How many times have you read or heard about how to generate more traffic? It always sounds easy, doesn’t it? Very seldom does someone actually tell you it’s difficult; they brush it over with, “well, you have to have a great marketing campaign, followers and so on.” They then continue with their diatribe of how wonderful their suggestions are, and how you should be sure to try them out.

The Rolling Stone of SEO

How many of you have a plan, I wonder? I mean, how many actually pencil and paper one down and then follow through? I can’t tell you how many times we’ve given clients a content outline with suggested headlines and topics, samples of descriptions, link building strategies, social outreach programs, global marketing do’s and don’ts… and we go back later and they’ve done nothing.

These are major clients paying us major money to tell them what needs to be done. We tell them, they pay us, and then they blow it off. C’est la vie!

At any rate, getting traffic to your site isn’t easy. –And yet, once they’re there, are they going to buy automatically? Of course not.

Today, I’m going to skip over the traffic part. I’m even going to skip over the landing page part. Today, I want to discuss human behavior. You can’t get any of these actions accomplished if you don’t understand how people act.

Human Behavior, Buyer Psychology

Eons ago, a merchant had to show their wares from the back of their wagon, then from their storefront and, most recently, from their landing pages. Now, we can discuss colors, layout, content… we can even discuss A/B testing (which is more in line of how to achieve ultimate converting potential). At the end of the day, however, these things just aren’t cookie cutter.

Depending on the industry, location, target market… there are so many different factors to creating a site that converts, no single silver bullet is going to do the trick. You have to ask yourself…

What Will Make My Buyers Buy?

C'est la vie

People, this is the ultimate question. Lucky for you, there’s a whole slew of marketing research available, from case studies, surveys and more. Here are a few sites that gather marketing case studies to get you started:

• Fast Company’s Marketing Case Studies: Learn from Guinness, Procter & Gamble, GM and other brand names.
• Marketing Profs: Case Studies: How does thought-leadership content drive business? How can you build excitement for a new product line? How can business get their landing pages to boost conversions? These case studies provide the examples to follow.
• U Talking Marketing: Case Studies: Find out how a horse boosted on-trade sales. Read about the charity that encouraged people to leave donations in their wills, and how MSN helped a campaign reach five million people. Several case studies are here for your reading, enjoyment and education.

Recommendations

Recommendations are huge pluses. I don’t mean how many people +1 your product or give you Likes on Facebook, though. I’m talking about people that actually take the time to write a review, whether negative or positive. I’m talking about people who communicate with you on Facebook (Ooo, hey, I really like your product. It helped me… yadda, yadda, yadda), post tweets on Twitter (@company has excellent customer service! Thanks!), or a review on your Google Places account.

In short, recommendations reach the buyer on an emotional level. They give buyers something to connect with that translates into enthusiasm… or not. This is where the gold lies.

These things show your potential customers how strong a business you have.  They also give the company the ability to better its products. Finally, it shows your current and future customers how you will interact/solve/react to them. How sweet is that?

Pricing

It really is amazing how the psychology of that $0.99 (1 cent off!) can make or break a sale. Of course, it probably doesn’t work as well as it used to – consumers are getting inundated with .99 and .95, but that doesn’t mean pricing points don’t still work. It may just be a matter of finding the next magic numbers.

Now, granted, when you’re selling a service like ours, you can’t do a fixed price. Why? Because no client should be treated like a cookie cutter client. Each one is different, and the sooner they realize you see them as individuals, the better you’re going to be in establishing trust. You can even show them a comparative pricing structure with your competitors. If they cost less, show your potential customer/client why you cost more.

What are you doing in order to have a baseline for your product or services? For example, in a product-based business, you might have a “low” number. In other words, no matter what promotions or coupons you offer, you’ll never go lower than “this”.

At Level343 we have a cheat sheet. We write what our bottom dollar is internally. We even have a partner-pricing sheet, because we want our partners to make money as well (otherwise, they won’t share their business with us). They know we want them to make money on top of our fees, which is why they’re more apt to share clients with us.

Whether you’re selling products or services, you have to have the baseline. In simple terms your baseline is the answer to the question: What’s the least I can reasonably afford to charge and still make a profit?

Usability

How easy is it to buy from your site? Do you know how many steps it will take to go from any landing page to paying? This is a very important answer you must have. Many people abandon a shopping cart because they get frustrated due to lack of clarity and/or too many steps.

Trust

Building Trust

This is a tough one. Don’t put your nose on the line just because you know a bunch of people trust you. Whether you are a small company or a large company, your name or brand should invoke a strong emotional presence that speaks of professional ethics, strong leadership, and the ability to listen. All it takes is for you to screw up one time to throw it all away. The best, easiest way to develop trust, however, is to betrustworthy.

It’s All On Their Terms

What sounds valuable to you in terms of “worth the price” will not necessarily translate to the consumer. Neither will “usable” or “methods of trust”. All the above are based on the viewpoints of the consumers. The customer’s viewpoint doesn’t just matter; it’s the whole of the matter.

As a truly global company, we’re often confronted with differences between cultures. Marketing lingo that works in one country will not, necessarily, work in another. There are different dialects, cultures, different favorite social networks (or none at all), different words to mean different things. Therefore if you’re truly looking to embrace the global market, then you must understand the various nuances and trigger points of that culture.

For example, content developed for the United States may not perform as well in Canada. Content developed in Canada may not perform as well in the U.K. Although it’s all English (supposedly), you have to take into account the different cultures, uses of the language, dialects, slang and so on. If you don’t take the time to get down and dirty in understanding your market, you’re not going to do as well.

Next week, we’ll delve deeper into the topic of buyer psychology, discussing different behaviors. We’ll share some pointers on how you can identify those behaviors, and what to do with them once you know what they are. For now, the most important thing to remember is that your clients are not you. Stop thinking you know what they want based on what you’d want. They aren’t the same (read “Repeat After Me: ‘Target. Market.’“).

Until then, take a few hours and delve into your website. Try to answer the question: “Am I really speaking to my visitors?”

Recent truth. A client came to us with a business strategy; their biggest concern was finding a copywriter familiar with the language usage of their target country. While English is a common language, the usage can change drastically from place to place, and copy written without this in mind is very noticeable.

Target. Market.

They went through the business plan with us, who they’re targeting, and their goals. “We worked with another copywriter and they just didn’t get the right tone. I think it was because they were American.”

Got it. We understand that – we get many good writers we can’t hire because American English isn’t a first language (and the majority of our clients are American businesses). Our use of grammar is strange to the rest of the world. For this particular client, the concern is that American English is our main language. No surprise there.

No – the surprise came when we looked over the material we were given to work with.

“Hey, who did they say they were targeting again?”

“Agencies.”

“That’s what I thought. This isn’t agency language. This is end-user language.”

Page after page after page of material targeted the wrong market. The problem wasn’t the language; it was the language.

You Can’t Sell a Horse to a Horse

A horse needs many things, but another horse is not one of them. On the other hand, a farmer might actually have use for the animal, or a breeder or… It may be a strange analogy, but it seems just as strange to write marketing material for the wrong user. There’s a huge difference between business-to-consumer and business-to-business relationships; it’s even more important to use the right language.

When you’re targeting the business, you may not use as much information. For example, when we offer our services to other SEO agencies, we’re not going to get into near as much information about the why as we are the what. We’ll use the term SERPs without adding (search engine results pages). To do otherwise could be misconstrued as talking down to the agency.

When you’re targeting the end-user, the consumer, you’re going to use a lot more information about the why. The consumer, not buried in the day-to-day work of an SEO specialist, has a much higher chance of not knowing the why or the what. To do otherwise has a high potential of leaving the client confused and unable to find the value in what we offer.

It’s a fine line, and one that has to be walked carefully.

Good Content, Bad Aim

Good content doesn’t mean much if you’re not writing to your target market. You can write quality content until the cows come home, but if it doesn’t address your clients’ and customers’ needs, it might as well be spam. Okay, maybe that’s a little harsh, but still…

Consider this. When you receive emails to your inbox from companies, how do you define whether to delete, spam or read? It’s all sales, right? The difference is whether you are, or are not, their target market. In other words, whether their product is interesting or not… to you.

Have you ever wondered why businesses continue to stuff the same emails down your throat? Online Pharmacy, Viagra, The truth between meds and quality price… Because they work. Because somewhere out there is someone who wants to know about Viagra, or is looking for an online pharmacy, etc. Because somewhere out there is their target market. They’ve just lumped you in with it; they didn’t focus.

Focus, Focus, Focus

Having a defined target market is extremely important, if nothing else, because you can’t afford to target everybody. That’s too broad of an audience. The dangers of too broad an audience are many, including:

• Consumers will end up looking at price as the highest importance; if you aren’t the cheapest option, you lose.
• There’s a lot of marketing “noise” out there; if you’re shouting to a huge, uninterested group, you’re just adding to the noise. You aren’t actually talking to anyone.

The tighter your focus, the better chance you have of increasing your conversion rate, as well as the ROI of your marketing efforts.

