Archive for the social media for small business Category

SEO

On June 10, 2014   /   Google, News, SEO, social media for small business, Web Design  
SEO

SEO or search engine optimization is something that you hear a lot, but few people know much about.  SEO is an ever-changing landscape, but a strong understanding is necessary to have the online results that our clients expect.  I consider myself to be an expert in this area, and in this article, I’ll try to shed some light on what SEO is all about.

The Two Major Components of SEO

SEO SeashorewebThe first component of  SEO is on page optimization.  On page, optimization means that your website has been built in a way that it clearly shows Google, and other search engines, what you are trying to talk about.  The majority of websites today fail this test.

Here’s an example:  Let’s say that you created a page about Construction on your website, and you want your page to show up when people in your city search for Contractor.  In order for this to happen a number of things have to be in place.

Meta Data

Every website contains metadata on each page.  This metadata is like a summary of what your page is about.  Google and other search engines use this metadata to help them quickly decide if your page should be considered to rank when a search is entered online.

Let’s say that you live in the city of  Atlanta, GA. Your contractor page metadata needs to contain the words “Atlanta” and “Contractor”.  Contractor alone will have you competing against the entire world when you really only want to rank in the city of Atlanta.

Metadata consists of Title Tags, Descriptions, and Keywords.  A well-designed website will have clear meta information on each and every page that fits the content of that page.

Page Content

In addition to having the correct meta information you also have to have page content that matches it.  The words you write in your content need to be congruent with the title of the page, as well as the description, and keywords.  If everything flows together you have a great chance of reaching the top of the results.

Page Length

The page length also plays a factor in your ability to rank for certain search terms.  You should ideally have pages that are longer than 400 words, but I would say the longer the better.  Write high-quality content that contains lots of content that should include pictures as well as videos and other interesting features.

The Second Major Component of SEO

The second major component of SEO is off page optimization.  Off-page optimization means that you are getting votes from other websites online.  So how do you get a vote?

At some point, you’ve been on a website and clicked a link that took you off that site to another website.  A link like that is called a backlink, and having high-quality backlinks pointing to your website will have an impact on the rank of your website and your internal pages.

There are many different places that you can get backlinks from.  Having your website listed in certain directories online will help you to get some backlinks, and websites like YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter also allow you to build links to pages in your site.

Some links are more powerful than others, and some are safer than others.  If Google sees that you are building links to your site from low-quality neighborhoods they can filter your website out of the search results.  Today it’s very important to make sure your backlink profile is high quality.

How Do I Master SEO as a Contractor?

It’s very difficult to master SEO as a Contractor.  You simply don’t have the time to invest thousands of hours to learn all about it and to keep up with the monster that it is.  When you work with us at SeashoreWeb Website Design you can rest assured that you are working with the best of the best.  We do all the hard work for you so that you can focus on living the life that you should be as a contractor. We will get you on top of the search engines!

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Contact us today and get your free Quote!  CLICK HERE

Call: 386-872-4545

SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get you found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

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Affordable Website Design Solutions

On May 14, 2014   /   Domain Name, SEO, social media for small business, Web Design  
Affordable Website Design Solutions

Website Design Solutions

We plan, create and build on the latest technologies that drive growth and improve visibility to your target market with Affordable, Innovative integrated  Social Media Marketing and SEO Website Design Solutions. We at SeashoreWeb provide everything you need to market your online presence. We plan, create and build beautiful websites on the latest technologies that help drive growth and improve online visibility for Website Design Solutionsyour business. SeashoreWeb Internet Marketing & Website Design Solutions deliver targeted marketing on time at an affordable rate.

Social media gets more powerful every day. We will evaluate your company’s presence across the web of social media. Then, through very intentional planning,  SeashoreWeb Designs can help you use the power of social media by taking you far beyond the realm of  Your Business Website Presence.   Our team can connect your business website with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Flickr, Pinterest and every other social network that will increase your companies online visibility.

SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get your business found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

Email: Info@seashoreweb.com

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Google+ Hashtags now in Google Searches

On September 26, 2013   /   Google, social media for small business  

Now when you search for a Google+ Hashtag keyword (e.g. #Sustainability) in Google Search, you’ll be shown a series of a relevant content on Google.  The Google search engine announced Wednesday that it’s letting people query the Google engine for hashtags, meaning now they can type in something like ” # Sustainability on Google.com to see related status updates appear to the right of regular results. A hashtag is a word or a phrase (without spaces) preceded by the # symbol that helps people find and join conversations about a particular topic. Click on a hashtag to show related content. That added visibility gives you greater overall reach. Google+ hashtags are actually an efficient way to bring more exposure and visibility to your Google+ profile and brand.

Hashtags

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SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get your business found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

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Social Media

On September 21, 2012   /   Google, SEO, social media for small business, Web Design  

social mediaAs more and more users flock to social media, small businesses must find a way to use these channels to reach their target markets. It can often seem daunting to cut through the social media clutter; however, with these 5 strategies, you’ll be well on your way to social media marketing success.

