As a small business owner who is looking to increase sales via the internet you will recognise that most of your competition is already investing in one form of internet marketing or another and in some cases will have a well structured online marketing campaign in place.

In order to implement an online marketing campaign you need to invest in quality content that speaks directly to the problems that your target audience face.

Without that compelling content getting in front of the right people at the right time, your voice will not be heard, your business offerings will go unnoticed and you will watch as your competitors thrust open their doors to new clients that could and should have been yours.

Articles, videos, blog posts, pillar content, follow up emails, presentations and proposals: the list is endless!

To many business owners it may seem daunting or even off putting to have to produce an array of meaningful and compelling content on a regular basis that empowers your target audience to reach out and connect with you, and trust me it is.

But the truth of the matter is without the commitment to truly encapsulate your audience, online marketing will never see the results that you may have been promised or dreamed off.

But we already have a website!

To say that you have a website is not good enough. It is not. A website on its own is NOTHING. It is like jumping out of a plane with a parachute on your back and not knowing how to pull the chord. Useless. In fact it is less than useless, your website becomes a cost that sucks cash from your business instead of becoming an investment that adds to your bottom line on a monthly basis.

The content that you create is the means to attracting those profitable clients. Both on your website and on other targeted websites across the internet where your audience may be visiting. When your content creation dries up or doesn’t even get off the ground in the first place you will get fewer eyeballs looking, less subscribers and even fewer sales.

Content drives the internet and quality content engages your targeted audience, arouses their interest, creates a desire and encourages them to act.

3 Benefits of Content Marketing for Your Business

Highly Visible Social Proof

If you claim to be the biggest, the best or the most efficient in your niche or industry then you’d better make sure there is evidence on the internet to substantiate those claims.

It is not difficult for anyone to search the internet to find out information about your business. One simple search in Google of your business name will bring back search results highlighting the most relevant pages on the internet about your business.

Don’t be fooled into thinking that because you have not put anything on the internet about your firm that no one else has done it either. There are so many ways that people can talk about your business: Social media, local business directories, blogs etc that you should implement an online reputation management strategy to keep informed of how your business is being represented online.

If you are the best, then social proof will occur naturally to support these claims and then you will have some great third party generated content that you can use to market your business and win more customers with.

Be seen as a Thought Leader.

Pick up a trade magazine and look at the expert opinion articles, those people are providing interviews, writing articles relating to their niche and adding insight around topical issues that may confuse potential clients. By taking time to put that content out there they become a thought leader, the “go to” person in that industry, and when that happens opportunities and business relationships come your way.

The same thing happens on the internet, in fact, the very same content or remarkably similar content to the trade magazine article will be converted into a blog post, a video, an article on an industry related website, an email through to your existing database.

Staying in the spotlight at the top is not easy. It requires attention to detail, original ideas and of course, constant updating.

Top Search Engine Rankings.

Having your business website listed in the top of the search engine rankings for your business niche, the products or services you offer or even the problems that your services solve is a great way to increase sales in your business. In the majority of niches there is fierce competition for the top spots in the search engines.

Google is continually updating they way they rank websites on the internet, one of the key areas they look at is the content both on and off the website. Is it related to the niche, is it good quality, is it being shared by other people, does it have third party comments, does the content get linked back to or linked out to other informative content.

All of these factors and many more are used to make a decision on the relevance and quality of your website and where it sits in the search rankings. Ultimately none of these factors can be taken into consideration if you do not have any content or create content on a regular basis.

The more content you produce which is related to your core competencies, the easier it is for you to place in context links and also get your articles published in leading sites within your niche which again helps your content marketing strategy by raising your profile.

Content marketing alone will not bring a horde of new business but it certainly plays a significant part and it will help your online presence and build you online reputation, set your business apart from your competition as a thought leader and position you as the go to player in your industry.

The ways in which businesses can now communicate with potential and existing clients continues to grow at break neck pace. Any decision maker that has invested in a form of small business internet marketing in order to grow their business will have seen the number of options to interact with their audience increase rapidly over the last 5 years. From dynamic website design, blogging, video marketing, email marketing campaigns to social media marketing, the list of methods truly is endless.

With all that choice available it can quite often be very confusing for small business owners who are focused on doing what they do best: delivering value for their clients, regardless of the niche they are in. It could be keeping the family warm by getting the central heating working, providing a beautiful smile through dental surgery or helping individuals through a divorce or the death of a loved with one with professional legal services.

The long and short of it is that the Internet has changed the way in which consumers process information and communicate that information between other people. This in turn means the advertising methods of old are not the same and do not produce the same results as in the past.

In order to compete in a disruptive and often crowded marketplace businesses have to be more creative and outsmart their competition by leveraging strategies and techniques that speak to their target market and invoke a reaction.

The Seven Pillars of small business internet marketing:

1. Know Your Ideal Audience.

You may think this sounds super simple but you would be surprised at the number of small businesses who don’t know exactly who their ideal client is. If you don’t have an idea of who this is then your advertising is not an investment, it is a cost. Unless you know who your target audience is you will be spending money trying to attract people who are not interested in what you have to offer.

Increase your chance of success by being specific about who you want to market to.

2. Always offer Quality Content.

While it may be hugely time consuming to update your website or Blog several times a week, having a lot of quality content that backs up your authority and helps keep customers interested in you is almost always going to be of benefit to you. I say almost, because if you don’t then take advantage of that traffic, then you will have wasted your time! Think of some of the Big Name Websites, every time you click on Amazon you will see different offers, different products and new information. If someone has been to your site and enjoyed what they saw, then they come back and see the same again they aren’t likely to give you another visit.

Quality content has become a by word of advertising online over the past few years, but that doesn’t mean that businesses haven’t been practising content marketing successfully for years and creating loyal audiences in the process.

And while it may be difficult for a business owner to justify taking the time out to create content, the more quality and insightful content you create that is distributed online, the more targeted clients will see it and the greater the chance you have of making a connection resulting in an inquiry or lead for your business.

The more you can do to educate potential clients about your business from the outset the easier it becomes to convert those leads into paying clients in the future.

3. Distribute Your Content High and Wide

In traditional marketing you have TV, Radio and magazines. Online you have websites, blogs, video sites, article sites, micro blogs, and social media. When your business has invested in creating a piece of content, that one piece of content can be broken up and converted into many different formats and then distributed in many places.

Keep your small business internet marketing interesting and different so people will be able to see your messages on different platforms and recognise that is you increasing your authority and building your brand in the process.

Make sure you are taking full advantage of the different online mediums available as the chances are your audience will be and you can bet your competition is!

4. Targeted Search Engine Campaigns are Priceless

Search engine optimisation is where you place your business in front of people who are ACTIVELY searching for your business or services. Targeted potential clients go from not knowing who you are or anything about your business, to seeing the benefits of your services within seconds.

Search engine optimisation is a key way to attract clients, the higher up the search rankings you appear, the more clients will click on your listing and therefore you will have a greater opportunity to convert. That is why a lot of businesses invest in improving SEO so they get the opportunity to attract targeted clients before the competition.

5. Connect with those that have trusted you before.

When a client has worked with you in the past they have paid their hard earned money to benefit from your services so they already know about you and how you can help them. Continue to educate your clients even when you have served them to keep them in touch with your business and what you can do. One of the best ways to do this is through email marketing.

Make every possible attempt to get the email addresses of your clients and put together a strategic marketing campaign that uses this prized information.

Tell your clients about how you are helping other clients, inform them through multimedia about other services or products that you offer, offer promotions to entice them to benefit from your business once more.

One of the most expensive things in business is a onetime client – leverage email marketing to make sure that you don’t suffer that huge business failing.

6. Online Marketing is measurable.

The beauty about online marketing is that nearly everything is measurable. From positions in the search engines, the number of clicks, number of conversions or downloads and leads generated to sales made. Everything is trackable and when everything is trackable it means that you can test for the best performing adverts or marketing methods and repeat them time and again while constantly improving.

This is one of the major reasons why so many businesses choose to market online because there is a ready source of information that can be provided to decision makers to support the work that is being done.

Small Business Internet Marketing is Part of the Marketing Mix

7. Offline Marketing is still valuable

Offline marketing is still valuable and supports any marketing campaign that you have. If a targeted clients sees an advert in a trade magazine that arouses their interest they then Google your business services to find out some more and they see you on the first page sharing some great content or with some brilliant third party testimonials then they will truly feel that you are the best company to help them resolve their problems.

Small Business internet Marketing is not a quick fix, and you shouldn’t consider it a miracle way to save your business and get profitable clients overnight. As with anything it can take time, effort and patience to get the results that you crave but don’t give up. Listen to feedback, monitor what does and doesn’t work and remember that if you consistently apply great techniques then online marketing will deliver your business targeted leads, increased sales and higher profits.

Letting more people know about your business today than yesterday is part and parcel of being in business, growing a business and ultimately making a success of business. Without a continued drive to reach more targeted clients with an attractive and relevant proposition, customer acquisition will grind to a halt.

But what if the product and service that you are driving people’s attention back to is below par? Are you wasting your advertising money? Are you simply glossing over the bigger problem?

In Forresters Customer Experience Index 2013*, top ten customer experience leaders have a three year growth pattern better than twice that of the top ten U.S. advertisers. So does it not make sense that rather than working hard to get a million people to know about your business, would it not be better to focus on the product and service to:

• make a product that is worth shouting about!
• provide an experience that is second to none!
• build a brand that is synonymous with excellence!

In an age where the customer has so much buying power thanks to the internet, businesses are no longer competing with the 1 or maybe 2 other firms in the same location. They are dealing with every firm across the country and beyond, many of whom share similar if not the same advertising messages.

