Online Marketing Focus: SEO and Social Media

Small business owners have a wide array of marketing choices when selecting the right online marketing strategy to pursue with the goal of finding new leads that actually turn into sales. The most popular being paid advertising, SEO campaigns, and Social Media Marketing. Making a site that is streamlined to be attractive to the search engines through Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is one of the most talked about tactics that drives traffic to websites generally through Google. It is always important to build a website based on proven SEO principals, but in today’s online world failing to engage with the community through social media sites is a big mistake.

Google now puts value on the number of shares, likes, +1’s, etc. that a site receives when producing its search results. Therefore social media campaigns also have an impact on a company’s search rankings for their desired keywords. A great SEO strategy with lots of backlinks is no longer enough to gain high visibility and traction online. The best marketing campaigns for a small business include a combination of both solid SEO principles and promotion of social media channels. Paid search advertising and banner ad space can get a new site the exposure it needs to reach customers; but it is usually way too expensive for most small business marketing budgets.

Basic SEO Principals

In order to get the most out of your social media campaigns it is wise to have a site built based on best practices concerning search engine optimization. The following are a few guidelines that are important for your web development team to follow when designing your site. But doing these alone will not drive the traffic you desire until you begin sharing your website’s content on Twitter, Facebook, and elsewhere providing readers the opportunity to share, like or +1 the content you are distributing.

• Create a site map.
• Develop unique page titles, keywords, and page descriptions.
• Use keywords in headers and body of text, but don’t overdo it.
• Create backlinks, but use a family of similar keywords not just one or two.
• Include blog titles in the URL for the company blog

Of course there are dozens of other aspects for building a website with SEO in mind and so it is important that you have a web developer that is adept at SEO techniques when building the website. Many small business owners fall into the trap of trying to implement what they read about SEO strategies that pertain to affiliate marketing companies that are only seeking traffic through Google search and are not actively selling a product themselves or building a brand that customers will return to.

Social Media to Drive Traffic

Using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Youtube, and other sites to promote content about the business, products, and services provided should be the majority of your focus. Building a community of people interested in the industry the business is in, is much more effective than building thousands of links on irrelevant websites. Individuals that actively follow a business on Facebook or engage with the company on Twitter are actually helping to promote the brand to their followers and friends simply by engaging and having a discussion. This can be the best kind of exposure as the business is able to reach additional people that may have similar interests. By focusing on creating an effective social media marketing strategy the business has a much greater chance of being noticed by others that will take the time to write or comment either on the social sites, but also on their own blogs and other websites which can result in very high quality links. Building links is a huge part of any effective SEO plan and one of the best ways to get others to link to your content and discuss your brand is through unique and original content that is shared through social sites.

Make sure your site has the basic requirements that the search engines are looking for. Be sure to have a well-designed website and leverage social media to generate the high quality links and discussions that will really send traffic to your site. If you have the ability to create original content then you don’t need to worry about creating an intricate link building scheme as it will more than likely end up getting sniffed out by Google anyways. Small business owners are much better off spending their online marketing budgets building value for their community and actively participating in industry focused discussions throughout the web.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Attract New Clients Utilizing Unique Landing Page Website

If your business has many different products and services available, attracting new clients can sometimes be a challenge. When you need to target a specific demographic then an online campaign can result in the traffic you need to close new business. To be effective you’ll need to have a well-designed landing page for the web traffic to land on. This is the best way to ensure that all of your online marketing activities are focused to close the deal when they lead to the landing page. Use a low cost solution from the web hosting company when purchasing a new domain address that is relevant to the product or marketing campaign and start building a page. This can be a very cost effective method to allow your brand to represent itself in unique ways to online clients. Send traffic from your Facebook and Twitter accounts to your landing page or purchase relevant keyword advertising from Google to target people searching for a solution precisely like you offer.

Purpose of Landing Page

A landing page should answer the immediate questions for a potential new client that’s interested in the products and services you have available. Basic information and pricing on the product should be the primary focus of the landing page. Be sure to include how to get in touch with someone from your company either by phone or through a live chat system. It’s best to have a trained professional responding to a person’s questions immediately it will increase the success of your landing page in generating new business.

