Choosing a domain name is an important step in establishing your online presence. Why? Because choosing the right domain name can impact your business positively … or negatively. It can influence your SEO scores, help or confuse your clients, define your brand and more. Be sure to take some time when considering what your business domain name will be! Make sure it has the impact that aligns with your online business goals.
Choosing the right social media platform for your business can be overwhelming for sure! It requires careful consideration of your target audience, business goals, and the features offered by each platform. Here’s a step-by-step process to help you determine which social media platform(s) is right for your business:
SEO, Strategy
SEO (Search Engine Optimization) involves optimizing your website and its content to improve its visibility and ranking on Search Engine Results Pages (SERPs) for Search Engines or Browsers like Google Chrome, Microsoft Bing, Apple Safari and more. There are several key elements of SEO that help ensure it is effective.
Here’s 10 basic elements to help you get started!
Maybe you don’t think your website has any information that is worthy of stealing or being hacked, but websites are often compromised not to steal data, but to gain access to a server. Today many are overwhelmed with the devastation of finding out their website has been compromised and in some cases, key information is lost or stolen. Just like many natural disasters, the destruction of property and loss that occurs is devastating. Having a plan to cope with this type of disaster is helpful even though some things may never be replaced. The same is true of your website and Internet presence.
Many business owners see the value of having a website but aren’t sure the cost is worth it. The trick is to find the most cost effective way to ensure your business has a solid presence in the Internet Marketing arena. There are many ways to accomplish this goal without breaking the bank.
Consider using drip content and automatic responses (autoresponders) to help manage the ongoing communication for your business. Email lists are a must to help build a following of clients that want to know more about your products and services, but autoresponders and drip content are the key to keeping your followers engaged in your business.
As a website owner, do you often wonder if you will ever be hacked? What can you do to prevent hackers? You don’t want to wake up one day and see all of your work altered or entirely wiped out by some crazy hacker?
Measuring your success in social media marketing can seem overwhelming and rather tricky. If all you measure is likes and follows, it’s a piece of cake. But, that doesn’t really tell you if you are being successful on your social media platforms. As a business owner, if you have a marketing plan that creates thousand of likes and follows, but generates no real leads or sales, would you consider it successful? I’m sure the answer is no. So, how do you know what social media posts actually stimulated more sales or generated more leads?
The easy answer is to post on social media when there is the most traffic. Easy, right? Not so much. There are many variables to consider. Your posts times may vary depending on the social media platform you are using and what the demographics are like. For instance, Facebook may be a broader, more social environment where LinkedIn may be more business and professional. Twitter is all about having a voice. Instagram is sharing images and stories while YouTube/Tiktok is video content with entertainment as well as informational.
Not sure what to post on social media? Wondering if you should share something on social media? What if the reaction isn’t what you expected? Afraid you will offend all your followers with a post? Many business owners wonder what they can share and post on social media. What is appropriate? What is helpful? Is it OK to post a fun picture or share a post from a friend?
As you struggle with all the ins and outs of posting to all the different social media platforms, you may have figured out that actually sitting down and making a plan might be a good idea. Actually, it’s a GREAT idea! It really is very simple.
Outbound Marketing is a more traditional approach to marketing. Most of the time when people talk about marketing, they are referring to outbound marketing where a company initiates the conversation and broadcasts their message. If you are looking to spread the word quickly about a new product or service, outbound marketing can achieve this very well. The issue is it doesn’t always translate into actual business, but it can begin to make the viewer aware of a product or service.
Simply stated, Inbound Marketing is attracting business by connecting with people. The driving factor is to get noticed by creating interest rather than showing a product. Inbound Marketing targets potential customers as well as loyal fans. It provides valuable information to consumers who are actively searching for a product to meet their need.
Inbound Marketing and Outbound Marketing are a great discussion these days as new entrepreneurs have entered the marketplace. Over the last several years, Inbound Marketing has been deemed the new way to market. Out with the old Outbound Marketing approach that doesn’t work. Or does it? To know which is best for your business, you need to understand a little about marketing.
The Internet is loaded with information. When we want to know the answer to a question, we simply Google it or ask Siri. We assume that what we find is true and, for the most part, it is. But, what if this information isn’t true or helpful to your business?
What does networking have to do with a website, SEO, or marketing? Well, if you think outside the box a little you may begin to understand. You are in business because you offer something different, better or unique. Other businesses are not your competition. Joining forces with other businesses is a way to sell more of your products or services. By cross-selling, servicing or networking with others, you may find new ideas or a better way to market your product. Build or join a good networking group or community either online or in your community.
You have a website and it is getting traffic, but you would like to increase the traffic to your website and improve it’s performance. The simplest way to accomplish this is to begin an SEO (search engine optimization) campaign for your website. Search engine optimization is where you apply simple, focused techniques to help search engines know what is important on your website. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by all that can be done in the search engine optimization process, but let’s keep it simple.
There are 3 key elements in search engine optimization: Keywords,
Meta tags, and Content.
Link building, or link-building, is the process of finding and adding valuable links both to and from your website. There is no doubt that building links which point directly to your site (back links) is an important part of any SEO strategy. Wikipedia explains it this way “In the field of search engine optimization, link building describes actions aimed at increasing the number and quality of inbound links to a webpage with the goal of increasing the search engine rankings of that page or website.”
As a business owner, your biggest responsibility is to make sure that all operations run smoothly and you limit risks. Many business owners turn over their online reputation to other individuals or companies but it is important to understand the benefits of “owning your business” online. Many of the same practices you put in place to protect your reputation and company brand for a storefront should be repeated with your online presence.
Business owners often have many responsibilities and find it hard to make time for digital content. Their expertise is in knowing their business and may feel they just don’t have the expertise or the resources to allocate to digital innovations. However, in today’s market, it is nearly impossible to hide under a bush and survive. Or in other words, not have some type of ongoing digital presence on the web. It’s not necessary for a small business to be staffed with marketing or online experts in order to begin taking advantage of the many opportunities available. There are a number of ways for business owners to begin to learn about and benefit from online content immediately.
