Archive for the ‘Online Marketing’ Category

How Can YOU Be Social In Just 10 Minutes A Day?

Tuesday, July 26th, 2011

In this fast paced, busy world, we all have to make decisions on how to best spend our time.  We prioritize our lives based on several factors, including: the most ‘bang for our buck’, the urgency of the situation, and the level of scrutiny by people to whom we are held accountable.

Often, we hear that the number one reason why social media isn’t a ‘main focus’ is the time involved.  That is why we are sharing this e-book from HubSpot that we read: How to Monitor Your Social Media in 10 Minutes a Day

In the article, your 10 minutes of social media monitoring starts with 3 minutes to check the Twitter chatter about your company and your competitor (set up a search and save for your own and competitors names); next, take 2 minutes to scan Google News and Blog Alerts for important articles; third, use 3 more minutes filtering and flagging industry related questions so that you can be the first to correctly answer them in a timely manner; finally, use the last 2 minutes to check your Facebook wall and comment where appropriate.

In order to be successful with this strategy, you must set very specific goals: ask yourself what you want to accomplish and which of the social media platforms will help you reach those goals.  Then see if you can use any of our ideas below to further decrease your time investment and increase your productivity while on social platforms.

Blog Integration

If you post a blog, you can save a lot of time (and energy) by setting up your blog to feed directly to each of your social media platforms.  This level of integration across your platforms will not only save you time, it will also show that you understand how the various social media platforms work together.

Social Media Management Software

Rather than taking the time to log in to each of the platforms you wish to review or post on, you can set up one of the many free Social Media Management tools (HootSuite, TweetDeck, TweetMe, Seesmic, etc.) to do all the heavy lifting for you.  These platforms do essentially the same task – they compile your accounts from the various social media platforms in a way that allows you to see what you are most interested in, comment, post, tweet, retweet, search, etc., from one tool!  How great is technology?!

Manage Your News

Rather than going to each blog you appreciate to read their newest posts – why not use a tool that will bring all that information to you?!  This tool, usually called a “reader”, works much like the social media management tool – but it pulls information to you from other websites and blogs.  These tools (Google Reader, Netvibes, among others) are fantastic ways to pull in the most recent and relevant information automatically.

Your Blog is in Trouble!!

Friday, July 8th, 2011

What Makes a Great Blog?

Several things have to come together to truly wow an audience. According to some gurus in Cindy King’s blog post today “21 Dangerous Blogging Mistakes (and how to fix them)”, there are quite a few things that can make or break your blog.

Blogging Mistakes

We all make them at one time or another. Maybe we were in a hurry and our quality slipped, maybe we were too busy and our frequency dropped. As long as these things we call life happen only once in a while, that is fine. When it becomes par for the course – your blog is in trouble.

Balancing Quality and Quantity

According to Jay Baer (@jaybaer), “balancing the need to be consistently publishing and the need for consistent quality is the key to successful long-term blogging.” We would add that it is important that both your quality and your frequency of posting matches the target audience you have. If you have a company that is in the fast track industry of trading or finances – especially in these times – you might need to post more frequently than someone in a lagging industry field.

Keywords, Keywords, Keywords

We hear it all the time, but the truth is keywords get you found. You cannot have a successful blog when no one is reading it. This is the point that Rich Brooks (@therichbrooks) makes in his contribution to Cindy King’s article. A good blogger understands the “need to write keyword-rich posts with persuasive, compelling titles that will be read, linked to and shared on social media sites”, which increases the idea of being found. It isn’t just about keywords, but also about grabbing attention with a title, AND sharing and linking to social media sites. In this case, you need the whole package – sole focus on one area will leave a gap that cannot be bridged.

Planning

Don’t underestimate the need to schedule yourself the time and focus to really generate an interesting, engaging and informative blog post. As Dag Holmboe (@dagh) states himself, “A good, in-depth blog post takes time to research, write and edit.” What more can we say? This is not a five minute post – you must craft the message and the way it will be delivered.

