Consulting Business 101: How To Manage Your Facebook Campaign (Part 1)

Facebook For Business

Facebook is a social networking service. Due to its popularity, it’s used to market your brand.

Facebook makes things happen to you without delays. Once you create an account, you own a key to unlock a world of possibilities, mostly for free.

With consistency and patience, you can use its features to improve your present and future campaigns.

In this first part of the series, it focuses on the three major features used for marketing:

Timeline

A timeline is your profile. This is the section in which you’ll write the W’s about yourself, upload photos and share something to the public.

In other words, people will see, read and interpret what is posted in your timeline. It plays as your public diary.

Whatever content you post, either a status, shoutout, link, photo, or a video – it reveals something about your reputation.

Strategies to Improve Facebook Timeline

• Be Professional

Professionalism is a must in Facebook. Keep in mind your timeline plays a vital role in molding your reputation.

Before posting something, ask yourself: “What’s my goal in posting this content?”

If your answer is to show off then, think twice. Arrogance is okay in the business world for as long as you can deliver great results.

That’s why; it’s best to stay simple. It’s a good practice to sprinkle your contents with personal tone but never reveal everything.

For example, as a fitness instructor with two children, how will you inspire your list of friends?

Answer: Be the real you. People don’t want phony people who make selfies as their profile and cover photos.

Make it a habit to tell a story. Share your experience, your ideas and your realizations without disclosing names, address and phone numbers.

Once or twice a week, post photos of a social event you’ve attended with your kids.

• Be Consistent

Popular entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Oprah Winfrey and such make it a daily habit to post contents.

You can do it too!

People will remember you if you keep sharing contents that make them happy and inspired.

Page

A page acts as your business door that shows your products and your services.

It’s different from your timeline. Your page gives your target customers two reasons.

One, to explore around (comment, get your contact number, visit your site). Two, to come back for more.

Strategies to Improve Facebook Page

• Post Every day

An active page is filled with new information about your business. It highly talks about your product, your service and your blog.

You’re going to create a visual post whenever you have announcements, surveys and updates.

• Vary Your Content

Never limit yourself. Experiment with your daily post to attract attention.

For example, think how you’ll present the information if you’re going to announce new special rates for summer season.

Perhaps, you’ll create a photo. Or, create a promo video. Maybe, do both.

• Get More Likes

Invite your list of friends to like your page. If they won’t like it, don’t force it. Instead, promote your page offline.

Organize a seminar or a workshop in which you’re one of the main speakers. See to it every guest receives your calling card and a newsletter in their emails.

• Create Contest

You grab more attention if you encourage people to join your contest.

May it be a blog guest posting, write-a-comment, submit a selfie, submit a meme, etc. – it’s a great and fun contest. You’ll hand rewards and they will remember.

• Promote Your Page

Page promotion means you’re asking Facebook to help you reach more people within your preferred location.

It’s a simple paid feature that allows you to choose the right type of ad to use and its accompanied daily budget.

• Measure Results

Everything is measurable in Facebook. The Page Insights is a free analytics tool used to monitor the daily, weekly, monthly and annual performance of your page.

There are five variables you can measure using this tool namely: Likes, Reach, Visits, Posts and People.

If you’re interested to learn more, you can click the link for free online training.

• Like Other Pages

Consider it a good practice if your page likes other pages relevant to your business. This is your good chance to like their posts. You’re a stand-out if you write a comment too.

Who knows? They will notice your presence.

In return, they will like your posts. They might also call you for orders.

Group

A Facebook group, in real life, is a classroom. You with other people stay in one place for a healthy discussion.

It’s a bit the same as Page yet the major difference is the feel. A Group acts as a forum but arranged in real-time.

There are more voices around. They talk. They complain. They seek solutions.

Here, you use your real name. You’re their moderator and your role is to:

• Calm them down
• Provide realistic solutions
• Negotiate effectively
• Encourage a private talk
• Encourage to attend seminars
• Encourage to join contest
• Give more freebies
• Assess their further needs
• Ask for star ratings
• Ask for reviews
• Curate content that’s helpful to them

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Consulting Business 101: How To Manage Your Business Blog

A business blog is a part of a business site such as e-commerce, paid forum, affiliate, portal and crowdfunding.

