Excellent organic SEO is the Holy Grail of online marketing for businesses around the world. The top performing companies online understand this and spend millions of dollars optimizing every page, post, tweet, video, and back link to ensure they maintain their competitive advantage. The question is, how [...]]]>  

Excellent organic SEO is the Holy Grail of online marketing for businesses around the world. The top performing companies online understand this and spend millions of dollars optimizing every page, post, tweet, video, and back link to ensure they maintain their competitive advantage. The question is, how do you establish your business online and gain the competitive edge it takes to dominate your market?

Search engine knowledge is the first key to organic SEO success. Our friends at Google occasionally change or update their algorithm which affects the ranking of websites worldwide. Keeping up to date on changes within Google, Yahoo, Bing and others as well as taking the necessary steps to develop an organic SEO strategy and implement all the tactics can become a monumental task. Most businesses don’t have the knowledge, time, or man power to see organic SEO success and choose to hire an SEO professional to drive results.

That being said, here’s a few organic SEO strategies you should implement immediately.

1. Integrate a blog into your website – a blog that you update regularly with relevant content can be a tremendous help in improving your search results, engaging your target market, and establishing your company as a resource and authority in your industry.  Don’t think you have to post a certain number of times a week, just be consistent and provide content that is relevant and valuable to your audience. I always recommend having a couple subscription options to your blog including Feedburner and an email option. Google owns Feedburner so utilizing their RSS service is a good idea.

Tip: integrate keywords into your blog title and body. Keywords in titles are worth more to Google than those in the body. Don’t forget to use keywords in post tags and categories as well.

2. Have a strong, and active, social media presence – Google loves Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc and if you don’t have an active account with each you need to get one.  Signing up is quick and simple and there are even ways to connect accounts, including your blog, so you don’t have to update each account separately.  The key here is listening to your target audience so you know what they want and what they think of you. Twitter Search in particular is the perfect “fly on the wall” opportunity.  Facebook and LinkedIn are both opt-in systems so if used properly they can become your most targeted audience. Since Google’s acquisition of YouTube video has become more important to organic SEO. The same rules apply here, provide value and an opportunity for engagement. The most viewed videos tend to offer a side of entertainment as well, so don’t be afraid to show your sense of humor. When updating your networks always be thinking value and engagement. Don’t post just to post, be purposeful.

Tip: For social media management I recommend HootSuite and definitely check out Social Report for excellent social media monitoring and analytics.

3. Develop Back Links – Remember, links back to your site on other high-ranking sites will improve your page rank.  You can develop this marketing strategy in a number of ways – here’s a few.  (1) Publish an interesting, relevant, and regularly active blog and make sure people know about it.  The more people that link to it the better so be sure to share it on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, LinkedIn Groups, etc. (2) Find article directories, preferably ones your target market visits frequently, and submit your articles to be published and shared with the sites audience. I publish my articles on SocialMediaToday.com and other sites and have gained a considerable audience because of it. It can work for you too. (3) Read other peoples blogs and articles and post comments.  Most systems will ask for your web address so this is a great opportunity to share your wisdom, and link, with other audiences.  Who knows, if they like what you have to say they might become your audience.

Tactical Marketing Labs understands the need for collaborative and smart organic SEO that will interact efficiently with your social media goals.  We have worked with our clients and developed a package that we know delivers what small businesses need:  Organic search results, social media activity, a large audience and targeted traffic. Click here to check it out.

Too many small businesses don’t understand how to effectively use social media and therefore make the mistake of thinking it’s unnecessary.  These businesses are missing a tremendous amount of opportunity and keeping their business from reaching its full potential.  The truth is, social media can produce an excellent return and does for [...]]]>  

Too many small businesses don’t understand how to effectively use social media and therefore make the mistake of thinking it’s unnecessary.  These businesses are missing a tremendous amount of opportunity and keeping their business from reaching its full potential.  The truth is, social media can produce an excellent return and does for small businesses who are willing to learn how to use it and take advantage of the tools available.