Cater to Your Audience

It is extremely important, as we discussed earlier, to know your target audience. It is only through knowing them, that you can effectively tailor your content, style, medium, and media to their needs. As Jim Lodico (@jlcommunication) explains, “if it isn’t of value to your audience, your audience won’t read it”. Well put!

Build Community

True engagement is not built overnight – like a community it has to be formed and tended through multiple interactions that consistently reinforce the needs of the community. We completely agree with Carla Dewing (@CarlaDewing), “The fastest way to build a community online is to share information”!! Community is created by giving help (sharing) when those in your community (your target audience) are in need and you have the information (content) that can help them.

For more information and tips on blogging, check out Social Media Examiner online!  They have fantastic articles that we use ourselves all the time.

Your Target Audience May be YOU!

Tuesday, June 28th, 2011

In a recent blog posted on Duct Tape Marketing by John Jantsch, called “Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, I’m My Ideal Client After All“, the idea that we most want to work with customers that are like ourselves, is well stated. It isn’t just that we prefer people who think the way we do, or that have the same values and common definitions of customer service or partnership – it is also that we want to feel comfortable enough to be ourselves.

Tailor your business or brand to the niche that best suits you!

It is a good idea to put attention and thought into reaching your target audience. It’s a GREAT idea  to know WHO your target audience truly is.  In order to do that effectively, you have to have a clear vision of who you are (as a company or brand) and how you are going to use that special something to your customers’ advantage. So, what kinds of people do you want to have as clients?

Choose wisely!

We have all had those situations where you suddenly realize that while you and your customer are in the same book, there are pages between you, yet you were both under the impression you were communicating clearly. Much of this happens because of differing views on expectations. This can be greatly reduced by following the advice in the article mentioned above – make sure you match the needs and expectations of your customers or clients and they fit the client model you need to be successful.

Be True to Your Brand

The moral of the story is that you have to be true to the essence of who you are (as a brand and a person) and how you want to interact with your customers.  As long as you keep your expectations in alignment with those of your customers or clients, you will not only be a choice with integrity, you will also be their number one choice – because they see themselves as ‘one of you’.  And we all know we’d rather spend time and do business with people that are ‘like us’.

Branding for Your Small Business

Tuesday, June 21st, 2011

Your company brand tells your story. Your design, colors, and media display your style and your voice in the industry. Your website is often the face of your company – especially in today’s multi-dimensional market; branding requires more than just a logo. Design and functionality are extremely important, but you also need an experienced, caring company to get your brand noticed by the world.

Integris Marketing strives to exceed all your web needs. We specialize in more than just web design, we have the largest selection of services for the small business community, and we understand the journey a small business takes.

We will be blogging with tips and helpful information, weekly, that you can actually use in your daily business life. We are here to help – building success for your business is our business.

If you are interested: more on our Marketing Services.

In-Bound Link Building Tips to Help Local (Reno) SEO

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

The Basics for In-Bound Link-Building

Easy enough. It just takes time & planning to manage your approach.

Integris Marketing Blog PostIn-Bound Link Building is Important for SEO Success. Whether Your Business is Local (Reno), Regional or International, search engines such as Google, Yahoo and Bing use this seemingly simple search engine ranking parameter as an indication your website’s relative popularity. This in turn influences the search engines decision in rating your relevance for search queries and ultimately affects your search engine ranking or opportunities for first page display.

In-Bound Link Bottom Line: If you don’t have inbound links and your competitors do, then to put it bluntly,  you will not rank as well as them. (Want to learn about the top Search Engine Ranking Factors… then go here >)

Here Are 2 Things To NOT Do For Building In-Bound Links

It all makes sense if you think about it or understand the industry and the sophistication of Search Engine ranking algorhythms (Here is a link to an older March 2007 article but the thrust is a solid foundational concept for this).

