Boost Your Holiday Traffic With These 4 Online Marketing Tips

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We are getting ready to turn the page on the calendar and it’s hard to believe that we are in our final month of 2014. It’s been a great year for us here at Search Engine Pros, and we hope that your year was equally as rewarding. As we take the time to prepare for 2015, we’d like to wish you and your family a happy holiday season and a safe New Year.

Now might be a good time for you to look back at 2014 and think about whether or not you were getting the type of online traffic that you had hoped for your business. If you didn’t get the type of traction that you had wanted, then you may realize that you failed to reach your expected earnings as you tally up revenues in the fourth quarter of the year. Luckily, a new year is just ahead, and you can start fresh with an improved marketing plan that will make 2015 an incredibly rewarding year.

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With the help of web marketing, you can take your business to brand new levels of exposure. Before online search marketing, it was much more difficult for small businesses to compete with large companies. However, there are now a variety of tools that an online marketing team can implement to increase the presence of your brand.

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If you are looking for a boost in holiday traffic that will carry over into the new year, here are 4 tips to consider.

1. Spruce Up Your Website

Many companies realize that they have to have a website if they want to get recognized online. But not all of those companies realize that a standard website isn’t going to be enough in today’s responsive world. Instead, it might be time to revamp your approach by stripping down your website and building it to maximize search engine optimization results.

2. Get Help When You Need It

With a marketing group that is familiar in SEO, you can have a customized online presence that is tailored to your every request. With the advice of these marketing experts, you’ll get some of the top web design ideas that will interest your audience and keep them on your page. In addition, these web marketing methods will help with your online search engine rankings by accommodating to required expectations. If any part of your online presence is outdated, you may be hurting your SEO wherewithal. This is why it’s important that you make a beneficial change that will quickly boost your presence and maximize your online efforts.

3. Re-Target Your Marketing Approach

Along with other methods of online marketing, you’ll also want to evaluate your marketing plan to see how well it is targeting your audience. In many cases, we’ve worked with business that have a viable approach in place. However, once we dig a bit deeper, we realize that their SEO marketing plan is limited and they aren’t getting the sort of exposure that they desire.  To make the shift, your new approach should include an emphasis on social media marketing. The way that customers interact with companies is drastically changing on a day-to-day basis. This is why you need a marketing agency thatcan help you keep up with these changes on social media and other online avenues.

4. Track Your Results

No matter what sort of marketing service you implement, it won’t matter if you don’t know how it’s working. This is why it’s vital that you track your results and use analytics to formulate any changes that are necessary. If you are unfamiliar with tracking analytics, your marketing agency can assist you.  The more that you track your results as to what is working for your online approach, the better of an idea you will have into what works. You can then use this information as you move forward and tailor your online marketing toward your target audience.

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Santa Barbara Web Marketing Questions
PPC (Pay Per Click) Google Adwords

Q: Is it too late to jump start my online marketing for the holiday season?

A:  Traffic from Google Adwords can be sent to your web site in less than an hour.

Q: How does online marketing compare to other forms of advertising?

A: Online marketing has changed the way that people connect with businesses. Instead of sending out mail flyers or other physical services, online marketing lets businesses communicate with their clients instantaneously. In doing so, your business will be able to bring in new clients and build your reputation as a reliable brand that people can trust in.

Web Marketing Events

Here are some fantastic events to attend that will be sure to grow your company by leaps and bounds.

Social Media Strategies Summit: Las Vegas 2015 – Anyone who is anyone will want to make sure that they visit the Social Media Strategies Summit in Las Vegas. This year, the event will be from February 10 – 12. You can learn more about how to market your brand online at this great conference.

Social Media Marketing World – There will be over 2,500 people in attendance at the Social Media Marketing World from March 25-27. The event is held in San Diego, so be sure to get your ticket early to be part of one of the biggest social media events around the nation.

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Event Marketing and Event Promotion Ideas

Event Promotion Ideas

Think back about 10 years and try to remember how you used to garner interest about an event that you were throwing in Santa Barbara.

How would you get people’s attention? How would you maximize the number of people who knew about the event? Would you be able to easily track attendees? Could you easily let people know of changes if something came up?

Chances are that these hypothetical questions gave you some real-life headaches.