Focus on your current customer base.
Who are they? Men? Women? Moms? Dads? Are the majority in a specific age group with a college education? The highest commonalities in your current customer base are the ones who respond most to your products.

Focus on your customers

Focus on your customers’ personal brands.
A single mom with three kids might pride herself on being smart with her money. A couple living a life of luxury may pride themselves on the quality of their possessions. The way you brand your product becomes an extension of the image they have of themselves – their personal brand.

Focus on your customers’ language.
Look. Listen. Learn. Because your target market may not be speaking the same language. For example, a web developer’s target market may be using words like “thingamabob” to describe a function of their website. Of course, you aren’t going to use this same terminology in your copy, but this should create awareness that your customer base isn’t as well versed in industry lingo as you are.

Focus on your customers’ needs and wants.
Why are these people buying from you? You are not a unique snowflake; your product is not one of a kind (usually). So what is it about your product that makes it stand out from the rest? How does it address the needs and wants of your customers? How does it ease their lives?

This is what it’s all about, you see – making their lives easier, better, more fulfilling. To the single working Dad pinching pennies and time, an inexpensive bathroom product that makes cleaning a breeze is a win. To the hard working real estate agent, constantly on the go, a cell-phone holder on their car’s dashboard helps them communicate faster, while not inhibiting their hand-to-wheel motions.

You Are Not Your Target Market

One last thing. Your target market? It isn’t you. What you like, what you want, what you need, has no bearing on your market, and it has no bearing on how you market. Don’t let your own biases, likes and dislikes color how you reach out to your customers.

Now that we’ve covered all this marketing goodness, repeat after me: “Target. Market.” Ready! Aim! Fire!

I’ve been boiling all morning long – and what does someone who blogs do, but kick out a rant? All morning, I’ve been researching marketing agencies, digging into sites, news articles and various sources to find out about them. –And that’s the whole damn point. Why, if you’re advertising yourself as any type of internet marketing agency, should I have to go digging?

Connect The Dots

Maybe it’s Gabriella’s influence. “Connect the dots, Jahnelle,” she keeps saying. “You always have to connect the dots.” However, I also think my expectations of someone claiming to be an internet marketer come from the years’ of experience in connecting those dots, and understanding why that connection is important.

Case in point:

I visited a site for an agency. They market themselves as a “digital agency” on the “cutting edge” of technology. You know what I found? A blog – with this cute little calendar that shows the number of posts per month. Two here, three there, a couple there… Whatever – so maybe they aren’t as strict about regularly posting as we are.

Then, I read their latest post. Even though it’s a month outdated, I think, “I like the way this company thinks.”

Now, if you follow the SEO Article Archive, you probably already know Gabriella is the more social of us. Me, I use it because that’s where you connect with people on line. –And damn it if that isn’t another point. It’s where you connect!

So, I’m interested in this company, and I look for their social links. Contact us? Nothing social, just an address and a phone number.

They have a Facebook and a LinkedIn profile button on the sidebar. I’m not too fond of Facebook for anything other than the dubious pleasure of saying the occasional “hello” to friends that no longer live in my area, so I click on LinkedIn. It takes me to their company page, which shows me a list of employees (most without pictures).

Those employee links, in turn, take me to the individuals’ pages, where I can then, and only then, see that at least two have Twitter accounts. To connect with these people through LinkedIn, I have to send an email stating that I’ve worked with them or known them in some way. I’m faced with a decision of how to class these people I don’t know and just want to see what they’re saying – rather than the one-click “follow” of Twitter. Talk about a waste of “being social”.

To be blunt, it ticked me off to the point that I tossed my headset down and stalked outside for a breath of fresh air.

Social isn’t everything, just like SEO isn’t everything; it isn’t the end all, be all of marketing mediums. I know this. Twitter isn’t everything; there are plenty of platforms out there. –But you call yourself an internet marketer!

Maybe it wouldn’t have upset me if I hadn’t just poured through over 10 sites of so-called digital, internet, social, etc. marketing firms with dead blogs, dead social accounts and dead ends.

Connect the Friggin Dots, Already!

I’m trying very hard to keep my language fit for public consumption. I really am, but how are we supposed to teach our clients to connect the dots if we aren’t at least making more than a half-hearted attempt to lead by example?

Connect the dots

That stupid “What We’re Saying” section in the sidebar? I don’t care what you’re saying, if you were saying it five months ago! We live and work in a fast-paced, constantly changing world. What you said five months ago may be completely wrong today!

“Thanks for the fantastic holiday event!” by marketingtwitteruser was posted December 19^th of last year…. What, was it so fantastic that you had to take two months off to recover?

It just absolutely blows my mind. If you’re an Internet marketer of any type (i.e. you market your client’s brand, business, and online presence to the public) there should be some proof that you know what you’re doing on your own site. There should be some sign that you are actually trying, instead of doing what a lot of business owners do and throwing noodles at the wall to see if they’ll stick.

 Business owners have an excuse. It’s not their job. Their job is to use their past experiences and know-how to grow their business. You don’t have an excuse. It’s your job. This is what you do to make a living, and as far as I’m concerned, you are the weakest link. Good bye.

Deep Breath and a Note to Business Owners

Please, don’t visit these types of Internet marketing sites and think, “Well, if they aren’t doing it…” Connecting the dots online is important; much like connecting the dots in the physical world. For example, if you have a logo, that logo will be visible on your business cards. It will also be visible on your business letterheads and your store front.

Online dot connection works the same way. It’s called consistency:

• Your logo should be on your website, connecting your physical storefront with your online presence
• Your logo should be able to be converted in a favicon, to be used on the site
• If you have a coder or developer on hand, you can have a widget created for other sites to use
• Your company name should be consistent across all platforms, websites, articles and so on – anything you put it on, it needs to be the same
• Your business phone number should be easy to find throughout the site
• If your company is participating in social media:
  • All social accounts with the business name should have the business logo
  • All social accounts for individual team members should have their pictures
  • Your Twitter accounts, depending on how big your business is, should be a mix of company and team member names:
    • Your main company account (example: @level343), which resembles your actual company name
    • Your team members’ accounts (examples: @SEOCopy and @jrpittman), which is how followers get to know your company personally
    • Your department accounts (examples: @companysales @companyservice, @company Q&A, etc.), which (in a large corporation) give customers direct access to the necessary department
• Your Facebook page should include links to your website, your company email, and other social accounts
• Every social account should have some kind of congruity with your business site
• Provide ways on your site in the contact area for people to connect with the various social accounts
• If you decide to start a blog:
  • Set a minimum amount of blogs posts per month and stick to it
  • Set a regular schedule of days you’ll post (example: we post every Monday and Thursday) and stick to it
  • Allow people to share across social networks – and don’t just limit it to the networks you’re on; that’s selective thinking, and it won’t serve you well
  • Provide ways on the blog for visitors to connect with your company’s social accounts
  • Link your site to your blog and your blog to your site – provide two-way traffic flow
  • If you decide to do content curation or guest blogging, like we do on Scoop.it, Tumblr, and Paper.li:
    • Schedule your posts on these content curation sites or guest posting sites to be on days that you aren’t posting on your blog
    • Put your name out there every day in some way or another – give the search engines a reason to crawl your site

At some point in time once the Internet started, we got this idea that everything had to be in a box. Don’t link out – that’s bad. Don’t let people share outside of your social circles – that’s bad. Don’t let the blog and the business mix, because, wouldn’t you know it, that’s bad, too.

It's a Fine Day To Walk The Walk

Times are changing, my friends. History is a cycle, and we’re cycling back to open borders – only this time, the open borders are the ones we allow online.

Walk the Walk

Look. I have no idea whether these marketers are any good at what they do. However, if they aren’t doing what they tell their readers to do, or what they plan for their clients, they don’t believe it. Why would you ignore something that you know works to grow a business?

There are many online marketers, SEOs, copywriters and so on that walk the walk. They do what they say you should do – because they honestly believe it works. Any time you decide to follow a marketing company through their blogs or their social accounts, keep your eyes open. If they don’t practice what they preach, at least to a reasonable degree, they’re just blowing smoke to look good. What they say may make perfect sense, but they don’t believe it.

A confession: I don’t know much about branding. Oh, sure – I know words, but branding? That’s Gabriella’s bailiwick.

I know more now than I did six or seven years ago, but that’s because she’s been my mentor for several years (and you can’t have a client-centered conversation with Gabriella without branding coming in to it). So, when Level343 posts blogs about branding, that information comes either from Gabriella or information I’ve gleaned from her through the years.

If you’re a regular reader, you’ve come across several articles here about brand building and social media. We talk a lot about social media and using it as a way to “build the story of your brand”. Whenever Gabriella talks about it, I’ve always just nodded my head, thinking I sort of got it, but figuring I never really would.

Today, I’m feverishly typing up this post for your consumption because I’m excited. I finally got it. And in case you haven’t, I want to share this concept with you, so you, trying to follow advice and build your brand story, can get a better grip on what it means.

