I was recently interviewed by Greg Levine at The Business Catalyst radio show about topics related to starting EPR Creations, website development and social media. You can listen to the entire interview below or click the link to download the interview:
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Download Interview Here as MP3
2500 small businesses were recently asked the following question:
“If you had to put all your marketing time and budget into only one channel, what would it be?”
Guess what the answer was?
SEO. And SEO won by quite a majority.
The survey was initiated by MerchantCircle/Reply.com and the available choices for the question were as follows (also including % of votes):
What I find so interesting about this list is that SEO beat Social Media by twice as much. Also, traditional media (billboards, newspaper ads, tv ads) still ranks second for these small businesses.
This shows the power of a high Google ranking when a business is starting to get off the ground. I think back to the small businesses where I have created a web presence, and SEO definitely had the biggest impact on sales and notice about the product or service.
I started EPR Creations a little over 3 years ago and so much has changed in that time. It used to be that you could do a little bit of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) for your website and get high rankings immediately. Google would consider a few items to determine your ranking. Now, there are 200+ features that are considered when ranking a website in the search engines.
Most large companies have on-site webmasters. These are the guys who run the website. Most big companies also have their own social media departments to control Facebook, Twitter and other platforms. But what about the small- and medium-sized businesses?
My prediction is that small- and medium-sized businesses will begin hiring webmasters, only the title won’t be webmaster. It will be a position that will encompass much more than a traditional webmaster. I think the title of the position will be more along the lines of an “Internet Presence Manager.” This will include big ticket items like the website, SEO, social media, and online advertising. However, the Internet Presence Manager will also be in charge tasks like these:
Additionally, I see this Internet Presence Manager being deeply involved in the marketing strategy of the company. This manager will be required at all marketing and company strategy meetings. All major company announcements, updates, or mea culpa’s need to be run through the Internet Presence Manager for the most effective presentation of the content.
This job position will not only be imperative for companies, it will also be required for major organizations and major public officials. Also, boutique hotels and single-location restaurants will also be highly interested in the online reputation management part of this job.
My advice to those seeking a job in this arena is to become knowledgeable about the tasks listed above. Designing and developing websites is not enough. At your core, you are a marketer and you live in the world where advertising now takes place. Practice communicating about online strategy and become familiar with case studies of how companies have failed. Even brilliant companies like Google and Netflix have made big blunders in product or pricing launches.
The days of the Yellow Pages and TV advertising are over. A single negative tweet or review can have tragic results for a company. These negative items don’t happen over the period of weeks or months. They don’t allow for extended thinking time on how to reply and maintain clients. These things happen in real time. The lack of a real time response or overall strategy signals arrogance or aloofness, neither of which will help in a negative situation. As companies, organizations and major public personalities realize this, they will take the position of the Internet Presence Manager seriously. I would not be surprised to see this position morph into a C-level position at some of the major companies. A Chief Internet Presence Officer (CIPO).
Congratulations. You’ve set up your Twitter account for your company. Now what? What is the best use of the next 5 minutes of your time?
Minute 1 – Fill in your basic information and get your company logo in there in place of of the Twitter egg.
Minute 2 – Search for other companies and friends who would be good contacts for your business. Follow them.
Minute 3 – Look at the list of followers for your competitors. These Tweeters are obviously interested in your business offering. Send Follow requests to your competitors followers.
Minute 4 – Search for important terms related to your business and see how other Twitter users are hash-tagging them. Hash tagging is where there is a # before a word. By doing that, the user ensures that his or her tweet will come up for searches for that word.
Minute 5 – Start tweeting and make good use of hashtags for terms relevant to your business. If someone retweets one of your tweets, thank that person.
And finally, as in other forms of content presentation, add value. Don’t get on your company Twitter account to describe mundane tasks. Add value to your follows. Let them know how your product can improve their lives. Offer discounts for the next 5 people who purchase your product when they show you the tweet.
As my entrepreneurship professor recently said, Search Engine Optimization (SEO) should be the major focus of a website developer, as long as the year is 2005. SEO is the process of optimizing your website through keyword research, competitive research, keyword strategy, and then deploying this strategy through Meta tags and website content. It also consists of obtaining links to your site from people who recognize your worth.
In 2005, SEO was important. It still is, and being #1 on Google for a particular word or phrase is guaranteed website traffic. But SEO is no longer enough. Thousands of pages of websites are added to the Internet every day. It is becoming more and more difficult to get high placement on Google just using SEO techniques.
The major pitfall of SEO is that even if you get high ranking for a certain product, and people come to your website because you are #1 on Google, why should they trust you in making a purchase on your site?
This is where online marketing and social media tools come into play. When I speak of online marketing, I am not just referring to the bland Google Ads or flashy banner ads, I am more referring to the utilization of social networking tools and blogging tools.
SEO may get you high placement in the search engines, but it does not build trust.
Social networking tools and blogs have the ability to build trust. Blogs in particular have the ability to portray an expertise in a given field. For my website clients, if I feel their particular business will not rank high in Google due to competition or low search for that niche, I recommend another approach. I will still optimize their site to the best of my ability, but the approach I recommend is for my clients to show that they are experts.
Many of my clients are experts in what they are doing. They have traveled the world and have done business in areas you don’t read about in the papers. Their stories would be more entertaining and educational than any graduate school text book. If they began sharing these stories through blog postings, people would begin to find these blogs and come to think of that person as the go-to person for questions or consulting in that field.
If my clients are not experts in their field, I still recommend blogging. But their blogs should not be an attempt to portray expertise, but as a story-telling method of where they are in their business. If they are entrepreneurs, I suggest writing about the process of getting their business up and running. Of writing about successes and failures. A photo of you on your website will let people in a little bit. Opening up and writing about your business struggles will have people connect with you and will build trust that is the foundation of any business interaction.
It is then the role of the social media outlets, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc to point people to these blog postings. Also, by writing these blogs, content will be continually updated on a website for topics that relate to your business. You will be fulfilling SEO strategies by continually adding keywords to your site that reflect your business.
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