A business blog is a non-branded page. It means its contents are updated regularly. Common contents published are case studies, press releases and product reviews.

Reasons For Blogging

1. A blog informs. It tells the people (new or repeat visitors) the W’s and H of a story worth sharing in their Facebook and Twitter.

2. A blog entertains. It provides facts and statistics presented with an amusing tone. For example, case studies highlight the success and challenges of a product or service.

When you write, make sure you have a balance mix of charts supported by personal stories.

3. A blog converts. It captures your readers’ attention, interest and desire.

Then, it compels them to act either by calling you via phone or give you their email addresses in exchange of newsletters.

4. A blog reveals a site’s success and failure. Your business site is an empty playground without a blog.

People visit your blog to understand who you are, what your ideas are and what your stories are. The more visits you have, the better conversions you’ll have.

5. A blog links multiple pages together. To ensure you make the best of a content, you link it to other branded pages such as FAQ, About Us and Contact.

Be extra careful though. Limit the number of links. A 500-word content must limit to three internal links (links pointing to the other pages of your site) and two external links (links pointing to a webpage outside your site).

6. A blog is your content playground. The great thing about blogs is, it’s possible to publish your own content, to syndicate content and to invite other people as guest bloggers.

This way, your blog offers variety of contents to all types of visitors. It also branches out to top industry talents.

7. Your blog represents. Be proud if you’re a blogger. It means you have something special to share to the world.

ALWAYS REMEMBER: A business site with regular blog updates will reveal something about you. A business site with no or few updates will also reveal something about you.

Which side are you on?

8. A blog optimizes for Local Search. All local blogs are local websites. Not all websites are local blogs. Therefore, start blogging if you’re running a local business somewhere.

It’s possible to optimize a blog locally if it contains features that target a specific location.

For example, if you have a tennis school in Georgia, it’s possible to direct all your posts to this state.

This way, people (living in community areas within Georgia) who are searching for business related to yours might find your blog in major search engines.

How To Manage A Business Blog

Managing a blog is a cycle. This cycle will consist of three parts. First part is pre-writing, which refers to all essential activities before you put your ideas into life.

Second part is writing, which deals with the science and art of writing. The last part is post-writing, which puts emphasis to persuading people to read, comment and share.

Part 1: Pre-Writing

Activities To Do

• Keyword research
• Content marketing timetable
• Researching relevant contents
• Gathering facts and statistics
• Outlining your ideas
• Re-reading your outline
• Edit your outline

Tools To Use

Uber Suggest

Uber Suggest is a free keyword generating tool. This tool gives you suggestions about a topic.

For example, if the keyword is tennis, you’ll have a list of suggestions such as tennis warehouse, tennis express, tennis elbow, tennis recruiting, tennis news, tennis ball launcher for dogs… so on.

The primary goal of Uber Suggest is to gather keywords and key phrases relevant or irrelevant to your topic. It gives you ideas what to research.

Google Keyword Planner

Keyword Planner is a research tool owned by Google. It’s mainly used to find relevant keywords for your campaign.

For blogging, Keyword Planner reveals the strength and weaknesses of a topic you want to write. It shows you how popular a keyword is and how tight the competition is.

Spreadsheet

Before researching, put all your gathered keywords on an empty spreadsheet and take time to sort it out.

This serves as your master list, which helps you create titles based on given keywords.

For example, if the keyword is tennis serve, your title shall be 10 Revealing Tips on How to Serve like Roger Federer | Videos Available Inside!

Then, you figure out its content type. For the above title, it’s an article with instructional videos.

Finally, you’ll put a date to write and a published date.

A date to write refers to the number of days you’ll research, write and edit while a published date refers to an exact day of its publication in your blog.

A published date is accomplished by a link.

Search Engine Bar

Google, Yahoo and Bing are the three most popular search engines today. They’re competing against each other but feel free to use any.

When researching for contents, search engines will help you get the right angles for your blog post. It saves times for research; therefore, you can immediately start outlining while searching.

Word Processor

This tool may be a big help before publishing a post. It’s a good practice to put your outline on an offline (MS Word, Notepad) or online (Google Docs) processor before hitting publish.

Part 2: Writing

Activities To Do

• Writing your ideas
• Elaborating sub-topics
• Hours of editing

Tools To Use

Word Processor

A word processor is your ideal partner in writing. It allows you to use its paragraphing and grammar tools whenever you are and wherever you are.