The Story of a Company…

At the time of this writing, I’ve just finished researching for an article. The topic (not the client) is Volkswagen ads. If you ever have some free time in the middle of your busy company building day, I highly suggest reading about the history of Volkswagen and its advertising campaigns. It’s fascinating, to say the least.

In 1959, Volkswagen had just started growing in the U.S. They contracted with an advertising agency to create ads focused on building brand advocates. Because, you see, brand advocates will do for a company what an ad never can – add a positive reputation. They talk about a brand, share it, tweet it, like it… they become the cheerleaders for a brand. And unless that brand does something really bad, they’ll always be the brand’s cheerleaders.

Now, I learned a few things about Volkswagen that I didn’t know (not being a big car enthusiast – if you are, you might already know these things). Check this out, and tell me if it isn’t wild…

It was designed by Ferdinand Porsche, an Austrian, for Adolf Hitler, a German dictator. During World War II, the manufacturing plant was turned into a forced labor camp for Germany. After the war, the British took it over, who then tried to pass it off to several places that turned it down flat, including Ford, Fiat and the French government. Americans didn’t want it, because it was too small and wasn’t “hip”. That is, until the mid 1950s, when college kids decided it was a good trendsetter.

After reading the history of the company (admittedly, the facts weren’t summed up in quite so few words) up until they started using ads, I turned to the ads themselves. The advertising agency had to reinvent the Volkswagen for the U.S. market, because we still had a lot of hard feelings after the war. And they did. They took a German made car and turned it into a U.S. quality brand.

How? With stories. The really fascinating thing about the Volkswagen ads is the stories they create.

The first ad alone, “Think Small”, is a study in building a brand story. Each succeeding ad only builds on the entire story, like “33 years later, he got the bug”. Increasing technology has only made them better, while still continuing the story, as seen in the Super Bowl commercial, “The Force”.

The Thunderbolt of Wisdom Strikes: Every Brand Has a Story

This stuff was fascinating to me (witness the fact that I’ve used that word several times already in this post). What was more fascinating was my reaction.

Up until this point, my only run in with the VW was Herby the Love Bug. I knew squat and cared less. Right after I finished researching, I was discussing all this new found information with a friend and it hit me: I liked the Volkswagen! Not only did I like the stories the ads told, but I felt warm and fuzzy towards the car and company!

I stopped in mid-sentence, because the thunderbolt of wisdom slammed into my head. “Oh!” I even said it out loud. “So that’s what she meant by brand story!” I get it! I really get it!

Here’s the deal:

Every brand has a story. Every brand, company and hobby business. The thing is there is someone out there who can relate to your story! The owner of a mom and pop store is out there right now, reading this article and thinking, “Yeah, but who’d be interested in ours?”

Listen. I doubt that there’s a single adult person out there who hasn’t visited a mom and pop store at least once in their lifetime. As well, I bet a lot of people know someone who runs one. Some would rather frequent a small, family-run store than a big brand store. So why aren’t you talking about it?

You just spent a half hour leaning against your countertop while you talked to Betty Lou about her son’s athlete’s foot and the best remedies. This is your life. To you, you may just be having a friendly conversation. To Betty Lou, you just provided fantastic customer service! So why aren’t you talking about it?

You run that parts store down on Main Street. Steve came in because he thought he needed a new alternator. While you’re helping him find the part to match his car, you two start talking about the problems. You think it’s probably something else, just by the way he describes it. After a 15 minute look at the engine in the parking lot, you show Steve that it’s not the alternator; it’s actually a frayed electrical system (which, by the way, is cheaper and easier to replace).

This isn’t in your job description. You run a parts store, not a mechanics shop. Yet, you like cars and enjoy helping people. To you, it was a fun, satisfying 15 minutes. To Steve, it was money saved, extraordinary customer service and the start of a good business to customer relationship. So why aren’t you talking about it?

Your Brand Story Doesn’t Have to Be Unique

That’s the real beauty of building a brand story, and the real lesson behind VW. The Volkswagen ad agency didn’t boost the brand by having a unique story. They boosted the brand by having a story people can relate to. If it’s unique, they can’t relate, can they?

With all this social media use – Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc. – you have the perfect platform for sharing your brand story. If you aren’t, then what are you doing? What on earth are you even using social media for?

By telling your story in the fashion of the example above, you’re actually sharing the story of a customer. Yet, the subtle undertone is about your quality service. You don’t have to be blatant about it; people will get the point without the pushy advertising.

If you’re not already putting your story out there, I urge you to really consider it. Your story is special by the very fact that it’s common. It’s something that reaches out to people who have been either in your position or your customer’s, or knows someone who has.

Look: the only way you’ll ever make friends is by letting them get to know you. The same goes for your company. Build that warm, fuzzy, friendly relationship with your market by giving them the story behind the brand!

While talking to a friend of mine the other day – small business owner trying to grow her business like anyone else -, I had that line going through my head. You know, the one from A Few Good Men – “You want the TRUTH? You can’t HANDLE the TRUTH!” You see, my friend has big dreams; she wants and expects big things from her website…

The TRUTH About Your Small Business, Brand and Marketing Power

Can You Handle The Truth?

There’s a lot to be said for drive and ambition. Drive and ambition can take you a long way towards whatever your idea of success is. BUT, there’s a lot to be said for “keeping it real”, too, and today I’m going to throw some realism your way.

You CAN’T compete with big business.

When you run a brick and mortar company, it’s easy to keep your head out of the clouds and your feet comfortably situated on the ground. However, there’s something about taking your business online that tells you, “I’ve made it! I can conquer the WORLD!” (insert mad laughter here)

You start dreaming about taking business from places like Wal-Mart, Overstock and JCPenny’s. You begin to think you’re bigger than the biggest dog on the block – until reality comes crashing down. Nothing worked the way you thought it would, and you’ve spent more money, time, or both to find this hard truth out.

Marketing Budget

That’s because you think you’re in competition with these mega corporations. You aren’t, because you don’t have:

•  their massive marketing budgets,
•  the millions of satisfied customers,
•  the years of brand name building,
•  their infinite (or close to) resources.

You simply can’t compete on their level! Don’t throw your arms in the air and give up, though, because there is something you can do.

Dream Big, In Small Doses: Branding & Inbound Marketing

You’re small, yes, but you’re not insignificant. You just have to tweak your thought processes a little. You have to learn how to dream big, but in small pieces. No matter how big your dream, remember the following:

Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Your brand won’t be either. It takes time to build a brand. It takes customer satisfaction, authority, and the knowledge of who you are. People will have to learn what your business is all about, and you start with things like:

• A strong brand statement
• A plan for managing your reputation
• Content development strategies to increase your authority and brand recognition

You have to start somewhere. Rome started with some dirt…

Your website is just a business card.

If you’re new to the online world and your site barely has the bubble wrap off of it, it’s nothing more than an online business card at the moment. It has a chance to grow, but it takes time. You’re not going to get online and receive tons of traffic the first day – life isn’t that neat, nor is it that convenient. Just as you would with a brick and mortar store, you’re going to have to work to build up visitors.

• Create a blog, and decide how much time you have to put into it. How often will you be posting? Be conservative; once you start a schedule, people will very quickly learn to expect blog posts from you on those days.
• If you don’t have enough time for blogging, pinpoint a few places for posting occasional articles to share your particular expertise with others.
• Showcase your services or products, much like you would in a department store. How visible are they on the site? Did you just throw up a picture (or worse, a one-line description), or did you put thought into how the product looks on the page? The art of proper display is still everything!
• Make sure your site URL and social info is on everything you put out that pertains to your business: business cards, letter heads, emails, and any trade show products, for example. Don’t miss these great opportunities to turn offline meetings into potential customers and relationships.

Your business card needs to be passed to other establishments – online.

What does that mean? It means Google Places; it means Yahoo Local, Yelp and HotFrog. It also means getting to know your neighbors, potential coworkers and competition. Therefore, just as you might introduce yourself to the business owner next door in a physical mall, you’d do the same online:

• Make your social icons and accounts highly visible, giving individuals a chance to reach out and connect more closely with your brand
• Visit blogs in your niche or relative niches
• Introduce yourself and ask about them
• Add your business to local directories
• Treat Google Places, Yahoo Local, Yelp, HotFrog, Bing and other sites as if they were allowing you to put a business booth up – because they are:
• Videos
• Photos
• Maps
• Testimonials
• Phone number
• Address
• List of services

You can learn more about these topics by reading Local SEO: Are You Hitting Your Traffic Corridor and Local SEO Is Like Real Estate: Location, Location, Location.

Growth is Your Main Goal

Sales and growth are your main goals.

When you get online and start reading about all this SEO stuff, it’s easy to get stuck in the idea of traffic. You have to have traffic to your site if you’re going to succeed, right?

The reason why optimization has grown to encompass so many skill sets is because traffic, in and of itself, does you no good. Traffic gets you nowhere if your visitors don’t buy. Otherwise, they’re just putting wear and tear on your merchandise by handling it and putting it back on the shelf.

