fill out all your profile accurately and completely on every place that asks for a profile. Use your location to help you show up more in local searches for the best results.

    Getting known locally is an important way to get more local visitors to your website, which will translate into more local business. Even if you want to do business internationally, there is nothing wrong with being known locally as it can open a lot of doors for you in terms of public speaking, coaching and teaching – in addition to making more sales.

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    Eight Website Builders That Work and That Anyone Can Use

    Building a website is one of the most important marketing materials you’ll ever create for your business. You can use the website to demonstrate your skills, announce your sales, and communicate with and educate your audience. Today, a website is an essential element in getting the word out about a business. Here are eight website builders that work and that anyone can use.

    1. WAHMDrive.com – This website builder is simple to use for an e-commerce site or a regular website. It has many wonderful features, from a catalog to a shopping cart. There are limitations to it but if you’re just starting out and need a site up fast without hiring someone, this builder really does work.

    2. Wix.com – Drag and drop functionality allows you to build powerful, beautiful, and attractive websites easily. This builder is very good for anyone who wants to have a lot of images to show on their website, such as photographers. They are displayed beautifully and aren’t hard to build either.

    3. Weebly.com – This is actually a WordPress-based builder using drag and drop functionality. It looks great and works great too. That’s why so many people choose to use it. Don’t use the free version, though; always upgrade to the paid version for the best looking websites as well as the most attractive websites to your audience.

    4. Squarespace.com – This visually attractive, mobile responsive builder is very powerful and flexible for many of your website building needs. The only drawback really is whether or not you are patient enough to figure out how to create websites that are as awesome as their samples. The templates are designed for artists, designers, and people who care more about visuals than the back end in terms of search engine optimization.

    5. WordPress.org – Self-hosted WordPress is by far one of the most popular website building software that you can get. For a good reason too: it’s free, and it’s easy to understand and use. You can find a lot of people to help you in terms of contractors, and the fact is, it works very well and you can create very complex websites with it as long as you find the right plugins and themes. WP is the best builder when it comes to SEO.

    6. WordPress.com – Many people realize that this is really a blog builder, but if you upgrade to the paid version you can make quite a detailed website that does everything you need it to do without having to worry too much about the inner workings of the technology. It’s more limited than the .org version but it’s a lot easier for a novice to use, too.

    7. SBI! – This is a website builder that seeks to have all-in-one functionality so that you don’t have to know much about technology. You can learn more through their website http://www.sitesell.com, which can tell you everything you need to know about the software as well as the entire program that comes with the software that will help you build your online business from scratch.

    8. SimpleSite.com – This builder is truly for someone who has no idea how to build a site or what to do. It will lead you through step-by-step screens that tell you exactly what to do to build your website. It helps you with all types of websites. The functionality isn’t as high as some of the others, but it does work well for a brochure-type website.

    Having a website that you’re proud of promoting and that gets the job done of telling others about your business, is an important part of running a business today. These builders can help you.

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    Pillars of Mobile Marketing

    There are eight essential elements that support successful mobile marketing. These are the things that you can do to help ensure your success when embarking on mobile marketing. Once you realize that many of the elements that create success in mobile marketing also create success in other areas of your business, you’ll be on board.

    1. Crafting Individual Personas – You should know your audience enough to be able to craft individual personas to whom you’ll be writing all your marketing messages, be they blog posts, email messages or social media updates. Knowing who you’re trying to communicate with is half the battle of any successful marketing message.

    2. Understanding Your Brand – Take the time to understand your own brand and what that means. What are you trying to represent to the world? When they see you on social media, in their email, and on your blog, what do you want them to think about you and your brand? Are you doing a good job conveying that message?

    3. Integrating Multiple Technologies – With mobile marketing it’s imperative that you know how to work with many different forms of technology and channels of communication with your audience. If you can’t do it, find someone to help you who can.

    4. Knowing Which Channels Matter – The way you know which channels matter is by knowing your brand inside and out, your niche well, and your audience. Where are they? Where do you need to communicate with them? Marketing to them on their terms will mean more than trying to pull them where you want them.

    5. Valuing Customer Relationship Management – Nothing is more important than your customers. After all, without them you would not exist. Your customers aren’t there for you; you are there for them. You need to value that relationship in a big way and stay connected to them as much as possible through a variety of means.

    6. Creating Mobile Marketing Strategies – Don’t try to create one marketing strategy for everything. Instead, create a special mobile marketing strategy just like you would create a blog marketing strategy or an app marketing strategy. Each works together but each exists on their own too.

    7. Developing Mobile Marketing Tactics – Until you understand the difference between tactics and strategy you’ll have a hard time implementing. Tactics are all about implementing the strategy. It’s the things you do each day that bring it all together.