It really boils down to 2 things of what not to do for inbound link building:

  1. Don’t Use Link Farms (See This Wikipedia Page for more information about Link Farms). According to Google, “a site that participates in a link farm may have its search rankings penalized”, and “Links from related sites carry more weight than those from irrelevant sites”.
  2. Try not to use Off-Topic Links (Relevant On-Topic Links build credibility in the eyes of Search Engines… And yes, they do know.)

Six Basic Strategies for In-Bound Link Building

Anyone and everyone with a website should make some effort to include these 6 Link Building strategies if you are serious about top performance for Search Engine Ranking.

  1. Make More Content! – Search Engines need content in order to deliver relevant and current results to search queries. Better results from search engines mean more people will use them. This in turn makes them a better platform for advertising dollars (This is America after all). The bottom line is search engines need the new content just as much as you need to generate it, distribute it and have it link back to you. The solution is to write articles, publish them online (on a relevant blog site or an ezine or article website – There are tons of them out there such as articlebase.com).
  2. Social Media – Serious about in-bound links? Then get serious about social media. There are lots of ways to leverage this. If you don’t know how, take a class, talk to some social media guru, or just dive in. Be conscious of the appropriate linking patterns and partners out there and be careful you don’t spend too much time doing this. It can be a real time sink. Think of it as something to adopt over time and that you will keep up with. It is better to do a little dribble consistently then do a lot and then burn out and drop off the map… especially as far as Search Engines are concerned.
  3. Relevant Online Directories – Online Directories are a great place for links. That’s what they are for… listing websites. Some are free and some are pay. Do what you can to get in them and have a budget (time and $$$) that makes sense for you. Here are the biggies: DMOZ (can take a while to get listed), Yahoo (Expensive). Some other well known online directories include: Business.com, BestOfTheWeb.com, GoGuides.com and MassiveLinks.com. There are many others that have narrow niche appeal. The best approach is to identify the best ranked ones and then submit your listing to them. Rinse and repeat.
  4. Online Video – First a quick question… Do you know what the worlds second most used search engine is? If you guessed YouTube you guessed right. So Videos can get you inbound links, visibility and some brand or service awareness. If you get it right it can even go “viral”! There are tons of video sites out there (YouTube, Viddler, Vimeo to name a few). If you do video then distribute them to different sources and watch and compare results and see which ones work best for you. And be sure to have some fun along the way. (Note: Professional Video production can be quite costly. You need to balance quality and budget to get the most bang for your video buck. And don’t forget, there is always the webcam on your local computer approach if you are on a shoestring.)
  5. Online Classifieds – Yep, this often overlooked little gem will get you inbound links. Think CraigsList.org or any of the other online classifieds (some are free and some are pay). And who knows.. besides the link you get, maybe someone will buy what you are selling!
  6. Online Press Releases – Huh? That’s right.. you can distribute your own online press releases. (But I recommend hitting your local news outlets first so they can get the “scoop” before it hits the big ol’ web. It’s a professional courtesy thing.) This is a great way to get in-bound links. You can use the paid versions such as as PRweb.com or go for the free ones such as PRlog.com. As with all things online there are lots of options so be sure to compare apples to apples when it comes to getting your press release sent out online.

Hope that helps! This is the basic approach that we offer clients as starting points for their in-bound link building campaign. And if you want to share a reciprocal link with us, just send us a note or give us a call, and we will see what we can do!

Reno Marketing Tips (My Top 10 Favorites)

Monday, May 31st, 2010

Reno is a Fabulous Place for Marketing and Promotion!

The local Reno Business Climate is great place for getting connected to people as well as potential customers and clients

There are so many talented Reno-based Marketing Professionals here in the Truckee Meadows and Lake Tahoe Area, it is enough to make your head spin! Every day I read about the successes, the insights and the fantastic creative ideas that pour out from this community of local marketing and design professionals. It is truly awe-inspiring, and just like the “Energizer Bunny®”*… It just keeps going!