This is the number one reason why SEO is changing into inbound marketing (a whole other post by itself). Inbound marketing focuses on your main goals: sales and, through sales, growth. Yes, it’s done by traffic, but it’s targeted traffic – and that makes all the difference.

Don’t obsess over whether you get more sales from one of your search place pages than you do from your website. Pay attention, yes, but don’t obsess. If you implement the tips above and your sales are growing, you’re doing well!

Meet the standards of SEO first – then worry about the rest.

In this instance, we mean “standard” practices first, before getting into indepth SEO. What are some of these standard practices? A short list includes:

• Check your URLs. Are you being listed for www and non-www versions of your site? Are your URLs reader friendly or full of dynamic parameters? Are they easy to remember?
• Make sure your meta data is strong – relevant, readable, clickable titles and descriptions.
• Ensure your anchor links aren’t there just for SEO. Don’t add a link to increase optimization; add a link because it helps the user. Where should they best be placed?
• Check your content for proper, semantic, heading usage (h1, h2 tags, for example).

Just making sure these things on your site are correct, relevant and strong can make as much as a 50% difference in your traffic and conversions.

Your Budget Isn't A Suggestion

Your budget isn’t a suggestion.

You have set a budget, right? If not, set an annual, bi-annual and monthly budget. In this budget include your SEO, social and marketing. How much can you afford?

Then, ask yourself, “How can I work within my budget to achieve what I want to achieve?” Can you break your marketing into phases? How? Many inbound marketing companies will work within your bi-annually or yearly budget – IF you let them know you have one.

No matter how much you may want to spend tons of money on this product or that service, you have to face facts. The fact is that your budget is all you have to work with. When it comes to inbound marketing, it’s important to remember that it takes time. The less money you have the more time it takes, but it’s never instantaneous, no matter how much money you throw at it.

Don’t strain your budget on products or services, hoping they’ll skyrocket you to the next level. We get lots of people contacting us that know they don’t have the budget for a full campaign, but aren’t willing to go for anything within their constraints. Be realistic about what you can afford, and work within those confines until you can do more!

The Truth Hurts, But…

You own a small business. You aren’t Wal-Mart, K-Mart, or any other Mart. You’re just you. –And yet, it takes a special kind of person to take the steps needed to become a small business owner. It takes your drive, ambition, courage and dedication to keep it going. That all translates into your business, your marketing and your brand – and that’s a brand I can get behind!

Company blogging - should you? shouldn't you?

For many companies, blogs are either a major point of interest or they get little to no attention. So what happens if your company’s blog is, in fact, potentially damaging your company’s brand?

Do you pull it entirely? Do you rework it in order to improve the company brand? Or do you just leave things the way they are and deal with it later?

If your company’s blog is leaving you with a number of question marks, here are some factors to consider:

• Is the blog offering major benefits to our company or not? – In the event you’re having questions, list the pros and cons of the blog. If there are more negative aspects than positive reasons for keeping the blog, you may want to can it;
• Is the blog taking too much time away from staff responsibilities? – Measure the time and effort spent on the blog. Is it costing the people running it too much of one, or both? You may determine that their resources can be better spent elsewhere, instead of on the blog;
• Is the blog potentially damaging our credibility as a company? Another factor to look at is the credibility of your blog. Is it putting your company in a potentially negative light? Are you getting complaints about it? With negative information only taking seconds to whip around the Internet, just one slip up on the blog could be devastating for your business;
• Is it wise to simply up and remove the blog? To just abandon the blog without any explanation could be more damaging – from a PR sense – than continuing it. Take the time to decide if removing the blog presents more issues than solutions.

Faceless company blogging

While your company may be or may not be ready to answer some or all of those questions, keep in mind that a bad blog can do quite an amount of harm to your company’s branding efforts.

Among the signs your company’s blog could be causing you problems are:

• You spend excessive time on your search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and less time on cranking out useful blog material;
• You’re very intermittent when it comes to posting on the company blog site. To the reader, you’re pointing out that the blog is not a high priority with the company. Hence, what else may not be high on the priority list regarding your products and/or services? The dedication to the blog needs to be there from the start;

Confrontation Central

• You use the blog to confront customers. While some customers may take to your blog to comment in a negative manner on your products and/or services, it doesn’t behoove you to trash them in return. If you’re using the company blog to engage customers in a negative manner, it can certainly reflect badly on the business;
• You have a blog that isn’t search engine friendly. Make sure your company blog has solid headlines, keyword links and is updated regularly. The more you follow these rules, the better your blog will rank among the search engines.

A company blog is not rocket science, but it does take some solid planning and thought. Without both of those, your ability to profit from a company blog is slim to none.

Branding. Nothing strikes fear in the heart of marketers quite like this concept. For entrepreneurs with many interests, it’s difficult to think they can be summed up in a single construct. For others with a narrower focus, it’s frustrating to find just the right words to accurately represent what they stand for.

Announce Your Brand

Your brand is what represents the core values of your company—your mission statement, if you will. Your target market will likely never see the brand statement because it’s not for them. It is designed to guide you through product development, marketing strategy, and even customer service.

Successful branding is critical for your company, and it takes time to do it properly. In many cases, it goes against what seems like common sense. As you develop your brand, you may need to buck the traditional system and go against the conventional wisdom about people and their motivations.

Trick #1: Branding on Price.

Conventional wisdom says that if people buy the cheapest product available, you can increase sales by offering the lowest price. Then it points to Walmart as the perfect example of how price is the ultimate deciding factor for people. After all, Walmart has made a fortune following Sam Walton’s idea that it’s easier to get “100 people to buy an item for one dollar” than “1 person to spend $100.” Although the formula worked for them, it’s not a wise idea to create your brand around it.

What's your business brand say?

For one thing, Walmart is already the low price leader, and you don’t have their buying power to undercut them. It’s just not going to happen. However, all is not lost! People don’t make all their buying decisions based on price alone. They buy what they can afford, but the more important consideration for most is the value they get for their purchase.

Think about that for a minute. Do you really want your core value focused around money? Worse still, do you really want to be known for being cheap? I don’t care how you try to dress it up with words like thrift or value or conservation. The bottom line is that your brand should be built around the message you want to send to your customers. Cheap should not be the message.

Instead, consider who you really are and what motivates you to wake every day to connect with your world. Get your mind off the price and show customers how you can improve their lives through the value of what you offer.

Trick #2: Creating an overly general brand statement mantra.

Conventional wisdom says the more people you reach the more sales you can make. It seems like a logical idea, but it’s not a good idea—or even possible—to be all things to all people.

There’s a reason people despise politicians. One of them is their ability to speak and write with many words that don’t really say anything. Despite their abundance of words, most people walk away still wondering what there they stand. It works to the politicians’ advantage because when they’re finally elected and do the opposite of what the voters expected, their campaign words can easily be twisted into whatever is most convenient for the moment.

You’re a business owner—not a politician. You want your customers to know who you are, what you believe, and what you offer them to improve their lives. In fact, a customer who doesn’t get what you promised is a frustrated customer who can hurt your business.

To avoid this problem, you need a brand mantra to drive product development, production, and marketing. A mantra is supposed to be short, easy to remember, and repetitive. You want a brief statement that characterizes who you are—and how you want to be recognized.

Trick #3: Inconsistent messages.

Building Reputation: Mixed Messages

You have a target market. These people are those most likely to buy your products and services. They are a unique group of people with similar core values and needs that are met by your company. Your target market identifies with you for a reason, and they don’t like surprises.

In fact, people like familiarity. Your marketing materials, social media comments, and every other form of communication should be consistent. When you focus on your target market—what they want and what motivates them to buy—you are able to

Your brand should not change. As an individual, you know who you are. You have interests and skills that are specific to you. If you don’t like rollercoasters, you may not make it a priority to visit amusement parks. There’s nothing wrong with that—it’s just part of who you are. Your business should operate in a similar manner.

What do you offer your target market? Identify their needs and where those needs intersect with your values. Create your brand from there and stick with that message across all forms of marketing and media.

Guidelines for writing a brand statement.

Your Unique Brand

Let’s work with the following statement from a small t-shirt company. “Innovative, high-quality t-shirts for an urban culture with vision and style.” (Yes, this is a real statement from a real company.)

#1. Choose strong, descriptive words that express your intention—in five words or less. Anything longer than this dilutes the message you’re conveying to yourself, your employees, and your customers. Keeping your statement short forces you to really concentrate on what you have to offer and will help you stay focused. Remember, keep it simple!

I hope you immediately recognized the problem with the example’s length. I stopped paying attention after t-shirts, and those four words didn’t tell me anything about who the company is and what they can offer me. If I can’t determine what makes them different, chances are they can’t either. Changing the statement to “T-shirts with vision and style” still conveys the idea and tells me far more about what I can expect from their products.

#2. Use language that your customers will understand. Forget the buzz words. They’re cheap words that say nothing about who you are and what you believe.

