Blog Marketing | National Marketing | SEO Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Web Marketing

7 Ways to Improve Your Content Marketing Strategy

22 November 2014 by
Content Marketing Strategy

There is no denying the importance that a first impression can make. And in today’s tech-driven world, in which impressions can be made in an instant, it’s vital that you are using content that is making a positive and lasting mark on your audience.

If you notice that you aren’t getting the type of traffic that you’d like, it might be time to evaluate the quality of your website. In your evaluation, ask yourself:

» Does the site look physically appealing for viewers?

» Does the site load quickly on different browsers and platforms?

» Does the site offer content that attracts people and sticks in their minds long after they’ve left?

If your answer is no to any of these questions, it’s time for an overhaul of your content marketing strategy.

The good news is that there are plenty of options from which to choose when trying to improve your strategy. The bad news is that the multitude of options makes it hard to narrow down the choices that might be best for you. To help with the process, here are the top seven ways to improve your content marketing strategy for your brand, product or service.

View from a Customer’s Perspective

Before you start doing anything with your new content marketing strategy, it might be time to look at your entire approach from a different perspective.

There is the possibility that you’ve been looking at your content strategy for too long as a member of the business. This may lead you to become biased or judgmental to certain parts of your website. In doing so, you’ll lose out on the perception that your viewers and customers have.

To do a better job of viewing your website from a customer’s perspective, be sure to ask plenty of questions and be open to honest feedback from others. If you fail to realize that your audience isn’t interested, or maybe it simply isn’t seeing your content, then you will have an incredibly difficult time trying to maximize your marketing strategy efforts.

Know What You’re Getting Into

If you plan to improve your online content strategy through blind luck, you may want to think again. Instead, you’re going to want to ensure that you put in plenty of research into your content marketing strategy before you get yourself too deep into anything. Reading this article is a great start, but there’s plenty more that you can do as well.

For beginners, look up the keywords that you plan to use and how you think those will be most useful with your specific site. By using a program like Google AdWords Keyword Tool, you’ll be able to create strings of keywords that are likely to bring back the best results for your website.

The more likely it is that someone is going to put in the string of keywords that you have, the higher likelihood that you’ll get visits to your site. Therefore, do enough due diligence beforehand to ensure that you know what you’re getting yourself into before starting your content marketing strategy.

Look for Cohesiveness Across Platforms

Remember earlier when we asked if your site looks good across platforms and on different browsers? Well, if it doesn’t, now is your time to get this figured out. You never know where your audience is coming from when it’s viewing your content. Visitors may be looking with their phones, their tablets or their computers, and there are also plenty of Internet browsers that they could be using as well. This is important because each browser works and functions differently, which may affect how your site runs.

Therefore, you should look for cohesiveness across all platforms for your website. The more smoothly your site runs on multiple browsers, the more likely it is that people will trust that they can visit your site no matter where they are coming from.

Allow Customer Feedback

Your customers want to let you know how you’re doing. If you don’t listen, you’re missing out on a prime chance to learn how to improve and make your company better. Therefore, a great way for you to improve your content marketing strategy is by letting others provide you with feedback.

Not only does feedback give you a better idea of how you can improve your image and what you can do better, but it also will help your SEO rankings. Finally, by having updated content in the form of customer feedback, other people will see that you make a diligent effort to provide the best service that you can for your clients.

Have A Personal Blog

A personal blog is another great way to improve your content marketing strategy. Since search engines like Google give priority to sites that are regularly updated, a blog is a great way for you to continually update your content. In addition, a blog is an ideal way for you to connect with potential clients who are looking to learn more about your business.

Get Social

Social media also take a big piece of the pie when you are looking for important factors for content marketing.

If you have Facebook and Twitter profiles, that’s a good start. However, do something about it and keep your account as active as possible.

Interacting with clients through social media will help to generate traffic to your site, and it’ll also boost your online web presence in the process.