The internet means that barriers to entry in some niches are greatly reduced, companies like Amazon and Google shopping mean that you can have a virtual shop open in a matter of hours, trade from your back bedroom and have next day delivery to clients.

Look at the legal sector, a market that was for so long dominated by long time established local firms who would quite literally handle all legal matters; family, business, wills and probate for an entire family is now challenged by internet companies that can offer the advice online for a fraction of the cost. Even Google has got into the legal game by backing Rocket Lawyer in the UK which will closely be followed by Legal Zoom who are partnering with the Quality Solicitors franchise to offer traditional legal services via the internet.

The main thing that happens through increased competition is commoditisation, lowering of costs and ultimately reduced profits. However, if your reputation is second to none, if you are associated with delivering great service, on time and on budget then why should you lower your cost? Your USP is the fact that you are great at what you do, you are experienced, you are trustworthy and more importantly other people think so and publically endorse you too.

When firms go after increasing brand awareness and targeting greater numbers this can be a complete waste of time if you don’t have that USP in the first place. All the advertising investment in the world cannot make up for the fact that when people search for your business in Google, once they have seen your advert they are met with a torrent of negative comments and testimonials from past clients of your business. The vast majority of those clients will NOT deal with you, they WILL find the next service provider who has a good reputation and choose them, even if it costs a little more because they will have more confidence in the fact that they can deliver over you.

So, before you go and invest thousands on your online marketing take a long look at what people are saying about you online and ask yourself honestly if you were a potential customer would you work with yourself?

If the answer is yes then put together a campaign based around your offer and get it out in front of targeted potential clients and track the results. If the answer is No, then forget advertising until you can honestly and truthfully answer, “Yes I would work with this firm”.

*Source: Forresters Customer Experience Index 2013

In Re-imagine! Business Excellence in a Disruptive age Tom Peters says, “Excellent customer service is no longer good enough. That should be the de facto and in order to maintain a healthy client list any business should be looking to deliver OUTSTANDING customer service.”

Doesn’t that make so much sense! I mean it’s not exactly rocket science to realise that as a consumer if you pay for a service you expect a good result. Not a mediocre or ok or average result; as a minimum you want Good results. Or else why would you be spending your hard earned cash?

So as a business owner as a bare minimum you need to be providing a good service, but if you really want to progress and build a successful business then you really need to be providing an excellent service, something that is truly outstanding.

66% of customers are willing to spend more with a company they believe provides excellent customer service.

Source: 2012 Global Customer Service Barometer

That is 2 out of every 3 customers are willing to spend more with a company because of great service. 2 out of 3!

If 66% of clients spent more with your firm do you think that would help? You are damn right it would help, it would more than help, It would mean that each client is worth more to your business, turnover would increase, profits would increase and all from the same number of customers.

Every single customer’s journey through the business lifecycle with a firm is unique, the touch points and interactions they receive from the business before, during and after the sale are all taken into consideration when a person thinks back about the service they have experienced. Is your client’s last interaction with your firm positive or negative? Do they leave feeling valued and pleased or disappointed and neglected?

The fact of the matter is that if a person feels like they have had a good experience with your firm then they are likely to come back and revisit and reuse your services time and time again facilitating a long term business partnership.

How Can You Capitalise on These Positive Client Feelings?

What if a small percentage of those satisfied clients were happy to share their personal story with others about your business and the outstanding service they received. Would that help convince potential clients who were in need of your service to choose you over your competition?

We already know that 66% percent of customers are willing to spend more with a company that is perceived to have excellent customer service, so why not use the positive experiences of your past clients to help win more clients and not just more clients, but clients who are willing to spend more with you?

Your positive online reputation are one of the greatest assets your business has, combine those glowing reviews with the power of the internet and the ability to have these endorsements speak for your business when ideal clients are looking for you then you have the basis of a lead referral system that can grow your business.

Your history of excellent customer service can be, and should be front and centre for everybody to see to allow you to win profitable new business today, tomorrow and for years to come.

Your Business Reputation is Whatever Google Says It Is!

Face it, when someone is looking for your business, or your services they go to Google and type in your business name. The chances are the results they will include your website, amongst several other citations of your business.

Now you might think, “Well that’s ok we have a website and it has positive testimonials on there so we are fine, no need to worry!”

Well I am sorry to tell you that that isn’t good enough and here is why:

Very rarely do people enter your website url directly into the browser, even if they know you. The normal web user goes to Google and types the company name into Google and then hits search.

What the user is presented with is a list of pages that Google believes to be the most relevant for your business name. Now of course your website is one of those pages, or at least it should be, if it is not then you really do have trouble! The other listings will be other relevant and useful information concerning your business. This could be:

• Press releases
• Articles
• Videos
• Forum sites
• Blog Posts
• Local directory listings
• Review sites
• Social media sites.
• Images
• PDf articles

Do you see my point? If the answer is no, then let me explain some more.

There are many forms of content that people can place online, all of which can be relevant to your business, your name, your products or services. If you don’t know what is online when someone searches for you then shame on you.

Remember, the internet is not static, so just because you checked what came up in a search 6 months ago it doesn’t mean it’s the same today, or tomorrow or the day after and the day after that.

One negative comment left online, or a negative article, can quickly be syndicated to many sites across the internet. Once this happens then that piece of content becomes more credible in the eyes of the search engines because people are taking the time to comment on it and share it.

That means the piece of negative content moves higher up the search engine listings damaging your business reputation, potentially losing market value and impacting your lead generation.

3 Steps to Better Your Business Reputation Management

Take accountability

Don’t ignore your online business reputation. Make a point of taking responsibility by assigning someone in your business to take ownership. Then go out and proactively work to provide the search engines with useful, relevant and quality content that adds value to your business and to people searching for your company.

The sooner you create value added content, the sooner it can be indexed and shared by the public, therefore increasing relevancy.

Don’t enter a Slanging Match

“He said, she did, I said,” is not going to help you out in this situation. If the comment or content is someone having a good old rant then sometimes it is best not to add fuel to the fire by leaving a response.

Analyse the comment or content that has been posted and think about how best to respond. If the comment is reasonable, for example if the user is talking about an experience they have had with your business and how it was disappointing, then step up to the plate and offer an apology and an avenue to interact with that consumer in order to investigate the issue and make things right. By doing this you get the opportunity to rectify the client’s sentiment about your business and also show the outside world, who are watching, that you really do care about your customers and clients.

Positively ask for feedback

Getting positive reviews is another way to counteract the negative press that is online. There are many 3^rd party review sites that allow consumers to leave their honest feedback about businesses that then get published online.

Ask your customers to go to these sites and leave honest reviews about your business, this will help build up a series of reviews, hopefully positive, that can be used to push down the negative reviews, provide feedback to your business and increase the perception of your business online.

Ultimately business reputation management is vital. If someone is saying something negative about your business or services they might have a reason to make a valid complaint. Consider all negative comments or complaints seriously and take corrective action where warranted.

If you want to know more how we could help you develop an online business reputation management system, marketing the GREAT work that you do for clients, protecting your business from the bad comments and winning new and repeat business online then call us today. 0844 245 7365

Part of this growth can be explained by the fact that Google are, some would say, forcing, others would say, gently persuading, users of its other services to connect their Google+ profiles in order to use certain features.

For starters every time someone opens a new Gmail account they are automatically given a Google+ page. If users want to leave comments in the Google Play store they have to be signed in with their Google+ account, if a user wants to leave a comment in Google+ local for business using the Zagat rating system then they have to be signed in to their Google+ local account, if the user wants to have their real name displayed on their YouTube account they have to be signed into their Google+ account and then there is Authorship. If a user who produces content online wants to make sure that Google knows who wrote that content so spammers can’t scrape and copy the content and out rank you then, you have guessed it, you have to claim your Google+ profile. You want to claim your business listing which incidentally already exists (oops did nobody tell you?). Google created over 80 million business pages in Google+ local for business that are sitting on that are out there on the internet right now, with no images, no videos and possibly negative reviews!? Well, now you know!

Google has made it very clear that Google+ is not just the future but the present of Google.

“Google+ is Google,” says Vice President Bradley Horowitz. “The entry points to Google+ are many, and the integrations are more every day.”

We all know the social layer is important to Google and Google+ is their way to access the bountiful advertising revenue that Facebook is currently enjoying by accessing the personal information of its users. What apps people like, what shops or business services people use, where they are, the people they know. The amount of information that Google can monetise in terms of advertising through personalised search is incredible and that is why they will continue to encourage web users to embrace Google+.

As a business owner the main benefit of Google+ is that, unlike Facebook, Google+ is not ring fenced, it is not a closed community. If you share something on Google+ then it is available in search. And that for me is the monumental difference.

Google is ultimately a search engine, arguably the best search engine, some would go as far to say the only search engine, and so everything they do will be tied to search.

So, if an individual likes an Italian restaurant and on Google+ they leave a positive comment saying how great the meal was and the service was fantastic then when one of their friend types “Italian restaurant” into Google a picture of their friend will appear along with the review that they left. In other words there will be recommendations from people you know, like and trust mixed within the search results in Google.

Flip that the other way around. What if your closest friend, someone whose opinion you trust has a bad experience with a local property solicitors, they leave a bad review using Google+. 6 months down the line when you type into Google “solicitor for buying a house” and in the results you see a review from your trusted friend reminding you how poor a certain solicitor is, would you then go on to use that solicitor?

Google+ will integrate into more and more products and searches, meaning that the search results that people get back will be more personalised and tailored, including the thoughts, experiences and opinions of your friends. This will have a HUGE influence over the business and services that an individual uses.

