How to Leverage Social Networking for Your Business: Part 2 – Facebook

How to Leverage Social Networking for Your Business: Part 1

Since posting Part 1 of this series, where I mentioned that Twitter hasn’t released information about its user base, I’ve found references to indicate that Twitter has grown from 6 million users in February 2009 to over 28 million users in February 2010. This is an unprecedented growth rate, and Twitter is now a prime social networking tool you can use to reach millions of users with a relatively simple, inexpensive marketing campaign.

Why to Pursue Social Networking for Your Business Through Twitter

Twitter provides you an ready-made platform through which to interact with your readers and customers. Twitter is useful from a social networking standpoint in that you can do many of the same things as you can with Facebook, but due to the 140-character limit imposed by Twitter, it’s more appropriate for discussion and interaction. Maintaining a Twitter account gives people a direct way to contact you immediately, instead of having to go to your website and type a lengthy email or go through other contact channels. Twitter also provides a great way for you to update followers and generate traffic to your website.

Grow Customers Virally Through Twitter

One of the biggest benefits of using Twitter is the opportunity to grow customers virally through Twitter. When you post updates to Twitter, your followers can click a simple button to ‘Re-Tweet’ your content. This means they can easily and quickly share your updates with all of their friends, and their friends – on and on. You can easily grow your customer base by dozens, hundreds or thousands of people with a few well-placed Tweets. In fact, if your Tweets get picked up by one of the many celebrities using Twitter, your content could reach over a million people.

Link Your Profile to Your Website

Twitter provides very basic ways of interacting with your readers. On your profile itself, you have your Twitter name, a picture, a link to your website and a 140-character biography. Use your profile to link to your website, because readers won’t be able to find out much about your business from your Twitter profile itself.

Choose a name consistent with your business. For example, in my Facebook article, I did a case study on a local business called Formaggio Kitchen; their Twitter username is Formaggio. Keep your Twitter username relatively short and easy to find. Every time users Re-Tweet your content, your name counts as part of your 140-character limit, so part of your content may get cut off if you have a long username or post at your 140-character limit.

Initiate Discussion

One of the best ways in which Twitter can serve your business is to use Twitter to initiate discussion. You can elicit feedback from your clients via Twitter, or even just chat and trade messages with your clients via Twitter. If you want to widen your metaphorical net, offer a really good promotion or introduce a controversial topic for discussion. This makes people more likely to re-Tweet your content and spread your Twitter ID – and therefore your business – to more friends. At the very least, you can use Twitter to get feedback about your business and services; and at best, you can use Twitter to discuss new potential offerings or item features so you can improve your product or services.

Share Information with Your Followers

Another way to get your name out via Twitter and get people following your posts is to share information with your potential clients via Twitter. Share early updates with your followers, with links to press releases or new product information. Or discuss special offerings, company downtime or anything that is relevant for your readers to know. By sharing valuable information, you’re more likely to induce people to follow you via Twitter, and are more likely to have those people visit your Website when they’re ready to use your services or buy your product. You can also use Twitter to share information about upcoming events and drive traffic to your site.

Manage the Perception of Your Company

Another valuable aspect of using Twitter for your social networking campaign is that it provides you with a ready-made tool to manage the perception of your company. For example, you could use Twitter to respond to customer concerns or feedback. Or you can simply portray a personable, friendly person via your Twitter account – adding an element of humanity to your business.

For example, Southwest Airlines reached out to actor Kevin Smith via Twitter a few weeks ago when he had an unfortunate incident on their flight. Southwest used Twitter to quickly respond to Smith’s concerns, and it gave them the ability to show clients “Look – we responded to this man’s concerns right away.” In that particular case, the Twitter contact didn’t resolve the issue, but it was one outreach tool that the company could utilize to manage perceptions of the company.