Always Build Trust

No matter what you’re doing, your goal should always be to build trust with your clients. Every blog post, status update and change to your website should have your clients and customers in mind. Your content marketing strategy should be geared for the long run, which is going to require a lot of trust between you and your audience. Therefore, make sure that you continue to do the right thing in the eyes of your audience, and you’ll notice more loyalty on their behalf.

Content is king in today’s online world. But instead of just throwing any type of content out there, you need to have a precise strategy that will work. With the seven tips, you’ll be able to improve your content market strategy and build strong relationships with your audience.

— 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.

Blog Marketing | SEO Marketing | Social Media Marketing | Web Marketing

Do You Know The ABCs Of Web Strategy?

14 November 2014 by
web strategy

In today’s tech-driven world, online marketing is a linchpin for success. The average consumer is changing how they go about finding products and services, with the Internet being one of the first places that they look. Therefore, no matter what sort of industry your business is in, its online web strategy is invaluable.

As important as a web strategy is, it’s also important to remember that it’s just one piece of the puzzle that makes up a business. And with so much else to take care of, it can seem nearly impossible to keep up with the ever-changing atmosphere of online marketing. But while it may be worthwhile to hire an online marketer or social media specialist to handle the day-to-day tasks, it’s still important that managers and owners have a basic understanding of web strategy and online marketing.

The “50,000-foot view” is common business-talk that refers to a general understanding of how part of a company works. For example, a business owner may not know every step of the process that a dedicated marketing team makes, but it’s still important for the team to know the general highlights and direction of the company. When it comes to online marketing, here is a general outline that highlights the ABCs of web strategy.

Know Your Audience

As with any approach, the first key is that you know where your target is. Therefore, your web strategy should have a firm understanding of your audience and how you plan to attract it. If you believe that you already know your audience, you may want to think again.

Most companies will begin by setting up an online marketing strategy that approaches their audience the same way that it would with offline efforts. However, it’s important to know that the Internet is changing the way that you reach customers.

For example, you may have a stand-alone retail store that nobody outside of your neighborhood knows about, but that doesn’t matter once you go online. Your target audience expands to people around the world when it comes to online marketing and approaching new customers.

By understanding who your audience is and whether it is local, regional, national or global, you can develop an online marketing strategy that directly approaches it. This is also the chance that a business can rebrand its image and find new ways to expand in ways like never before.

Determine What the Audience Wants …

The next step in the web strategy for 2014 should be determining what it is that the audience wants and how easily it will stay interested in what you provide. For example, some online strategies may be to post viral videos to social media accounts. Other businesses might rely on blogging or posting new information for their audience to see. Others may even rely on an email list that is used for a monthly newsletter.

There are a variety of different approaches that may work best for your audience, so determining what it wants will help you focus your approach.

Before you jump to the conclusion that more content is better, keep in mind that this may not be true for your specific market. While there are plenty of videos or memes out there that attract a lot of interest, your target market may not be interested in such “viral content.” Instead, your audience may want more relevant information to your industry and what it is that you provide.

Looking to get 1 million views on a video might be a viable online web strategy for some, but it’s most certainly not the only option. Therefore, know what will interest your audience the most and be sure that this is the type of media you use for your approach.

… And Where They Want To Get It From

It is estimated that Facebook has more than 1.2 billion users who have registered accounts. Twitter has roughly 200 million, and Instagram comes in at around 100 million. These are staggering numbers, but it also shows that there are great disparities between each social media site.

As nice as 200 million users is for Twitter, it has a long way to go before it passes the 1 billion mark like Facebook.

Keeping some of the numbers in mind, it’s important that your web strategy is available to your target market via resources that it uses most often. Facebook is obviously a good resource because of the sheer amount of people who are on it, but it’s not the only outlet for your web strategy. Instead, your business may be better suited with an online blog, YouTube video channel, or a simple monthly email.