1. Narrow Your target

For small businesses, it’s important to connect with people in your geographic area, especially if you are a brick and mortar operation. Targeting your social media posts to a specific area or keyword set ensures that you are only interacting with viable leads.

There are hundreds of thousands of status updates getting published every minute, so cutting through the clutter has to be a top priority. Start small. Start out familiarizing yourself with tools like search.twitter.com, and you can eventually move on to using a more business-specific tool like CoTweet or Hootsuite.

2. Be Proactive

If you simply assume that “if you tweet, they will come,” you may be waiting for a long time. You need to find out who you should be interacting with and go after those people. Join Facebook Groups, LinkedIn Groups, check out PeerIndex.net lists on your genre and look at a person’s Twitter Grader score. There are so many tools out there whose sole mission is to make it easier to target your exact customer, so make use of them.

3. Some Automation Is Bad

When you’re having conversations with potential customers, you need to be real. Spam is one sure-fire way to turn people off. You want to start a conversation with qualified leads, and grow that conversation organically. You don’t need 500 people a day to respond to you. Instead, having 5 or 10 qualified leads will add much more to your bottom line.

Does this mean you can’t streamline the process? Of course not! Some automation is okay. For example, scheduling updates, pulling in from your RSS feed, these are all great time savers. It’s fine to even have a few templates ready to reply when you see people tweeting or posting on Facebook about something, but never automate the interaction because the results could be incredibly embarrassing.

Back in the day when these sorts of apps were allowed by Twitter, I tried an app for my antique business that would automate replies without human interaction. I set it to look for a rare German figurine and asked it to send them a specific tweet if they found it. Since I was not manually reviewing the matches, I had no idea that the same name of this German figurine was also a well-known Pokemon character. I had a lot of confused people @replying me. Templates are fine (there are only so many ways you can answer a certain question) but make sure you’re reviewing who you are replying to!

4. Don’t Miss the Giant Gorilla

As an SME owner, you are expected to wear a lot of hats. When your social media hat comes off for a little while, you don’t want to leave your followers with nothing. Schedule some helpful posts for your followers, fans, and group members to read while you’re busy doing other things, but never leave them hanging for too long.

Social media is a great way to field a lot of customer requests, support, and even research. Set up searches for keywords related to your brand and put in the time to handle requests daily. Just make sure you set up enough ‘nets’ so you never miss the ‘giant gorilla’ in your business.

Because social media conversations happen in real time, you can usually put out a spark before it becomes a full-fledged fire, often in 140 characters or less!

5. Give Others Credit

There are so many collaboration opportunities in social media. Re-tweeting is a great way to show your followers you have your finger on the pulse of your industry, but a big mistake is just posting a load of unattributed feeds as your own. You should always give credit to the original author of what you’re tweeting. First, it shows your users you’re monitoring the field and curating some great content for them. Secondly, and perhaps most importantly, it’s a great way to get the attention of the person whose content you are pushing. You can start a lot of great strategic partnerships with a simple “RT.”

Key Marketing Takeaway:

Social media sites are exploding with users. As a savvy business, you can focus your efforts and concentrate on creating interactions that will help turn the social media noise into traffic which converts.

For a business without a lot of time or a very large marketing budget, social media is a great place for a targeted interaction to become a viable lead.

Guest post by T. K. Fennell

SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get your Business Found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

Affordable, Innovative Web Design Solutions
SeashoreWeb Website Design, SEO and Social Media Marketing.
Call: 386-478-8746

Email: Info@seashoreweb.com

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Social Media Marketing For Small Business

On August 17, 2012   /   social media for small business  

Social media marketing for small business requires that you have the best strategies which will ensure that your business is benefiting and cost-effective. Using the social media platforms to leverage the visibility of your brand online has shown tremendous results and has seen an increased number of small business owners making this tool as an integral component of their business policies.

If you have not embraced the use of the social media platforms for generating more business leads and reaching out to your potential customers then you are losing out on the success road.  You want to make sure that your brand enjoys online exposure and watch the result of generating better web traffic to your website.

Social Media for Small Businesssmall business online marketing Strategic Use on Various Platforms:

Are you the only one that has not embraced using social media sites as your marketing tool? Then you must be really lonely out there!  Nowadays everyone is communicating through the internet. Social media is growing and is used by millions of people every day.  You want to communicate with your current and potential customers and in addition, you want to watch with the eye of a hawk what your competitors are doing so that you stay equal or even better than them.

Social Media for Small Business And How To Become an Expert:

The more you use social media for your small business, the more you will become an expert in your field. You may own a local cake baking shop and you are trying to get new business. You can post different tips about baking cakes, as your followers would be interested in reading this. Once they see that you offer them useful content, they will start to trust you and that is a big step in gaining them as a new customer. Most people prefer to purchase from people that they have developed a relationship with and of course trust is also important. Trust is always another way of gaining customers for life because they will not only be loyal to you but will be the people that will be recommending you to their network of friends and family.

