Entries Tagged 'internet marketing' ↓

The internet is taking over – hardly breaking news, but it is if you are a business owner. More and more people are searching for local companies through the search engines so it’s never been more important to ensure you have a strong local SEO presence on the web.

Many company websites concentrate on their products and services and omit their geographical details that will help them get found by consumers. With the advent of increased and improved mobile search, it is vital you stand out in your local area. And the best way to do that is by utilising the power of local search.

Location, location, location

If your company covers a specific geographical location, make sure those details are added to your HTML through page titles. You should also try and use these details within your copy and headings. But ensure you are sensible about it. Remember you are first and foremost writing for your reader – if you over do it, the page will look clumsy. Other areas for location information are within the footer along with your address and also within your internal hypertext linking structure. Instead of linking freelance copywriter, use a geographical reference such as Suffolk freelance copywriter.

YouTube

As well as optimising your website for local search terms, you can boost your presence by using video marketing. Upload your video to YouTube and then use very localised tags – without being spammy. The chances are (depending on the competitiveness of your keywords) you’ll be able to get these ranked and the more entries you can get on a front page local search results, the fewer your competitors can have.

Wider areas

Many buisnesses will serve multiple geographical areas. If this is the case, you should consider creating specific landing pages for each area. They should have unique content (you don’t want to fall foul of the duplicate content trap) and should be optimised for each specific area. Hypertext links within these pages can then drive your visitors to your main website.

Boost your profile

Social networking sites make it easy to spread your name and your business name to a wide audience. Set up social media profiles, again relating to your geographical region. But, as with the landing page content, make sure each description is different. You should also utilise Google Places, Yahoo local, and Bing Local to boost your local profile.

So the name of the game is local search – when creating your website always keep in mind your main business location and use it to its full potential.

Blogging is a very powerful social media marketing tool.

It can help drive targeted traffic to your website as well as elevate you to expert status within your chosen field.

But if your blogging is to be effective, you have to keep it fresh.

The best way to achieve that, is to post regularly. In an ideal world that would mean daily posts, but for many (including me) that simply isn’t possible. But, it is vital that you decide how regularly you are going to up date and stick to it.

Your readers are creatures of habit and will get to expect the same frequency of posts from you. For example, I blog three times a week on Freelance Copywriters Blog. Therefore my regular readers know that on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday a new blog will appear. (I also blog twice a week on my main website – Briar Copywriting.)

This constant stream of fresh content is vital to:

• Keep you readers interested
• To keep the search engines interested

Keeping up momentum can be difficult – so here are 3 tips you can use to help you keep your blog fresh.

Specify a time

Once you’ve decided how often you’re going to blog, you need to make sure you set aside some time every week to ensure you produce the content.

The best way is to be very strict and allocate a couple of hours a day dedicated to research and blog writing. If daily writing isn’t possible for you, set a specific day or part of a day when you just blog. It won’t take long to get into the routine.

For me, my week days are pretty full-on keeping up with the copywriting work for my clients. Therefore I allocate a few hours on Sunday afternoon – normally when my son is at fencing club. So while he’s playing with swords (OK, foils) I’m sat in the leisure centre’s cafe with my laptop, writing.

Of course there will be times when life conspires against you and you can’t post. If this does happen it pays to get into the habit of posting up a short message telling your readership when the next post will appear. If you keep them informed, they are more likely to stay loyal.

Use publishing tools

As I mentioned above, I write my posts for the week on a Sunday. Therefore I use the publishing tools available to me on my blog to schedule my posts.

Therefore I can spend a few hours writing, upload them to my blog and set the date and time I want them published. Then I am free to crack on with my workload through the week knowing my pre-written posts will be published when I specified.

Guest bloggers

Using guest bloggers is another way to ensure regular content appears on your blog.

They can also add variety to your blog by introducing a new voice and perspective. Of course, you’ll want to ensure the subject matter is relevant to your readership.

The best way to see whether guest posts go down well with your readers is to check your analytics after each post. If it didn’t go down well, it may be best not to use that guest blogger again. After all they should enhance your blog not damage it.

Regular blogging will pay dividends, but it is hard work and time consuming. But by building your blogging time into your weekly schedule you’ll ensure fresh content is always available for your readers.

