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Hiring a SEO company can be expensive. Imagine doing the basics yourself. Here’s how.

22 October 2014February 11, 2018Ann MillsLeave a comment

You are a passionate baker and have finally decided to launch a business. For the last year, you have tinkered in your kitchen and people have even started to pay you to make a few baked goods for them. You choose a do-it-yourself (DIY) website builder to save money, get a website up and running and the site even includes a basic e-commerce store. Several months later, while you are still selling baked goods to family and friends, the website has virtually no sales. Sound familiar?

Imagine what it would be like to start driving traffic to your website e-commerce store.

Do you know this small business, or does it remind you of your own? Imagine what it would be like to start driving traffic to your website e-commerce store. Your instinct tells you that you need a marketing campaign, but the core problem is most probably that the essential search engine optimization (SEO) work has not been done. With a start-up budget, you know that hiring a SEO company can be expensive. Have you considered doing basic SEO yourself? Here’s how.

1. Create a sitemap

Sitemaps list the pages and nesting structure of your website. By creating a sitemap, the robots or spiders that crawl your site for content will understand the organization of the website and all of the pages.

2. Upload the sitemap to Google

To have your website properly indexed by Google, set up a Google Webmaster Tools account so that you are verified as the owner of the website. Then upload your sitemap to Google and have it crawled with the Fetch as Google tool.

3. Follow Title Tag and meta description best practice

Stick to the character count specified in the search engine results page (SERP) guidelines and in the Title Tag, put key search terms first, followed by your brand. If your brand is well-known and may be searched in its own right, then put the brand first. Ensure every page of your website has a unique Title Tag and meta description for Google snippets brought up in search.

4. Optimize Keyword Density

Keyword density refers to the percentage of times a keyword or phrase appears on a website page relative to the total word count. Ensure that you identify the relevant keywords for each website page and improve optimization by having a keyword density of 2 to 4 percent.

5. Submit your URL to dmoz.org

The Open Directory Project is a database that seeks to catalog all websites. Website submissions are reviewed by volunteer editors, and it may take years to get a website listed due to the labor-intensive nature of the editorial process, but it is worth the effort and you can resubmit every few months or so.

These SEO steps may seem straightforward, but you would be amazed at how often they are not done. If you take the time to do them, your website will be indexed for search with optimized Title Tags and meta descriptions. When your clients can find the website, your new business may just get off the ground.

Still looking for SEO guidance or don’t want to consider doing basic SEO yourself? Contact us.

5 Shortcuts to Finding and Managing Great Social Media Content

25 September 2014December 19, 2022Ann MillsLeave a comment

For small business owners, there are never enough hours in the day. They juggle business strategy, production schedules, bookkeeping, payroll, marketing, human resources, content management and social media. It is no surprise that with such a long to-do list, social media marketing can fall by the wayside leading to inconsistent content posts and mundane points. But, there is hope for small business owners in pursuit of a social strategy filled with relevant, noteworthy and interesting topics that will engage their clients. Here are 5 shortcuts to finding and managing great social media content.

Set up News Feeds for Aggregation

Every industry has websites and electronic newsletters covering topics that are worth following. Feedly.com is one service that helps aggregate news feeds of interest, and you can create custom lists to follow. Our company, for example, manages content for multiple clients and we set up a custom list for each client, which collects stories from relevant news feeds in their industry. Another aggregation tool I really like is GetPocket.com. By installing the Chrome extension for Pocket or Feedly on your browser, you can upload any articles you want to read with a mouse click and even tag the articles. If you would like news to come directly to your Inbox, another option is to set up a Google Alert, www.google.com/alerts, a notification system based on keywords. Google Alerts will send you a list of relevant articles based off of your keywords and found in search as they happen, daily or weekly.