Use Special Offers to Gain Followers and Mentions

If you want to build followers on Twitter, you have to give them a reason to mention or re-Tweet your content. One effective way to quickly get the word out about your business is to use special offers to build followers and mentions. Some companies offer giveaways to people who re-Tweet or mention the company name in Twitter posts on a certain day, or during a certain time frame.

For example, one company held a drawing to give away a free Mac laptop to users who mentioned their business name anytime during a specific week. Users could mention the company once per day for a chance to enter the drawing that day. Hundreds of users mentioned the company every single day, which drove more people to research the company and enter the contest; and this company gained thousands of mentions during the course of that week.

Celebrity Twitter Users

Twitter is somewhat unusual in that it has introduced a way for ordinary people to interact with celebrities. Some celebrity Twitter users have over a million followers on Twitter. When a celebrity on Twitter mentions something, potentially over a million people could see that mention. Some celebrity Twitter users have been known to ‘break’ websites by sending too much traffic when they Tweet content. Wil Wheaton, for example, has over 1.5 million followers, and has repeatedly ‘broken’ websites when he has posted links to T-shirts or interesting items he’s found on the Web. Imagine getting 1.5 million people to your website. This is the power that celebrity Twitter users wield.

Conversely, that power can also turn to power to hurt your reputation. Kevin Smith, for example, had around 1.5 million followers when he Tweeted about a negative experience he had with Southwest Airlines. This turned into an ongoing saga that led to news articles and even TV show offers for Smith to talk about his negative experience. And all of this started because Kevin Smith sent out a barrage of negative Tweets about Southwest Airlines when he was in the middle of having a negative experience with them.

Twitter is a Powerful, Free Social Networking Tool

Bottom line: Twitter is a powerful social networking tool that you can use to generate traffic, build followers and manage perceptions of your company. And Twitter is a free tool. You don’t have to pay thousands of dollars for a television ad, or even hundreds of dollars for a print media campaign; all you need is a few minutes each day to create and maintain a company presence on Twitter. Take advantage of this powerful, free social networking tool to market to today’s Twitter audience of roughly 28 million people.

What is an Online Presence?

Your online presence is basically a term that refers to everything on the Web related to your business. Your online presence does include your business website, but it also covers customer reviews, your presence on popular social media sites and anything else you can use to interact with your customers. The Web is an invaluable tool because it lets you actually see the things your customers are saying about your business. You don’t have to guess at what they think – if they love you – or hate you – you can find out on the Web. If you proactively manage your online presence, you can influence customer perception of your company by:

1. Responding proactively to customer concerns;
2. Conveying important information to your customers via the Web;
3. Finding out what your customers have to say about you;
4. Ensuring that information about your business is relevant and up-to-date;
5. Correcting misconceptions about your company or business.

How to Effectively Manage Your Online Presence

You can manage your online presence in a number of ways. One useful aspect of managing your online presence is to present a consistent, branded image. However, potentially more important is your ability to monitor and respond to what customers have to say about your business.

Managing Your Online Image

First and foremost, decide what image you want to present your customers and manage that image. Make sure your branding is consistent throughout your website, and anyplace else your business is represented on the Web. You may want to consider joining popular social networking websites, such as Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, LinkedIn and anything else that’s relevant to your business. Joining these websites gives you a face, and gives you the ability to more proactively manage your online image.

Responding to Customer Feedback

One of the most useful features of managing your online presence is the ability to track and respond to customer feedback. Set up a free Google Alert or other keyword tracking tool to find out when your customers refer to your business on the Web. Track what your customers have to say, and reach out to customers who have had a negative experience. You may be able to change their opinions in the way you handle their feedback, or you may at least provide a positive presence to onlookers who see that you’re attempting to address negative feedback.

You can also set up a service that tracks inbound linking. In this way, you can see when people create inbound links to your business, and check out the context of those links. If people are linking to your business and saying “Don’t work with these guys,” you might want to reach out to those people to try to resolve the issues. On the other hand, if people are linking to your website saying “These guys are great!” – you know you’re doing something right, and you can turn that into more customers and a higher conversion rate.

