Virtual tips for the savvy business owner!

For a long time, Internet marketers used outbound marketing techniques to reach a broad audience and, hopefully, snag a few clients. Whether buying email lists or creating endless autoresponders, that’s definitely the old school way to look at marketing. Today’s successful online business employs inbound marketing techniques, and there are some real advantages to making the switch.

What’s the Difference?
As we mentioned, outbound marketing reaches out to lots of clients, hoping to snag a few. It borrows from the offline sales industry, where cold calling, direct mail and trade shows are still the norm.

The online version might include buying huge email lists, writing autoresponders that touch email lists every few days, and offering free teleseminars. Those can certainly reach large numbers of people, but seldom have a high conversion rate.

Inbound marketing, on the other hand, is attraction based. Today’s consumer is sick of spam and doesn’t have time for a two-hour teleseminar. They know how to search the Internet for the products they need, so why not set your firm up as the “go-to” place in those areas?

This goes way beyond knowing all there is to know, however. It’s more about setting up an “empire” of well-connected marketing channels that revolve around your products and industry. Here’s an example: if you sell shoes, don’t just buy ads on directories and send email ads to your list.

Set up a blog about finding great shoes. Build a following by keeping content fresh and fascinating. Then, write a witty email newsletter about shoes, sales and fashions.

Create a fascinating website filled with photos, vignettes and, of course, great marketing copy that sells your shoes. Include on your website calls to action to sign up for your newsletter, read your blog or follow you on Twitter.

Go out and tweet on Twitter about new shoes for the season. Set up a Facebook page for your store and post updates about sales, trends and specials. Reference those two channels to each other and keep the discussion going with friends and followers.

Pull all these together by linking and attracting inbound links from other great sites. Are you starting to get the picture? No longer a simple online shoe seller, your company has become the place to go for information about shoes on the Internet.

That’s the essence of inbound marketing. It doesn’t go out and grab customers from the millions. It creates an attractive presence on the Web so prospects come around naturally. Through linking, word-of-tweet and faithful fans, your empire grows organically.

No spamming, no list renting and no more teleseminars. Outbound Internet marketing could soon well go the way of the cold call. It’s time for your company to learn the advantages that inbound marketing can bring.

Inbound Internet marketing is all about offering interesting content and connecting with your customers. One of the easiest ways to engage with your audience and serve your customers well is with a Facebook presence. Whether you’re a Facebook novice, or already have a personal page, you can get started with Facebook marketing today.

Why Bother with Facebook?
With over one hundred million active Facebook users, you can’t afford not to be there. Of all the websites on the Internet, Facebook is fourth in traffic volume. That’s an amazing pool of potential customers!

Having a 24/7 networking forum available that doesn’t require you to attend conferences or hand out business cards should also be attractive to you. The rules of social networking are different, of course, because the primary goal is bringing value to your social networks.

But think about the possibilities. Once you post information on Facebook, it’s available to interested parties until you take it down. There are no geographic boundaries, either. With all those “pluses” in its corner, Facebook is the perfect place to start your social media marketing strategy.

Getting Started
Here’s something to remember as you get started: your presence on Facebook is social, not corporate. It means developing a “face” for your company that engages authentically with your audience. It means finding networks where your target audience, and likeminded businesses, go to find and share information.

To build your Facebook presence, first create a profile through the easy-to-use wizards on Facebook. There’s a business page wizard that allows you to identify your brand or product, upload your logo and add company information. You can also add applications that help you communicate outside Facebook to other social media.

Once you’ve created your Facebook profile, you publish it and become searchable on Facebook and search engines. If someone finds your page and wants to become a fan, there’s a widget that appears that allows them to do that easily. They then begin receiving updates whenever you post new content.

Promoting Your Facebook Page
It’s not enough to set up a page and hope others find it. Avoid doing these things if you hope to attract inbound traffic:
1.    Don’t make your Facebook page an advertisement. If you want to place ads on Facebook, subscribe to their advertising service.
2.    Don’t use heavy-handed marketing language. Remember, social networking equals helpful content, not advertising.

Here are some things you definitely want to do for a successful Facebook page:
1.    Engage with your networks by offering useful information. Some examples:
a.    YouTube Videos
b.    Link to Your Related Blog Posts (add your blog’s RSS feed)
c.    Link to Other Interesting Blogs
d.    Host Discussion on Topics Relevant to Your Audience
2.    Leverage your activities through your News Feed, a record of what you’ve done lately on Facebook. Here’s the cool thing—that News Feed is also published on your fans’ Facebook pages! This is one way business pages “go viral” or get lots and lots of Internet word-of-mouth. Having great content also has fans linking to it from their pages so others can see.
3.    Connect your page to your other marketing channels. Put links to it on your webpages and blog, and vice-versa. Blog about your Facebook activities.

