I’ve been reading lots lately about how small businesses can best use YouTube in their online marketing efforts and I’d like to share some useful things I’ve learned. First, statistics indicate that 4.3 billion videos are watched per month on YouTube. That’s a viewership that many marketers find too enticing to ignore. At the same time – and perhaps a major factor in YouTube’s growth – the cost and time required to produce a video is now well within reach of nearly every business.
Does this mean everyone needs to run out and create a video to jump on the bandwagon? Not necessarily. Like all forms of social media, it’s best to stop and think about what value you have to offer before jumping in, as content that’s strictly self-promotional isn’t likely to get much viewership.
So what do YouTube viewers like to watch? Topics that work best on YouTube tend to fall into one (or more) of 3 categories:
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Building links to your website is a critical step in getting it found by the right people. You might think links are important because people can click on them and come to your site. That is certainly true. But they can also be extremely valuable, even if nobody follows them. Because search engines use the number and quality of incoming links to determine your website’s importance in their ranking algorithm, link-building can be an important strategy in building your business revenue for the long term. As your site moves up the search ranks for search terms that are valuable to your business, you’ll enhance your ability to attract your most-desired visitors to your website.
Why & How Links Matter
A search engine’s ranking algorithm – the mysterious calculations used by Google, Yahoo & Bing to list websites in ranked order — is a dynamic beast, extremely complex and changing all the time. While some people attempt to manipulate or “trick” the search engines into boosting their website’s ranking, it has become increasingly difficult to do this because Google, Microsoft and Yahoo have gotten very skilled at detecting such manipulations and will nearly always catch up with you. The result of such behavior can be a “demotion” in rankings or, if serious enough, can be cause for de-listing a website altogether. A much better strategy is to respect what the search engines are trying to accomplish, and to feed them what they want to know. Here are the three primary questions a search engine is trying to answer when it indexes and ranks your website: (more…)
There are an estimated total of well over 100 million blogs on the Web and roughly 20,000 blogs are started every day. How can there be that many people with worthy information to add to our collective knowledge? And with that many people already contributing, you may ask yourself how you could possibly add any more value by starting yet another blog. And how on earth, you might ask, can you come up with new content (and spare time to write the content) on a regular basis to keep your blog fresh and interesting?
Those are good questions – and, frankly, the most common questions people ask when they think about starting their own blog. We work mostly with small-to-midsize business owners, and many of our clients are on the fence about whether they can create a blog following and whether creating a blog is really worth their time.
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We’ve been working with several small-to-midsize businesses and medical practices recently who want to attract more local visitors to their website. In other words, when someone searches for your keyword phrase, together with the local city or region, how can you make sure your website will appear to the right of the Google map in the search listing? Local Search is the answer.
In the middle years of this decade, I taught a Marketing course for a few years at the University of Washington Foster School of Business. Back then, we taught the classic principles of marketing.
First, the planning steps:
- Identify a market opportunity
- Define your target audience
- Define your unique selling proposition and position yourself vs. the competition
Then, the execution:
- Create your messaging
- Promote it through advertising, public relations, direct mail, and special events
- Collaborate with partners to reach customers and distribute product
A bit simplified, perhaps, but that was it, in a nutshell. (Pricing figured in the mix also, but I’m going to leave that aside for this discussion).
Today, it’s a whole new ballgame. Web-based commerce, pay-per-click advertising, search engine optimization, e-mail marketing, social media marketing, blogging – it appears that everything has changed. But has it, really?
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If you’ve spent any time in SEO circles you’ve probably heard the expression “Content is King.” It’s because search engines are all about content – their job is to “read” it, index it, and match it as closely as possible to the search intentions of their users. The higher the quality of content, the more effectively search engine spiders can bring searchers to their desired destination — and bring qualified visitors to your website.
But what does high-quality content mean in the world of SEO? Correct use of grammar? Valuable insights? Newsworthy copy? A clever turn-of-phrase? Lots of SEO keywords?
The answer is Yes to all these questions. Your first priority is to understand what your target audience will define as content quality, and you are probably the best judge of that. There are, however, some important SEO-focused quality measures that will help the search engines to rank your website higher. Perhaps not surprisingly, these are tips that most journalists use to make a story rank higher in the minds of their human readers too. At the end of the day, these are qualities that make content worth reading – by anyone.
- Clear, well-articulated, and focused content. Each page of your website (or contributed content that links to your website) should have a clear main point, expressed simply and clearly in the title, heading and first sentence. As any good journalist will tell you, don’t wait to tell readers what your page is about. Search engines would agree.
