Are you Smart Enough Not to Get Emasculated?

Sara Sentor
Tuesday, May 1st, 2012

Read on and, find out how Google is slowly emasculating websites.

As a writer I have always been tooting my own horn. Content is king I wrote. Get unique content for your website, I begged clients. Some listened, others not so much. Today I have been redeemed. Some of my former clients will be eating crow as Google bumps them from its search results.

What Does the Penguin Update mean to Users?

The bottom line is Google wants the best user experience for its visitors. That means the content that will eventually make its way to the top of the search results will be top notch.

Google in its latest update has literally emasculated hundreds of websites. While searchmetrics.com states only 3% or so of the keywords have been affected, the data is still coming in. We won’t know the actual numbers until the fluctuation stops [some webmasters are still seeing their websites falter in the search results].

Consider that when you search for ‘doctors’ you do not get a fluke pharmaceutical site that has optimized its way to the top rather you get a website for an actual doctors office based on your location.

Sure Google has a long way to go before it tweaks all the web analytics, but it has started the process.

What does the Penguin Update mean to SEO?

Does the Penguin update mean SEO firms will be made obsolete? Not quite.

The Penguin Update will force SEO firms to reinvent their strategy.

They can no longer offer blank packages successfully; rather they will have to offer more customized services.

SEO firms, even those using white hat techniques know how to manipulate data. They can add keywords in the right places; create links in the right neighborhoods and, boom, the site ranks #1. It is not necessarily offering the best information for the searched keyword, but it is ranking.

Now, that will not be realistically possible. SEO firms will not be able to offer 200 directory submissions to two completely different web sites.

They can offer it, but if it were me, I would not accept.

Why do SEO Firms have to reinvent their strategy? Case in Point

‘A’ has a site on mortgage loans

‘B’ has a site on music videos

‘XYZ’ is an SEO firm offering a package for $250 a month. This includes 200 directory submissions, 20 search engine submissions, 100 do follow links etc.

So what happens if A and B Choose XYZ to do their SEO? They get royally screwed by XYZ.

How you ask? XYZ will not have people going to individual directories, checking whether the directory is the correct category for the site. They will randomly submit the sites to any directory. So Google will find links for site A and B in directories that are catering to Health, or News or even useless information no one in the WWW has ever heard off.

What will Google do? You got it. It will penguin site A and B for web spam.

What is the Future of SEO and Web Marketing after Penguin?

SEO has to become customized. As a small business I would hire individuals over companies. As a big business if I am hiring a company, I would opt for a dedicated team, whether virtual or local.

This would ensure that I get a customized solution. I do not need people submitting my site to 200 directories; I do need someone who is able to market my site in a customized way.
What Should Site Owners do to get Top Rankings?

Add quality content to their websites.

Quality content does not mean that you can hire writers sitting in third world countries for 0.01 a word, and become a success. These writers are cheap for a reason. They simply go online and, reword articles already there.

Can you do that? Yes.

Will it be successful? Not after Penguin.

What Google expects is content that offers originality. It does not want similar content across tens of websites. It wants to bring to the top those sites that offer a quality user experience.

So if I want to know about ‘Symptoms of Diabetes’ I would expect a site like WebMd to make it to the top. It actually offers an answer to my query.

If a SEO firm using yesterday’s formula does help your website make it to the top, it will be temporary. Google’s Algorithm is being altered in a way that allows it to trace the user behavior for top results. If a site is ranked #1 for a keyword and, the bounce rate of that site is 90% you can bet your last dollar that the site will soon be obliterated from the ranks.

However, by the same calculation, if a site is #10 for a keyword with a bounce rate of 10% you can again bet your last dollar that it has a good chance of making it to the top.

The Bottom line is Content. It has always been Content.

It is clearly stated in the Google Webmaster Guidelines

•Create a useful, information-rich site, and write pages that clearly and accurately describe your content.

•Make pages primarily for users, not for search engines. Don’t deceive your users or present different content to search engines than you display to users, which is commonly referred to as “cloaking.”

•Avoid tricks intended to improve search engine rankings. A good rule of thumb is whether you’d feel comfortable explaining what you’ve done to a website that competes with you. Another useful test is to ask, “Does this help my users? Would I do this if search engines didn’t exist?”

Google has always focused on content. It is simply that now, with the Penguin update; it has come armed with more than just words.

It is ready to emasculate, yes that is a word I will reuse. It will emasculate web sites that do not offer quality content and, insist on using over optimization techniques.

