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Posts tagged ‘marketing’

Mar 24

Build-a-Blogging-Empire
2 Comments

10 Stumbling Blocks for Small Businesses to Avoid on Their Blog

Unlike simply creating a site for one’s business, creating a blog is an ongoing effort and a serious commitment to do a lot of writing and thinking on a regular basis. Whenever your business undertakes a new project of any kind, proper planning should include an analysis of potential pitfalls that could jeopardize the success of and even the continual existence of your project.

Businesses choose to start blogs as marketing projects, and in order for a blog to succeed it needs to be well designed and run, and new fresh and relevant content needs to be added on a regular basis. Ten conditions that can affect your blog are shown below so that you can plan to avoid them by taking proactive steps at the beginning.

  1. Neglecting Social Media
    Blogging goes hand-in-hand with social media, and the best chance of your blog being read by potential clients is to make sure your content and links get to social media sites. In addition, the best way for maintaining and improving your social networking is to regularly participate and update your profiles. Proper planning can also help by setting up syndication of your new blog content to many social network profiles automatically. All plans for new blogs need a good social network strategy or your blog will only get a fraction of the traffic that it could if you did.
  2.  Failing to Create a Consistent Writing Style
    Whether one or more people write on the blog for your business, the use of language and ways of presenting various kinds of information can be standardized in terms of style. This is most important when blogs have multiple authors. No matter the number of authors, your blog needs one voice.
  3. Blogging for Corporate Vanity
    Besides describing your products and services, some bloggers create more articles which are centered around their business. Consumers are more likely to come to your site and search engines will give you higher rankings if your blog concentrates on providing useful information related to your field without turning it into a sales pitch. The writing your team will do will be of a higher quality because they are writing articles and not advertisements. Providing some useful information for free will result in more clients in the long-term because of increased brand confidence and boosted search engine rankings.
  4. Micromanaging Blog Authors
    Some companies are far too cautious, putting multiple layers of reviewing staff before new content is published. They may also delay the approval of new topics. This is demotivating to blog authors and puts up barriers to posting good fresh content on the blog. Some creativity should be allowed, and authors must be trusted to choose topics.
  5. Not Allowing Comments
    Many businesses starting a blog are cautious and turn off the commenting feature on their blog. Answering client and public positive commentary as well as complaints can be effectively accomplished on your business blog when you open it up for commentary. Your company still has control of which comments can be published, as you can set an option to review all new comments before approving them. Others choose to allow all comment posts and then remove any offensive comments later when monitoring comments. Another added benefit of allowing comments is that it can put new text content on your most popular blog pages on a regular basis. This raises your search engine rankings in Google, Yahoo and Bing.
  6. Badly Written Posts
    Grammar and spelling are not only noticed by your customers but also by the search engines. Good writing style, perfect grammar and spelling are crucial for every post, and one bad blog post can hurt your blog’s reputation. Common errors include run-on sentences and forgetting to run a spelling checker before publishing. Sometimes inconsistent performance by new blog authors is an issue, and this will get better with experience.
  7. Poor Blog Design
    There are two parts of design: aesthetics and usability. Clean and minimalist design featuring a good logo, use of whitespace to separate different parts of your page and a consistent look for all of your pages is the hallmark of a good blog and website design. Blogs that look cluttered or even too pretty and overdesigned distract people from the original content. The design is merely a path for people to navigate and a way of displaying content. This is where usability comes into the picture of design. A good design looks the same across multiple browsers, and has visible text for search engines and electronic readers for the blind to access all content. Text should always be large enough to read, which means it is important to not give in to the temptation to use small fonts in some areas to free up space on the page. A site map or archive of posts should be easy to find as well.
  8. Lack of Realistic Goals
    Companies sometimes act on bad information, and they sometimes over-estimate the amount and rate of new business that their blog will get them based on their budget. Managing expectations can be difficult, but it can help a project be thought of as a success rather than a failure. Your company’s blog can be successful, but if you are in a competitive field, you are going to have to do a great job of writing and also have an advertising budget and strategy that can deliver the new business you need.
  9. Writers Block
    Getting stuck when you need to think of new topics that are relevant is a common problem that slows down the posting schedule. Reading as much news about your industry as possible will help your blog authors come up with fresh ideas. The reading of industry news will also keep the topics and tone of your blog consistent with contemporary views in your field.
  10. Lack of Time to Write
    Unless your business is very large, you and possibly other employees will be responsible for writing while also having other responsibilities at work. A risk for your blog is to have no fresh content added for long periods of time while you and your staff concentrate on other responsibilities.

We hope that this survey of potential risks to your business blog gives you something to think about concerning your blog or planned future blog. For assistance through a free consultation with us, please call us at any time at 646-853-0573.

