There. We said it. It is that simple.

Why did you build the website?

Was it so you could turn on your computer and impress visitors that come to your office?

Was it because your manager of marketing said it was good idea?

Was it to type your brochure information onto the website, then tell people you meet at networking events that you have a site?

Or maybe you did it to avoid having to go to networking events?

OR

Did you do it …

so you could sell products online?

so you could get more sales leads?

Did you do it because your customers are online and you knew that you should be, too?

Did you get your website up and running so you could improve your bottom line and reduce your overhead?

From BusinessWeek.com (small business section):

“…Old is counting on foreign sales to expand his business from $1.25 million in revenue this year to $20 million in three years…A 54-year-old Marine veteran who speaks six languages and had a previous business trading aircraft internationally, Old says customers from around the world find him online, and vice versa.”

“…Online marketing and e-commerce have also enabled more small businesses to expand globally. Shipwire, a Palo Alto (Calif.)-based company that provides outsourced warehousing and shipping for online merchants…have gone from close to zero in 2007 to 20% of Shipwire’s business in 2009, says CEO Damon Schechter. “The merchants are pulling us to where we should be,” he says.”

“…If we’re spending anywhere, it’s on marketing. Lead generation. Web site upgrades. Social media. E-mail campaigns…”

If your website was created to get new business, new customers, new sales leads, repeat business…and you don’t have an active, online marketing plan, we need to talk. You’re losing money, losing new customers, missing opportunities. We can help. Contact us today.

A July 2009 study by Nielsen found the following:

92% trusted “recommendations from people I know”

70% trusted “consumer opinions posted online”

We bet that those numbers are higher a year later. Why? Because of the inclusion of social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter and Digg. It’s where people connect, talk about purchases, then check out a product or service for themselves. These are the basics of driving traffic to a landing page or website. But once that new visitor is on the site, what are marketers doing to show off those positive reviews? Very little, it seems.

Check your website. Is there a tab titled “Reviews”? Or maybe a link on a product page for visitors to see customer reviews?

What about using those reviews directly in your marketing efforts?

Call us today to find out how to use those recommendations and reviews to get your message out!

Really. They did. How? By first connecting with one another online, of course.

LinkedIn offers account holders, Basic and Premium, the ability to automatically show Twitter messages in their status updates. If you use WordPress or TypePad you can have each new post show on your LinkedIn page.

A Facebook Fan page can be customized, one of those customized tabs can be an RSS Feed of your blog. Also, an application can be added to the Fan page to add your blog feed directly into the Fan page NewsFeed.

Facebook also now brings in your personal profile to other social platforms and gives you an opportunity to ‘Like’ that page or website, which posts to your personal profile NewsFeed.

Your blogging platform, free or otherwise, offers you the ability to announce your new blog post to all of your social media accounts.

Slow Down and Think Before Connecting

Now that you know this, please don’t go changing each of your accounts to reflect the status updates of the others just yet.

First you must consider the reason you have each account. Here are some basic reasons most of us have these accounts:

• LinkedIn – for professional use. To connect with professionals in your industry, learn and participate in groups related to your industry, and meet local connections.
• Facebook Fan Page – for business use. To connect with your customers and potential customers, separate yourself from your competition and create a space for people interested in your service or product to talk to you and to others.
• Facebook Personal Profile – for personal use. To connect with family and friends, share personal stories about interesting events in our lives, post photos of our kids and pets.
• Blog – for business use. To tell visitors interesting things about parts of your business, service or personnel  that they otherwise wouldn’t know.

If you are using all of these for one use, business or personal, then linking them together makes sense. But think about this; If your Twitter account is connected to your LinkedIn account, then the next time you tweet a message it will show up on your LinkedIn status – is this what you want your professional connections to see? Really? What if your last Tweet was about:

• Your reaction to a lousy movie?
• Your spouse’s broken finger episode?
• Your dog’s reaction to eating brussel sprouts?
• Your reaction to your dog’s reaction?

Seriously. Please consider the consequences of your social media sharing and make sure you understand what each platform is being used for – by other people. If you don’t, you will lose business opportunities and personal connections. There are many people on Facebook right now that are cleaning up their Friends list because their NewsFeeds are filled with product or business ‘advertising’. There are many people on LinkedIn that are removing contacts because the status updates are ridiculous or offensive (imagine reading a status update from a business contact that includes the F*** bomb).

