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 SEO Campaign

SEO is an acronym that stands for Search Engine Optimization.

What is SEO?

SEO is a group of free and paid techniques used in online marketing to improve your webpage ranking in major search engines such as Google, Yahoo, Bing based on a given keyword, key phrases or topic.

Here’s a great example.

Considering this blog post is properly optimized for the key phrases “manage seo campaign,” the link might or shall appear in front page of SERP if anyone will key in the question “How To Manage My SEO Campaign?”

Types of SEO

On-page refers to every thing you do when you’re signed to a site. Examples of on-page techniques are:

• Blogging
• Installing plugins
• Selecting themes
• Installing widgets
• Uploading photos
• Approving comments
• Creating polls
• Inserting links
• Adding media content
• Adding a new category
• Adding a new page
• Adding meta descriptions
• Adding meta keywords
• Adding a search engine friendly URL
• Adding body tags (H1, H2, H3, H4)
• Checking pre-installed analytics
• Editing a written content

Off-page refers to every thing you perform outside your site. Your number one goal in every off-page technique is to create a link back to your homepage, blog or contact page.

Examples of off-page techniques are:

• Social media marketing
• Press release submission
• Pinging a webpage
• Active forum participation
• Active Q&A participation
• Email marketing
• Social bookmarking
• Guest blogging
• Blog commenting
• Content syndication

Managing Your SEO Campaign

SEO is a world of change. It evolves.

Google updates its search algorithms every now and then. Yahoo! has created its own content quality guidelines.

There are case studies and new statistics published every day.

For this reason, it’s best to keep yourself updated with the daily events and news. Below are some of the effective tips you can follow to manage your campaign:

Stage 1: Keep learning

1. Sign up to receive regular newsletters from popular news sites such as Moz, Search Engine Land, Search Engine Roundtable and Search Engine Journal.

2. Join one forum and participate actively. Keep reading news, answer threads, ask questions and make new friends.

3. Enroll in paid marketing courses offered by Coursera.

4. Attend offline conferences such as SMX Search Marketing Expo, SEJ Summit and Moz Con.

Stage 2: Build your own campaign

• Start keyword researching
• Collect the keywords, phrases and topics your webpage will rank for
• Talk with your site developer
• Start updating your blog
• Create a content marketing plan
• Follow your deadline
• Use analytics to measure your performance

 Stage 3: Hire a team whenever you can

Photo Courtesy of: Flickr

1. You can’t do everything. That’s understandable. You’re not super human.

Therefore, look for a passionate team SEO Consultant who thoroughly understand the bird’s eye view of your technical, content and social media activities.

2. If one consultant isn’t enough, consider hiring a team of virtual assistants using employment platforms. The everyday tasks of these assistants revolve around the following:

• Update blog regularly
• Update Facebook page
• Update Twitter
• Update YouTube
• update LinkedIn
• Update plugins
• Participate in forum
• Guest blogging
• Email marketing
• Monitor analytics

3. Keep in mind: SEO isn’t about sales. It’s the blood and soul of internet marketing.

Its aim is limited to creating attention, igniting visitors’ interest and converting these visitors to leads.

*****

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/

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.

* * * * *

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

Mastering Local SEO (Part 10) The Recap

Mastering Local SEO began the lecture series by covering the basics. We define what local search engine optimization is and we explain what its primary goal.

Part 2 explains how search engines reveal results. Part 3 teaches you how to market your local business online. Part 4 explains why there’s a need to register your business in listing sites.

Part 5 focuses on citation. It enumerates the techniques on how to get a mention of your business name. Part 6 and 7 emphasize the importance of online reviews. It gives you the idea on how to choose a popular review site and how to effectively manage reviews.

Part 8 reveals why a website needs to follow the technical, content and social guidelines as prepared by search engines. Part 9 explains why and how you can use social media to improve local search ranking.

We’ll end the lecture series by sharing the following videos created by Google. For sure, these videos will change the way you handle your online activities.

Learning continues here. Please click “play” to start.

The third video is seven minutes and 42 seconds long but we guarantee you, it’s as good as the first two videos.

Video no. 4 talks about basic implementation and best practices.

We’re almost done.

Master the science of engagement and you’re on your way to success.

Good luck!!!

Mastering Local SEO (Part 8) The Website

Your website defines your online reputation. Its overall design speaks about your personality and its contents reveal your professionalism.

Think about it. Offline, people visit the mall to shop (for example: new pair of jeans, new shoes, new wallet), to find what they need (for example: food for the week, toothbrush, pens, new smartphone) and to buy something they wish to have (for example: books, new tablet, laptop).