Tags: Google, SEO, Small Business Marketing, Website Traffic, Writing
Posted in Web Content, Web Marketing for Small Businesses | No Comments »

5 Steps to Create a Social Media Profile for your Business

Sara Sentor
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

You have all read about how important social media marketing is. You have read what it is all about. The problem is no one has told you how to do it. Here you are sitting in front of your computer reading more and more articles and still beside yourself with worry…

Are you really so out of it that you cannot understand what hundreds of people are saying?

How come even after reading so many articles you are twiddling your thumbs. Where do you start when you are ready to begin social media marketing for your business?

If you have the theoretical steps of social media down pat this is how you would start the process.

5 Small Steps to start Social Media Marketing

Step 1: Create Accounts on the Facebook, Twitter and TwitterMe

Go to Facebook.com and sign up for a personal account [if you do not already have one]. Then create a Facebook page for your business. The profile, URL, and other details should be factual and professional. This profile will eventually become representative of your business.
Go to Twitter.com and create an account. Again it’s very simple.
Finally make an account on TwitterFeed.com. This will help you coordinate both Twitter and Facebook accounts and you can update everything at once.

Now the above sites are just personal preferences. These sites I have found to be more universally targeted towards small businesses. While there are many other social media sites out there, these should serve well to get you started.

Anyone, who has more ideas or advice feel free to comment!

Step 2: Organize the Accounts

I cannot tell you what to do with your accounts as every account has to be managed different. If you have a blog you can make post updates, if you post articles online you can make link updates-that all depends on what you will do with your accounts. However, what you can do is have all your user ID and passwords in one place and every day, you login to your accounts and make updates.

For twitter it can be as simple as tweeting a new coupon for your business. For Facebook it could be a status update to, ‘Christmas Sale-all services 30% off’. Whatever, it is do it every day.

Step 3: Create a Blog

Content is the way to market your business. So start a blog. I wrote an article about ‘Want to start a Blog’ a few months back-read it. Social media is great but what are you going to talk about. If you have a blog and you have custom content for it- that maybe highlights your business, service, industry anything that you feel is worth talking about-will give your social media efforts a boost.

Step 3a: Not Ready for a Blog-Focus on FaceBook

For those not ready for a blog opt to update your Facebook page. Go to the Facebook page and read all there is to read about how the pages can be made effective. Then focus on what you want to promote on the page. You can make it a customer service forum or a new features section. Whatever, you decide update it every day.

Step 4: Tell everyone you are on FaceBook and Twitter.

You may have created a FaceBook and Twitter, account last year yet still have a handful of followers. The trick is to be aggressive. Get the logos on your calling card. Display them on your website. Tell your customers face to face [if you have the option] that you would love to hear from them on Facebook. Your current customers will become loyal and will help generate new ones.

Step 5: Read Blogs and Participate

If you cannot create a blog you can still read blogs. The best way to generate a following is follow others. Go to relevant blogs and leave comments. Be a guest blogger. Create a professional signature that has your professional details. Follow blogs, ‘like’ relevant FaceBook pages. Generate data on your own profiles that may be helpful to your clients. Then when you are ready to launch your own blog it won’t be so hard to get readers.

Don’ts of Social Marketing

The above steps are for the newbies. As they start getting into the social arena, they will pick up more tricks of the trade. However, before making some fatal mistakes remember the following:

Never ever tweet a sales pitch.
Never ever spam.
Never be rude or offensive on facebook
Keep your profile professional

Follow the above steps until you can become a more sophisticated social marketer and actually see the benefits of social media for your business.

Tags: Blogging, small business, Small Business Marketing, social media
Posted in Web Marketing for Small Businesses | No Comments »

Theortecial Steps to Social Media Marketing

Sara Sentor
Wednesday, December 1st, 2010

I am a great writer if I may say so myself, but where social media is concerned I am a newbie. It took me quite some time to accept the fact that social media marketing for any business was a necessity not a luxury.

I was one of those who looked at disdain at Facebook and turned up my nose at Twitter. Now, two years down the line I am forced to eat humble pie. Not my favorite dish. I have bought books on the way to manage social media and am reading blogs on it and am forced to say, ‘if any website owner wants to market their business online it is essential that they use social media marketing.’

First 2 Steps: Starting the Process of Social Media Marketing

Social media marketing is an essential component to building your business online. Take it from me. I left my blog online for over an year working my 9 to 5 job and did not so much as look to social media marketing. I am a writer, I have something informative to say so why should I use social media marketing. People want to read the good stuff right?

Wrong. At least partly.

People do want to read informative content, however, how are they supposed to read my content when they do not know it exists? With the thousands of blogs online how are they supposed to read my content when they cannot even find it?