A landing page can be as simple as a single web page that has the basic details necessary on it for the marketing campaign with directions to the main company website and relevant contact details. Another popular method of building domain specific landing pages for marketing purposes is to use a blog platform like WordPress. Use a plugin for making a sticky post. Then you’ll just need to sticky the first post and continue to write relevant content that is published on your blog. This is a great way to not only provide the right first impression for the marketing campaign, but also generate content required for natural SEO rankings.

Engage Through a Landing Page

A landing page is your opportunity to grasp a new client’s attention whether they came to the site through a recommendation on LinkedIn, Facebook, or a Google Adwords click.  It’s now or never as people browsing the web tend to click away quickly if they are not immediately interested.  It’s generally a good idea to not have flash or any heavy graphics that might slow a page down from loading immediately for the user. Generally just forgoing using flash will eliminate page loading problems for most visitors. It’s also a good idea to have a video as an option to either click play on or to have as an additional link off the page as many people enjoy learning about new products and services by watching a short video and demo versus reading an article. Have a contact form and the option to like a Facebook Page, follow on Twitter and other methods of capturing the person’s attention in the future.

Close the Deal

New clients that have visited a landing page and either started a web chat or initiated a phone call will always be the hot leads and the easiest new business to close. By offering a few different avenues for a person to stay in touch with your business whether it is Facebook, Twitter, Youtube, Linkedin, or through your company newsletter you have the capability to get business in the future by continuing to establish your brand.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

Tips for Getting More Clients from Marketing Activities

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

The new year is always a time to review last year’s execution and make plans for growing the business. The following tips and techniques can be used to maximize your existing marketing activities in getting more clients. If you have a product or service that is currently being marketed through your own activities or from your joint venture marketing partner then it’s necessary to close every lead and potential deal that is on the table. To acquire a customer it often takes several different attempts with layered marketing of the company and its offerings. By quickly following through with every marketing activity you can potentially hit a customer in multiple channels.

Blog Posting

A blog post may about a new product or new company information that is posted in order to educate customers and potential customers about the product or company. Blog posts are a great foundation to build on and leverage for improving the companies rankings in the search engines. It’s important to expand the reach of your company blog by using the following actions and services on websites to promote the blog post.

Email – Blast a company message with the title, link, and summary of the blog post to people in your newsletter lists.

Facebook - Post a link to your company’s blog post. These should be posted on both companies Facebook pages if it’s a joint venture.

Twitter - Post a link to your company’s blog post. The co-branded blog posts should be posted on both companies Twitter accounts.

Fiverr - Hire someone to submit blog pages to social sites like Reddit, Digg, StumbleUpon and other locations. Hiring additional people to also promote and engage with the content can help posts gain traction faster in the Search Engines.

While results may not be instantaneous, if you follow the steps above your blog posts will receive more value in search engine rankings for your target keywords from Google due to the links that will be created directing back to your specific blog posts. This will help create more traffic to your company’s main website through promoting your content.

Facebook

Facebook can be a unique place to advertise for many businesses. However; there are a few strategies that can work for companies and their joint venture partners that are looking to gain access into specific local markets and have a solid presence on the social network.

• Facebook ads can generate interests from a partner’s existing customer base that follow them. Create an advertisement special that customers of a partner can have access to if they post a message in there Facebook status about your brand. Getting more clients from Facebook requires them sharing your company with their friends.

• If you want to build a following of people, then as a company you have to be educational and have interesting content that makes people want to subscribe to your content. Create interesting videos that provide specific details about a topic in 2 – 3 minutes and post them to your Facebook page as well as on Youtube.

• Create an interesting ad that targets very specific demographics. The ad itself needs to be short and sweet and catch the attention of viewers for the target market your business is after. Purchase ads to the exact details of the market that you need to reach whether it’s regional or based on the individuals occupation, age or gender. Facebook allows for creating amazingly detailed ad campaigns. Make the campaign about clicking like to your Facebook page versus redirecting to your website or a sales landing page.