So you’re a blogger.

You may have been blogging for a while, or you may have just started out. Whether you are blogging for business or for pleasure, maintaining your blog is essential if you are to keep and build on your number of readers.

There are three main factors that can determine the success of your blog:

• The subject of your blog
• How your blog looks (it’s aesthetic layout)
• How you promote your blog

If you write about an obscure subject, you will limit your audience. But if you are writing about specific topic – for example, I use this blog to mainly talk about copywriting – try and stick to that area. For me, I write about being a copywriter, copywriting tips, marketing suggestions, social media and search engine optimisation. Basically, all these areas interrelate and so add value to my readers (I hope).

The look of your blog is also very important. Many people like things clean and simple. Over use of adverts and flashy images can be very off putting, so give careful consideration about how you want your blog to look.

Finally, don’t make the mistake of  thinking that if you post articles they will automatically get read. You have to promote your blog so people know it’s there – list it in blog directories, utilise the power of SEO, and use social media to spread the word.

How to maintain your blog

• The main key to maintaining your blog is to post regularly. As your readership grows, they will become used to you posting regularly. If they know you are going to generate regular, great content it will give them an incentive to return.

• Blogging is also about building a relationship with your readers. Over time they get to recognise your voice. When they come to your blog it will be like popping in to see an old friend. That type of bond can be very powerful and will retain readers.

• You also have to understand your audience. The best way to attract a wide readership is by concentrating on a niche. As I mentioned earlier, mine is on all things copywriting and marketing. My readers know that each post will give them some new information about this topic. By focusing on a specific area, your readers will come to see you as an authority in that field.

• Nothing ever stays the same forever, but if you want to make changes to the look and feel of your blog, make only small ones at a time. To your readers, your blog is like a comfortable pair of slippers. They know what they’ll get when they visit it. If you give it a major overhaul, it can be a shock. People don’t like change – so if you do want to revamp, just do a bit at a time and monitor each change to see what effect it has had.

Remember – post regularly, write for your audience, only make small changes at a time – follow those simple rules and you and your readers will enjoy a mutual blogging relationship for a long time to come.

Blogging is a fantastic way of generating traffic on the web.

But blogging without a plan is rather like rowing without a paddle – you’re not going anywhere.

I’m sure you have utilised the power of search engine optimisation for your main ‘sales’ website, but are you using it on your blog too?

Many bloggers overlook this vital aspect of blogging. Generating great content regularly is all well and good, but if you’re not getting it in front of the right people, why bother?

Blogging SEO

So how do you go about SEO when blogging? For your main website you have optimised copy, optimised H1 tags, optimised title tags etc. But the content on your blog will be changing continuously, so can you maintain SEO?

It basically comes down to three elements – keywords, back links and images. So let’s look at each one in turn.

Keywords

Just as you did for the web copy on your main website, you need to research your keywords when you write blog posts. If you have a subject you want to write about, take a look at one of the free tools (such as Google’s) to find the associated words that can be used within your text to enhance your SEO.

Make sure you use your main keywords within the post’s heading and sub headings. As you write your post, don’t get hung up with the number of times you use your keywords, instead write naturally. Don’t just use your main keywords over and over; add in modifiers too – e.g. rather than stiffing your copy with copywriter, intersperse it with phrases like – website copywriter, SEO copywriter, brochure copywriter, marketing copywriter etc.

Back links

Attracting back links to your blog will help your rankings. Therefore the more people you can bring to your blog through your SEO efforts the better.

Generating interesting copy that your audience wants to read will encourage others to link to you. And, the ‘better’ the site that links to you, the more authority you will be seen to have.

One way (unreciprocated) links are the best ones to have as they are seen as more valuable by the search engines than reciprocated links. These should be generated over time by offering great content. Don’t be tempted to sign up to offerings that promise thousands of links over night – your links should be quality, genuine links. And that takes time, but, in the long run, will produce great results for you.

Images

The use of images in your blog posts will attract readers. Including eye-catching, intriguing images will lure readers to you. Although the image itself won’t help your SEO, the image tag will.

This is often overlooked by people. Use your keywords in those tags but make sure they have some relevance to the picture.

Why am I telling you this?