One of the first problems with our example is the use of the buzz words, “innovative” and “high-quality.” Come on, t-shirts are fairly standard in design. What makes these t-shirts stand out from the rest? Including “high-quality” is insulting. If you expect your business to survive, you had better be providing high-quality merchandise. These words do nothing to help me understand this company.

A better statement might be, “t-shirts changing the world.” Yes, it’s still a general statement, but it conveys the important idea that the company desires to change the world. It may be through witty statements or clever logo designs that convey “world changing” ideas. Perhaps a portion of the proceeds are donated to organizations that feed the hungry or provide education opportunities for the less fortunate. Eliminating empty adjectives and incorporating verbs goes a long way toward creating a usable and effective brand statement.

#3. Create a brand statement that can be adapted for marketing purposes. Your brand statement is not an advertising tag line. The brand statement is for you. An advertising tag line is for your customers. This is a tricky concept for most business owners. If our example company’s goal is to “change the world” through t-shirt sales, every decision made by the company ties back to that goal.

When the company decides to support a charity that offers free medical services in third world countries, this decision is clearly in line with the desire to change the world. The brand statement then can be adapted for this particular undertaking. The company knows it’s trying to change the world (brand statement). The customer will see a line like, “This t-shirt protected a seven year old from a dangerous flu” (tag line).

What works in the world of business doesn’t always make sense in the light of conventional wisdom. Successful entrepreneurs understand this and aren’t afraid to do what works instead of what makes sense. Align yourself with this thinking and create a brand to guide you on your way to corporate victory.

Your Social Network

For many, social media – in all its forms – is a steady diet of information, entertainment and interaction. It is the ultimate snack bar for informavores, serving up tasty bit-sized nuggets to tempt, tantalize, follow and consume. Therefore, it’s blatantly obvious when a part of the snack bar closes.

I don’t know about you, but I hate it when that happens. Little frustrates me more than stumbling upon a social media gravesite: the dead remnants of a poorly thought out social campaign. You’ve seen it, too, I’m sure.

You find a Facebook page with outdated information, or a blog that hasn’t been updated in weeks (or months). How about that YouTube account, with nothing more than the fantastic videos you watched last year? Or the worst part – they have liked their own post… I cringe, but move on.

You see, I’m not just a social media marketer; I’m also a consumer. As a consumer, I want to  use it efficiently, and I want my favorite companies to use it in ways that help.

Yet, many business owners – both big and small – embark upon this adventure without understanding how to use the platforms. This is a dangerous mistake. Your time and money are at stake here; you need to use them wisely. If you expect to use social media to your advantage—and not end up part of an online cemetery, you have to start with a well thought out strategy.

The Social Cemetery of Dead Campaigns

How does it happen – the death of a campaign, that is? Have you ever wondered what happened to the people behind the accounts you come across? Or, like many, did you just shrug and go on? This is an important question, because their stories teach lessons that could keep you from making the same mistakes if you only pay attention.

The average story goes something like this:

A day in the life of Joe & Tom

Joe heard from his friend Tom that Twitter was a good platform to bring in business. “How does it work?” he asks.

“You just go out there and talk to people.”

So Joe grabs himself a Twitter account, then tries to do what Tom suggests. He pours himself into trying to find people to connect with and talk to. He obsesses over follower numbers, finds out about Klout and obsesses some more. He posts religiously, checking back often to see if he got some kind of response.

Four months later, Joe is frustrated. He’s had few reaction, has less than 50 followers and little ROI for the time put in. He calls Tom back. “It’s not working.”

“Huh… Try Facebook.”

Joe lets his Twitter account die a painful death and turns to Facebook. He tries harder than before to connect and talk to people. Again, no ROI.

“Have you heard about Quora?”

…..

Joe is a quick, simple example. For many, however, it isn’t far off the mark. So what did Joe do wrong? If you’re a regular reader, you should be able to say the first part with me… He didn’t have a plan. Therefore, Joe is doing the well-trodden walk of shame, shuffling his feet into Never Should Have Socialed Land… but not so fast. How about asking things like:

What do you want social media to do for you?

You wouldn’t plan a vacation by boarding the next available Air France or Delta, would you? Your time and money are too valuable to throw away without an idea of where you want to go and what you plan to do. Incorporating social media into your marketing program is no different.

Thinking Beyond...

What results do you want to see from social media? Think beyond just driving traffic to your site:

• Do you want to build your brand recognition? What/how are you going to build your brand? Write your steps out; understand what it takes to promote and market that aspect of your campaign.
• Are you hoping to interact with your customers and colleagues on a more personal level? What platforms are you doing this in? Do you have a time line set aside to accomplish this? Think this down to the most mundane action in order to grasp the time it will take.
• Would you like to promote your products and services? Here is where the fun begins: how, why, where, to whom? Do you know? Have you really assessed your market and your product? Are people talking? Do you have recommendations? These are all things that will connect the dots when outlined from the onset of your campaign
• Is your goal to expand and educate your customer base? How will you do that? Is it data base driven? Does your hosting provider even accommodate your needs? Are you using social networks? How many hours and what tools will you use to automate? Will you automate?

You have to know the answer to the “results” question first, and every decision you make thereafter must be based on how it will help you reach your goal(s). Define one or two goals, as well as a length of time to reach them*.

*Hint: most goals will take at least 6 months to achieve with any type of strong ROI.

Where are you starting from?

At this point I’m not sure how much we like Joe. You see, he didn’t take the time to mark where he was at in terms of traffic, conversions and so on. We’ve said it before; you have to have baseline metrics.You have to set down your starting point, your zero if you will, before starting any campaign, so you have a data-based way of tracking results. You can use several metrics to track your social success once you know what your goals are*.

You Have To Start Somewhere

The metrics you track depend on the goals you set. For example, if your goal is to increase positive brand recognition, you might track:

• The number of times someone asks you a question
• Engagement on your blog or site once you start posting on social platforms
• Do you have recommendations readily available online.
• Are you active in social networks or do you simply have 24 Twitter followers and under 200 Facebook fans?
• Referrals (rather than gaining customers through normal marketing channels). For example, maybe you have a widget you are giving away.
• The number of mentions – but here, you have to pay attention to what they’re actually saying. Figure a ratio between positive/negative/neutral mentions. Do you know what tools are available out there?

Hint: Setting goals gives you a baseline to see what is working for you and what is not.

What social platform will best meet your needs?

For most people, the term social media conjures thoughts of Facebook and Twitter. Yet, the reality is that social media is more broadly defined, and encompasses outlets like blogs, video sharing, wikis, and much more. Some of these outlets will work for you, and some of them won’t.

Jump in the water's fine...

For example, if your goal is to build your brand, consider where that might best be accomplished. Depending on your writing manpower or what you are willing to invest in regards to a content driven campaign, blogging is one of the strongest and long lasting methods for achieving a recognizable brand. Write your own content and opening the blog up to readers’ comments. This also lets you interact with potential clients and customers. Get up close and personal to what people are actually saying.

Yet, you also need to consider the time necessary for such an endeavor. As I mentioned, creating a content-centric campaign around blogging is not easy – unless you’re an unusually prolific writer – takes a considerable amount of time. Keep in mind, you do have the option to  hire a full time writer, but that’s dependant on how committed you are to your business. As well, you have to stick to whatever schedule you start. If you start posting twice a week, keep posting twice a week.

If your goal is to promote special features and discounts, you might use venues such as:

• Twitter, to announce current company promotions. Make sure you schedule several posts in a day, write them differently, and make sure you can track them through one of the many Twitter analytic tools.
• eNewsletter, to share the latest company news. Use a service that allows you analytic access.
• Facebook, to share special, month-long discounts. Visit your Insights to see what’s happening and which posts receive the most feedback.
• YouTube, to showcase exciting new product lines. Allow your users to post video responses; get maximum participation.

Take the time to explore the world of social media, and choose what makes the most sense for your company and your goals*.

* Hint: If your goal is to increase authority only, you need to check your ego at the door and have a secondary goal. Why? If you are truly an authority (simply because you are good at what you do and know your industry), your knowledge will show. It’s especially a given when you are humble about your craft and your business.  It will show in your blogs, in your answers to questions and in how you deal with people about your topic on a whole. “Building authority” should never be a loan goal.

What goal /result is most important to your business?

Smooth Sailing

I’m sure you’ll agree, one of the top reasons most businesses fail with social media is trying to do too much without a focus. When this happens, you cannot offer your best to the world, the public doesn’t respond, and social media is written off as a failure. You don’t have to be one of these people.

Go back to your goals and decide what is most important*. Then determine what you can realistically do on your own. If you only have an hour each day to devote to reading and responding to comments, then that’s all you can do. -And you should certainly use that hour if it is an important part of reaching your goals.

If you can’t do it yourself, consider outsourcing tasks to qualified people. More on that in another blog, but you can start doing some preliminary work on your own. Use tools when you can, such as Hootsuite analytics, to get a good start on your campaign.

At the same time, don’t waste your energy on anything that does not move you in the direction of reaching your goals.

* Hint: Many start with the goal of “bringing traffic”. Not only is this goal a generic one, but it is also a waste of time. By redefining it as “bringing quality traffic”, you provide yourself with a stronger set of base metrics, as well as steps to reach that goal.