Here are 5 Tips to Drive Social Media Success for your business:

1. Be Active and Relevant– Two of the biggest mistakes small businesses make when using social media are not being regularly active on their accounts and posting too many promotions or irrelevant info that their audience is not interested in reading.  We recommend doing a few things to focus your efforts and get better results.

• Establish Goals – Add 5000 Targeted Followers, Add 500 Likes, Secure Two New Clients via Social Media per month, etc…
• Establish Behavioral Commitments – Spend 20 minutes twice a day managing your accounts (we like HootSuite) and engaging in dialog with followers and those you follow.
• Create Persona’s – Having a clear picture of who your audience is and what they like, want, and need can be a huge help in determining the best content to share and what’s going to drive engagement.
• Measure Your Success – we use and recommend Social Report for social media tracking, monitoring and measurement.  It’s robust, affordable, and even has a 30 day free trial.

2. Grow Your Audience – We believe that it’s always beneficial to have a large targeted audience and there’s nothing wrong with actively and aggressively growing that audience.  The bigger your pool of targeted followers, likes, connections, etc the more potential exists for engagement and business success.

3. Offer Valuable Insight – When publishing content refer back to the persona’s you established.  Be sure to provide insights and information that is relevant to your audience. Always think about whom your speaking to and what they are going to find helpful.  Be sure to listen to their feedback as well.  This will help you refine your persona’s and become even more targeted and effective with you messaging.

4. Engage in Dialog – Remember, social media is a dialog NOT a monologue.  Your audience wants to get to know you.  They want to have a conversation with you.  They want to be heard and recognized. This is what builds value, trust, and loyal customers.  Do not let this process become overwhelming. It doesn’t have to be a full time commitment.  Start with 20 minutes twice per day and go from there.  The first step is always the hardest, but YOU CAN DO IT.

5. Hire an Expert – The bottom line is that many companies hire experts to handle much of their social media marketing initiatives so the company can focus on what they do best.  This can be for audience growth, content, or full social media management. That being said, rarely do we recommend that small businesses hire someone to do 100% of their social media management.  This is primarily because you know your business best and should have at least a minimum amount of direct engagement with your target audience.  Whether your company needs a little or a lot of help we recommend contacting a social media expert for consulting, services, or both to get the most out of your social media campaigns.

Tactical Marketing Labs understands the need for collaborative and smart social media marketing that will interact efficiently with your organic SEO goals.  We have worked with our clients and developed a package that we know delivers what most small businesses need:  Organic search results, social media activity, a large audience and targeted traffic. Click here to check it out.

Questions and comments are welcome below.

These are links I have seen over the last few days and perhaps a few words, perhaps even a sentence or two about each one and why I am or was [...]]]> As I discussed yesterday, this is a new feature on the Tactical Marketing Labs Blog editorial schedule.

These are links I have seen over the last few days and perhaps a few words, perhaps even a sentence or two about each one and why I am or was interested in the page/link.  I have put what the topic is about in hashtags at the front of each one.

• (#SEO, #Social Media) Anyone who has been involved with SEO knows that social media has search engine optimization implications.  This article talks about good ways to take advantage of SEO properties of your Twitter profile and activity.
  How To Find Hidden SEO Opportunities On Twitter (via Searchengineland.com)
• (#SEO) This is a great infographic on the twists and turns of SEO as Google maneuvers it’s algorithm and business practices.
  Google’s Collateral Damage(via Seobook)
• (#Analytics) Knowing how to analyze the data and traffic that comes to your site so you can see how your ROI is going.  This is a great article on looking at key things like micro-conversions and raw numbers for perspective is great.                          Three Amazing Web Data Analyses Techniques For Analysis Ninjas (via Occam’s Razor by Avinash Kaushik
• (#Tablet) The Blackberry Tablet is available  for pre-order today.  I am a HUGE Blackberry fan and can’t wait to check this out.  They are taking the pricing handbook from Apple and so the initial one is at $499.
  BlackBerry PlayBook Available for Pre-Order Today for $499 (via Mashable)
• (#Nerd Fun) Tired of getting scanned by the Google Streetview or showing up in Facebook tags – This mask is for you.
  New Artwork: Pixelhead (via Martin Backes site)

Thanks for reading and I look forward to sharing with you next week.

