We always love to get feedback from our readers. Here is a thoughtful response to “Traditional Marketing: An Investment or a Waste?” By James Hurst, a guest blogger.
While I do agree with much of what AJ wrote, allow me to expand upon his original post with some alternate viewpoints. Read On
I recently worked on an astonishing client account. For a highly-searched, national keyword, they had the 1st position on every search engine (Awesome problem to have as an SEO, eh?). This was the most relevant keyword to their business, so I started looking for associated keywords – again, first position for every word. I started checking secondary keywords – again, first position.
At this point, what is an SEO company to do? All the low-hanging fruit is picked, and they are doing great for traffic. Where should we start allocating budget?
Online marketing isn’t for the wishy-washy. There’s a fairly significant learning curve to many aspects of it. To make matters worse, the online ecosystem changes just about every week. And in 2010, you have to harness its potential for your business to thrive.
You probably don’t have time to make that happen by yourself.
Now that you are properly broken down, allow me to build you back up with some nuggets of hope. Here are five guiding principles that will bring clarity to your online marketing and empower you to effective action:
Read On
Word of mouth is one of the most effective ways to grow your business—and the size of your email marketing list. The entire customer experience needs to be superior in order to get your word of mouth referrals started.
At VerticalResponse a huge number of the people who sign up for our service select “Word of Mouth” as the source for where they heard about our company. This obviously has a huge impact on our business and sales!
Below I’ve listed 6 easy ways you can tap into this referral potential by encouraging–and making it easy for–happy customers to tell their friends about you. Read On
Maps listings are a huge part of local business marketing strategy. I have heard Google referred to as the “new phonebook.” I laugh about it, but at the same time, it’s completely true. When I’m looking to order lunch at work, I type in the name of the restaurant and the city into Google, and look specifically for the maps listing. The more situations in which the maps listings prove useful, the more programmed people will be to use them. Where is your business in the listings? Read On
If you don’t know what affiliate marketing is, then this post is for you.
Affiliate Marketing is, in essence, a referral program. Walmart, Best Buy, Dell, and most other companies run affiliate programs. To understand how affiliate programs work, we’ll start with a simple example. Let’s say you have a website that focuses on computer reviews. Because your readers are already very interested in computers and likely getting ready to purchase, this is the perfect place for you to become an affiliate and make some money.
A recent study by BIA/Kelsey and ConStat reveals key data concerning consumers’ online habits of researching products and services locally before purchasing. Here are two of the most noteworthy stats that I found: Read On
Have you done a search for your business only to find bad reviews? How often do potential clients google your name before doing business with you? Have you already lost business due to bad reviews? Obviously you should listen to your customers, but are all your customers speaking?
These questions constantly plague business owners. The fact is, it’s much easier to motivate negative reviews than to motivate positive. But just because it can be hard doesn’t mean that it’s not worth the effort! You can encourage your happy clients to be more vocal and leave reviews.
You have hired a firm to conduct your SEO campaign. The correct keywords were chosen, on-site changes have been made, link building efforts are ongoing, and your website is ranking in the top three positions on the three major search engines (for your respective keywords). You even have the analytics that show a large number of visitors to your website. All is well…except you’re getting little to no business from all of the “success.” What gives? Read On
The number one rule about copy that converts is that it’s not about you. Customers do not care about how awesome you are, customers care only about what you can do for them. Before we get started we need to answer a few questions about your business and customer.