Hemingway Tool

It’s a free recommended app for all bloggers out there. First, you simply need to copy and paste your article in an empty area.

Then, it reveals to you how bold and clear your writing tone is. It also tells you the sentences you need to edit or delete.

It grades your overall writing tone; therefore, you’ll understand why and where your writing get complicated.

Grammarly

English is the universal language. Whether you’re a amateur or professional blogger, this is the paid tool to buy when you want an automated proofreader.

A subscription plan will include a spell check, plagiarism checker and MS office add-in.

Part 3: Post-Writing

Activities To Do

• Post your blog post in Facebook Page
• Post your blog post in Facebook Groups
• Post your blog post in LinkedIn
• Tweet the link once every day
• Convert the article into a press release
• Convert the article into a promo video
• Convert the article into a newsletter
• Send the link to your friends via email
• Convert the article into a slide presentation
• Convert the article into an ebook
• Syndicate the article

Tools To Use

Social Media

Every social media site provides a backlink to your blog. Whether you’re in Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn, your goal is to give your followers a reason to visit your blog.

Canva

Canva is an easy-to-use design tool, which allows you to design and download a visual content for your blog, Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

Canva is for free. It’s also possible to download professional designs for $1.

Analytics

An analytics is either a free or paid tool. It measures the performance of your blog per day.

Make a habit to study its pattern. Take note of the number of visits per week, number of clicks per week and number of conversions.

Social media has its own analytics tool. Yet, it’s possible to link every channel to your primary analytics.

Keep going once you’re done with one topic. It’s time consuming but always keep in mind – with patience and consistency, great results follow.

Consider hiring a team of virtual assistants if you can’t do the suggested activities all by yourself.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Consulting Business 101: How To Manage Your Online Reputation

Having a home office is the biggest advantage of launching a consulting business.

Photo Courtesy of: Flickr

You don’t have to worry for monthly rental, maintenance costs and gas bills. All your basic transactions are done online.

From setting up a site, hiring employees, finding leads, nurturing clients to receiving payments, you can manage all these activities with a computer with a fast-speed Internet connection at home.

Don’t get it wrong. An online consulting business isn’t a fantasy paradise.

It isn’t a business that will make you rich overnight. Consulting requires consistency.

Nothing will happen if you fail to consistently market yourself. The online world must see you.

To keep the ball rolling forward, your long-term goal is to manage your reputation around the Internet landscape every day.

Below are some of the tips to enhance your online reputation 24/7:

1) Your reputation is your brand.

It speaks highly about you, your products and your services. That’s why; you need to carefully choose the people who will work for you.

It takes time to hire the right people for the right position. You’ll look for a team of virtual assistants who understand and perform the following:

• Building a site
• Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
• Blogging
• Email Marketing
• Social Media Marketing (SMM)
• Web Analytics
• Affiliate Marketing
• Display Advertising
• Mobile Marketing

Apart from the above mentioned, your #1 aim is to train these virtual assistants to think outside the box.

You make them realize that they work for you not only for money but also to represent your name.

Keep in mind: Hire for attitude, Train for skill

2) Master the art and science of English.

English is the universal language. As an online consultant, you communicate with your employees and clients through email, project management tool (Wrike, Trello, etc.) and Skype.

The style of communication in each platform varies. Sometimes, a research proposal is best discussed in detail through email than in BaseCamp.

It’s mainly up to you which is convenient and affordable to use. Most important thing is, you send the message in a concise and friendly manner.

The disadvantage of online communication is people might immediately misinterpret you if you use slang terms. They might get uncomfortable if they read your message in caps.

Worst case is, they will never trust your intention if you write with wrong spellings, wrong punctuation and wrong grammar.

English is a cerebral language. It has rules and patterns. Below are the tips you can follow to improve your oral and written skills:

• Speak concisely.
• Listen attentively.
• Talk to express an idea.
• Never use big words.
• Use short sentences.
• Keep a paragraph short.
• Observe proper punctuation.
• Observe correct grammar.
• Be professional in tone.
• Edit, edit, edit.

Talking and writing in English fluently improve your reputation, online and offline.

3) Participate in social media.

Facebook. Twitter. YouTube. LinkedIn. etc. These social networking websites are all the same but function differently.