Online, people visit your website to see what your products and services are (for example: About Us), to read your blog updates and to know your contact information (for example: Contact).

For this reason, you need to make sure your website and its pages follow the technical, content and social guidelines prepared by Google, Yahoo! and Bing.

Technical guidelines refer to a number of techniques that might or might not require the assistance of a webmaster. Your local website is considered technical-friendly if:

1. Major search engines can index the homepage.

2. Major search engines can see and find all pages.

3. The website loads fast in PC, tablet and smartphones.

4. User navigation is simple and friendly.

5. Its professional theme contains plenty of whitespace.

6. Your website needs to appear in different browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari).

7. All pages need to contain your business name, address and phone number in meta description.

A website without variety of contents is like a shopping mall with only one brand of rubber shoes. Search engines might love it but your visitors will get bored if they only see long well-research articles written in long paragraphs and complex sentences.

A local content-friendly website contains:

1. Quality articles written in bullets and chunks.

2. Balance amount of photos and videos give support to articles.

3. Case studies of success and inspiration.

4. Transcribed interviews.

5. Free ebook downloads.

6. Slide presentations.

7. Downloadable podcast.

8. Blog articles link to branded pages such as homepage and contact.

It isn’t enough to focus on technical and content techniques in local search engine optimization. Nowadays, you’re required to promote your website in social media, where your targeted customers are. A local website is socially healthy if:

1. Your profiles in Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube and Linkedin link to your homepage.

2. Your website is listed in popular review sites.

3. Your photos are uploaded in photo-sharing sites such as Flickr and Pinterest.

4. You submit your blog articles in social bookmarking sites such as Stumble Upon and Delicious.

5. You regularly participate in two forums related to your business. Answer people’s questions and make sure your site’s homepage is your signature.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 7) More Reviews

Reviews reveals your online reputation

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Your reputation improves when a review praises your products, services and customer help desk. Unluckily, your reputation spirals down when your review profile is filled with inaccurate criticisms and false accusations.

It hurts, yes. However, there’s something you can do. Remember: your business is your empire; therefore, you need to learn how to manage these reviews effectively. Listed below are some of the tips and techniques:

1. Respond to reviews, either it’s positive or negative. Reviews don’t define the overall face of your business. These are simply comments, suggestions and feedback written by people – who are your repeat customers, first time customer or competitors. For this reason, make it your daily habit to reply to each review. Either write a simple “Thank you” to positive feedback or send a personal message to those who have commented negatively.

To save time, take time to study your analytics in each channel. This technique will reveal what review channels constantly receive active reviews. You can either use one review channel daily or use a different channel each day. For example, Yelp during Mondays, Google+ Local during Tuesdays, Yahoo Local during Wednesdays, Facebook during Thursdays etc.

2. Your response defines your reputation. A business isn’t a business without negative reviews. It comes and doesn’t go. In fact, a study reveals more customers will write negative feedback than positive.

That’s why; it’s best to handle it with class and confidence. Think and control what you feel before you reply. When you answer back, don’t be too defensive to a point that you aren’t solving the problem.

3. Listen. All reviews are subjective. These are written in different tones, in different styles and in different approaches. Be patient with them. Try to research who wrote the review and what his or her intentions are.

Important: It’s best to delete an unpleasant feedback from a profile without a real name and contact details.

4. Positive reviewers can become your repeat buyers. It feels good to interact with positive people. Positive people also give negative reviews but they back it up with something helpful to you. They help you feel inspired despite of imperfections. It’s for this reason why it’s a best practice to ask if you can include their contact information in your mailing list. Your goal is to earn their trust more by sending useful freebies on a weekly basis.

5. Consider hiring a reputation management firm. Give this idea a green signal if you have the right budget. It does save your time. The firm also protects your reputation from Internet trolls, squatted usernames, false information, fake profiles and competitor attacks.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 6) The Reviews

The Truth about Reviews

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People, nowadays, use smartphone to browse the Internet. They use the gadget to pay their bills, book an airline flight, rent a condo and purchase the latest product for their LEGO collection. For this reason, it’s a smart idea to put your business right in front of them rather than they look for you.

Question is how. Answer: Build your review channels.

The Benefits of Reviews

1. Search engines immediately recognize your local business once it’s registered and listed in quality review sites.

2. Your review channels will appear in the first page once your targeted customers search for your contact information.

3. These review sites serve as your extended area for social networking. It also provides a free blog and unlimited storage for your photos. Most importantly, your customers can rate and write a review about your products and services.

4. These review sites improve your online reputation. People will trust your company once it receives five-star ratings with positive reviews.

