While teaching a Facebook for Business class last week, I went around the room and asked why everyone was there.  I was amazed at the number of people (at least a third of the group) that were there because they didn’t have a website and thought Facebook would do the trick.

I immediately pulled out my soapbox and carefully climbed on top.  You’re trying to market online with no website?!?  In today’s connected world, it’s a snap to pop on your computer or smart phone and do a quick search for any business.  Without a website, how are you going to get found?  And assuming someone accidentally stumbles upon your Facebook page, just exactly how much information are they going to get to make their buying decision.   Plus, my totally un-scientific observations tells me that if someone doesn’t have a website, there’s a pretty good chance they don’t have a customized Facebook page either.

Short of suggesting a Facebook business page to friends (which recent changes to Facebook severely restricted), how are you going to drive traffic to your business page?  A “Follow Us On Facebook” link on your website can help drive traffic back to your FB page where you can begin an interactive dialog with your potential customers/clients.

Online marketing is like a big funnel.  At the top of the funnel is Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.  These are like the card tables in the grocery store on Saturday where you can get a taste of new food product.  If you like it, you will go find the product so you can have more.  When people read your 140 character bites and want more, where are they going to go?

Fresh and timely content that showcase your expertise is where you want them going.  And the source for that is your blog.  A blog should give a reader just the right portion for them to digest.  Like the story of the new country preacher on his first Sunday.  With all the preparations made, he’s standing at the door waiting to welcome everyone.  But to his dismay, only one old farmer shows up.  He asks the farmer what he should do and the farmer replies, “Well son.  If I only have one cow in the barn, I feed it.”  So the young preacher launches into his service complete with a 45 minute sermon and 2 alter calls.  As he is standing by the door after the service he asks the farmer what he thought, to which he replied, “Well, I would feed the one cow, but I wouldn’t give him the whole barn full.”  We are an impatient society.  We don’t want the whole barn full in your blog post, just a nice, digestable portion.

Your blog is the bridge to your call to action which should be your website.  (If your website doesn’t tell the browser what action to take, that’s the subject of another post.)

Whether your business is a brick and mortar business, home based business or internet business, having a website is a crucial component that adds legitimacy.  It’s the anchor point of your marketing program, where the efforts poured into the top of your funnel come rushing out.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz Online Marketing Solutions specialize in web site design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and text message marketing. Need to know how to better use social media — check out Social Media Lab, providing step-by-step instructional videos on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Blogging.

Tags: blog, facebook, linkedin, social media, twitter, web site

Your blog is written, it’s got the keywords in the right place and it’s posted for all to read. The final step is to spread the word. The purpose of your blog is to drive traffic — either to your web site, landing page or event. And the broader your readership, the more traffic you can expect.

To increase your blogosphere, you need to expose more readers to your content. Sharing your blog through social media is the best place to start. If you have a business Facebook page, you can have your blog automatically update your status. The same can be done on LinkedIn. Assuming you have dynamite content, it’s an easy step for your friends, likers or connections to share it with their friends.

But how do you expand beyond your sphere of connections? One of the easiest ways to do that is through social bookmarking sites, like Stumbleupon, Digg and Reddit. As of January 1, 2011, Stumbleupon generated more website traffic (referrals) than any other social media site, including Facebook. Social bookmarking sites are the equivalent to your favorites, only made public for all to see and share.

There are a number of social bookmarking sites, some general and some industry specific. The most popular general interest sites are Digg, Stumbleupon, Reddit, Diigo, Mixx and Fark but there are dozens more. To submit a site, you will need an account setup at each of these sites. When you are ready to submit your new blog post, you then login to each one and add the link.

But I’m all about time saving. If you have to go to each site, add the link, add an excerpt, then submit it, it’s going to take some time. Despair not, grasshopper. Simply add a plugin to your WordPress blog called ShareToAny. Once you activate the plugin, ShareToAny adds a button to the bottom of each blog post that will automatically connect you with all the above social bookmark sites, as well as Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and close to 100 other potential sites.

