Reputation management is no joke considering the amount of damage that can be done online with just one little post or a scathing review. However, cleaning up a bad reputation can be a little more tedious for an online marketing strategy, but have no fear because it can be done. Fortunately, there are a variety of ways to boost your positive reputation through online marketing strategies and social media. One way is to ask for reviews on some of the popular review sites, such as Yelp! and Google+. Ask for endorsements from new satisfied customers, but also reach out to former customers that you know were satisfied with your services. A second way to boost reputation management is to cater your online marketing strategy to include online public relations. Write press releases that are optimized for search engines, but also inform readers of exciting and newsworthy happenings at your company. This will help with SEO efforts, but it will also give you a chance to give your company an online makeover and separate yourself from previous negative reviews.
Tag Archive for Online Marketing
Boost Your Reputation Online
No Shame in Being Social
Whether you run an SEO company or a booming e-commerce site, there’s no shame in letting people know your company can be found on Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn…and Instagram…and Youtube…and Google+… and the list can go on and on. No matter how many social media sites your company can be located on, making sure that the receiving end of your emails and press releases are aware and can easily find you is the most important aspect. Be sure to hyperlink!
So, what difference does it make? Simply put, it’s a great way of branding across multiple platforms that can all be connected and easily referenced. Even when connecting your company’s website to social media profiles and in-house blogs, you’re creating a firm and recognizable presence for your company. As an added plus for an internet marketing aspect, this will also boost SEO efforts through the created links to your company’s website.
Test Your Press Release Knowledge
Whether you are on the writing or the receiving end of press release distribution, the rules and guidelines for press releases are incredibly important, especially for online marketing strategies. For instance, did you know that placing the word “embargo” with a specified date for publication on a press release is almost a definite way to have the release disregarded by reporters? Sending out press releases for business marketing is a great way to get coverage on newsworthy events happening with your company. However, sending out poorly written press releases, or sending out too few releases are also big mistakes to avoid when trying to market your business and grab a reporter’s attention.
To find out more about the dos and don’ts of press release writing and distribution, check out Inc. Magazine’s “Perfect Press Release Quiz.”
Tweet Your Way to Better Writing
When Twitter first began, the idea that 140 characters was all you had to work with for effectively communicating with your followers seemed almost too far-fetched to catch on. Luckily, the micro-blogging social media site has proven that not only can messages be simple and short, they can be just as informative, provocative, motivational, etc… The list of what a tweet can be is never-ending, and the ways in which Twitter has created better writers and more effective communicators is quite an accomplishment. When putting together an online marketing strategy, integrating Twitter has become extremely important. Below are three ways Twitter raises the bar on quick and direct communication.
Vocabulary – Finding just the right amount of descriptiveness in a shorter or more unique word can make or break whether your tweet is attention grabbing.
Crafting – The type of information you are tweeting determines how you will craft that message to make it stand out above the rest. Using various techniques and angles to hook the follower makes you more creative when pumping out those tweets.
Editing – The limited space provided by only allowing 140 characters, which includes spaces, numbers, and symbols, forces you to be selective with your words and information. Writing more concisely for twitter makes you an overall better writer for long-form pieces as well.
As part of your internet marketing strategy, Twitter plays a great role for communicating and keeping your business an industry relevant resource.
How SEO Can Help E-Commerce
The importance of Search Engine Optimization and boosting your Google ranking to help promote your business is becoming more publicly aware as we progress further into the technological age. Business owners and entrepreneurs are seeking help from internet marketing companies to give their business the best branding and reviews possible online. For many consumers choosing to shop from home, the reviews of an e-commerce company on websites like www.ResellerRatings.com are, in many cases, the determining factor for gaining new and returning customers. Negative reviews are too often the tell-tale sign that a company might not be as prosperous as they would like to be.
When relying on e-commerce as your livelihood, why leave it in the words and ratings of others? A great option for boosting your company’s product offerings and website in search engines, SEO content on your e-commerce site can make the boost happen. With higher rankings on Google, higher traffic to your website undoubtedly opens more opportunities to build-up that new customer base. SEO and internet marketing can help in other off-site ways too. Using social media and blogging to reach out to consumers can also bring new and returning customers to the website.
So, when e-commerce is your business, make it an internet marketing expert’s business to help you climb the search engine ranks.
Using Online to Help Offline
When businesses think about online marketing, the goal in mind is to increase traffic online. But what about offline? It may seem rare, but people still interact and converse with people outside the web. Businesses should attract just as much buzz for offline chatter. Research shows that in 15% of conversations about products and 23% about services, someone references the Internet as a source.
