Thanks for attending our Lakeland Chamber of Commerce Breakfast presentation.
If you enjoyed our presentation we would love a review here!
This video is only a little over 20 minutes long and it contains a summary of
our “10 Steps to Better Web Marketing” presentation the Lakeland Chamber Breakfast.
Free Web Marketing Resource Page
Warning – This May Be The Longest Page That You Have Ever Seen. Scroll Away!
#1 – Build on a Strong Foundation
#2 – Getting the Basics Right
#3 – Citations, Citations, Citations
#4 – Mobile Sites are Obsolete
#5 – Include a Contact Form
#6 – Reviews Needed
#7 – SEO is Essential
#8 – Get Social!
#9 – Your Google Account – The Key to Success
#10 – Every Company Needs a Blog!
70 CITATION SITES THAT BRANDTASTIC USES
This is WAY too much WORK
You can LISTEN TO THE PODCAST of our recent appearance on
Life Improvement Radio’s Revenue Generating Hour Here:
http://lirpodcasts.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/RGA/Revenue%20Generating%20Hour%20Episode%20featuring%20Frank%20Motola%20of%20Brandtastic%202.2.15.mp3
Your website should be the centerpiece of your marketing plan and your number one lead generator.
All Marketing Leads to Your Website. Make it the BEST it can be!
Some marketing companies make ranking well on Google and building websites that really work sound so mysterious and difficult! It really is neither – it is simply a lot of easy steps piled on top of each other. It does take a LOT of work, and a lot of TIME. Anyone can do it if they have the time. That is precisely why our clients hire us. They DON’T have the time but they want the results. If these steps are not done correctly, you will NOT get results.
Download the Entire PowerPoint from our Presentation Here.
Here is the Slide Deck from Our Recent Presentation.
10 Steps to Better Web Marketing
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#1 – A STRONG FOUNDATION
Platform, Domain & Hosting
BUILD ON A STRONG PLATFORM
Choose WordPress – 23% of the internet 50k new sites every day
Not Just Blogs – The Best Choice For ALL Websites.
Do not use WordPress.com – that is for free sites (not good for business)
Install WP directly from your hosting platform (step 3 below)
That is where you will set your admin and password and access your site.
1. Purchase your Domain Name first
2. Then Purchase a Hosting Plan
3. Then Install WordPress in the Root Folder
using your Hosting Plan – Most companies make it
very easy to install WordPress.
There are plenty of easy to use themes free on WordPress
No real need to “buy” a theme.
Using a simple them and customizing the header, sidebar and
background image can create a distinctive look for your website.
DOMAIN NAME
Choose Your Domain Name Wisely
Buy your own domain name – no free solutions please
Network Solutions – http://www.networksolutions.com/
GoDaddy – https://www.godaddy.com/
Register – http://www.register.com/
What’s In A Name – Domain / Company
Make it memorable. Make it short.
We have a client that has a name of Northeastern Chimney llc. Rather than get a domain like www.northeasternchimney.com the client secured www.mychimney.com which is a great marketing tool. The domain can mirror the company name, but sometimes it is better to go with something that your target market will remember.
There is also a trend to find names that really don’t mean anything at all, but they are easy to say and remember.
Like zappos.com, yelp.com, zazzle.com, twitter.com, etc.
Use an acronym or abbreviation
ex. Pro Computer Solutions could be PCSonline.com
ex. Daily Airline Schedules Here could be DASH
Use an Animal / Plant / Thing / Place
ex. Palm Tree Computer Systems
ex. Red Cow Dry Cleaning – imagine that logo!
Try a tool like http://www.namestation.com/ which has a Name Generator Tool. Just input your parameters and the tool will tell you what is available.
Use prefixes and suffixes that have meaning combined with words or parts of words to create something that your market will understand and latch onto.
Things like:
TECH, GO, BLAST, SURE, RAPID, NOW, FAST, CYBER,
ADVANTAGE, ART, BRAND, CHOICE, CLASS, DREAM,
EDGE, EFFECT, ELITE, EQUITY, DYNA, GIGA, FLASH,
PRESTO, PLUS, MAX, HYPER, MOTION, POWER, PRIME,
PRO, SMART, STREET, STYLE, TEAM, TOY, VISION,
WISE, ULTRA, You Get The Idea!
HOSTING
Choose Managed (or Optimized) WP Hosting if your budget allows
Host your own site using a reliable hosting company
Call the hosting company – ask questions – they are there to help.
Hostgator – http://www.hostgator.com/
DreamHost – http://www.dreamhost.com/wordpress-hosting/
BlueHost – http://www.bluehost.com/wordpress
GoDaddy – https://www.godaddy.com/
Laughing Squid – https://laughingsquid.us/
Register – http://www.register.com/
Network Solutions – http://www.networksolutions.com/
WEB DESIGN BASICS & TIPS
THE TYPICAL LAYOUT INCLUDES
Header
Slider – Meta Slider Plugin
Sidebar (Widgets)
Content
Footer
Video
Social
Reviews
Contact Form
Background Image
Plugins & Widgets – There is a plugin for everything!