Google+ is not just a social media platform, it is a means for Google to incorporate social into all of their other products and when all of these other products are part of our daily working lives then at some point or other Google+ will be part of what you do, how you do it and more importantly what your customers do.

To find out more about how you can leverage Google+ local to rapidly increase leads and sales for your business contact us today.

Sources

http://www.rappler.com/life-and-style/technology/19091-google-pushing-google-through-service-integration

http://globalwebindex.net/thinking/social-platforms-gwi-8-update-decline-of-local-social-media-platforms/

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324731304578193781852024980.html

Unfortunately that is not always the case because if the search engines don’t know about all this great work then how can they present it to potential clients when they search for your business?

Think of it this way, in the traditional business world, the world before websites, search engines and social media, company reputations were built, marketed and maintained through word of mouth and strategic advertising tactics. The result of such business methodologies meant that it could take months if not years for a business to be positioned as a market leader in their field.

However the internet has radically altered the way in which businesses position themselves online. Thanks to social media, local business directories, blogs and mobile internet access, your online reputation can be investigated and changed in a matter of seconds with your competition, who do market their reputation online, becoming the main benefactor.

Now that you know that it is as important to market your reputation online as it is offline, here are a few tips that will help you become a market leader online.

Be Proactive in Commanding Your Online Reputation

In order to build a great reputation you need to do great things that add real value to people and then tell other people about them. If you are the best employment solicitor in the North West then keeping this fact quiet is not going to help your cause. Instead be proactive and strategically submit articles, press releases and blog entries that share this fact with targeted clients that are looking for it.

The more positive internet real estate that you own, the better. If people continually see the same message then they will be more likely to remember you when they are in need of your services.

Be Proactive in Providing a Great Service.

This may sound a little stupid, as nobody goes out of their way to provide bad service, do they? But providing a great service offline can affect how people perceive your business online.

Any consumers search for a business online in their local area before committing to working with them offline. Therefore when delivering on the service make sure that your customer service is excellent, that you can be contacted easily, that emails and telephone calls get responded to, and complaints get investigated.

There are many cases were clients who have been ignored or received poor service from a company go straight online and share their views with everyone to see. This could severely tarnish the hard earned and positive reputation of your business as once a negative comment is placed online it is very, very difficult to remove.

Be Proactive in Marketing Your Great Reputation

Prospective clients are looking for reassurance before they commit to a major buying decision. So rather than giving those prospects the opportunity to dwell on the decision provide them with proof that your business delivers on what it says it will deliver.

Provide those prospects with glowing testimonials from previous clients who share exactly how your business helped them achieve the results they were looking for. It’s one thing for you to list your credentials, affiliations and expertise, it is another thing altogether for someone who has no relation to your business sharing them for you.

Put in place a process of requesting reviews from clients, good or bad, the positive reviews can help market your business and the negative reviews can be used to identify areas within your business that need improvement. Ultimately resulting in a better service for future clients.

People do business with people they know, like and trust. The more you can do to present your business online as transparent, trustworthy and efficient, the more clients you will successfully satisfy and the more positive sentiment you will create about your brand online, which will result in an increased online real estate, more people finding you and eventually more people selecting you as the partner of choice moving forward.

Contrary to popular belief Google does not own the internet, so when you search using Google you are not searching the whole internet you are searching Google’s stored version of the internet. Therefore even if Google does remove the page from its index then it will still be publically available from other search engines, social media sites or other links that people may have saved elsewhere.

3 Tips on Removing a Web page From Google!

1. Contact the person who wrote the negative piece and ask them to remove it.

If the negative comment is in the form of a review on a local business directory site or a review site then you could reach out to the person who left the review and try understanding exactly what their issue is and more importantly what you, as a business can do to make it better. Quite often people leave negative comments and reviews out of sheer frustration. If you or someone from within your business can reach out to that person and take ownership of the situation then work toward a resolution, that person may be willing to remove their review. You may even get the reviewer to edit the review to reflect the way the situation was handled, how they are now a satisfied client and they would recommend you.

In some cases this may not be possible, the reviewer may have chosen to remain anonymous or there may be action for recourse. If this is the case then you may want to look at the next option.

2. Contact the website owner

If the reviewer refuses to remove or edit their comments then your next step will be to contact the website owner and ask them if they will remove the content.

If the contact details of the website owner are not available then you can use the whois utility. to look up information on domain names. This includes contact information as well as some technical information such as the domain’s name servers (DNS), to try to uncover details such as the web host and contact them putting forward the reasons why you would like the content removed.

Again this might prove tricky as many website owners are reluctant to move content, especially if the content is true and is supported.

Another reason why this approach may prove counterproductive is that the website owner may publish your request to remove the content. This will mean something that could have been years old will now get fresh content added to it which will increase the relevancy of the content in the eyes of the search engines.

3. Be proactive with your reputation.

Clients and consumers have more and more ways to publish their experiences about your business online. Whether you agree with that or support that it doesn’t matter because that is fact. It is not difficult for a consumer to open a web browser on their phone, sign on to Facebook, Twitter or Google+ and tell everyone they know and the entire internet about your business. It happens each and every day to businesses up and down the country. So rather than sitting back, thinking that everything is hunky dory and waiting for a disgruntled client to talk about your business online and then go into fire fighting mode – “How can I get this page removed from Google?” “Can I sue this person?” – be proactive about your online presence.

The more information you provide the search engines that is relevant about your business the better. Why? Because when someone says something negative then the searching public, your prospective customers and your existing business partners know that the comment is out of character and will simply dismiss it as a one off, especially when they can see all the great work that you do.

Testimonials for satisfied customers, news about the charity work you are doing, stories about new employees, business growth, accreditations; all of this information can be provided to the search engines and if other searchers find it relevant they will like it, comment on it and share it so the search engines will pick up on the relevance and include the results when people search on your business name.

One negative comment, review or web page among 10, 20 or 50 positive stories won’t be something to worry about; it will simply show your business for who you really are. The sooner you start to think proactively about your online reputation and less from a defensive stand point the greater position you will be in when the negative review turns up and the question “How do I remove this page from Google?” may not even need to cross your lips!

Short, Snappy and to the Point!

If you plan to use your website as key tool in your sales cycle, providing valuable information, giving potential clients the opportunity to learn more about you and the way you do business, or quite simply to buy your services and products then you need to make sure that the name of your website or your domain name is memorable. If your domain name is overly complicated or difficult to spell then you may find that a large percentage of potential clients go somewhere else.

Go Offline to Drive Online

The purpose of a website is to attract business from the hundreds of millions of users that are already online so why would you want to advertise offline? Because dependent on your target demographic there may be a large percentage of your market that still prefer, read and react to offline advertisements.

Advertise in your local newspaper, send out a press release about your new site to the local newspaper or a trade magazine, or place an advert on the local radio station with a strong call to action directing the reader back to your website.

Notify Your Existing Client Base.

Your Business website is a not just a tool for lead generation. It is also a valuable resource for informing existing and past clients about your business, providing useful information about the services they receive and valuable resources on how to get the best out of your services. It can also be used for informing clients how and where they can contact you if and when a problem arises, outlining the process and procedures that are in place for them to follow to reach resolution in a shorter time scale. This is important in aiding the customer and reducing the impact on your customer care department.

Send an email or a series of emails to your existing database, or invest in a mailing list so you can inform those that have showed interest in the past, or people who fit your targeted demographic, about your website. Make sure that you follow the Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations:

• Have the person’s permission to send the email
• Provide a means for the recipient to unsubscribe from future mailings.

Email should be an integral part of your marketing campaign, as such there should always be a method for new visitors of your website to sign up to your mailing list to learn more about your business. A good way to incentivise this is to provide a free giveaway; this could be a series of videos, a report or an eBook that would be of value to your potential clients and in the process help highlight your expertise in your field.

Market using the Search Engines

You can use a service such as Google Adwords to pay for a short advert that provides a link back to your website in the Google search results when somebody searches for keywords and phrases related to your business and or niche. You only pay for this service when an interested party clicks on that link and visits your website.

Search engine marketing can send a lot of traffic to your website in a short amount of time and therefore it is very important to have a plan in place as to how you deal with those visitors when they arrive on your site. Consider the following to improve your conversion rate of visitors to leads:

Select the right keywords or phrases

1. Use targeted ad text
2. Provide a call to action in the ad
3. Send the users to a specific landing page.
4. Provide a free giveaway to gain access to the users email address.
5. Make it extremely easy for the user to contact you or leave their details.

To learn more about Pay Per Click Advertising click here!

Optimise your website for search engines.

Search engine optimisation is where you optimise the content on your website to appear higher up in the natural search engine results. The net effect is similar to search engine marketing; effectively your business website gets the vast majority of clicks from people searching for your keywords or phrases.

The main difference being that with search engine optimisation you do not pay for each click as your website is deemed a trusted authority for the keyword term and the clicks and visitors are free. This means you can benefit from search traffic without worrying about daily costs per click advertising budgets.

Although this may seem a far more sensible option than Pay per click advertising it can often take months of hard work and investment to get your website to be deemed as the authority. And, as is the case in business there is always a new website or a new business that is looking to challenge and take your place; search engine optimisation is not a set and forget strategy! It requires constant work in order to maintain and improve.

Get Social

Social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ are great ways for your business to connect with your target audience and build an enthused community of people that share in the interests of your business.

Social media is also a great way to disseminate messages to your existing customer bases and share great news stories and of course fun events that make people smile and share with their friends and family.

