WHAT IS MARKETING FOR A SMALL BUSINESS?
Marketing is essentially anything you do to promote your business, or make money. Whether it’s just gathering awareness and interest via PR and Social Media, Getting more salespeople out there to acquire more clients directly, or using any of the standard online strategies such as search engine optimization (SEO), Pay-Per-Click (PPC) Advertising, or growing and cultivating an E-Mail List, all of these are different forms of marketing. So, basically, marketing is anything you’re doing to get more awareness and attention for your business, get more clients and customers, and ultimately make more money.

HOW MUCH DOES MARKETING COST?
Knowing that, we have to establish what should be a good marketing budget. On average, you should expect to allocate anywhere from 1-5% of your total annual revenue to marketing efforts. When you’re first starting out, you’ll have to allocate obviously a lot more. If you’re largely successful, however, you can stick to this range and even the lower end of this range.

HOW DO YOU KNOW YOUR MARKETING IS WORKING?
How do you know sales aren’t just going up temporarily? You have to be able to track your efforts. Every single thing you do should have a way of tracking results, or don’t do it these days. For example, it’s better to do online advertising with Pay-Per-Click Ads than it is to do a magazine advertisement, because each view, click, and subsequent action can be tracked and analyzed.

Likewise, building an e-mail list through an e-mail marketing service like MailChimp, Constant Contact, or AWeber enables you to see who opened your e-mails, who clicked on the links, and which of your customers consume more of your information than others.

Putting Google Analytics on every page of your website will help you track your visitors, where they come from, how long they stay, what their actions are, and what page they leave from…just to name the basics of Google Analytics. Make sure you put the Google Analytics code on every single page of your website, including all pages throughout the entire shopping cart and check-out process if you sell products on your website, so you can see if there are any “drop off” points which need correcting.

Knowing what marketing is, and understanding how to track success, will help you fix what’s wrong in your marketing strategy and efforts, and help you become more efficient in your marketing expenditures. After all isn’t a dollar saved a dollar earned? Contact Us and we can help you create a specific strategy for your business, and get you going in the right direction of making more money and growing your small business.

We all want to rule Google and Bing, right? We all want to be in the Top 3 results for all of our desired KeyWords, right? Well, in order to do that, you’re going to know some essential basics about Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This post will give you a mile-high overview of SEO, and get you moving in the right direction. Think of this as a Top 10 Best Practices for how to begin to get those search engine rankings you (and all of your competitors) desire.

1. Write Great Content

If your pages contain great, relevant, useful content, search engines will be more likely to rank you higher for what you’re writing about. Visitors like fresh content, so they will visit your site more often. Content written both for search engine keywords and for humans to find interesting, then you’re going in the right direction.

2. Do Your Keyword Research

A KeyWord is basically anything you type into a search field on a search engine. Whether it’s literally just one word, or a string of words (KeyWord Phrase), it’s technically all still a “KeyWord.” When you want to rank “first in Google,” you want to rank first for the KeyWord most of your highly-interested targeted users will be using to search for your product and/or service. Don’t target a KeyWord just because it sounds right to you, or because it gets a lot of searches.

You want to target as specific as possible for Search Engine Optimization, because you want to be able to rank as high as possible as quickly as possible, and a realistically as possible. A shoe store in Houston will never beat out Zappos, Shoes.com or DSW, for example. However, you may be able to rank a lot easier for “Shoe Store in Houston” or “High Heel Store in Houston” for example.

Use tools such as Wordtracker and the AdWords Keyword Suggestion tool to find relevant niche keywords and estimate traffic based on research and not just guesses.

3. Use Your Keywords Wisely

Once you have a good list of KeyWords, deploy them sensibly throughout your site pages. To rank better for the KeyWords you are targeting, make sure they periodically and regularly appear in throughout the content of your pages. Use the KeyWords in the first and last paragraphs in the content of page. Strategically throughout the page content, but not stuffing throughout. Try the KeyWord Density ratio of about 2-3% of all content will contain the KeyWords you’re looking to rank for. Use KeyWords wisely, don’t stuff them all over the page, and make sure the KeyWords appear in strategic locations throughout your website.