Follow Blogs by Industry Thought Leaders

Every field has thought leaders or individuals who are blogging and of interest to you. It is fun and educational to follow and engage with them. Their blogs also provide relevant social content that you can share. Feedly.com allows you to follow blogs, so it is a great option for both news feeds and blogs. Often bloggers post their blogs on Facebook pages as opposed to WordPress or other blogging platforms. In that case, Liking the Page will do the trick and you can receive notifications of new blog posts. Another easy way to follow a blog is to click the RSS feed button if the blog has one. Typically, you will get an option to choose a Feed Reader service which will show all of the new blogs posted from the website and sometimes an option to receive an email alert. RSS feeds are often a point of real confusion amongst our clients, so here is a brief tutorial should you choose to try the RSS feed route, What is RSS.

Search for Content by Hashtag

In the context of social media, the pound sign is called a hashtag. A tool first used on Twitter, hashtags group topics and allow the reader to search and follow those topics through a clickable link. You can look for what is Trending on Twitter, and then even build some of your own social content around trending topics with high user engagement. You can also identify hashtags and related hashtags on relevant subjects with tools like Hashtagify.me. Once you have identified the hashtags you want to follow, set up a free Tagboard using the hashtag and you will get a fabulous visual of all of the trending content linked to that hashtag. Since all of the major social media platforms are using hashtags, creating great content means learning both how to deploy hashtags in your posts as well as how to use them to search for content.

Manage your Content with a Social Media Management Tool

After finding or creating your social media content, there are a number of tools you can use to schedule and manage it. Two of the most popular social media management tools are Buffer and Hootsuite. These platforms permit a user to post content to several social media accounts simultaneously, see user engagement and respond. User-friendly dashboards display character counts and image previews. Posts can be scheduled by day and time, so content postings can be input in advance. Many of the social media management tools offer news feed links right in the dashboard, so users can follow relevant content and then post it right from the news feed.

Nothing equates in value to original, creative content written by you.

Create Original Content

Most importantly, take the time to write your own content. Nothing equates in value to original, creative content written by you. If you like sharing interesting articles, write headlines yourself and post them on social media. If you blog, write about interesting trends in your industry. Answer common questions in your field of expertise. Summarize an interesting conference that you attended or offer a unique point of view on a controversial subject. Can’t think of a topic? Try the really fun, Hubspot’s Blog Topic Generator. You simply enter three keywords and then the algorithm will give you a week’s worth of blog topics. In short, although thoughtful social media content takes time to write and develop, it is well worth it because you will slowly establish a following on social media and build a respected online voice.

Hopefully, these shortcuts will save you time and help you find and manage great social media content. If you think there still aren’t enough hours in the day to do your social media marketing, contact us. We can customize and implement a content management strategy for your business that is timely, consistent and engaging!

Why a Personal Brand has Become a Marketing Must

12 July 2014May 4, 2017Ann MillsLeave a comment

Small businesses come in all shapes and sizes. Your company might even be just one person – you! Although you may have never really thought about it, you do have a personal brand which can be one of your most important marketing tools. A personal brand is your reputation, your experience, your approach to business and how you conduct yourself when working with clients or colleagues. It determines how you are perceived by others and whether people trust you.

Answering e-mails in a timely fashion, returning phone calls promptly, showing up to meetings on time and even how you dress are all components of a personal brand. It is imperative to convey it thoughtfully and consistently across websites, social media, blogs and personal interactions. Most importantly, your personal brand must reflect who you really are, not what you believe the market demands.

In today’s fast-paced digital world, a personal brand has become a marketing must. If you don’t have one, here are some steps to help you get started.

Compile your past experience and see what strikes you about it

When building your personal brand, start by making a list and make sure to include all of your volunteer work, board positions, outside coursework or hobbies and anything that defines you as an interesting person. Look for patterns in your work, education and activities. If you are always volunteering for a certain charity or work in a particular field, these interests are the start of your personal brand. Pull out two or three and feature them in your marketing strategy. Build a LinkedIn profile while doing it!

Consider how you would like to be perceived by your clients

If you want to be viewed as a thought leader in your field, you should have a professionally branded blog page which frames the key aspects of your experience. Blog and create original, timely content at least once a month. If it is important for you to be looked at as tech savvy, then develop a social media strategy and presence with branded backgrounds, banners and professionally photographed profile pictures to convey your abilities and understanding in this area. Link your social media account to your blog page with stylish icons that further reflect your personal brand.