Sometimes people get the misconception that social media is all about them. Well, it’s not. Social media is all about the other people that are reading and chatting with you. If you keep that in mind and apply common sense, basic etiquette (business and personal) you will find yourself connected to fascinating people interested in helping you succeed in your business and in your personal life.

A landing page is any page on a website where traffic is sent specifically to prompt a certain action or result. The goal of the copy and design of a landing page is to get the prospect to complete your desired action.

Here are some ways to drive traffic to a landing page:
* a PayPerClick (PPC) campaign on a major search engine like Google, Facebook, Yahoo! or Bing
* a banner ad on a relevant website, group/association newsletter or something similar
* a link in an email newsletter
* a link posted on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or other social media site

Remember, the goal is to get the visitor to complete your desired action. And the way to accomplish this goal is to have a landing page that matches the visitor’s expectations, tells the visitor what to do and how to do it, then thanks the visitor for stopping by.

Good Example:
Pet insurance site is running PPC campaigns on Google, Facebook and Yahoo! The goal is to get visitor email addresses in return for supplying a price quote.

The ads use researched keywords, and show up in response to a search query. The searcher clicks on an ad that says "Pet insurance can save you money and help your pet stay healthy".

The click-through should be to a page on the website that talks about pet insurance and how it can help you keep your pet healthy. It should use the same keywords as the ad, though not necessarily the same text. It should meet the visitors expectations. Also on the site is a clear Call to Action that asks the visitor for their email information and a bit of information about their pet to receive a quote. Once the visitor completes the task, a ‘thank you for visiting’ statement appears with assurances that a quote will be in their inbox shortly.

Bad Example:

Same scenario as above, except the visitor clicks on the ad and is taken to the home page of the site. The home page talks about various pet illnesses, grooming tips and a few flea collar options. The visitor will click off the site because that page did not meet their expectations. They would have had to explore the website to find the information they wanted, and most visitors will not do this. They’ll click off the site, go back to the Google search results page and select another site to visit.

And then there’s Google Analytics

In the background there are ways to measure traffic to the site and to the landing page, measure conversion rates which in turn help you decide if the campaign is effective, and if it’s not then Plan B goes into effect – which is to change the ad text, or maybe change the landing page a bit.

Remember, the landing page can be an existing page on the website OR it can be a new page that’s been designed specifically for a campaign. These are done all the time for market research.

• Test the waters before a product launch
• Test the effectiveness of an ad idea
• Get email addresses before the product is actually available

Have the following in place before you begin and you’ll see positive results:

• have a strategic plan (the reason you’re using a landing page)
• have an objective (what’s the goal?)
• decide the tactic (PPC campaign, banner ad, links via social media sites, etc.)
• measure the results

Questions?
Ready to start a campaign?
We’re available to create a campaign for you – just email us at info@searchbyburke.com or call us at 812-951-3177.

If you search the blogosphere you’ll see hundreds of posts telling you that you should have Fan page and giving you many reasons why:

• it’s where your customers expect you to be
• it’s vital to your business growth
• it’s an important part of your overall marketing plan

All three of these are true. They’re also why we have our own Fan page.

Here are a few more reasons we’re on Facebook:

• it shows up in Google search results
• it adds branding value to our company
• it gives us an opportunity to chat with our Fans

Some more details about why you should have a Facebook Fan Page:

1. Pages are public.  Most of Facebook is behind a login, preventing search engines from indexing.  However, Fan pages are not behind a login and  search engines can index the page.  Google started the inclusion of social platforms in the search results, other search engines have followed suit. What does this mean? It means that if you optimize your Wall posts, your Fan page will show up in search results!

2. Pages include links.  Customized Tabs, using the Notes and Boxes tabs, and of course the inclusion of links in your posts,can get you some excellent facebook.com link credit.

3. Every Wall post shows up on your Fans’ News Feed, which is seen by each Fans’ Friends. And if the Fan comments on a post, even better. That encourages their Friends to see what the comment is about.

4. Make your Fan page before Facebook creates a Community Page and You control the page. If you’re too late, then do it anyway and promote the heck out it to override the Community Page.

5. Comments can be Promoted! Until you see the option in action, you don’t quite understand the value. Trust us – it’s valuable.

