Website: Is your website built correctly? How accessible is your website? The website of a business is their foundation in the online world. A website is how people find you, determine if you are qualified to help them and allow them the opportunity to hire you. When you first build your website, it should be organized and designed for simplicity and logic

Using proper SEO strategies of Meta tags, keywords and key phrases is paramount for this to be achieved. You want to make sure that your site not only looks great but that search engines are able to find it quickly and easily.

Website Content: Don’t rush when it comes time to build the content for your website. You should take time and carefully determine what keywords and key phrases will be used the most by your customers. You will want to use those words in the content that is on your website.

These keywords also should be used “in” your website. Meaning, built into your page headings and urls. For example, if you own a plumbing business, some of your keywords and key phrases may include: bathroom flooding, broken toilet, kitchen sink etc. Think of the problems your customers have and find the keywords that they would use to conduct a general search that would result in finding your business.

Content Creation: Your website must continually create content on an ongoing basis. Unfortunately, you cannot just create a great site and let it remain stagnant for months at a time. Customers want to see new and unique content on a regular basis. You need to give people a reason to return to your site. People will stop visiting your site if return visits only provide them with what they have already seen.

Use of videos, blogs and images are great ways to maintain fresh content. This continual creation of content will also maintain Google’s interest in your website. Google wants to see new content and will penalize your website rank if you don’t follow through. Having a content marketing strategy in place will make this easier for you.

The purpose of creating a website is to attract customers and increase your bottom line. This cannot occur if people are unable to find your site. If you spend the time to build your site correctly the first time, you will save money because proper SEO will already be in place. Creating fresh content on a regular basis will continue the overall high rank of your site. If you are catching Google’s eye, you will be catching the eye of potential customers as well. This is your goal and it can be achieved.

Timeline has a totally different look and feel. The first thing that you will notice is at the very top of your page. You now have a cover image. Choosing your cover image is the first step when you have officially switched to Timeline. When selecting your cover image it is critical to take into account the size of the image. Your cover image should be 851×315 pixels. If you can have a graphic designer create your image that would be ideal but if your budget does not allow for that expense, simply adhere to the pixel size limit. This is important because you don’t want the image to be blurred or cut off on the edges. Your cover image is the first impression your fans and potential fans will see. It is important to make it count. Facebook does have restrictions on what is permitted on your cover image. Your cover image may not include:
• A direct call to action
• Your website address
• Any sales, promotions or incentives

After you select your cover image, it is time to edit your “About” section of your profile. The “About” section is what used to be “Info” in the prior version of your Facebook fanpage. Remember that your cover image, your “About” section and your apps are all visible above the natural fold of the page. Therefore it is important to make these sections count. Keep your “About” section short. Your visitors will only be able to see the first 255 characters of this section. Think of this as your brief mission statement. You can save your businesses entire biography for the internal page.

When you have your cover image and about section completed, it is time to select your profile picture. Even though Facebook has restricted your cover image from displaying promotions or incentives, this limit does not apply to your profile picture. This is the ideal place to put your logo, or an image that displays a direct call to action for your fan base. You are limited in size, the profile picture is around 180×180 pixels, but you can maximize that space to your benefit.

All Facebook business pages will be automatically switched to the Timeline format by March 30, 2012. Therefore it is important for businesses to start now and see how this new format works. One great feature that business owners can use now is the preview features that Facebook shows when you sign on to your business page. This will show you how to use the above tips to maximize Timeline to your advantage. The first step is to choose the image for your cover, nail down your about section and get creative with your profile picture. Don’t worry about getting it all perfect the first time around. Just like with the current business pages, you can change your images as often as you would like. Timeline will truly be an asset for all businesses who have a presence on Facebook.

Miss Manners said it best when she stated, “Many people mistakenly think a new technology cancels out an old one.” Manners are important online, perhaps even more important than manners in person. Due to personal interpretation, feelings can get hurt and customers can be easily offended if the basic rules of netiquette are not followed.

Comment Carefully
As a business, your online presence should reflect your in house expectations of protocol. Simply put, if you wouldn’t conduct yourself in a certain manner with a customer in person, do not conduct yourself that way with your customer online. This can get tricky when managing social media platforms. When using Facebook and Twitter, it is extremely important to choose your words carefully. If you have a third party monitoring your social media accounts, make sure they have clear instructions on how your business interacts with customers. A business can gain more customers if potential customers witness great online customer service. Equally, a business can lose customers and quickly gain a viral bad reputation if they handle their social media interactions poorly.

