We all know how important it is to protect your personal identity online, but are you also protecting and monitoring your business’s brand online? Do you know every little thing that is being said? All of the positive and all of the negative? If you answered “No”, you really should consider finding out what is being said. It can potentially be what makes or breaks your business and your reputation.
Thanks to everyone that attended the Social Media Breakfast Maine: Speed Dating Style on 8/25/2011. We were delighted to be the SEO Expert on-hand to help answer everyone’s questions. Below is my SEO cheat sheet on link building which was one of the most popular questions.
SMBME: Speed Dating Style – SEO Expert
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When we are working with a client and re-vamping their website, or building a new one from the ground up, we always ask “Would you like to blog on your website?” We have found that question is one that many people are very quick to say “No.” But after we explain the benefits [original content, content, content is king in the eyes of Google!] and the idea resonates for a while, we usually get the “What does blogging entail, how hard is it and is it REALLY going to benefit myself and my business? question.
If you have taken a jump into the land of SEO [search engine optimization] only to find yourself completely overwhelmed and not sure if the SEO techniques you are currently doing or reading about will only end in you being black-listed by Google, which means your business’s is dead on the Internet. Did you just find out that “Yes!” you can be black-listed on Google? If the company or individual you hire is not practicing what we call “White Hat SEO” AKA the good SEO techniques, you will end up in the one spot you don’t ever want to be… Not a friend of Google!
So you just signed up for Twitter… Now what? Remember that Twitter is about building relationships and starting conversations, and MOST importantly, listening. In fact, you will probably spend more time listening [or reading tweets] as you begin using Twitter to build your business and/or brand. Twitter is all about finding real time conversations and injecting your brand when it’s appropriate.
Here are 3 ways to help you find related Twitter followers to engage with:
Hopefully these three ways will help you find related Twitter followers to engage with. Remember that listening is more important than shouting your brand’s message online. It takes time, patience AND consistency, but by breaking up the time into small chunks, it’s feasible!
By now you are probably familiar with what SEO [search engine optimization] is and how incredibly valuable it is to you and your business. In fact, it is getting to the point that if you website isn’t optimized correctly, you are probably missing out on many, many valuable clients/customers.
Did you know that 20% of all the searches that Google processes are related to local search? This means that at least 20% of users are now adding a location to their search. Since there are so many people that are looking for Google’s recommendation on local services, there is a huge opportunity for those local businesses to increase their online visibility, even if they don’t already have their own website.
There are some things you want to make sure you include when you are doing local SEO for your Maine small business:
Local SEO for your business is only one piece of the inbound marketing puzzle, but a very important one. Too many business owners over look taking the time to verify their listings across all of the various sites and don’t fill them out completely. If you need assistance with your local SEO efforts, whether you’re not sure if your listings are verified or want to fill them out completely with pictures and video, give Mainely SEO a call today for a free consultation.
Below are the slides from my recent presentation on Local SEO for 2013 at SMBME.
Inconsistent and/or inaccurate branding of a business can make it difficult for people to understand who you are, what you are doing and why your business exists. Many small businesses tend to put branding on the back burner and focus more on growing their business. This is a big mistake because your brand can be the key to your success. Keep in mind that your brand is also your company’s face to the world and people need to be easily able to find you. You want to start tweeting your brand, networking your brand, advertising/promoting your brand, but most importantly, be consistent!
You want the same look everywhere. By ‘everywhere’ I mean:
I don’t think it would be an understatement to say that in the past five years social media has absolutely exploded! Facebook has an estimated 700 million worldwide users and Twitter has about 50 million tweets being sent per DAY. If you have your own business and you do not have a web presence via either a website, Facebook page or Twitter account you may be missing out on reaching as astonishing number of people that can potentially turn into new clients or customers. But before you get too excited we need to chat… You need goals and a strategy. Otherwise you have a Facebook page and Twitter account but what’s the point if you don’t know how to properly utilize it? Just to say you have one? OK, so your prospective client or customer goes to your Facebook page to “Like” it. Great! Are you providing them with any useful and engaging content? The social media world can be very intimidating to someone that is not familiar with it at all. However, I think everyone has been convinced and can agree that social media is now necessary for the survival of a business in today’s world. And if it’s not necessary, it always helps.
As an internet marketing company that designs and builds websites for small businesses, we at Mainely SEO get the question time and time again when we meet with new, potential clients…
“Can you make our website like the ones where things pop up and fly by, there’s music and it just looks really fun and cool?”
Each and every time we tell them “You really don’t want to do that [in fact, we won’t build Flash websites] and here are three reasons why…”
Flash websites [those created entirely in Adobe Flash] may be visually appealing with all the fun and excitement they usually contain, but there are several reasons why a flash website isn’t the best option for you or your business and how it can actually do more harm than good.
Why You Should Comment On Blogs To Build Your Brand
If you have your own business then you know how important it is to get your brand “out there.” By now you also know how important it is to have a strong web/social media presence if you expect your company to survive and thrive amongst your competition. Part of the strategy to meet your goals and build your brand should be to actively blog comment.You should also be participating in the conversations in and around your brand’s niche. There’s a whole lot going on in cyberspace regarding you company’s specialty, I guarantee it! And why wouldn’t you want to be an active participant? If you aren’t, you are probably missing out on precious dollars that I know you would love to have.
I read a lot of blogs each and every day and I am very thankful to Google Reader for keeping it all organized for me, but I am even more thankful to all of the bloggers out there that keep the original, awesome content coming! If you read other blogs, I guarantee that you will come up with some ideas that could help your future blogging efforts or that may help you to market your brand more effectively. Either way it’s all good stuff.