Your social media world plays as a shadow to your offline world. For example, if you consider yourself an extrovert, your Facebook profile might receive hundreds of likes, comments and shares.

People will remember you as either their friend, enemy, office pal or classmate. You can’t please all of them but you can certainly earn their trust and respect using one of the sites mentioned above.

The following are a number of tips you can use to rev up your social media reputation.

• Separate personal from business accounts.
• Update your Facebook profile frequently.
• Update your Facebook business page every day.
• Get many likes as you can.
• Study your Facebook page analytics.
• Join the conversation in Facebook Groups.
• Tweet naturally and concisely.
• Tweet with a photo and a link to your site.
• Reach out to your Twitter friends.
• Learn to use hashtags.
• Update your YouTube Channel twice a week.
• Upload instructional and promotional HQ videos.
• Share these videos to your Facebook and Twitter friends.
• Update your LinkedIn business profile.
• Participate in Linkedin business groups.
• Connect with the influencers.

4) Buy a trusted tracking tool.

It takes a lot of time to search the web for mentions, reviews and citations. Even a simple and free Google Alert isn’t enough.

That’s why; use an automated tracking tool to save time and effort.

Angela Stringfellow is the Chief Ideation Officer of American Express Open Forum. In an article she wrote in October 2013, she enumerated the six recommended tools here.

It’s also a smart idea to look for a number of special features such as:

• Thorough filter of good from bad reviews
• Automated posting of good reviews in social media
• Comprehensive analytics

5) Participate in business forum.

There are hundreds of forums online. It seems impossible to actively participate in all; therefore, better choose two of the many.

Register to a forum that allows a link signature to your site. This way, you’ll get more attention (and clicks) as this link appears in all your threads.

Just be extra careful. Make sure you provide answers that are realistic and doable. Answers that don’t make sense are forbidden. Forum owners will ban you.

6) Design your website.

Your website is your shopping mall. Its goal is to attract different users and visitors.

It requires technical expertise to create a functional site. It needs to have the pages that provide the right information.

For this reason, work closely with your developer. Let him or her understand your vision, mission, goals and the following technicalities:

• Web brand logo
• Domain name
• Font design
• Font sizes
• Brand colors
• Number of columns
• Placement of boxes
• Installed plugins
• Analytics
• Homepage design

The content you put in the site reveals your personality. Therefore, carefully plan what you want and create a timetable when to post it.

It’s helpful to vary the content. A good combination of written, audio and visual contents always attract new visitors to return for more.

7) Go offline.

Managing your reputation online is never enough. Whenever you can, make it a habit to encourage your leads and customers to attend seminars and workshops. This way, they will have the chance to meet you and shake your hand. They can even take pictures too.

Always remember: Healthy offline reputation results to healthier online reputation.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

Happy New Year!!!

It’s 2016!

We’re hopeful it’ll be a new year filled with new challenges with the right solutions.

Happy new year and may we all have the drive to be stronger, better and richer (it’s possible, right?).

****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

7 Qualities To Look For When Working With An SEO Consultant

• Look for a passionate consultant.

Passion is the driving force of an SEO campaign. Without it, everything becomes a boring and unhealthy routine.

A passionate SEO consultant is always hungry for more. He or she studies his or her job, he or she wants to learn beyond the job description and he or she shares what he or she learned to you.

Photo Courtesy of: Flickr

• Look for a goal-oriented consultant.

Every online entrepreneur needs to have a realistic, positive and measurable goal. A goal directs all your time and effort to success.

In the world of search, hiring a consultant with a clear goal in mind is a big plus. His or her goal is to help skyrocket your campaign to the next level in (insert time frame here).

• Look for a hardworking consultant.

A consultant who can work beyond their working hours are worth your time and money. It means he or she works extra hard to meet and exceed your expectations.

• Look for a humble consultant.

Admit it, as an entrepreneur, you don’t need a perfect consultant. This person doesn’t exist. What you need is someone who remains humble and open to new training programs.

A consultant with big egos find it hard to listen to you. They question your reputation and your ability to make decisions.

Keep in mind, however, you’re still the leader of your business no matter what. You hire a consultant to manage a functional team.

• Look for someone with excellent communication skills.

It reduces stress if you’ll hire a consultant who can express themselves clearly. They can talk, they can write and they can discuss their great ideas with confidence.