Mar 24

SEO_11
2 Comments

Free Small Business Marketing Plans

The best ways to market your small business has changed drastically in the last twenty years, and recent years have changed marketing methods the most ever.

In an effort to provide education to fellow small businesses, the Web and I is taking the unprecedented initiative of offering an analysis of your existing marketing efforts and new marketing plans to suit your small business that when implemented can put you one step ahead of the competition.

We have experience helping small businesses of many markets, and our primary efforts at research and development are geared towards contemporary small business marketing. Let our experience open your eyes to the possibilities for growing your business now, call us at 646-853-0573 today!

Mar 24

SEO_11
3 Comments

Five Important Marketing Strategies for Small Businesses

Today most but not all businesses have a Website. Their sites vary from excellent to poor, and most small businesses do not yet know what makes a Website effective at gaining new customers and retaining existing ones. Many website designers can make an attractive site, but few have taken the time to understand what separates an effective site from one that is merely attractive.

In addition to just having a website, there are old and new marketing strategies that can help to transform market share for those that take advantage now. Marketing has always been around, but advertising methods remained the same from around 1920 through 1990. After 1990, websites and electronic marketing began to be used, first by the largest businesses and by the year 2000, small local businesses and professional practices started to get Websites.

Compare if you will, the marketing practices and the corresponding behavior of consumers in the 1950′s through the 1980′s. Every small local business and professional practice had a clear and straightforward method of advertising and marketing to ensure that they got the market share that their performance and reputation deserved. The first step for a small business was to design a logo either as a graphic or as stylized text or a combination of these approaches. The business would then call AT&T’s Yellow Pages Advertising department and place an advertisement in the appropriate section matching their business. The terms were per year, as that is how often the Yellow Pages were published and distributed. Small businesses would have to maintain their ads every year to maintain their local market share. The first place that consumers at home and in business or government would look for a business of any kind was in the Yellow Pages. People trusted businesses that were listed in the Yellow Pages, and if one’s business did not have a listing that year, consumer confidence in that business would be decreased. Most new business in every field came from the consumer finding them and liking their listing in the Yellow Pages. The second tactic that new businesses and sometimes existing ones would use is to hire one of their local public relations firms to craft and publish a press release that would appear in the most prominent local businesses. Consumers selecting businesses were looking in the Yellow Pages but not the news paper, so the effect of the press releases was not for immediate gain of new clients. The press releases did serve to inform people about new businesses that were starting in their area, and what consumers read does make a lasting impression. Appearance in the newspapers in press releases and as advertisers was shown to improve brand trust, and all kinds of businesses that were intelligently run made sure to make their media appearance last. When a consumer did finally pick up the Yellow Pages and look at the lists of comparable businesses, they would see your business listing and advertisement right next to your competition, and then their prime consideration was their confidence in the business in question. Businesses who built consumer confidence in the media were the most likely to be selected because of this recognition. Ongoing advertising in the local papers and applicable trade journals was the final tactic employed by small businesses during that time. Small businesses with over twenty employees also employed billboard advertising, radio advertising, and the most successful could afford television advertisements.

People still do read, but much of their news is read online. Often the papers and magazines they once subscribed to, they often still do but now use the website edition more. People have stopped using the Yellow Pages and now use search. Most recently, search is starting to reflect location, and once again you are listed alongside of your competitors just as you were in the Yellow Pages.

Many businesses just have not changed their methods for getting new business, and they stand to lose out if they are wasting their money on Yellow Pages advertisements and other outmoded forms of advertising.

If you are now thinking about a proper web presence strategy for your company, this is the best time to grow your local market share despite the condition of the local economy. Making people aware of your brand the right way today is something your competition might not have thought of yet, and if they did you may be able to expose your brand better than they can by careful strategies conforming to current best practices for marketing.

Here are the five most important strategies for marketing your business today and maximizing local market share:

Social Networking

Surprisingly, Google, Yahoo and Bing are no longer the only place that people search for business. Increasingly facebook has been providing new business when consumers search directly in facebook. Some consumers are looking for consultants and small businesses in LinkedIn as well. In addition to those benefits, Google, Yahoo, Bing and other search engines give a higher ranking to companies based on a number of factors, and one of the most important of these factors is that mentions and links to your business exist on social networks. Businesses in the Fortune 500 are in all of the major social networks, and they even employ staff or consultants to manage their social network presence. A social networking presence is a crucial part of the strategy of any business.

Advertising Online: Beyond Google Pay-Per-Click

Search engines, social networks, and other sites offer advertising to suit any budget. If you have a large advertising budget and the competition in your business is suitable to benefit from paid advertising, you may be able to gain a short-term boost in clients through advertising that you pay for based on either the number of clicks or the number of times it shows. Generally, it is more important for large businesses to use these forms of advertising. Small businesses often find that the advertising costs are too much compared to the business that is brought in. There are exceptions to this general rule, and it is important to discuss your business with a qualified consultant to find out if online advertising is right for you. A smartly designed advertising campaign can bring new clients for less money than Google Pay Per Click.