When you add together the boost in search engine ranking to the ease of setting up a free Facebook page, there’s really no reason not to use this valuable marketing channel. Set up your business page soon on Facebook and start exploring a whole new world of marketing.

Creating a website that lists your products and services may not be enough to attract new business. To keep your business growing online, it must past the test with search engines and Web users. Keep reading to learn how to gauge whether your website is making the grade.

Here are some of the factors that raise or lower your grade with search engines and potential clients:

•    Number of images without ALT text—a high number of these means that text is located within images on your website and search engine spiders can’t read it.
•    Readability level—can a person with a high school education understand your website, or is the language extremely technical? Unless you are targeting a very narrow niche audience, using easily understandable language improves website results.
•    Metadata—your grade might go down as far as search engines are concerned if your website’s content and formatting are jumbled together with lots of metadata tags.
•    Use of headings—your readers will become confused if there are too few headings to break up content, or new headings every two or three lines. Try to use one or two main headings per page to keep content easy to read.
•    Search engine data—there are also external factors that determine whether your website’s making the grade. You may have a great looking site that isn’t attracting much attention by search engines because of problems like the ones mentioned above.
•    Do you have a blog and does it draw traffic and links? This one’s self-explanatory; it’s good to have the additional online presence of a blog, if it contains meaningful content that others like to link to.

One way to test your website’s performance in these areas is with tools like Website Grader. This free SEO tool measures your website’s marketing effectiveness by comparing things like website structure and search engine data.

Once you’ve learned how your website rates, it’s time to take action. Use this useful feedback as the basis of your website improvement plan. Red flags like difficult readability and too many headings are easily corrected.

Keep in mind that the purpose of this type of analysis is to make your website more interesting and useful to your target audience, which, in turn, results in more conversions. Any time you spend revamping your site to raise its overall grade will probably translate into increased traffic and sales. And that can move your business to the head of the class!

We’ve talked a great deal about the need for a blog as part of your overall marketing strategy. Now, to make that blog really worthwhile, it’s necessary to optimize it for search engines just as you do your websites. Let’s look at some easy ways to make sure the search engines fall in love with your blog.

· Ping the Search Engines: This one is very important, so hang on for a quick explanation. There are two different kinds of search engines as far as blogs go, blog specific ones such as Technorati and general ones like Google and Yahoo.

It’s possible to “ping” those search engines and let them know you have new content ready to be indexed. The good news is that Google indexes Technorati’s pages, as well.

o Automated pinging: the major blog applications have a setting for auto-pinging. Look at your blog’s settings for something that says “Publishing” and then “Notify” and turn that setting on.

You can also use auto-pinging services like www.pingoat.com or www.pingomatic.com to get the word out.

o Manual pinging: To let Technorati know you have something wonderful to be added to their listings, sign up for a membership and then use the link http://www.technorati.com/ping to notify them. Caution: You don’t want to be obnoxious about this! Pinging every single thing you write will earn you a big frown in the blogosphere.

Here’s a great blog post on the topic of pinging your blog: http://www.blogdoctor.me/2006/12/pinging-simplified.html

· Tag Your Posts: Be sure to use the tagging function provided by your blog host to make posts more searchable. Also, add your Technorati tags right on your blog page to make indexing easier.

· Use Your Keywords: Use the same keywords you use for your websites within blog posts, but don’t be heavy-handed. Work them in naturally as you’re talking to your audience.

· Offer Valuable Content: Blog readers are looking for content they can use, not your every thought on a topic. Link to valuable resources. Give them ideas for solving problems. Talk about current events in your industry. The more valuable your content, the more search engines will love it.

· Comment on Other Blogs: Find great blogs related to your content and start commenting. Your blog’s link will be in your signature line, and you’ll become known as an expert, which increases blog traffic and search engine interest.

These are just a few of the ways to attract the search engines to your blog. Implement them as soon as you can, and use the traffic tracking tools provided by your blog host to see which ones help most. With some conscious effort toward optimization, anyone can soon have a blog the search engine spiders will love.

In a perfect online marketing world, every website reader would automatically buy your products, or at least want to learn more about them. In the real world, however, it takes a little more direction from you, the website publisher, to get potential customers to take the next step. That direction is known as a “call to action” and every online business owner should know how to craft a great one.

