This topic has been debated quite a bit in the last year or two. This video outlines my thoughts regarding a specific “social sales approach” that focuses on soft selling through content development and engagement with your target buyers or key influencers.
You keep hearing that your company needs to be blogging.
You’ve even read articles (here) about why you should have a blog. And these articles make sense and spell out the benefits that a blog can provide in terms of helping you market yourself on the web. But how do you get started? If you’re ready to pull the trigger, what are the things you need to consider so that your blog is not set up for failure?
Let’s break this process down into three key considerations: developing your blog content strategy, blog setup and ongoing content development. Ready to dig in?
In preparation for my presentation for the Kansas City chapter of the National Speakers Association (NSA Heartland), I thought it might be fun to introduce Slideshare (www.slideshare.net) as a great tool for posting and sharing slideshow presentations online.
Slideshare is a lot like a social networking site for PowerPoint presentations with great options for viewing presentations, sharing them on other social networking sites and embedding them into blogs and website, as shown above. This can act as a great mechanism for displaying your thought leadership and the type and level of content that you provide to your audiences.
This exercise is also a great way to show others how easy it is to embed a Slideshare presentation into a blog post, publish the post, shorten the URL with an analytics-based URL shortener (Tr.im, Bit.ly, BudURL.com), promote your slideshow via social sites and track the number of clicks your post has received.
Preface: If you were to execute the strategies discussed in this post, you could significantly reduce the amount of time spent on each social networking site. But remember that the social media space is built on engagement and interaction. If you aren’t engaging with your community at least once in a while, your community may not be very receptive to your pitch if/when a new sales opportunity is staring you in the face.
Not Enough Hours in a Day
If you’ve been dabbling with social media for a while, you understand the time-consuming nature of the space. For many companies, their commitment to social media has forced them to either add dedicated staff or outsource the effort. But we, as small businesses, don’t typically have the resources to do either of those, so we’re relegated to spending the time ourselves, or we just don’t.
The main thing we all need to realize is that your friends/followers/connections are constantly throwing out sales opportunities. In fact, I’d argue that most status updates or tweets are sales opportunities for someone or some company. Here’s a Twitter screen shot I just pulled straight from my stream to help explain my point (in red)…
Bottom line, sales opportunities are there for those who are listening. But listening takes time and most of us can’t afford to sit there and wait for something relevant to appear. But we’re in luck… There are ways in which we can leverage the built-in technology of these social sites to do the listening for us and deliver those opportunities to our front door. Read the rest of this entry »
According to a report from Pew Internet & American Life Project (1/14/09), 35% of adults now have a profile on at least one social networking website. The growth of such social platforms as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are astounding and show no signs of slowing, especially in this economy where companies are cutting back on traditional mediums and looking online for cost-effective alternatives.
Here are a few major factors to think about. Social media websites (blogs, forums, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc.) are built specifically to enable users to interact. Instead of coffee-shop conversations, people are talking about everything online. From the mundane (what they ate for breakfast), to the more substantive (“I was just in a car accident! Can anyone recommend a good chiropractor?”); opportunities abound for those who are listening.
During a web design and internet marketing workshop that I delivered last month in Las Vegas, I realized that I had been taking something for granted. As I delved into the search engine optimization (SEO) portion of my presentation, it occurred to me that my audience, communications staff from hospitals across the U.S., probably wouldn’t have the technical ability to effectively optimize their hospitals’ web sites for better search engine rankings. Come to think of it, I doubt that even many corporate marketers could dive into their site’s code and make the necessary page-level adjustments and database optimizations required for good SEO.
About a week after the workshop, I received my speaker evaluations. My realization was confirmed. Several attendees commented, “that SEO stuff seems pretty technical…I wish we could do more ourselves to help our rankings.”
Enter Stage Left: Off-Page Search Engine Optimization
Here’s the good news. “Off-page search engine optimization” is a specific set of optimization and internet marketing techniques that are executed outside (off) of your site, and require almost no technical expertise. All you need is your ability to use the internet, create content, and build relationships with others in your marketplace.
