Blog articles that explain it all

Blogging for business

When I say "Blogging" what comes to mind? Some guy spouting off at the mouth about his personal opinions that no one cares about? Yeah, that's what I figured.

Unfortunately this is what comes to many peoples minds, but Blogging can actually bring you a lot of clients and make you a ton of money.

Here are a few ways Blogging can help you grow your business.

1. Blogging your way to the top of Google.

Every time you post a blog it gets indexed by search engines, namely Google and Yahoo. So each blog post slightly increases your chances of being found by potential clients on Google and other search engines. The trick is to blog consistently. Three to five times a week is a good number. These don't have to be long blogs, they can be short and to the point. If you use targeted keywords in your posts you will shoot up the rankings in no time.

2. Build a following.

If you continue to post interesting content you will quickly gain a following of readers. The more readers you have the more likely it is they will become clients. You can use your blog to keep these readers updated on new products, industry news, interesting information and a whole host of other topics. Soon these readers will start to think of you as an expert in your industry.

3. Keep customers informed.

You can use your blog to keep your current and past customers up to date on your business. If you are having a sale, offering new services, changing locations, etc. All of these are ways you can use your blog to keep your customers informed and increase your revenues.

4. Brand yourself as an expert.

The longer you blog and the more readers you have the better recognized you and your business will become. Before long people will be calling you for advice. They will start to see you as an expert in your field and you will be their go to guy. This can open up many opportunities not just in terms of clients but also in terms of partnerships with other businesses and organizations. Before long your phone may be ringing with offers and propositions you never believed possible.

Simply put, Social Media is the online version of Networking and Word of Mouth Marketing. Social Media sites such as Twitter, Facebook, Myspace and YouTube are places where hundreds of millions of people can connect and communicate through the internet. They can communicate with groups and individuals in other countries, in other states, or even individuals in their own town. This is what makes Social Media so powerful. Ever joined a networking group for your business? Social Media is your networking group on steroids.

96% of Generation Y'ers have joined a Social Media network. This means that if you are looking to bring in more business from 20 and 30 somethings, a strong Social Media presence is will suit you well.

Let me paint a picture for you.

Jimmy is one of your Twitter followers. You have just sent out a tweet about your brand new product. Jimmy is interested and he comes in to buy your new product. Jimmy loves your new product so he posts a bulletin to all of his Myspace friends and also tweets about his favorite new product to all of his Twitter followers. This amounts to hundreds, if not thousands, of new people reading about your business and your product.

Now, here is the best part. 6 of Jimmys Social Media friends come in and buy your new product as well. They also love your new product so much that they tell all of their Social Media friends about it and the cycle is repeated. Except now you have 6 times as many new faces reading about you than when it was just Jimmy spreading the word.

How many of those 6 new customers Social Media friends will come to buy your product now? 15? 20?

And the cycle repeats again.

Pretty awesome right? Now imagine if you are able to do this once a week. New product? Tweet about it. Holiday special? Let your Facebook fans know. New item on your menu? Post a video to your YouTube group. Before you know it Social Media could be your number 1 form of advertising. And it is FREE.

Call Steps Marketing for more information how we can harness the power of Social Media.

Yup, just about everyone knows someone that knows somebody else that can make a website. But very few do it well. This is what WE DO. We know the in's and out's of website design, coding, optimization and maintenance. You are really doing yourself a disservice to your company if you get a "pro bono" website from a friend or family member and here's why:

Say the site goes down, needs changes, gets hacked, email breaks, files lost... Who do you call? What if your friend/family member is on vacation, doesn't have time, doesn't want to, is unavailable?... Then what? This scenario happens more often that you can imagine.

Steps Marketing offers a professional service that you can count on. We are here for you, we will help you if things go haywire and will applaud you when sales are going through the roof (on your new e-commerce site)

Remember, just about anyone can make a "website," but few do it well. Now more than ever, you need a strong online presence to be competitive. We help businesses and individuals establish and enhance their image online. We offer a hassle free solution that takes just minutes to get started. Call today for a free consultation.

Chances are your new website won't be at the top of any search engines right away. It just takes time. But here are some great tips to get you going.

One way to shortcut this seasoning period is to pay to get your website at the top of the list. These paid options are very effective and are not usually very expensive. Contact us about setting your site up for this option.

To have your website come up "organically" or naturally (without paying for it), we have compiled some tips on how best to make that happen.

Keyphrase Research

Before you can optimize your website for keywords and content for the search engines, you need to know which keyphrases you are going to optimize your site for. Once this is decided, everything becomes a lot clearer.

You should be able to get a rough idea of target keyphrases from the content on the pages within your site. At the end of the day, if there's not any content at which to target optimization, achieving good search engine rankings will be very difficult and ultimately pointless! Visitors will leave immediately if they are not provided with the content they are searching for.

Traffic and Visitors

Another way your site is ranked is on popularity. The most visitors you have the more popular your site will be to the search engines. A popular site deserves to be at the top of a search engines.It is very unlikely that a small, low traffic site will be at the top of a major keyword search. So link up! Start putting your website domain out there. Social media sites are great for that as well as getting your friends and colleagues to link to your site from their websites and blog posts. Which reminds me, blogging is one of the easiest and cheapest way to promote your business online. To Learn more about the benefits of Blogging, check out our Blogging for Business article.

Content

The more text you have on your site the more the search engine is going to index. Search engines thrive on content, so the more content on your site, the better for search engine rankings. The trick here is putting content that is relevant to your product or service. You want to maximize your keywords and content and make sure that they are related to your core business. Beware - don't fall into the trap of keyphrase stuffing! Search engines employ advanced techniques to track this and will more than likely pick up on it immediately and you could end up with a blacklisted site that is impossible to rank.

Page Titles

This is one of the key on-page elements that can be optimized. Each title should be different, and full of keyphrases related to the content of its page. Search engines often only display the first 65 or so characters of the page title, so it's important to get the most important keyphrases at the beginning of the page title. Also, the characters near the front of the page title are given more significance in algorithms.The page title is displayed in the search engine results, so must make sense and encourage browsers to click the link. Create good page titles that have a balance of readability and keywords for best results.

Steps Marketing SEO / SEM Packages

Steps Marketing can help get you to the top of the search engines, especially in targeted local markets. To inquire about our Search Engine Optimization and Marketing Packages, check out our services page and contact us today.