And with all that professional-marketing-horsepower, there are some things, and themes that just keep coming up over and over that are particularly helpful to local Reno area business owners. And while not every Reno Business is the same, there are certain things that most of them can do to promote themselves locally, that and are tried-and-true marketing and publicity opportunities, and are proven processes that work for the local audience. Why do they work? Because we all live, eat and breath here… right here in this valley and the surrounding mountains. So people we meet become the friends we make and are often the same as the future business partners we engage.

Here are my top 10 Reno Marketing Tips that won’t cost much except for time and maybe some membership or entry fees:

  1. Networking in Reno Rocks! (This town has so many networking opportunities, it could easily be a full-time job attending them all! Try out the local Sparks Chamber, Reno Sparks Chamber, BizTalk Blender, American Marketing Association Meetings, LeTip, BNI, eWomen, etc… all are great and very active with lots of opportunities for connecting. And there are lots of local trade shows too to attend!)
  2. Get Involved with Social Media: Share ideas, join the conversation… it can be overwhelming and even addictive, but taken in moderation there is lots to be gained in knowledge and even promotion opportunities.
  3. Give or Attend Marketing Talks and Classes (or other relevant topics of interest to you)
  4. Start a Blog (Let the world know about your local Reno business and what you can deliver)
  5. Write Local Press Releases (Tell the world about your successes)
  6. Write Local and Relevant Articles (Talk about your area of expertise. Become the “known” local expert… lots of people have!
  7. Collaborate with other businesses for joint promotions or marketing brainstorming.. heck, you can even start your own Mastermind Marketing Group or Professional Trade Group
  8. Ask for Referrals (Ask your friends, clients and peers… don’t go overboard, but do ask! Incentive Programs for the referral are a nice touch too.)
  9. Be Helpful… Whenever you meeting a potential customer or client, offer something. A referral to information, a resource for them, relevant news, a good book or even a place to have lunch. See how you can give before you ask for something. (Pick a local charity, serve on the board, volunteer, donate time and/or money, help plan and coordinate events.)
  10. Show Up! No one will know of you unless you get out there and get seen. That goes for for any marketing or promotional effort. Hiding under the rock or “being too busy to promote your business” will only bite you in the rear end in the long run and won’t contribute to your success and certainly won’t help people understand how wonderful you are or the expertise you can offer.

Now go forth and market, meet, greet, and enjoy your new friends you will meet along the way!

If you want more marketing tips, local networking tips or even have some tips you want to share… give us a call (775.322.3663) or send us an email… We’d love to hear from you.

(*The “Energizer”, “Energizer Bunny” design, card graphics and shape, and other marks are trademarks of Energizer. <see energizer.com>

Reno Businesses Can Dominate Local Search Engine Results (Part 6 of 6 – Conclusion)

Sunday, May 30th, 2010

Part 6 of 6 – Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”

It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients

The Conclusion to the 5 Most Important Tips for the Do-It-Yourself SEO-preneur or Small Business Owner

  • For this mini-article, we will look at 5 areas of basic SEO concepts (Conclusion below: ). These are important to business who wants a local, top-performing search engine presence. By faithfully following this approach you will improve your Search Engine Rankings giving you superior Local Search Engine Results.

The final Tips and Summary: Top Ranking Search Engine Results Are What You Want

There are lots of SEO tips and tools to keep everything moving forward for real-world and effective search engine ranking results.

If you can incorporate these basic principles I have outlined in the previous blog posts, build on them over time, consistently implement the strategies (schedule it), and use the Right SEO Technology and you will achieve Dominance in the Local Search Engine Results.

I have seen these principles prove themselves time and again and am amazed at how fast local businesses can get to the first page of Google by following the tips I outlined. Often within 1,2 or 3 months for some basic keywords. Then just use the formula for other keywords and over time you will climb the ranks.

As my final piece of “Great SEO Tips for Small Businesses” I give you the following list of more actionable items.

