Marketing Method Matters (4) the effective use of SEO

Welcome to the last part of our Marketing Methods Matter series.

In this post we will look at SEO (for the uninitiated that is Search engine optimisation).  But, before we look at what it is and how you do it, lets examine what can it do for you;

Search Engine Optimisation in a nutshell is making not only potential consumers, but also Google, aware of your online presence, usually it is a website, but it can be a blog, or social media platform. This will benefit your  business by building authority with Google to find a place on the all important first page of the search results and developing  relationships with your customers.

Google is still ranked the number 1 search engine in the world (in second place is YouTube).  Google logged over 5.9 billion searches PER DAY in 2013 (Youtube logged over 1 billion unique site visits per month during 2013).  Youtube, interestingly enough, has been owned by Google since 2006

What are the ways to do it?

Google and potential clients will follow pathways to your online space. Link building  creates those pathways and is the mainstay of the SEO industry. There are  many ways to do this. The more links that there are the more authority will be given to your online space. Having said that, the links must appear natural and be appropriate to the content they are in. 

Creating Content

Content can be anything from the 140 characters of a tweet, an business update that is only a few lines long on your blog or face book page, or a 400+  word article that is posted on to your blog with at least one link to your site and a link out to a trusted source such as wikipedia, or an article submission site like Ezine where you put a call to action at the end of the article with a  link back to your online space. 

Your content, however long, must be well written, unique and relevant. Google does not like duplicate content and will disregard it. You can still make more out of your longer pieces of content by letting people know about them on your social media accounts, not forgetting to include a link to the actual post.

Social Media

Posting on your social media accounts can be time consuming because there are so many.  There are differing opinions on how many you should have, and how often you should post, just to complicate it even more it's not the same for all of them. Current thinking is 5 times a day, every day for Twitter, but usually only  posting once or twice a day on Facebook is enough..

Although  there are hundreds to have a go at, opinion is divided on whether it is best to churn out  updates with an automated regularity on all of them or focus your efforts on three or four of the main ones and find an industry specific on to be involved in.

This brings us to the end of our little dip in to marketing methods that matter.

All of us here at Blue Box hope that you enjoy reading our blog.  If this post has raised any questions or if you want help and advice with the implementation of your marketing strategy (or if you just want to talk to us about any aspect of business development or improvement) please do not hesitate to contact the team by telephone  on 084 3289 3288 or by email at enquiries@blueboxconsultancy.com 

You can learn more about Blue Box, our team, and what we do at www.blueboxconsultancy.com

Marketing Method Matters (3) Using 'active' marketing techniques as part of your campaign

This is part 3 of the Marketing Methods Matter series. So far we have looked at what is marketing and why should we employ marketing strategies in our businesses, we have  also looked at the  AIDA principles, identified some strategies and looked at the pros and cons of cold calling. 

This post will look at  some common active marketing techniques.

1.               T.V, and radio adverts – with the advent of digital television and radio, the number of channels with advertising space has dramatically increased, well there are approximately 480 channels available to the UK viewer, most of which show adverts.  This means that although this is still an expensive option and will rule out many small businesses, it's no longer the domain of the massive chains, the same goes for the radio.

2.               Direct email campaigns can be easy to manage once you have got a list of email address in place, however data protection laws are strict concerning the  purchasing and use of personal contact data for marketing purposes,. There are ways of getting lists that do not  involve purchasing them, such as email capture on your website – many sites gain this information by offering free downloads or asking you to register for an email newsletter. If you are sending a mailshot you must ensure that the recipients cannot see anyone else’s email address if they can you are breaching data protection and can face heavy fines or even imprisonment.

3.                Leafleting now seems to be the domain of fast food places, like kebab shops and pizza places, and some slimming clubs.  However it is still a good for other businesses too. If you are a trade person, dentist or doctor you can be sure that most households at one time or another will need your services, so why not drop a leaflet through the door and assume  that they will keep it for reference. If you are in another business see if you can research where your customers are likely to be, and leaflet there. Don't forget that leafleting doesn't need to be in a housing estate, you can be handing them out in the town centre – (make sure you have the relevant permissions in place.)

For the penultimate post in this series we will examine some passive techniques include the components of a SEO campaign – all will be revealed.

All of us here at Blue Box hope that you enjoy reading our blog.  If this post has raised any questions or if you want help and advice with the implementation of your marketing strategy (or if you just want to talk to us about any aspect of business development or improvement) please do not hesitate to contact the team by telephone  on 084 3289 3288 or by email at enquiries@blueboxconsultancy.com 

You can learn more about Blue Box, our team, and what we do at www.blueboxconsultancy.com

see you at the next installment...