Luckily, planning and promoting events has completely changed thanks to the help of social media and the Internet in its entirety. If you’re a savvy with your Internet promoting methods, you can track, measure and inform your audience with up-to-the-minute results in ways like never before.

 

As you read through this insight on how to promote your Santa Barbara event on the web, a few parameters that you should consider are:

» Keeping your target audience in mind

» Knowing who your sponsors are

» Determining the best outlets for reaching your audience

» Understanding how to handle issues or concerns that may come up along the way.

As you make note of these considerations, here are some tips for promoting your Santa Barbara event on the web, and utilizing all of the resources at your disposal.

Do Some Preliminary Research

Before you begin your marketing efforts, it’s important that you first do a bit of research to determine where your efforts will be best spent. After all, it’s pointless if you put all of your efforts into marketing something that other people will never take interest in.

While you’re doing your preliminary research, find keywords that you can target and use online. If you are able to link keywords with a “Santa Barbara” tag, then your event will be much more easily discoverable by users who are looking for it. Those keywords will be influential throughout the rest of your campaign, so understanding how to use them is worth the time investment in the first steps of online promotion.

Build Your Presence

Once you have your keywords figured out, where do you use them? This is where you are also going to want to find out where your online presence is best met with your typical users.

For example, you may notice that most of your users are on a social media site like Facebook or Twitter. You might also recognize that having a website or blog is better for reaching people who are not familiar with social media. Or you may even want to consider an email list to directly reach people on a regular basis.

Whatever your potential market is, this is where you should build your online presence.

The great news is that building your online presence isn’t going to dig deep into your budget. Social media accounts can be set up for free, and a website or email client is something that will be very cost-efficient. Not only is online promotion more convenient that more traditional methods, but it’s also cheaper as well.

Start Networking

Once you have everything in place, it’s time to start networking with people and building your online promotion. The best way to start with this is to connect with people who you know personally. Inform them of the event in Santa Barbara and ask them to share with others who may be interested. You will be surprised to see how quickly this can spread, which will make your networking efforts incredibly worthwhile.

Keep Things Fresh

To make sure you are staying at the top of search engine results, your promotional efforts should also be geared toward keeping things fresh and updated throughout all of your online networks. You will need to consistently update your social media posts and add new content to your website. Not only does this keep people interested in the event that you are promoting in Santa Barbara, but it’ll also help you increase your wherewithal in SEO results.

If you’re having a hard time finding content to continually update, consider a news release to get people excited. There is plenty of viral content that consists of, “Top 10” lists or photos of cats eating cheeseburgers, so having something that is relevant to Santa Barbara will really interest your audience and grab their attention.

And if you need help with creating this new and exciting content, you can also consider hiring someone to manage this task for you.

Implement Media

People want to see what it is that you are putting together for your Santa Barbara event. With the Internet, you can provide media that will give them exactly what it is that they want.

For example, you can provide insider photos or videos of the process that it takes to put together your event. By showing people the process, they will take more interest, but the event will remain in the person’s mind. And if this media goes viral, it could mean getting thousands of views in a short period of time.

Instant Communication

In the event that someone has a question about your Santa Barbara event, it’s vital that you respond and communicate with them as quickly as possible. This can be done through automatic email responses, RSS feeds or even instant messenger services. It’s also important that you respond to social media posts and comments quickly as well.

By communicating with your audience quickly, they will see that you are attentive and interested. It will also help to generate a positive vibe about your event, which will work in your favor as you try and draw in more people to the event.

Provide Easy Access

Finally, you need to ensure that the online promotion of your Santa Barbara event includes easy resources for people to find out more information. This should include an email address, links to other online networks, as well time and date information regarding the event.

The easier that you make it for people to find out information about your event, the less likely it is that there will be confusion during the process.

The way that you prepare for your event in Santa Barbara has changed. Instead of relying on outdated techniques and methods, consider the tips here for promoting your Santa Barbara event on the web.