Be Accurate
The Internet has made locating factual information very easy for your customers. Having an authentic voice and providing truthful information is paramount. Customers love the transparency that online interaction provides along with the connectedness they feel with the companies that provide their goods and services. By being accurate, truthful and honest a business will earn and keep the trust of their valued customers, while attracting potential customers at the same time.

Grammar Counts
When engaging with your customers online, proper use of English makes a difference. If your outbound posts, blogs, website and interactions contain a lot of grammatical errors and poor use of English, your customers will think two things. First, that your business is unintelligent. Second, your business doesn’t pay attention to detail. If your business makes sloppy mistakes online, your customers will have the impression that your business makes sloppy mistakes with their services. This is not the impression you want to give your audience. Using spell check and online grammar software can be a businesses best friend.

The trend of business interactions occurring via social media networks and email is on the rise. Business owners must embrace this new way of offering stellar customer service. Social media networks provide many opportunities for marketing that provides optimal results. An important factor to pay close attention to is minding netiquette manners. By following a few basic netiquette rules, current customers will remain loyal and potential customers will want to purchase your products and services.

Before thinking about how to use YouTube as a marketing tool though, take a moment to appreciate how revolutionary it truly is. Video advertising had long been the preserve of only major companies. Huge production costs and the high cost of television advertising conspired to keep it that way.

Then, sometime around 2006, the world reached a critical mass of high-quality, inexpensive video cameras, and sufficient broadband capability for people to share their videos. Suddenly the cost of broadcasting your video was zero! The only costs were production, which for many people were also zero!

Imagine going back in time 30 years and trying to explain to the ad men on Madison Avenue that you are your firm’s marketing department, that your budget for video production and broadcasting is $0.00, and that last year your videos were watched by millions of people.

Now, before I get ahead of myself, let’s look at a few ways to make sure that the videos you upload to YouTube are going to be the kinds of videos that people share, share, and re-share. A poorly executed video could actually be worse than no video at all.

When you make a video, make sure that it is optimized for maximum potential. You can optimize videos for YouTube much in the same way that you can optimize a web site for a search engine’s web crawlers, although the specifics are a little bit different. When you upload a new video, make sure that the title is descriptive, and make sure that it includes a keyword or phrase that you want to focus on.

You’ll also want to think about the length of your video. The most popular videos on YouTube have an average length of 2-4 minutes. If you opt for anything much shorter than this and your video may be looked upon unfavorably by the site’s search algorithms. Much longer and people will lose interest.

Additionally, address the other factors that the YouTube search algorithm weighs heavily. Much like any other search engine, it gives a lot of weight to inbound links. In addition, it relies heavily on user ratings and comments. So encourage people to rate comment on your videos, and to give them ratings. How do you do about doing this?

By getting involved in the community, of course. Much as you would with any other community, look for people who are posting a lot of videos, and whose videos are being linked to often. Watch their videos, and comment on them. Provide meaningful comments, and provide an occasional link back to your own content.

Also, be sure to link to other people’s videos and reference them in your videos and in your blog postings. They will appreciate the engagement, and they will link to your media in turn.

LinkedIn is the best of the social media websites for business to business sales. Contract workers and service providers have had incredible success using LinkedIn as a marketing platform. Below, are some tips to get started building a quality network.

1. Update your profile. An updated business profile is absolutely mandatory for those seeking to market on LinkedIn. Make sure to update your profile anytime you have changes in your professional life. When you send out notifications to your network, it is important to have an updated profile so that when they check, they see that the information in your notice and the information on your profile match.

2. Connect with all of your current contacts. The larger your network, the easier it is to grow your network. Start out with your address book and send out requests to all of your current contacts. Take the time to personalize each of your introductions, and mention the details of your connection.

3. Ask for help expanding your network. Talk with your current contacts and ask them to forward your information to others. On LinkedIn, the best marketing strategy is a solid service record. Your current contacts will be able to vouch for your skills and service, giving you a leg up on getting new contacts.

4. Keep your communications concise and professional. Because LinkedIn is geared toward working professionals, it is crucial that you maintain that tone in all of your communications. Avoid bulk mail, and target your communications specifically to the individual. Make sure that you know what you want, so you can communicate it clearly. People in business are very familiar with the idea of reciprocal favors. Often simply making the ask is enough to get the help you need.

