Agog in Cyberspace

We still hear people say - 'I already have a web site, so we don't have a need for your services.'  My response  back is this:  Is your web site working for you?  Is it keeping pace with your changing environment? Is it as compelling and fresh as the day it was launched? When people search for you online, do they find you easily? 

The way people use the Internet to shop, get information, or communicate evolves continuously.  As Internet Presence professionals, it is our job to stay on top of the latest trends and technology.

Influence is defined as 'the action or process of producing effects on the actions, behavior, opinions, etc., of another or others'.  As an Internet Presence firm, we deal with helping our clients gain 'Influence' on the web everyday

As a people, we are influenced everyday by other people, events and experiences.  We base many of our choices by the words and and actions of others.  That is where Social Media Marketing comes in.

Your customers are meeting each other and sharing ideas. Don't you want to be involved in the conversation?  Just having a Facebook Page and Twitter account is NOT going to get you the results you expect.  Let us demonstrate to you what we do that makes Social Media work for you.  We will customize a monthly Social Media Marketing program for you which will drive BUZZ and qualified leads to you and your web site.  You'll see results within the first month. 

Our monthly service comes with periodic reports measuring the results against the goals we set.  The key to an effective Social Media Marketing program is Message, Consistency, Follow up, and Measurement.
 

Consistency, Content, and Conversation are the 3 main ingredients of a successful Social Media Marketing program. Many potential clients I speak with don't grasp the impact that managed online marketing can have on their reach.  Typically, the first thing they want to know is why they would need to pay someone for doing something they could be doing themselves for free.  True, Facebook does not charge a fee to create and maintain a Facebook page.  Theoretically, the potential client could create and maintain their social media themselves.

The fact of the matter is that most businesses don't have the expertise or time in-house to create and maintain a Social Media Marketing plan.  Our experience is that on days that things are slow, the potential client posts something to their Facebook page.  It's typically whatever comes to mind at the time, or something that is relevant at the moment. 

Does that sound like YOU?

 The typical person doesn't post or tweet to their social media on a regular basis.  Activity is spastic: multiple posts on one day followed by several days of 'nothingness'.  I have found that the way to consistently increase the number of people you reach with your social media, is to provide timely and meaningful information.  Our typical approach when starting a new program with a Client is to produce an event and activities Story Board.  The Story Board is an outline, in chronological order, of special events or promotions planned in the future.  We then start adding sub levels to the outline below each special event or promotion that talks about or provides information about the item.  We call that - building up the Buzz.   By building up the Buzz slowly over time, we find that people are more apt to engage in conversation.  A recent example was a special class one of our Clients was going to host at one of their retail stores.  The conventional approach for a novice would be to post details of the event a few days prior. 

Our approach was to start posting general information about the topic of the class, in this case Pet Dental Care, a couple of weeks prior to the event.  Topics we posted were statistics on pets infected with dental disease left untreated until the pet became ill and required a visit to the Vet.  We added posts and tweets that linked to helpful webpages that discussed what pet owners can do at home as a preventative measure.  Finally we posted the event information.  By the time the Facebook post for the event came out, people were already sharing and commenting on the subject. 

Using this approach, we build a calendar of Posts and Tweets in our favorite calendar where we can visualize the 'Story Board."  By planning out the posts and tweets in advance, we can delivery relevant content consistently and drive conversation that increases the normal reach of our Facebook audience.     When our audience shares and comments on our posts, their Friends get engaged.  That increases our reach and drives new fans to our page.

The key to a successful Social Media Marketing program is CONSISTENCY CONTENT, and CONVERSATION.

I’m sure you are already aware that without a large ad, it’s near impossible to stand out from the crowd in Yellow Pages. Most of you purchase much more than just one listing. You’ll purchase listings under multiple headings, chalking up several hundreds of dollars more. And for what? A static ad that most people will either stick in a drawer somewhere or toss out in the Recycle Bin. Do you even know how many of the thousands of books that are tossed on the front steps of consumers with your ad in it are ever used? How many people will ever see your ad?If you have something new and exciting going on in your business, you can't update or change your print ad.

True, some provide an “Internet” option with their pages, but once you see what that looks like, and how poorly it compares to the performance of a custom website, you’ll be sorry you ever considered it. We know this from experience. We have numerous clients who have tried the Yellow Pages web options and regretted their decisions. We even experimented with Action Pages a few years ago for a couple of Display Ads. Our "heavily discounted" cost for 1 year was $4350.26. After 1 year, we were able to account for 2 phone calls as a result of the ad, and neither of those were prospective clients – they were trying to sell us something.

The cost of Internet marketing is considerably less per month than the Yellow Pages. Internet marketing can be a dynamic part of your marketing. Unlike the static Yellow Pages ad that is in the book for a year before you can modify it, you can change content, images, and your sales message when you choose. You can target seasonal or new product offerings. We understand that you may not have time to always update and maintain your own website, so we offer that service too. Customer Loyalty:

Your internet marketing campaign will attract attention to your business and allow you to establish connections with both current and prospective clients. They sign up for your newsletter, leave comments on your blog posts, or contact you for more information. Your Yellow Pages advertisement doesn’t help you to build ongoing relationships with your clients. We can help you determine which website marketing methods will bring you the best results without causing you to spend a ton of cash. You’ll be amazed at how much more you can accomplish online!