• Look for great ability, not always experience.

In SEO, there are times the ability to learn outweighs years of experience. A consultant with an infinite ability to study, explore and learn new things is the right fit for a job that requires innovative ideas.

An experienced consultant is also great. His or her experiences him or her them become competitive. Sad to say, there are those who simply stick to traditional and expensive system.

• Hire someone who understand your business.

Nowadays, it’s possible to hire a consultant with the traits listed above. Yet, don’t forget. Only hire the one who understand the frame by frame of your business model.

He or she knows how to market it online. He or she understands how the cash transaction flows. Importantly, he or she chooses when to take greater risks if necessary.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

23 Reasons Why Black Hat SEO Does No Good For Your Website

No to Black Hat SEO!

Black hat SEO services are no good. Google, Yahoo and Bing despise them. Your audience dislikes them.

These illegal techniques will only hurt your search ranking and will eventually kill your online reputation.

Photo Courtesy of: Search Engine Land

Reason 1: Keyword stuffing is unnecessary.

Stuffing involves the excessive use of main keywords in the title and body of a content, in an aim that it becomes more visible in Google search.

Always remind yourself excessive use of keywords destroys the overall substance and quality of a written content.

If you consider yourself a competent content writer, it’s expected of you to use the main keyword once in the title and thrice in the body (one in the opening paragraph, one in the middle and one in the conclusion).

The Keyword Density Analyzer Tool reveals if your site is using the recommended frequency of keywords.

Reason 2: Only unaccomplished websites use hidden texts.

These sites attempt to hide keywords in the white or black background, as well as in the HTML Codes. The user can’t see it but search engine robots always can.

That’s why; it’s recommended to use a SPAM Detector to reveal the hidden secrets, or better yet, talk to your webmaster and see to it he or she is using the proper coding.

Reason 3: Meta-tag stuffing is ineffective since 2005.

As the owner of the site, it’s unprofessional to use repeating keywords in the meta tags (Meta Title, Meta Description, H1, H2, H3) just to get attention.

The use of meta tags helps your site become more SEO friendly but when you abuse it, it’s called despair.

Reason 4: Doorway pages serve no purpose to your visitors.

These pages contain low quality information that makes no sense for the readers.

Instead of using a gateway, it’s recommended to use a geo-targeted page that contains the right information the readers want to know.

Reason 5: Scrape sites are for the lazy.

These sites contain quality information but they are only copy-pasted from other sources without proper acknowledgment.

The goal is to make you believe the information is original but the truth is, the owner only wants you to click the ads around the content.

Reason 6: Article spinning is a waste of time.

This technique doesn’t guarantee page views or conversion. A spun article is a dead fish even if it takes three hours to write.

Instead of spinning the past articles, it makes more sense to convert the article into types of content such as video and upload it in YouTube.

Reason 7: A machine translation is no use.

It’s necessary for your site to translate an English content to Spanish to embrace more readers.

It doesn’t mean you’ll buy a machine translator, which yields low quality texts. Better use Google Translate.

Reason 8: Deception is for the fool.

To make things clearer, deception is an illegal technique of publishing a page irrelevant to its title.

Users might see it as a mistake but beware, there are times this technique is used to either trick the users or force them to visit another page.

Reason 9: Link building using an automated software is a waste of money, time and effort.

No software can help you circulate links in the right place.

If you want to circulate links around the web, do it manually. It’s time consuming but it gives you the guarantee you’re linking to a high quality page.

Reason 10: Link farming is an unaccepted old school trick.

Your site gets penalized if you allow a group of low quality sites to link to you. In case, you want to circulate your homepage url, make a list first.

Make sure you choose quality popular sites relevant to your business campaign.

That’s why; make it a habit to use a backlink tool like ahrefs. This tool regularly checks the quantity and quality of links pointing to your site.

Reason 11: There’s no reason to use a highlighted link text if you’re a reputable businessman.

A text link or hyperlink connects two pages together but it doesn’t mean you’ll hide this link somewhere in your site just to increase your page visibility.

See it this way. You don’t hide when you’re not a criminal, right?

Reason 12: Sybil attack is synonymous to link farming.

There’s no good reason to create multiple sites with different domain names and link these sites together. This technique is a garbage.