DON’T USE
Flash Media
Tricky Landing Pages
Parallax Designs
Hidden Navigation
REMEMBER
Award Winning Design Doesn’t
Always Translate Into More Customers
COLOR CHOICES
Great Color Choice Tool
Here is a fun tool that allows you to create sets of colors that look good together based on rules like analogous, monochromatic, complimentary, compound, triad and other proven formulas.
https://color.adobe.com/create/color-wheel/
WORDPRESS PLUGINS
Plugins can extend WordPress and make it do almost anything you can imagine. These are (almost always) free add ons that are available right in your admin panel that will add features and functions to your website to make it work just the way you want it to. Currently there are over 35,000 plugins available!
Favorite WordPress Plugins We ALWAYS Use
Yoast WordPress SEO
Google Analytics by Yoast
Page Builder by Site Origin
with Black Studio TinyMCE Editor
Meta Slider
WP Edit
Akismat – stop spam comments
Super RSS Reader – scrolling sidebar article list
Top 25 Social Icons
Hubso Share Buttons
FREE WEBSITES
Don’t Use “FREE” Websites (just my professional opinion)
Wix
Weebly
GoDaddy Website Builder
Webs
Squarespace
Jimdo
But if you are the type that believes everything they say and don’t take advice –
go at it – FREE website here you come!
Large sites – use Managed (or Optimized) WordPress Hosting more expensive but your site is cached and will load faster and you will have more dependable support
THERE IS SO MUCH TO LEARN ABOUT WORDPRESS!!!
That is true, but you can learn everything online for free or at little cost.
WP Apprentice
http://wpapprentice.com/ – lots of FREE instruction videos just asks for your email and name upgrade for $29 but the free stuff if tremendous for the beginner.
Learn WordPress.com
https://learn.wordpress.com/
Good Introductory Information
Lynda.com
http://www.lynda.com/WordPress-training-tutorials/330-0.html
Many online courses – some free information but for full courses it will cost $25 per month.
How much can you learn in a month?
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#2 – GET THE BASICS RIGHT
Key Things Not To Leave Out
Phone – easy to find
Call To Action or Offer (add one to my site)
Address – in footer is OK
Clear Easy to Use Navigation
Interesting, Compelling Content that tells YOUR story
CONTENT CONTENT CONTENT
Most successful websites have at least 30 pages. Your business needs a page for everything that you do that is distinct from other pages. The pages need to be organized in a way that makes sense and that is easy to navigate. Google (and the others) rank webpages more than they rank website. The cumulative power of a strong site is undeniable, but each page needs to carry its own power for the subject that it is discussing.
Don’t lump all your services into one page just because it is the easiest way to do it. Create a page for each service or product and discuss it in depth. This will increase your chances of ranking high when someone searches for that particular thing tremendously.
QUICK REVIEW
What makes a Good Website?
• A Good Story
• A Unique Selling Proposition
• Call to Action
• Lots Great “Real” Pictures – correct size @ 72ppi
• Phone Number Easy to Find
• Clear Message About What You DO.
• Easy to Use Navigation
• Form to Collect Visitor Info
• Free Stuff – Reports, Consultations, Trial, Estimates
• Attractive Design & Colors
• Video
• Testimonials & Reviews
Please DON’T Forget Your
CALL TO ACTION –
Make Sure That You Tell The Visitor What To Do Next!
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#3 – CITATIONS, CITATIONS, CITATIONS
THERE IS AN IMPORTANT LIST AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS SECTION
Citation Building is the most important factor in Local Search SEO
Say no to Yext, Yodel or other Aggregators and Automated Services.
Gearing Up For LOCAL SEARCH – Groundwork
ADVICE – NEVER, NEVER, NEVER USE AUTOMATED SERVICES
LIKE YEXT or YODEL – there are many others too.
You may run into many citations for your business that have already been created and you will need to claim them and update them.
This work is primarily to increase your WEB FOOTPRINT
and Google will be looking at how big it is.
NAP IS IMPORTANT (name, address, phone, website)
Make sure that these things (YOUR NAP) are EXACTLY the same everyplace.
COMPANY NAME
COMPANY ADDRESS
COMPANY PHONE
COMPANY WEBSITE
The descriptions, categories, photos and other information can a bit different but basically all from the same template of information on services, products, etc.
CITATION WORKSHEET
We create what we call a “Citation Worksheet” that is approved by our clients that has everything that we need to build the citations. Click here to see a sample of what our Citation Worksheet looks like.
You should also create a folder of about 10 medium sized photos and your company logo for use on the citation sites that allow logos and photos to be included.
This is the definitive guide for Local Search – from MOZ
A survey was taken among Local SEO Experts about what the most important factors are when it comes to ranking in the Local Results.
http://moz.com/local-search-ranking-factors
LOCAL CITATION BUILDING
IF YOU ARE JUST STARTING, DO ALL OF THE “LESSER” CITATIONS FIRST
THEN DO THE LOCAL LISTINGS FOR BING & YAHOO
THEN DO THE GOOGLE PAGE LAST (ABOUT 2 WEEKS AFTER ALL THE OTHERS ARE DONE)
CLICK HERE TO SEE THE LIST OF 70 CITATION SITES THAT BRANDTASTIC USES FOR OUR CLIENTS
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#4 – MOBILE SITES ARE OBSOLETE
Mobile is Dead – Long Live Responsive Design
The “RESPONSIVE” Design eliminates the need for a separate “mobile” website because it adjusts to the viewer’s device automatically!