What’s the Point?
In a nutshell, a call to action is persuasive text that compels your readers to want to know more, buy now or sign up. A quick tour of Internet marketing sites will show you some examples of the good, the bad, and the just plain silly! Look at these examples and notice what they direct the reader to do.

Call to Action #1: Xavier College wants to help you complete your degree quickly and affordably. Click here for more information.

Call to Action #2: Acme Internet Marketing guarantees you’ll be a millionaire by this time next year. Enroll now in our Mega-Wealth Seminar!

Call to Action #3: Stay ahead of your competition with up-to-date industry information. Subscribe to our weekly podcasts.

Each of these examples tells the reader how to take the next step. If your website visitors aren’t sure what to do next, they’re probably clicking away to your competition.

Why Should They Take the Plunge?
Something else great calls to action have in common is spelling out plainly the benefit of buying your product or service. Practice writing a one-sentence capsule of why someone should take the plunge and buy.

Will they be thinner, happier or richer? Will their children be better behaved or their lawns greener? That concise statement may be all they read, so tell them clearly what you can deliver.

And now that you’ve persuaded them, what do they do next? Whether they should click, call or download, it must be clearly stated and easy to do to keep them interested.

Is it Easy to Find?
Here are some effective strategies for making your calls to action stand out on web pages:
•    Use clickable buttons: You may want to embed links to your sign-up page within the text of your call to action, but somewhere on the web page, use clickable buttons that lead them to the next step, as well.
•    Position a call to action in several places: Don’t make your prospects read an eight page sales letter before they find the link to buy. Give them the ability to purchase, subscribe or get more information several places on your website, to match each prospect’s attention span.

What Happens Next?
And, finally, when you’ve captured their attention and they’re ready to buy, learn more or sign up, what could possibly shut down the momentum? A link or clickable button that doesn’t work!

When planning a successful call to action, test the entire sequence as though you’re a consumer. Tweak the process until doing business with you is a pleasure.

A great call to action can make the difference between a hugely successful campaign and a disaster. Take the time to perfect yours and find out for yourself what giving directions can do.

Paid search services such as Google AdWords can be a great boost to online business. But if you’re betting the farm on that single strategy, what will you do if their prices go sky high? Listen up as we unfold a more stable marketing strategy, helping you to avoid the paid search gamble.

Diversity’s the Key
You probably learned early in business to develop more than one product to attract more business. The same applies in marketing. Rather than rolling the dice on one marketing tool, promote your website with a diverse range of marketing channels.

You can still invest in Google AdWords, but keep in mind those highly-visible ads do nothing to improve your search engine ranking. They’re simply advertisements. Long-term success online always depends on consistent search engine ranking.

There’s another reason to broaden your marketing beyond pay-per-click. Sponsored search ads offered by sites like Google, Yahoo, and Kanoodle allow you to set a budget for what you’ll bid per click. But what if other online retailers set the bar beyond what you can afford? Do you really want to scramble to create new content to match the keywords within your budget?

It makes more sense to build a broader base for marketing, so you’re attracting new customers several different ways. Here are some of the ways you can avoid the pay search gamble while still building business online:

1.    Social Media Marketing: Use sites like Twitter, Facebook, Digg and LinkedIn to create an online following. It takes commitment to update your content frequently, but building a social media network can really pay off in new inbound links and sales.
2.    Connect the Dots: You may already have several marketing avenues, but haven’t connected them completely. Are your blogs linked to all your websites? Do you have links to your websites on your Facebook page? Does your Twitter profile provide a path to learn more about your products? Connect the dots for a more cohesive presence.
3.    Talk to Your Audience: The blogosphere and online forums have made marketing even easier. Connect more closely with your audience by taking off your “marketer” hat and learning to talk to your audience. Find the online forums they frequent and start talking. Create blogs relevant to their interests and keep them current. It really can pay off without costing you anything but time.

Buying AdWords each month or budgeting for Yahoo sponsored ads is one way to attract new business. Smart online website owners, however, have learned to avoid the paid search gamble by using diverse marketing channels that play off each other and pay off in sales, as well.

We all hope to be successful on the Internet. That’s why we spend so much time perfecting our websites and learning what works online. It’s not enough, though, to create a great website. To really start making money online, you may need to use tools such as Google’s AdWords and AdSense. Here’s a quick lesson on each, so that you can decide if they’ll work for you.