Ask yourself, “What is quality traffic?” For you, quality traffic could be individuals who subscribe to your blog. Quality traffic could be those who convert to customers, individuals who visit more than one or two pages and so on. I would even suggestion you become an observer of your followers and find the connection that matters to them. The point is, if your goal is to bring traffic to your site, you have to further define what you want that traffic to do once they get there and incorporate it into your campaign.

What are your goals?

In conclusion, no matter what your goals may be, you have to promote and engage your audience. In the world of social media, these are often the same concepts. The approach may be different in the various platforms, but the more you interact with your audience, the more you promote your work. As you promote your work, you open the doors for more interaction with your audience. Be the one the go to when they have a question.

As you develop your social marketing strategy, remember flexibility is important. Don’t be afraid to make adjustments as you experiment with what works for you and what doesn’t. No campaign, whether it’s a marketing, social media, SEO or content development campaign, is written in stone. That’s the beauty of working online today. It’s evolutionary, don’t you think? Go ahead, don’t be shy, tell me all about it…

Fight! Fight!

In a day and age when companies are fighting fervently for each and every consumer dollar, it should come as no surprise that branding is more important than ever. Whether it is the AFLAC Duck, the Pep Boys’ bobble heads or the GEICO caveman, companies want you to remember them for one simple reason – branding.

While not all consumers make their purchasing decisions based on a character they see or hear in the media, some in fact do. That being the case, what are you doing to brand your small business so consumers remember your brand and services?

Make no mistake about it, it takes time and funds to construct a brand that is on the tips of tongues, but it can be done with even the smallest of businesses. While your small business does not have the funding of the major players, it can construct a branding campaign to make it stand out from the competition.

The key to any successful branding efforts is repetition.

Key to Success

Simply put, you need to remind consumers why they should use your brands and/or services and not the other guy. Sound difficult? Well, it really isn’t.

First, branding is not going to be successful if you’re not consistent with it, especially early on when you are looking to establish a name for yourself and construct your brand. Constantly changing the look and feel of your product does not allow the consumer time to get to know you, therefore likely leading them to search for a company who has a more stable feel to it.

Businesses should make a logo.

This is something that can be done either in-house or farmed out depending on your financial means and talent within the company.  The logo will be your identifying mark when communicating with consumers via company signage, business cards, emails and more. If your struggling with a concept for a logo, put it on the back burner so as to do it right the first time around.

Web sites are another important piece of the pie.

Many consumers now shop for goods and services online. Keep in mind that the Web site should be professional in nature and reflects your brand image. Lastly, the Web site needs attention, so plan on updating it regularly. If your Web site’s content is stale and unappealing looking, customers are more apt to go elsewhere.

When piecing the Web site together, be informative.

Putting the Puzzle Pieces Together

Make sure there is “About Us” information and “Contact” information. How many times have you been on a company’s site and felt frustrated because you had trouble locating the above-mentioned information? Don’t make readers go on a safari looking for pertinent details such as what your company does and how you can be contacted.

With your site in play and an identifiable logo to boot, networking becomes a key factor.

Whether you blog, use social media or do both, you need to network with individuals in order to spread the word regarding your brand.

Sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn etc. are great ways to push the word out regarding your brand. Social media can be a formidable tool to promote your business, discuss industry trends and happenings with others, offer deals on your company’s products and more.

Business cards are another important piece of the puzzle as you look to market your brand.

While you do not have to spend a ton of money on cards, do not try and make them yourself if you’ve never done it before. Having a tacky looking business card is not better than having no card at all. With both your identity and image making up your brand, take the time to do the cards right initially.

Lastly, track your company’s online reputation.

While you can’t be in two places at once, you need to stay abreast of your company’s online reputation.

If a customer has said something negative about your goods and/or services online, you need to present your side of the story. By setting the record straight, that doesn’t mean getting in an online shouting match with someone, but you should not let complaints, concerns, etc. go unchallenged.

Like they say, there are always two sides to a story. Present your side of the story in a professional manner so that your online reputation is not seriously harmed.

Conclusion

These are but a few of the numerous branding tips that one’s business should give strong consideration to in order to communicate with customers and inform them of your products. Branding, simply put, is the “face” of your business in a specific industry, so give yourself more reasons to smile by doing things right the first time around.

SEO? What's SEO?

SEO as a part of a digital marketing strategy cannot be ignored by any marketing organization. SEO, though a subset of online marketing, has a completely different character of its own. People are more likely to click on an organic search result compared to a listing under Ads. The website owners are allocating increased budgets to digital marketing, and ranking for organic search is one of their primary goals.

Well planned and chalked out SEO campaigns require sizeable budgets and every business would surely ask for the return on the amount invested in the SEO campaign. Complete ROI from any SEO cannot be calculated with 100% accuracy, as any good SEO campaign gives you good web visibility in addition to the SERPs, establishes your online brand, helps you to establish an online reputation and have a global reach. The total benefit from all this cannot be converted in metrics.

But, you can get an adequate idea about the ROI by first and foremost deciding the primary objectives of the SEO campaign.

Do you want your SEO campaign to result in :

• Increase in direct sales?
• Generation of more leads?
• Driving more traffic?
• Building you an online brand ?

The answer to these questions will make things easier for the SEO as well as you. The SEO will know what he needs to focus on and you can also know which metrics to keep track of, in order to to measure the success of the SEO campaign.

A complete web centric SEO campaign, which focuses on achieving organic rankings by etching the right quality digital foot prints on the web for your website, will – in the long run – give all the above mentioned benefits. If the priorities are set then the whole campaign has a direction and can be geared , monitored and managed accordingly.

Options...

If the priority is to achieve an increase in direct sales or generate more leads then the SEO (along with working on the on‐page and off‐page optimization for ranking on the SERPS) has to also focus on the following issues :

• Are the landing pages well-designed for the targeted keywords ?
• Do the landing pages have the requisite info. so that the visitor can make a decision to buy?
• Does the website have easy online payment options?
• Does it have simple and small forms to fill to register?
• Are the leads generated being attended to and getting the necessary info from the staff when they call or email? This is important,  in case the visitor needs to confirm something before buying.
• Are all inquiries via phone or email, generated as a result of SEO, being recorded?
• How many of such leads converted into sales?

All this is possible when the SEO and the client can work with a mutual understanding; there will be a lot of data in this case, which the client company will have to give to the SEO to calculate the ROI and gauge the success of the SEO efforts.

If the priority is to drive more traffic and to establish an online brand then the focus should be on :

• social media integration
• A well managed and maintained blog. As regular posts on informative topics related to your industry can surely drive the targeted traffic and also with the help of social media you can promote the post and generate a good WOM.
• A high engagement level on Twitter and Facebook
• Sharing views on other blogs of your industry which put forward you viewpoint and establish your identity.
• Posting guest posts and thereby reaching out to other communities in your industry

Eventually, a genuine and well planned SEO campaign will undoubtedly give the website all the above mentioned benefits. However, setting priorities and an immediate objective helps in designing the path to follow so the SEO can focus on the priorities of the client.

Gloria's beautiful quilt: Photo by rsgranne

“Beautiful forms and compositions are not made by chance, nor can they ever, in any material, be made at small expense. A composition for cheapness and not excellence of workmanship is the most frequent and certain cause of the rapid decay and entire destruction of arts and manufactures.” ~ Josiah Wedgwood

Branding isn’t a new concept; it isn’t even a centennial concept. In fact, branding started back in the ancient days of Babylon, Greece and Rome, when men wore dresses (sure, they called them togas) and the term “Spartan” was coined.

Potters carved their initials, symbol or recognizable mark in their handiwork. Gold and silversmiths marked their work; papermakers left watermarks. Cattle and other livestock have worn literal brands since 2000 BC, if not before.

Why? What did a brand mean to our ancestors?

For cattle, it was a mark of ownership. Their unique brand made it easy to recognize a rancher’s livestock (because all cows look alike, you know) in the event that the livestock strayed or were stolen. If they sold good milking cows or healthy livestock for food, that unique symbol became a sign of trust. You always know you have a good milking cow if it wears the XYZ Ranch brand.

Marks made by the crafter of a product were used for the same thing plus some. For example, Josiah Wedgwood was a master potter who sold high quality work. British nobility bought from him, as did an Empress of Russia. Josiah’s pottery brought high acclaim and several reproductions. Many people tried to replicate both his work and his branding mark – because Wedgwood pottery meant high quality.

While there are many other examples, Josiah Wedgwood is also an excellent example because of another relevant creation of his: direct marketing. Credited as the inventor of modern marketing, Josiah set out to find new ways to get products sold after he lost his leg to a childhood disease. He couldn’t turn a potter’s wheel after that, but he sure could turn a phrase (pardon the pun).

So what does all this have to do with you? What does it have to do with modern day branding? What does it have to do with your products?