This is true because today’s “responsive” web design allows for your entire site to display well across all platforms, removing the need for a designated mobile site. There are exceptions of course… for a Southwest Airlines type company that wants an easy to use mobile interface for checking in and looking up flight status, etc. a separate mobile design is required. That being said, the vast majority of businesses will benefit tremendously by switching away from a designated mobile site to a responsive web design.
Check out this short video showing how the site transforms based on the screen size.
Responsive Web Design vs. Dedicated Mobile Site
With over 7 billion mobile devices in the world, having a website that is optimized for mobile devices is no longer a question of “should” but “how.” Most companies know that having a mobile friendly site is imperative to reaching their target audience that spends most of their time on-the-go, but many companies are confused as to whether they should choose a dedicated mobile site or a Responsive Web Design. Many of our clients are now receiving 50% of their visits from mobile / tablet style devices.
What’s the Difference?
Mobile Website –
A mobile website is a separate website designed entirely for mobile devices like smartphones and tablets. A mobile website is a simple & efficient design that allows users to quickly and easily navigate the basic aspects of your website on their small devices. These sites are specifically designed for small screens and are held in a folder or on a url that is different than your main site.
Responsive Web Design –
Responsive Web Design is a single website that automatically adjusts to fit the screen size of the desktop, laptop, or mobile device on which it is being viewed. Platforms like WordPress (our favorite) allow web designers to adapt the written content, navigation, visual design and method of interaction so that your company website looks amazing no matter what computer or device it is being viewed on.
So Which is Better?
If you have a separate mobile site, you will need to pay for and maintain two separate websites. This can be costly and time consuming, especially if you update your information regularly. Two separate sites means you will need to take double duty on SEO & marketing methods. Having a dedicated mobile website means having multiple URLs or a redirect to the mobile website (which can take several seconds) if they visit the primary web address first. Although both of these types of mobile-friendly sites can optimize your content for mobile devices, dedicated Mobile Websites are becoming outdated for a number of good reasons. Most smart businesses today are choosing to go with a Responsive Design.
We can convert most sites to Responsive Design – call us for details.
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#5 – HAVE A CONTACT FORM
These forms look professional and work very well. You can customize the boxes that appear in your form and designate where it is emailed when it is submitted. This system is far better than having a “naked” email link on your website that will attract tons of spam into your inbox. The best feature of these forms is that they will collect all of the data from these forms and store it for future email marketing or lead utilization opportunities.
123 Contact Form is the Best
http://www.123contactform.com/signup.html
Free Plan Available
SPEAKING OF EMAIL – WHERE’S YOUR LIST?
As mentioned, Contact Forms can collect the emails for use marketing to those who have signed up using your form. Email is still a great way to communicate with potential and existing customers. Every business should be building lists of these emails every time they have the opportunity. So many times we see businesses that do not even have a list of their customer’s email address. This is a must!
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#6 – REVIEWS NEEDED
Get Good Customer Reviews – You NEED Them!
Run an INCENTIVE CAMPAIGN to increase reviews.
Do NOT advertise it on your website.
Let customers know via email or printed notification.
Today online reviews are driving purchasing decisions more and more. Google relies on data from other review sites like Yelp, Superpages, Insider Pages, Merchant Circle, YP, Facebook and many others when they are measuring your influence on the web. The Google Local Listings that have the most reviews will rank better on Local Search Results. This means that it is imperative to build reviews from your customers on these sites and on your Google page too.
Once we have a clients Citations and Review Sites set up then we create an easy to use Review Page where the client can direct their customers to submit their reviews. By creating a page with several choices of Review Sites it is more likely that we can grow reviews quicker and easier.
TOP SECRET IDEAS
1. Create a custom page to encourage reviews.
Here are a few examples of Successful Review Pages.
https://www.franklinpainting.com/reviews/
https://www.actionheatingandcoolinginc.com/review/
https://www.mychimney.com/add-review/
2. Control Reviews with your own “on-site” page
https://www.kidsrkidswaterford.net/parent-reviews/
note: We use WP Plugin “WP Customer Reviews” by Go Web Solutions to achieve this function.
What about BAD REVIEWS?
Everyone knows that nobody can please everyone all of the time, so the occasional bad review will not hurt your online reputation. But a pattern of bad reviews may indicate customer service issues or product and performance issues that need to be dealt with. It is always better to reply to a bad review with a positive offer of help instead of escalating the negative conversation by arguing online with the disgruntled customer.
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#7 – SEO IS ESSENTIAL
SEO = Search Engine Optimization
Remember the days when the Yellow Pages ruled. If your company wasn’t in there with a big ad you had a hard time competing. Well let’s just imagine that 95% of the people that received those Yellow Page books only looked at the first page! What chance would anyone have then.
That is Google’s game.
200 Things Google Uses to Determine Ranking
http://backlinko.com/google-ranking-factors
Site Load Time is More Important Than Ever – Test Yours Here:
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/
Out of the thousands of businesses in every market vying for top spot or first page, only 10 or 15 will make it. Some will pay Google for Ads to make it, but the Ads typically garner only about 20% of search and attract all the “tire kickers” out to click your dollars away.
