How your business can SQUEEZE ROI out of Social Media

Social Media is an important tool for growing your business but it’s a big subject and the hype around it sometimes is unbearable.  Figuring out how to take advantage of social media is confusing at best.  As an Internet Marketing Consultant I regularly run into business people who believe that it is probably important but don’t know where to start or even if they should.  The fact is that any well thought out internet marketing campaign that is going to have a decent ROI is going to be holistic and it will include some form of social media platform.  This won’t answer all of your questions but it will give you a good place to start.  We have clarified this subject for a lot of businesses and hopefully we will help you have a better picture to make more informed decisions in regards to your marketing investments.

My job as an Internet Marketing Consultant requires me to be constantly learning and staying up on trends so that I can provide the best information to help businesses get more clients. Sometimes, I think too hard about how to present the information so that you as a business professional can quickly and easily understand it. As is the case with the topic of link building. One thing I’m learning is to not reinvent the wheel, but instead utilize what I’m learning from others in the internet marketing industry. One trusted source that I use as a resource often is SEO Moz, a SEO software company, so I’ve decided to describe link building using their words:

SEO is a Fancy Schmancy Term for Getting the Search Engines to Notice You

You’re a small business owner. You have a website. You think it’s a good website. You were told it was going to help bring you customers. But it’s not. And you’re wondering why, since everyone is online these days. I’m here as an Internet Marketing Consultant to tell you that you probably need to begin a relationship with the online search engines. To start this relationship you need SEO, a short term for Search Engine Optimization. Right now the search engines might not even know you exist and you want them to. When it’s done right, SEO is the best thing you can do for your website and your business. So let me help you understand how we can get those search engines to like you.

Warning: Some of the language may be offensive but is used for historical commentary only.

In business as in life words are everything, especially in marketing, and today the U.S. Census Bureau has announced the removal of the powerful word “Negro” from use in its lexicon. As I woke up to this news on the radio I found myself immediately sucked in, my mind racing with thoughts. I remembered “The N word.” I remembered “Black.” I remembered hearing “African American” for the first time, and more lately I have also heard “Chocolate” being used as a reference to darker skin color. The way we use words in this country is powerful and because of our history around race, the language is supercharged. These language issues always affect how we market.

Free Downloads Connect You to Customers Putting Your Business in the Internet Marketing Spotlight

If you tuned in along with the other million+ people to watch the 85^th Annual Academy Awards on Sunday, then you know that Best Actress winner Jennifer Lawrence got a bit tripped up before reaching the podium to accept her Oscar statue. As she looked into the crowd of people giving her a standing ovation, she jokingly said “Thank you. You guys are just standing up because you feel bad that I fell and that's really embarrassing but thank you.” She made a relevant connection with her audience, and it was memorable, not because of what she did, but the emotion she left them with. What does this have to do with free downloads? As an internet marketing consultant I’m here to tell you.

Offering Free Downloads as Part of Your Internet Marketing Strategy Will Get You Clients Faster

As an internet marketing consultant I’m here to tell you that if your goal is to get more clients and get a better return on your marketing investment, then you need to make available good quality, relevant content. Providing content in the form of free downloads, also called offers, will help you line up the customers.

Free Downloads Can Give Your Business a Competitive Edge in Internet Marketing

Providing good, quality information and being successful are unique components to internet marketing.  You can’t have one without the other. If your goal is to get more clients and get a better return on your marketing investment then you need to make available relevant content.  What kind of content you ask? The kind that comes in the form of free downloads such as e-books or white papers or what we often call “Offers.”

Learn The Critical Role Free Downloads Play in Your Internet Marketing System

One of the unique things about inbound marketing is the importance of providing quality information to help you be successful. If your goal is to get more clients and get a better return on your marketing investment then you need to make available good, quality, relevant content. This content should come in the form of a free download such as an e-book, white paper or template, all of which we call “Offers.”  As an Internet Marketing Consultant I have learned the value of these offers. For a long time I didn’t understand how they actually helped get more clients, so if it’s confusing to you also, let’s try and help you understand.

Keywords help you focus your marketing

Keywords are an amazing piece of the puzzle for internet marketing and as an Internet Marketing Consultant we start every campaign by asking, what are the keywords we are concerned with? But what if you don’t really know what keywords are?  The simple answer is that keywords are the search phrases we all type into the Google search box. When you know which keywords people are typing into the search engines that are relevant for your business and industry then you have a much better chance of attracting new visitors to your website.  Keywords help you convert a greater percentage of those people into leads so you can eventually get more clients.

Increase your website’s ability to get more clients by getting more people to stick around 

So now that you have used your blog to rank higher in Google and you are getting more traffic, what is the next piece of advice from your personal Internet Marketing Consultant?  Engage them, and quick! Be clear. Be relevant. Be helpful. If you focus on these 3 things then you can’t help but get a greater percentage of people to stay on your site and actually read what you wrote. But what do these 3 things really mean? Let’s talk about it.