“Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is I don’t know which half.” – John Wanamaker
Let’s face it – you’re still not happy with the results your website is generating for you. You’ve changed designs, updated copy, and added new photos, but it still doesn’t seem to be gaining any traction. At Search Engine Pros we offer personal and ethical search engine optimization that utilizes the latest, most effective online marketing strategies. Based on our experience, here are some reasons why your web strategy may not be providing a strong return on your investment:
Lack of an Overall Strategy: Over 81% of consumers make buying decisions on the internet, and your business needs a total strategy to attract their attention. A sexy website alone isn’t enough to do the job. Your strategy must include all elements from “The Strategic Circle” for website marketing success.
Consumers Can’t Find You: A website that just talks about your business without any search engine optimization (SEO) will not appear in search results.
Nobody is Linking to You: Search engines look for websites that have links to and from other sources as a way of establishing credibility and topical relevance. Back links are online referrals for your business.
Not Functional on all Devices: Consumers are now accessing the Internet from PCs, laptops, tablets and smartphones. Websites that don’t translate well to all devices are missing out on potential traffic.
No Social Media: Your customers like to stay in touch and are using social media to do it. Be sure to have links to your Facebook, Twitter and other social media pages and keep them updated, too. Have a constant stream of outgoing information, try to link up with online influencers, and respond quickly to requests for information.
One Language Limitations: In a bi-lingual and multi-lingual world, a website that only provides information in English excludes a significant portion of the buying public. The key to International SEO is optimizing a page for foreign language natural search.
Not Driving Customers to Your Site: Sometimes a little extra push is all a consumer needs to be motivated to visit your site. Properly worded and placed pay-per-click (PPC) Google Adwords can provide just the right touch at the moment of decision.
As online marketing professionals, our role is (1) to help you gain a better grasp of what is often a complex maze of decisions; (2) to help ensure that decisions you make are carried out; (3) to keep your strategies up-to-date.
Our clients include small business owners, financial professionals, lawyers, doctors, and corporations – people who struggle for time to carefully focus on their online marketing goals. The Accelerator Plans we offer are advanced marketing plans designed to optimize your internet presence and grow your customer base. All project related information is stored in the project center. Google Analytics and Get Clicky tracking software are utilized to fine tune efforts each month.
As your marketing partner, we’re experienced enough to be proactive, not reactive. Working with a marketing agency should be fun, not annoying, and tiresome. We handle all the time-consuming details in a cost-effective way for you. Remember that the true cost of working with our company is ZERO when considering year-end business growth figures. Inaction is much more expensive in terms of lost market share and lost revenues.
You’ve heard of newsjacking, but are you familiar with holiday-jacking? If it isn’t an official marketing term, it definitely should be. The bigger the holiday, the larger the interest among consumers and the associated volume of search on Google.
By effectively targeting your marketing materials to upcoming holidays, you can capture the interest of consumers who are attuned to the season. According to the National Retail Federation, a record 170 million Americans say they’ll celebrate Halloween this year. Halloween is the second highest grossing commercial holiday after Christmas and spending in the United States this year is estimated to reach $6.9 billion.
The Halloween market is bigger than ever, and adults are having just as much fun as kids. There’s a huge opportunity for your business to join the celebration with some seasonal online content and clever Halloween social media marketing.
7 Halloween Marketing Tips:
1. Hold A Halloween Contest A fun Halloween contest could be for the best jack-o-lantern, the best costume, the best recipe – you name it. Ask your customers to post pictures of their entries, and don’t forget to offer a prize; a free e-book, gift card, or coupon would be perfect.
2. #DoAHashtagContest Setting up a hashtag can help your Halloween contest or promotion get seen by a wider audience. Even those who don’t participate could retweet it or mention it on Twitter getting you on more timelines and generating more buzz.
3. Engage Facebook fans with images Images are a proven tactic for attracting attention to your website, Twitter timeline or Facebook page. On Facebook specifically, with the new timeline for brands, images pop on your news feed and engage visitors, often earning more likes and comments than other posts.
4. Write A Halloween-Themed Blog Post This idea is truly limited only by your imagination. Relate Halloween to some aspect of your business and run with it. Do you have a pet supply business? Blog about tips for keeping your pet safe when trick-or-treaters flock to your porch. Run a home improvement website? List your top ten scariest DIY mistakes made by homeowners. This is also a good place for “awareness” topics like child safety or drunk driving on Halloween.
5. Make A Halloween Video Dress up team members in Halloween costumes and make a promotional, entertaining, or educational video. Halloween tips are a good place to start for inspiration. Tips for applying Halloween makeup. Tips for examining your child’s trick-or-treat candy. Exercise tips for working off all that Halloween candy. The witch-filled sky’s the limit.
6. Do a tweet-vote A tweet-vote can help you earn new followers and engage your current ones. For Halloween, you could have followers vote on the costume contest you held in your office, which has the added bonus of humanizing your brand.
7. Host a Halloween (social) event Making your event social can help you not only generate buzz and attract attendees before it starts – it can also help you engage followers and fans during the party and after it’s over.
Fun Things to do in Santa Barbara on Halloween:
Downtown Halloween Safe Trick-or-Treat October 31, 2013 Times: 3-6PM Location: Downtown Santa Barbara Address: State Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Phone: call 962.2098 ext. 24 Downtown businesses get into the spirit of the haunting season by welcoming hundreds of costumed children with treats, stickers, coupons or other Halloween goodies.
Halloween Bash at Carr Winery October 31, 2013 Times: 7:30PM-11:00PM Address: 414 N. Salsipuedes Street, Santa Barbara, CA 93103 Phone: 805-965-7985 Venue: Carr Winery Join us in the haunted wine cave! Sip wicked wines and jam to music by Tommy & the High Pilots. Georgia’s Smokehouse will be serving up their frightfully delicious BBQ. 21+, Costume required. A Halloween party you will die for…Get on the list before the event sells out.