So how do you help your business become visible online?

1. Organize yourself

The social media market is like a whirlpool the deeper you go into it the more gimmicks you see. Do not get derailed by the overwhelming options. Research your market and then choose your best options. The best option is finding out which social media tool will benefit your business the most and start using it.

2. Using Social Media Marketing for Value Added Services

Social Media Marketing is essential for building or rather creating value for your product or service. The worst thing any business owner can do is ignore social media. As long as people are talking about your business you are ‘in’.

You can manage and build your reputation. You can accept the compliments and argue about the negative perceptions. Turning both into value added services.

That means you have to get involved and into the social media game. Don’t use too many tools, find your social media niche and focus on growing your community within it.

Questions to Ask yourself before you start using Social Media

Why do you want to use social media for your business?

The first step in organizing yourself is ascertaining what you want to do with social media. Do not use it to direct sales? Just so you know, very few sales are made from social media.

However, you can make it a form of lead generation. You can also use it to offer customer service. The problem with business in the new economy is they are so impersonal.

Creating a forum where customers can ask the company questions and give their two cents worth of opinions gives them a sense of empowerment. Your answer to this question will determine the direction your marketing strategy will take.

Who is going to manage the Marketing?

You are the owner of the business. You are busy with the day to day routine and really do not have time to manage the social media marketing. Regardless, of who you opt for remember, they have to dedicate at least two hours every day for social media marketing. So choose wisely.

Who will write your content?

Small businesses are greatly constrained by their lack of resources. Business owners have to manage their finances wisely. The best option would be to hire a part time freelance search engine optimizer who is able to write content that you need, manage your social media marketing and interact with your target audience in lieu with your company culture.

Justifying Your Resources towards Social Media Marketing

The main concern most of my small business clients had when I was dealing with them was the cost. How can they afford a base price of $300 per month in the unstable economy?

I always tried to explain to small business owners that they were making an investment. When budgeting for social media marketing they have to look at the ROI-which is the benefit of an investment compared to the cost. When you have a web presence online you are creating a window of opportunity. If used correctly you will have hundreds of visitors every day.

Not every visitor will become a customer. However, they will remember the site and eventually they will turn into customers. Some may bookmark you, others may read the social media remarks and visit your site.

How the traffic converts depends greatly on how you create your web design. Social media marketing is a way to direct traffic and create a buzz about your business. Used correctly and strategically it helps you manage your business reputation, customer loyalty, customer service and creates new avenues of revenue.

In short, social media marketing is a gold mine –the deeper your dig and the longer you dig the better the result.

Tags: small business, Small Business Marketing, social media
Posted in Web Marketing for Small Businesses | No Comments »

Why Small Businesses need Social Marketing

Sara Sentor
Tuesday, November 30th, 2010

I had an interesting conversation the other day with a colleague. We were discussing the best way to promote small business client websites and I suggested facebook and Linkedin was the way to go. He was adamant that both would be useless for small contractors who are working in specific locations.

It astonished me to realize that even people in the online industry still see social marketing as a trend. They do not take it seriously and consider it a fad that will soon fade. The fact is they are wrong. Dead wrong!

How can webmaster fail to realize the importance of social marketing? Facebook is more popular than Google. Linkedin is rising in popularity with Myspace not far behind.

What can social media do for small businesses?

Simply put it can create a buzz. Twitter, facebook and Linkedin can all be used as low cost marketing tools that help build a brand and boost the sales of a company. Strategically used, small business owners can utilize social marketing to create a small community of consumers.

1. Building Relationships

Marketing is a form of building relationships and as most relationships are being built online these days how can small business owners fail to accept their responsibility to use social media?

Blogging, social networking, video distribution and product review sites are all a form of online communication and help build relationships between the business and consumer. It is a less formal mode of communication and creates a trail of communication.

Consider this. I have a landscape business with a website. I have a blog, a facebook profile and all the necessary social media profiles like Digg and Twitter. I decide to give free fall clean up when a customer signs a year contract for landscape services. I twitter this and put it on my company Facebook page. Since I am an active social marketer I sign up three customers through this campaign. These customers like my services and go to Google/epinions.com and give reviews. I use YouTube and Flickr to share photos of landscapes I have done. Considering the number of people online I am sure to get a couple of leads.

Social marketing is an essential component for small businesses. Especially if the business wants to attract direct customers open the channels of communication.

2. Creating Consumer Trust

Small business who use social media give consumers some form of control. Consumers can go online give their opinion, reply to feedback and in short the open communication creates a trust. No business wants bad reviews. Going online and opening the business to any review is tough but suggests collaboration with the consumer. They create a community where they are giving power to the consumer. They are asking the consumers to give their opinion and if the opinion is negative they are suggesting they are willing to do something extra to get that good review.

