by Admin on October 19, 2011
Content Is SEO King
We are constantly telling our clients that blogging is one of the best SEO strategies there is. That’s because search engines love content, fresh relevant content. And the best way to provide fresh relevant content is through relevant keyword rich blog posts.
As we are fond of saying on this blog, your website/blog is like a trotline with every page/post being a hook baited with relevant keywords (Google bait). The more pages/posts you have, the more hooks and Google bait you have. And the more likely you are to show up on a search results page.
Now What
So you’ve got your blog articles out there. Now one of them appears on the first page of someone’s search results and they click, go to and read your blog post. Now what?
What do you want them to do now?
- Download a White Paper or eBook
- Fill out a questionnaire
- Read another article
- Contact you for a consultation
- Or something else
Do you have a call to action that is relevant to your post or your business? Without a call to action, many, if not most, people will think nice article and continue searching the web for more information. You need to give them a reason to give you some information about themselves (e.g. name and email address) in return for something such as a white paper related to the blog post. Once you have their name and email information, they become a lead. Now you can use email marketing to nurture these leads and convert them into customers.
Inbound Marketing is a process and not a tactic. This process uses tactics, such as:
- Search Engine Optimization
- Lead Generation (through Calls To Action)
- Email Marketing
- Lead Nurturing
to achieve its goal, which is securing customers for your business. Many businesses stop after using the first tactic (SEO), thinking more visitors equals more customers. While that may be true to some extent, to be truly successful, you need to go through the entire process to achieve maximum results.
by Admin on October 13, 2011
When blogging for your business, it is important to include a call to action with your post. A call to action directs your reader to take an action, such as downloading a white paper or contacting you for a consultation. The call to action should be somehow related to your post.
A good call to action can be the first step in furthering your relationship with your reader. Usually, a call to action requires to reader to give you a little information about himself (e.g. name, email address). As you move the reader down your sales funnel with deeper funnel calls to action, you gain more and more information about him. Your blog visitor goes from a reader to a lead to hopefully a customer.
Calls to action allow us to see how effective our website or blog is. Without calls to action, we don’t really know what our readers are doing after they read our blog. Calls to action allow us to measure the effectiveness of our blog or website.
Remember, your blog or website is a marketing tool, and, as such, you should be able to measure its effectiveness.
by Admin on October 4, 2011
Have you been thinking about blogging as a strategy to increase your website visitors and customers, but you are scared because you don’t think you’re good enough? I cannot stress enough the importance of your getting started blogging as soon as possible. The reason is twofold:
- The sooner you get started, the sooner you’ll get better at blogging
- The sooner you get started, the more posts you’ll have to come up in search results.
Nobody starts off perfect at blogging, though some are better than others. And like any other skill, the more you do it, the better you become. You may never become perfect at blogging, but you can better at it by doing it. So, the sooner you get started blogging, the sooner you’ll get better at blogging.
As we’ve discussed in the blog before, blog posts are like hooks on a trotline baited with your keyword phrases (Google bait). Every blog post you write, is another opportunity to show up in somebody’s search results. The sooner, and more often, you start writing your blog the better your chance for showing up in search results.
So quit thinking about starting your blog and start blogging for business.
by Admin on September 30, 2011
In a 2007 book titled Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die, the authors promoted the concept of: The Curse of Knowledge. Simply stated the Curse of Knowledge says: the better we know or understand a subject or idea, the less able we are to clearly communicate or explain that idea or subject to others.
Studies have shown that the better we know something, the more difficult it is for us to imagine not knowing it. If we can’t imagine ourselves not knowing it, we can’t imagine others not knowing it. So we become poor communicators because we assume a knowledge base that our audience doesn’t have. Think about the egghead professor who can’t give you a comprehensible answer to a question on his subject. Her vast knowledge and experience renders her unable to fathom how little you really know. We are all like the egghead professor in our areas of expertise.
So how does this relate to blogging? In two ways:
- We can’t come up with subjects to blog about because we assume our audience already knows about every topic we come up with.
- When we do blog, we communicate poorly because, again, we assume a knowledge base our audience doesn’t possess.
Because we are aware of the Curse of Knowledge, we can take steps to overcome it.
TIP: If you blog for your business, write down the 20 questions your customers ask you most often. Use those as the topics for 20 blog articles. If you write 2 blog per week, that’s 10 weeks worth of blogging. If your customers are asking these questions, your potential customers are probably asking them online. And remember, don’t assume your audience has the same knowledge base as you.
by blogmistress on September 28, 2011
Finding inspiration is one of the biggest obstacles to actually writing blogs articles. In fact, “what should I blog about” is one of the questions we are asked most frequently. Sometimes, just coming up with the idea is half the battle. I’ve written in the past about how to find blog article ideas. Sometimes, inspiration comes from our daily activities.
Yesterday, I spoke to a wonderful group of people about website strategy. This group inspired me. I often find inspiration from talking to business owners who have some really great ideas and are wonderful about helping each other out with their ideas. One of my favorite remarks yesterday concerning blogging has to be, “I though blogging was just some people getting online and being lip-y.” Just writing that down makes me smile today. These business owners inspired me with their commitment to their businesses. We discussed how their products and services help solve a problem, and seeing how passionate they were about what they are doing, even in this difficult economy, was truly inspiring.
Where do you find inspiration? Do you get it from books, reading other blogs, talking to others? Blogging doesn’t have to be too complicated. It is really just a way to share your knowledge and passion for what you do every day. Your product or service solves a problem. What problem does it solve? Tell me about it on your blog. Write about it and show me why you are the best solution.