5. Put your reputation first. When asking for and performing favors, it is important to keep your reputation in mind. In business, your reputation is a commodity that is worth everything, and once lost it can be impossible to regain. Do not send on frivolous emails, and never send out spam. Provide excellent service to every customer, and enjoy the benefits of a sterling business reputation.

LinkedIn is a great forum for specific types of marketing. It is not the best for direct selling to the general public, but for business to business services and cross industry referrals, it can not be beat.

Television price points are very high, and even a group of small businesses would have difficulty putting together enough funds for a solid advertising campaign. With online video content now available, price is no longer an issue.
A business can create and display video content very inexpensively. In fact, the only cost is for the video production. If you are prepared to provide your own content without resorting to a production company, a video can be virtually free.

There are some common misconceptions about online video content that you should not fall prey to. High quality is always nice with online video, but it is not required. The content is much more important than the video quality. If you don’t own a video camera don’t let that stop you. A camera is nice, but not required. Power point and multimedia presentations are just as interesting when formatted as a video. The time is another concern many have, but the truth is that video production can be quick and seamless. If you know what you need to say, it is only a matter of moments to put together a reasonable video. Finally, don’t worry about slow loading times. Your website can load as fast as ever if the video is hosted on another site, like YouTube. An additional benefit to hosting externally is that you may get additional traffic generated by those sites as well.

The trick to effectively incorporating video in an online marketing plan is to tag it properly. Video have a title, which must incorporate keywords effectively, so that it shows up for search engines. Also, be sure to fill out a description of the video to encourage viewers to watch. If they know what to expect they are more likely to watch the entire video. Online viewers are more likely to watch video than to read text. Since this is the case, it only makes sense to produce and market a few of your own.

Video is a way to quickly build trust and provide information. As long as you don’t fall prey to the idea that it must be expensive and high quality, your company can produce several each year. By creating video content that provides customers with valuable information, how-to guides are always popular, you step up your marketing. Don’t let the price of television advertisements convince you that video is out of your price range. Video can be produced absolutely free, quickly and easily. As you expand to include social media as a marketing tool, keep in mind that sites like YouTube are very much in this category.

Online advertising is the wave of the future, and social networking is the advertising that generates sales without selling. Creating a business fan page gives you the opportunity to communicate effectively with consumers without pushing the hard sale. Gentle interaction that is genuine and helpful will go a long way toward bringing in customers. When you put together your fan page, put all of your company information in the info tab. Make sure the full company name, mission statement, brief product and service description, contact information and website are clearly stated. By providing the company information, you allow consumers a chance to briefly learn what your company is about and click through if they are interested in learning more.

Make sure you have a welcome that greets new visitors. Something special for first timers that lets them know they are appreciated and a bit of information about your company. A welcome video is a great idea, multi-media is more likely to capture attention and keep interest. In your welcome message, make sure you include some kind of action request. Ask visitors to become fans, sign up for an email list or leave a comment. Whatever action you ask for should open an opportunity for dialogue between your company and the new potential customer.

Create a tab for people to check out your videos and sign up to receive your tweets. Anything that improves communication between your business and your social network can result in sales. Make sure that customers have a place to say the good, bad and ugly about your company. Give them a reviews/testimonials tab to make their opinions known. Yes, complaints happen, but by addressing them in a professional manner you give other consumers the chance to see your customer service skills in action. Move the communication offline for complaints, but show consumers that you listen to complaints and respond timely. Enjoy all the positive feedback as well. Employees will enjoy reading a heartfelt thank you from the people they have helped.

Include pictures that show both your products and your employees. By putting a face with the company and showing what you do, you create a positive image. Update your status regularly, so that visitors know your page is active. By following all of these steps you allow social media to sell your company without directly pushing sales. Simply showing off your expertise and interacting with people can go a long way toward building a customer base. The person asking the question may not buy today, or tomorrow, but when they are making a purchase, they will come back to the company that provided helpful information.

Blogs show up in search engines, allowing those looking for more information about a topic related to your company to find you easily. The more people that find you the more potential customers you reach. Blogging about the subject matter that is the object of a search tells a potential customer that your company shares their concerns or is familiar with their needs.

On your company’s blog you can publish articles that are designed to provide customers information about your latest product offerings, current sales or promotions, upcoming news and events, projects and any other business plans. Those interested in your products will find you more easily because of your blog and allow you a better method for connecting with them.