Brett is much more vocal on the blog and while I am a decades long blogger in a personal sense, the business version has come slowly.  Finding a voice in the business blog is a tough battle (can I get a Amen to that).  However, Blogging Your Business Voice

Brett is much more vocal on the blog and while I am a decades long blogger in a personal sense, the business version has come slowly.  Finding a voice in the business blog is a tough battle (can I get a Amen to that).  However, Tactical Marketing Labs is a success because Brett and I both bring our expertise to the table and our Ying and Yang is what boomerangs us consistently to the next plateau of excellence.  In other words we push each other.  Which brings me to Digital Trend via Links idea.

Digital Marketing Trends

I read (some would say scan) hundreds of RSS feeds of blogs per day.  On any average day, I have about 600-1000 articles that I look through.  Now I would be a big fat liar, if I said that all of these are business-oriented, but many are.  And as anyone who is the recipient of my e-mail habit will tell you, I like to share.  Usually it’s a link with a few words about what I like about it, other times it’s a post size rant about what I see.  I’ve been in the interactive world since 1995, and knowing what’s happening in the digital marketing, interactive, and search engine optimization landscapes and paying attention to trends is important to me and ultimately our clients.

Weekly Post Feature

Ultimately, my sharing habit has started to bubble up and I thought it would be interesting to our readers, our twitter followers and others to see some of the links and thoughts we are sharing around the Tactical Marketing Labs office about what is interesting and what is worth keeping an eye on.  I hope you enjoy this weekly feature that we are presenting and I hope you’ll bear with me as I present some more technical (some would say nerdy) aspects of our life here at the Labs.  This includes search engine optimization topics, strategy of the digital marketing variety, information architecture and even sharing of my WordPress love.   Since my topics tend to be less global, more technical and either wordy, quirky or quick, I usually won’t push them out via e-mail notice.   That said I hope you follow along and enjoy the conversation and I welcome feedback, comments and commentary.  First post should be out tomorrow bright and early and I’ll link it here once it’s posted.

Becoming a kick ass blogger is something many of us are trying to accomplish either personally, professionally, or both.  The problem is that millions of people and businesses now have blogs, [...]]]>

Becoming a kick ass blogger is something many of us are trying to accomplish either personally, professionally, or both.  The problem is that millions of people and businesses now have blogs, the good the bad and the ugly, and they are all competing with you for subscribers, comments, and overall attention. So the question is, what can you do to stand out from the crowd?

What should I write about?

Become your audience:  What I mean by this is simple.  Determine who your customer is, give him or her a name, and deliver them the content they are wanting to read.  If you typical customer is female, age 28-42, married with 1.2 kids, watches the Food Network and reality TV, and is generally interested in family activities then write about topics that interest that person.  Remember, not everything you write has to be directly tied to your product or service. Simply becoming a resource for your audience, developing trust, and keeping them coming back to your site is a benefit, both long term and short.

How do I get more comments?

1. Ask questions

2. Be Controversial

3. Leave part of the topic untouched

How can I get more people to find my blog?

1. Use the Google Keywords search tool to determine what keywords/phrases are most searched for your area of expertise.

2. Use those keywords in your page title, page URL, headers & body, and the description of the blog. This will help your SEO.

3. Use email marketing, both to your list and relevant rented lists. Offer these people something for joining such as a white-paper, eBook, free trial of a product, discounts, etc.

4. Publish your blogs on third party sites within your industry.  This will expose your company, blog, products & services to a much larger audience. This also helps you establish authoritative back-links to your site which greatly enhances your SEO.

Join our Blogger Community for more opportunities to become a Kick Ass Blogger and grow your business.

So what’s next for digital marketing?  Where is the market going?  These are extremely interesting questions for businesses trying to reach consumers, get their attention, and drive behavior.  (Tell us what you think)

If you’re paying attention there’s some interesting facts that will probably make you evaluate where you are, where you want to be, and if you’re moving in the right direction.