  • Register with local search engines, local directories and social media portals (Think Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, AOL, Ask, Local.com and TrueLocal and many others. They all want your info so they can give the best results to the people who use their service and so they can sell more advertising!) Also be sure to use Craig’s list, Insdier pages and many other local sales and review directories.
  • Put your business name and local terms in you page titles — (not non-descript terms such as “Home page”,  “About”, “Welcome” , etc. My example is Integris Marketing | Reno Marketing Firm | Reno Graphic Design
  • Now do the same thing with your HI and H2 tags (especially using the local terms)
  • Then do the same thing with your body copy (more local terms with the service or product offered)
  • Put a Google or Yahoo or Mapquest generated map on your website with your street address… really super for local search results (just go to Google maps
  • How’s your InfoUSA listing? Or Dun & Bradstreet? Go check to make sure they are current and have your correct address, web link, etc.
  • Local News? Well you can’t compete with local papers or local info or entertainment portals, but you can add local content that is relevant to your business or your favorite causes. If you have a local mailing address where your business lives.. add that too! (On every page is a great way to go)
  • I’ve said it before and I will say it again and again.. Add a blog (One that you control on your web domain and where you can 100% control all page content. So stay away from the free blogs…even blogger)
  • Get “Local Inbound Links”! Search engines are using this kind of ranking criteria as an ever-more important element in local search results. So get into “legitimate” local directories in every way you can… Make sure they don’t just list your web site but also link with keywords for services you offer if you can.

OK… so that should be enough for most local businesses to cling to the top of the local search results. Want more success? Get your Google, Yahoo and Bing business listings, run some online display ads and you will have 3 or more places where you show up on the first page of Google… not bad for a small business these days, especially considering that over 65% of buyers look for local resources online (and some say the number is as high as 90% of all buyers use online search for local results).

*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.

Reno Businesses Can Dominate Local Search Engine Results (Part 4 of 6)

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Part 4 of 6 – Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”

It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients

The 5 Most Important Tips for the Do-It-Yourself SEO-preneur or Small Business Owner

For this mini-article, we will look at 5 areas of basic SEO concepts (Tip 4 below). These are important to business who wants a local, top-performing search engine presence. By faithfully following this approach you will improve your Search Engine Rankings giving you superior Local Search Engine Results.

Tip 4 of 5) Knowledge, Research, Curiosity and patience:

This aspect of Local Search Engine Ranking is partly a thinking exercise and partly a research effort. To get started just ask yourself, “What are the different things people might type in to find my services online.” Then make a list of those terms. Even though Google and Bing are aware of your location it helps if you tell them you are looking for local results so be sure to include “Reno” or “Sparks” or “Truckee Meadows” with your keyword phrases if you are searching in this area for best local search engine results.

Next see what happens when you search using your keywords list you just made. Make lots of tabs and notes and visit the top-ranking sites that came in from your search (just look at the top 3 or so) and see what you can gleen from their site.

Learn from these top performers. If you know how, and I recommend you learn the basics of how, look at the source code of the top-performing websites and get an idea of the keywords, header tags and meta-descriptions they are using. Look at how their information is organized on the page, look at how many words are on the page and what words are at the top middle and bottom. Get curious and take the Sherlock Holmes approach. You will be amazed at what you will learn if you look closely enough. Then take notes that you can use to implement their success tactics.

And if see something you don’t understand… look it up or hire a SEO consultant (Yes, we do that too!) to help you understand what you are up against.

Now this is a simplistic overview but it will yield results for any competitive local market. But you have to invest the necessary time and you have to commit to making incremental progress.

So get started, be patient and watch your results. I guarantee you will make headway if you incorporate this approach.

One note of caution. Older websites and domains have quite a bit of advantage here. All things being equal, Search Engines will give older sites a higher ranking. So in order to overcome this you have to be better on your subjective quality score.

Coming next: “Time and Commitment”. Date for next post will be March 12, 2010

*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.

