Modern Imprint: SEO, Social Media Marketing

Saturday, October 20, 2018

SEO Is A Must For Small Businesses: Here's How To Get Started

You are starting a business and have a checklist of the things you need to get your business going. You have the idea for a product or service -- check. You thought of a name -- check. You created a corporation -- check. You raised some capital to get started -- check. You built a website -- check. Bam! You’re in business -- check.

But wait -- the only thing missing from this equation is your customers. You can’t be in business until you have customers. That’s a vital component. The only way you’re making money is if customers are at your storefront or, these days, on your website looking to purchase what you’re selling.

Some entrepreneurs may think that once they create a website, they’re done with that task. Creating the website is a fundamental first step to getting customers and an important element of any company’s marketing program, but there’s more to it.

First and foremost, your website should be built with a singular purpose, and that is to draw customers to your business. According to the results from an online survey conducted by Fractl and MOZ, which asked more than 1,000 people about their engagement and opinions of advertising and marketing tactics, products seen in search, customer reviews and online articles are more likely to have a positive influence on customers’ buying decisions. These techniques are all inbound marketing strategies that drive traffic to your website.

Social Media Marketing Tips

4 tips for a professional social media presence

Bad manners are everywhere—and these days it seems they're most often on display on social media.

More than the mean fake news, election tampering, newsjacking and all the other ways companies, countries, and politicians try to manipulate online, there’s also bad behavior exhibited by friends and connections.

Sure, there’s a time for photos of you enjoying a drink with friends, or a photo of the meal you just cooked, or for that gym check-in. There may even be a time to post political messages, 75 photos of your vacation, Bible verses—even information about the latest Botox special. However, that time should not be every day.

Don’t be “that” person. Consider the following tips before you post:

1. Don’t over-share.

Though you are sharing with your friends, no one wants to know the minute details of your life. Before you post something, ask yourself whether you would talk about the content of your post at a crowded cocktail party.

2. Treat LinkedIn connections carefully.

I recently received this LinkedIn connection request: “I see that your company is hiring. Let’s connect so we can talk about how I can fill this role.” I have no idea who this person is, so why would I connect only to help him get a job?

Treat invitations to connect on LinkedIn like introductions at a networking event. You wouldn’t approach a stranger at an event and open with, “Can you help me get a job at your company.” So, don’t do it on LinkedIn.

3. Have a conversation.

Have you ever worked with someone who refuses to pick up the phone, insisting that everything can be solved through email?

We all know that misunderstandings occur with electronic communication. It’s difficult to convey intent and tone through chat or email. Some situations call for human-to-human interaction, even if it can’t be face to face.

When you can, opt for a phone call. Have an actual conversation, and clear up the situation with a 10-minute discussion instead of sending 10 emails.

Saturday, October 13, 2018

Video Marketing | Secrets and Insights

18 Must-See Video Marketing Secrets & Insights

Video makes everything real and personal.

Getting specific, here’s how video can make a difference in social and beyond. Videos help to:

Humanize your brand.
Educate the buyer.
Simplify the complex.
Evoke emotion and tell a story.

Videos can be a brand’s chance to move the process from one stage to the next. Whether it’s going from a nobody to a somebody or uneducated to educated or from a firm “no” to a warm “maybe” to a solid “yes.”

Social Media Marketing Strategy

How to Ace Social Media Marketing with Limited Resources

Social Media marketing becomes more difficult if you are on a shoestring budget. But if you are thinking about it – you are on the right track. Let’s find out how you can optimize and effectively utilize your limited resources for an effective social media marketing strategy.

Survey Before You Start

You have to be economical, which means you cannot splurge to experiment widely and see what works. So, start small. Conduct a simple survey to understand who your potential customers are, where they are spending most of their time, and what kind of content they like to engage with.

You cannot target everyone, but narrowing down your options will help you use your resources more concretely and effectively.

SEO Tips | Content Marketing

7 Tips to Optimize Content for Search Engines

Search engine optimization hinges on content relevance. No relevance means no rankings and no revenue from natural search. Follow these seven SEO tips to ensure that your site is optimized for the most valuable set of keywords to drive natural search performance.

7 Tips to Optimize Content

Research keyword themes. Keyword research-powered knowledge of searchers’ desires should guide your natural search strategy, as well as inform the content strategy for the entire site. Use keyword research to analyze where there might be gaps in your site that need to be filled with fresh content. As you’re analyzing, assign intent to keyword themes — purchase, information, or pure navigational intent — to ensure that the right content is created to fulfill the desire implied by each theme.

Make sure that your keyword research is refreshed regularly — not less than annually, quarterly is best.

Remove self-competition. Map keyword themes to specific pages to ensure that as many relevant keywords as possible have a place on your site. This removes the natural tendency to try to optimize every page for a similar set of high-demand keywords.

Keyword mapping is especially beneficial on a site with a distributed SEO model, in which multiple departments manage their own optimization. Try to organize keyword mapping centrally so the departments aren’t battling for rankings on pages that are only semi-relevant for a high-demand theme.

Optimize editorial processes. Content optimization becomes much easier if SEO is incorporated before the content is created. Include SEO in editorial meetings to share keyword research that can generate new ideas for the content calendar, as well as guide the individual themes of content pieces.

The intent is to participate, not to dictate. Editorial creativity is critical to developing content that people want to engage with. So-called “SEO content” — text that is written solely to target keywords — is painful to read, doesn’t result in engagement, and fails to drive SEO performance.

SEO For Business 2019

Why SEO is critical for your business in 2019

SEO, the acronym for search engine optimization, is one of the most commonly used terms when it comes to businesses and the steps of creating an online presence. By definition search engine optimization is described as the process of building up the number of guests to a single website, by ensuring that the site appears high on the list of results returned by a search engine such as Google, Yahoo, or Bing.

Therefore, SEO is critical for a company’s bottom line as you can not generate revenue if your website does not have visibility. In order to take your business to the next level, SEO is an essential step in online marketing. If you are a growing company, here are four reasons why SEO is critical for your business no matter the size.

Primary Source of Website Traffic

SEO is critical to driving potential customers to your website. SEO is comparable to how freestanding stores in a mall pay extra to lease stores in highly foot-trafficked areas. Search engine searches are a primary source of “foot traffic” for a website.