Facebook

• 1 in every 13 people on Earth are active Facebook users and half of them are logged in on any given day.

• 71% of  U.S. web users are on Facebook

• The 35+ demographic now represents more than 30% of the entire user database.

• Facebook Display Ads have a Cost Per Conversion of less than half of Google.

Mobile Marketing

• 48% of 18 to 34 year olds check Facebook right when they wake up. 28% check it on their smart phones before getting out of bed.

• Between 2006 and 2008 the average number of monthly text messages increased by 549% (65 to 357 according to the Nielsen Company) .  Current averages are near 700 text messages per month.

• 2 Weeks before Christmas 2010 smart phone sales were already double the total for Christmas 2009.

This surely isn’t the whole story.  Weigh in and share your comments, insight, and knowledge below.

What’s valuable to your business in 2011?  CLICK HERE to tell us.

In a world of thousands of marketing options and tens of thousands of companies offering their version of different solutions – we wanted to get your feedback and find out what’s [...]]]> Complete our short survey and you could win a FREE Kindle!  The winner will be randomly chosen from everyone who completes our survey.  Thanks.

In a world of thousands of marketing options and tens of thousands of companies offering their version of different solutions – we wanted to get your feedback and find out what’s really important to you and what you’re looking for in the future.

If you have any trouble scrolling to the bottom portion of the survey CLICK HERE to view & complete directly on the host site.

1. Recognize the changing landscape and adapt.

2. Die a slow and miserable death.

Most tend to lean towards #1.

Whether you’re a large corporate brand like Audi, IBM, or Sprint, a regional business, or a small [...]]]> As I hope you’re aware, marketing is changing and it’s time you considered your options.

1. Recognize the changing landscape and adapt.

2. Die a slow and miserable death.

Most tend to lean towards #1.

Whether you’re a large corporate brand like Audi, IBM, or Sprint, a regional business, or a small business trying to make it in a new economy – you need to recognize how marketing your business is changing and how you can leverage that change to improve your business.  That’s right, it doesn’t have to be a monumental feat and you don’t have to be a “web guru” to figure it out.  You simply have to be willing to learn and change.  So here we go:

Traditional Media is not dead, it’s changing.

Many self proclaimed thought leaders, social media moguls, and digital marketing experts have been pushing their agenda that traditional media, specifically print ads, are dead for some time now.  Although this may be the case down the road it is certainly not the case today.  The aging population (traditional media consumers) is far too big.  Traditional media is not dead, but evolving.

If you operate a business that invests in traditional media I would urge you to consider making some slight adjustments to your current strategy.  The following steps will help you get started down the yellow brick road.

1. Establish a strong online presence that includes a regularly updated website (a blog accomplishes this), twitter, facebook, and linkedin (primarily B2B).

2. Utilize tools like Hoot Suite to help you manage all your social networking profiles from one dashboard. Spend 20 min two times a day reviewing and responding to @Reply’s, DM’s, sharing articles, starting dialogues with interesting people, and tracking topics important to your business.

3. Begin integrating interactive media into your traditional marketing initiatives. Offer “Like Us on Facebook and receive a 20% discount on your next order” in your radio and TV ads, implement a QR code in your next print ad that directs customers to a promotional landing page or your Facebook page, etc…  Click here to check out this cool video from AXA about how they made one of their print ads interactive. Remember, this does not need to be as creative as AXA. You can simply encourage people to engage your business online and give them an incentive for doing so.

4. Research and engage in digital marketing workshops, seminars, tutorials, instructional videos, how-to’s, etc to learn the ropes and become more efficient and effective with your digital marketing.

The Magic

Every customer and potential customer you entice into liking you on Facebook, following you on Twitter, subscribing to your YouTube channel, or joining your email list is now a digital asset and most importantly a buyer that you no longer have to pay to advertise too.  Used correctly this one marketing strategy can help transform your business and move you and your profits into the digital age.

Please leave any comments or questions below.