The single best solution is to have an SEO strategy that will win this battle for the top of the Google mountain.
Remember – “Build it and they will come.” does not work for websites!
You will need to rank well on Search in order to be found.
Building a Website without SEO is like Building a New Building
for Your Business in the center of 10 Acres with NO Driveway
and NO Signs. You NEED to be FOUND!
SEO helps you get found.
That does NOT happen automatically.
– use Yoast WordPress SEO Plugin
– use HTML editor (non WP sites)
Most Important Basics
• Title Tag
• Description Tag
• Header Tags
• Keyword Tag
• Build Links
• Build Citations
WARNING – THIS IS NOT EASY
But, if you are willing to put in the work required
You WILL get results.
Results Like This!
If I told you that my company, Brandtastic, got 236 number 1 Google results for a client in California you might think I was blowing smoke. Well, it is true and here is the proof! Go ahead and test a few of the keywords for yourself. The positions may have changed since the last time we updated the page, but you will see our client on page 1 for hundreds of searches.
https://www.brandtastic1.com/clovis
Is it worth it?
Well, imagine how many more calls and leads your company would have if you were on page one consistently.
Want to see how good your site is now.
This is a fun tool, not always accurate – but it will give you a quick
read on how bad (or good) things are.
https://marketing.grader.com/
KEYWORDS ARE… WELL, “KEY” TO YOUR SUCCESS
Keywords in content – Make your content line up with your targeted keywords. When people search on Google, they type in what is called a “search string”, try to identify what the likely search strings you need to go after to generated the best qualified visitors to your site.
Keywords that match up with your individual content pages also need to be in your Title Tag, Description Tag and Header Tags… did we mention the Keyword Tag? Many say that the Keyword Tag is ignored now, we disagree. Just don’t abuse it by stuffing in too many keywords. The “keyword” is FOCUS. Focus on the subject of each page individually with an overriding slant towards your main keywords of course.
A we said each page should have 1 focus. Provide relevant content that has the keywords that you want to rank for on that subject. General rule 2 – 4% of the words can be the keyword or a variation of it. Then you need to have links to your site from other sites, lots of them.
A great way to compare keywords against each other is provided by Google Trends.
http://www.google.com/trends/explore
Enter a keyword that is important to you and learn about how popular it is.
Want to see how many pages on your site are indexed by Google?
Put this in the Google Search Bar
site:www.yoursitehere.com – insert your domain – hit search
A way to gauge how competitive your Keyword String is:
Do a search on Google, under the Search Bar on the left you will see something like,”About 1,000,000 results (.09 seconds)” Look for keywords that generate less than a million returns for easy wins using SEO on your website.
Authority Site on SEO
http://moz.com/
Articles about SEO
http://www.seochat.com/
SUBMIT YOUR SITE
Now, the truth is that the robots search the web constantly and if you have added a link to your site anywhere on the web the search engines will find your site and look it over. But if you must…
Submit your site to Google if you are not being found or if you have a new site:
http://www.google.com/submityourcontent/website-owner/
OK, go ahead submit to Bing too.
http://www.bing.com/toolbox/submit-site-url
Don’t worry about Yahoo – Bing & Yahoo use the same information now.
SEO RESOURCES
Learn Everywhere.
There is so much information out there for free on SEO, you can get a college level education on the subject by just searching for the real facts. You will be able to tell the scams from the teachers after a while. It is all good information, even the ones that want to sell their system will give great information for free first. Just don’t buy the system!
http://www.webconfs.com/15-minute-seo.php
More like 15 days to get through this one!
Here is a good site to get an idea how important your site (or your competitions site) is in the grand scheme of things.
http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo
Add the SEO Moz Tool Bar to your browser to gauge strength of websites.
This Tool Measures Page Authority & Domain Authority
Another Measure is PageRank – which despite rumors to the contrary, is still used
http://moz.com/tools/seo-toolbar
Local SEO Videos – from Google Experts
If you REALLY want to learn more about Local Search check out some of BrightLocal’s Videos here
http://vimeo.com/brightlocal
Want to see what the Top Sites in the World are?
http://www.alexa.com/topsites
LINKS ARE HOW GOOGLE JUDGES YOUR IMPORTANCE
NEVER BUY LINKS! NEVER.
A quick way to get a read on how many links there are to your site can be found by doing a search on MOZ using their Site Explorer Tool – https://moz.com/researchtools/ose/
The results that get returned are usually all of the sites that contain a link to your web address. Enter www.yourdomain.com in the “Explore URL” link at the top. You do not need to login. This tool also will tell you the number of pages that Yahoo has found on your site.
If you are going to build links, you need to know the PR Value of the site that you are looking to get a link from. Use the Google Tool Bar to see if it is a PR0 or a PR5, Google is a PR10. PR stands for PageRank. Look it up if you like. Get the Browser Add On Here.
THESE TOOLS SHOW THE LINK STRENGTH OF SITES THAT YOU VISIT
Firefox Tool Bar add on for browser to show PR (PageRank)
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/pagerank/
Chrome Tool Bar add on for browser to show PR (PageRank)
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/open-seo-statsformerly-pa/hbdkkfheckcdppiaiabobmennhijkknn?hl=en
Write articles, blogs and submit Press Releases with embedded links.