5. Negative reviews give your channel a shade of balance. Keep in mind, your customers still need to see and read them.

6. It’s easy to embed the review widget on your homepage and blog. This way, people can immediately read your reviews once they click on these widgets.

Do’s & Dont’s for Reviews

1. Before registration, be aware of the site’s guidelines. Read it, understand it and keep it in mind.

2. Make sure you only registered one account in each review site. Multiple accounts mean the site will ban you in their listing. Search engines will remove you in their index too.

3. All review channels need to have similar business name, address, phone number and website.

4. Verify your business information either by phone, email or by wait for the arrival of a postcard.

5. It’s helpful to see other review channels and get some great ideas. This will help you improve your channel.

How to Choose a Review Site

It isn’t recommended to register to all review sites and aim a higher rank in search engine. It isn’t a guarantee that if you’re going to put your business in these sites, people will come and call you.The business game doesn’t work that way. It’s still about why and how you’re going to invite people to your channel.

Remember: Reviews play a role in local SEO. It talks something about you.

Yes. It’s allowed to register to any review site as long as it provides an easy navigation for people. The site also needs to ignore illegal practices. Most importantly, the site is trusted and popular.

Simply choose the best five for your business such as Yelp, Google+ Local, Facebook page, Yahoo! Local and Amazon.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 5) The Citation

What is Citation?

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It’s a common term used in local SEO that refers to a mention of your business name, address, phone number and website.

What’s the goal of citation?

Simply put, your online visibility becomes clearer the more citations you have. Put in mind search engines love citations that are authoritative and high in quality.

How to get citations?

1. Learn how to use data aggregators such as Inforgroup. Moz confirms aggregator sites syndicate the data to search engines.

2. To improve your search ranking, register to listing sites such as Yelp Business, Google+ Local, Foursquare for Business and more. Remember: It isn’t recommended to register to all sites but it’s helpful to register to selected sites, which are trusted and popular in your city and by category.

3. Make sure all business information are consistent before verifying your registration. NOTE: Only create 1 listing per site. Check if you’re already registered to avoid duplication.

4. Search for blogs in your city. Do they provide similar products and services? If yes, contact them and request if they can either mention your business in one of their blog posts or you’ll post an article on their blog.

5. Register your business to paid local directories. BOTW is an easy-to-use web directory listing, which increases your site’s visibility in search engines.

6. Actively participate in one or two forums related to your business. If the site allows it, make your homepage URL as your signature. Then, find a way to mention your business name while answering threads. The goal here is to inform; therefore, never promote about your business. Simply say what your business can do for them.

7. Be active in Q&A sites such as Yahoo Answers and Quora.

Mastering Local SEO (Part 4) The Listing

What is Local Business Listing?

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Moz defines the term as an online profile that asks for your business name, address, local phone number and customers’ reviews. Examples of local business listings are Yelp, Google+ Local, Yahoo Local and Bing Places.

What are the goals of local business listing?

1. Your website becomes 2x visible online.

2. Your target customers can easily find your business details.

3. Search indexes will trust your business data, improving its search ranking.

4.  You’ll receive various reviews, which will help you identify what’s working well and what’s not.

What are the criteria for local business listing?

1. Accurate business name.

2. Local phone number that matches your exact location.

3. Accurate physical address with street, city, state, country.

4. You communicate with your customers through email, chat and meet-up.

Guidelines for local business listing

1. Follow the basic guidelines as prepared by Google.

2. Consistency in your business details. For example, what you have written in Google+ Local needs to contain identical information in all review sites.

3. Don’t change your business name always. You might drop your search rankings.

4. Point your links and anchor texts to high quality websites.

5. Put your business profile in the right category. You can use this Moz Research Tool for assistance.

6. Monitor your reviews daily. Find a way to reply whether it’s a good or bad review. Usually, you want to delete bad reviews especially those that don’t make sense. Feel free to do so but make sure you still have a balance of positive and negative reviews on the page.

7. You can ask for reviews but make sure it’s clearly stated in the listing’s policies. Here’s an example in Yelp.

8. Active and regular updates are a must. Make it a habit to post quality photos and videos daily. Photos and videos are your contents to attract more people. Hopefully, they will call you.

9. Search engines understand your texts better, than your photo and video. Yet, it’s strongly recommended to support these contents with text. For example, write your phone number than embed it in an image.

10. Don’t forget to verify your business information, through a phone call or mail postcard or mail verification link. Some review sites send you a mail postcard in two weeks, which contains your pin number verification.

11. Sometimes, it takes time for your listing to appear in search engines right after verification. That’s why, don’t make further changes (on name, address, phone number and website) while waiting.

12. It’s recommended to create a spreadsheet to track your efforts and progress.