Off-page search engine optimization techniques revolve around the concept of link building, or getting other external websites to link to your site (a.k.a. backlinks). Why is this important? Because search engines determine your rankings based on relevance. And when other people link to your site’s content (backlinks), that tells the search engines that your content is relevant, high-quality and credible—which in turn helps you get ranked higher in the search engines.
So How Do We Get Backlinks?
Here’s a list of techniques that requires little or no technical expertise. It may be just what the doctor ordered for your ailing rankings:
Develop good, keyword-rich content. Good content is the ultimate driver of all things online. And keyword-rich content ensures that search engines will index it properly. If off-page SEO is the process of fishing for backlinks, content is your bait. The better your bait, the more bites (i.e. backlinks) you’re going to get.
Syndicate your content. Article-marketing websites, news release websites, and social bookmarking websites allow you to easily post articles and news within their directories that link back to your web site. If your content is high quality, there’s a good chance other websites and blogs will republish your content on their sites. Don’t forget to include a keyword-rich link back to your site within your content.
Ask partners, distributors, and reps to publish or link to your content. Leverage your business relationships to build backlinks.
Get links from well-established resource web sites. You may find that the top sites for your keywords in Google are resource sites—such as industry directories, online media, trade associations, or local organizations. You may even find an ad from CraigsList.com getting top position. These sites have gained authority through domain age and backlinks of their own, and a link from them would act as a valuable endorsement of your site in the search engine’s eyes.
Get listed in Google Local and Yahoo Local. These local business listings tie in with the Google and Yahoo mapping programs, and offer great placement at the top of the search engine results pages (SERPs).
Participate in blogs and forums. Pick any industry and I’ll bet money that there are hundreds of blogs and forums (and thousands of people) conversing online about that industry. Do some research. Create some Google Alerts. Find your fishing hole. Start participating by commenting on blog posts related to your expertise. Provide some good, objective advice on industry forums. When asked to register for your blog and forum accounts, create a keyword-rich signature with a link back to your site.
Create a blog. A popular blog can reap HUGE dividends—not only for backlinks and search rankings, but also for your company’s overall sales. Do a search for “blog success stories” for plenty of examples. Keep in mind, however, that getting there takes a consistent effort. And if you can’t commit to it long-term, then don’t go there.
Participate in social networking sites. Due to the popularity of social networking sites like LinkedIn.com, and their good standing with search engines, creating a simple link to your company’s website within your profiles can easily produce several high-quality backlinks.
Getting the Most Out of Your Backlinks
While SEO is not an exact science, there are a few linking techniques that will ensure you’re spending your time wisely, and getting the full value out of each link. Here are a few pointers:
Keep a keyword list close by. Make sure to reference an up-to-date keyword list when writing any new content, including blog comments, forum posts, social networking site profiles…everything! Don’t have a keyword list? Google offers a great, free tool.
Use anchor text (a.k.a. “link text”). Anchor text is words that actually make up a text hyperlink. Integrating keywords within your links plays a significant role in how search engines determine page relevance. It blows my mind when I see this on websites: “For more information on Bob’s high-quality taxidermy services, click here.” This link is almost worthless.
Quality vs. Quantity. Focus your time on getting links from high-quality, well-established websites. Five links from older, established websites can be much more powerful than 50 links from newer sites or blogs.
How Many Backlinks Do You Need?
As I wrapped up the off-page SEO portion of my Las Vegas workshop, one attendee asked about the number of backlinks needed to increase their rankings. This is a great question, but one that is hard to answer. As mentioned above, quality links will win over quantity. The best I can say is to find out where you stand compared to your competitors in the SERPs. Here’s a tool that can do that.
Lastly, analyzing your competitors’ websites can provide a wealth of insight into their backlinking efforts. A simple way to get this intelligence is to type “link:yourcompetitorurl.com” into the Google Search and Yahoo Search boxes. This will show you other sites that link to your competitors, which also may be good targets for your link building efforts.