Make sure that you have a plan for your social media campaign because although social media is a free resource, the time needed to develop and maintain interests on social media can be a significant drain on resources.

Ask Your Clients to Tell A friend

Encourage your happy clients to share their great experiences of your business to their family and friends, ask your happy clients to share their experiences by leaving reviews and testimonials of your business and then use these positive endorsements to attract more targeted clients to your website.

Your existing customers are the best advocates for your business or your brand so encourage them to share your website with people that they know. Word of mouth marketing is one of the best marketing sources on the planet!

1. You Are Not Clear about Your Objectives!

Search engine marketing is a form of advertising, but it is very different from all other advertising that you may have done in the past. Crucially it is not just about creating brands it is about generating targeted leads.

So begin with a clear understanding of how SEM will fit into your overall marketing mix and how many leads you want it to generate for you. But remember be realistic saying you want one hundred leads from ten pounds of advertising is unrealistic. Work out your average cost per lead and use this as your starting point. You can them come back and refine this figure, but it is always good to have a starting point.

2.You don’t have a suitable landing environment!

There is little point sending visitors to your website if those visitors don’t like what they find there. If you are advertising for conveyancing in Manchester, sending the visitor to a PPI claims web site is misleading and will result in the visitor clicking straight out because the web page is not relevant.

If you are looking to increase conversion rate, and with pay per click advertising that is what you should be doing, you should think about building a specific landing page for each campaign, or service that you are advertising. People searching for Conveyancing see a page dedicated to conveyancing. People searching for accident claims seeing a page specifically for accident claims. Sending people directly to the home page of your website, unless this is well optimised for conversions can also reduce your conversion rate.

3. You are not getting your words right.

Bid on the right words and phrases and the right people will visit your site. It sounds really simple but the success of your search engine marketing campaign hinges on you getting it exactly right. You need to know exactly who you want to attract to your site, what words they will use to find your site and how to advertise on these specific words or phrases at the right price.

Are your target customers searching for a conveyancing solicitor in Manchester or house sale solicitors? There is a big difference, both mean the same thing but have different amounts of people searching, have a different cost and will convert at differing levels.

Always try to think what people are searching for if you don’t know ask your existing client base what they would search for if they were looking for your business or services in a search engine.

4. Your Ads are not Click worthy

Why oh why would your targeted customer want to click on your advert? What is in it for them? Yes it might be relevant to what they are searching for but what about the other 9 adverts on the page, all the organic listings, the map and Google plus local listings? What makes your advert stand out above all the others?

The whole point of pay per click marketing is to get people to click. If you are not receiving clicks then people will not be seeing your landing page and not be introduced to your products or services. Make you adverts enticing, engaging, and accurate and give a clear call to action.

5. You are not Tracking your results.

And when I say tracking I mean testing, tracking and then enhancing. With SEM you get almost real time information surrounding your campaign. That means you have the opportunity to make changes depending on the reception your adverts are receiving.

Forget traditional marketing where you but an advert for a set amount of time then see the results. The results are there for you to see and adapt so harness that astonishing capability to improve clicks, conversions and results.

If you have accidentally included a keyword that is a brand name or has another meaning which you knew nothing about and it is suddenly receiving hundreds of non relevant clicks then you can omit that keyword from your campaign before it does any lasting damage.

Search engine marketing is an incredibly powerful way to attract targeted visitors to your online presence and managed the right way can provide a large portion of your qualified visitors, leads and sales , so do your homework and make sure that you get the best possible return on investment.

That represents a serious financial loss for companies who don’t deal with disgruntled customers, and a tremendous gain to those that do.

In the past, the 4 percent who are not willing to simply walk away when they feel they have not received the service they experienced may have asked to speak to the manager, filled out a complaint form, gone to the customer service desk or sent a letter to the managing director or owner of the business.

If you have ever left a complaint before you will know that not every business gets back to you. There are also those businesses that instead of trying to understand the cause of the problem look to defend through attacking you and the reason for the complaint, leaving a bitter taste in your mouth.

Now there are far easier ways for disgruntled customers to leave their opinions about businesses and how poorly they have performed, putting pressure on said businesses to view and act up on these complaints because they are made in a public forum.

Sure, you have probably all witnessed complaints and negative comments on social media sites where somebody sends a tweet, or writes a post saying how poorly they have been treated or how the service they received by no means reached their level of expectations.

Well during the release of Google’s latest smartphone, the Google Nexus 4, there have been problems with delivery and this has caused more than one complaint and some severe negative criticism globally across the internet. Rather than bombarding help lines, one savvy user took to the internet and leveraged Google products: Goole docs, Google sites, Gmail and Google+, to highlight the growing concern about communication from the company around the internet.

In short, a basic website was setup, including a register where customers who purchased the Google Nexus phone and were awaiting delivery could leave their details and outline their own problem. The site also included a chronological list of communications sent to and from the MD of Google in the UK, Dan Cobley. Communications begin on the 14/12/12 and are updated when new information is posted. The site also posts updates from the various news outlets that have picked up the story such as: Thenextweb, Gizmodo, the Guardian, techcrunch and businessinsider to name a few.

The original letter to Google can be found here

The majority of people are not going to have the same level of skills as Andy, the man responsible for setting up the register, or the acumen to put together what comes across as a structured and well thought out campaign to get Google, one of the largest organisations on the planet, to take notice and respond.

That being said it is not that difficult to set up, Google has provided everyone the tools to do it. Ironically if you don’t know how to use them then you can simply go to another member of the Google product family, YouTube, search on how to set up a Google website and you will find dozens upon dozens of videos that walk you through exactly how to do it. Then you can use Google tools to share the website across the internet so it has the potential to go viral, as is the case with this!

Credit where credit is due

Not only is credit due to Andy for the campaign but also to Dan Cobley – MD of Google UK for the way in which he personally has taken the time to respond and manage the situation. And if you look into the timings of the responses these also land over the weekend ratifying the fact that Google are working evenings and weekends to rectify the situation.

“We are all working through the nights and weekends to resolve this issue, including the seven points you raise. I can offer an unreserved apology for our service and communication failures in this process. I am optimistic that we will be able to share some positive news shortly, but I do not want to cause any more disappointment by making a commitment until we are 100% sure we can deliver on it. “

We all know words count for very little and it is the action of fulfilling the orders that will rectify the situation but by being upfront and setting expectations that there is no immediate fix, Google are managing the situation well and showing that they do care and that they do function to serve their users. They have admitted to failing the customer and are desperately trying to set it right.

Any Business can be Publicly Criticised

If Google can get called out from behind the ivory towers there is no reason why any business, no matter how big or how small, can receive the same treatment.

So if you can’t or don’t deliver on what you say you are going to deliver, be prepared for the repercussions – Google style!

To top it all off, many of the blogs, review sites, forums that people post on and social media platforms are very well respected by Google and therefore rank highly in the search engine results. When people next search on the name of your business or the products and services you offer, these will often show right on the first page. Right under your main website, quite often as part of your listing thanks to Google’s local business directory, Google Plus Local.

How Does Seo Reputation Management Work?

Negative, inaccurate or misleading content appearing in your top Google results makes a bad impression on people searching for you. And while no one can delete that content (except the person who posted it), effective seo reputation management can make it go away.

Whether it is a business name, product, service or person within a business that is receiving negative attention online, by employing seo reputation management strategies you can make it go away. This could involve;

• Performing an audit of online reviews, discussions and articles about your brand
• Collating all negative mentions and assessing the best way to address them
• Creating new positive pieces, such as press releases, advice articles or videos to outrank the negative mentions
• Regularly monitoring the market for new unfavourable mentions
• Using other web properties that you have to appear more relevant to the search engines.

By being proactive and taking control about what is being said about your business and what prospective clients can see when they search for you, you can help influence their decision about working with you.

To put this into context if at your reception or outside your office were posters, posted by former customers advising people to avoid your business like the plague do you think it would impact the number of people that followed through and become a client?

A 2012 survey of internet users in Britain by reevoo found that 88 per cent of consumers consult reviews when making a purchase, and 60 per cent said they were more likely to purchase from a site that has customer reviews. reevoo’s research shows that shoppers trust independently collected reviews more than twice as much as reviews collected by the business being reviewed.

This approach also prevents future negative content from appearing where people will see it. So don’t wait — the longer people see the personal attacks, police reports, bankruptcy filings or other negative content in your top search results, the more damage it does. Take back control of your search results before it is too late.

Click on the following link to get 4 great tips on how to repair your online reputation.

Paid search results are typically accomplished through a pay per click advertising model where you create your own ad listing that will appear when certain keywords are searched on the particular engine you are advertising on. You pay £X for every “click” you receive on a given ad listing, where X is determined by factors such as

• keyword popularity,
• competition of the keyword
• effectiveness of your ad.

From an inbound marketing perspective, PPC can play an important role in increasing the visibility on the search engines if you know how to leverage it strategically. However, there are many pitfalls and disadvantages that should be understood before relying too heavily on pay per click advertising to drive your business success.

Pay per click advertising offers multiple benefits as a lead generation tool. Used properly, PPC can benefit your business in the following ways;

Ability to target demographics

PPC gives businesses the ability to target who, when and where your advert is shown. You can select the time of day, for example during business hours, or your adverts can be displayed only on the weekends. If you wanted to only show your adverts to women of 40+ who live in the Greater Manchester area then you can. This hyper targeting means that if you know who your ideal client is then you can specifically focus your ad to that demographic, often benefiting from an improved click through, conversion and lower cost of acquisition.

As a safeguard you can set a daily budget so that if a keyword slips through the net, generates a lot of clicks and eats up your budget you can remove the keyword from your targeted lists. A key point here is that pay per click advertising is not a set and forget strategy, you need to be prepared to dedicate time to get the right results.