Brochures / Mailers

If part of the marketing activities is sending out a regular printed brochure, catalogue, or promotional newsletters / sale offerings then it is important to maximize each piece of mail, due to the cost of regular mail campaigns.

Email - Sending an email at the same time as a physical mailing is a good way to use the marketing material twice and help reinforce the physical papers that may get shuffled around for a few days before being reviewed. Invite them to a webinar that will be conducted concerning a topic related to the products or services that are being offered in the mailer. Include a form in any emails that can be filled out and sent in requesting more information as some people prefer to communicate through these channels rather than making a call.

Phone Call – Making a follow up phone call 5 – 8 days after sending a letter / package to a perspective client is always a wise idea. If you are conducting a massive mail campaign and neither you nor your business partner has a call center, it’s ok. There are people that can be hired for a fairly affordable rate that can quickly understand your company’s basic information and products to make lead generation calls to provide hot leads to your sales team. Train sales people making follow up phone calls to get email addresses during the conversation as it’s the easiest way to ping potential customers on a regular basis.

Have a great 2012; enjoy growing your business and maximizing all of your existing joint venture marketing activities to get more clients.

christian fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A joint venture marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

Discover more joint venture marketing Strategies join his free report on joint venture marketing.

joint venture marketing

joint venture marketing

5 Resources to Make the Most of Your Joint Venture

Once you have landed an effective JV partnership, your work is not finished. The next step is to make the most of your venture, using some of the modern technology designed to attract more customers and boost sales. Becoming savvy to modern marketing techniques can make the Internet work for you more effectively. Check out these five resources to make the most of your joint ventures.

Search Engines

The online search process is an ever-evolving science. When you work the search engines to your advantage, your business will come up higher in the rankings when customers search for products or services related to yours.

If you’re unsure how to select keywords and use them to your fullest advantage, contact an Internet marketing consultant for help. The time and money you spend will pay off with more traffic directed to your website and an increase in your customer base.

Content submissions

Content submissions use search engine functionality to help customers find your business, but they do much more than simply boost your SEO. When you submit content to e-zines and other websites for publication, you are establishing yourself as an expert in your field. When customers are shopping for a particular item and they read an article written by you about that item, they’re more likely to head to your website for assistance and a purchase.

Autoresponders

Autoresponders keep the lines of communication open between your business and customers without requiring an exorbitant amount of your own time to do so. Autoresponders send responses to customers’ email addresses, alert them to upcoming promotions and provide other information. This tool is invaluable for keeping new and current customers abreast of what’s new with your business so they’re more likely to come back to your business for purchases.

Link exchanges

This is the primary function of many JV partnerships today, allowing both businesses to place links on the other’s website. This way, a customer who is shopping for a particular item on your partner’s website may also click on your website to make a related purchase. You can also set up link exchanges through your content submissions and your own blog, which we will discuss below.

Blogs

A blog takes a bit of time to set up and maintain, but it is a great way to establish yourself as an expert in your field and drive traffic to your business. While it is similar to content submissions, the difference is that the blog is your own website, allowing you to place any content you like at any time. JV partners can also link to each other’s blogs, so frequent visitors of one blog can easily find the other. If you don’t have time to prepare your own content, there are many writers who will do so for a fee.

Make your JV partnership work for you by adding these tools to the process. These resources make your job easier by increasing traffic to your website and encouraging new and current customers to make purchases. When the Internet is working in your favor, you can increase sales from the comfort and privacy of your office any time you like.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free report on Joint Venture Marketing.

4 Ways to Make Your Website Work for You

The Internet has opened the door to a wide range of marketing opportunities today, allowing you to build your business and boost sales all from the comfort of your office. One of the best ways to advertise your business online is through joint venture marketing, which links you with an established business in a related industry that can send more potential customers your way.

Once you have created a few JV partnerships, it is time to make the Internet work for your business, with website tips guaranteed to broaden your customer base.