We create customized Fan pages. Including building out a landing/welcome page that includes Feeds appropriate to your business or industry – that provide metrics! Now, that’s not something you can get every day! At the moment, we’re the only provider of a Facebook App that gives quality metrics that you can base decisions on. Increase your Fan base, focus your next post on a popular item from the Feed, target your next email campaign based on those metrics – quality information that can result in increasing your bottom line. Contact us for more information about the feature.

Email is still a highly effective tool to communicate your message to current and potential customers. And in these past 10 years it has become more defined, more refined, and more accepted by the general public. But, there are rules to follow…not just to make the campaign more effective or profitable, but to ensure that the recipients want to receive your message.

So, now you’re ready to use email as a marketing tool for your business.

You have a few email addresses from business cards received at networking events, requests from website visitors for more information about your business, and/or maybe you got email addresses at a trade show where you were an exhibitor.

Before you send the first email, the first e-newsletter, and even before deciding which 3rd party vendor to use (Benchmark Email, Constant Contact, Campaign Monitor, etc.) you must be aware of, and understand, the CAN-SPAM Compliance Act of 2003.

Don’t panic – it’s really not that complicated. You’ve heard most of the rules since it’s inception and, if you’ve signed up for an e-newsletter you’ve participated in the enforcement of the rules. But if you don’t know the rules of email marketing at the basic level, then you can’t succeed with it as part of your online marketing efforts.

The CAN-SPAM Act doesn’t apply just to bulk email. It covers all commercial messages, which the law defines as “any electronic mail message the primary purpose of which is the commercial advertisement or promotion of a commercial product or service,” including email that promotes content on commercial websites. The law makes no exception for business-to-business email. That means all email – for example, a message to former customers announcing a new product line – must comply with the law.
Each separate email in violation of the CAN-SPAM Act is subject to penalties of up to $16,000, so non-compliance can be costly. But following the law isn’t complicated. Here’s a rundown of CAN-SPAM’s main requirements:

1. Don’t use false or misleading header information. Your “From,” “To,” “Reply-To,” and routing information – including the originating domain name and email address – must be accurate and identify the person or business who initiated the message.
2. Don’t use deceptive subject lines. The subject line must accurately reflect the content of the message.
3. Identify the message as an ad. The law gives you a lot of leeway in how to do this, but you must disclose clearly and conspicuously that your message is an advertisement.
4. Tell recipients where you’re located. Your message must include your valid physical postal address.
5. Tell recipients how to opt out of receiving future email from you. Your message must include a clear and conspicuous explanation of how the recipient can opt out of getting email from you in the future.
6. Honor opt-out requests promptly. Any opt-out mechanism you offer must be able to process opt-out requests for at least 30 days after you send your message. You must honor a recipient’s opt-out request within 10 business days.
7. Monitor what others are doing on your behalf. The law makes clear that even if you hire another company to handle your email marketing, you can’t contract away your legal responsibility to comply with the law. Both the company whose product is promoted in the message and the company that actually sends the message may be held legally responsible.

Here is the official website that expands on the information I provided you:
http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/edu/pubs/business/ecommerce/bus61.shtm

White Hat SEO is using accepted industry tactics to maintain the integrity of your website and the search engine results pages (SERPs). This is what works for long term online marketing success.

Here are some White Hat SEO tactics commonly used by us:

1. Internal Linking: having a sitemap on your website that provides link navigation, as opposed to drop down menu navigation, helps the search engines index those pages.
2. Reciprocal Linking: also known as backlinking, is the exchange of links with other websites that in your industry. It is acceptable to link to any other website, but White Hat SEO tactics are to link only with relevant sites. So, if your site is all about gardening, then don’t link to a site that’s all about video games.
3. Content: the more content-rich your site is, the more valuable it is to the search engines, visitors to the site and other websites in search of linking opportunities. Though time consuming, we recommend updating and adding content on a regular basis. This ensures quality information for your visitors, as well as making your site appear as a solid resource to visitors and others in the online community.
4. Writing Articles: or blog posts, or forum posts, or as a guest blogger on someone else’s site. This is content that will build links back to your website, but don’t require a reciprocal link. There are many blogs to approach with the offer of guest posting, and quite a few article submission sites that can be used to post the articles to.
5. SEO on Site: the use of keywords and phrases in the site content, meta tags and title tags for search engine indexing, maximizing the entire site so that it is attractive to the search engines.