    8. Auditing Metrics Regularly – One of the most important pillars of mobile marketing happens to be a pillar in most marketing efforts. If you cannot justify and quantify what is working and what is not working by studying the numbers, then you can’t know what is working so that you can do more of it.

    Mobile marketing isn’t much different from any other type of marketing. You need a plan, goals and a strategy and tactics to ensure that you meet your mobile marketing goals. When you understand that, you can be successful in whatever you do.

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    Social Media Marketing – Are You Controlling It or Is It Controlling You?

    Social media marketing is a good way to get the word out about your business, products and/or services. But, there are times when you have to be cognizant of the fact that social media marketing has the potential to draw you in and become a major time sucker. If you want to ensure that social media is not controlling you, follow these tips.

    * Have a Plan of Action – Don’t do anything without a plan. You need a GPS to get to your destination; you also need a plan to ensure that social media marketing will work well for your business.

    * Create a Social Media Publication Calendar – Plan ahead according to the products and services you want to promote to craft posts and updates that have a purpose. If you have a calendar with pre-written posts, you can easily schedule them to work with your product launches.

    * Avoid Time-Sucking Activities – You know it is simple to get sucked into yet another personality quiz or discussions about that delicious plate of pasta your friend just made, not to mention all the games – but don’t do it. It’s fine to have fun, but do it after your work is complete.

    * Outsource Scheduling – Once you create a publication calendar that matches your promotions you can give the list of updates to someone else to schedule and monitor. However, don’t make that an excuse not to engage personally.

    * Take Time to Comment and Engage – Even if you outsource parts of your social media marketing, be sure to personally comment and engage your followers so that they know you are a real person to trust and know.

    * Do More of What Works – If you do something that works, do more of it and less of what doesn’t. Monitor the metrics of everything that you do so that you are positive about what is working and what is not working.

    * Each Post Needs a Reason for Being – Don’t post something without a purpose. If you don’t know why you are posting it, don’t bother.

    * Don’t Forget Your Call to Action – Everything you do should have a CTA. Whether it is to share, follow, or click, ensure clarity about what you want your audience members to do. If they know what you want them to do, they’re more likely to do it.

    Using social media correctly to market your business is an essential element today in the world of advertising and marketing. Social media marketing can be very effective and inexpensive if you are careful not to waste time and effort on messing around and doing things that have no purpose.

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    How to Optimize a Squeeze Page for Search Engine Traffic

    When building a squeeze page it’s important that you understand who your audience is and what the purpose of the page is before getting started. Then, to optimize the squeeze page appropriately consider the following.

    1. Keep It Simple – Don’t go nuts with putting every last thing in every last squeeze page you make. You don’t want pop-ups and pop-unders on the same page. You don’t want too many keywords to gunk up how readers view your page either. You want the page to read well for real-life visitors, while at the same time attracting the search engines to rank you higher.

    2. Know Your Keywords – Study the keywords that your audience uses to find you. It doesn’t matter what other people think about your keywords, it only matters what your audience is using to find you. Look for high value, low competition keywords to use to attract your audience.

    3. Keywords in Titles – Not only should the titles on your page be keywords, they should also be in the proper heading style. If the search engine recognizes it as a header, it will place more importance on the words than if it’s body text.

    4. Optimize Title Tags – If you look at the top of any webpage, there is a title for the page. Take advantage of this area to define what the search engine sees about your page. If you don’t control this area, every page of your website will have the same title tag. Differentiate each page in order to get more hits from search engine.

    5. Use META Descriptions – Every page has a META description that will define how the search engine displays your search results to the reader. Make the most of this feature. If you use WordPress to build your sales pages, you can use a SEO plugin like YOAST, which allows you to control the META description and even see a preview of what it will look like before publishing the page.

    6. Keywords in Subheadings – Creating subheadings with keywords and header tags will help not only lead your user’s eye down to what you want them to read and describe the actions you want them to take, but it will also draw attention to the search engines.

    7. Keywords in Links – Make links within the squeeze page with words that are keywords and specific about the link. Don’t use words like “click here” – use words that describe what they’re clicking such as “100 Stroganoff Recipes” instead. Most people understand that underlined words are clickable now.

    8. Keywords in URL – If you can include a keyword in the URL of your squeeze page, that is a very good use of a keyword or keyword phrase. Don’t go too crazy with the keywords, though; you want the page URL to also look nice.

    9. Use Descriptive Keywords in Alt Tags – Search bots cannot read images, so it’s up to you to provide descriptions to the images that you have in your sales page. Use more than “pretty blue flower” to describe the image. Instead use words that are particular to your offer.

    10. Craft Awesome Headlines – Headlines in squeeze pages are important because people do not read horizontally online; they read vertically. Bolding a headline using headers and making sure it’s an important keyword, will not only lead the search engines to rank you higher, but it will also help your audience read your page better.