Develop consistency in your branding

If you are a solopreneur, then don’t be afraid to blog as “I” or present yourself as an individual when building your personal brand. If you are part of a team, then make sure to differentiate your personal brand from that of the team and define areas that highlight your skills as opposed to those of the team. Whether it be in your website copy, social media or blog, stay consistent and remain “I” or “we,” otherwise clients will become confused.

Create an online presence and reference your brand in the domain name

One of the critical components of creating a personal brand is deciding how people will search for you online. If you have developed a business that centers around your expertise in an area and plan to blog, for example, your domain name might be your name, www.yourname.com. Also, if your network of contacts is from business school or college, classmates may search for you by name; or if your business is a consultancy, a blog that uses a domain with your name may be an excellent choice. However, if you plan to operate under a business name, your domain should reflect the business name and then define your personal brand under an About page on the website instead.

Create valuable, original content by writing a blog

Whatever your field of interest, take the time to build your personal brand by writing original content and posting it in a blog. Brand the blog and choose a platform like WordPress which can be optimized for search and tailored to reflect your personal style and image. Make sure your blog has a headshot on the page or you have uploaded an avatar (the small profile picture associated with your blogs or comments), so people can associate your face with your name. If possible, tie in the domain name to boost your personal brand.

Market your personal brand on social media

Social media is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, you have a wealth of choices to market your personal brand like Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram. On the other hand, people often start social media accounts and then neglect them, so social media can become a negative aspect of your personal brand. Creating a social media presence that reflects your personal brand takes time and effort, so allocate the time to build it and engage with it or have a content marketing firm do it for you. See my recent blog, Stop Ruining Your Business with Social Media.

Do you need help creating a personal brand?

At Resourceful Business, we can assist you in developing and defining your personal brand, help convey it effectively on your website and social media or even help with blog writing so your personal brand comes through with consistency. Contact us to learn more.

tools to measure whether social media is working

5 Tools That Will Tell You If Your Social Media Strategy is Working

27 June 2014May 4, 2017Ann MillsLeave a comment

A great social media campaign takes patience, thought and energy. The Return on Investment (ROI) is not always immediate, and many small businesses start using social media only to abandon it months later. The key to a successful social media strategy is customer “engagement,” which is defined as interactions in the form of likes, tweets, favorites, click-throughs, page views or even comments on a blog. If you have the type of business that does not get many Facebook comments or likes, for example, it does not mean your social media campaign isn’t working, but rather that you may need to dig a little deeper to analyze your customer engagement.

Understanding engagement is essential to figuring out the types of social media that will help grow your business. Here are five tools that will tell you whether your social media strategy is working.

Level of Engagement

One of the easiest ways to analyze social media success is to consider the campaign engagement relative to the average. The average engagement is lower than you might think, and I like to look at www.socialbakers.com for updated statistics. Socialbakers compile their data based upon monitored social media pages. As a rule of thumb, engagement of 1% or higher is considered good, but as the number of followers you have increases, the engagement level declines markedly so adjust your expectations accordingly. However, 1% engagement is a reasonable benchmark for a successful social media campaign.

Geographic Reach

If you use Twitter, tools like SocialBro can give you demographic information about your followers, including their geographic location and language.This tool will allow you to group your followers into lists and monitor what topics engage them, what times your tweets attract the most engagement and who the top influencers are in your area of interest. You can change the demographics and look at similar information in a competitor’s area or even a region where you may be considering expansion. For multinational businesses, SocialBro can help you see countries where you have pockets of followers, and you can tailor your content accordingly.

Google Analytics

The ultimate goal of a social media campaign is not just engagement, but visibility for your business and website. Google Analytics, a powerful and versatile tool available from Google, utilizes the information it collects on customer searches to track how they are getting to your website. If your customers are finding your website with click-throughs from your social media, you can see it in your Google Analytics reports. The platform will also tell you whether the visitors to your site are new or returning, what pages they are viewing, demographic information about them, and how long they stay on your site.