You can do both free and paid Press Release and Article submissions. The free ones are just about as good as the paid ones though. This type of linking has been devalued by Google and is not as effective as it once was.
Do Social Bookmarking.
Anytime that you post a link to your website, it is a good idea to look for what are called “dofollow” sites – they do not block your link power in their code. Read more here:
http://pixelragelm.hubpages.com/hub/dofollow-2
If you have friends in business that are willing to put a link on their site to your site, that is always a plus. Many times folks want what is called reciprocal links – I link to you, you link to me. Not always a good deal – usually a wash. But if the site willing to link to you has a much higher PR value than your site, by all means trade links.
Blogs offer a great opportunity to spread your URL around. Any time you post a comment, you usually have the opportunity to put our website address in one of the fields when writing your comment. So spend time really making valuable comments, establish yourself as an expert or at least as an interested reader that has something worthwhile to say. This way it is likely that the blog owner will allow your comments to stand. Don’t sell your stuff on another persons blog.
Links take time to build, and when they build naturally on their own you always end up with superior results. Post interesting Blog Articles, put interesting content out on your website and people will link to it or share it with others. This is sometimes called “link bait”, but that implies that it is contrived to attract attention. Much better to put out great stuff that people are interested in!
Social media and video sharing sites offer tremendous opportunities to share the content on your website and blog. These tools can add real power to your link equation and boost your site higher on the search engines.
Yea, it all gets complicated.
Sometimes it is better to leave the SEO and Website Building to the Experts!
Here are some of our RESULTS
Hudson Valley Area / New York Service Company
https://www.brandtastic1.com/being-at-the-top-of-search-engine-results-more-business/
Southern California / Fresno Landscape & Masonry Supply
https://www.brandtastic1.com/being-at-the-top-of-search-engine-results-more-business/
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#8 – GET SOCIAL!
Required for most any Marketing Plan
Plan to match your product or service to the Social Media you use.
Examples:
Accountant – no to pinterest but yes to linked in
House Painter – yes to pinterest no to linked in
“It’s NOT about numbers, it’s about engagement – tell your stories, make friends and build relationships.”
DON’T SELL, SELL, SELL.
We have had clients say “but I do not believe in Social Media”. Well, that is good because it is not a religion! But it is a reality that has changed the way consumers and businesses make buying decisions. If you choose not to take part, you are missing several channels of branding and conversations that can build your business. People will be talking about your business on Social Media, you should be there taking part in the conversation.
Social Media IS Important – For Many Reasons!
We might as well start off this effort laughing.
You have already heard enough from the plethora of Social Media Gurus that are growing at a rapid rate.
This video typifies so many Social “Experts” doesn’t it?
WARNING – Terrible Language but it makes my point.
http://youtu.be/ZKCdexz5RQ8
Don’t Hire This Guy.
Our Top 6 Social Platforms
Google Plus for Business
YouTube Channel
Facebook Page
Twitter Page
Pinterest
LinkedIn
Social Media Tips
Provide content that your target market will enjoy.
ALWAYS CREATE CUSTOM HEADERS FOR SOCIAL PLATFORMS
USE GOOD PROFILE PHOTO
Find Local, Relevant Followers That May Be Interested In Your Business.
NEVER BUY FOLLOWERS OR FANS
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Google Plus / YouTube
The G+ Social Network should be a part of your Citation effort. Once your Google My Business page is done you will have opportunity to use the Google+ Social network & YouTube via that same account. Since Google owns these platforms, it is extremely important that we use them in our marketing strategy. Create those homemade videos or have a pro help – any way you cut it having videos on YouTube is another must do for you.
GOOGLE WILL ACTUALLY TALK TO YOU!
They really will actually talk to you now if you need help – use this link:
https://support.google.com/business/
You must be logged in to your Google Account and they will call you back.
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FACEBOOK PAGE
https://www.facebook.com/about/pages
Facebook Experts you can learn from:
Get Their Free Stuff!
Mari Smith
http://www.marismith.com/
Jon Loomer
http://www.jonloomer.com/
How to Create a Facebook Business Page
http://blog.hubspot.com/blog/tabid/6307/bid/5492/How-to-Create-a-Facebook-Business-Page-in-5-Simple-Steps-With-Video.aspx
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TWITTER
Homework: Read “UnMarketing” by Scott Stratten
Here is a blog post I did about Scott.
https://www.brandtastic1.com/blog/un-marketing-the-best-thing-since-sliced-godin/
New Account
https://twitter.com/signup
Twitter Advice:
Have a good profile image and description
Have a good header image
Follow those that are relative to your goals.
Don’t follow those with Eggs for Profile Picture.
Keep your follow / following ratios balanced.
Nobody will follow you if you are following 1000 people
and only have 3 people following you.
Building a following takes time.
Tweet a few times a week.
Tweet about stuff that is interesting.
