Posts Tagged ‘small business marketing’

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Social Media Leverage For $50

Sunday, June 1st, 2008

If you’re going to be in Minnesota on June 11, you’ll definitely not want to miss a great event at which I’ve been invited to be a speaker.

Chocolat Celeste in St. Paul, Minnesota will host a seminar and I’ll be discussing how to leverage the power of social media. I’ll cover what Social Media is, how to use sites like LinkedIn and Facebook for business, and a whole lot more.

The seminar costs just $50 and you’ll get a ton of information that you won’t get anywhere else for that price. Over half (56%) of businesses surveyed for Forrester Research’s “Global Enterprise Web 2.0 Market Forecast: 2007 to 2013” have Web 2.0 “on the agenda” for 2008. And spending by large companies on Web 2.0 technologies such as blogs, social networks, widgets and RSS will grow rapidly – 43% a year over the next 5 years, according to Forrester’s research. Yet, less than 10% of small and medium-sized businesses have yet to harness the business-building power of Social Media. According to Forrester, “The effect of Web 2.0 will be enormous in terms of success for those companies who leverage it, and a competitive disadvantage for those who don’t.”

There is so much potential in social media that has yet to be tapped and I can’t wait to share with you all the different ways you can use it to boost your business.

The event will take place on June 11 at 5:30-8:00 p.m. at

Chocolat Celeste
2506 University Avenue
St. Paul, MN 55114

To sign up, just click here. Or you may call 952-473-1007. Alternatively, you can call Barb Christensen at 651-644-3823.

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Posted in SEO for Small Business | No Comments »

Why Website Promotion is Key to Your Success

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

Here are a few reasons why website promotion is key to your success in the short and long-term:

Whether you’ve built a small niche website or a large directory, knowing how to promote your website is the only way to ensure success for the long-term. Websites built with search engine optimization in mind aren’t guaranteed traffic; while you may reach high search engine rankings that lead to a steady visitor stream, branching out with a powerful website promotion strategy will help you create a firm foundation and capture the market.

Here are a few reasons why website promotion is key to your success in the short and long-term:

  1. Marketing your site helps build brand awareness. Building recognition for your brand is an ongoing process, but many website owners fail to see how important this step really is. Branding can be as simple as sending out press releases with your website URL and logo, or complex as building up a newsletter list and sending out frequent news bytes and other information to your customers. Promoting through social networks and other social media is another way to create brand awareness and encourage steady traffic to your site.
  2. Building quality content will attract visitors. With the advent of Web 2.0 social media sites, more and more people are getting ready to share quality content they’ve discovered. Part of your website promotion strategy will involve building quality content for your site so that people begin to share and link back to your content, videos and blogs; this naturally starts to attract large amounts of traffic.
  3. Directory submissions help boost page rank. Building an SEO-friendly site isn’t the only way to gain good PR rankings on Google; making sure your website has been submitted to different directories and listing sites can help you drive clicks to your site when people are searching for content specific to your industry. There are many directories to choose from, but you need to know which specific category and section to submit to so you get the best placement.
  4. ‘Freebies’ will drive traffic to your site consistently. Giving away something for free can also help you build traffic and encourage new visitors to frequent the site. Whether this is a free eBook, video or tutorial, anything that will attract unique visitors to your site is a part of website promotion efforts.
  5. Using keywords and key phrases will help you capture your target market. Capturing your target market on a consistent basis gives you leverage against the competition. When you are developing unique content that captures a captive audience, both advertisers and visitors will become aware of your brand, your site and your business. This is an effective website promotion strategy that will help you create a phenomenal business; a few carefully selected keywords and key phrases may be all it takes to drive quality traffic to your site and build your business with ease.

Developing a website promotion strategy is a critical step for any business, and will help you create a firm foundation to build upon. Promoting a website through any or all of these five channels is a simple way to get started; there are several strategies that you can employ consistently to achieve results, but all are equally important in getting the traffic and brand exposure you need for your future success!