    11. Create Actionable Copy – Your squeeze page copy should include keywords that make sense. Don’t overdo it because using more than two percent keyword density in your pages will send alarms to the search engine that your site might be spam. Instead, create copy that leads your viewer to perform some sort of action.

    12. Consider Adding Video – Video is often shared, which adds an additional dimension to the sales page, but while a search engine bot can’t really watch the video, it can read the tags and notice that there is a video. And since users like video a lot, the search engine is more likely to put that page toward the top of the results.

    13. Responsive Design – People don’t exclusively use their PCs when looking at sales pages. In fact, a lot of people use their mobile devices while they’re waiting in the doctor’s office or visiting a coffee shop. The more responsive your design is, the more the search engines will like your page.

    Using these tips to create a fully optimized squeeze page to get more search engine traffic will work. Try making one or two changes at a time to make the effect even more useful for getting more search engine traffic. Search engines also like websites that are updated often – and since sales pages and squeeze pages don’t typically change much, improving your page over time is another way to garner more search engine traffic.

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    The Importance of Being Mobile-Friendly

    The Google mobile-friendly update may have you scratching your head and wondering about the value of making the investment to the changes. Your business can be a brick and mortar store and still find benefits in being online and mobile-friendly.

    Any advantage you can build in your industry can help you grow your company. Choosing to create a mobile-friendly website will not only help your company in the Google search engine, but will also draw attention to your site from users on the internet.

    Some Facts to Help Understand the Value of Mobile-Friendly

    – Most consumers need to see a product or activity seven times before following through on a specific call to action. Creating a mobile-friendly website will help your business get in front of the eyes of your potential customers.

    – Most consumers are making use of mobile devices for searches and even for purchases. Experts had been predicting that mobile use would overcome desktop and laptop use by 2016, but the threshold was crossed at the beginning of 2014. That means that your potential customers are using mobile devices to find and interact with you. Make it easy for that to happen.

    – The more time that individuals engage with your website (and therefore encounter your products or your services) the sooner they are likely to follow through on your call to action. Mobile visitors will engage more if the website has been optimized as mobile-friendly.

    – Visitors will not wait for loading. Mobile-friendly websites are optimized to load faster to offer quick solutions to mobile users. Studies have shown that most users give up on a website that takes more than 10 seconds to load – although most website design experts say that the time threshold is likely much lower.

    – A strong, mobile-friendly website will provide an advantage in a busy market place. Your company competes against all the other companies in the industry for the attention of consumers. It also competes against every other company. Visitors have more to see and less time to see it all because of the busy lives that spin around them. Creating a friendly and easy to use website can make your company one of those investments.

    – Mobile-friendly websites invite more engagement. More engagement means that a visitor invests more time in your website and on your website. This can translate into visitors becoming clients and clients becoming brand advocates.

    – Users are on the go and they are getting their information on the go. An interactive website – optimized for the mobile user – helps guide your users and offers them click and engage opportunities.

    There will never be a one-size fits all answer to the internet. Even if that one answer did exist, the habits of users and the challenges search engines face to keep up with the users would cause that one answer to change and shift as well.

    Building a successful business in today’s society is benefited with an online presence. Creating an optimized and mobile-friendly experience will further increase the focus that your company can receive from internet traffic.

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    Social Media Marketing Mistakes

    Social media marketing is an excellent way to increase your following and make more money. However, there are many common mistakes that people make when engaging in social media marketing. If you are making any of these mistakes, don’t worry; it’s never too late to correct your social media marketing and make it better.

    * Not Engaging with Your Followers – When your followers make a comment on something, share or ask a question, don’t wait too long to respond. If you have someone monitoring your social media, have them inform you of ongoing conversations and potential areas of engagement.

    * Not Filling Out Your Profile Completely – Incomplete profiles make your business look either sloppy, or fake. If you want to be taken seriously, fill out a complete profile with a good profile picture, your company logo/banner and information so that you can be contacted outside of the network.

    * Not Focusing on Follower Quality – Some people make the mistake of focusing on the quantity of followers rather than the quality. You want to concern yourself with finding followers who are potential customers.

    * Not Posting Regular, Relevant Updates – If you aren’t active on social media posting things that resonate with your audience, then you’re not going to get any traction. If you plan to be successful with social media marketing it takes perseverance and patience, not one-hit wonders.

    * Not Choosing Your Channels Wisely – You don’t need to be on every single social media channel. Be on the channels that your audience love and that will work out fine.

    * Not Automating Some Actions – There are a lot of things, such as scheduled updates, that you can automate on social media. Be sure to use scheduling when possible as long as it doesn’t make you look robotic.

    * Not Interacting Personally – Every chance you get, it’s important to make spur-of-the-moment updates that are relevant to your business and your goals. This will make you look more real in the eyes of your followers.