Share other peoples stuff (ReTweet) – this makes them happy
Twitter Glossary
https://support.twitter.com/entries/166337-the-twitter-glossary
Find Local Followers
http://mashable.com/2009/06/08/twitter-local-2/
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/5-ways-to-use-twitter-to-connect-with-local-customers/
“Tweepi” is a great site to “Follow and Flush” whack is an easy way to build good followers.
http://tweepi.com
That means you can identify a person who has friends or followers that may be also valuable to you. Enter their @username and you can easily follow who you want. My advice is to arrange the columns by “last tweet”, don’t bother following anyone that hasn’t tweeted in the past 1 or 2 days. If they are not using Twitter to communicate, they are not worth following. You can also look at where they are from geographically if that is important to your goals. Next step is to Flush the ones that did not follow you back. So, 1 or 2 days after you followed some people use the Flush feature and remove the ones that never followed back. Repeat and repeat again until you have built the size and type of followers that you want. It takes a bit of practice to get the hang of this tool but we use it daily to build our client followings.
Keeping a pure list that is relevant to your business is always a good bet. Don’t ever buy followers or follow-back just anybody. Keep it within the goals defined by who you really want to communicate with.
THE GOLDEN “TWITTER” RULE
“Retweet Others as you would want them to Retweet You.”
or the Pre-Twitter version:
“So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you,”
Matthew 7:12
“Using Auto-Responders on Twitter is like using a Rubber Stamp
when giving an Autograph. Real Communication is the Goal.” – Scott Stratten
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HIGH VALUE USERS – 100K ANNUAL INCOME HOUSEHOLD INCOME
Pinterest – if there is anything visual about what you offer, this is a must.
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LINKED IN
Most everyone has an account, but very few are using it well.
Did you know that they allow a huge banner image on profiles now?
https://www.linkedin.com/reg/join
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THERE ARE 100’S OF OTHER SOCIAL NETWORKS BUT WE CURRENTLY
CONCENTRATE ON THESE 5 FOR THE BEST RETURN.
If you have a very visual product INSTAGRAM may be a good option as well.
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#9 – YOUR GOOGLE ACCOUNT – THE KEY TO SUCCESS
All of these essential ingredients for success are part of your Google Account
Google Plus (social network)
Google My Business (formerly Google Places local business listing)
Google Analytics – monitor results and track success
Google Webmaster Tools – maintain and observe health of your site
YouTube – people love videos – you need them
Step 1 – Google Account – Get One!
Unless you already have a Google Account
Set Up A New Google Account
https://accounts.google.com/SignUp
Set up your Google My Business listing (see #3 Citations)
Citations should be done as a first step.
Then you need to use it for YouTube, Google+, Analytics & Webmaster Tools
Step 2 – Get Google Analytics – A Great Tool – It’s Free
There are 3 basic kinds of traffic shown in Analytics
Direct – user types in your URL
Search – found in organic or paid search
Referral – arrives via a link from another site
You will also see how many visits you get, how long they stay, what pages they visit, what town they come from, what time of day they visit and a host of great data to measure the performance of your web marketing.
WordPress Sites – Use Yoast Analytics Plugin
Other Sites – must use HTML editor to add code
Set Up Your Google Analytics Account:
Log into your Google Account first then go here:
http://www.google.com/analytics/
Under Access Analytics button
Click “Sign Up Now”
Create an Analytics Account – get and save code in a document for your records
Installing Google Analytics Code on Your Website:
Method 1 – Easy Peasy – If you have a WordPress site just add the UA-0000000-0 number from the code that you received into the Yoast Google Analytics Plug-in
Method 2 – Best Choice
Email the code with the above directions to your Webmaster or to a friend that can install the html code.
Method 3 – For The Brave
Download a free or trial version html editor and do it yourself. Advanced (advised only for html site)
you will need your ftp access information – username and password for your site (you need this)
if you are using a WordPress Blog, there are plugins for Google Analytics, insert code there
Using an HTML editor, add the code looking at the Code View mode.
Copy the following code, then paste it onto every page you want to track immediately before the closing tag. note: if this code is disturbed this could potentially break your website.
Search “Free HTML Editor” or “Free WYSIWYG Editor”
2 Free HTML Editors
Windows – http://www.coffeecup.com/free-editor/
Mac – http://kompozer.net/
You can then download your Remote site from the server using FTP access. Make your modifications and then upload the site to the server from your Local Folder. If you don’t know your FTP admin and password call your hosting company and they will help you.
Remote = on the server
Local = on your computer
Suggestions:
Ask a friend that has a program to add your Google Analytics for you.
note: most professional web designers either code the site themselves or use Dreamweaver – for the novice, Dreamweaver is not advisable.
Step 3 – Get Webmasters Tools & Submit XML Sitemap
You should set up an account using your Google account to create what is called a Webmasters Tools account. Here you can submit your sitemap and monitor if your pages are indexed by google.
Submit your site – must be logged in to Google account
http://www.google.com/webmasters/tools
Add A Site – then Submit your XML Sitemap
Easy to do with WordPress
Yoast SEO plugin has a setting to create this sitemap automatically. This means it is updated automatically every time you add new content.
Non WordPress
If you have a non-WordPress site you can create an xml sitemap for free and upload to your site using an HTML editor. Then submit that to your Webmasters Tools account
Create a sitemap.xml FREE and download a sitemap.xml file.
http://www.xml-sitemaps.com/
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#10 – EVERY COMPANY NEEDS A BLOG!
What is a blog exactly?
A blog should be the consumer friendly side of your marketing. No hard sell allowed. Informative articles that your target audience will gravitate towards and appreciate.