These three simple enhancements to your blogging will help you generate more interest and a greater number of readers. Plus, when you write your blog posts, by adding hypertext keyword links back to your main site, you’ll drive more traffic to your main site. And more traffic means more sales.

Blogging is one of the most powerful social media techniques you can use in your internet marketing strategy. But you must be patient. Shed loads of targeted traffic won’t be generated over night. But if you follow these simple SEO techniques, you’ll soon begin to build a readership.

Most smart marketers and business owners today know that the internet is the place to be. It offers a platform from which to market your business to the world – literally.

But mention internet marketing to many people and you’re met with blank stares. There seems to be so many different forms of marketing, most with baffling names and what’s more…you have to use a computer!

But if you are willing to spend a bit of time getting to know your way around the internet, it can be very rewarding. I began my freelance copywriting business 3 years ago and have done all my marketing online. Now, all my clients come to me through my website (or via referrals) – no costly adverts and no cold calling.

So how do you get started? What are the key aspects of internet marketing?

The how and why of internet marketing

1. Search Engine Optimisation

Search engine optimisation (or SEO for short) is something just about everyone has heard of, but very few understand.

Basically, when you make a search in Google, SEO will determine what results are returned and the order in which they appear. But SEO is changing (and that’s not including Google’s constantly changing algorithm that determine where your website appears in the search results). You may have noticed in searches that now Google also lists videos, images and even Tweets. This opens up new possibilities for internet marketing with more businesses setting up YouTube channels.

SEO is really the way to go for most businesses but it isn’t fast. You have to identify your keywords, produce excellent content that utilises these keywords, work on your site structure and infrastructure to make it SEO friendly. And then you have to build high quality one way links into your site.

It’s not a quick fix and it is a constantly ongoing job but it is ideal for businesses with a limited budget. Plus, the potential ROI is staggering.

2. Pay Per Click

Pay per click (PPC) is basically paid advertising on Google (and the other search engines). When you look at a page of search engine results, the PPC adverts are the top highlighted results and the list that appears down the right hand side.

The main advantage of PPC is that it’s fast. Once you’ve set your advert up it will begin to appear in the results. But, it can be very money hungry. PPC basically works on a bidding system whereby you compete with a number of other businesses all bidding for keywords. The higher the price you pay, the more prominent your advert. That is quite a simplistic way of looking at it as the actual price you pay is also determined by the number of click-throughs you get.

But, at the end of the day, if you don’t have deep pockets PPC probably isn’t for you – certainly not in the long term.

3. Email marketing

Email marketing is one of the best ways to market online. Sending out information and offers to your own in-house list is the perfect way to market to your customers.

So long as you give information as well as just sell, your recipients will be happy.

It is one of the cheapest forms of marketing and it’s so fast. But just be careful you don’t send out unsolicited emails – they are probably not going to be welcomed. The last thing you want is for your business to be labelled as a spammer.

4. Social media

Love it or hate it, social media is here to stay (for the foreseeable future anyway). It can be done cheaply and easily and, if you have a strategy in place, it won’t eat into your time.

But, social media calls for a completely different way of selling. Basically you sell without selling – let me explain. Social media is about building relationships. You have to chat and engage with people; give them information that is useful. Then, occasionally you can add in a sales message.

The main thing to remember is to start a conversation, listen to your followers/readers, answer their questions and give advice and, maybe, in the long run they will turn into clients.

Twitter, Facebook, Digg, StumbleUpon…there are many different forms of social media you can use. But remember, they are called ‘social’ for a reason.

5. Banner ads

Love them or loath them, they exist and are used by many businesses. They may not always give the best ROI and not easily measurable, but they might work for you so don’t immediately discount them.

6. Your website

Whichever route you decide to go down for your internet marketing plan, one thing you can’t overlook is your website.

What’s the point of driving traffic to your site if it isn’t going to convert into sales when it gets there?

The copy on your website has to be conversational, customer orientated and benefits driven. If you manage that, it will engage with your reader and help convert them into a buying customer.

Why am I telling you this?

Internet marketing is a term that is thrown around without many people really understanding what it involves.

If your campaign is going to be successful it will need a combination of the above – which ones you use depends on your business and what you are looking to achieve.