Brands Still Mean the Same Thing

In ancient days, that unique mark meant more than, “yeah, that’s my cow”. It also meant:

• “I made this product.”
• “I’m responsible for this product if something goes wrong.”
• “This product has passed my quality assurance test.”
• “You’ve used this product before, liked it, and now recognize my brand as one you can trust.”

Isn’t it amazing how brands have carried over the same ideas today? Brands are valued for exactly these reasons. A brand is more than your company logo; it incorporates everything you want consumers to feel about your business.

Lessons in Branding

Josiah Wedgwood taught more than how to make high quality pottery. He also taught life lessons that any marketer or business owner should pay attention, such as finding branding opportunities everywhere. Building on success, in other words.

After selling a set of pottery to the queen, he began calling himself the “Potter to Her Majesty”. He changed the product name from “creamware” to “Queen’s Ware”. What happened? People bought the Wedgwood Queen’s Ware because royalty bought it, never mind that it was also beautiful and utilitarian. The man was a marketing genius.

Here are a few more branding lessons you might want to keep in mind:

• “Branding” is interchangeable with “reputation”. When you say, “I’m building my brand”, what you really mean is you’re building your reputation. What does your reputation say about you?

• Branding happens whether you mean it to or not. Just by running a business and selling a service/product, you’re developing your brand. If you don’t plan and work towards building a positive one, you end up with whatever your buyer or – oh horrors! – your competition defines for you.

• Colors say something about your brand. Oh my, yes, it’s true. Rather than try to add more to the content mill about branding and colors, let me point you toward Your Brand’s True Colors. Even though it’s a few years old, the article’s information is still highly applicable.

• Get emotional. This doesn’t mean cry and blubber because your brand got a bad review or so-and-so said they don’t like you. This means create an emotional connection. Don’t just pretend to understand your consumers’ pains… really take the time to try and understand. Brainstorm:

“Okay, I’m the consumer. I step in my house and it reeks. My carpet is dingy, spotted and smells like dirty feet. I can’t get the smell out of my nose. I really need a carpet cleaner that will take care of the smell and bring back the brighter colors without the carpet matting up.”

Ad: Tired of smelling dirty feet when you walk in the house? Bring back brighter colors and a fresh home with Clear Colors Carpet Cleaner – guaranteed to have your carpet looking (and smelling) brand new.

• Mona Lisa your branding. I came across this very inspirational article while (gasp shock) looking for inspiration for this one. The article is about creating curiosity with your brand, process, product, etc. Any article that starts out with “Have you mistakenly trained your branding to fall over and play dead?” is a must read in my book.

Take time with your brand. Decide what you want to say and how you’re going to say it. Much like when branding cows, you’re pretty much stuck with the mark you make on the buying world. Taking the branding part of your business lightly is a good way to find yourself singing for your supper.

In conclusion, remember that your company brand is extremely important. It signifies to the consumer everything positive (or negative) about your company, product, service, etc. You can’t afford to treat it as an unimportant nonentity that just “happened” to come along.

Perfection - by Mohan M.

Life isn’t perfect or fair in any way, especially if you’re competing for your online market share. SEO isn’t a perfect science, only available to an exclusive set of business owners. To be perfectly blunt, I get tired of reading about the “perfect SEO solution”, how “perfect” life is and the plethora of positivity quotes flung around on social networks.What about brands – do they always have to be perfect? Well, I feel the same way about brands. Often, if not always, picking the perfect words, perfect image, perfect blog – everyone tries to – is futile.

What does brand have to do with SEO? Hear me out. Consumers have more of an opportunity today than ever before to become businesses. Not only can they create their own runaway brand, but some even strike it rich as well– IF it’s the right brand at the right time. How are they doing this? They sell themselves, their product and their services online, driven to visibility through SEO.

Now, seldom does a brand reach the point of “personality” and real person. A few examples include Jacqueline Smith and Martha Stuart – the brand is synonymous with the person. However, the more we associate a brand with human components, the stronger that brand typically.

How does a brand show humanity? I can’t think of a better example than when you call a customer service center. Most of the time, you can’t tell if a human or a machine has answered the call. Occasionally, however, you get those warm, genuine people who really want to help. They take the time to listen; you can tell they sympathize and are happy to help you solve the issue.

You hang up the phone feeling the brand cares about you. Not Jamal, Amy, Steve, Karen or whoever answered the phone, but the brand. Because, after all, the brand cares enough to hire real, helpful, friendly people, right?

Online, you have the opportunity to express your personality through words, which then reflect the human factor back to your brand. You create your overall brand in the keywords you choose, the copy you write and the style with which you write. In short, you solidify your brand with words.

Back to perfectionism and the perfect brand. Here’s the problem as I see it. If your brand is human and not a mindless corporation… well, humans make mistakes. You can’t be an automaton and still be human. While I don’t mean make intentional errors, I do mean that your behavior should be realistic. A brand perceived to be “perfect” (corporate black suits, huge logos, glass skyscrapers) is a brand distanced from their consumers.

As well, the more perfect your brand seems, the more perfect consumers expect you to be. Think of the disdain you feel when you read in the news that some large corporation has made a mistake. Why do you feel that disdain? Think about it.

Before you put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard) and try to come up with the perfect words for the perfect campaign and the perfect brand image, discuss your ideas with a professional. Whatever you come up with, you have to be able to maintain what you build. Even if you could build perfection, could you maintain it?

Total Douche

It’s not everyday I actually get to write about something I want to discuss. Most of my writing consists of work – whether for clients or my business, it’s still work. Every once in a while, though, you have moments in between the 9 to 5 when you’re compelled, no, forced to purge and rant. You want to scream in horror, to shout from every mountaintop. Why not to you, dear readers? Grab a beer or a glass of wine and settle in.

Now, I’ve been told (and believe for the most part), that you should never post anything negative about someone. It’s bad for business; it’s unprofessional. It could be professional suicide. Therefore, I’m going to turn what may sound like a negative rant into something we can all learn from – especially moi.

Fame does weird things to people, whether they’re politicians, rock stars, movie stars or Internet stars. I don’t know this personally (I’m not famous), but I can share what it’s like from the perspective of one who knows a famous person. I can only imagine how the change happens when you wake up one morning and your life is completely different. I’ve seen it happen time and again, even in my lil’ old life.

Let me tell you about someone I know. When I first met her she was just a normal person, funny as all get out, important to her friends and family, and has become so famous I dare not mention her name. This was over 30 years ago. She was a dear friend; I supported her any time I could. I’m so proud of her and I think she deserves all the success she’s received. She’s a true super star…. But I cannot seem to re-connect with her.

In her defense (Super Star) and mine, (Not a Super Star) I left the country and lost touch. When I came back, however, I wasn’t able to connect with her. I sent letters the first couple of years, recently tried emails and I think I tried once on Twitter. After trying to contact her, I finally understand we’ll probably never talk again… And that’s okay but she gets being in social media. If nothing else, you can imagine how many people I’d have to get through to see her again. I regress.

Now, let’s take this to where it belongs: Twitter. Twitter, the golden child, the most amazing social networking site ever created in the 21^st century, is well on its way to becoming a household name. Think about it; the future of micro-blogging, texting sexting, tweeting ad nauseam is all about making rock stars out of you and me.

I was to discuss the Twitter Marketing gurus online: how my love, admiration and respect falls a degree lower with almost every post I read. You know the ones; they’re well respected, followed by many (including me), RT’d by thousands. Who knows, you may have moments like this, too.

Now, in order to “make it”, everyone know you either

a) get an awesome viral video to shoot into the Twittersphere or

b) you build your following with smart strategies that work for your niche. Either way, the posts should be mainly focused on your followers. Even the gurus say this!

However, for the past six months or more, I’ve noticed a definite change in the strategies of some of my favorite Twitter rock stars. Either they’re so self consumed they don’t care, or they think they’re still connected and they aren’t. I don’t know them personally, so I’m not sure which.

Self-proclaimed boasting – “me me me.. mememe” – is coming out of some of my most favorite people to follow. It sounds like they’re warming up for a vocal concert. To be honest, some have become pompous asswipes. What a shame; I liked these people. It’s almost sickening to watch them self promote day in and day out. “Enough about me, what do you think about me?” All they’re really doing is… well, jerking themselves off for the world to see.

Self-proclaiming tweeters, catch a clue. I can understand getting touched by the Twitter gods into rethinking the way you position yourself. However, if you were an ass before you got on Twitter, guess what – you’re still an ass. Twitter doesn’t make you different from what you were.

What it does is give you the ability to connect in 140 characters. When you first came on, you actually spoke to people, not because you had a deal with them or were promoting your product, but because you actually cared. Now you’re a big star and guess what? The person you really are shows and it ain’t purty.

Maybe you can set up one day a week to stay connected. If you must use automated responses, at least send something like, “I’d love to answer your question, but I’m only available on Tuesday. Please join me here [link].” Then, on Tuesday, you could spend a couple of hours taking to your fans via webinar or something. As, a matter of fact this “famous” x-friend I know does something very similar but it’s on TV. She connects with her fans.