When I first discovered this technique, I closely monitored my web traffic to see if it did have an effect. Almost without exception, every time I submit a blog post, I see a significant spike in traffic to my web site as a result.

Now, you’ve learned some of the ninja master’s most guarded secrets. It’s time for you to go forth and make your way in the blogosphere.

Gary Wagnon, owner of 800biz.com Digital Marketing Solutions, specialize in helping small business owners maximize their traffic through web site design, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing and mobile text message marketing.

Tags: blog, search engine optimization, SEO, social media

Now we get into the really cool stuff only the advanced warriors know. It’s common knowledge that keywords in domain names are given high importance by the search engines.  But it’s not possible to have a separate site for every keyword phrase that applies to your business.

With a WordPress blog, you can do the next best thing.  Every blog post you create has a unique page name.  By default, that page name often looks something like, www.800biz.com/blog/?page=25 .  No search engine value there.  Take heart.  There is a simple fix and a stealthy super fix.

The simple fix first.  At the top of each post between the title box and the body box, you will see the Permalink.  Following that you will see an edit button.  Clicking the edit button will allow you to change the name of the post to the article title or any keyword phrase you want.  This will give the search engines a keyword phrase to work with.

Now for the stealthy super fix.  Under the setting tab on your dashboard, click on Permalinks.  This will open the permalinks settings page.  You will see several choices.  Choose the Custom Structure option.  In the blank box, enter the following:

/%category%/%postname%

Once you save the changes, immediately test your blog and see if your page displays.  Some servers may not be setup for this and may require a manual entry to the .htaccess file. (Your web designer or server should be able to help.  If your site does not work or you don’t have access to change this file, use the simple fix above.)

What this change does is make the url of each blog post the domain name plus the category and post title.  Assuming your category is also a keyword or keyword phrase, now you’ve doubled your SEO keyword exposure in the prime real estate of your domain url.

You’re almost there.  One more big secret to share before you become a black belt blogger, so stay tuned.  The secret to skyrocketing traffic is the final secret.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in online marketing solutions, including web design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and mobile text marketing.

Tags: blog, keywords, search engine optimization, wordpress

Now that you’re blogging (I assume you read my last blog), you’re no longer a white belt (novice). So now let’s give you the next secret techniques to earn your green belt (intermediate) – SEO Keywords in your blog.

My blog is done through WordPress, so that’s the platform I will be talking about. I know there are other blogging platforms but in my opinion, WordPress is far and away the most powerful in terms of functionality and overall SEO ability. So aside from just writing a blog and hoping for the best, what specifically should you be doing.

Let’s start with keyword usage. The same rules apply to a blog as to a website. If you have a major keyword phrase you want to get indexed, that phrase should have a web page devoted to it. In the case of your blog, don’t try to cram every possible keyword in your post. That only waters down the entire importance of every keyword phrase and, as a result, your post won’t get optimal results. If you have more keyword phrases, put them in separate posts.

Post tags and Categories. Every post should have a keyword rich category and keyword tags. In WordPress, those are added to the post on the right hand side. Once a category is created, all posts assigned to that category will appear in the blog menu (if you choose to display it.) While categories are permanently incorporated, post tags (the WordPress term for keywords) are not. You will need to add them to each post. One common question I get is how many keywords should I add here. If the keyword phrase isn’t mentioned in your blog title or body, it probably shouldn’t be one of the post tags. A good rule of thumb is no more than 5 post tags per post.

In my early martial art days, I couldn’t wait to get to the really cool stuff the brown and black belts got to do. Well, you’re almost there. The really cool stuff is coming up so keep practicing what you’ve learned so far.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz specializes in website design, search engine optimization, social media marketing and mobile text message marketing.

Tags: blog, keywords, search engine optimization, SEO, wordpress

“Ah Grasshopper, when you can snatch the pebble from my hand it will be time for you to leave.” Okay, I’m an old Kung Fu fan but the master’s comment still holds true. When you learn to master a few basic secrets, it will be time for your business to soar.