4. Get Other Sites Linking To Yours

Most search engines rank sites higher if they’re linked to by other, well-respected sites. Writing good content is one of the best long-term strategies. The better the content, the more valuable the content, and therefore the more likely it is that another site will want to refer to yours as valuable to their readers and visitors.

A “link to this page” (or “share this”) function on each page of your site makes it easy for others to link to your content. Sharing your pages and posts on Social Networks doesn’t have a direct effect on your rankings, because of the way that the large Social Networks manage their links (search for DoFollow vs NoFollow for full explanation). Whether the site linking to your content directly passes through search ranking help to your site isn’t as important as getting as many links as possible, and spreading your content around to as many different places as possible. You want exposure and traffic. Over time, your rankings will rise the more exposure and traffic you get.

Get in touch with the site owner of the websites which rank in the Top 10 results for your desired KeyWord, and strike up a friendship. Don’t ask for links right away. Just compliment them on their awesomeness and nurture the relationship to eventually be in a possible to ask for a guest blog opportunity, or a link, depending on the situation as to what’s best for both parties.

NOTE: Do not take an article which is already on your website or blog and use that as a guest blog post. That will be seen as duplicate content by search engines and it will not be counted, at best. Yes, it’s more work, but the more original content that’s out there linking back to your site and content, the better rankings you’ll get over time.

5. Structure Your Site For SEO

A site map can really help here, as it lists all your site content on one, easy-to-use page. If you’re using a Content Management System like WordPress, then this is really easy. There are a number of free and pay plugins which can help you generate a Site Map automatically, and even give you links to submit it to Google and Bing to start the process of indexing your site and starting your rise. Make sure your website structure is developed to allow your KeyWords in the following areas of each of your website’s pages:

– The Title Tag
– H1 and H2 Tags
– Anchor Link Text
– Page URL (aka Permalink)
– Image ALT Text

6. Analyze Your Site

– It’s important to track your site’s performance to see if your efforts are paying off. Here are a few ways to use different metrics analysis tools. See which one/s you prefer:

– Google Webmaster Tools
– Google Analytics
– Alexa.com
– Bing Webmaster Tools

Pretty much all of these will give you useful information about how your site is faring in the search results. Obviously Google and Bing are the largest search engines, so sign-up for their Webmaster Tools areas to help get you on their radar in a more efficient manner than just waiting around and hoping everything will work itself out.

Also, install Google Analytics on every single page of your website and learn how to use every bit of it. Google is starting to use Analytics metrics more and more to determine relevancy, and knowing everything that’s going on with your site (traffic, referring sites, links, etc) will not only assist you with search engine rankings, but also with ensuring your website is delivering for you.

7. Keep Abreast of the Latest SEO News

Search engine algorithms change constantly. It pays to keep up to date with the latest changes. Subscribe to some of the biggest SEO Newsletters and blogs to keep up with the latest. Here are some sites, blogs, and newsletters which we have found to be helpful:

– SEO Moz
– Search Engine News
– Search Engine Land

8. Avoid Black Hat Techniques

SEO techniques and strategies come in 2 forms:

– White Hat techniques play by the rules of search engines, and aim to create high-quality, relevant content.
– Black Hat techniques try to “game” the search engines by using techniques such as keyword stuffing, back linking from “link farms,” etc.

When working on any search engine optimization strategies, make sure you’re always playing by the rules. Playing by the rules also means not just doing what Google and Bing recommend, but not over doing it, as well. If Google instructs you to do something for better SEO, and you go ahead and do that over and over and over again 50 times on each page, then you can bet that any possible search engine results you receive from that will eventually be removed with future algorithm updates. It’s always best to do what’s recommended, avoid what’s not recommended, and use sensible control when it comes to what’s recommended. If you play by the rules, and don’t over-do it, your rankings will be permanent and fruitful.