Keep in mind you cannot measure how effective an online campaign is. Many get caught up in clicks, conversation rates, and re-tweets. But offline, word of mouth still has an impact. How can you increase offline buzz? Start by creating content that is worthy of conversation. People talk about content that is funny, surprising, or exciting. They only share what they deem is worthy of being shared.
Not everything in life boils down to location. Timing is also a key factor. Post content when people are most likely to be online. On weekdays, that time is between 8 a.m. and 10 a.m. Content should be easy and useful to find. In such a fast paced, media driven world, people want to access information as quickly as possible. Lastly, design your site with brand advocates in mind –the people who return to your site regularly.
Why Do you Need A Facebook Account?
Many businesses want to have a social media presence but do not exactly know how they will use it to benefit their business marketing, especially if you have a less than flashy business like shoe repair or junk hauling. Regardless of your line of work, you can build up a following and gain notoriety for your business.
By creating a Facebook account and connecting with clients, you can easily tap into those clients again as a resource. Next time they need your services, they can easily find you on Facebook. Not only can they find you, but their friends see they are making use of your services as well. People see this type of information and your fan base grows. Offering competitions with prizes on your Facebook page is another great way to get new contacts.
Being on Facebook also allows you to see what your customers are up to. By better knowing your customers, their age, demographics, and needs, you are better suited to offer them services. Your Facebook page is not going to be as active as say Lady Gaga’s, but it will however, serve as a great platform for people to communicate with your business and your business to communicate to a larger audience.
Thankfully, setting up a Facebook page is easy with the help of an online marketing company!
Articles – Not Just for Magazines Anymore
It used to be, just a few short years ago, that article writing was saved mainly for print publications. This was based on the notion that the internet age had too short attention spans to read anything 400 words and above. With the advent of sites like About.com and other long form “how-to” sites, the article has made the jump from print to the internet world, and it’s a great way to help promote your business and positively influence your SEO.
Take a topic that is relevant to your business, a topic people are curious about, and write a short how to, tutorial, or explanation. Make these articles about 400 words or more. If you’re a baking supply store, write about how you should measure ingredients by weight instead of by their volume (oz. vs cup.) Don’t include the name of your business, your website, or any links. Use your keywords liberally but don’t force them.
After you’ve written this article that is informative and easy to read, you want to distribute it to several sites. Find article distribution websites and make sure you read their terms of use. Create resource paragraphs for yourself as well, these will be the reader’s link back to your website and your blog. Articles are a great way to reach a wider audience by providing topical and relevant information that pertains to your business.
Online Marketing and Avoiding Duplicate Content
Often when it comes to online marketing, you hear a lot about how duplicate content can hurt you, rather than help. And you might feel like you need to be worried and constantly on top of avoiding it. But it’s actually much easier to manage than you may think. It takes less real concentration and more just understanding where your content is coming from.
So, you write up a description for a page of your website. It has to do with the kind of products you sell and the deals you offer. While that information is perfect as it is and it sounds like a good idea to just copy and paste it on to other pages or even your about page of your blog, it can really hurt you. So what you’ll want to do is take that information and give it a twist. Write it up in a new light, see what you can do to make the content more unique.
It is also important that you never directly copy information from other websites when writing about certain topics. Attributing a quote is just fine, but it’ll be bad for your reputation if it looks like your blogging content is plagiarized.
Tracking Your Social Influence and Boosting Efforts In Online Marketing
As a company you’re going to create online buzz. At some point in time you will want to market a new product and/or service or you will want to tell customers about your amazing deals. But in order to really get your message across you must have a sphere of influence. Developing an online voice is part social media, part blogging and content management, and part website management. And once you start using different interfaces and platforms for spreading the news about your company you need to maintain it.
If you look at any of the major brand name companies you will notice they have content rich blogs. They post small but new things every week, sometimes every day, and oftentimes it’s just some news clip about their store or company, a new item for sale, or a mention in some magazine. They also manage fiery twitter campaigns, making sure the blog gets noticed and their most updated website pages get views. Linking on twitter is very effective for your sphere of influence. Online marketing benefits with uniform efforts– use social media and social bookmarking to promote the content and sales.
You can track the effectiveness of content and twitter using online tools– check the value of the keywords you use and check websites like Klout, Google adwords, and Spyfu consistently to see your ranking status compared with other “influencers.” You could also sign on with an SEO company to get monthly reports on your site’s rank.