We advise setting up another WordPress installation up on your server in a folder called “blog” or “news” – you can call it what you like but it will be a different animal than your Core Website. The advantage of having your company blog on the same domain as the Core Website is that all content added to the blog will be credited to the overall Domain Authority or strength of your site.
The blog should be a friendly, informative place where you can produce quality content that your potential customers will be interested in. If you are selling a Seasoning Salt like one of our clients, have a blog that has Recipes. If you have a House Painting business, your blog can post lots of great content about choosing colors, decorating and types of paint. These consumer-friendly blog articles can then be used across all of your social medial platforms attracting interest and providing great content for potential customers. Your business will become “Top of Mind” and the “Authority” on your subject. It is only natural that when those fans and friends need what you offer they will seek you out.
Blogs offer tremendous opportunity to become the expert in whatever you do simply by being willing to talk about it and provide information people are interested in.
When you write your articles you will be adding relevant keywords to your website naturally and adding tremendously to your SEO effort. We have had traffic increase several thousand percent after maintaining a our client’s blog for several years. In each blog post you should add an “embedded anchor text link” that leads to another blog page or to the Core Website (just like the one I just added). This internal linking also helps your overall SEO and content flow.
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THIS IS TOO MUCH WORK!
As you can surmise by now, there is a TON of work required to be successful at Web Marketing. That doesn’t mean it is impossible. It only means that if you do everything in an orderly process and don’t give up you WILL reap the rewards.
Or, you could hire us of course.
HOW MUCH DOES IT COST?
So when someone asks “how much do your websites cost” it is almost like asking a realtor “how much does a house cost”. An important thing to realize is that a website is NOT a commodity, it should be tailored to the needs of every client. There are no cookie-cutters or sure-fire shortcuts when it comes to web marketing.
When a Potential Client Tells Us That We Are TOO EXPENSIVE!
We Show Them This Photo.
No Matter What Business You Are In, There Is ALWAYS Someone Who Will Do It Cheaper.
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EXTRA ITEMS OF INTEREST FOR MARKETING YOUR BUSINESS
Marketing has changed.
If you want to read about it:
Pick up any book by Seth Godin.
Then pick up another one. He Really Gets It.
Push vs Attraction
Attraction Model
When a customer finds your business on the web it is because they are looking for what you do. If you are ranking well you capture that business by attraction. If they saw your posts on Social Media or perhaps read your blog posts your company may be “Top of Mind” when they start looking. All of your branding efforts should be laying the groundwork to attract new customers.
Push Model
Using Newpaper, Magazine, TV and other “ADS” (even online ads) are PUSHING your message out to the masses or to the market that you think will want what you have to offer. These type of campaigns require huge budgets and deliver far smaller returns that the Attraction Model.
Positions your company to be the “Attractive Choice” when someone is looking for what you offer.
What makes your business different is what new customers will be attracted to.
If you are trying to stay current on everything new on the web
Don’t! – just concentrate on your message and telling your story.
Set aside an hour or two a day to learning and improving your
web presence and working on your site and social platforms.
My advice – don’t buy into anything until you learn as much as you can for free on the web.
Selling is About RELATIONSHIPS
People buy from those they know, like and trust.
GET EDUCATED!
Great Sites for Learning, and Learning,
and you guessed it – more Learning!
Marketing Resource Websites
Sign up for Newsletters, Watch Webinars, Read Articles
http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/
https://library.hubspot.com/ebook
http://www.marketingprofs.com/
http://www.tfollower.com/ – don’t buy followers, just read articles
http://mashable.com/ – sign up for updates to stay informed
http://www.slideshare.net/ – search for topics you want to learn about
http://www.imediaconnection.com/ – sign up for updates
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DID YOU LOSE YOUR WEBSITE?
You may want to check in at the “Wayback Machine” – this site archives information from the web going wayyyyyy back. So you can enter in your URL and look at previous snapshots of most any website. Check it out – it is wayyyyy cool!
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WHAT IS A BRAND?
Your Brand is only as good as Your Brand Promise Fulfilled.
“Successful Branding is Like Owning Real Estate in Your Customers Brain.” – Jerry Ross
Your Brand is the collective impression created by all your marketing, your advertising, your products, your employees and your customer’s experiences…and you personally!
We often get asked if we can create a Brand for clients. The answer is no, your brand is ultimately created by you, your people and your customers. We can only hope to guide what your brand will become and how it will be perceived.
We can create a Logo that will represent your Brand well.
Logo Design is the Personification of a Business using a Visual Anchor that every customer experience is tied to.
Want to get some ideas (no copying!) Check out these sites.
http://www.brandsoftheworld.com/
http://logopond.com/
Want to get a great logo design to use in your branding at a reasonable price?
Post Your Project Here – http://99designs.com
Amazing Artists from around the world will be competing to win your prize award to come up with a logo that you love. Don’t worry, this is a secure site that has been around for years. My advice, Guarantee the Prize Money – the artists will flock to your contest then. You can also make the contest blind, which is a good idea to avoid artists copying each other to one-up each other and impress you. You choose how to set up your contest. We have even seen some brand names and large agencies use this site.
Of course if you would prefer a more personal branding agency – call us for sure!
We HAVE designed over 500 corporate logos over the past 35 years.
Branding Exercise:
• Who Is Your Audience (Market)?