Immediate online exposure

Once you have set up your Google Adwords, Microsoft Adcentre or other advertising account, set your keywords and written an ad then you are away. Once your ad is approved it could be showing on the search engines within 24 hours, often less.

PPC is a great way to advertise in the search engines while you are building up your organic listings in the search engine results pages.

More First page Listings

The first page of Google is made up of paid, organic and where appropriate, local search listings. By including Pay per click marketing in your inbound marketing mix your business will get more real estate on the front page, which incidentally is the best place to be for a targeted search term.

The more listings you occupy on the first page the greater the chance of a user clicking on your ad or listing, visiting your site and signing up to your offers over those of your competition.

Quantifiable results, allowing you to measure conversion rates and control your costs.

When you use Pay per click advertising there is an array of Data at your disposal: the number of times your ad has been served, the number of times an ad has been clicked, the number of times the click has resulted in a set action. You can also see the specific keywords that have been searched for and many other factors.

All of this data allows your business to strategically target the keywords that convert best for your business, improving your return on investment.

How much does Pay per click advertising cost?

One of the major reasons that businesses shied away from pay per click advertising was the fear of cost. The truth is, PPC marketing can be expensive and produce very little reward if you do not know what you are doing. Read Google Pay Per Click – 8 Top Tips for a Great ROI. That will provide you with some top tips to make sure that you see results.

The cost of PPC advertising varies depending on the niche you are targeting and as always the competition. The simple fact is that the more businesses looking to advertise on the same keyword means that the price for this keyword will increase. For some keyword phrases this cost can escalate to really high levels.

Below is a List of the Top Twenty Most Expensive PPC Advertising Keywords

*Price converted from $USD 1.61 to 1 £GBPSource: Fetch123

As you can the highest cost per click is £88.57 for mesothelima settlement; that means that a business is paying nearly £90 to advertise to someone when they enter the keyword phrase “mesothelima settlement” into Google. That does not mean that searcher will become a client, it simply means that if the searcher chooses to they will click on the advert and be taken to whatever page the advertiser chose to send them to. It could take many clicks before the user actually contacts the business.

For example if the page the business was sending the searcher to converts at 10% (meaning 10% of the people who click the advert will call the business, requests a call back or leave their details), then it will cost £900 for that business to acquire a lead. While many may baulk at that price, according to specialist lawyers, each payout could amount to anything from £65,000 to several million pounds, depending on individual circumstances. Therefore a successful claim will likely see the solicitor claim substantial fees which will no doubt recoup the cost per lead many times over.

Another example from the list is “virtual data rooms” at a cost of £49.38 per click on Google Adwords. After typing the search term into Google I can see one advert that says starting at $295/m (approximately £183.22 per month). Now working off the same 10% conversion rate as before that would mean a lead would cost the business £480, yet they are only charging £183.22 per month. The key thing here is per month. Services like virtual data rooms are going to have minimum 12 month contracts, possibly 24 month contracts. That means that the life time value of the client to the business could be anywhere from £2198.64 -£4397.28. To be honest when something says “starts at a minimum” you know that with all the add-ons you are looking at a lot more!

It might take several months before the business starts seeing any profit from acquiring customers at this cost however after six months they will be making profit and that is more profit then they would be making if they weren’t advertising.

The point is, acquiring new business costs a lot of money as long as you know the life time value of your clients and your break-even point. If there is search traffic for your keywords then there is no reason why a well managed pay per click advertising campaign will not add value to your business.

If you want to know more about how you can generate more business by leveraging pay per click advertising contact us today!

According to a survey by Lightspeed Research, 61% of consumers have read a review online for a product or service. Reviews are the second most popular online research by clients behind price comparison. This could suggest that if price is similar between you and competitors, then the one thing that will sway a buying decision in your business’s favour are glowing testimonials on third party sites.

Of the vast number of consumers that search for reviews, 70% use search engines to find them. Think about the search terms that potential customers might be using to find reviews about your business:

• Review of “business name”
• Review of “product name”
• “business name” review
• “product name” review”

There are hundreds of sites online that provide a facility where past users can leave a review about your business, from well known directory sites such as YELL right the way through to niche specific websites that give consumers the power to air their feelings about your business. With the increasing number of these sites it can be increasingly difficult to monitor what is actually being said about your business.

Many businesses either don’t know that these review sites exist, or they know about them but do nothing to manage their online reputation, allowing negative reviews to damage their online presence. Between one and three bad reviews about your business will deter the majority (67%) of consumers from purchasing a particular product or service.

Two out of every three people who see a negative review about your business may in fact choose to find someone else to work with. That is a huge number. If you are concerned about conversion rates and cost per customer acquisition, and let’s be honest as a business owner who isn’t, then this could have a dramatic effect on both the number of leads your business gets and more importantly the number of conversions or new clients.

Not everybody is perfect.

At this point you may be thinking that you should hunt down all the negative reviews and look to get them removed from the internet. That in fact is the wrong thing to do, unless of course the review is simply defamatory. Take the opportunity to enhance your online reputation by responding to the reviews and offering to understand the customers concern in greater detail. This shows future prospective client that you care about the services you deliver and you want everyone to have a 5 star service. Getting all the negative reviews removed simply looks unnatural. Nobody is perfect and if prospective clients see twenty five star reviews and no negatives then they may start to think that some form of censorship is occurring.

What people say about your business is vitally important. Managing and monitoring what is being said about your business is one thing. Taking the time to dissect the reviews, both positive and negative, and making changes to the day to day operations and culture of the business can have a far greater effect on business growth.

What is Internet Search Engine Optimisation?

Internet Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is the process of making a website or page more relevant to search engines for a particular keyword phrase. When you improve SEO the desired result is to get your page to appear higher up the organic search rankings. The higher a website or a page ranks in the search engines, the larger the chances of that website being visited by targeted searchers and converting to leads or sales.

If you look at a standard Search Engine Results Page, down the left-hand side of the page you will see what are known as the natural or organic listings. These are the search results that the search engine thinks are the most relevant to the search term that you typed, in descending order of importance.

These listings are free, as opposed to the Google Pay Per Click adverts on the top and right hand side of the page, and if your website is deemed relevant and of high enough quality your business website could appear naturally in the search results when a potential customer enters their search criteria into the search bar.

Why is it important to rank higher in the search engines?

It makes sense to appear as close to the top of the organic search results as possible as statistics show that:

• 66.7% of all users click on one of the top three links.
• 93% of all Internet traffic is generated from search engines [Source: Forrester Research]

Click on the following link to get ten more shocking statistics that highlight why SEO is Fundamental to your online lead generation strategy.

Imagine your website appearing at the top of the search engines for a major keyword relevant to your industry. Think about what benefits that would have on your business growth, and by understanding and incorporating internet search engine optimisation strategies into your online activity, over time your business could benefit from a larger number of visitors to your website, more leads and increased profitability for your business.

The most widely used search engines are Google and Bing and it is widely recommended that you submit your site to these search engines. It is a simple process that should take no more than a few minutes and it is important because if the search engines do not know you are there then they will not consider your content for inclusion in the search rankings.

There are many other actions that you need to take in order to fully optimize your website for search engine results such as tailoring your content to be specific to the search terms that users are looking for with relation to your product, brand or service and having the correct site layout so that the search engines can crawl over it to get a complete image of your site and content.

The opportunity that exists from leveraging search engine optimisation could be dramatic for your business. If you plan to build an online presence that generates targeted leads then you have to include SEO in your marketing plan. There are thousands of books and websites out there where you can learn for yourself and of course you can invest in working with an internet search engine optimisation company to get your site moving up in the search engine rankings, commanding higher online visibility, generating more leads and winning more business.

With an average click through rate (CTR) of 36.4%, you’ll benefit from more than a third of clicks from a search engine if you can rank a keyword term in the first position. The top three listings take 58.4% of all the searches! That is why seo is something that all business should take very seriously. [Source Optify CTR Study]

5 Tips to Improve SEO and Rise to the Top!

To make your website rise to the top you need to follow these tips.

1. Keyword Selection

The keyword phrase (a term longer than one word, for example “Employment Solicitors Manchester”) that the user will enter into the search engine is hugely important and sits at the very foundation of getting top search engine rankings.

Think about the term your ideal client will enter into the search engine when they are looking for the results that your service can provide.

Your company name and your location are good for brand awareness but it is not addressing the scores of people that don’t yet know about you.

2. Quality content that is keyword optimised

In order for Google to fully understand what your content is about, it first of all sends a spider along to crawl your pages. The spider looks at pre defined areas of the page that help it translate the content and report back as to what the content is about.

The areas that you need to consider are:

• Page Title
• Heading
• Sub headings
• Alt tags for images
• URL of the page

All of these elements of the page are considered by the search engines when indexing your content in the correct place so that your ideal visitor can find it. But remember that if your page is over optimised, in other words you are writing for the search engines, then it may not be easily decipherable for a human reader. Think about the user experience first.

3. Internal Linking

Internal linking is about how and where you link a page or post to other content that is relevant within your website. The point being that the search engines want to provide the user with the best possible experience they can.

Continuing with the “Employment Solicitors Manchester” search term earlier, it would be of benefit if you could then link to pages containing information and references to employment tribunals, constructive dismissal cases, and workplace discrimination.

By doing this you are providing greater detail for the user, which will help them make a judgement on your suitability to help them and the search engines will also appreciate. If the internal linking is managed correctly it will contribute to improving SEO, edging your content closer and closer to the very top search engine rankings where all the clicks happen.