One website is enough (for example, abcd.com). If your business is located in various location, it’s best to create a geo-targeted page (abcdny.com) pointing to your main website.

Photo Courtesy of: Pinterest

Reason 13: Google Panda hates you if you create blogs filled with spun articles.

These blogs have no authority, especially if the articles are spun and posted by an automated software.

Reason 14: Guest blogging becomes a black hat SEO service if you submit an article for the sole purpose of linking to your site.

If that’s your goal, the overall quality of an article suffers. The real purpose of guest blogging is to enhance your reputation.

Readers will remember you when you regularly submit a well-written and well-researched article. See Jeff Bullas blog.

Reason 15: Page hijacking is for desperate entrepreneurs.

You make things more complicated if you duplicate a popular site only for the web crawlers, but your goal is to redirect users to your site.

Reason 16: Buying expired domains to change its link architecture doesn’t guarantee high ranking.

No technique guarantees a high ranking. In fact, Google resets the link data once a domain expires.

Reason 17: Cookie stuffing is stealing.

Google automatically punishes a site that puts an affiliate tracking cookie on users’ computer without their knowledge.

Cookie stuffing includes the use of pop-ups, iFrames and flash.

Reason 18: The use of spambots brings nothing but headache to users.

A spam post, which contain keywords and links, are generated by automated spambots and are usually posted in forums.

Reason 19: The value of a blog post decreases when it receives fluff comments with links.

These nonsense comments are irrelevant and are only promoting a low-rank site.

Reason 20: You destroy your reputation when you insert low quality link in user editing sites such as Wikipedia.

If this link points to your site, it’s best to share your link to a group of influencers in Twitter and Facebook.

Reason 21: Google highly disapproves if you create a number of mirror sites if its contents are similar but with different urls.

It’s best to get busy managing one site and update your blog with fresh contents to all types of users.

Reason 22: URL redirection is a black hat technique if done inappropriately. An example is 404.

If you redirect a page to a new address, make sure it’s a 301 permanent redirect.

Reason 23: Cloaking is unacceptable.

It doesn’t yield good results if you present different information for search engine spiders and for users.

Search engine spiders are smarter than you and they can tell if your page is real or fake.

Remember, honesty is still the best policy even in SEO. Never hide anything from Google and your audience.

Therefore, don’t complicate things. A website needs white hat techniques to appear in Page 1 of Google, Yahoo and Bing.

If you pay for SEO services, always remind the virtual assistants to:

• Create a website for the people.
• Write like a human and for the people.
• Link like a human and for the people.

*****

Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

10 Internet Marketing Services That Are Illegal

Who would have thought the Internet becomes a powerful way to market products and services? Probably, no one.

Whatever your product is, whatever your service is – you need to create an online presence to embrace more people.

They say internet marketing is easier than offline marketing. They say it’s inexpensive.

For example, you can start by creating a video if you want a promotional campaign. Then, you can circulate the video by embedding it on your website.

You can also invite more bloggers to write something about you and the video.

They say it’s measurable. You can always monitor your analytics. You’ll know who plays your video, what time of the day it gets more clicks and what techniques you can do to increase its visibility.

These days, however, internet marketing gets more complicated due to these illegal methods and practices.

Anything that is done to disobey FTC Internet Marketing Rules, CAN-SPAM Act and Google Guidelines is highly prohibited.

To get things done and crystal clearer, here are the Top 10 internet marketing services you shouldn’t include in your plan. Protect your site from any of the following techniques before it’s too late.

Black Hat SEO

Internet marketing includes search engine optimization. These two are inseparable. Don’t expect you’ll do good in internet marketing without understanding the basics of SEO.

The biggest problem is, hundreds of people want to get smarter than Google. They invent these illegal techniques and unluckily, they have hundreds of followers too.

Buying Email List

Success in internet marketing doesn’t happen overnight but with consistency, you’ll go in the right direction. Therefore, there’s no need to buy a list of email addresses.

Lead generation is the hardest. Building a foundation of trust takes time but you’ll see, it’s worth the wait.

Automated Content

Quality content connects you to your target audience. For this reason, it’s never a smart decision to rely on automation to publish articles on your blog.

You need a content marketing plan or – if you’re too busy, consider hiring a content writer. Search engines love quality blogs, well-written press releases, slide presentations and free e-books.