What I’ve seen coming from your feed has been horrible. You sound like a freaking spam bot. Every time I think you might have put out a great link to follow, I find out you’re associated with the person and want me to spend money. Shame on you, self-proclaiming tweeters. Without your followers, you’re nothing.

Respond to emails, will you? Oh, here’s a thought: respond to tweets! Do something besides “memememe”.

Here’s my promise to the world. If I ever become famous, I promise to answer my emails. I promise not to have someone else use my Twitter account. I promise only to promote things I truly believe in, and I promise not to disconnect… what are your promises?

Every so often, under the guise of “keeping things fresh,” companies decide to commit marketing suicide by switching brands.  When examining the reality of why companies want to change their brand, it results in one of three answers:

• Not modern or sophisticated enough to draw the right audience
• Not representative of the products or services offered
• Not recognizable enough in the marketplace

In each case, the answer is not changing the brand.  In fact, quite the opposite; the real answer is dynamic branding.  Dynamic branding is the process in which companies build structures or layers of branding build around one recognizable brand.  Dynamic branding places one brand at the center of your product or services structure.  Then, like lines weaved into a spider’s web, the products or services are branded around the initial brand.

Although many companies struggle with the idea of dynamic branding, it is the most common successful form of branding on the market.  Consider these market case studies to illustrate the layout of a dynamic branding structure:

• Pepsi—in full ownership or partnership
  • Pepsi and Diet Pepsi (center of dynamic brand)
    • Mountain Dew, Sierra Mist, Aquafina, Mug Root beer, Lipton Ice Tea (partnership), Starbucks Iced Coffee (partnership), SoBe Life Water, Tropicana
  • Frito-Lay (also a PepsiCo Company)
    • Frito-Lay (center of dynamic brand)
      • Lay’s Potato Chips, Ruffles, Doritos, Tostitos, Fritos, Cheetos, Cracker Jack Popcorn
  • Progressive Insurance (dynamic brand)
    • Car and Trucks, Motorcycles, Home, Renters, Semis and Big Rigs, Extreme Sports Vehicles, Boats, RVs, Condos, Life, and Health

  In each case, there is a dynamic brand at the center of the web. The product / service construction reaches out to satisfy a niche market, address the needs of an identified audience, and provide recognition in the marketplace for their high level brand.  After all, if you pick up a bag of Cheetos, you will surely recognize the cheesy cheetah on the front.

  However, no matter which Frito-lay product you pick up at the chip aisle of your local grocery, you will find the Frito-Lay logo prominently displayed. It’s displayed on every bag, across market audiences ranging from children (Cracker Jack) to teens (Cheetos) and market segmentations such as dinner / snack food markets (Fritos, Lays, Ruffles, Doritos).

  Dynamic branding works on the theory that setting up a marketing foundation which distributes your brand on every product or service categorized by sub-levels according to market segmentation or audience.  By going back to the original discussion points, it is easy to see that a dynamic brand never addresses the audience or represents the products because it is not meant to handle those functions of marketing.  Those functions are handled at the lower level of product marketing.

  A dynamic brand is created to stand the test of time by sustaining recognition in the marketplace, in a high level manner, that does not change according to the products or services offered beneath the umbrella.  In truth, could Allstate have predicted the need for Identity Theft Protection when it started?  Probably not.  And, it did not need to because that is their dynamic brand.  Anything good or service they offer under that brand can fluctuate according to the will of the market.

I bet if I told you the headline of today’s news you not only could see it on television, but you could Google it.  Who would have thought you could say the word Google and automatically 98% of the world would know what you meant.

Nevertheless, here we are in the midst of a booming new business online frenzy… once again.  There is economic crisis, banks are folding like lawn chairs, houses are foreclosing daily, car giants are filing for bankruptcy and online social networks are growing at an alarming rate.

This is not earth shattering revelation I am giving up here, obviously, but what I want to share is a story about the Little Agency That Could.  A copywriting agency that has become a full service agency due to demand.  It has taken us some adjusting and re-adjusting but as a team of writers, we are confident with our results.  We have been getting steady work throughout the recession, but with that comes the good the bad and the ugly.

Inspiration happens at the oddest times in a writer’s life.  Some writers need to have complete silence in their working environment while others listen to music.  Then there are those of us who have the faint sound of the news in the background.  However, its days like these that give us a clear picture of why we are in business for ourselves.

As a writer that’s not a bad deal; as SEO copywriters that’s music to our ears.  What this means is more people are taking their business online and looking for great content.  The global market has finally caught up with re-inventing themselves.  Businesses that I have never heard of are contacting our agency looking for blogs, press releases, articles, web pages etc.  Some changes happened gradually as social media grew.  We have always been fans of blogs and bookmarking sites, but none really made me personally appreciate them until Twitter.  (that’s another article).

One of the major changes we have noticed is the quality of great clients versus the quantity of great clients.  Let me explain.

As part of the business development team at this agency, I’ve met some clients we have had to part with.  Actually, I shouldn’t call them clients, since they never made it that far.  They contact us with a specific project in mind.  After talking to them via email or phone, I’ve found that, more often than not, they have no idea what they are doing.  They have no direction or concept of what it takes to brand themselves and ultimately are wasting their time.  Spinning their wheels.  They know they need blogs, they need website copy and Oo, dear lord, they need SEO.

I spend time emailing, talking on the phone, sometimes I even offer a conference call when other writers or designers are involved.  That is all part of doing business, and for the Little Agency That Could, it does affect our bottom dollar.

Some of the clients try to squeeze you for every cent, from the ones that promise future work if you can give them a better rate to the ones that insult you by insinuating they expected fifteen articles for $40.  Sure, looking back, we have a great laugh and move on, but every so often you get the potential client that reveals their color from day one.  The ones that threaten to sue you over unfounded accusations.

Basically, my point is, regardless of what sort of business you are doing on the Internet, you need to know when to fold them and know when to walk away.

Writing or offering any service online is a delicate act that needs to have certain criteria.  Some call it the 80% 20% rule.  What that means is if you spend 80% of your time dealing with the client and only get a 20% return, then you know to walk away.  You shouldn’t have to spend more than 20% of your time dealing with the client.

Don’t get me wrong; we talk to our clients any time they want to discuss their project, but when all we do is talk and don’t get any work done due to their inability to have a plan then it’s apparent you are not dealing with a professional.  And in today’s market there are lots of people that really should not get into business; running or starting a business takes more than a great idea.  You have to have a vision, then a strong plan and, ultimately, you have to know how to deal with people.  My business partner said it clearly: “The vision for any online marketing business is so colorful, but the mission is always black and white.”  Can I get an Amen.

Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, MySpace, Digg, Technorati – social media tools are swarming the net, becoming the main way to get in touch, keep in touch, socialize and monetize.

On places like Twitter, individuals and businesses alike have begun posting links to their blogs, sites and articles.  LinkedIn has a way to plug into your blog so once you post, it shows on your LinkedIn profile.  With Digg you can have a link back to an article on your site, or on an article directory, etc.  In other words, you can have a website, a blog and ten social media accounts, and have them all leading to each other.

The question arises, however: does all this do any good for search engine optimization?  And if it does, how much good does it do?

In reality, social media is just another part of marketing.  One of the reasons why so many businesses use the social media tools is because they realized very quickly that these tools give them the ability to talk to their customers.  In addition, these tools allow business individuals to reach likeminded professionals, make business contacts and any other kind of socializing you can imagine.

All this socializing does have some benefits for optimization, but perhaps not in the way you think it does.  Thousands of people post links on Twitter, for example, thinking that these posts will link back to their site, and raise PageRank and search engine results positioning.  However, Twitter specifically has a “no follow” for your links, which means that the search engine crawlers won’t follow the link back to your site; in other words, the links themselves have no optimization value.

Now, people are selling eBooks on how to gain followers and whatnot, pushing all the benefits and making the buyers think this book will grow their business, but how does social media work for site optimization, PageRank and SERPs?

1.    You post your links.
2.    People (not search engines) follow those links and read what you’ve written/posted.
3.    Of those people who liked your post/article/idea, some will talk about it and add a link to your site where the information is.
4.    The new links will generally have a “follow all” tag, telling the crawlers to follow them.
5.    Those inbound links will bring in organic traffic and add authority to your site, which, in turn, will raise your search engine result positioning and PageRank.

All in all, social media is like MLM (multi-level marketing):

You post ten links with no results on PageRank, placement or anything else; you may as well have thrown them into the wide unknown.  However, five people read your links and re-post (or link back) to those ten posts, and you now have fifty (free!) back links (not reciprocal!) leading to your site.  Five other people find those re-posts and re-post again – 250 back links, plus the original 50, adds up to a whopping 300 links leading back to your site.

All those links will normally be posted on sites relevant to your site, which gives your site authority, which raises your PageRank.  All that traffic and the resulting commentary can raise your positioning in the SERPS.

So – while social media in and of itself isn’t that helpful with SEO, the resulting links are.  How do you get people to repost, comment and write about your site, article, blog, etc?  That’s another blog entirely!