Communication and Feedback Possibility:

Social media for small business fosters communication and will help you to create a distinct online brand identity.  You need to know the right way of communicating on the social media sites but embracing the communication styles that your potential customers are using.  This will require that you acquire skills or training which will enable you to learn how to become proficient in using social media for small business effectively.

Blogging As a Tool For Promoting in Social Media Sites:

Social media for small business are seeing the increased usage of a blog as an important factor in helping increase the business visibility. Business people nowadays have optimized blogs which are user-friendly offering discussion platforms with their customers and also with third-party blogs.  The blog is used to offer content value to customers who are looking for specific solutions to their problems.  Blogs posts offer updated information, company news and activities of your business and that is why it is regarded as the social media for small business number one tool. So in conclusion, social media for small business venturing to become successful using this platform is the greatest tool which all businesses should utilize to stay ahead or at least even with their competitors. What most people have not realized is that this powerful tool is free of charge.

SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get you found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

Email: Info@seashoreweb.com

Affordable, Innovative Web Design Solutions
SeashoreWeb Website Design &  Social Media Marketing.

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What are Google Places?

On June 26, 2012   /   Google, social media for small business, Web Design  

At least 50% of all purchases made are now preceded with an online search. Searching for options on Google, Yahoo and Bing are done by millions of people all around you, looking for you, (and your business). If you don’t set this up correctly you can cause yourself a big headache and make it more costly to get fixed later.

5 Things You Absolutely Must Know Before You Claim Your Place in Google

…AND Know Before You Hurt Your Chances to Claim Your Customers Using Google.

1. What Your Best Keyword Phrases Are.

Keyword research must be done right. If you have ever wondered “What is Google Places?” or even What is the first step in marketing your local business on the web?” Google is the place where should start. But good keyword research is the first step to start on. You don’t have to have a complicated website to get calls, leads, and business from the web. Google Places is basically your business profile listing, or your “Google Place Page” listing is what’s listed on “Google Maps” and what is found most often when Google anticipates the searcher was making search queries with the intent of finding local businesses, products, and services in their own town, or geographical area. However, if you haven’t done a good job planning your long-tail keyword list and your categories list you may miss out on getting the best placement for your efforts.

2. Lots of Information Will Keep Google Happy 

A lot of searches are made on Google every day with a city and state in with the searched keyword phrase. When this is done, almost always at least some of the search results will be the Google Places listing of local businesses. To really take advantage of this for your business you need have your local marketing consultant “claim your Google Places listing” and optimize it properly with images, video, product information, and proper branding elements. Don’t do this and you will not get the maximum exposure you could be getting or the business profit from it!
It’s not that hard but to actually get found and be part of the first page of options when people are looking for your products and services locally, you need to complete the listing in the correct manner that is part of a basic search engine marketing strategy. Meaning optimized with the right keywords, images, and video content and more. Google is partial to listings that have been properly optimized in just the right way.

3. Promoting Your Business Online – Plan It Out!
You can claim your Google Places page, or “listing” but you also need to make sure you research the details of how to get your local business listed on page one of the search results or you may see little benefit from the effort. Make sure to visit some of the top search engine blogs that teach how to properly promote your business listing so you can gain maximum exposure in your search engine optimization efforts.

4. How To Use Your Listing To Get More Business
Take advantage of the options to create a coupon to offer and get a QR Code to add for mobile marketing efforts and to send seekers to more details about your promotions and advertisements online, and offline. This is a great benefit that you should use to increase options for interacting with your potential customers.

5. Mobile Marketing Methods Can Be Surprisingly Effective
Texting and SMS Voice messages are a great way to keep in touch with your clients and customer these days. Think about this, almost everyone on the planet uses a cell phone now. Send mobile updates letting your customer base know you have a special promotion going on while they are out, and on the go. Having your place pages available on mobile devices is also going to increase business, especially if your companies main site isn’t optimized for smartphones.

Hiring a local marketing firm that specializes in SEO of local businesses is often what small to large businesses end up doing. Often you will save time and money if you focus on running your business and let a local marketing consultant over the online marketing strategy and focus on getting your business MORE BUSINESS, from the web.

As long as you understand the pitfalls to avoid and the best way to get your business listed in all the proper directories you are well on your way to building a stronger business and increasing profit margins as soon as you get started. Google can bring you walk-ins, and get the phone ringing faster than just about any other marketing method on the planet. Get started today.


SeashoreWeb Digital Marketing & Website Design
For business owners interested in leveraging website design, SEO and social media marketing to grow their business and to improve online visibility. We will get your business Found on the First Page of GOOGLE.

Email: Info@seashoreweb.com

Affordable, Innovative Web Design Solutions
SeashoreWeb Website Design & Social Media Marketing.

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