4. Attracting Inbound links.

Google and the other search engines rely highly on other people linking to your website in order for them to establish how popular your website is. The more popular the website, the higher your return in the search results.

The goal here is to create highly valuable, unique, entertaining, thought provoking, controversial content that people want to talk about and share.

The more people that link back to your site signifies to the search engines the popularity and value of the piece of content. Over time generating more links back to your content will result in greater search engine traffic. However, this does not mean that all links are equal; the quality and relevance of the link is highly important too.

Google takes into consideration where the link has come from. If your content is about employment solicitors then a link from the law society is a valuable link. If you receive a link back from a Comedy Club blog then as complimentary as it is that you have received a link it is less relevant and holds less authority.

5. Have a Social Media plan

Social signals such as being liked, tweeted or +1’d now impact your search engine rankings.

That is why you need to have a social media plan that includes identifying which social channels your customers frequent, tracking social conversations, trending topics, managing your online reputation and developing and sharing optimised content.

By ensuring you can easily create and post relevant content to social channels on a regular basis, you will not only improve your search rankings, but reach more potential customers when your content is linked to, liked, or shared.

Search engine optimisation techniques are constantly changing. What doesn’t change, and in fact becomes more prominent, is the fact that if you invest the time creating quality content that has value with the readers on a regular basis you will be able to improve seo and find your site and pages getting top search engine rankings, driving more clicks and ultimately converting to a higher number of sales.

Search engine optimisation or SEO for short is the process of making a website more relevant to search engines. The desired result of SEO is to get your page to appear higher up the organic search rankings. The higher a website or a page ranks in the search engines, the greater the chances of that website being visited by users.

If you look at a standard Google Search Engine Results Page, down the left-hand side of the page you will see what are known as the natural or organic listings. These are the search results that the search engine, thinks are the most relevant to the search term that you typed, in descending order of importance.

These listings are free and if your website is deemed relevant and of high enough quality your business website too could appear naturally in the search results when a potential customer enters their search criteria into the search bar.

Why is it Important to Rank Higher in the Search Engines?

It makes sense to appear as close to the top of the organic search results as possible as statistics show that;

• 34% of all Google users click on the top organic listing in Google while 66.7% of all users click on one of the top three links.
• 93% of all online activity starts with search.

Imagine your website appearing at the top of the search engines for a major keyword relevant to your industry – that is the Holy Grail of SEO and why seo is so important. Through understanding and incorporating search engine optimisation strategies into your online activity, over time your business could benefit from a larger number of visitors to your website, more leads and increased profitability for your business.

How does a Business Get Started with SEO?

Before you jump in you need to realise that Search Engine Optimisation is a subject that is littered with misinformation, confusion and controversy – Google makes changes to their ranking algorithm nearly every day and this can result in pages moving higher or lower.

If you have invested any time researching SEO then you probably already know how much of a minefield it really is. The purpose of working with an SEO Company is to help you cut through the chaos and give you a clear set of things that you and/or your web development team can do to improve your search engine rankings starting!

5 Things to Check off Before Starting an Search Engine Optimisation Campaign

1 Understand where you rank right now!

There is absolutely no point embarking on any SEO campaign until you understand exactly where you are right now. By that I mean:

• where does your website rank now for relevant keywords?
• How many times is your website showing up in the SERP’s for those keywords?
• How many times are searches clicking through from the SERP’s?
• What are those visitors doing then?

2 Align your Search Engine Optimisation Strategy with your business goals.

The main reasons that businesses engage search engine optimisation companies are to improve their online reputation and increase sales. Understand what your goal is before embarking on a SEO campaign so that you can marry the two together.

3. Choose Relevant keywords

If internally you refer to a product or a solution as ‘x’ then that is fine. But that does not mean that your potential customers know it as ‘x’ they might call it ‘y’

Make sure that you are investing in optimising your website for what the client is looking for not what you think they are looking for.

As a secondary note there is no point optimising for something that is not being searched on. It will be a complete waste of time and money, so do your keyword research first and know exactly where you stand.

4. Understand your ideal customer

Is your product or service specifically related to men under the age of thirty or is your ideal client a forty year old housewife? There will be a big difference between the terminologies used by both audiences resulting in you ranking for something that is not relevant to the target audience.

5. Review the competition

By understanding exactly where the competition stand with regards to their SEO strategy it can help influence how you approach yours. If for example your largest competitor ranks highly for a certain keyword this doesn’t mean that this is the correct keyword to target straight away. The reason being that in order to compete you will have to do a lot of work in order to be seen as the most relevant

These are by no means the only SEO tips that you have to take into consideration when optimising your website however these are a start and by sharing them with you I hope to impress upon you that search engine optimisation is not as simple as throwing up a website, sitting back and watching the traffic, leads and sales, role in.

File that report

• Respond to that important email
• Reply to the accountant; who’s been chasing you for weeks
• Follow up with that prospect you met at the last network event.

Shame on you!

Often it is a struggle to get done what we have to get done, let alone what we want to get done! Throw into the middle of your busy schedule the running and development of your website and you will probably be reaching for the headache pills, a large glass of your favourite poison, or both.

However your web presence can only survive and thrive if you dedicate time to nurturing it. If you “play” with it you will only serve to frustrate both its results and yourself. So, here are a few tips to help you become more productive with your online time:

1. Dedicate time each week to review and improve your web presence.

Defend this time ruthlessly. This time needs to be spent creating new content, blog post, video and updating tired pages. The fresher your website looks the more chance you have of attracting potential clients and search engines to your site.

Remain focused on making your website the lead generation machine that it can be and don’t get side tracked.

2. Set yourself deadlines.

Having a deadline gives you the sense of urgency and priority to complete what you need to do. Deadlines help set your priority list – make sure your website is on that list.

3. Focus on the most productive elements.

Are Facebook and Pinterest providing results? If the answer is no then you need to review where you are going wrong and secondly if your time is limited focus on what is being productive. Apply the 80/20 rule. Focus 80% of your dedicated time on the most productive 20% of your online real estate.

4. Keep a log of your web activities.

At the end of the week review your web activities and circle the ones that have contributed to your online success and provided results for your business. Work to increase the time spent on those activities through your working week while eliminating those that bear no fruit.

5. Outsource everything that you can afford to.

When you hand over the mundane tasks to someone else it gives you the opportunity to be creative and focus on the revenue generating activities. (This is possibly one of the strongest arguments for not managing your website yourself)

If you are a small business owner then you are undoubtedly a creative person. Almost everybody is creative at one level or another. But often what stops us from recognising our own creativity is the tasks that we have to deal with day to day: answering emails, making calls, meetings, routine project management – these are rarely creative pastimes.

Just take a moment to ask yourself what time today has been dedicated to marketing? Creative time is where you devise a new advertising campaign, contact potential clients, improve your website copy, test a different ecommerce pricing approach, try a different headline, write an article, shoot and post a video and so on. Creative time is what gives you the ideas to test, generate and maximise your online lead generation capabilities.

Weed out the excuses and remember the more you put into defining and improving your web presence the greater the return on investment for your business.

A website that is not optimised is as successful at attracting new clients to your business as the sign above your business. It is only visible to those that are standing directly in front of it or who already know your business is there. People in the next street, the next town, the next city will have no idea you even exist.

That’s why SEO needs to be high on your list of imperatives. If you are not continually working on your online presence to boost and maintain your search engine rankings, your company will likely experience a poor return on investment for its online marketing efforts. Without a search engine optimisation strategy, your organisation could be losing countless potential prospects and new business to competitors who are focusing on SEO.

While many business owners believe that SEO can be a “set it and forget it” exercise it is more evident than ever that it requires constant vigilance and adjustment. Major shifts in the area of search have been taking place over the last few years and businesses that don’t adjust will see their listings sink to the bottom of the results pages.

Search Engine Optimisation is still new to many businesses and because of that it can be hard for department heads or business owners to justify investing in SEO. Here are some facts that might help your decision:

Top 10 Reasons Why SEO is Worth the Investment

Close Rate – According to HubSpot’s 2012 State of Inbound Marketing, SEO leads have a 14.6% close rate, which are 8 times more likely to close into customers than outbound leads.

People Search for a Reason – Search engines are one of the most popular ways that people find information and make purchasing decisions. According to info please, 81% of internet users say they use the internet to do research on a product before buying.

Real time, All the time – The internet is alive and speaking to your potential clients 24/7/365. So while your business is closed and there is no one manning the phone lines a perfectly optimised website can be providing useful and valid information about your products and services, helping them conduct their research and putting you in the prime position when they are ready to buy.

Branding – SEO helps improve brand awareness. People are more likely to move forward with a company if they have an online presence that fills the searcher with trust. By showing up where users expect you to be and having a great online reputation you can earn that trust.

Relevance – Search engine marketing enables brands to reach the audience that is most likely to be interested in their products or services. This can be contextually, where results are based on what the searcher is particularly looking for or location based, where your audience is at the moment of time. Both of which add to why SEO is so important for business.

Reach – According to UKOM in September 2012, over 42 million individuals in the UK where online, that is 69.4% of the total population and on average people spent 25:44hrs online.

Creativity – Search engine optimisation offers businesses and marketing teams a limitless creative canvas to attract and captivate their target audience through multimedia: video, audio, imagery, text, all of which can be used to drive customer engagement.

Long Term Benefits – A print advert, a direct mail campaign, a radio advert once delivered is gone and if your target audience miss the advert there is little chance of them finding t again. If you have a website that is optimised for targeted keywords that drive traffic on a daily basis you will have the opportunity to engage potential clients on a day by day basis for years to come.

