HowDoIMarketMyBiz.com

Posts Tagged ‘Search Engine Optimization’

One of my clients, Katy Goshtasbi, owner/founder of Puris Image, a personal branding company asked me to be the subject of a video series she is creating on her YouTube channel. She had a great idea to create quick 2 – 3 minute videos with her flip cam, interviewing her clients on their experience personal shopping with her at Stein Mart and posting the videos to her social media sites.

What I love about her video series approach are several things:

1. She’s uploading new videos every week with new client interviews and using her keywords with each upload.
2. She’s giving the embed code to each interviewee to get them to add it to their blog (see below), this gives “in-links” to her content.
3. She’s keeping the videos short so that she can keep the viewers interested.
4. She’s promoting the video on her blog, her Facebook site and in Twitter.
5. She’s promoting a strong brand, Stein Mart, in the videos, which is a great way to get noticed, especially if Stein Mart monitors social mentions of their brand. The goal would be that Stein Mart would reach out to her to thank her for all the kind mentions and perhaps it could turn into a great online relationship for her, if the Stein Mart web site or Facebook page links to her videos content. It could help her go viral online and get her more viewers.

If you’ve been thinking about using video to promote your business, take a look at Katy’s approach and see how you can do something like that for yourself. What do you think of her series so far? I’d love to hear your comments below.

Can you believe it was just 5 years ago that Twitter began? What was once just a way to keep friends easily connected with real time updates like “Where you at?”, Twitter is now a tremendous tool for the business that knows how to use it properly.

Used for Branding, Customer Service, Coupon Specials, making joint venture partnerships, online networking, search engine optimization, driving traffic to your blog or web site, and more… Twitter is an online marketers dream. With keyword search, you can find someone talking about your product, service, or Brand, real time and reply back to them (whether they are following you or not.)

I caught Biz Stone, the co-founder of Twitter (find him @biz on Twitter), on Conan O’Brien’s Show last week. With the Tonight Show debacle and Conan being restricted on when he could appear in public and what he could say last year, he said Twitter was his saving grace. Visit @teamcoco to read his witty tweets.

Brian Solis blogged that Twitter, “has a reported 200+ million users (and bots) and a market valuation of $8 – $10 billion. It took 3 years, 2 months and 1 day to hit 1 billion Tweets. Now it only takes 1 week for Twitter to syndicate 1 billion Tweets.” If you are actively using Twitter, you understand how it works and can really see the power of it to connect instantly with someone you know, or have a common interest with. Even the mobile use of Twitter has grown 182% in the last year.

If you visit Twitter’s home page these days, their tag line reads, “The Best Way to Discover What’s New in Your World.” For the general user, you can find out what Oprah has to say, or stay up to date on the latest happenings of your favorite music artist or celebrity.

In January there was a lot of talk about how Twitter helped the people of Tunisia stay connected and avoid censorship by their government using the hashtag #sidibouzid.

Twitter is a lot of things to a lot of different users. For social media experts, having a networking tool available at your fingertips that can reach anyone (who has a Twitter account), anywhere, in any country, in seconds is phenomenal. As long as you have a business strategy in place regarding what you are saying and when, you should be seeing success with this aspect of “permission marketing”. If after reading this you thought to yourself, “I’m supposed to have a Twitter strategy for my business account”, then, you might want to give me a call.

Twitter itself reports that 460,000 new accounts were created each day on average in February 2011. Did one of those accounts belong to you or your business? Have you found connections that are a great source of referral? Are you tracking clicks and offer codes from Twitter? What do you use Twitter for? I welcome your comments.

Sure you’ve heard about social media marketing. Sites like Facebook and Twitter are in the press daily. Companies are blogging about their products and services but you’re wondering if it’s the right thing for your business. Here’s 5 reasons why you should add social media to your marketing mix:

1. Branding
   Social media can help you build your brand. Every time you tweet, write a blog or post a status update, you are keeping your company top of mind to your followers, fans and subscribers.
2. Get New Customers
   When you use keywords in your copy on all your social media platforms, you are improving your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and have a better likelihood of coming up in natural search.
3. Find Business Leads
   Wondering how to build your business? You can find people in Twitter that are in your business niche and connect with them about joint venture partnerships.
4. Find Others to Promote You
   Writers and bloggers are all over the internet. Conduct a Google Blog Search to find top sites with great page rank and a mass of followers and ask them if they will write about your product or service (and link back to you on your keywords.)
5. It’s Free to Do!
   And, the best thing about social media marketing is that it’s FREE! Writing blogs, creating and managing Twitter accounts and Facebook Fan pages for your business costs nothing but your time. But, the business impact can be incredible!

So, get online and build a social marketing presence for your business. Just a few focused, strategic minutes a day will get you hooked. You’ll be glad you did. And, if you start a blog, Twitter or Facebook account for your business and then say to yourself, “now what?” I can help.

This is the first in a series of blogs I’m calling, “Search Engine Marketing 101” or How To Get Your Business Found Online. Today, my specific topic regarding getting yourself found online is about Keywords and their power to help you come up in natural search results. Think of you own activity. When you want to find something, you Google it, right? And, that word, or series of words, you are type into the search box is called “Keywords”.

If you don’t know what keywords your customer is using to find you, you are in trouble. Keywords are of the utmost importance in all your marketing efforts. They need to be everywhere, including the following places:

• Your Web Site for Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Tagged in Images on Your Web Site
• Your Blog
• The Titles of your Blogs
• Your Social Media Posts in Facebook
• Your Tweets in Twitter
• Your Headlines on Your YouTube Videos
• Your Summary Section on LinkedIn
• Your Online Press Releases

Keywords can be just one word, or a series of two to even eight words. When they get that long we call that the “long tail”. Think about how you search for something…. When you want to buy shoes, what do you type into the search box? “Running shoes”, “Supreme comfort jogging shoes”, “Nike cross training shoes”, “Brand name athletic shoes at a discount”… and the list can go on and on.

You need to conduct research and know exactly what keywords your customers are using to find you, and in a variety of short and long tailed combinations. Once you have this, it is imperative that you use them in all your online marketing efforts. Knowing what your keywords are and using them often and everywhere will improve your natural search results.