Conversely, you can reach out to other people who have negative feedback about your competitors. If you set up Alerts to track when your competitor’s names are mentioned, you can reach out to people who have left negative comments about your competitors and invite them to try your services or products, instead. Don’t drag your competitors through the mud – simply offer an invitation to see what you have to offer, and consider adding how it addresses their specific needs.

Avoid Mudslinging Online

One unsavory aspect of the Web is how easy it is to get into mudslinging contests. If a competitor is leaving negative comments about you somewhere, resist the temptation to drag your competitor through the mud, too. Simply inform your customers that a competitor has left those comments. Alternately, don’t drag your competitors through the mud, either.

Professional battles should stay behind the scenes, unless competitors are intentionally damaging your reputation, so keep your beef with your competitors out of the spotlight unless you’re directly responding to customer concerns. Think about how you feel when politicians engage in mudslinging tactics. It’s never popular, and it can result in losing a vote – so don’t do that to your business.

Case Studies: Successfully Managing Your Online Presence

I recently placed an order online for a hard-to-find product. I found a really good deal at a specific business, so I placed the order with that business, thinking I’d save money. I received an order confirmation, but days went by without receiving a shipment confirmation. I looked at the business policies listed on the website and saw that I should have gotten a shipment confirmation, and then gave the business an extra day or two after that just to be nice. Eventually, I called the business to ask about the status of my order.

When I spoke with someone at the business, he put me on hold while he checked my order. He came back a few minutes later saying he was having computer problems, and that he would have to call me back in 10 or 15 minutes. He never called me back. Instead, I got a call the next day from a completely different individual, who left me a message saying that my item was out of stock and that they had canceled my order. This person said that he had sent me an email confirmation stating that my order was canceled, but I never got one.

I did some research on the Web, and found many other people complaining of poor shipping practices, erroneous billing and other shopping-related problems with this company. I considered myself lucky that they hadn’t billed me, and moved on to order a similar item somewhere else.

The replacement item that I ordered from a different company yielded a completely different experience. I got four emails that afternoon – an email confirming my order had been placed, an email confirming that my order was being processed, an email with a copy of my invoice, and an email with shipment information. In addition, a representative of that company found a blog post I had written about the experience, and even left me a comment on my blog informing me that the product was in stock, and thanking me for the order.

I received the order quickly, and was thrilled by the customer service experience I got with the second company. I wrote another blog, adding my voice to the many other happy customers.

Now, when people go searching for those companies on the Web, they’ll see all of the customer comments. The first company has a slew of customer comments about poor shipping and billing practices, and frequent out-of-stock items. The second company has a host of positive comments about the order process and customer service.

If you were a customer, which company would you rather patronize?

Why pursue social networking for your business through Facebook?

At first glance, Facebook may not seem well-suited for business promotion. The premise of Facebook is to provide a means for friends and acquaintances to connect, stay in touch and interact with one another. However, at last count, Facebook had more than 350 million active users. This is a huge potential audience for your company’s products or services, and some companies have been very successful at managing a Facebook presence to increase and maintain customers.

Grow customers virally through Facebook.

Once you’ve established your presence on Facebook, you can grow customers virally through this social networking tool. When you create a Page for your business, Facebook users can become ‘Fans.’ When a user becomes a ‘fan’ of your page, his friends can see on his profile that he has become a fan of your page, and can follow a link to check out your Page. Your ‘fans’ can also share links and other information that you publish to their friends, thus growing your audience – and potential customers – virally through Facebook.

Create a Page.

While you can interact with people on Facebook as yourself, the best way to promote your business on Facebook is to create a Page for it. You can only create a Page if you’re an authorized member of an organization or company, but a Page gives you a professional face for your organization on Facebook. Once you’ve created a Page, you can add other people as administrators to help you manage Page content. When you create a Page, it doesn’t link back to you as the creator, and people aren’t able to use a Page to find your personal information.

