Jody Raines

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Social Media Tips: How Much Time Should I Spend on Social Media?

Clients who have accepted the fact that Twitter and Facebook andsocial media marketing, how much time for social media Linkedin are great for business, have asked me how much time they should devote to social media marketing.  It’s a valid question, and one that has more than one answer.

It depends on what your goals are and what you hope to achieve.  Keep in mind that Google has admitted that social media clout is one of the ingredients in their search engine ranking formula, and having your message tweeted by others can briefly have your website listed as number one on Google.

The Internet is a dynamic environment and the old days of optimizing a website and then leaving it for a year just don’t work any longer.  We no longer can say the Internet is changing daily or even hourly –  the content is changing every second as more and more people add to the information that is available online.

If you are not adding your business or brand information to the mix, then it’s tantamount to everyone taking a step forward, and you are standing in the same place.  Even though you didn’t move, you wound up behind everyone else!

So, the first step to determining how much time you should spend on social media marketing is to determine what your goals should be.  What do you hope to achieve using social media?  Are you using social media as a broadcast device?  If so, I can already tell you, it doesn’t matter how much time you spend, you are using it wrong!

One of the things I look at when I evaluate how my client is using social media marketing – and this is a great way to determine whether that so-called “expert” really knows what he or she is doing – is to see if there is a broadcast mentality to what they are sharing, or whether there is true engagement.  I have seen these ‘experts’ with the same message sent multiple times. That’s enough to recognize that they obviously do not understand how to use social media and therefore, I wouldn’t waste any money or time investing in having them help set up a campaign.

Automated programs also are a waste of time.  That’s the same as calling and hoping to get a live person, and then become frustrated with not being able to reach a person. They can actually cause more harm than good in a social media program, and any ‘expert’ who is advocating automating should be burned at the stake!

So, how do you manage your social media and how much time should you invest?

Just as organic optimization takes time, so does your social media program. If done correctly, it will stand the test of time.  Just like “black hat” SEO techniques can have a short upsurge then have dire consequences, so can these ‘quick win’ social media plans.

So, with that being said, here is my recipe for a general social media program:

1. Post a blog at least once a week. Twice a week if possible.

2. Link your blog to your Facebook business page and Twitter and Linkedin profiles.

3. On a daily basis, check into Twitter and send out Tweets for fifteen minutes.  You can break that into three five minute intervals during the day.  You’d be surprised how much useful information you can obtain in those five minutes.

4. Post a question or observation on Facebook on a daily basis.  Ask for input or feedback on a topical issue.  Encourage interaction.  This may take another ten minutes.

5. Daily, review your Linkedin messages and respond. This may take another 5 minutes.

So, all told, excluding the time you took to write your blog, your entire social media program may take thirty minutes a day.  Of course you can spend more time if you’d like.

There are tools that can make monitoring your social media much easier, and we will address these tools in a  future post.

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How much time do you take for your social media program? Where do you focus your social media efforts?  Have you seen an increase in sales based upon your social media efforts?

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10 Tips For Choosing The Best Domain Name For Your Website

Selecting a domain name

Social Media Marketing is a great tool for optimizing your web presence. It’s all about getting discovered.

Whats in a name?

With so many new startup companies in need of a website, I am often asked what makes a good domain name.  There is no right or wrong answer, however there are some considerations that help make a good decision when selecting the URL.

The trials and tribulations of choosing a domain name.

One of the first tasks to determine what your domain name should be is to name the company.  Sometimes this helps select the domain name.  Sometimes it just creates another variable that should be considered.

How important is the domain name for SEO?  

It’s very important and affects brand, memorability as well as impact the website’s ability to soar quickly in the search engines.

10 Tips (Considerations) For Choosing The Domain Name:

1. Use keywords for search engine optimization

It’s a great exercise to do keyword research before picking a domain.  Keyword research is more than just making a list of words you ‘think’ customers may use… it’s an exercise that should be done with a keyword tool.  One free tool that’s great is Googles keyword tool, and another is the Google wonder wheel. Both of these suggest alternatives, and the Google keyword tool also gives an idea how many monthly searches are performed for each word or phrase.

2. Make it easy 

Don’t be too clever or over-think your domain name. If it’s easy to be confused you can bet your customers will be.  Spell things correctly.

3. Dot com first choice

Although there are many other options, .com is still the number one choice for a domain.  If the .com is not available, second choice is .net.  You may want to also buy additional domains to protect your name, such as .info, .co, .me, .us, .biz.  Remember that com is typically for a commercial entity, and .org is typically for an organization.

4. Consider the alphabet 

If you start your company name or your domain with a ‘Z’, don’t expect to come up first in an alphabetical listing.   If you want to come up first, you may want to start with a number, which will come up before any of the alphabet.  Of course, it’s not asa easy for customers to understand.  An example of considering the alphabet is AAA. or creating a domain such as 1-A.com.

5. Avoid Copyright

Especially when it comes to slogans or using a phrase or name that may already be copyrighted, it’s best to avoid using one of these for a domain name.