The Catch: DIY SEO = Time Commitment
Warning…there’s a bit of a catch with off-page SEO. While little technical ability is required, a comprehensive link-building effort can turn into a full-time job. If you have the time or the manpower to manage this task internally, great. If not, the Something Creative SEO team would be happy to support you in this effort.
In the past few weeks, I’ve come across several new social networking sites that, upon an initial audit, seem to be high-quality, active sites that might generate some business for myself and others. So, I proceed to set up my professional profile for each site, entering my carefully crafted bio and company contact information.
Then I get to the common, but inimitable process of “inviting” others within my social network to join in the fun. Who should I invite? Oh look…this particular site allows me to invite all of my LinkedIn contacts in one click! Done deal.
You know how the rest of this story goes…the invites go out, a few of your friends and colleagues get signed up, yada, yada. But what do you do when your network starts showing signs of exhaustion (like below)?
Hey Brody,
I can’t keep up with all these networking websites. My thought, whether right or wrong, is to be more targeted in belonging to groups and managing networking sites. Therefore, I don’t plan to get involved with this one. Give me your thoughts if they differ.
Thanks, Dave
I understand Dave. There are certainly a lot of social networking websites out there and if you are among the many that haven’t yet experienced much tangible benefits from participation in these sites, getting yet another invitation to join another site can leave you feeling exhausted.
Some Participation Is Better Than None
Here’s the good news. You don’t have to be an active participant in these websites to get some benefit. Just taking 10 minutes to completely fill out your profile will help you achieve several important benefits, including:
Increasing Your Presence on the Internet – Marketing your company or yourself online makes you part of the World Wide (spider) Web. But how big is your portion of that web? That’s an important question because the bigger your portion, the more flies you’ll catch. Each new networking site that you join expands your presence, increasing the chance that a qualified prospect finds you and your company.
Branding Yourself Online – Let’s say you’re looking for a new financial advisor online and you come across an advisor (we’ll call him Marc) on LinkedIn.com that happens to be “linked” to one of your good friends. Marc’s professional profile is very well written. He has several professional certifications, hundreds of contacts, multiple client recommendations and links to financial articles and podcasts he’s developed. Are you going to contact your friend to ask about Marc? I would. Marc’s comprehensive profile has positioned him as an expert in his field and his prospects can learn about his products/services in a softer selling environment.
Growing Your Network – Most social networking websites are designed specifically to help people connect based on shared interests. Active members use all sorts of search topics to locate people for all sorts of reasons, like rekindling a friendship from a past life or searching for a service provider. By including a lot of detail in your profile (the schools you attended, your areas of expertise, etc.), you’ll see your network grow steadily as people find you and invite you to connect.
A More Personal Connection with Prospects – Many social networking websites also allow us to integrate personal interests, photos and blog posts within our profiles. You may find that a prospect has decided to do business with you not because of what company you work for or what you sell, but because of a common interest, like music or underwater basket weaving.
High Quality, High Quantity Website Traffic – Over the years of building websites for clients and analyzing their website traffic and visitor conversions, I’ve found that promoting your corporate website or blog on popular social networking websites brings very high quality traffic, and lots of it. Taking a quick glance at the Google Analytics stats for this website (somethingcreativeinc.com), LinkedIn.com has consistently ranked as one of the top five referring websites and one of the top three in number of visitor conversions for the past six months. If there’s another LinkedIn.com out there, I want to know about it.�
Search Engine Optimization / Building Backlinks – Search engines have always used the quantity and quality of backlinks, or how many high-quality websites link to your website, as part of their equation that determines your site’s rank. Thus, including a link to your website from these high-quality social networking websites is a simple, powerful search engine optimization tactic that will help each of the sites to which you link.
I hope this explanation helps you to understand that when someone invites you to join a new networking website, you don’t have to be an active participant in that new site to gain some benefit. Look at this new website as another high-quality internet marketing opportunity that, with an initial investment of 10 to 15 minutes to set up your professional profile, may be the new piece of your spider web that snags some big flies.
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