Page offers valuable tools.

When you start a Facebook Page, you give yourself valuable tools to interact with your audience. Other Facebook users can become ‘fans’ of your page, and then they can see status updates that you post in their News Feeds. They can also browse to your Wall and view information that you’ve posted, interact with other users via comments and interact with elements of your Page. Finally, as a Page administrator, you can target your audience – sending updates to a specific demographic based on age, location or sex. This provides an extremely valuable method for you to target your marketing efforts at a core demographic, and to develop targeted messages for various demographics. You can also install Facebook applications on your Page, as well as manage Events through your page.

Share information.

One way in which you can communicate with your audience via Facebook is to share information with your fans. You can let them know about new products, specific events or share news related to your business. Some of the best business Pages are fun blends of news updates and interactive communities. Sharing information enables you to alert people to new products or services, as well as being in the public eye when a potential customer needs the services or products you offer.

Offer promotions.

Another very successful way to interact with your fans is to offer promotions via Facebook. Some companies hold prize drawings for people who become ‘fans’ as a way to get more people to sign up for a Page. In this way, if the buzz is good, you can gain hundreds or thousands of new ‘fans’ for the price of a few $50 gift cards or promotional merchandise. Then you have a captive audience to share updates and promote your services.

You can also host promotions that feature special deals for your Facebook fans to get them to take action with your company. For example, some companies host promotions periodically where Facebook fans get 10 to 20 percent off of an item for a weekend, or 20% off of an order with a special promotional code. This entices fans to visit your business or website and take action – buying products from you. This can be a great way to drastically boost your business, as well as spread viral buzz about your company.

Host events.

Finally, when you have a Page on Facebook, you can host events for your customers. This is a great option if you have a physical location and products to promote. If you create a Page on Facebook, you can host private “fans-only” events – extended hour events where only Facebook fans are admitted, and receive a discount or promotional materials for attending the event. If your business provides services, you can also host Events – free clinics or informational sessions for your services. Don’t underestimate events as a valuable way to promote your business.

Case Studies.

Don’t just take my word for it that Facebook provides valuable social networking tools for businesses. Personally, I have a Facebook profile and am a ‘fan’ of several businesses. These businesses include both services and products, and both physical and online-only businesses. Here are a few businesses that have utilized Facebook as a valuable way to promote their business and grow their customer base:

Zipcar.

Zipcar is a car-sharing company with vehicles available in several major cities around the United States. Zipcar has a Facebook page, which to date has over 28,000 fans. Zipcar uses its Facebook page to share information and reminders about policies, host promotions and create a buzzing community of fans.

Land’s End.

Land’s End is another company that has a Facebook Page and is successfully utilizing Facebook to reach potential customers. To date, Land’s End has over 253,000 fans. They regularly host promotions that involve giveaways to new fans, as well as use the Page to update fans about upcoming sales at the Land’s End website. Land’s End also hosts events which typically include promotions – all of which successfully generate buzz about products and increases sales.

Newegg.

Newegg is a website that sells primarily computers, computer components and computer accessories at reasonable prices, but they also sell other electronics. Newegg is a website only – no physical store locations to promote. However, Newegg has nearly 240,000 Facebook fans, and they employ a similar strategy to Land’s End on their Facebook page. Newegg uses its Facebook page to host promotions and share information about products with fans, but it’s also a fairly active fan community with people discussing computers and electronic products.

Formaggio’s Kitchen.

Finally, there’s Formaggio’s Kitchen: a physical store specializing in cheese and high-end food products. While Formaggio’s Kitchen does have a website storefront, it’s also a physical location, and much of its Facebook Page is dedicated to promoting the physical storefront. Formaggio’s Kitchen uses its Page to share information about products and post Events that it hosts at its storefront to sell and promote products.

You can leverage social networking for your business through Facebook.