More and more consumers are searching for products and business services online which is quickly making the Yellow Pages an obsolete form of advertising. Yellow pages are used about 6% of the time and usually by people over 60 years of age. Google Maps, BING and Yahoo Local are the new Yellow Pages! They receive over 88 % of all searches. Yellow Pages online is used more than the traditional Yellow Pages but continue to lose market share because of their business model. 97% of consumers search for local businesses online. Be there when they’re looking for you with Google Places for business. (Source: Google.com) It’s important to realize that Yellow Pages, Super Pages, Action Pages and Yellow Book have never been a true advertising medium. They are simply directories. They do not give detailed information about a business and one needs to be looking for a specific business before they can even find you in the directory. Additionally, the results of a typical Yellow Pages search will reveal the businesses that pay the most to Yellow Pages vs Organic Search Engine results which list the business that best match your search query.

A custom website and an Internet marketing campaign can save you hundreds, if not thousands of dollars per year.

Some people pay upwards of $1,500 per month for a small Yellow Pages ad while others are paying $5,000 or more for half-page or full-page advertisements.

Compare that to the average cost of a custom website and you could OWN your custom website, and get webMarketing hosting for 8 years.

Don't spend more and get less.  Let us show you how our web marketing can get you better results for less. 

 

“If you don’t know your starting point, how will you know how far you’ve come? “The same is true for the internet. If you don't measure your web site's current traffic and traffic sources, how will you know whether anything you did made any difference?

Traffic Analytics

Traffic Analytics is a standard tool in our Online Business system. Use it to track your online visitors. The simple reporting graphs are all you need to understand where you are on the internet. Just let a couple of weeks go by and use the data to set a baseline. Use that time to prepare your search engine management plan.

Search Engine Optimization
Search Engine Optimization is what ensures that your web site is set up in such a way that the search engines can easily index your web pages and will have little trouble figuring out what each page is about. Although the search engines have gotten much better, they still index your web site pages by following a sequence of instructions.
 
First, make sure your code is W3C compliant. Fill out all the tags for each HTML element. Pick one or two terms that your page is about. Make sure those terms show up in H1 tags somewhere on the page. Make sure the terms are included in the meta title, keywords and description tags. Make sure that the terms are repeated in various forms throughout the article. Above all else, make sure the content on the page answers a specific question and would be considered good content if you were to find it on the web yourself. This can't be stressed enough.
 
Once you have gone over each page and made sure they are great technically as well as content wise, you need to make sure your site has a legal statement, privacy statement and a site map. While search engine optimization can and does get much more involved than this, simply doing this basic stuff will get you 70 to 80 percent along the path to increased traffic and sales.

If you are not sure about the technical health of your web site, try our Website Health Checkup.

Search Engine Submission
Once your SEO for your website is complete, go ahead and submit your site to the search engines. Start off with the big three.  Google, Yahoo and Bing. These account for almost all internet traffic.

Directory Submission
Now that the search engines are crawling your site, make sure that your site is in all the directories. Start with Google Places, Yahoo Local, Hot Frog, Yellow Pages, Yellow Book. Use keyword infused descriptions that accurately portray your services. Make sure you fill the profiles out completely. You will rank higher if your profile is 100% filled out. Get ready for the sales calls as each of these free directory listings comes with a sales person trying to sell you SEO and PPC services. It is the trade off for visibility on the internet.

Pay Per Click Marketing
Now you have your company site optimized, submitted to the search engines and listed in every directory in town. Now what? If you want traffic, you can utilize pay per click. Pay per click has one simple rule. Never pay more for new business than is feasible to spend. This may seem obvious, but many people get involved in pay per click without really understanding it as well as they should and end up spending more than they have to in order to get a sale. If there is one area of your plan that you should outsource, this is it. With that said, there are plenty of resources online for this topic. Start small, get one product or service going in a profitable manner and then duplicate the effort. Track everything including inbound phone calls and you should be okay.

Social Marketing
Social networking includes sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linked In and YouTube. How your company can benefit from these resources varies greatly from company to company. Never attempt a social networking project without a specific, trackable goal in mind. Also, try not to think too linearly when thinking of uses for social media applications. For example, say your company is a dry cleaning service.  A Facebook fan page about your particular business may get some fans that you are related to, it probably will not be a big hit for people that do not know you personally.

Now think about this. What about a fan page that lists coupons and deals from all businesses for your local area? Let others post to your page. Now you have a resource that people in your area may like. You can add your coupons whenever you like and you are utilizing social networking to build a relationship with people in your target market.

Articles and Blogging
Now that you have the perfect site that is submitted to the engines and you have people clicking on pay per click links to view your products and services, you want to show those visitors that you are an expert in your field. There is no better way to do this than by writing articles that address specific problems that your customers may be trying to solve. Posting these articles on your site will eventually get them indexed in the search engines. Also, you can post these articles on other sites that already have a large amount of traffic.
 
Most of these sites allow you to have a link in your profile page that provides your contact information and a link back to your site. These links are great ways for potential clients to find you. In addition to article writing, you can also search through blogs using an engine like Technorati to find topics that are related to your industry. Posting comments and providing value in these forums will over time help you develop relationships with additional potential clients.