Use Search Engine Optimization

When people need a product or service, they use the search engines to find the companies that provide what they are looking for. While you can use Google tools for this purpose, the best course of action is to hire an SEO expert for this purpose. Although your JV marketing efforts will be effective in growing your customer base, a little search engine savvy can’t hurt either. Your JV partner probably already knows the tricks of the trade, so you will need to get up to speed to ensure you are doing your part to attract new business.

Make Your Company Inviting

Once your customers find you, it is up to you to ensure that they stay long enough to make a purchase. When designing your website, set it up for easy, convenient navigation. Post your phone number, address and direct email link on your contact page so customers can get in touch with you easily. Offer easy to follow links that move from one page to another and add a few full-color photos to make your website and your products more enticing.

Provide a Physical Location

Few businesses do well when they limit to all of their business to online transactions. Even in this electronic age, customers feel more comfortable with a business that offers a brick and mortar location, as well as a website address. When you provide the contact information above, you are doing more than offering your customers information to get in touch with you. You are also showing stability in your business by providing a physical location and an actual person over a phone line with whom your customers can connect.

Know Your Customer

This advice is not strictly geared to online businesses, but it does tend to get lost in the translation when setting up a virtual business. Your company may get seen by many more customers through the Internet, but your website still needs to address the specific needs of your customers in order to get noticed. You can hire a company to perform market research for you, or you can do your own through customer surveys and other techniques that will help you learn what your customers want and why they buy certain products.

JV marketing may bring more customers to your website, but then it is up to you to entice customers to stick around and shop. Like a brick and mortar store, your website needs to build your customer’s confidence and interest in your company through a high quality site that offers ample information about your business and the products and services you offer.

Christian Fea is CEO of Synertegic, Inc. A Joint Venture Marketing firm. He exemplifies how to profit from Joint Venture relationships by creating profit centers with minimal risk and maximum profitability.

To discover more Joint Venture Marketing Strategies join his free Joint Venture Marketing Wealth Report.

How not to get backlinks

how to get more backlinks

Phew, this is a multi-faceted subject and I want to emphasise it’s not clear cut. But here is what I know in my analysis at the Backlinks clinic:

Authority – basics

The more authority your site has the better you will rank on Google. Authority means that searchers trust you and your content. The great news is that authorities trusted by people are also recognised as trustworthy by Google. A good illustration is the .edu and .gov suffixes. These suffixes imply they are trustworthy sources of content and it’s a proven fact that as far as Google is concerned backlinks from these domains to your web pages will contribute authority to your web pages. Another perfect example is Wikipedia as the entries here are mostly added by by tribes of humans as opposed to a single source.

So it follows that authority is significantly influenced by the source of your backlinks and if authoritative sites link to your site then you inherit their apparent trust and in the eyes of Google you become more authoritative and hence the trust in your site by Google increases.

How Google declares what is and isn’t authoritative is a guarded secret for good reason and falls in line with Google’s philosophy of “Do no evil”. The last thing the Internet needs is someone exploiting the methods that Google untilzes in its efforts to try and regulate probably the most significant technological resource of our times.

How not to get Backlinks

In the same vein it’s valuable to state some ‘black hat sources and practices of building backlinks that Google not only dislikes but appears to be acting to ‘’categorize as negative authorities. In no particular order of merit, the prime examples are:

• Paid backlinks – hubs where individuals purchase and sell backlinks
• Comment spam – entries that have links on web sites that are just not associated to the main content.
• Low quality and *duplicate content – ‘scraped’ or copied
• Unnatural growth – there are a myriad of ways that this is achievable, Google isn’t stupid. Any sudden rise in the amount of backlinks is going to show up on Google’s monitoring systems, specifically if it’s a recently registered domain.
• Backlinks from ill reputed web pages – these are particularly henous as you are guilty by association – need I say more.

*There is another factor where I may be on dodgy ground, but reputable media portals seem to get a lot of authority and I have definitely seen significant quantities of the same content over and over again on different portals with no penalties, I am still monitoring this, only as some of the results I am seeing defy the normal behaviors I usually expect to see. More on this is in a future article….