These success stories prove that you can successfully leverage social networking to promote your business through Facebook. Thousands of businesses, both online only and with physical storefronts, utilize Facebook to reach a targeted audience and build a potential customer base. Even better – this is a relatively low-cost marketing tool: all you need is some time, or to hire someone to manage your business Facebook Page. Facebook provides an easy way to reach a potential audience of 350 million for the cost of a small time investment.

BEWARE OF HIRING SEO FIRMS TO OPTIMIZE YOUR WEBSITE!

Why you don’t need SEO firms.

I study SEO all the time as part of my business. I can’t deliver SEO content without understanding current SEO practices, and a large part of my business involves writing SEO content. Since I’m already knowledgeable about SEO as a content producer and an occasional Web designer, I had no idea that SEO firms even existed. That is, until I was consulting with a Web client a couple of weeks ago and he told me that he was considering hiring an SEO firm. An SEO firm that wanted to charge him $80,000.

I was floored when he told me how much the firm wanted to charge. I charged pennies compared to that for his website design, and I provide ongoing maintenance for even less. I advised him, in my initial design, of certain SEO practices and content he should include – but he didn’t like the context or the way it looked, so I removed it. Upon hearing he was considering paying someone $80k to ‘optimize’ his website, I asked to see the proposal to find out what exactly they were doing for $80k.

It turns out – 90% of what they were doing was stuff that I’d already told him to do, or things that we’d already implemented on his website. The proposal broke out things into line items that aren’t really separate things at all – but part of the same thing – they just write it like that to make it look like additional items. In fact, let me excerpt some areas of the proposal so you have an idea of what I mean:

• Optimized Content: $800 per page – for 4 pages of content – a total of $3,200 for 4 pages. (Many professionals – myself included – charge between $50-150 for optimized content, depending on the length of the page and the content included.)
• Design/Code. They broke this section out into 5 different line items – all of which I had already provided to this Web design client myself – for $4,000. (I charged a fraction of that price for my design, with unlimited edits – they only allow 2 rounds of edits.)
• Video. $3,000-$6,000. (The client has the capacity to produce this video himself, and many people do – video editing software is inexpensive and even included for free in some operating systems, and professional-quality video equipment is extremely affordable in this digital world.)
• Reports/Books intended to be used for a conversion tool – $400. This is the first thing remotely resembling a reasonable price on the proposal. (I’ve written reports and books for Web clients to use as conversion tools at anywhere from $75 to $500, so depending on the length and the content, $400 might be appropriate.)
• Publish – $800. This was broken out into two line items: publish to search engines and setup Google Analytics. What they don’t tell you is that it costs NOTHING to publish websites to search engines (and is automated in most cases) and Google Analytics is free, too – just requires inserting a little code into websites. (I’ve already done this for the client for free.)
• A license for the client to access his own website – $2,000. Under this proposal, the SEO firm would maintain the website, and the client had to pay a LICENSING FEE to access his own website! This client currently has unlimited access to his website at no cost.
• Web hosting – $800 per year. The client is already hosting his website with a reputable provider for less than $100 per year, and has more features, space and functionality than the proposed hosting under this SEO firm for $800 annually.
• Content Management Program – $5,000 PER MONTH. (You can hire a reputable writer or SEO expert to create content for you for a fraction of the price – I currently offer CMPs for some clients for as little as $500 for a substantial range of services – services only available on this $5k per month plan.)

What to look out for when you’re considering an SEO firm.

In light of reading the ridiculous proposal that they sent to my client, I’m tempted to say you should never, under any circumstances, contract with an SEO firm. The line items in the proposal were misleading, at best, and the prices they charged were inflated beyond all reason. The company was a reputable SEO firm with a number of large clients, and they clearly trade on their name to gain new clients. However, the services offered were in many cases already extant, or easily implemented at a fraction of the cost.