Competition – in most cases doing something because everybody else is doing it is not necessarily a strong argument. However if a business is serious about generating a healthy supply of leads then not being optimised while others in the niche have adopted a local seo strategy, will mean that those leads, prospects and sales will be going straight to those that have made the investment.

Organic – In a recent report conducted by GroupM carried out with Nielsen, Evaluating the Search Marketing Landscape, it was found that only 6% of clicks were from paid search while a massive 94% were from searches in the organic listings. This in itself highlights why SEO, and having your business listed for key terms related to your business and niche in the organic listings, is so important for business.

Accountability – Unique to the internet is the ability to show the entire customer journey: the number of sales, newsletter sign ups, the number of times people click on your listing in the search engines, where they go, what they interact with and much, much more.

All of this information can then be used to work out where to target your efforts to increase conversions.

Although it can be difficult to justify spending money on something that doesn’t yield immediate results and comes with few guarantees, it’s important to realise that SEO is a lasting investment and can be a fundamental part of your lead generation strategy moving forward.

Consumers are using the internet for everything, as the demand for information about products and services continues to increase and the numbers of ways people can access the information evolve, search engine optimisation is not going away. In fact the need is only going to get stronger. So instead of asking why SEO is a good investment, maybe you should be asking yourself why didn’t we invest in SEO sooner?

It often comes to light when searching for your business online that you notice some strange results, anything that could include blog comments, forum posts to whole articles dedicated to your business with bad reviews, negative sentiments or complaints.

The alarm bells start ringing, you start to panic and worry about what impact these negative results are having on your business and how it could impact your brand in the future.

That’s where online brand reputation management steps in.

Online brand reputation management involves thorough research into what content, positive and negative, is currently accessible to the searching public. Once this is determined, a strategy needs to be devised that includes removal, where possible, of negative or off brand content, either through negotiation, mediation or providing more relevant content for the search engines to list.

For those comments that are from genuinely dissatisfied customers, simply responding and asking for the opportunity to make things right can be the greatest form of online reputation management as it portrays honesty, accountability and a willingness to rectify the situation.

Of course, not all situations can be resolved amicably, especially if the problem has had time to escalate into something bigger and this can result in a more concerted effort to find a solution that the client is happy with.

Everything discussed so far concerning reputation management has been reactive. By that, it is reacting to something that has already happened. The key to long term success with online brand reputation is to work fastidiously to promote good working practices and excellent customer service attitudes throughout your entire organisation.

By putting your customer front and centre of everything you do, you are being proactive about your brand reputation and this will be reflected in the positive feedback that your business receives online.

When you get into the position of exciting your customers through your excellent service and you get the feedback to prove it, make sure that you share those positive stories with as many people as possible by letting everyone online know how great other people think your business is.

Share your positive feedback through social media, write blog posts, produce a press release and syndicate across local and national news sites. The more internet real estate your business claims that paints your business in a positive light, the better it will be when those who know nothing about your business and are looking for reassurance before becoming a partner of yours.

3 Golden Rules of Online Brand Reputation Management

Work on Building a Positive Brand from Day One

One of the most valuable assets for any business is their brand. Be synonymous with customer excellence, great value and great service and you will see the benefits online and offline. A business that has ten great, positive stories online versus a business that has two negative reviews will get more new clients through the door. Be proactive and see every new client as a long term business partner who will be happy over time to introduce their friends and family.

Make the Most of the Internet to Share Your Clients Positive Stories

There are many ways that your client’s comments, stories and feedback can be distributed on the internet. Embrace them and make sure that the positive sentiment about your business is being heard all across the internet.

Be Alert to What is Being Said About You.

You can do everything in your power to promote customer excellence but there will always be someone that you can’t satisfy. When it happens and the negative comment does appear, don’t panic, don’t sensor the comment, simply make it clear to prying eyes that you will do everything you can to rectify the situation.

Online brand reputation management is important to all businesses, not just celebrities, politicians and high profile individuals. It’s so easy for your clients and competitors to publish content online these days that it is in your best interests to be proactive, promote excellence and deal with negative issues in a timely and courteous manner.

Here are 5 reasons that can help you get the most out of your customer testimonials.

1. Ask for them.

The chances of a satisfied client leaving a customer review for your business are slim. You need to ask them politely to do so, explaining how it can really help you.

If the client is truly satisfied then spending a few minutes for a business that has just provided them a great service is not too much of a hardship.

Get into the routine of asking your clients how your service was. This will move your business towards creating a culture of customer service, further enhancing your brand and reputation.

Many customers would be happy to review your business, if reminded.

2. Negative reviews are to be expected.

People are more likely to leave a bad review than a good review, even if far more people have a good experience than a bad one. Unfortunately that is just the way it goes and you have to accept and embrace this as a positive aspect of the review marketing process.

Don’t panic if there are some less than 100% positive reviews. No business is perfect, and nobody expects them to be. Instead, use any criticism as a learning tool for improving your business.

3. Follow up with the Clients that respond negatively.

If possible, follow up and see how you can fix the problem. Consumer studies and surveys have proven customers are more satisfied with a company in which there was a small issue and the issue was resolved, compared to if there was never one in the first place.

By leaving negative online reviews without responses you are showing the watching public that you don’t care about customer service and do not listen to what people have to say about your business. This is not good.

Always respond to negative reviews and ask the client in question to contact you so that you can investigate and resolve the issue.

4. Never write fake reviews or testimonials.

There have been several reports recently of businesses losing hundreds of reviews about their businesses over night down to stricter review filters on a lot of online review sites such as Google+ and Yelp.

Yes it can be difficult sometimes to get reviews from your clients but that does not mean that you should go about putting reviews up yourself. It’s simply not worth the risk of having your business details banned, or as Yelp is doing providing a consumer alert about your business to those that are searching, that will last for 3 months and this could severely damage your reputation.

The question you need to ask is, is having no reputation better than having a bad reputation?

5. Tell the world about it.

There is little point going through all the hard work and effort of getting great reviews from your satisfied customers if no one is going to see them. It is great having them on your website and this can help towards conversion however what about using these testimonials and positive reviews to market your business online?

You could put together a short video of the positive testimonials and post them on a video sharing site. Write a press release highlighting how you have helped a customer achieve X, which can be syndicated to relevant sites across the internet.

There are many ways that you can take these glowing reviews about your business and use them as marketing collateral to influence future clients on choosing your business offerings over your competitors. After all, the customer reviews aren’t just there to make you as a business owner feel better, they are there to help convince future clients that you are the trusted business partner of choice.

The Argument for adopting local SEO into Your Marketing Plans

1. Your consumers are going local

In a recent study by ad network Chikata*, results showed that nearly 25% of searches using Google had local intent. Therefore if there is a demand online for your products or services then people still feel more comfortable engaging with a local firm so they can get the item sooner and if there are any problems can visit the store or service provider easily.

More and more consumers are using search engines to find local businesses on their computers and mobile phones. According to Google,

• 20% of search queries are for local businesses,
• 40% of mobile searches are for local businesses and
• 97% of consumers search for local businesses online.

2. 40% prefer to Research Online Purchase Offline

That’s right, in a survey conducted by Google**, 4 out of 10 people prefer to ROPO – Research Online Purchase Offline. So by being the business that give the greatest information on the product or service to local searches online it follows that you will get the lion’s share of the business.

3. Prominent first-page listings

When a search for a service is coupled with a local identifier the results that are typically displayed on the first page of Google include a Map on the top right hand of the screen. This map is made up of the businesses that Google knows to be relevant to that search and is now a feature of Google+ local. In the organic results you will notice that each pin or marker on the map correlates to a listing.

The point is if you get Google to recognise your business on the map you get multiple first page listings.

4. Local search is less competitive.

Yes, there will be less people searching than there will be on a national level likewise there will be less businesses in a position to compete. The majority of the national chains will not, yet, be optimised at a local level and this gives greater opportunity for those that invest in positioning their businesses as the leader in the local market place.

Simple Steps to Get Ranked in the Local Results

As a business owner there are a few steps that you can take in order to boost your chances of benefiting from qualified local searchers.

Here are the 4 basic steps to take advantage of the local search engine optimisation opportunity:

Keyword Research

The first steps with local SEO as with any type of online campaign should be your keyword research. Without knowing if there is a demand for your products and services online and the particular words and phrases people are using to find the results you will be quite literally throwing your advertising spend down the drain.

Use Google’s free keyword tool to find keywords that are frequently-searched and relevant to your business.

Optimise Your Google+ Listing

If you aren’t already set up with a Google+ Local listing, you’ll need to create your profile and verify your ownership. Then, select the categories that best suit your business description, bearing in mind the keywords that you know to be prominent to your user’s searches. By doing this you will help Google know which keywords should trigger your business listing to appear in the local results.

Get Your Business Out there

In getting your business out there you are looking to include your business information, Name, Address and Postcode (NAP) in as many relevant places online. These mentions of your business details are known as citations and are a very important factor of how Google shows trust to a business online.

A good way to do this is by listing your business on local business directories such as Yell, Thomson local, Yelp etc

Get Reviews

More important than what you say about your business is what your clients have to say about your business. Make it a habit to ask customers to take the time and review your business by going to the business directories and leaving a testimonial about how good your business really is and how great the service was.

The more positive reviews that people say about your business the better, and the more Google and other search engines will pay attention to your business as they will know that by sending targeted traffic to your business they will get happy customers.

By having glowing online reviews you may convince other online browser who stumble across your business to pay closer attention as to how your service can benefit them.

The internet allows your business to branch out and reach lucrative markets that you could never have dreamed of competing in, but don’t get carried away and forget where your business started and the local community that you have at your doorstep.