So, Grasshopper, are you ready to get started? Secret Number 1 – You must learn to blog. Now before you get that dear in the headlights look, hang on. Like any good master, I’m going to impart the knowledge you need to master this needed skill.

I can almost always predict the reaction when I tell clients they need to start a blog. Their shoulders sag, they expel a huge sigh and look like they just got punched in the stomach. The hardest thing for most business owners is writing about their business. We can talk about our businesses in person, but when it comes to putting it down on paper, that’s a different story. Maybe it’s insecurity in our writing style, maybe it’s the time it takes to peck it out on the keyboard. But fear not. Help is here.

Let’s address the easiest one first – slow typing skills. Even though I’m pretty proficient on the keyboard, my best writing is done as I speak. So I bought Dragon Speak software and with my headset microphone, I talk, it types. It takes a little training but the more you use it the better it gets. It was the best $40 I’ve spent.

With that excuse down, let’s tackle writing insecurity. The beauty of a blog is your high school English teacher isn’t going to be grading it. If you can “fool” most of the people most of the time verbally, you’re in luck. A blog should be in your voice. Let your personality show through. People do business with people they know, like and trust. If your blog reflects who you are, your readers will get to “know” you. Besides, if your blog is a boring lecture, your readers will only come back when they have incurable insomnia.

Now for the serious decisions. What direction do you take your blog? Do you go serious or humorous? Witty and sarcastic or reassuring and calming? Or maybe controversial? A couple of notes on controversial. If you choose to go down the controversy road, be prepared for responses. A controversial post will frequently generate lots of comments. While that is exactly what you want, engagement from your readers, you also need to be thick-skinned enough to handle it. You will also want to respond to every comment. Just don’t be argumentative. Acknowledge the commentor’s points and either defend your position, recant it or just thank them and let it go.

One last hidden secret Grasshopper. What do you talk about? Do you read newsletters, trade journals or other publications about what’s happening in your industry? (If you answer “No” we need to go back to Grasshopper kindergarten. You’re probably way behind the times and your competitors are more than likely taking your lunch money!!)

The information you read is loaded with trends, techniques or knowledge your customers would find valuable. All you need to do is take that information, put your spin on it and there’s your blog post. Sight the article source and wrap your take around it. “Just read this article about the new 2011 widgets. Their going to make your life so much easier because…” Or the article may trigger something you want to let your customers or clients know. Don’t hesitate to dip into this limitless well of information.

So now you’re ready to start practicing. Remember Cain was in the Shaolin Temple many years before he could grab the pebble. But feel free to test your skills when you feel ready.

Need help with how to write your content?    Creating a Buzz with Word Of Mouth Advertising is a 64 page ebook loaded with ideas, tips and techniques.

Tags: blog, search engine optimization, SEO, writing copy

For the last 5 or more years, I couldn’t pick up a newsletter or ezine without finding an article about search engine optimization.  That is, until now.

Ten years ago, we focused on adding meta tags to our websites to get them ranked.   Five years ago, it was about linking strategies.  Then content became king.  And with each change, SEO specialists like myself adapted.  So how to you drive traffic to your site today?

The evolution of search today has taken on a real time emphasis.  Looking for the news? Today the news finds you.   Of course, you want the latest information on whatever you are searching for.  Nothing is more frustrating than going to a website and finding information from 2006.  Even if it’s still pertinent, chances are you will go on to a more current site.

Real search or live search focuses on delivering the most recent information.  And that information is frequently not from a website.  The most recent information is more likely a blog post or even a Twitter tweet.  Yes, I said a Twitter tweet.  Here’s a good example:

A Google search for “Iceland Volcano” resulted in a section for Latest News – that contains a live feed changing every few seconds.  The listing below shows results from just minutes before.

Twitter Results in Google

Directly below the Latest News is a section for Video results that displays YouTube videos of the Iceland Volcano.  What every happened to the Google we all knew that took 90 days to get your site found?

