Online Marketing for Local Business
Posts tagged content
Get The Balance Right
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
Which is more important for content, the ability to communicate directly with visitors… or the search engine rankings it creates?
On the one extreme, imagine a website (or blog post, etc.) that is complete nonsense gibberish. Maybe envision something written in Chinese characters, assuming that’s a language you don’t understand. Now let’s say these random bits of code or symbols somehow rank quite well with the search engines, the very first organic result in fact.
What have you accomplished as a business or organization in this case?
Sure, loads of people may stumble upon your website, but once they get there what do you think will happen? Do you think they will “convert” to customers?
On the other end of the spectrum, imagine a block of written text that is so eloquent, so persuasive… that once a visitor reads it, they instantly want to become a customer, or donor, volunteer, etc.
However, because of the way it is written, it actually has zero SEO value. As such, it is invisible to the search engines, and no one who doesn’t already know your website exists will ever find it.
What has your business accomplished here? This example is marginally better than the first one; at least you could tell folks about your site!
Now yes, both scenarios are on the extremes, and unlikely. But they illustrate an important point. A typical business should NEVER just design or write solely for SEO, because the whole purpose of (most) sites is NOT to simply get visitors, but to have them DO something once they are there.
And the reverse is also true, you should never completely forget about SEO, either. This means following some basic guidelines in your web design and structure, and making sure to include the right keywords within your content, among other things.
Get the balance between SEO and readability/functionality correct, and you have a website that can help you accomplish your organization’s goals now, and in the future.
Do You Even Need a Website?? (Yes. But not as much as before…)
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
It was recently announced that many popular search engines, including industry leader Google, are beginning to use content from social media in their search results.
The newest service to be added to organic results is Facebook. As of now only business accounts (or “Fan Pages”) are being indexed, not regular user pages. For now, that is.
Often times these real-time results are prominently featured on the first page of results. This has the potential to change web marketing strategy, as these accounts begin to compete with well established (and far more $ $ expensive) traditional websites.
Which brings me to an article I recently read, one that questioned the need to even have a website anymore. The author was being provocative; no one is advocating abandonment of your website in 2010. But just the fact that the topic came up is interesting.
The concept of a new business or brand operating w/o a standard home page at all – taking advantage of social media accounts and using other tactics like email marketing – is a completely new one.
By adding the content produced by these accounts to organic search results, the engines are taking this idea and moving it one step closer to reality. And making it all the more important that your organization get “on board” and create your own accounts, too.
You Don't Need a Fortune to Compete Online
15 years
by admin
in Uncategorized
I was kinda disappointed by the ads on the Super Bowl this year. The game itself was at least competitive and fairly entertaining (for a hockey fan), but nothing really stood out as a “great” commercial. I’ve always been amazed that companies can spend so many millions of dollars on just 30 seconds of airtime. Yes, lots of people are watching. (Are they paying attention…or drinking & eating? Well, the TV is on at least.) But I questioned if there were better ways to spend the dough.
Most of the companies that buy ad time during the big game are huge consumer goods-type companies, the kind that can afford to do all sorts of “real” promotion during the year…and then tack on a big SB ad for good measure. For the other 99% of businesses, there are far more effective options for spending a million advertising dollars.
The great news is that you don’t need a huge advertising budget to spend on marketing or PR to share your ideas or your offerings anymore. The Internet has leveled the playing field for most. With great content, some well placed SEO dollars, a great viral video or some effective email list and/or social network building, small companies can compete with much larger ones.
Of course, writing the content takes both your time and expertise, or hiring a competent writer to help out. But many of the ways that content is shared online these days are completely free, like most social networks or blogging platforms.
And sure, email marketing isn’t free… but the marginal costs to reach additional people once a campaign has been created are almost nothing. So who wins or loses depends more on having a good online communications strategy, and less on having the biggest checkbook. For someone who likes rooting for the underdog, I like that.