Free Autoresponder

The techniques in email marketing serve as the juiciest part of internet marketing. It’s where you negotiate and close a deal.

That’s why; use a paid autoresponder in monitoring your campaign. These are more trusted and stress-free.

URL Tweak

There’s no other way to improve search ranking than to perform the legal techniques, on-page and off-page.

If the technique requires you to insert or add something in the url, don’t think twice. It’s illegal.

Unnecessary Display Ads

This isn’t an illegal technique but it’s unnecessary. Display advertising works but it’s unhealthy when you’re losing a lot of money.

That’s why; before relying on ads, stick to your budget. Better ask yourself: How much do I want to spend?

Forum Listing

This is a popular black hat technique used by link builders. What they’re doing is register to hundreds of online forums, even it’s irrelevant to your business, and put the site’s homepage in the signature.

Multi-Level Marketing

Referral marketing is done using word of mouth. You encourage high profile people to mention your products and services in YouTube, Facebook and Twitter.

MLM does the opposite. Its main purpose it to sell, nothing more. People recruit other people in an attempt to create a multiple level of compensation.

Fake Reviews

Registering your site in selected review sites is recommended. More people will trust your products and services if it’s filled with star ratings and good reviews.

Yet, fake reviews are circulated around the web these days. These reviews are mostly done by your competitors. They post negative reviews under fake names to bring you down.

Blog Commenting

Irrelevant and fluff comments make no sense. Oftentimes, these are written for the sole purpose of putting a backlink in the url box.

Internet marketing is about hard work. You don’t simply fool around to earn money. It pays to be patient and it pays to say no to illegal internet marketing services listed above.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/

23 Ways To Evaluate An Online Marketing Consulting Firm

These days, every business needs an online marketing consulting firm. You need the firm to manage your web presence and reputation against the competitors.

The firm also assists you in your day-to-day goals. These marketing consultants will drive these goals in the right direction. Most firms offer services that improve your visibility in Google search.

These firms use legal techniques to polish your existing SEO and content marketing plans.

The biggest problem that is, not all firms are created equal.

Sure, it’s possible to find the list of Top 10 best marketing firms in less than 10 seconds. You simply need to key-in the right keywords in Google and, that’s it. You’re done!

It, however, doesn’t mean all these firms offer the right and quality services that are worth your money.

Wherever the firm is located, whether in Chicago, New York or outside the country, it’s your responsibility to study the firm and its team of consultants.

Remind yourself trust is earned. Therefore, before hiring a firm, take time to exhale and ask yourself the following questions.

These questions will serve as your guide to evaluate your chosen marketing firm.

1. Does the firm practice what’s written in their blog?

The firm’s reputation depends on how the team manages their blog.

Their blog defines their brand. It reveals their work ethic, camaraderie and professionalism.

A quality blog is regularly updated with fresh original contents such as inspiring stories, instructional articles and free downloads.

2. Does the firm’s site provide case studies?

Case studies serve as the heart and soul of the firm’s content marketing campaign. It’s the type of written content that tells a success story, which convinces the people to hire the team.

3. Does the firm tell you how their team operates? Do they outsourced or work in-house?

These days, online marketing firms choose to hire a number of qualified consultants from neighboring countries.

It’s expected a team of consultants will consist of Americans, Filipinos, Indians and Malaysians.

4. Does the firm explain the latest news in online marketing?

The online marketing world is competitive. There are new rules and new techniques invented every day. Therefore, it’s the firm’s responsibility to share these news to you, either by mail or by chat.

5. Does the firm complement your business’ culture?

It isn’t enough to hire a firm that you can afford. You need to hire a team who understand your business. They need to familiarize the flow of transaction, from top to the bottom funnel.

6. Does the firm achieve great results with past clients with similar goals as yours?

Reading the firm’s reviews is one way of studying a firm’s reputation. Past reviews and testimonials serve as your guide to know if the firm was good enough or was great enough.

7. Does the firm offer flexible pricing models?

It’s expected for a firm to offer a list of great services. However, the truth of the matter is you don’t need all these services.

For example, your website needs on and off page SEO but it doesn’t mean you also need email marketing services.

Therefore, choose what specific services will work for you and your business.

Ask if you can’t understand how a specific service works. It helps to conduct your own research too. Do your assignment and learn to negotiate.