Unfortunately, many clients who are in need of SEO have no way of knowing that this firm’s proposal is completely outrageous and highly overpriced. Without knowing what the line items actually are, or how they relate to what you might already have, it’s impossible to know that SEO firms are ripping you off. Instead, consider these factors:

• Check with an individual or small business for comparable services. In many cases, individuals or small businesses can give you significantly better rates than you’ll find at large SEO firms. Simply look for quality providers with verifiable references and a portfolio you can review in order to make sure you’re working with a legitimate professional.
• Place an ad on Elance or Guru to solicit bids. Elance and Guru are two popular online marketplaces where you can hire qualified individuals and businesses to perform SEO services. You’ll find a broad range of prices and quality levels on these marketplaces, but they’re great places to source potential providers. Users can leave feedback and information about their experiences so you have a way of verifying how satisfied people were with providers.
• Request bids from multiple SEO firms. Make sure you shop around if you’re considering spending cash on SEO. SEO dollars can be money well-spent, from a ROI and marketing perspective, but not if you’re spending 3-5 times what the service is actually worth. Make sure you solicit multiple bids and avoid a company that seems drastically overpriced. Also, make sure you’re comparing apples to apples – which may include a breakdown line-item by line-item to make sure you’re comparing the same functionality in a bid.
• Check for word of mouth in your business community. Check with other businesses in your area and find out if they used a quality SEO firm they’d recommend. You might have trouble getting recommendations from your competitors, but non-competing businesses might be willing to share their providers. Beware of firms that churn out pages that look exactly alike, though, as form pages don’t provide the quality you want from an SEO provider.
• Beware of SEO firms that own your content! Upon doing further research on SEO firms, I discovered some clients complaining that SEO firms retained their content when the clients eventually discontinued using the firms. Even content that the clients had created themselves. Beware of SEO firms that own your content! Examine the fine print closely, and make sure that you retain all of your own content, your domain name and the right to access and edit your account and website at any time.

The difference between SEO firms and SEO content.

SEO firms provide a broad range of features, depending on the firm. Some firms provide SEO for your page layout and design, but don’t provide content management packages, or CMP. This means that you’ll get a one-time SEO makeover, but you won’t get support on an ongoing basis. Even if you do get ongoing SEO, you might not be getting new content – you may just be getting people evaluating your page, stats and keywords to make sure your SEO is still working.

SEO content is both an SEO tool and a stand-alone feature. Many SEO firms don’t provide SEO content at all, or the SEO content that they do provide is static content designed to provide good SEO to your website pages themselves, but not provide ongoing support. SEO firms are largely unnecessary. You can do many of the same things that SEO firms do on your site on your own, without paying someone thousands of dollars.

SEO content, on the other hand, is a necessary and vital part of improving the ROI on your website. SEO content makes sure your website comes up high in relevant search rankings, and dynamic SEO content can expand your search rankings and further improve your page rank. Generating SEO content yourself *is* something that you can do, but your time is typically better spent elsewhere. It makes sense to hire a professional to generate SEO content for your website – especially dynamic content on an ongoing basis – because the SEO content professional is well-versed in current SEO trends and ways to improve your page ranking. SEO firms may include SEO content as a part of their packages, but they typically charge far more than an individual provider would charge – and you have less control over what you’re getting.

In short, beware of SEO firms.

In summary: SEO FIRMS ARE BAD! Not all SEO firms are out to rip you off, but the proposals I’ve seen from large, reputable firms charge FAR TOO MUCH for services that shouldn’t cost that much. Hire a small business or individual SEO professional for far better rates and the individual attention that your website deserves, and save your marketing dollars for other important marketing tools and campaigns.

Keywords and Page Rank – the background details.

Before you can understand search engine optimization, you need to understand the basics of how search engines work. When you type words into a search engine and hit the button, the search engine ignores some common words (like the, and, to) and searches its indexes for references to the important words in your query: keywords. Web pages that reference all of your keywords get priority, followed by websites that reference fewer of your keywords. Search engines also weigh other factors to determine the order in which it displays results. (It’s also important to note that search engines can only reference pages that they’ve indexed, but I’ll save that for another article.)