•    Google AdWords: This is simply a group of advertising programs through Google that allow you to advertise your website on Google.com searches and/or their content network. Sound complicated? Let me break it down into two basic programs:
•    Pay-Per-Click Ads (PPC): Pay-Per-Click ads are placed at the top or right hand side of search results on Google. As an advertiser, you bid on specific search words or phrases. Here’s the great part—you only pay if the search engine user actually clicks through to your website. That’s called a “click.” An “impression” means they saw your ad in their search results, but didn’t click.

Google helps you set your PPC budget by estimating the search volume for those specific words or phrases. You decide how much per “click” you can afford to pay. There are numerous free tools from Google to help you select the right search keywords for your website content and track your AdWords activity.

•    Content Targeted Ads: Some advertisers want to expand beyond Google search engine results, while maintaining control of their advertising through a single site. Google allows website publishers to target specific content, geographic locations or other demographics through targeted ads on their partner sites.

If you choose this option, your ads will appear on web pages most likely to attract readers who will also like your products. For example, if you sell running shoes, you could choose to have your ad appear next to an article on how to train for a marathon. Again, you only pay if they click through from the ad to your website.

If you have more questions, here’s the link to information straight from the source: Google AdWords Details.

•    Google AdSense: AdSense puts you on the other side of the Google advertising equation by allowing you to make money by accepting other people’s ads on your blog or website.

As we discussed above under “Content Targeted Ads,” AdWords users can ask to have their ads placed on relevant websites in hopes they’ll attract customers. When they appear on your site, those contextually targeted ads can create a whole new income source for your business without any further expense.

There are several ways you can make AdSense work for you:
o    By allowing AdWords ads on your blog or website, you’re paid whenever someone clicks through on an ad (called Cost-Per-Click).
o    By adding search capability on your website. Google search results will appear as relevant, and you’re paid each time someone clicks on an ad.
o    By allowing AdWords ads on your mobile web content, RSS feeds or unused domains.

To find more information on Google AdSense, click here.

Before we finish this discussion, there is something that needs to be said about the impact of Google AdWords or AdSense on your organic search engine ranking. In a word, there is none.

Put another way, even if you’re allowing lots of content relevant AdSense ads on your blog, it doesn’t mean your blog will appear closer to the top in Google search results.

In the same way, although your Pay-Per-Click ads may appear at the top or right hand side of search results, that doesn’t mean that in the normal search results “below the line” you’ll be any closer to the top.

Here’s why: the Google AdWords algorithm is completely separate from that used for organic searches. The spiders, bots and ranking techniques used to decide which search results will appear when a phrase is entered are different than those used for AdWords PPC. So, if someone tells you they stopped using AdWords and their search engine ranking fell, they’re misinformed. The two simply aren’t related.

Use the information and links above to start your research on AdWords and AdSense. You can then make an informed decision about whether they’ll help you make more money on the Internet.

If I visited your website right now, would I be moved to take action? A great website has prospects up out of their seats and ready to buy.  Why not use the following tips to create a website that has them reaching for the mouse, instead of sitting back in their seats?

The secret to getting prospects to take action once they reach your website is to have great calls to action for everything. In other words, make them an offer and then show them how to buy. Let’s talk about how this might look on a website.

Our sample website owner provides hypnosis services for smoking cessation, weight loss and fear of flying. She has also written several ebooks on the benefits of hypnosis and offers a set of CDs with positive affirmations.

If she wasn’t interested in growing her business, she’d have one or two links on her landing page that lead to her products page. Some prospects might make the effort to hunt down her products.

Here’s how she could be sure to have them raising their hands. She could split her offers into separate sections on her landing page and have clickable buttons and a call to action for each. For example:

    Click here to find out how hypnosis will help you stop smoking.
    Follow this link to savings on our latest affirmations.
    See the entire selection of ebooks here.

Each of these calls to action is part of a compelling offer. They’re easy to find, and it’s obvious what the reader should do to go to the next level. No mind-numbing sales page here; this savvy website publisher knows how to hold her prospects’ interest.

So, now that you know what works, it’s time to review your own website. Look for calls to action; if there aren’t any, get to work. Tell prospects what your products can do for them. Show them where to go next. This applies to ezine sign-ups, teleseminar registrations and free downloads, too.

Once your website is revamped, your prospects will know the benefits of doing business with you. They’ll know what to do to get what they want. And, above all, they won’t be able to remain passive.

There’s a lot being said about how to optimize your blog for the search engines. You can ping, tag and archive correctly and see great results. But there are several more organic ways to make your blog popular. Here’s “Blog Optimization 101” to get you started.