Voodoo Lounge 2nd Annual Canary Rooftop Halloween Dance Party October 31, 2013 Times: 9PM-1AM Address: 31 West Carrillo St, Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Phone: 805-895-3402 Venue: Canary Hotel VIP Access 8:00 – 1:00 am $75 in advance, space is limited – Enjoy Bubbling Brews and Bewitching Bites- 8:00 – 9:00 pm – VIP Entrance to the Party – Two complimentary drink tickets to be used at the Voodoo Lounge Party – Access to VIP bar General Reception 9:00 pm to 1:00 am General Admission $40CURATED COCKTAILS WITH ASCENDANT SPIRITS October 31, 2013 Times: 5:30PM-9PM Address: 653 Paseo Nuevo Santa Barbara, CA 93101 Phone: 805.966.5373 Venue: Paseo Mall MCASB partners with a new local mixologist every Thursday in October from 6-8 pm to offer unique $5 MCASB signature cocktails. Visitors can enjoy music from DJ Emtpy Priest and guided tours of the current exhibitions: Call For Entries and Bloom Projects: Ro Snell, All that is left.
Google Reveals the highest searched terms for Halloween costumes of 2013:
Thinking of dressing up as a Minion for Halloween this year? Judging by recent searches, you aren’t the only one. Both Google and Yahoo agree that Minion costumes – from the “Despicable Me” movies – are the top trending costumes of 2013. With Halloween less than a week away, here’s a look at the top 5 costumes people are searching for most this year:
1.) Minion – from the movie “Despicable Me” is popular with both adults and kids 2.) Breaking Bad – searches are up nearly 3x vs. last year for the popular AMC series, which just saw huge ratings for its series finale. 3.) Fox – supposedly inspired by Ylvis’ viral video “The Fox”. 4.) Duck Dynasty – searches are 3x higher this year vs. last year; search volume is highest in Texas. 5.) Miley Cyrus – not surprising following her post-VMA performance and latest “look at me” antics.
Join us at Lunch & Learn e-Marketing Tomorrow Time: Fridays 12:30pm-2pm Location: 532 State Street (Next Door Joe’s Cafe) Join The Facebook Event
Lunch and Learn e-Marketing is a web marketing seminar presented by yours truly, Taylor Reaume, Fridays 12:30pm-2pm at Verde Restaurant @ 532 State Street. I would like to welcome everyone to this new venue for our e-marketing discussions every week. VerdeSB.com is a new mexican cuisine restaurant located on lower State Street. At this lunch meeting you will have a unique opportunity to share online marketing secrets with other business owners. Learn online marketing and social media marketing strategy on the web. One lucky attendee will have their web site analyzed live by the lunch group and feedback is provided, to help optimize online presence.
Expand your knowledge of web marketing and learn advanced search engine optimization strategy. COST is $20; Includes lunch, a drink, e-marketing discussions with local business people – GREAT BUSINESS NETWORKING. Discover valuable web marketing secrets that will help you outrank your competition on Google. Bring your questions, business cards and laptop (optional). Leave with a full stomach and clarity/sanity on 2013 web strategy and web marketing options. Attendees participate in a live web site review and offer constructive feedback as part of the group. It’s educational. It’s informative. It’s delicious. Find out if your web site is winning the race to the top of Google. Open to everyone!
With hundreds of millions of active users, Facebook’s fan pages are an effective way to capitalize on internet marketing for events, organizations, businesses, bands, or products that need to build an audience.
Facebook Fan pages are visible to everyone who visits, can grow as big as needed, and can provide the administrator with helpful page insights about visitors. When someone becomes a “fan” of your event, that information appears on their wall for their friends to see.
As a Santa Barbara marketing company we often help businesses promote their events with a Facebook fan page. Fan pages are a great way to generate awareness for the event and draw new visitors.
After you create a page for your event, you need to start using it to promote your event. Our Santa Barbara marketing consultants recommend the following:
Promote The “Get Notifications” Option: When driving visitors to your Facebook fan page, make sure to tell your sponsors, speakers, and vendors about the “get notifications” option. Facebook doesn’t always post every update or notification, but checking this option will make sure your fans get updated every time you post something new and exciting about your Santa Barbara events.
Pre-plan Status Updates: Did you know you can schedule status updates now on Fan Pages? Get your core team together, and have each person come up with 10 status updates. Next, schedule at least 50 updates to go out during the months leading up to the event. Keep the updates engaging, entertaining or educational.
Link to a Website: Have an online location where visitors can find complete information. Make sure that the page also has a link back to your Facebook fan page.
Post Frequent Updates: For effective event promotion in Santa Barbara, you need to keep interested parties constantly updated on news about your event. Whenever there is a new speaker, entertainer, or sponsor let your fans know.
Use the Facebook Comments Plugin: Your event registration page should allow the use of Facebook comments so that your event receives additional visibility each time a visitor makes a comment.
Connect With Partners: Encourage your sponsors, speakers, and vendors to cross-promote your event on their Facebook pages. You can also include their names, logos or photos in your updates to keep the cycle going.
Consider Facebook Ads: Targeted Facebook ads can help draw attention and interest to the fan page for your event.
Be sure to use other forms of social marketing to promote your Facebook fan page. Make sure any Tweets or YouTube videos you have direct visitors to your site. Event marketing in Santa Barbara will be far less difficult if you follow these quick tips above.
Need help with Facebook marketing strategy? Our Santa Barbara marketing consultants can help you build a fan page, create an event, or promote an event using Facebook fan pages. Once you’ve seen the power of Facebook to attract visitors, attendees, and sponsors to your event, you’ll wonder why you waited so long.