Reno Businesses Can Dominate Local Search Engine Results (Part 3 of 6)

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Part 3 of 6 – Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”

It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients

The 5 Most Important Tips for the Do-It-Yourself SEO-preneur or Small Business Owner

For this mini-article, we will look at 5 areas of basic SEO concepts. These are important to business who wants a local, top-performing search engine presence. By faithfully following this approach you will improve your Search Engine Rankings giving you superior Local Search Engine Results.

Tip 2 of 5) SEO Strategy:

The BEST and LOWEST COST SEO Technology for Small Businesses

In a word: WordPress. Our website is built on it (and so is this blog) and as of this writing (March 8, 2010) we are at 38 days of being live and we are quickly eclipsing several local firms who have been around for years. And if we can do this so can you! We went from no-where’s-ville to actually getting page 1 Google ranking for several primary and secondary keyword phrases… And we are just getting started.

Why WordPress? Because it works. Not only as a base package but also because there are a slew of 3rd party plugins that will Super-charge your Local SEO Performance unlike those low-cost “website builders” or “website generators” out there with all sorts of marketing hype attached to them. The problem is they all stink from the perspective of SEO (IMHO). They just under-deliver when it comes to SEO because they are not built on a strong understanding of what it takes to succeed with top-ranking SEO Performance.

But just because WordPress is “Free”, be sure to NOT use the “free WordPress themes” out there, but instead, opt for professional themes that are designed to be optimized for SEO. These are built with better code and also don’t have the built-in back-links to nefarious websites that can get you black-listed in Google (Not a good thing). Also be sure to include a solid set of 3rd party plug-ins or choose a WordPress template  that is already set up to optimize your site for the leading search engines, most notably, Google and Bing.

And remember, search engines are the friend of local businesses and should be apart of your online marketing strategy, no matter if you are in Reno, Sparks, Tahoe or New York City. Most people use the internet to find local businesses they can buy from.

So whether you are on a budget and just getting started, or if you are an established business with a strong website, WordPress, if set-up and managed consistently, can help you with your local search engine rankings. I like to think of blogs, and in particular, WordPress Blogs, as today’s digital business card for your growing enterprise.

Coming next: “Knowledge, Research & Curiosity: Learn about your competitors”. Date for next post will be March 10, 2010

*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.

Reno Businesses Can Dominate Local Search Engine Results (Part 2 of 6)

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Part 2 of 6 – Reno SEO Expert* Shares Some Phase 1 “Secrets of Local Google Dominance”

It’s Not That Hard If You Understand a Few Basic SEO Ingredients

The 5 Most Important Tips for the Do-It-Yourself SEO-preneur or Small Business Owner

For this mini-article, we will look at 5 areas of basic SEO concepts. These are important to business who wants a local, top-performing search engine presence. By faithfully following this approach you will improve your Search Engine Rankings giving you superior Local Search Engine Results.

Tip 1 of 5) SEO Strategy:

Divide and Conquer and look for the little successes first. In my case, Let’s say I want to get to top rankings for Web Design and Graphic Design. A fairly competitive field for local results becuase these are the people that know what they are doing and have been around a long time. What to do? Look for other things that you offer that local people might be seeking and concentrate on those. For me it was things like Reno Copywriting and Online Marketing Reno and some other niche offerings. Now if I make some content about that (Think text) then it’s easier to get top ranking since there is less competition for those terms.

Once you get some “Google top ranking words or phrases” for your local market associated with your website, you can begin to build on that success. The theory is that once you get some success in Google it is easier to get more becuase Google likes a winner and if you can get on that path then you can build on your successes… one step at a time.

Coming next: “The BEST and LOWEST COST SEO Technology for Small Businesses: WordPress”. Date for next post will be March 8, 2010

*Reno SEO Expert. A paid professional who can provide measurable results and demonstrate ROI for promised SEO services and also be able to share success stories for past clients they have worked with.

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