This then is a form of endorsement. Consumers are endorsing businesses when they go to the review sites, blogs and forums.

3. Marketing Connections

Social media creates connections. Consider again the example of a local landscape company. If I use a certain company from Princeton, NJ and endorse it online another local may read my review and consider using the company. It makes no difference if a person in Texas says the company is good. However, a local resident endorsing the company is something entirely different.

All age groups and social groups are using social media.

Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Ning these are forums of entertainment. If people are there then businesses have to show representation as well. Why would you want to not try something that is free?

How Can Social Media benefit Small Businesses?

Social media marketing would help small businesses by boosting sales.

It would create indirect relationships and serve as a forum of communication, strategic marketing and collaboration.

You do not have to use every tool of social media marketing. Find the one that would work best for your company and use those.
The mistake small business owners and any business owner for that matter make when they think of social media is that ‘they believe social media will make sales.’

The key is that small businesses have to use social media to sell the concept of value. Social media will not sell the products or service. People have to do that. However, social media will create a forum of advertisement that will create leads.

Engaging in social media will start a relationship and the people then have to build on that relationship to sell the things.

Do not use social media to sell. Use it as your voice. Engage people with social media and the use it to drive traffic to your site.

Tags: facebook, small business, Small Business Marketing, social media, twitter
Posted in Web Marketing for Small Businesses | 3 Comments »

Choosing an Online Business

Sara Sentor
Monday, November 29th, 2010

Why do some people make hundreds of dollars online while others nothing?

I have heard the stories and the boasting of friends, acquaintances and pure strangers who have made thousands through an online business. When I hear them I have to ask myself, why is it easy for them to make money online when others are struggling to make even ten cents?

Well the answer is simple-the winners have found their business niche.

They refused to be side tracked by the easy money promises, the gimmicks that promised thousands for an investment of a mere ten dollars and then the pyramid schemes.

The winners did what every reasonable person trying to make money online should know-they worked hard.

The main problem people entering the online business face are incorrect assumptions. They think an online business is an easy way out. Rather than going into business strategically, they get tangled in the marketing web of the scams and end up with nothing and then it’s back to the ‘nine to five’ job.

So what do you have to do to succeed online?

The first step is strategically finding out what you are good at. Where does your talent lie? Now you may be a great mathematician but that is not necessarily your talent. You work hard hours to retain your status and it’s a completely different ball game online. So how do you know what you should be doing?

SWOT Yourself.

If you are going into a business you have to SWOT yourself. SWOT is a business tool that helps you manage, organize and identify the challenges, strengths, weakness and threats to you and hence- your business.

S-Strength
W-Weakness
O-Opportunity
T-Threats

When you decide to change your career SWOT yourself very honestly.

List your strengths

What are you very good at? Are you a great communicator? Is numbers your forte? Do you have a medical background? Whatever, the strength is, list it.

List your weaknesses.

Forget your ego. Leave it far away. Then write clearly, parallel to your strengths what you perceive as your greatest weaknesses. You may be great with numbers but horrible with people. You may be a great communicator but a lame finance manager. You may have medical knowhow but your tech skills suck.

List your Opportunity

Again have a mainframe of comparison. If your greatest skill is math what opportunity can it bring to your business? Maybe you have connections with bankers; maybe you have connections in the field of education. Whatever, the opportunities make a list.

List the threats.

This is not the time to be coy. You may have by this time streamlined your thoughts and decided considering your strengths and weaknesses you as a person who is great at numbers want to launch a site that teaches others how to increase business profit, and the economic value of their business. However, no matter how good at numbers you are it will be no help if there is a business out there that is three times the size of your business and offers more for less.

Strategize your Personal Self in Terms of your Business

The thing about online businesses is that they require 200% of your time until the business takes off. Start up business owners have to compartmentalize their personal life and put it on hold until they can begin to actually make money. You are your business and you better start thinking that way.

Ready to Launch a Business

Once you have done all of the above and have decided on the business that you will give your all to its time to start working.
Learn from your competitors, learn from your friends, call in favors, and ask for favors. Do anything that will help your business succeed.

Online business requires a lot of handholding for the simple reason that the online market is so volatile.

You have to learn the nuances, accept that social marketing is a requirement, learn to use SEO techniques and blogging terms and then slowly but surely walk the road to success.

Tags: SEO, small business, Small Business Marketing, social media, web content
Posted in Web Marketing for Small Businesses | No Comments »