If you liked this article, would you do me a favor and vote it up at Digg and HubPages? Thanks!

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 2 Comments »

Which Comes First – Website Design or Website Promotion?

Tuesday, May 20th, 2008

Which Comes First??

The Importance of Website Design

Designing a website that is not only relevant to your market but also optimized for the search engines will lay the foundation for your success. Successful sites on the web today are driven by social media and Web 2.0 platforms; your website must have a few fundamental elements of Web 2.0 design interwoven to the site so that components such as articles, blogs, and video can be shared easily across the major social networks. Without these components, you could be left far behind your competition and fail to reach your target market. In the end, this means lower levels of traffic and infrequent visitors.

A website that is both SEO-friendly and W3C compliant is another important element to keep in mind; if your site isn’t indexable by the search engines, even the most creative website promotion strategy won’t bring you steady traffic for the long-term.

The Importance of Website Promotion

Promoting your website also plays a critical role in website development; with the right strategy and well-designed site in place, you will be able to build steady traffic while increasing brand awareness of your business.

The overall design of the site can help you branch out into different social media networks and develop successful website promotion campaigns. For example, having a simple ‘share this’ feature implemented on your website will enable any user to bookmark your content and share it with their social network. This is a very basic, ‘natural’ form of website promotion that can essentially help you market your site to your target market. Including a discussion forum or a blog where users can post comments is another way to build a high-traffic site; this is another form of marketing as word-of-mouth spreads when users share information and link back to their posts and comments.

Without the appropriate features in place – which are all a part of your web design project – none of this can take place.

How to Proceed with Website Design and Website Promotion

When you’re building a website with new features and custom content, you will need to make sure the content is applicable to your target market’s needs. This is where a strategic marketing plan may be required, and this will then turn into a formal website promotion plan geared specifically to your market.

From the launch stages to tracking your visitors and learning about their behavior on the site, building your site to accommodate for your marketing strategy will help you get the leverage you need to succeed in today’s competitive marketplace – no matter what type of industry you are in.

If you liked this article, please give me a vote!

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Posted in Graphic Design, Small Business Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

How To Make Social Media Pay – Long Term

Sunday, May 18th, 2008

Here was a great article on ways to make social media content pay. For the record, I’d like to say that I totally agree with these three principles:

  • Get quality links to your social media site profile
  • Use highly targeted categorization
  • Build relationships

That last one, I think, is self explanatory. But what about the other two?

Note that building quality links is about building them to your social media profile, not using the social media site itself to spam your own website. This is an important distinction and it’s a good one to highlight. Many new social media users will try to add all of their URLs to the social site itself, watering down the effectiveness of the site and not really helping their own website. Instead, build links to the social media site, which helps its search ranking, and then add one or two sites from there to your most important website pages.

The highly targeted categorization is such an important principle I don’t know why it’s not a no-brainer. But, evidently, it isn’t. I see people just going in and sending friends requests and approving friends requests for anyone and everyone. This type of social promiscuity isn’t helping you. It means you have no standards. What you should focus on is building relationships with people who have the same interests as you and targeting them specifically. They are most likely to want what you have to offer.

I hope these two points give something to think about when you set up your next social media site profile. Learn more about small business marketing at Small Business Mavericks.

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Posted in Social Media | 2 Comments »

The Power Of Small Business Marketing

Monday, May 12th, 2008

Small business marketing is my passion. If you read my blog every day then you know that. Recently, I was honored to be interviewed by Chris Witting, host of the Internet Radio Talk Show “The Power Of Small Business.” Chris hosts a great radio show through TalkZone, an online radio syndication tool and he interviewed me recently regarding small business marketing tactics and blogging.

I encourage to listen to the interview. I talk about the importance of having a website, how to market your website to the search engines through SEO and the use of keywords and inbound links. You’ll also get valuable information on how to use e-mail and blogs to market your company online.

The link to the radio show where you can hear Chris interview me is right here. Head on over for a great interview with Chris Witting and catch the value!

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Posted in Small Business Internet Marketing | 1 Comment »

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