9. Watch Out For Duplicate Content

We touched on this above, but it’s important after the recent algorithm updates of the past couple years. Many factors can result in a search engine seeing 2 URL’s as duplicates of each other. Here are just a few of the most common culprits

– Articles and Content republished from other websites
– Print-friendly versions of pages
– Similar product info pages that contain unchanged content
– Displaying your site at multiple domains.

If you copy-paste the same Content from one place to another, the modern search engine will recognize this, and classify you as someone who’s trying to cheat the system. Whether the website which contains the original content, or the newer off-site posting of that content gets the negative hit depends on a few different factors. It’s important to know that when you control the Content distribution to external channels, make sure it’s all original Content everywhere and you’ll be OK.

10. Don’t Forget the Description and KeyWords Tags.

The description tag should be a useful, compelling summary of your page content. Don’t use the same description you use on your home page. Again, if you’re using WordPress for your website, then you can use any number of free or pay SEO plugins.

Most modern search engines don’t use the KeyWords tag like they used to (or at all), because the search engine algorithms are much more advanced to prevent cheating, so this is totally optional. There are some minor search engines which still use the KeyWords tag, so it’s not horrible to have that in your header, but these days is strictly optional.

However, the search engines will display your page when it ranks for what someone is searching for and will use the Description tag first. If there is no description tag, then the search engine will display the first couple lines of text it can read. The first two sentences of your blog post or page content might be a well-written lead-in, but not a very good description for usage on a search engine results page. Therefore, use a unique and well-written description for each page and you’ll get better click results from search engines when you do rank.

There you go! Yes, there’s a lot of information here, but also a lot of information we couldn’t get to. We do have a full Marketing Course you can sign-up for and learn many many more details and how to actually do all this great stuff, but this should get you started and familiar with the proper strategy for how to start to use the most effective SEO strategies to rank higher and higher in those Search Engine results pages!

1. No Clear Call-To-Action on Web Pages

The first step is what happens when someone comes to your Home Page. This is one of the biggest issues, and creates an incredibly high Bounce Rate (people come to your site and leave immediately without doing anything). High Bounce Rates = Bad Website. Most visitors will leave a site if they become confused or can’t easily find what they are looking for. Let’s fix this.

You’ll need a clear Call-To-Action (CTA) on every page, especially the Home Page. A Call-To-Action is a main element, picture, box, messaging, etc which instructs the visitor what you want them to do above all other options. Whether it’s a slider on the home page, or an email sign-up form, or your blog posts, you must have a clear and clean instruction for what you want the visitor to do now that they’re on your website. If you’re selling shoes, then put some pictures for shoes on the home page and a few links and pictures to purchase your shoes. Make it obvious and the main thing that sticks out on the page. It’s preferable to have two Calls-To-Action, but don’t make them both the same size and importance. There should be a main CTA, and a secondary one.

This goes for your interior pages, as well. Nowadays, with blogs and search engines pulling up the most relevant information for any and every search query, not every user will come to your site through your Home Page. This is important to know that you will need a main Call-To-Action on the interior pages as well. Maybe your Blog’s CTA is the blog article itself, but the secondary CTA is your e-mail sign-up form, for example.

2. Website Isn’t Properly Optimized for Search Engine Rankings

In today’s world of Search Engines dominating the world we live in, have a website that’s not properly optimized for maximum Search Engine rankings is a huge mistake. If you can’t be found, then you’ll either have to buy traffic to your website, or you won’t have any traffic at all, because you won’t exist in the eyes of the search world.

For a longer list of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Tips & Tricks, please read our article on that subject, but here’s a quick over view so you know what you’re looking for. You want to make sure you know which KeyWords you want to rank for, how much competition there is for those KeyWords, and also place those KeyWords throughout your pages, page titles, web page addresses, and in the ALT Tags of your images. Don’t over-do it. Just follow the best practices guidelines and you’ll be rising in the rankings in no time (if you constantly keep doing it, of course).

Also, make sure that you create an XML Site Map and submit that Site Map to Google and Bing through each of their Web Master Tools Accounts.