For example, if five Web pages all reference all of your keywords, but one page has thirty inbound links, the search engine recognizes those inbound links as value and that page would come up at the top of your search. This is the page rank. Many factors come into play when a search engine is determining your page rank, but this is a very simplified explanation of how search engines work.

What is SEO?

What is this SEO stuff anyway? SEO stands for Search Engine Optimization. Search engine optimization is the process of analyzing current search engine criteria and making sure your website scores high in all categories. The purpose of this exercise is to get you a higher page rank; the better you score on a search engine, the higher up in the search results your page displays. Some people pay for the top results by becoming sponsors or paying for expensive marketing campaigns, but you can achieve high page ranks even without paying for advertising if you utilize effective SEO practices.

Why you need SEO.

Your page rank for a particular keyword depends on several important factors, but one generality is true: the higher your page rank, the better. If yours is the first website that comes up in a search, you’ll get exponentially more clicks than the second page, and the second gets more clicks than the third, and so on. Average people don’t click on more than a few pages unless they don’t find the information they seek, in which case they may continue looking. If you’re on the second page of results, many people who do a relevant search will never even see your site.

That means its vital that you get your website as high as possible in the list of page ranks, in order to ensure that as many people as possible see your site.

The basics of good SEO.

SEO varies somewhat from search engine to search engine, as different search engines have different criteria for ranking pages. However, many SEO best practices apply to multiple search engines, so it’s easy to capitalize on good SEO. SEO depends on a variety of factors: the keywords in your page, the page title, your headers and the content in your page, and your overall Web presence.

Content alone is a huge driving force in SEO. You want your keywords to appear enough times so that the search engine recognizes them, but not so many times that they overwhelm your readers; the best keyword SEO is organic, so it reads nicely to human readers but search engines still like the text. This is largely a function of where you place the keywords and how you use them. If you use the keywords too many times, search engines will actually assign your content a lower value, as they’re designed to penalize pages that attempt to manipulate the search engine results. Organic ranking is always the best.

Beyond content, though, other factors influence your page’s SEO. Inbound linking is a huge factor in SEO. The more places that link to your website, the better search engines like your page. Search engines equate links with value, and the more links you have, the more valuable your content must be. Therefore, building inbound linking is key to differentiating your content from your competitors’ pages.

Why you should hire an expert for good SEO.

SEO is a constantly-changing target. Search engines update their algorithms and criteria as people find ways to try to manipulate them. Search engines provide value by linking to high-quality, high-value content. Search engines don’t want to link to low-quality, poor content – people won’t be satisfied with the results, and may have to go to another search engine to find better results.

What this means for you is that you’re better served by hiring an expert to provide you with content that has high SEO value than trying to learn all the intricacies of SEO yourself. To learn good SEO practices, you’d need to constantly be researching the industry, and you’d need to be a near-expert in many aspects of Web design, marketing and content creation. If you hire an expert, on the other hand, all you have to do is describe your goal, and the expert can create SEO content to help your website achieve the best possible pagerank.

Beware of hiring the wrong SEO firm.

However, you should beware of hiring large SEO firms that charge you an arm and a leg for services you don’t need or already have. I recently consulted with one of my Web clients about his site, and he told me he was considering hiring an SEO firm to improve his page rank. I told him to send me his proposal and I’d evaluate it for him – decide whether or not it was worth what the company was charging – and was appalled at what he sent.

The company was charging outrageous prices for many services that he either already had or didn’t need, and he had no idea, because they couched the proposal in technical language. I’m currently working on an article about the dangers of SEO firms and how to select an SEO provider: look for that article on Monday, January 18th.

I regularly write SEO content for a wide range of clients – everything from articles to web page content. If you want SEO content, feel free to contact me using the Contact page above and I’d be happy to discuss your project.