Thank you to everyone who attended the seminar yesterday. You inspired me, now, go inspire others!
by blogmistress on August 31, 2011
Growing businesses are always looking to acquire new assets and to protect those assets. Often, businesses don’t realize the value of their website as an asset for their business. Many times, especially in small businesses, a website is something that is added as an afterthought and not seen as a valuable part of a marketing strategy.
How you use and protect your assets tells you a lot about how valuable that asset is to you. If you purchase a vehicle for your business, you will probably take good care of it, even though the value of a vehicle certainly depreciates quickly. You definitely wouldn’t purchase a vehicle for your business and then never use it or put gas in it. The purpose of a vehicle is to get you from one point to another. Without fuel the vehicle is useless. If you don’t use the vehicle, it is not serving its intended purpose and has no value.
Why then, do so many business have websites that are not being used as a valuable marketing tool. A website does not depreciate in value like a vehicle does. In fact, the value of a website can appreciate in value if it is used properly. How can you fuel your website and continually be adding value to it? By blogging. Blog marketing is simply adding content to your site on a regular and consistent basis that is of value to your visitors. It also helps you get found by new visitors because it is constantly giving search engines new, fresh material to serve to them.
Don’t neglect what can be one of your best business assets. Use blog marketing to attract more visitors to your site. Use compelling calls to action to convert your visitors into customers, and then, of course, analyze your results and adjust accordingly.
Need help with your internet marketing strategy? Whether it is website design, blogging, or social media, we can help!
by Admin on August 9, 2011
For one of our fellow HubSpot users, HubSpot did save his business. Marcus Sheridan, owner of River Pools & Spas, writes in The Sales Lion “Just How Much Can 800 Days of Inbound Marketing Change Your Life??” I suggest you read it.
Marcus and his two partners started their pool company in 2001. By 2005 their swimming pool business was in shambles. They had just found out they had suffered a $200,000 embezzlement and the IRS was after them. After fighting tooth and nail for threes years, they were just beginning to see the light when the economy tanked. Many swimming pool companies started closing shop.
In March 2009, Marcus stumbled across a company called HubSpot and learned about Inbound Marketing. By November 2009, he was shocked at how well this Inbound Marketing stuff was working. While many of his competitors had gone out of business, his business was gaining ground. Today their swimming pool company has orders to install pools practically to the end of the year. This is happening in this economy.
As Marcus says, “the lesson remains the same- consumers trust those persons that are willing to openly and honestly give as much helpful information as possible.” Marcus learned how this thing called “blogging” could help his business. If he would simply answer consumer questions, Google would reward him with more visits. And by using HubSpot and its process, he could turn those visits into leads and ultimately sales.
We’ve found the same to be true for our business. We started using HubSpot in December 2010. Since that time, we have started blogging every weekday to provide useful information to small businesses. And we, like Marcus, have seen our number of leads and sales increase over the last 8 months.
If you’d like to know more about HubSpot and how it can help your business, email us at info@wharton-marketing or call us at 870.404.1985.
by blogmistress on July 29, 2011
Does your business stay the same day in and day out. For most of us, the answer is no. Sure there are some constants such as our phone number and address and main products and services. However, if we never change anything or offer anything new or do something different, we are pretty boring. The same is true for your website. If you put up a website and never change anything, it is pretty boring.
Static, brochure style websites can certainly serve a purpose. They can let people know about you, where you are located, how to reach you and about your products and services. That is what it should do. But, that by itself, is just a little boring. It is also a little boring to search engines as well.
Why not update your site and offer fresh information on a regular basis? You know where this is going, don’t you? Here it is, the easiest, most effective way to regularly offer fresh, up to date information is with . . . a blog. I know you have heard me say this a thousand times, but until something else comes along that is better, I’ll stick by this. I’ll also restate the stats that back me up. Companies that blog get:
- 55% more visitors
- convert 40% more of their visitors into leads
- have 434% more indexed pages
- get 97% more inbound links
I’ve even seen businesses that don’t blog very often or blog very inconsistently benefit from a blog. It takes them a lot longer, but they still benefit. Does your business have a blog? Tell me about it and get a free blog analysis.
by blogmistress on July 22, 2011
That is what we all want, isn’t it? To be an overnight success. It is true of most businesses, but unfortunately, it is not very realistic. I’ve seen it happen over and over. Someone comes to a seminar or class and learns about how to use social media or how to use a blog to grow their online business. When they leave, they are very enthusiastic. They get started and do okay for a while, and then they just kind of let it go. They don’t stick to it long enough to get enough momentum to take them to the next level. They give up.
Remember, that every blog article you write, every post on your Facebook page, every tweet is out there, getting picked up by search engines and giving you that many more chances to be found by people who are looking for you. Consistency and commitment are key. It can be compared to working out your body. It takes a little time to build muscle and endurance. It won’t happen if you don’t stick with it. And the good results can be lost when you give up. There is just no easy way around it. In order to succeed, you have to put in the work.
However, unlike working out your body, you can actually pay someone to do your inbound marketing. You can pay someone to write blog articles and engage on social media. Either way you do it, someone has to be making the effort on your behalf in a consistent, regular way.
If you have gotten started with blogging and social media, don’t give up! It takes time, but it can reap great results when done right. If you need help, contact me at [email protected]. I would love to discuss how we can work together to grow your business!
by blogmistress on July 8, 2011
The old saying goes that 90% of life is showing up. I believe that saying was coined before the age of the internet but it is very appropriate for businesses today. The thing is, we have so many more opportunities for “showing up” than ever before. We have social media, blogs, forums and the list goes on. The biggest mistake a business owner can make is to not show up.
