Small business owners everywhere are wondering how to create a Web site presence that will grow their business most effectively. Two effective and common ways that small business owners invest in their Web sites are search engine optimization (SEO) and social media marketing. The unfortunate side of both of these marketing methods is that the average small business owner doesn't know exactly what either of these efforts entail, and therefore, they find it hard to choose the right consultants and to track the progress of the marketing effort. The intention of this article is to help clear that up a bit.
SEO is not really as complicated as it sounds. See, search engines such as Google, AOL, and MSN are in the business of being the best search engine available by providing the most relevant results to your search. Simply put, they do that by spidering (also called crawling) each website to determine what the site's content is about. They then store that information until such time as a search is made, when they use the information they've found to provide search engine results for the user's query. Search engines spider words, so the first rule of search engine optimization is to add words on your Web site that you want the spiders to read and then return as results for your potential site visitors.
There are a lot of "tricks" to SEO, which is why many https://dougleschan.com/SEO consultant companies charge tens of thousands of dollars to optimize your site for search engines for you. Typically SEO companies optimize your existing content, they do not provide new content. In other words, they make the written content you have on your Web site more readable by spiders and they know how to tell search engines more precisely what each page of your Web site is about, through special language called "meta data." SEO companies also help your search engine rankings by building links to your site on the web and providing special code which makes sure your site's message isn't diluted or that spiders aren't being directed away from your site inadvertently by resource links you've included to help your readers. That's SEO in a very small nutshell.
A good consultant for SEO will not only create for you a clear cut plan that includes both optimizing your content and link building, they will put metrics in place to measure both the increase in website traffic, and to measure conversions on your site. A good indicator that search engine traffic is good traffic is a reduction in your bounce rate for search engine traffic. Make sure that before you start your SEO effort you have analytics in place on your site (such as Google Analytics, which is free and easy to use) and that you've collected benchmark data to compare your new data to.
Social Media Marketing is no less complicated, and often goes hand in hand with SEO. It's impossible, actually, for social media marketing done right not to positively affect your search engines ranking. Social media marketing is marketing your business (including your Web site) by using social media channels. Most people think of this as starting a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but there is much more to it than that. The best social media marketing companies will help a business develop a complete social media strategy, centered around developing that company's unique and authentic voice in what is known as the "online conversation."
Instead of thinking of social media as a few places on the web such as Facebook and Twitter, think of social media as anywhere your customers or potential customers are conversing online (this is what is meant by the "online conversation"). Social media efforts include monitoring the online conversation, giving your company a voice in it, and tracking how this voice impacts your business.
Some elements of social media marketing include article marketing, starting your own blog, developing a commenting strategy on other people's blogs, articles and videos, as well as leveraging sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to meet potential customers. A good consultant for social media will not just offer to set you up a Facebook Page or a Twitter account and then leave you to fend for yourself. They will instead discuss your goals, research your industry, develop your voice, create an overall strategy and plan, help you implement your plan, and track your results long term.
Like SEO, analytics are important for social media marketing. Many social media marketing consultants will tell you that your social networking efforts are not trackable because direct sales offers are not typically tied to social media efforts. But there are lots of metrics you can monitor to see that your efforts are not a waste of time, such as mentions of your company in online conversations and blogs, positive reviews in local search engines like Yelp, increased search engine rankings, increased inbound site links, and ultimately, more traffic to your site or more customers in your store.
Neither SEO nor social media marketing are impossible for a normal person to figure out, if you have the time. There are lots of great tools and free classes for both and consultants in both areas will encourage any small business owner to educate themselves somewhat on all areas of Internet marketing. But its important to remember that these two marketing arenas are specialties. Just like you might educate yourself on different types of oral bridges but you would hire a dentist to do the actual bridgework, you should consider hiring experts to help you grow your business through search engine optimization or social media marketing.
SEO is not really as complicated as it sounds. See, search engines such as Google, AOL, and MSN are in the business of being the best search engine available by providing the most relevant results to your search. Simply put, they do that by spidering (also called crawling) each website to determine what the site's content is about. They then store that information until such time as a search is made, when they use the information they've found to provide search engine results for the user's query. Search engines spider words, so the first rule of search engine optimization is to add words on your Web site that you want the spiders to read and then return as results for your potential site visitors.
There are a lot of "tricks" to SEO, which is why many https://dougleschan.com/SEO consultant companies charge tens of thousands of dollars to optimize your site for search engines for you. Typically SEO companies optimize your existing content, they do not provide new content. In other words, they make the written content you have on your Web site more readable by spiders and they know how to tell search engines more precisely what each page of your Web site is about, through special language called "meta data." SEO companies also help your search engine rankings by building links to your site on the web and providing special code which makes sure your site's message isn't diluted or that spiders aren't being directed away from your site inadvertently by resource links you've included to help your readers. That's SEO in a very small nutshell.
A good consultant for SEO will not only create for you a clear cut plan that includes both optimizing your content and link building, they will put metrics in place to measure both the increase in website traffic, and to measure conversions on your site. A good indicator that search engine traffic is good traffic is a reduction in your bounce rate for search engine traffic. Make sure that before you start your SEO effort you have analytics in place on your site (such as Google Analytics, which is free and easy to use) and that you've collected benchmark data to compare your new data to.
Social Media Marketing is no less complicated, and often goes hand in hand with SEO. It's impossible, actually, for social media marketing done right not to positively affect your search engines ranking. Social media marketing is marketing your business (including your Web site) by using social media channels. Most people think of this as starting a Facebook page and a Twitter account, but there is much more to it than that. The best social media marketing companies will help a business develop a complete social media strategy, centered around developing that company's unique and authentic voice in what is known as the "online conversation."
Instead of thinking of social media as a few places on the web such as Facebook and Twitter, think of social media as anywhere your customers or potential customers are conversing online (this is what is meant by the "online conversation"). Social media efforts include monitoring the online conversation, giving your company a voice in it, and tracking how this voice impacts your business.
Some elements of social media marketing include article marketing, starting your own blog, developing a commenting strategy on other people's blogs, articles and videos, as well as leveraging sites such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube to meet potential customers. A good consultant for social media will not just offer to set you up a Facebook Page or a Twitter account and then leave you to fend for yourself. They will instead discuss your goals, research your industry, develop your voice, create an overall strategy and plan, help you implement your plan, and track your results long term.
Like SEO, analytics are important for social media marketing. Many social media marketing consultants will tell you that your social networking efforts are not trackable because direct sales offers are not typically tied to social media efforts. But there are lots of metrics you can monitor to see that your efforts are not a waste of time, such as mentions of your company in online conversations and blogs, positive reviews in local search engines like Yelp, increased search engine rankings, increased inbound site links, and ultimately, more traffic to your site or more customers in your store.
Neither SEO nor social media marketing are impossible for a normal person to figure out, if you have the time. There are lots of great tools and free classes for both and consultants in both areas will encourage any small business owner to educate themselves somewhat on all areas of Internet marketing. But its important to remember that these two marketing arenas are specialties. Just like you might educate yourself on different types of oral bridges but you would hire a dentist to do the actual bridgework, you should consider hiring experts to help you grow your business through search engine optimization or social media marketing.
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