8. Does the firm offer discounts when you pay in cash?

Paying in cash is a good thing. It means the firm will want you as their long-term partner and the team will do what they can to serve you better. They will give you more freebies, more extra services and more discounts.

9. Does the firm provide a service in traffic generation?

Your website needs traffic generation to ensure its web presence is consistently healthy.

Traffic generation yields great results but it doesn’t happen overnight or in a month. It can be achieved if the team works extra hard to attract more people to your website.

10. Does the firm provide a quality service in lead generation?

A business without leads is a dead fish. Leads are the people who want and who need your services. You can convert these people into new and repeating customers.

11. Does the firm provide a quality service in lead nurturing?

Leads expect your care and attention. These people long for quality information, which convinces them to stay in the list. Lead nurturing goes beyond the walls of search engine optimization. Well-nurtured leads will spend money to get your offers.

12. Does the firm provide a quality service in customer acquisition?

Customer acquisition is about respect and trust. You want your firm to attract the curiosity of people to get to you. Once these people get into you (for example: sign up to your weekly newsletter), they will start to respect you. Trust comes when you’re showing care.

13. Does the firm provide a quality service in analytics?

Every thing online is measurable. A marketing firm will oversee the numbers, percentages and graphs for you. The team will record the progress and failures of your campaign.

14. Does the firm provide a team of content writers?

The main responsibility of a content writer goes beyond blogging and e-book writing. Content writers are expected to create a content marketing plan, which consists of keyword research, duration of writing a content, editing the content and content submission to selected social channels.

15. Does the firm provide a team of site developers?

Site developers are in-charge of all the technical aspects of on-page SEO. They create the website from scratch, install necessary plugins and make sure the website remains internet friendly to all types of users.

Usually, a developer isn’t your man for all that you want. He or she needs the assistance of a graphic designer, a webmaster and a content writer to fully optimize the website in search engines.

16. Does the team provide an up-to-date project management tool?

Spreadsheets are old-school. Firms these days need to use an online project management tool (Wrike, Trello, Evernote, Basecamp etc.) to impress you.

You can easily monitor their accomplishments and weekly goals if they’re given an access to this tool.

17. Does the team respond positively to real-time marketing opportunities?

The team needs to stay flexible to whatever changes in online marketing. They must learn how to respond to whatever problems and complains.

Days at work are not happy all the time but if the team works smoothly, they can still convert the most negative event into a positive opportunity.

18. Does the firm set clear, realistic and measurable expectations every month?

It’s the firm’s responsibility to create, re-create and organize their goals and expectations. Every goal results to expectations – that’s why, the expectation needs to be crystal clear. The goal needs to be measurable by their analytics.

19. Does the firm provide a timeline for progress?

Every goal is monitored and measured. Whether the result is positive or negative, the firm needs to include it in their day-to-day timeline.

This timeline serves as their detailed evaluation board to understand what’s going right and what needs improvement.

20. Does the firm conduct a Skype meeting?

Weekly or monthly meetings play a vital role in business transactions.

Whatever the agenda is, either it’s only a scheduled meeting for 30 minutes or one whole morning, a meeting enhances your relationship with the firm.

It melts the iceberg and opens new ideas for long-term realistic development.

21. Does the firm provide training videos and free e-books?

A marketing firm never gets tired to educate people. The consultants will find time to write free e-books and conduct offline workshops. True education goes beyond the unlimited walls of online learning.

22. Does the firm provide a report filled with meaningless metrics?

Reporting isn’t an easy job. Some reports are too detailed but confusing to understand. These days, the firm needs to change that habit. The consultants must submit a succinct and visual report, which consist of summary, colored graphs and bullets.

23. Does the firm provide graphs with accurate interpretations?

A report without graphs is no report at all. To make things easier to digest, the firm’s monthly and annual reports need to include various types of graphs to clearly explain the necessary interpretations. Presentation also becomes more professional with graphs.

REMEMBER: You can’t find a perfect online marketing consulting firm. It never existed. It never was and it never will.

A firm can give the best quality service you need but it provides no one-that-fits-all formula for success.

Success means hard work and requires experimentation. It’s a process and it doesn’t happen overnight.

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Leads Ahoy provides services in reputation management, search engine optimization, list building and geo-targeted lead generation. http://leadsahoy.com/