Newsletter Subscriber Base

If you send out newsletter e-blasts, chances are you have sign-up widgets on your social media platforms. If followers find your social content engaging, they will seek to build a more substantial relationship with your company by signing up for your newsletter. Social media engagement serves as the introduction to what your company has to offer. The newsletter will allow you to have a more meaningful dialogue with your customers, so monitor whether your subscriber base is increasing alongside your social media campaigns. If you have a download or PDF you can give away to incentivize people to join your mailing list, even better.

Click-through Rates

Regardless of the social media platform that you choose, you will be able to monitor the click-through rate for your posts, tweets, e-blasts or photos. The click-through rate will tell you how many followers actually clicked on your content, photo or link back to your website. It suggests that a follower is interested enough in your content to actually do something about it, so it is a key metric and will help you refine your social media strategy in ways that can better engage your customers.

Are you unsure how to tell whether your social media strategy is working, or is your company just struggling to engage with customers on social media? Resourceful Business can help you assess, realign and energize your social media strategy so you can engage customers and grow your business. Contact us for a conversation about your company’s social media strategy.

Stop Ruining your Business with Social Media

14 May 2014May 4, 2017Ann MillsLeave a comment

For many business owners, social media has become part of their marketing strategy. Whether it be Facebook, Pinterest, Instagram, LinkedIn or Google+, small businesses will choose a preferred platform or two, do promotions and advertisements or engage with customers. The ability to upload pictures makes tinkering with social media fun too.

All too often, however, a busy owner sets up a social media account and then uses it haphazardly with limited results. To really see customer engagement, the effort must be consistent and thoughtful, and of course, all of that takes time. So, here are a few telltale signs that you should stop doing social media for your business and utilize a content management firm instead.

You don’t know what a pixel actually is

Social media platforms permit the administrator, often the account owner, to upload graphic images and customize or brand the site to help visually identify the business. There are banners, profile pictures, logos in differing sizes and backgrounds. When you go to upload an image, usually the social media template will tell you the optimal size. When working with a LinkedIn banner, for example, a message displays,

“ PNG, JPEG, or GIF; max size 2 MB. Image must be 646 x 220 pixels or larger.”

A pixel is picture element, or one of the small points on a graphic image. If you upload an image that is too small or of the wrong dimensions, it can be stretched, appear off-center or blurred. Even when the social media templates let you check a box to “resize” the image, the end result is often distorted, cut off or blurry. Logos and images are easily edited with available software and will look crisp and eye-catching when sized correctly. A content management firm can give your social media platform a polished, professional look by creating correctly sized, custom graphics for your social media accounts.

You haven’t written a blog in 3 months

You know that it is helpful to create original content and you started a blog a few months ago. You wrote your first blog and posted it. You keep thinking about the next great topic, but have yet to write your next blog and it’s been three months. You are unfamiliar with terms such as H1 and H2 headings, sometimes written as “Heading 1, Heading 2,” tags, or hashtags which can appear in your website content management system (CMS). So, chances are that even if you are posting your own blogs, you are not taking advantage of the different ways to optimize search for your content.

A content management firm can write your blogs based on topics you provide or ideas they generate themselves. They will agree an editorial calendar with you, so blogs and content are produced consistently You can read drafts, approve them and then the content management company will post the content for you and optimize it for search.

You don’t actually have a social media content strategy

Social media content is sometimes divided into what is referred to as the “Rule of Thirds.” One third of your content can be product and service related, so it can have a promotional element. One third of your content should try to establish a rapport with your target audience. You can write about local events in your community or just your thoughts, and this content may not necessarily be related to your product. One third of your social media content should pull from other sources or articles in your field and try to establish you or your company as an expert in the area of specialization.

Great content also demands a variety of inputs to keep it interesting. There should be slideshares, videos, hyperlinks to interesting articles and lots and lots of pictures. If you don’t have the time or inclination to focus on an individualized content management strategy using a variety of mediums, then it would be better to let a content management firm do it for you. A content management firm can offer your business a monthly plan which may include fresh content, posting of the content, blog writing and monthly metric reports. Simply put, good content demands time, originality and a lot of reading, so know when the time has come to hand the task over.

Do you need a vision for your social media strategy or someone to implement it? Contact Resourceful Business today, and we will help you design and execute an effective, engaging social media strategy. Contact us.