A blog is a fabulous place to answer frequently asked questions in greater detail. A traditional FAQ is written to be as brief as possible, but a blog allows you to provide much more information and respond to customer inquires directly.
Quality content is the key to a successful blog. Publishing articles that demonstrate your expertise and answering consumer questions builds the reputation and credibility of your company. The better the reputation you earn the more people will be encouraged to visit your blog and through it your company. A blog is also a great place to display testimonials and awards. Blogs are more than a constant advertisement. They are a place where your company can interact with potential customers and build a community of dedicated online followers.

Because comments are available for people to either post or read, they are more likely to peruse a blog versus a catalog. The ability to offer feedback makes customers feel valued and more committed to your product or service. It is important to reply to comments on a regular basis so that people know they are being heard. This has two benefits. The first is simply that interaction builds trust which builds loyalty. Customers that are loyal will contact your company first for any product or service needs. Another benefit is that you are able to respond appropriately to customer needs. By interacting with customers you find out the features or products they are looking for and can work to provide them.

Quality content on a blog can also improve your page rankings on search engines. The bottom line is that with online marketing the most difficult piece is allowing customers to find you. Anything that can make it easier for customers to find your website is a valuable tool. Do some research and make a complete list of keywords that people might use to find your website. Make a couple of those key words a topic for each article. This should help build better rankings almost immediately.

Over the years, SEO marketers have done efforts to increase their backlink count to thousands of links. Today, however, it is relatively harder to generate backlinks, owing it to the fact that search engine algorithms change from time to time. Recent search engine algorithm updates has decreased the possibility of links found on article directories to be counted as valid backlinks. In simpler terms, if you submit an article to top directories and your website link is posted at the bottom of the article, search engines may or may not count that as a valid backlink!

It means, for today’s SEO marketer, generating backlinks would have to mean more than just submitting pieces of content to article submission sites. The solution is to let your SEO content become popular online in the most “natural” way possible. Letting your content spread virally is important because it lets the search engines know that you are not manipulating the search algorithms. Instead, you are pushing your content ethically and it is sparking genuine interest from internet users.

It is always helpful to find high-traffic blogs in your niche and contact the blog owner so that you can offer to post a “guest blog post” on their blog. If you build a good relationship with five to ten blog owners in your niche and then regularly post your content on their site, you will generate a lot of incoming links.

Submitting to social bookmarking sites is also very effective for backlinking. Once you have a new blog post link, submit it to social bookmarking sites such as Stumbleupon, Digg, Twitter, and many others. Search engines love to crawl these bookmarking sites, and if your link happens to be present there, it will also be indexed fast. Plus, the link you posted as social bookmarks may count as backlinks too.

Outsourcing also works for building backlinks. You can hire SEO experts, then arrange to pay them a fair price for generating a set number of backlinks. Choose a provider who has the ability to make things easier for you on the SEO side, while you focus on other important aspects of your business that you know best

There are two ways by which article marketing can help you gain more website visitors. First, submitting articles to popular directories can help you get “direct traffic”. By direct traffic, we mean that people are finding your articles posted online and then they visit your website after they read your article resource box. This requires some SEO because you need to optimize your online content so that people can find it online when they use the search engines.

To gain direct traffic, it is important that you write your articles to attract both the search engines and people. Lots of marketers optimize their content for the search engines but the articles they post are barely readable. Instead of doing that, I suggest you study a little bit of copywriting so that you will know how to arouse attention, provoke interest, intensify buying desire, and prompt your readers to action. There’s more to writing articles than piecing together some long tail keywords and talking in circles. You have to actually help your readers get valuable information that they want and need.

Your article headline is extremely important because both the search engines and people will take a look at it to decide whether it’s worth the time and exposure. The search engines will check if your title is keyword-rich. If it is, and there’s lesser competition for that phrase, your article has a higher chance of ranking higher in search results. In fact, lots of web pages which rank number one in Google and Yahoo are not formal landing page sites, but article pages in popular directories. The key to doing this is to put your keywords on the first two or three words of the article title.

The second way through which article marketing helps you get website visitors is “organic traffic”. Organic traffic means that people visited your site because it appeared in the search engine results and they ended up clicking on it. This is much more difficult to generate than direct article traffic, because organic traffic actually means your website homepage should rank for more popular keyword phrases with heavy competition.

The main strategies for gaining organic traffic include effective keyword placement on your landing page, and building backlinks. “Backlinks” refer to webpages that link to your site. In this area, article marketing can help because if your articles get picked up by other blogs and publishing platforms, your website links will also be published along with the articles. The more websites or blogs that link to your own homepage, the higher your backlink count. The higher your backlink count, the greater chances you will have of higher search engine rankings.