If you are aiming your online marketing approach at places where your target audience won’t see it, then you are wasting your time. However, providing information to users where they already are looking will help to increase the online presence of a business.

Optimize for SEO

Anywhere you look for tips on how to make your web strategy better, you are going to hear that SEO should be one of your most important considerations. SEO, or search engine optimization, refers to the ranking that a website has on a Google search query. In order to get higher rankings through SEO, a business needs:

» Keyword-rich content that triggers search engine results

» A website that runs smoothly and functions properly

» Correct contact information for a business (called “NAP” for: Name, Address, Phone number)

» No filler content to take up space

Plan Ahead

Whatever your approach is for online marketing, be sure that you plan ahead. This will help you save time and be much more effective with your online approach.

By planning ahead and having a routine schedule for improving your website, you won’t have to worry about missing posts or running short of content. Instead, you’ll always have new material to help with SEO, while also keeping the interest of your audience.

Unless you are ingrained in the web strategy approach of your business, it can be hard to keep up with everything. But with this 50,000-foot view of the best practices of web strategy in 2014, it’s much easier to see how valuable each part of the process is.

— 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 additional columns. The opinions expressed are his own.

Blog Marketing | SEO Marketing | Web Marketing

Accelerate Your SEO Marketing For Christmas Now

11 November 2014 by

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 for 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 likeGoogle.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

— 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.

Best Life Hacks | Blog Marketing | Book Marketing | Web Marketing

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice For Difficult Times By Pema Chodron

25 April 2010 by

When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times by Pema Chodron

What can we do in a world where nothing is certain, save our own, eventual demise? Utilizing Buddhist wisdom, Pema Chodron charts a serene course through the chaos of modern life, with all its dread uncertainties, despair, and fear.

Chodron’s When Things Fall Apart is a reflective, and fundamentally optimistic look at how right mindfulness–seventh of the eightfold paths—can lead us toward true happiness. By attending to ourselves and our emotional reactions—by facing, rather than repressing, our “negative” emotions—we grow to transcend them in all their distracting gaudiness. Once we transcending our most pressing concerns we begin to truly live inside the moments of our lives. Our right living will encourages others, bringing harmony to our lives even in our darkest depths.

Facing fear is, for Chodron, courage. Courage cultivates wisdom. Wisdom brings compassion, and compassion, for Chodron, is the cleanest-burning fuel available for any engine of social change. By weaving micro- and macrocosmic concerns together, Chodron acknowledges that neither is independent of the other. Her message is one of inclusion—that we must include ourselves in the world. Though she advocates self-awareness, Chodron never advocates self-absorption, pulling instead for universal compassion and loving-kindness toward all things, including ourselves. By accepting ourselves, and our inescapable suffering, with courage, curiosity and compassion, we accept the greatest gift life has to give us–happiness.

With twenty-two chapters culled from four talks delivered between 1987 and 1994, Chodron provides a book as calm and comforting as her meditation techniques.

Best Life Hacks | Blog Marketing | Book Marketing | Web Marketing

Book Review: Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real

25 April 2010 by

Review of Thomas d’Ansembourg’s Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real

I imagine that Thomas d’Ansembourg’s line of work has offered him much experience for the content of this book.  He works with troubled youth. Notorious for masking their feelings, at risk youths usually come with a repertoire of skills designed to hide painful admissions and cloud communication. Thankfully, d’Ansembourg is onto them and shares this knowledge with us in helping to improve our communication style in Being Genuine: Stop Being Nice, Start Being Real.

Although translated from French, the text is immensely readable in English. The author argues that clear communication is not helped by masking our real feelings with nice pleasantries. More often than not this prevents successful discourse. Conversely, genuine communication requires clear language and a true acknowledgement of one’s real feelings about a situation. If we don’t acknowledge our feelings we cannot effectively communicate what it is we want or need in an understandable way.