The ultimate aim of local SEO service is to target your visitors and reach out people that have immediate requirements so that you can make your business a great success.

This next sentence may shock people; in fact it might even offend some business owners!

Nobody cares what you think about your product, your service or your business because to all intents and purposes that is a canned and measured response.

What people want to know about your company is the stories people tell about it!

The sooner you accept that what other people say is far more important to the success of your business than what you have to say, the better for your business and the easier it will be on your finances.

If the word surrounding your business is positive, then great! Capitalise on that buzz and attract as many targeted people as you can to witness that buzz for themselves so they too can become interested in what you do, how you do it, how they can become a part of it and share it with those that they know.

On the other hand if the general consensus is that your business is poor and does not deliver on what it says it does then STOP!

Take a step back, listen to what people are saying, assess where the problem is and put things right. Then ask people again to judge you on how you are doing? When the feedback comes back positive then you can look at growing once again.

People need to be see for their own eyes what others are saying about your business before making a commitment to become a business partner. To help people make up their mind you should think about the following steps that can improve the return on your marketing investment:

Know your customer – The more you know about your customer, the easier it will become to provide that personalised message. If you have an image of what your customer looks like, what books they read, what makes them happy, where they live, or what industry they work in, then attracting that prospect to become a lead or a customer will be far easier and over time will cost less as conversions will be higher.

Consistency – When a prospect is considering joining your business there is no doubt that your sales and support staff will be there to allow that person to feel a part of how your business runs. If this changes, i.e. the point of contact is no longer available, support staff are currently always engaged or not available at all, then your client is soon going to be disgruntled.

Be consistent with your offering to the client and manage expectations from the outset as to what the client can and should expect from your business and stick to it.

Communicate – Don’t just talk to the customer, make the relationship a two way street. Many people don’t like the idea of giving power to the customer. The truth of the matter is that the internet has given the power to the customer anyway, so deal with it by giving them great things to say about you, and often.

Businesses are now more transparent than ever, honesty and openness is expected so embrace it and allow your business to thrive on it.

Always be listening – Review sites have given the consumer many more options to get their opinions heard. It is no longer in the power of the business to send out a periodic questionnaire as a customer can now go on Yelp, Google+, Qype, Touch Local, Twitter or Facebook and express an opinion. This can happen 24/7/365 and the results mean that anyone searching for information about your business will see consumer generated content, comments, opinions and real life experiences of working with you and your business.

Have a system in place where you can constantly monitor what is being said about your business and your online reputation, and be prepared to deal with negative criticism when they arrive.

You cannot please everybody, but how you resolve the situation with those that are unhappy when the eyes and ears of the world are on you can impact how prospective clients view your business both in a positive and negative light.

Act Decisively – In the past if you had a problem with a product or service you would go to the customer service desk, ask for the manager or perhaps fill out a customer complaint form to get an apology and a promise from the manager that the issue would be investigated and resolved. What would happen after that is anybody’s guess!

Now it is a completely different kettle of fish. The public nature of the social web means that when somebody has something negative to say about your company you need to act decisively as in the digital world things can quickly escalate.

By embracing the voice of your customers in the digital world your business will be available and responsive to your ideal client’s needs which are essential to building great customer relationships.

If you don’t treat your customers with the trust, respect and care they deserve and bought into when signing up with your business, there is a string of eager and dedicated competitors that will be more than happy to take those clients from you.

As such top quality content is crucial. Because trust and authority (earned by providing high quality, useful, helpful and relevant content) breaks through the information overload that we are all faced with.

Here are some top tips to ensure your Content is of the highest quality.

Choose topics based on the interest of your audience.

Before publishing a piece of content ask yourself. Does this piece of content make sense? Does it add value? Will the readers be entertained or educated by it? Compare your content to what is already available and, after taking off your rose tinted glasses, ask yourself does your piece of content provide more value than other pages in the search results?

Assess each and every page.

If you have large website then this can be quite a task however if you had an office or a shop then you would check each and every fixture and fitting that the public could come into contact with to make sure that it was in the best condition. The content that you publish will always be online and therefore people will be able to access it. Make sure that the message is still relevant and adds value to the user.

Create Authorship.

Providing a human touch to your content can help build a connection with the audience. Share a little bit about the author of the content by adding a bio to the bottom of posts. Therefore if the reader enjoys what they read they can learn more about your expertise and credibility and perhaps connect with the author on other social media platforms.

Authorship is not just confined to on your site. You should also look to establish your authorship with Google so that Google is aware of the original author of the content and can rightly place your name and picture next to the content.

Aim for Originality.

When you create content on a regular basis it can be really, really tough to come up with original ideas. Tell stories, share tips, provide original research, reporting and analysis.

If you are going to re-purpose content across different platforms then make sure there is something unique to that piece so that it avoids having the mass produced look and feel.

Aim for Authority

The best way to get your content shared and syndicated around the internet is to become an authority. Being an expert means other people will share and reference your content. This will result on more people having access to your content and a rise in the search engine rankings.

Aim for Accuracy

Asses your quality content for spelling, grammatical, typographical and factual errors before committing it to the World Wide Web. If you don’t take the time to do it, your audience will do it for you and let everyone else know into the bargain.

The occasional mistakes will slip through the editing process but by checking, double checking and even triple checking you will limit the embarrassment.

Publishing quality content on a regular basis is a great way to attract targeted prospects and keep current clients engaged and interested in what your brand has to say by being more personal and relevant to the individual user.

With the right plan and commitment, a prominent and effective content marketing plan is possible for all small businesses. By following these keys you can put content marketing to work for your small business growth.

1. Clarify your budget.

Yes, you are going to need a budget. It might not be monetary but you will need to commit resources to it, whether that’s your time or a percentage of your workforce’s time. Perhaps include producing one piece of content per month per employee into their contracts. If you have ten employees then suddenly you have 10 pieces of content each and every month!

Setting a clear budget for content will help you spend your marketing budget wisely and narrow in on the techniques that will be most effective for your business.

How much should you spend on content marketing? According to a recent survey from econsultancy*, companies surveyed are spending 36% percent of their total marketing budgets on digital. While according to the content marketing institute report**, B2B marketers dedicate approximately 26% of their total budgets to content marketing initiatives.

Do you have a content marketing budget? How much do you commit?

Of course there is no hard and fast rule as to what a business should spend as ultimately it comes down to what you are looking to achieve from your online marketing initiatives. But having a clear figure in mind before you start developing content in house or looking to outside providers can help you stay focused and spend wisely.

2. Know your customer.

Your content marketing has to be customer-centric to be effective. Content marketing isn’t a promotional brochure. It’s a way to connect with your audience and help them solve their problems while building a relationship of trust and positioning yourself as the go to business when they need you.

Your goal with content is to provide the information that your customers are looking for that helps them satisfy their needs in a way that is attractive to them.

For example, if your customer does a search for “Vintage Cars” and you have developed and published an article titled “5 Things to Look For in Vintage Cars” that is ranked highly in the search engine results pages, they find your article easily, read it and are impressed with your expert insight. They explore your site and sign up to the exclusive glossy 12 page Magazine on the 1955 Mercedes Gullwing. They then receive your weekly newsletter with more informative articles and regular special offers on vintage cars. Then they fall in love with 1965 Aston Martin DB5 and they become a business partner.

Apply the same strategy to your own business. Figure out what your customers need to know, what they want to know and create content that addresses those needs.

3. Repurpose the content you create.

One article on one site is not content marketing. In order to reach as many targeted user as possible you need those users to find you wherever they may go.

The same 12 page Glossy Magazine that was used to entice people to give you their email address and contact details can be broken down into 10 different articles that can be posted on 10 different sites.

Now along with the original article you have 11 other articles pointing back to your site and attracting users from all over the web. Use the images that are inside the glossy presentation and record sound over them, of you reading the information that was in the magazine and then publish this on video sites such as YouTube or Vimeo and post them on Facebook.

One piece of great content can go a long way. By investing in great content you are giving your marketing department fuel to create more and more interesting and inspiring pieces to attract people back to your business.

4. Curate cleverly

Many people will follow you as they see you as someone who is interesting with relation to a certain topic or field. Therefore it is better to supply quality content with relation to that field than not supplying any content.

Rather than your followers or readers migrating to other sites to find good content bring the content to them. If there are great articles, videos or blog posts that you find interesting and are related to your field then share them.

By sharing other content and adding your own take on it, people get an insight into what makes you tick and gives the reader an opportunity to connect with you.

Don’t send so much varied content that you start to make your audience forget why they followed you in the first place. Your audience should know what to expect and trust from you and the content should be worth them spending their time consuming.

5. Promote your content with social media.

A piece of online content cannot be GREAT unless it gets consumed, liked and shared.

Content marketing and social media go hand in hand. You need to support your content marketing plan with regular social media usage.

The promotion of your content is just as important as the content creation. Every time you publish an item you need to mobilise your brand evangelists to passionately share the content for you. But you need to be proud of the content and be willing to share through the social media and digital spectrum.

The more eyeballs that see your content, the greater the chance of someone following through and connecting.

Develop a following on Twitter and Facebook, Google+ Linkedin, and then update your fans and followers when you post new content. Constantly look for opportunities to post your content on additional sites or providing articles or guest posts to niche related sites.

Small businesses are using content marketing to support multiple business goals, brand awareness, customer acquisition, lead generation, and customer retention. Get clear on what your customer wants to know and then publish, curate and share great content that will market your business for you.

*Marketing Budgets Report

**B2B Content Marketing: 2012 Budgets Benchmarks and Trends