— Taylor Reaume is an e-Business coach and founder of Search Engine Pros. He can be contacted at taylor@thesearchenginepros.com, or 1.800.605.4988. Click here to read previous columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

Accelerate Your SEO Marketing for Christmas Now

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By Taylor Reaume @ NOOZHAWK.COM

The holidays are right around the corner, which means that now is the time for companies to ensure that they have a marketing approach that is geared toward bringing in the most clients possible. Not only will having a tailored marketing approach this holiday season help you close out 2014 with a bang, but it’ll give you a big boost as you prepare to ring in 2015.

If you don’t know by now, marketing has changed drastically over the last few years. The emphasis on online marketing has quickly grown to be much more valuable than nearly any other advertising tool. In order to make online marketing work for your business, it all starts with your ability to be found through a search engine like Google.

You still have a few weeks until Christmas, but now is the prime time for consumer shopping online. Therefore, here are some ways that you can accelerate your SEO marketing for Christmas now, to ensure that you get the most amount of traffic that you can during this incredibly popular time of year.

Revamp Your Website

If you can’t find the perfect gift to give yourself this holiday season, look no further than your website. If it has been a while since you last updated your site, now is the time to make some very critical changes that will help you with search engine optimization.

There is a common misperception that just having a website is good enough to help you with your online presence and SEO listings. However, this isn’t the case. Instead, you need to ensure that your website is built with a strong foundation that will make it easier for viewers to find.

To improve the foundation of your website, make sure that URLs are cohesive and consistent, include valuable metadata, and work to keep everything organized along the way as you continue to build your website. Not only will putting in some effort on your website look better and be more cohesive, but it’ll also help it run faster as well. Google shows preference to websites that can load quickly, which is why it’s important that yours does just that.

If you’ve already invested in your website, you may not want to keep pouring money into it if it’s not working for you. However, you can rest assured knowing that your site is not something that should be overlooked, and instead it might be time for you to spruce things up. After all, the Internet isn’t going away, and revamping your website at the end of 2014 will have lasting positive benefits.

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Create Holiday Content

Content is king when it comes to SEO results. Therefore, you want to ensure that you have creative and relevant content throughout your website. The more content you upload, the better your SEO results will be.

If you are having a hard time coming up with creative content this holiday season, it might be time for you to spruce up your blog. With a blog, you can write about anything that is relevant to your website, and this will help with SEO.

Since it’s the holiday season, be sure to include something about the holidays in your blog content. Not only does this keep things relevant and give you something to write about, but it’ll also get your viewers in the holiday spirit as they read your content.

Keep Things Consistent During Christmas

Consistency is key as you begin building your online presence with the hopes of dominating search engines. As you start to build up your website, be sure that URLs for your website are consistent.

Santa Barbara Web Marketing

Consistency will help you with your SEO rankings, but it also helps with cataloging your entire website. Google and other search engines require you to setup an XML site map, and they give priority rankings to websites with a consistent internal linking structure. The truth is that requirements for search engines are always changing, and a more organized website will make it easier for you to make adjustments in the future.

Do yourself a favor and start with consistent cataloging now, and you’ll have a much easier time with marketing your website in the New Year as well.

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Consider Christmas Keywords

As a business owner, it can be hard to see things from the perspective of customers and clients. To dominate SEO marketing during the Christmas season, however, this is exactly what you’ll have to do.

Sure, there are plenty of fancy programs out there that will help you with keywords, and many of them are worth investing into. However, if you are on a budget with your business, you only have to think like a consumer to find relevant keywords.

To help accelerate your SEO marketing, consider the keywords and phrases that you believe your clients will be looking for. In doing so, you’ll notice more hits and traffic to your website.

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Spread The Holiday Cheer

2014 was a huge year for social media, and you can expect things to only become more dependent on this type of media in 2015. Therefore, be sure that you take the time during the holidays to improve your overall social media influence.

If you aren’t using your social media profile for your business, you are missing out on a big opportunity to draw in new clients. Your social media profile can also help you with improving your image and the perception that customers have of your brand by interacting with them on a regular basis.

Finally, as you also look to improve your social media presence for SEO this holiday season, also be sure to make your website easier to share. If you can easily share your site through your social media links, you’ll notice an increase in views from your followers online.

The year is almost over, so now is your chance to end 2014 with a bang. Consider these tips to help you accelerate your SEO marketing for Christmas. If you do so correctly, you’ll also be happy with the benefits you’ll get after the New Year as well.