Again, anybody who has worked with at risk kids knows of their highly elaborate defense mechanisms for concealing their real feelings, Most often this attempt to please or be nice not only hinders communication, it often results in an explosion of violent interactions when the child reaches a breaking point after not having his or her needs met. d’Ansembourg’s delightful style makes this an enjoyable and helpful addition to any person’s resources for improving communication.

Best Life Hacks | Blog Marketing | Book Marketing | Web Marketing

Book Review Of “Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life”

25 April 2010 by

Book Review of “Loving What Is: Four Questions That Can Change Your Life”

This book really changed my life. I discovered the way I think about things is unhelpful and destructive to myself and those around me. Now, when I find myself getting angry or frustrated with a situation, I think about Byron Katie’s Four Questions and I proceed in a much calmer, wiser way. As a result, I’ve gotten a better job, a nicer boyfriend, and I am successfully repairing relations with my estranged mother.

I’ve told all my friends to read this book too. At first, many of them were angry with me for talking about a lot of self-help, but a few of my friends really understood me and the Questions and now we go out for drinks together every Saturday night (and sometimes Thursday too, for Happy Hour and 5$ burger night), where we talk about other books and things we can do to change our lives. One of my friends wants to start her own tailoring business, and another of my friends is going to leave his stupid girlfriend any day now.

Generally I don’t read very many books but I’m sure glad I read this one. If I could say anything to Byron Katie, I would give her a big hug and tell her “Thank you!” Loving What Is makes me want to be a better person and I think I am becoming better day by day. It just takes a lot of caring and hard work.

Amazon Marketing | Best Life Hacks | Blog Marketing | Book Marketing | Web Marketing

Book Review: The Angel Inside

25 April 2010 by

The angel Inside, Michelangelo’s Secrets for following your Passion.

The Angel Inside, Michelangelo’s secrets for following your passion and finding the work you love.

This book I have to say, it takes the cake. Literally.
The book has stolen the hearts of so many people. it’s a book written to help people discover where they want to go in life.
The difference between this book and so many other “steps to finding your career” type books is, this book is actually a book, it is set off an inspiring story which happened to the author between him and 1 other person for only 1 day, that totally changed his life.

Most people who have also read the book, say the story is moving and uplifting, like the readers lives are being impacted on a dramatic level.

How many books out there can really do that? And the best part is the book is cheap. I’m finding it in online stores for only around 10 to 15$.

For a life moving experience, 10 to $15 really isn’t that big of a sacrifice. People pay thousands for real life experiences. I guess they should have just read the book.

It seems Michelangelo, is going to forever stay a name of men who find places in the hearts of history.


Cool Links

Best Life Hacks | Blog Marketing | Book Marketing | Web Marketing

Book Review: In Search of the Miraculous by P. D. Ouspensky

25 April 2010 by

We all assume we have a certain sense of knowledge in order to succeed in life. However, there are always variations of how to see the world. In some instances, these unique perspectives are so radically different from the common ways we see things, we are totally taken aback. Such is the case when you read the excellent In Search of the Miraculous book by P. D. Ouspensky. This is, without a doubt, one of the most unique spiritual self-help books ever written.

The book centers on a study of the Gurdjieff methodology of spiritualism which has a following, but it not as well known as other spiritual and philosophical approaches to life. Namely, disciplines such as Zen Buddhism, dzogchen, and Taoism all have a larger presence in the realm of meditation based spiritual training.

Of course, meditation is a complex and serious matter. Even those who have a lot of experience in this realm may discover that some of the Gurdjieff concept to be a little bit beyond their understanding. Additionally, the underlying philosophical principles may be beyond their understanding. Thanks to Ouspensky’s book, a clearer understanding of how this process works can be attained.

The structure of the book is devised in such a way that understanding the material presented in the book is easy to achieve. The material is properly presented and that aids in making simple to understand. As such, this is a very highly recommended book and well worth exploring by the spiritual minded.

1 2 3