- Unique, original content. The more you can differentiate your website content from your competitors, the more you’ll stand out. Like a newspaper reporter looking for a unique angle, the search engines will ignore (or worse, penalize you) if you duplicate copy found elsewhere. Be clear on your unique selling proposition, and tell it in your own original way.
- Fresh, new content. Ask any reporter – news is hot! Fresh, frequently updated content lets a reader know your site is vibrant, active, and worthy of repeat visits. Search engines will read it as a sign of reliability and a signal to return to your site often. If you can add content regularly (with a blog, for example, or new pages), you can expand your range of content and enlarge the “funnel” of keywords that point visitors to your site.
- Action-focused content. Journalists know that action makes for a good story. Good marketers know that a “call-to-action” can turn a prospect into a lead and ultimately into a sale. It is also a good way to draw a website visitor deeper into your site, and convert them into a paying customer.
- 5. Keyword-rich content. The journalist analogy is a stretch here, as reporters don’t intentionally fill their stories with loaded words for calculated effect (or do they?). While human readers don’t fall for such tactics, search engines do, and they’ll rank you better for keywords that are prominently (but naturally – no stuffing!) featured on a page.
At Sound Web Solutions, we’ll help you develop high quality content geared to improve your search engine rankings. We can:
- Suggest SEO-friendly edits to your website that will help it rank better in the search engines
- Help you re-purpose existing materials (white papers, research, press releases) into fresh, new content that can bring new visitors and links to your site
- Have our copywriters create new, original, high-quality, keyword-rich content
- Train and mentor you to create your own blog or other SEO-focused content
Doesn’t it seem to you like Social Media Marketing – especially Facebook — has just exploded on the business scene recently? It sure does to me. A dizzying number of “free Webinars” are suddenly available offering tips and tricks. Numerous requests arrive in email asking me to “Fan” new pages. And clients and business associates are buzzing with excitement and curiosity about how to get involved.
My excitement for Facebook is around its role as community-builder. Every organization has a community of some kind – customers, partners, members, donors — and here’s a tool ideally suited to staying in regular touch with them in a non-intrusive, natural way. The big question you may be asking yourself is “how can I make it work for my business?” One answer is to learn from some of the early pioneers and try some of the approaches that have worked for them.
Here are some Facebook pages that have impressed me with their innovative and engaging efforts to serve their community and build a loyal following. This is not an exhaustive list of all they do on Facebook, but gives a sampling of creative ideas.
- Share information on sales & discounts from participating airlines
- Run contests periodically – and use their Facebook page for contest submissions
- Integrate with other marketing tactics. They post their contest drawing on YouTube, with a link back to Facebook, then invite Facebook fans to view it.
Black Hills and South Dakota, tourism sites. What they’re doing on Facebook:
- Communicate activities, events, conventions in the area – for both residents and visitors
- Encourage discussions so like-minded groups can connect. They host discussions on hiking, fly-fishing, mountain biking, favorite tourist destinations, etc.
- Share photos and videos, so fans can view tourist highlights and share their favorite pictures
Pandora, Internet radio. What they’re doing on Facebook:
- Invite questions and problems, turning their Discussion page into a technical support forum and Q&A resource
Volkswagon, car manufacturer. What they’re doing on Facebook:
- Invite fan interaction and story-telling about favorite Volkwagon models. Reinforces great brand loyalty.
Step2, Children’s large toys. What they’re doing on Facebook:
- Test out new product ideas and invite early feedback and suggestions from fans
- Informal surveys and market research
I just saw this NYTimes article with some good ideas for how small businesses are using Facebook for marketing and advertising, particularly businesses who target the Internet-savvy consumers that spend much of their free time on Facebook. If you’re just getting started, be sure to check out this Mashable article with tips on how to set up a winning Facebook Page for your company. You can also talk to us about our Sound Web Solutions Social Media Starter Kit for practical suggestions and support on how to market your company via Facebook, Twitter, and other social media channels.
Let me share with you an interesting question – devil’s advocate approach – I heard from a client recently. Aware, as most of us are today, that Twitter is the hot new thing, this client felt compelled to do something — but didn’t know what. Should one person in the company become their “twitter expert”? Should all employees be told to start tweeting? Should we host a training session of some kind? Then came the devil’s advocate — what if we don’t do it at all? Is that really going to harm us as a company, brand us as a Luddite, leave us hopelessly behind our competition?