1.    Categorize Your Posts: Blog hosts provide a categorizing tool to help make your posts easier to find. This is important because, as we’re going to discuss in a minute, frequent posting makes a better blog. Choose categories that are obvious, so readers can search for what they need. Also, make it easier to be loved by search engines by including your primary keywords as categories. Optimization 101 Takeaway: Use categories, and include your primary keywords.
2.    Use Keywords Carefully: Speaking of keywords, learn to use them carefully in your content. Good, useful, keyword-rich content is the key to blog success. Keyword stuffing, on the other hand, will get you booted from search engines. Use keywords as category headings, and then use those keywords naturally in your posts. Optimization 101 Takeaway: Keywords, used naturally, build traffic.
3.    Create Great Titles: Blog post titles are your chance to captivate readers’ interest. You could, for example, say “How to Shine Shoes” or you could grab attention by saying “Six Ways to Keep Shoes Looking Brand New.” Which would you rather read? Optimization 101 Takeaway: Lead posts with great titles to capture interest.
4.    Keep Content Fresh: What’s sadder than a great blog with no posts for six months? It’s interest-killing to stop posting frequently, especially if you’ve gained an RSS following. Start strong and stay strong so you don’t lose reader interest. Plan your blog posting schedule and topics a month in advance and you won’t have to think about what to write. Optimization 101 Takeaway: Feed followers fresh content often so they don’t disappear.
5.    Keep Content Relevant: You may have lots of thoughts about politics, but your business is selling kites. Start a separate blog to talk about politics, and keep your kite company’s blog on topic. Offer useful tips, link to sites of interest and embed images in your blog posts. Anything you can offer that keeps prospects coming back increases the chance they’ll go in search of your website. (By the way, breaking up your text with images, bullet points or block quotes makes posts even more interesting.) Optimization 101 Takeaway: Stick to topics that relate to your business to keep readers coming back.

Keeping your blogs fresh and interesting can build a following and drive traffic to your websites. Use what you’ve learned in Blog Optimization 101 to create a blog that’s a valuable marketing channel.

Wondering what you can do to attract more interest online? There are actually three very easy ways to increase your impact on the Internet. Let’s look at how blogging, great websites and social media are the path to expanding your online footprint.

Website Content
This is the time to ask yourself, “How am I expanding my online footprint now?” You may be missing potential customers because your website simply doesn’t hold their interest. We’re not talking about adding flashing lights and obnoxious show tunes to your home page!

Think about what best serves the interests of your target audience. Consider adding useful articles, podcasts or video segments to your website. Link to your social media presence and your blog, as well, to give them even more reason to get to know your company.

Social Media Sites
Without a doubt, social media sites such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube have changed the way we do business online. Here’s a quick breakdown of how they can effectively expand your online impact.

•    YouTube: You may think YouTube is the realm of bored college students, but it’s an amazingly effective marketing tool, too. Consider this—if someone performs an Internet search for say, spiral staircases, and the first result is your company’s instructional video on YouTube for how to install one, don’t you think they’re likely to investigate?

Rather than simply depending on website content to draw new customers, you can upload videos to YouTube to visually encourage someone to learn more about your company. These video segments shouldn’t be blatant advertisements. Today’s Internet audience is looking for useful content such as how-to videos, interesting presentations or helpful tips. And don’t forget to link to your YouTube videos from your website!

•    Microblogging: Another hot Internet trend that can draw new customers to your website is “microblogging.” Here’s how it works: you create a “human face” for your company, someone who will communicate several times a day to share helpful information, links or updates on issues related to your industry. Using a microblogging application such as Twitter, this person creates a following online. These “tweets” or quick bursts of communication, can be linked to via your website or blog. That’s all there is to it, other than committing to microblogging every day.

•    Facebook: Facebook is one example of the type of social media sites that lean more toward social interaction and away from business. You can, however, gain online interest by creating a Facebook page for your business that links to your website and blog and invites viewers to follow you on Twitter.

Blogging
Many online businesses shy away from blogs because they don’t have writers on-staff. The truth is weblogs (blog) are all about sharing useful content with your audience in a casual atmosphere.

Whether your company makes airplanes for a living or you provide cosmetic services, you have something to share with your target market. Talk to them about innovations in your industry. Share helpful hints for making life easier. Ask them what matters most to them, and respond to their answers. The key to having a great blog is consistent content. Plan your blog topics around events, issues or upcoming product launches, and don’t forget to link to your website, and vice-versa.

Tying it All Together
Keep in mind that different audiences approach the Web in different ways. The key is to have a presence in all arenas, so they’re sure to find you. Get your feet wet in each of these areas, and be sure to link them all together. Your online footprint should soon see some profitable expansion.