6. Avoid number for words, slang

It may seem cool or cute to use a letter instead of a word, but it gets lost in translation when sharing your domain name with someone.  If you insist on using ‘2’ instead of ‘to’ and ‘4’ instead of ‘for’ you may want to buy the domain with the number spelled out and 301 it to your domain.

7. Identifies what you do

Don’t try to hide what you do with a clever name.  The easier it is for a customer to identify that you can serve his or her needs, the better your Internet investment will be.  Coming up with a cool name for your company, like (www.sunsweptgroup.com) aka SunSwept Group, does not help customers to find you.

8. Pros and cons of hyphens

Hyphens are a great way to get a domain name that has already been taken without the hyphens, and the irony is that it does help search engines figure out what the words are in your domain.  The con is that it’s difficult to convey that you have hyphens in your domain name.  The pro is SEO.  If you can buy both the hyphenated as well as the non-hyphenated name, that’s your best option.

9. Singular or plural

Again, since domain names are relatively inexpensive, I’d suggest buying both the singular as well as the plural version of your domain, just in case someone types it into the search engines incorrectly.  For the small investment, it’s a simple solution.  You can direct the less desired name to the more desired url so they both ‘get you there’!

10. Branding, memorable, unique

Whatever you decide to use for your domain name, it has to be something that you are proud of and that you feel will represent your company and brand the way you want it to be perceived.  Names that sounds like everyone else tend to fade into the background.  The old days of acronyms and using letters just doesn’t seem to work as well in today’s environment of search engine optimization and being found.

FREE Website analysisWhether you elect to use your company name or be creative and use a unique spelling, it’s important to do so understanding the pros and cons, and making an educated decision.

What were some of the concerns you had when creating your domain? If you ignored the advice above, what was your rationale?  Please share your thoughts and comments.

WebMarCom is an Internet strategy and Web Marketing Communications Agency based in South Jersey and Philadelphia.

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Social Media Marketing Tips: How To Optimize Your Blog

Social media marketing and website optimization are dependentBlogging social media upon adding content on an ongoing basis. Business blogging is a part of social media marketing where you can add dynamic keyword-rich content to a website.  Assuming that the blog is part of the website, the blog can be a forum to express ideas, philosophies and share information.

Understanding the power of a blog includes making the commitment to use the blog in a way that it adds value to the website.  Simply having a blog that is dormant does not add interest or value.

Many businesses make the mistake of having a blog, but then underutilize it.  Here are three key blogging best practices that can help power your blog and help to optimize it’s value to your Internet marketing program and your website:

1. Blog often.

If you have a blog and you aren’t adding to it, it’s not really a blog.  Blogs are meant to be living, breathing and dynamic content for your website.  If you haven’t yet made the commitment, you really should blog at least once a week.  Obviously if you can blog more, then you have more opportunities to connect with a potential customer.

2. Use keywords.

If you write for your blog without considering keywords in your content, you are missing a huge opportunity.  Determing which keywords are effective and then weaving them into your articles can help your blog be discovered in Google searches.  Using the Google keyword tool is a free way to evaluate keywords.  Another trick is to use Google Analytics to evaluate how people are finding your website in order to focus on those topics.

3. Don’t sell.

Blogs add the  most value to the website, when they complement the site, but are not sales oriented.  Don’t make the mistake of using your blog just to pitch your products.  Share information, thoughts, lists, ideas on topics that could potentially be of interest to your customers. By sharing information, you position yourself as an expert and a go-to source.

If you follow these best practices for blogging, be sure to stick to them. Like starting an exercise program or a diet, it’s only as effective as your commitment.

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SEO And Business Marketing – How To Optimize Your Website

Optimize website for search“How do I optimize my website for keywords and Google search?”

This is one of the most frequent questions I hear when I do public speaking on Internet marketing.

The falacy with optimizing for search is that “search” is not a customer.  While it’s great (and certainly an ego stroke) to rank high in the search engines for keyword phrases (that you think are important) the reality is that keyword searches are not necessarily synonymous with customers.

One of the biggest mistakes small businesses make with their websites is thinking that they can figure out what keywords their customers are going to use.  There are metrics that tell us what phrases and words are more popular than others… but this is not always the solution that we used to think it was.  Here’s a quick example.  We live in a area near Philadelphia, but really it’s South Jersey.  It can be referred to as the Delaware Valley which encompasses an area that could be construed to include the Philadelphia metro.  The reality is that customers don’t refer to themselves as living in the Delaware Valley, even though media does.  I had a customer who had a telecom business who insisted that was where their service area was.  It wasn’t until we started to divide the “Delaware Valley” into the smaller geographic areas, and referring to them as Montgomery County, Doylestown, Cherry Hill or Philly (versus Philadelphia) and using these phrases in our web content that we started to see results.  Zip codes are also important if you have a business that services a very distinct geography.

But optimizing for your customer is a different process than optimizing for search, although by doing the first, you will succeed at the second.

What do you need to know to optimize for your customer?  Well first, you need to know what your product is.  Not what your product is to you but what your product is for your customer.  A big mistake that many small business owners make it attempting to select their own keywords.  This is a mistake because you are referring to your products and what you do by the terminology you use, which may be inconsistent with what your customer calls it.