Video Results - YouTube

So should you abandon your website for a blog, Twitter account and YouTube channel?  Not yet.  I look at the social media like a big funnel.  Twitter, Facebook and YouTube should be funneling people to your blog and your blog should be funneling people to your website, where browsers can find out details about you and your business and hopefully take action (but that’s another topic).

Another reason you can’t abandon search engine optimization (SEO) and your website is the permanency of social media.  You might be ranking well with your current article, post, tweet or video, but as more recent media are found, yours will either drop in ranking or disappear all together.  So you website is the anchor. A well designed, search engine optimized website should remain fairly stable (even in competitive keywords.)  For example, search for “Tucson Interior Design” in Google.  Of the top 4 results, 3 of the sites are ones that were optimized by 800biz.com several years ago.  With little or no changes, these sites have maintained their top ranking consistently.

So for now, SEO is still alive and kicking.  But today, you there are more pieces of the online marketing puzzle to put together.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, hosting, search engine optimization and social media marketing for small and medium businesses.

Tags: 800biz, blog, live search, real time search, search engine optimization, SEO, twitter, video, website design, youtube

One of the biggest road blocks facing small businesses when addressing social media is the question of return on investment. With so little time devote to what’s crying out to be done, adding something else or something new like social media can feel like a real burden. Sometimes the only way to rationalize and prioritize something new is to understand the benefits in relation to everything else your doing and take a new view based on that understanding.

So much of what’s written on social media amounts to lists of things you should do, get on twitter, blog, create a Facebook fan page, and not enough on why you might consider doing it. While all those tactics may indeed be wise, I would like suggest a number of ways to use those actions to do a better or more efficient job doing things you’re already (or should be) doing.

Start to think in terms of doing more with less effort, not simply doing more. If I can let small business owners get a glimpse of social media through this lens, they might just decide to go a little deeper. Here are five ways to look at it.

1) Follow up with prospects

I love using social media tools as a way to follow-up with prospects you might meet out there in the real world. So you go to a Chamber event and meet someone that has asked you to follow-up. Traditionally, you might send an email a week later or call them up and leave a voice mail. What if instead you found them on LinkedIn, asked to be connected and then shared an information rich article that contained tips about the very thing you chatted about at the Chamber mixer. Then you offered to show them how to create a custom RSS feed to get tons of information about their industry and their competitors. Do you think that next meeting might get started a little quicker towards your objectives? I sure do.

2) Stay top of mind with customers

Once someone becomes a customer it’s easy to ignore them, assuming they will call next time they need something or, worse yet, assuming they understand the full depth and breadth of your offerings and will chime in when they have other needs. Staying in front of your customers and continuing to educate and upsell them is a key ingredient to building marketing momentum and few businesses do it well.

This is an area where a host of social media tools can excel. A blog is a great place to put out a steady stream of useful information and success stories. Encouraging your customers to subscribe and comment can lead to further engagement. Recording video stories from customers and uploading them to YouTube to embed on your site can create great marketing content and remind your customer why they do business with you. Facebook Fan pages can be used as a way to implement a client community and offer education and networking opportunities online.

3) Keep up on your industry

Keeping up with what’s happening in any industry is a task that is essential these days. With unparalleled access to information many clients can learn as much or more about the products and solutions offered by a company as those charged with suggesting those products and solutions. You better keep up or you risk becoming irrelevant. Of course I could extend this to keeping up with what your customers, competitors, and key industry journalists are doing as well.

Here again, new monitoring services and tools steeped in social media and real time reporting make this an easier task. Subscribing to blogs written by industry leaders, competitors and journalists and viewing new content by way of a tool such as Google Reader allows you to scan the day’s content in one place. Setting up Google Alerts and custom Twitter Searches (see more about how to do this) or checking out paid monitoring services such as Radian6 or Trackur allows you to receive daily email reports on the important mentions of industry terms and people so you are up to the minute in the know. (Of course, once you do this you can teach your customers how to do it and make yourself even more valuable to them – no matter what you sell.)

4) Provide a better customer experience

It’s probably impossible to provide too much customer service, too much of a great experience, but you can go nuts trying.