It’s your job as a business owner to capitalize on this widespread use of the Web to build your business. Give your clients a reason to choose you over your competitors. Provide valuable and important information, and build confidence so that your clients will call you when they need you; not just look up the first guy they see. How can you use the Web to capture your audience and convert them to clients? It all starts with building an engaging website.

You have 30 seconds – or less.

It’s common knowledge that readers don’t stick around Web pages very long, but most people don’t realize exactly how short the average visit is: under 30 seconds. That’s right – within 30 seconds of viewing your page, anywhere between 60-70% of your viewers will click away again. That gives you less than 30 seconds to entice readers to spend more time on your website and give you an opportunity to sell your product or services.

Layout vs. content – which is more important?

Both layout and content are vital features of your website from the perspective of how much time people spend viewing. If people don’t like your layout, or can’t easily find the information they’re looking for (in the form of headers, links or content) they’ll click away within 5-10 seconds. If readers like the layout, they’ll spend up to 30 seconds perusing your content and deciding whether or not your website meets their needs. That’s why the content you provide is so vitally important – it’s your only tool to make people stick around longer than 30 seconds and actually learn about your product and services.

Provide information about your product or service.

If you’re selling a product, provide information about the product! Provide pictures, reviews, user comments and testimonials. Don’t try to blindside visitors to your site, either. Don’t tell them that your product is the only one in the entire world that does what you say it does if it isn’t, because information is an easily-accessed commodity on the Web. If you’re dishonest in marketing claims, your readers won’t trust you. Provide fair, balanced overviews of your products, and your users will appreciate it.

The same thing goes for a service, except that you need to err even more on the side of ‘too much’ information when you’re describing a service. Without tangible photos and statistics to compare, people are much more subjective when they select a service than a product. Therefore, you must cater to their need for information and provide plenty of it.

Talk about your services. Give your readers a range of the things you do. Don’t say you provide a service if you don’t, just to get clients in the door – they won’t thank you for it. Provide samples, when possible, and testimonials and comments are even more useful when you have services. If you make the mistake of providing too little information, your potential clients will just go with someone who provides a better description or more engaging prose.

Break up the pages with headers and visual elements.

Big blocks of text are off-putting to most website visitors. Break up your pages with headers and visual elements to enhance your website. Headers make it easier for people to find information, and give them a roadmap to digesting your content. Visual elements break up large blocks of text, and they can also provide great illustrations of the things you’re discussing. Clever and effective utilization of both of these page elements can drastically change how much time people spend on your website.

Provide quality content.

Finally, make sure you provide quality content. Content that merely duplicates content readers can find somewhere else usually isn’t enough to make readers stick around. You need to give your readers a reason to stay on and trust your website. Don’t distract readers with poorly-written content, full of grammatical errors, bad transitions and mediocre content. Provide quality content, and your readers will know they can trust you – and be more likely to use your product or services, either now or in the future.

Add dynamic content.

Static content isn’t all that interesting. Most people will never bother to bookmark and come back to your website if you only provide basic information about yourself and your product (unless they already intend to use you). However, if you provide dynamic content – rotating or adding new content on an ongoing basis – readers will have a reason to keep coming back to your website. If readers are visiting your page regularly, they’re far more likely to select you when they need your product or service down the road. Even if you don’t capture immediate sales now, adding dynamic content can keep people coming back and drastically improve your chances in capturing a client in the future.

Partner with an experienced professional.

This is one area in which spending the money on an experienced professional can really pay off. If you hire someone who works for a rock-bottom rate and provides poor or mediocre content, you’re not going to realize your website’s true potential. However, if you partner with an experienced professional who knows what clients are looking for and how to engage them properly, you’ll capture a far higher conversion ratio than you might with a cheaper provider. The initial cost might be higher, but the potential for higher conversion rates easily offsets that cost over a few weeks or months of successful operation.