When describing what your offer is, it’s ok to use several ways to describe it.   There may be customers who refer to your product in different ways.  Where you don’t want to use different phrases or looks is when referring to your brand.  There is only one company that I know of that gets away with a ton of different treatments of its brand, and yet is incredibly recognizable, and that is Harley Davidson.  You see their logo played with in many different fonts, sizes and even colors.  If you had a marketing budget the size of Harley Davidson, you may want to play with your image that way, however, most companies pick a logo and brand identity, then reinforce it every where.  If you take out your business card, any brochures  you produce and put them in front of your computer screen, you logo should appear the same on all.

So, ask your customers – what is it that you are searching for when you look for what we sell.  You may be surprised.  Understanding what appeals to your current customers may not be what you thought you were selling.   I spoke with one gent who thought he sold office furniture… and he paid someone to optimize his website for terms related to office furniture.  That’s not what he was selling at all  – he sells office planning and he is experienced in putting together efficient space for a new office.  If you like the plan, he can spec and get excellent pricing on the office furniture, but he has no showroom and he is not competitive if you only want to buy a chair.

What is it you really do?  What is your competitive advantage. How can you stand out from the crowd and help your prospects find you?  That’s the real secret of search engine optimization. Once you understand why your customers want to work with you and do business with you, use their words to describe it, and you have a fairly strong foundation for building your SEO program.

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Small Business – Hard Lesson: What You Need To Know About SEO

Cost of SEOYour SEO expert may be killing your business.   Recently I’ve been receiving calls from friends and potential clients who have been referred to me for help or advice.  In most of these cases, I am seeing a similar situation.  There is a trend among small businesses to attempt to improve their business by hiring someone who has presented to them a rationale to “improve their SEO”.   Most small business owners are adept at understanding their offer and their customer.  They are not necessarily website experts, and when presented with a compelling marketing case to improve their website, they feel that they are embracing new technology.   Especially if the website has been static for a long time, the buzzwords and inexperience in social media may entice the small business owner to agree to pay an “SEO” to “get me to the top of Google”.

First rule of thumb – anyone who wants your business and who promised to “optimize” to “make you number one on Google” is someone to be wary of.   Not because having a high ranking on Google is not a good thing – it is a good thing, generally.  What I object to is the charletan who sells a bill of goods about optimizing your website without any regard to who your customer is and how your customer shops, and most importantly, what would be the best type of business for you?

I think it may be clearer if I share some examples.   Recently I was approached by a company that offers office furniture for business.  The gentleman who owns the company was concerned because he recently spent “a ton of money” with an SEO company to optimize his website.   His concern stems from the fact that before the optimization, he would recieve phone calls.  Now, his phone does not ring at all.

Whether the website is coming up at the “top” of a search is irrelevant if it does not result in improved business.

The gentleman learned a lesson the hard way.   The first mistake that was made was when the SEO (and I use that term loosely) told him that he had to completely re-do the website.

Second rule of thumb – if anyone comes in and tells you that they have to completely re-do your website, ask them why?  What are they seeing that makes it important to rip apart what is there to create something new?  If the website was built in an old technology,  or had un-indexible content, that is a valid reason to re-do the website.  However, care should be taken to preserve the SEO or any inbound links or references to the URLs of the existing site.  If the web designer does not give a clear reason, then beware!  Unfortunately, sometimes a web designer wants to re-design a website simply to bump up the amount that you will wind up paying over time.

Another reason you may wind up creating a new website is that you were with a service and no longer want to utilize the service.  Some franchised web companies will get business by suggesting that they specialize in a specific business market, for example, there is one that I can think of that supposedly specialized in day spas.  Another that I can think of specialized in real estate.  A third ostensibly is expert with legal websites.  Is there an advantage of going with an organization that has done a done of websites in your industry?  Yes and no.   The advantage is that they probably have done some research and know what keywords to pursue.  The disadvantage is that they have done some research and know what keywords to pursue – and they have done the same research and keywords for every other client in the same industry.  So, your website will not be unique, your keywords will be the same as everyone else’s, and you will wind up with a formula site and a high probability of being penalized by the search engines for duplicate content.

One scam I saw recently was a human resources firm that hired a company to “optimize” their website.  The optimization agency only charges if they obtain first place ranking on Google for keywords that the client suggests.   It’s not hard to see what could potentially be wrong with this picture.  I happend to have visibility into the analytics, and sure enough, there was a ton of traffic when the agency started up.  Ironically none of the traffic was from the trade area that the hr company draws from.   Will they be paying for this optimization, you bet!  But the price will not only be paying for placement, it will also be in lost business from true prospects who may find the company through organic search.

If there is a lesson to be learned, it’s that there are no shortcuts.  Or perhaps, there are shortcuts if you know the right way, and they consist of doing the right steps, and not trying to ‘scam’ the system.  Now that Hummingbird and symantic search have become the norm, it’s not as easly to stuff an article with keywords, or to pay for backlinks to your articles. That can and will be used against you.  Instead, the important steps to creating a well rounded, content rich website remain doing things the right way.

 

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