Developing Your Digital Footprint

Transcription

1 Developing Your Digital Ftprint The website is the hub but numerous elements are in orbit. Search Submit website to major search engines and Internet directories, including: l Ggle My Business l Bing Places l Yelp Social Additionally, determine which social media accounts are necessary to reach your prime buyer personas. You don t have to participate in them all, but figure out which one or two is best for reaching your audience: l Facebk l Youtube l Twitter l LinkedIn l Instagram l Snapchat l Pinterest Sales Pay-per-click search advertising done expertly attracts ready buyers. Since these people are searching for what you offer, they enter the sales funnel much closer to a purchase. Social media prospects, generally, require a multiple step process. Data Analytics of website visitors is the primary reason a website is ground zero of marketing. Every initiative aims to drive prospects onto your site. Implementing an Analytics program, such as the one Ggle offers free of charge, is ideal. Page 1 of 7

2 Responsive Design If you re offering a consumer product, figure that more than half your website visitors are likely to visit from a smartphone. If you market to businesses, a higher percentage will likely visit on computer. Ggle Analytics provides device identification as well as browsers used. Know SEO Ggle My Business and Maps API Key Even though you perform your service at the customer s location, implementing anything and everything Ggle offers enhances search standing. Meta Tags and Alt Text Search bots crawl and record information from a website s page code, not its pictures and text visible on the front end. To maximize SEO, each page requires a keyword-rich meta tag description, a listing of keywords, and each photo should have alternative text (visible when images are disabled). This is all fd for web crawlers. XML Sitemaps and Robots Text File Although development of these is pretty much an automated process, there are now several different kinds of sitemaps. Probably the standard sitemap and a video sitemap will be sufficient. It is a relatively simple process to upload onto the server. Ggle also needs a robots text file telling it what it can index. Schema This is a system that standardizes all instances of address, phone, and company . This is important because if you write your address as Main Street in one location and Main St. in another, Ggle splits you search results into two.. Page 2 of 7

3 SEO Continued Outlinks, Backlinks and Internal Links Ggle becomes more confident in your user appeal if it sees links to your site from credible sources (evidenced by the referring site s page rank). Backlinks sometimes termed inlinks frequently necessitate direct requests from other sites, or providing a blog article posted on other sites. Outlinks, which are hyperlinks from your site to the site of a high-ranking authority within your spectrum, also increase Ggle juice many believe, although only Ggle knows for sure. Finally, Ggle also appreciates you tying together your own information with use of internal links. Page Load Speed Although your true prospects may have patience, seconds matter to Ggle. They prefer faster loading websites, particularly on mobile. Quite often design elements the need for speed may curtail design elements but there are also some speed optimizing techniques to implement. Blog and/or Vlog Content thrills Ggle. It has to be relevant to the DNA of your website, but Ggle spiders chew up text. The best means of keeping a stream of information flowing is with a blog (essentially, articles) and/or a vlog, meaning a video blog (with transcript so the spiders can eat). Some subject matters lend themselves better to blogging than others, but almost every business should blog routinely, even if it s only once per month. Long versions of testimonials can make worthwhile blogs or vlogs (while the short versions are used as social media paid advertising). Local Directories and Review Sites Ggle My Business is a must, if organic search holds any importance. Without this listing, Ggle will just about ignore you. Yelp is also a powerful entity. When it comes to business directories, these matter so much that there are subscription services available to provide monitoring and updates. Moz Local is probably the best buy at $99 per year, although there are other companies. Both Moz and Yext provide free reports of how your business appears in approximately 50 local directories. Besides the consistency of the information listing, Ggle values each listing as another morsel of authentication. Page 3 of 7

4 Capture s, Build Lists You see this on every worthwhile website some offer that s worth your address to obtain. What can you offer? An opt-in form connected to a bulk program is essential. You may obtain addresses in various ways, but to include them on a bulk list requires consent on their part technically. Segmenting lists is also helpful. Even if you offer only one basic service, you should segment lists into different types of customers. They may frequently receive the same message, but there will be times when the targeting is much tighter. Blasting Service MailChimp is free for something like 2,500 addresses but it s mailings are more susceptible to spam filters than a lot of the paid services. Some of the others to investigate are: l AWeber l Constant Contact l icontact l ConvertKit l Drip l GetResponse l ActiveCampaign Page 4 of 7

5 Advertising Aware Key Points Marketing plan starts with buyer personas When I started what was essentially a forerunner of today s personal training studio, I spent a lot of time thinking about who would purchase a body-reshaping (building muscle to burn fat) service. Because they re more appearance conscious, women jumped to mind. A woman who s had all the children she expects to have and wants her figure back, seemed a logical choice. At this time there was much ad about the trauma of turning 40, and this milestone merged nicely with the end of childbearing. Further, that age group figured to have stronger purchasing power and the 20th high schl reunion was within the time-frame also. Finally, I wanted women who tk action, displayed evidence of getting involved in civic activities. Thus, I realized a woman who fit my buyer persona and to find more like her, I called and asked, Mary Ann, where do I find more women like you? You can be more scientific if you d like, but Mary Ann led me to the Junior Service League mailing list and I scored an 11.5% return on a start-up business because I nailed the buyer persona. Only a sample or a tease is free. Free posts on Facebk won t generate much business. If you could market a business with free advertising, every advertising medium in the world would go out of existence. All social media is really pay to play. Traditional still works Direct mail, TV, radio, and even newspaper advertising still generates results. Things such as QR codes or driving prospects to a website can bridge into the datacollection capabilities of digital. For consumer products, Every Dr Direct Mail can be powerful. If it s easy, it s probably ineffective Ggle and Facebk know how to make money. They offer valuable advertising opportunities, but you have to master their platforms. To reduce this learning barrier and so the companies don t lose out on business Facebk has devised bsted posts and Ggle offers Adwords Express. You won t make money with these, but Facebk and Ggle will. Belly up to the bar and learn how to command legitimate Page 5 of 7

6 Keeping Score If you re unable to answer the following questions, it s doubtful you re running your business at peak efficiency. How many unique visitors to your website last month? What percentage came via smartphone versus computer? Did visitors come from direct search, social media, or PPC? Are you compiling an list; preferably segmented lists? Do you have a retargeting campaign? Where do you rank in local searches for the key terms relevant to your services? How many video testimonials do you collect each month? Do your Facebk posts drive people to your website or get them to call? Do you A/B test your digital advertising? Are you aware of the many effective ways you can advertise through Ggle and Facebk or do you lapse into bsted posts and Adwords Express? Are your customers/clients your advocates on social media? Most of these answer will be supplied by Ggle Analytics but you must mine the data, which many business overlk. Competitor Intelligence SpyFu -- SEMrush -- I believe both of these companies offer either a free trial or a free scaled down version of their programs, providing a lot of information on any website you specify. This includes keywords on the website and even the company s specific pay=perclick search advertising campaigns, if any. You may also find what websites are linking to them and then contact them for a link to your site as well. Much to gain. Page 6 of 7

7 Next Steps Check all you want implemented: Install a Ggle Analytics Account Develop Ggle My Business page Place physical location on Ggle Maps Maximize meta tags and alt text Install Schema markup Set up a Ggle Adwords PPC account Start a Yelp Account Subscribe to local directories service from Develop and upload XML Sitemaps and Robots text Create an Optin Form offering Account Service with Check and report on these competitors by getting free account with Create the following Social Media Accounts with banners, etc. Facebk Youtube Twitter Other LinkedIn Instagram Snapchat Pinterest Page 7 of 7