Using Pinterest For Business and SEO

A new social site has been gaining popularity over the past several months: Pinterest. If you like looking at images and you find inspiration in pictures as opposed to reading status updates and articles, then this site if for you. If you’re not familiar with Pinterest, Rob Lammle of Mashable shares a beginner’s guide to this hot new social network.

Using Pinterest For Business

From a business and SEO standpoint, there are quite a few opportunities for businesses to market their brand using Pinterest, but just like any social network, it must be done tactfully and organically. Spamming the site with just pictures of your company’s products is not going to get you followers. However, sharing quality images and participating in the community by “liking” other images that you genuinely find of interest is a good start to making connections with others who may be attracted by what you have to offer. Just like Twitter, people can follow you, so it’s a great way to build a “list” of potential customers.

Social Media: How Do I Keep Up?

The social media realm is constantly changing. As fast as you can blink an eye, there’s a “new way” to market your business. One of the challenges that businesses face when implementing a social media strategy is figuring out which social media channels to participate in. Should you set up a Facebook page, Twitter page, or start a blog? How do you keep up with all the the different social media platforms? Should you wait for the next big thing to save your business?

As Pam Moore pointed out, social media is NOT about the next big thing. Waiting around for this magic formula to catapult your business will only leave you paralyzed. On the other side of the coin, trying to keep up with every single social media channel can be time-consuming and take away from what matters most: Taking care of your customers.

How Social Media Can Hurt Your Business and What To Do About It

There's a saying that "Ignorance is Bliss", but when it comes to social media, ignorance can be detrimental to your business. There are still many business owners and executives out there who don’t understand that social media can impact their business in a negative way, especially if customers have a less than desirable experience with that company. According to this survey, twice as many people tell others about bad service than good.

In this day and age of fast communication, a person who has a bad service experience can easily go on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn and tell all of their fans and followers about it. Forget about writing a letter to the CEO to complain. People can now write up a detailed blog post and share that experience with the world. That message can spread like wild fire such as the case when United Airlines broke a customer’s guitar and the customer decided to post a YouTube video to let people know. That video now has over 11 million page views and has turned into a great case study of how social media can make an impact on how people perceive a company.

5 Critical Mistakes Companies Make When Using Social Media

Social media is an important part of a company’s marketing strategy. Through social media you can develop deeper relationships with customers and make connections with people all around the world.  If your company is still not participating in social media such blogging, Facebook, or Twitter, then you’re missing out on so many opportunities to attract new customers and interact with your current customers.

Although there are many companies using social media nowadays, many of them are making these five costly mistakes:

Does Your Web Designer Know These On-Page Optimization Techniques?

So, you think your website looks great. Your web designer created the site design and layout just as you wanted; the content communicates your brand message; and you’ve been working your butt off marketing and building links back to your site. However, for some reason your site will not move up in the search engines. Could it be that your web designer did not use on-page optimization techniques when creating the pages of your website?

A great web designer not only can design great websites, but he/she is highly knowledgeable about search engine optimization (SEO) as well. What good is a nicely designed website if the search engines can’t find it and share it with potential customers? Here are some of the most important on-page optimization techniques that should be incorporated on your website...

Title Tag - The title of a page is displayed when someone conducts a web search. It is also displayed in the top left-hand corner of the browser. In essence, the title tag lets people know what that particular page is about. It is usually what people look at when deciding whether or not to visit your website. Make sure the keyword(s) you are targeting are included in the title tag of each page of your website.

Meta Description - This is also known as a “snippet” of a page that briefly describes what your company does and the services or products you offer. This description is usually displayed right below the title in a web search. Again, be sure to include keywords or key phrases so your site is discoverable by search engines like Google.

Keyword Optimization and Density - Whatever keyword(s) you are targeting should be used a few times within the content of your site. That said, do not stuff your content with keywords so that your pages become hard to read. It’s been said that the “standard” keyword density of page is 2%. Find out more about keyword density and how it plays a role in SEO.

A note about keyword optimization for your site: When writing copy or articles on your site, don’t write for the search engines. Think about your customers first and the information you want to share with them. After you’ve written the content, then go back and insert keywords or phrases where they would fit naturally.

“Alt” Tags - This is an image tag, or “alternative” text, that lets site visitors know what an image is before it loads or if it can’t be seen, such as when images are turned off in browser preferences. Alt tags also aid readers for the visually impaired or the blind, and allows them to understand the images. Search engines can only read text, not images, so including alt tags will add more to your site’s content and help with search engine rankings.

If your web designer hasn’t utilized these on-page optimization techniques, we invite you to contact us to see how we can help increase your site’s visibility and attract new customers.

Is Your Website Missing These 5 Key Features?

Have you ever tried to bake a cake without flour or eggs? It wouldn’t turn out right or taste very good, would it? These ingredients are necessary to have a moist, delicious cake. It’s the same with your website design and features. If you’re missing key ingredients, you won’t get the right results, whether it be selling your product, service, or getting people to sign up for your newsletter. Here are 5 key features that we believe every website should have...

1. User-Friendly Navigation and Design - If your website is not aesthetically pleasing, the content is hard to read, or people can’t find the information they need, they’ll leave your website in a heartbeat.

2. Proper On-Site Optimization - If you want your website to be discovered via search engines, your website needs to be optimized. This means including keywords in your title tags and page descriptions along with making sure you publish unique, fresh content that clearly communicates your company’s message. Here is more information about using descriptive titles and headings for web pages.

Good on-screen optimization will not only benefit from SEO and user readability, it will also help users with any type of accessibility issues (e.g. hearing or visual problems) because it allows assisted technologies, such as screen readers, to better deliver a web page’s content through alternate means.

3. Call to Action - What do you want your customers to do? Buy your product or service? Sign up for your newsletter? Download your free report? A call-to-action is a way of getting your website visitors to take action. For example, you could include a “Follow us on Twitter” button or incorporate a lead capture form that entices them to “Download this free report for exclusive tips...” Also, consider using a “limited time” offer to get people to take action NOW.

4. Analytics - How are people finding your website? Which sites are they coming from? What are the most popular pages? These are some of the things you would want to know so that you can make adjustments to marketing efforts or tweak your site’s content. Without an analytics tool, you’re essentially putting up a site and just “hoping for the best”.

5. Contact Page - It’s interesting, but you would be surprised how many websites don’t have a contact page. If potential customers have a question about your product/service, how can they get in touch with you? Your contact page should also have links to your company’s social media accounts like Facebook or Twitter if people choose to contact you through those channels.

Developing and building a website is an art form, but when done properly, it can propel your business to the next level and create loyal customers. If you’re thinking about a website redesign, contact us to request an estimate!

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