    * Not Personalizing Messages for the Channel – Sending out a mass message, using software, to all of your social media networks that you’ve connected with, is a big mistake. Most of the time, you’ll have leads who are on more than one account. If you do this they’ll quickly feel bored or worse, spammed.

    Using social media to market your business is a proven technique to get more customers, make more sales, and increase your bottom line, but only if you avoid these mistakes. Take one at a time and make the improvements needed to get on the right track so that you make your social media marketing profitable for your business.

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    Market Your Website Offline

    When a business owner builds a website, they often forget the one way to market a website that has nothing to do with technology. Marketing the website offline is a great way to get the word out about your website and what you offer. Using business cards, brochures, t-shirts and other premiums, plus being active in your local community, you can get the word out about your business.

    * Business Cards – Don’t forget to put the URL to your website on your business card. You can even put a QR code on the back of the card to encourage them to use their smartphone to visit the website.

    * Flyers and Brochures – Don’t discount flyers, brochures and other printed materials that you can create and give out when anyone asks questions about your business. Keep some in the car, and ask people to allow you to post your flyers in their business.

    * T-Shirts and Premiums – People love wearing t-shirts with different business names on them. Why not put your business on the t-shirts you wear instead of someone else’s? This is a great way; if you can create something a little different you’ll get more questions.

    * Window Decals – That real estate on your car can be put to great use when promoting your website offline. Be sure to make the information big enough so that people can really see it. Choose a catchy URL too so that people can remember it while driving.

    * Sponsor Events – Whether local or not, you can pay to sponsor events. This means you’ll appear in the brochure, perhaps on signs at the event, and maybe be mentioned by the hosts of the event by voice during speaking parts of the program.

    * Host an Event – When you host an event, you’re a very noticeable presence. Your business name will be everywhere, you will be everywhere and people will get to know you and come to visit your website.

    * Attend Events – When you attend live events, you can draw a lot of attention to your business by handing out cards, wearing t-shirts when appropriate, even giving out premium products like pens, cups, and so forth so people remember you when the event is over.

    * Teach Locally – You don’t have to be a certified teacher to teach classes. Some areas have lifelong learning centers that enable anyone who is an expert to teach something to people who want to learn something.

    When it comes to marketing, don’t leave any stone unturned. That includes marketing your website online and offline. Don’t forget that not everyone, even today, uses search engines or means online to find information. Some people still use old-fashioned information and paper to find the information they need.

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    Top Secrets for Creating a Mobile-Friendly Website that Passes Google Muster

    “Mobilegeddon” the masses cried when Google announced the mobile-friendly changes it would be making. Sites that passed the mobile-friendly test would be given a higher ranking than sites that were merely responsive or were not optimized in any way for mobile use.

    Google did make mention of the fact that the changes were specifically designed for mobile results, but the masses had already cried and few heard the calming words offered up by Google.

    Mobile-friendly is a GOOD THING. If your website is not currently mobile-friendly, then you are making it less likely that the largest percentage of users will ever visit your site. More people surf the internet through mobile devices than with any other method.

    Mobile-friendly can also be an easy thing. Google has set up an explanation of what makes a website mobile-friendly. Google also offers a test to insure that your website meets the Google requirements.

    Top Things to Include in Your Mobile-Friendly Website

    1. Create a strong call to action what is displayed front and center of mobile devices. Know what you want visitors to do and ask them to do it when they land on your website.

    2. Keep it simple. Clean and precise content that displays on the mobile device will make it more likely that mobile visitors will utilize your site.

    3. Keep it short. Remember that answering questions or filling out forms on mobile devices can be more challenging than for laptops and desktops. Minimize the number of fields or offer autofill when possible.

    4. Make “home” easy to find and use. Easy navigation is essential for mobile-friendly.

    5. Keep it about that initial call to action. Your company may run specials or feature events, but ultimately your website needs to be about that call to action.

    6. Make search easy. Keep the search button in an easy to find location.

    7. Create a user friendly site. Although it is all about your call to action, it is also all about the visitor. Allow the visitor to use your site before she is forced to commit to the call to action.

    8. Offer conversion buttons. Allow information to be easily accessed across platforms or sent to a second platform for use at another time.

    9. One or the other. If you are not ready to commit to the mobile-friendly way of life, stick to the traditional website. Avoid mixing in elements of mobile-friendly until you are ready to optimize for mobile users.

    10. Avoid making more work for the user. Create a site that will adjust the size of the screen appropriately so that users do not constantly have to adjust the size to get the information needed.

    There are a number of things that you can add to your website that will continue to enhance the mobile experience without detracting from the desktop experience. Work with a website designer to discover which elements work best for your company. Embrace the Google mobile-friendly changes and elevate your website for the largest percentage of users today.

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