• What Words Come To Mind To Describe?
• Should You Have A Tagline?
• What Icon or Symbol?
• What Font / Typestyle?
• What Colors Are Appropriate?
• Don’t Forget Ease of Reproduction.
Appropriate Layout Choice
Make sure the words are laid out in a way that makes sense and is most readable. If your company name is ACME Medical Devices Incorporated should you use “AMDI”, a stylized “A”, focus on the word “ACME” or create a medical icon for a logo? Maybe you should use a purely symbolic icon so as not to limit your appeal. Should the name be on one line, two lines, three lines or four lines?
Design and Art is very “subjective” – if you ask 5 people to rate 5 different designs you will get many different opinions about whether they like the design or not. This is why what you think is not as important as what your customer’s impression will be.
Even if you are not artistic at all, you can sketch out the basics that may give a designer, printer or friend all they need to create something cool. You may be surprised what you can create yourself once you think it through and have some direction.
Color Choices – What do colors represent?
Red –excitement, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger.
Blue –(listed as the most popular color) trust, reliability, coolness.
Yellow –warmth, sunshine, cheer, happiness
Orange — playfulness, warmth, vibrant
Green — nature, fresh, cool, growth, abundance
Purple –royal, spirituality, dignity
Pink — soft, sweet, nurture, security
White –pure, virginal, clean, youthful, mild.
Black –sophistication, elegant, seductive, mystery
Gold — prestige, expensive
Silver — prestige, cold, scientific
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PHOTO / ART RESOURCES
If you need to use a stock photo or a photo for an effect or background, we recommend http://www.bigstockphoto.com, where you buy tokens and pay for each photo that you need.
Another great site to find photos is totally user generated content at http://www.flickr.com just be sure to get permission to use any photos you find. Use Creative Commons searches on flickr or on WikiMedia for copyright free use types.
https://www.flickr.com/creativecommons/
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
If you want to see some great artwork head over to http://www.deviantart.com/ – remember that if you plan on using a photo from any of these type sites, you need to contact the photographer or artist and ask or pay for permission.
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More About Why Brandtastic is the BEST Choice for Your Marketing Partner:
SImple answer… We Have A Very Successful Process that combines PR, Branding, Web Design, SEO, Social Media Management & Blogging (Content Marketing) to deliver AMAZING INCREASES IN NEW BUSINESS for all of our clients.
We are the perfect choice for companies that DON’T have the time to do all of the things that need to be done to produce results, but they still want the results.
Most of our new clients have already WASTED money with inferior web design / marketing companies that did 1/4 of the work needed or did the work wrong in the first place. That means the website did NOT deliver new leads and business.
Once a business has made that mistake a couple of times, they are ready to hire us to do it right.
We love it when our clients do their homework and are engaged in the process. An important thing to realize is that a website is NOT a commodity, it should be tailored to the needs of every client. So when someone asks “how much do your websites cost” it is almost like asking a realtor “how much does a house cost”.
While you are looking at a potential marketing partner’s portfolio be sure to find out how their clients rank on Google for keywords that drive business. Building a site is not “build it and they will come”, like a new Starbucks for instance. Using the realtor analogy again, building a site without incorporating in a local search and SEO strategy is like building your business in the center of a 100 acre lot… with no driveway… and no signs. The point being, you NEED to get found easily on the web.
Many “web designers” can be technically proficient, but fall short when it comes to personifying your brand and telling your company’s story in a compelling way. A marketing mindset is what is required to successfully position your brand and write your content to become an attractor for new clients.
We are a marketing company that takes your ROI seriously. If it doesn’t build your brand and increase lead generation, why waste the time and money? Brandtastic is expert in web design, SEO, PR, branding, logo design, brochure, ad and collateral development. Our web design is built with SEO in mind from the ground up. If your site is not performing well, we can also improve things using better content and effective SEO. Our goal is to deliver qualified traffic to your site and turn them into new clients or customers for your business.
Content is crucial to success on the web or in your sales material, ads, brochures and collateral. We will dive into your company, learn your story and tell it in a compelling and visually attractive way. Communication is about more than just the words on the page, and we know how to craft your marketing material to boost your brand. Our writers, photographers, videographers and artists will capture the essence of what your company needs to project and put it in a framework that will get you noticed.
Remember, getting to the top of Google is achievable – but if all of your visitors duck out of your site in the first 10 seconds, you won’t be adding any new business. We need to design your site to convert them into leads that take action (call you or respond on-line). We want to lead them deeper into your site by keeping them interested enough to want to know more.
And once you make contact, do you have an effective sales presentation? Are your products branded to look as good as they are? Do your salespeople have business cards and brochures that make a great impression as leave-behinds? And if they don’t come to the plate right now, do you have an effective follow-up strategy that includes direct mail and phone contact? We all know that buying decisions sometimes require many “touch” points between the potential new customer and the “courting” company. This process is like courting in many ways, because it is all about developing relationship. Along with relationship comes trust and the brand awareness that will soon lead to more new customers. The whole marketing to sales process needs to be designed to be constantly putting your best face forward, and leading the potential customer towards a business transaction. After all, that is the goal – right?
Congratulations are in order if you actually have read all the way to here!
Give us a call sometime – (407) 414-5270 or email Frank Motola