Press Releases: A Traditional Advertising Method Still Vital

Press releases used to be offered through wire services such as Reuters and Associated Press among others. They would be offered as optional articles to newspapers and magazines that subscribed to their service. As a local small business, your press release would most likely be picked up by your local paper, and the publicity would increase awareness of your business in important ways. The press release would consist of a very stiff and formal description of the business with reasons for public confidence and the possible mention of key clients.

Today, wire services still exist and Reuters is still the best way to distribute a press release. Press releases through Reuters are usually published in online news sources and blogs. A traditionally worded press release will be picked up by your local news only, and perhaps a few blogs.

However the approach of the traditional press release is not the best way to write a press release today. Offering professional opinion in the form of an engaging article which offers value and is not self-serving might be picked up by forty major newspapers around the Country. The link to the related service or product on your site at the end of the article is what counts. Reuters offers valuable guidance to help you write a press release for today’s market. If you hire consultants to write this kind of Press Release, make sure they have an excellent success rate, which can be measured by the number and quality of publications that accepted and published their press release. A well-written release properly submitted will gain your business exposure and a back-link in over 40 respected publications as well as numerous blogs.

Websites for Small Businesses

A Website for a small business is very important but not for the reasons that many think when contemplating getting one for a small business. The most important thing about a website and your local presence is that it has keywords indicating the type of business you have and your products and services, and that your address and telephone number is available on every page. Clear descriptions about your products, services, and policies should be easy to access and conform to accepted standards. Minimalist design actually sells best and increases consumer confidence, rather than over-designed “pretty” Websites. Most small businesses that do get a Website are still too worried about having it be too pretty, and they ignore the true goals of a Website: making good and useful content as well as the business address and telephone number to both the consumers and the search engines. There are no standards or licensing involved in becoming a website designer, so the field is full of under-qualified consultants who will lead businesses down the wrong paths.

Automation

Automation can be an important cost-saver for small business as the labor savings from automated systems not only puts time back in the hands of your workers as well as providing a framework for more effective teamwork. Projects involving the implementation of automation schemes provide an excellent opportunity to start measuring results and using the data for making better tactical decisions. Social network automation ranges from PingFM or similar products that syndicate content to multiple social networks. Some paid tools are very helpful including Social Oomph which has a variety of useful ways of managing facebook and twitter accounts. A Pingler Professional account will submit your website to over 180 search engines worldwide. Some search engine optimization firms like ours offer services in setting up this kind of automation. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is a great program to help you manage and qualify leads, marketing schemes, and communication all around. Dynamics CRM will provide you useful reports and graphs showing the health of your sales and marketing channels, and the consumer confidence generated by a consistent customer relations experience with your firm helps turn leads into clients consistently, so you can concentrate on improving your conversion rate. Online records management with SharePoint Server is another great form of automation that will save time and by extension money as well. You can link a multi-function printer (MFP) so that it scans documents and automatically sends a copy to your document library, where you can impose order in a number of ways, search for documents instantly, and have copies available for immediate printing when you need them. Faxing can be automated by replacing your fax machines with cloud fax services, allowing you to quickly fax from your PC, tablet, or phone, making it easier to fax for targeted marketing.

The Web and I has engineers who make following the shifting sands of small business marketing a primary professional endeavor. Call us today for a free consultation and marketing plan at 646-853-0573.

Mar 24

SEO_11
1 Comment

Local Search and Small Businesses Face New Challenges and Opportunities in Marketing

Many small business owners think that having a Website and getting search engine optimization (SEO) consulting is not important for small business. Indeed in years past it used to be mostly important for large businesses to be found on the Web. Small businesses were still found in the Yellow Pages and through newspaper ads and circulars. Small businesses were very focused on advertising methods which had served them well for a century. Those marketing methods served small businesses well because their marketing efforts were spent where consumers and other small businesses were looking: telephone directories and newspapers. Today’s consumers and businesses are looking for small businesses in a completely new way: the Internet. Most are looking on Google on their PC’s. Some search on Yahoo and Bing. Holdouts for the Yellow Pages are finding that the Yellow Pages and White Pages are also online. Occasionally, consumers are finding businesses to serve them using social networks they post in every day. If that is not enough of a shift in the way people find businesses to patronize, some people are searching with their mobile phones and their I-Pads.