3. No Social Media integration

Much like Search Engines, Social Networks are also ubiquitous these days, and offer a great deal of visibility opportunity for your business. It’s very easy to put in a free WordPress plugin (if you’re using WordPress), which will automatically place Social Media sharing buttons at the end of every Blog post on your website. You can also enter in a line of code to allow visitors to Like your Facebook page or Follow you on Twitter without ever leaving your website! This is great functionality, and the combined possibility of allowing sharing and capturing social fans is immensely powerful.

Another great idea is to replace your default commenting area in your blog articles with a 3rd Party platform which can help encourage sharing. For example, Facebook Comments will allow the poster of the comment to allow that comment to be visible on their Facebook Profile and in their News Feed so their friends can see that they’ve commented on your Blog article. This increases the opportunity to connect with others without having to do anything (and for FREE, too).

4. Not Tracking/Analyzing results/progress

If you didn’t know how many visitors were coming to your site, how would you know if you had increased traffic? If you didn’t know where they were coming from, how would you know which off-site efforts were working? If you didn’t know what pages on your website your visitors were viewing, how long they were viewing each page, and which page they left on, then how would you be able to know how well your website is working, what’s working, and where you need improvement? You wouldn’t be able to fix anything.

Good news. Google Analytics does all that…and then some. The best part? It’s way more than most websites will ever need, and it’s all free! Install Google Analytics on every single page of your website, especially your shopping cart and all pages throughout the entire checkout process (if you sell online). Now, you’ll be able to see which pages get the most views, which pages people your site leave on, and even how much money you’re making! It’s truly one of the most helpful tools available on all of the Internet that will help your business.

5. Not Having Strong Lead Generation Element (aka E-Mail List Sign-Up)

When a visitor comes to your website, they are most likely a potential customer. They are on your website looking for something. Imagine you have a brick-and-mortar (aka “real life”) store front, and you could capture most of the personal contact information of everyone who walks in the store. Would that be helpful to you? You better believe it. Yet, many many websites don’t have a clear and inviting way for these visitors to sign-up for your email list. Instead, they make the visitor not only work to find the sign-up form, but don’t convince them that it’s a good move.

Instead of just having a “Sign Up for our Email List” form, incentivize them with giving them something for signing up. This also helps you know what kind of people are signing up for your list. Also, you’re making the sign-up form more obvious. Maybe give away an E-Book when they sign up. Something of value that they would want, and by the nature of your offer you’ll know what the person is looking for, because that offer was valuable enough to them to sign up.

Finally, telling them what they can get from signing up goes a long way to them actually signing up. For example, a travel website with the form reading, “Sign Up for our Weekly Travel Tips and Suggested Destinations” will get way way more sign-ups to their E-Mail List then just the plain, vague and boring request in the above paragraph.

E-Mail is one of the best forms of communication with your customers and potential customers. Reason being is because these days the user has to go through a double-opt-in process. hey fill out the form, and then have to click a link in their e-mail to confirm they want to be on your E-Mail List. The person who goes through that process really is interested in hearing what you have to say and doesn’t mind you telling them about it periodically. So, treat them with the respect they deserve as your best prospects and those who are ready to find out more about your company, products, and services.

There you have it. If you notice that you are making one or two of these mistakes, they are easy fixes. If you notice you are making all of these mistakes, then thank goodness you found out now before it’s too late! We offer a Marketing Course which is done online and will give you all kinds of immensely valuable information like the tips above. If you’re making more than one of these mistakes, you might be making mistakes in other areas of your business, too, which could be inhibiting you from attaining your desired business goals and success. Call us if you have more questions, or just comment below and let us know what you think! As always, thanks for sharing this and for your comments!

Many people have paid hundreds of dollars for webinars like this, but Circle Marketing and Broadcast Louder figured putting together this free 2-hour class would help Small Business owners kick off the new year on the right foot!

Click here to watch the webinar, but get a notepad ready because there’s a TON of information to help your business grow!

For those who want to move at their own pace, and prefer to have PDF’s instead of watch videos, please feel free to download the supplemental ebook by joining our email list below: