Online marketing solutions

The digital age has changed the way we do business.  People live on email, social networks, and Starbuck’s coffee.  Our mornings begin and end with the Internet.  But something interesting is taking place.  I wonder if you have noticed the growing desire and compulsive need being expressed – people want to have personal conversations with total strangers.

Privacy and anonymity seem to be a passing fad, a priority of the past.  Guards are down as people share their most private experiences, thoughts, and relationships to a global market.  The need to talk, question, and comment, may sometimes borderline obsessive behavior, but is actually a blessing in disguise for those email marketers who integrate their marketing campaigns with social media marketing.

As we engage our clients in blogs, twitter, and facebook, we want to have a discourse in meaningful and influential dialogues, furthering the discussions on a positive and informative note.  Our strategies are to develop trust and respect for our company, product, or service.  Without which there is no loyalty or repeat business.  But what happens when a negative comment is made on a blog or email communication?  Does it spiral out of control?  The need to learn how to respond in an open, unmediated arena will reduce that fear.  Learning to adapt to the continuing dynamics and constant challenges of the social Web is a daily experience.  Our attitude towards any criticism, however, should be to learn and grow from every experience.

Is the Comment True?

Whether a negative comment comes from a colleague, friend, relative or customer online we must ask ourselves is it true?  Don’t go into combat mode, as if you are being assaulted.  For some of you, honesty has always been an uncomfortable and unpleasant experience when dealing with negative remarks.  The world is filled with dishonesty.  Salespeople lie about their products, employees make excuses for their mistakes, and customer service people lie about when the product was shipped, and on and on.  It seems that telling a lie is easier than admitting a fault or product defect.  So we practice this thinking when dealing with our clients online.  But, that is not the way to go.

Having smart conversations with people who have something important to say, is being wise.  Productive criticisms about your product, service, website, or support, can only lead to improvement on your end and trust on theirs.  Being honest is being vulnerable.  But how can we develop loyalty and trust, if we cannot institute that in our own actions and lives?

Remain honest and straightforward. Most of your clients have been around the block.  They know when they are not receiving honest, straightforward responses.  Don’t try to impress, but address their issues honestly and respectably.

Be a proactive communicator. Keep your communications alive.  Many email marketers send communications when a new project or client has come on board.  Make sure you are both on the same page.  Never assume.  Question what is not clear, or what you might have missed.  Strive for excellence.  Email your client on a periodic basis.  Let them know they are very much alive in your thinking and planning.  Even if it seems redundant, keep the good vibrations going out to them.

Communications are a lifeline to business and client alike.  Honest communications today, build loyalty and trust offering a better bottom line tomorrow.

Before you begin developing your new website, you might want to take some time and come up with a plan. That plan should include the way in which you’re going to use SEO to better market yourself online. If you wait until you finish writing your code and content for the site before you begin SEO, you will have wasted a lot of your time and probably money. Whenever you incorporate SEO, it’s necessary to adapt the code and content anyway, so why not use it from the very beginning.

SEO & Web Development

First, begin by planning your SEO project. Decide on the Web development technology you want to use to build your site and consult with a SEO expert and ask how easy it will be to incorporate SEO into the development itself.

Know your Customers

It’s also important to do some keyword research. You need to understand your customers if you plan on keeping them. Know how your customers describe your products or services and what their top searches are when they choose your business or company. If you understand this, you understand the key words and the content you need to use in your site.

Don’t forget about Content!

The most important thing you have to keep in mind for your website is content. If you have well-written, good content about the services and products you provide, you will certainly get more traffic to your site. Why do you think Wikipedia appears at the top of every search engine when you type in a key word? Because Wikipedia has at least one page that is multiple paragraphs dedicated to that topic, its history, its place in the modern world and so on. Don’t just mention your services, explain them and let people read about them. Became an expert on what your business has to offer and share it on your website.

Link Building

It’s not fun and people wish they could ignore it, but you can’t if you want to have a successful site. For all those who are unfamiliar, Link Building is a process in which you create inbound links to your websites. Link building is necessary to get traffic and rankings. It gives your site exposure, credibility, and visibility.

It will be helpful for your business if you know about search engines and SEO. I recommend having some training for your staff, including the decision makers of the business. The more knowledge you have about the subject, the more equipped you’ll be for the development.

How will you market your site?

How do you want to market your site and your services and your products? First, what are your products and services? What do you want to be able to do online to see your services? What do you want to say about your products? How do you think your website will help? Do you want to use Social Media to expand your business? How will you use other sites to link your site? How will you get other sites to make a link for your site? What will the structure and design of the site be? You have a whole lot of questions to answer before you start.

You have to find a way to have your new site stand out from the rest of the sites that are selling the same exact products. Somehow you need to have creative content, good key words, great links, a media campaign, and web development that will incorporate all of these things. And there you have it folks; numerous reasons for beginning with SEO.

Now raise your hands if you know the difference between SEO and SEM that is if you know what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and SEM (Search Engine Marketing) are to begin with. I’m sure many of you out there are looking a bit lost now, and really it isn’t your fault. We have been using these terms interchangeably for awhile now and it’s time to stop and end the confusion.
SEO is actually a smaller aspect of SEM (Search Engine Marketing). SEM includes everything that is all the methods to promote a website on search engines, a form of online marketing. SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is the technique of promoting a website in natural or organic search results using key words.

The one, two, threes of SEM

Organic/Natural SEO

This method naturally improves a website’s rankings on search engines. The trick is using specific key words or phrases that represent the services offered on a company. The words should be used pretty often on the website itself within articles, links, headlines, and more. Those who are experienced in SEO can really improve a website’s results. SEO brings more readers to the site, which will bring more clients.

Using Local search

A local search uses SEO strategies in conjunction with info on state, city, and zip codes. This particularly helps users searching for local businesses. This can also include local directories, Google’s directory, profiles, and more.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

PPC is advertisements on search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, MSN, Bing… The advertisements will appear under the sponsored results each time a user types in a key word that relates to the subject of the ad. Advertisers only have to pay for users that click on their websites, explaining the name “pay per click.”

Social Media Marketing (SMM)

Social Media Marketing is the use of Internet applications to communicate and market yourself. This includes blogging, Twitter (micro-blogging), using social networking sites like Facebook, Myspace, LinkedIn, and YouTube to advertise yourself, your business, or your services. Set up a profile on one of the sites and begin to market yourself and your skills.

Article Marketing

This is a type of advertising in which businesses write articles about their industry, business, services, and more. The articles are then published in the marketplace or on their own websites. You can add links in your article to get users to your site.
Marketing works best when you use more than one method. Use SEO and try some other SEM techniques. Come up with a plan when you are creating your website. Discuss traffic to the website, plan SEO into the structure of the website instead of after your finished and see where it leads you.