Using the new breed of online tools you can plug some of the gaps you might have in providing customer service and, combined with your offline touches, create an experience that no competitor can match.

While some might not lump this tool into social media, I certainly think any tool that allows you to collaborate with and serve your customers qualifies. Using an online project management tool such as Central Desktop allows you to create an entire customer education, orientation, and handbook kind of training experience one time and then roll it out to each new customer in a high tech client portal kind of way. This approach can easily set you apart from anyone else in your industry and provide the kind of experience that gets customers talking.

5) Network with potential partners

Building a strong network of strategic marketing partners is probably the best defense against any kind of economic downturn. One of the surest ways to attract potential partners is to build relationships through networking. Of course you know that, but you might not be viewing this kind of networking as a social media function.

If you identify a potential strategic partner, find out if they have a blog and start reading and commenting. Few things will get you noticed faster than smart, genuine blog comments. Once you establish this relationship it might make sense to offer a guest blog post. If your use a CRM tool (and you should) you’ve probably noticed that most are moving to add social media information to contact records, add your potential partners social media information and you will learn what’s important to them pretty quickly.

If you know how to set up a blog already, offer to create a blog of network partners so each of you can write about your area of expertise and create some great local SEO for the group.

So, you see, you don’t have to bite into the entire social media pie all at once. Find a tool, a technique, a tactic that makes your life easier today and provides more value for partners, prospects and customers and you’ll be on the path to getting some real ROI on your social media investment.

What social media tactics have you discovered that allow you to do more of something you’re already doing?

Article by John Jantsch on 03/16/2010 – Reprinted from Duct Tape Marketing

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, hosting, search engine optimization and social media marketing for small and medium businesses.

Tags: blog, facebook, linkedin, search engine optimization, social media, Social Media Marketing, twitter, youtube

I am supposed to do WHAT?

When presenting my clients with a marketing plan to go along with their website, one of the first elements I mention is blogging. The reaction I get range from a deer in the headlights to a stifled scream and lots of hair pulling.

The first group has heard the word blog, but as far as they know, it’s a big log. For those that know what a blog is, the thought of writing something conjures up visions of their high school English teacher, complete with ruler in hand.

For those that don’t know, a blog (short for Web Log) is a type of website. The advantages of a blog are they can be created and updated in plain text by an individual, without using any html or other coding and without the need for a web designer. Another advantage of a blog is it can be used with RSS (Real Simple Syndication) feeds. Simply stated, an RSS feed can take a blog post and make it easily readable on many websites and news pages. Readers can even subscribe and receive notice every time a blog is posted.

So now you know what it is, the biggest question is why should I care? I’m not an author and everyone knows what my business does. Maybe the first is true, but does everyone really know what you do. “I’m a pool cleaner, everyone know I clean pools.” Oh really. Well let’s see. Do you repair pool filters? Do you clean pool filters? Do you clean hot tubs? Do you monitor chemical levels? Do you supply the chemicals? Are you getting the picture now? If you don’t tell prospective customers exactly what you do, why should they pick you over the other 50 companies out there?

Now let’s take the pool cleaner a step further. Do you customers ask you any questions? Is there any information they would like to know? How about tips on how to use less chemicals? What about pool safety techniques? Maybe water exercises they can do or even tax credits available for solar water heating. Be creative. You know your business, don’t be afraid to tell people about it.

One more huge Blog benefit – have your blog post appear on your web site home page. For all my clients that blog regularly, I add their blog feed to their home page. While there are a couple of ways to do that, the method I use is readable by the search engines. If search engine ranking is important, your blog can help. Search engines love sites that change regularly. By feeding the blog to the home page, every time a new blog is posted, the search engines see it as a change to the site and come back more frequently. The ultimate result is an increase in search engine ranking.

So don’t fear the blog. A blog is your friend. Embrace the blog.

Gary Wagnon and 800biz.com specialize in website design, search engine optimization, search engine marketing and social media marketing. For more information, visit our websites – www.800biz.com and www.localadlink101.com .

Tags: blog, search engine marketing, search engine optimization