Even search engines are not the same as they were since Google changed the way people look for things. Search engines originally produced one set of results. A search for supermarkets in the original Google would produce websites for the major chains of supermarkets in the Country. These sites were, in the early stages, geared towards their stockholders and potential stockholders as well as the news media. The fundamental problem with this kind of search is that it is useless to type “supermarket” into a search engine if you are looking for a supermarket. Google shifted focus to make this more useful by completely changing the way results are delivered. Most searches are consumer searches, and most people make their buying decisions based on what they find in the first page or two. The nature of most of these searches when it comes to local brick-and-mortar small businesses is that they are near to the people who are using the search engines. Google can determine to within an average accuracy of 20 miles automatically, and they found an important way to put it to use. When Google introduced Local Search, users found most of the first search page was devoted to local results. Businesses do not need to have a Website to be in this listing, but a lot of businesses are not listed. The listing is easily added by small businesses either on their own or through a consultant. To add to the complexity, Google is not the only source for local listings on the Internet. In the world of search engines, many prefer Bing or Yahoo. Each of these search engines require your business to be manually listed in order to give you proper representation. Even if your business has been automatically listed, you should verify ownership and gain editing privileges. Again many businesses find that this is best done by a consultant. If you are comparing the marketing of the 20th century to marketing today, these search engine listings correspond in use and importance to the Yellow Page listings which used to be of prime importance. The people who used to use the Yellow Pages are mostly using these three search engines or 120 others worldwide. The best way to be listed is to communicate updates regularly to all search engines as well as other sources of search. Other sources of search can be social networks, news sites, blogs, video sites, and bookmark sharing sites. Increasingly, people are finding businesses through Facebook and to a lesser extent, YouTube, Twitter and LinkedIn. Search engines also add importance to your business when mentions of your business and links back to your site are present in these other online venues. This is what is known as social buzz, and it can really provide an outstanding marketing opportunity for small businesses who are early adopters. As people start to rate their experience with businesses online, it can also present a peril for the unprepared business. The search engines and all of the other Internet venues present opportunities for consumers to give reviews. The popularity of these reviews is increasing, as consumers are using all of these venues as a way to record their positive or negative impressions of the businesses they have used. Businesses that may not know of a negative rating on one site or more risk lost business. Professionals and dedicated do-it-yourselfers can ameliorate the effects of bad reviews and increase good reviews by offering incentives. We recommend that incentives for good reviews come in the form of a one-time rebate for services or products from one’s company. In most business models this serves to increase loyalty, raise online good reviews from people who regularly patronize your business and increase repeat business by tying it in to the incentive. Reputation management becomes a great tool for businesses that are familiar with current marketing realities.

For more in-depth information on this topic, read about five marketing strategies that will help you compete effectively in today’s market.

Jan 8

1 Comment

Landing Pages for Pay-Per-Click Advertising

The landing page design professionals at the Web and I are ready to provide you with results in the form of great conversion rates for your pay-per-click advertising campaign. To make sure you have the best possible landing page to make the most return on investment, we test two landing pages side-by-side for results in a process known as A/B Testing. We do our best to match the content of your potential customers to the search terms they are using.

Landing pages which are not properly thought out and are under-designed are not able to hold the attention of your potential customers, resulting in poor conversion rates and wasting advertising dollars. With the increasing costs of pay-per-click advertising campaigns, it is essential to have a very optimized and targeted landing page.

Our professionals will make landing pages that are specific to your campaign and reflect the needs and wants of your target audience. Our team will put each page together from scratch, with carefully chosen images and language while using proven technologies and techniques to increase your sales.

Testing, Quality Assurance and Quality Improvement

What kind of advertisement is the best to accentuate your products and services? Many original ideas will come from you, but there is always room for improvement. The landing page optimization process involves the study of your target market and the behavior of online consumers. Each page must be put together to attract your target market, but the page design will be in testing phase until the performance can be tested by comparing to similar landing page designs in what is called A/B testing. We will test different ideas until we find out what works and doesn’t work for you in practice, rather than going with our first design. This will make a great deal of difference to your bottom-line.

Ideas From Other Important Pages on your Site

Gaining a conversion on your landing page is great, but what about cross-selling of other related products on your site? A well-designed landing page takes content from other pages of your site, and has suggestions for other related purchases on your site which your potential customers may be interested in. Additional suggestions or enticing copy can be placed which will be of interest to a consumer who has already made a purchase.

An Effective Call-To-Action

Having an effective call-to-action is an intrinsic part of creating a great landing page. The call-to-action is the part of the page that draws to consumer and urges them to act, making a purchase or requesting additional information. The call-to-action should be alluring and enticing. This part of the advertising is very similar to traditional advertising, and involves a collaboration between graphic artists and content writers.

The most important part of our landing page designs, is that they are designed to work with your pay-per-click advertising campaigns. Each landing page is crafted to compliment  they keywords you have selected in your pay-per-click ad group. Together with us, we will team up to maximize your return on investment. Call us now for a free consultation to discuss how we may make your sales dreams come true at 646-853-0573.

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