Linkedin is a great place to connect with your clients, potential clients, vendors, associates and anyone you would normally network with in the “real world”. You can use Linkedin to let the people you are connected with know what you are doing, what new projects you are working on, or even ask other professionals for their opinion on any given topic. I find it is a great resource for finding experts in any given field.
I personally use LInkedin as a way to stay to connected with and to network with people I know professionally. My Linkedin contacts may be clients, or vendors, or people I worked with in the past. I treat my Linkedin connections like any other relationship. If I don’t know the person, I don’t connect with them. I realize that for some people it is just about trying to get the most connections. I want people connected to me that if I ask them a question, I know that I can rely on their answer.
If you are using Linkedin, remember, that while it allows you to post comments similar to Facebook (What’s on your mind?) and Twitter (What are you doing?) you want to keep your Linkedin posts professional. The people that are viewing your posts may one day be a client, or your boss. You can check out my public Linkedin page.
Is Social Media another “because everybody else is” event? Absolutely not, social media is yet another way to connect with your clients. You just need to use the correct tool correctly. Most of us already use e-mail, which is a form of social media, many of you are using e-mail programs such as Constant Contact or iContact to manage your database lists and to send a monthly newsletter to your clients. These types of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tools, help you not only keep your customer list up-to-date, but they also help you to abide by the Can Spam Act of 2003. If used correctly these e-mail campaigns can help you stay in front of your clients so they will remember you when they need the service(s) you provide.
Social Media today includes Linkedin, Facebook, MySpace (though MySpace is losing ground to Facebook and MySpace is not necessarily the right place for most businesses) and Twitter. And when talking about Social Media, let’s not forget blogging. Just remember that for all of these media you need to relay information that will be meaningful to your clients, that will give them information about your company, products, or services that will make them think more highly of your offering.
Everyone’s web site should be optimized. That means that your site at a minimum, should have code on each page (not seen by mere mortals) that can be read by the spiders and bots that the various search engines use (Goggle, Bing, Yahoo, etc.) to determine where you will land within the millions of search results for the words or phrases that people might use to find your site. I help our clients in determining the best words, phrases and descriptions they should use for their businesses.
Search engines look to see that the words in your code (meta tags, meta descriptions) actually match the words on the pages of your site. In a perfect world you have different meta information on every page of your web site (this is more expensive, so not every client does this). You also need to have words on every page that match that code (not every client wants words on every page, some want their images to speak for them). This type of optimization is considered Natural Search Optimization (NSO), and while it is not free (someone has to code the information, as well as determine the applicable key words, phrases and descriptions), it is not as expensive as SEO.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) or paid search is very effective. You pay the various search engines to assure your placement on the front page, and often at the very top of the front page, of their search site. You, of course, pay for this privilege. Every time someone clicks on your link, you pay the search engine (there is no correlation between clicks and sales unfortunately). You can limit your monthly fees by capping what you will pay daily, when you reach your cap, your link ceases to be displayed. That means that you could be the number one link for the first two days of the month and after that your link will not be seen until the next month. While I find paid search is very effective in assuring your placement, it can become expensive depending upon the keywords or phrases you need to use to reach your target demographics.
Paid search does help your NSO, as more people click on your web site, your ranking goes up with the various search engines. In order to do SEO well, you have to monitor your keywords and phrases to see which are working, and which are not. You need to monitor your analytics to determine what is working and adjust accordingly. While SEO can bring instant results (i.e., you are at the top of the page, their is a cost involved), while NSO cost less, it could take months (or longer) to see results.
If your company’s sales are dependent upon being found on the web, SEO is a viable alternative. If your web site is a compliment to your existing marketing NSO might best for your company. Feel free to contact me about how we can help you determine whether SEO or NSO is the best option for your web site.
People ask why I bother to blog (and why so infrequently) so I thought I would answer. Number 1, why so infrequently, well this year was a bad year. In addition to running a successful (if I must say so myself) company, I spent part of the year as a full-time caregiver. Trust me, not a job you want, and not conducive to blogging. At the end of the day you are just tired. I shared the duty with my sister and it was still exhausting. Number 2, why I blog, because it is a fun way to interact with the people who visit our site. I get e-mails from people who read my blog (really, I do), and they seem to enjoy what I have to say. It is also a creative outlet for me.
Blogging also serves a useful purpose that all my clients could benefit from, they can use their blogs to tell their clients, and their prospective clients about how they can better serve them. For an existing client who reads my blog it shows them that I keep up with technology (so they don’t have to!), and for prospective clients it can give them a feel for who I am and how I think.
There are bloggers who have a wide sphere of influence who corporations court to have their company or product mentioned in their blog. Blogging is now a really big business. Public Relations campaigns now include a “blogging” aspect, many vineyards now as a practice (take Rodney Strong for instance) send the top wine bloggers (Good Grape, Tom Wark’s Fermentation, Steve Heimoff, 1 Wine Dude, Bigger Than Your Head, etc.) free bottles of wine in hopes that they will blog (favorable of course) about the wine. While there is much discussion over whether or not the fact that the wine was provided free should be disclosed, the fact that these bloggers are deemed authorities give credence to their favorable reviews.
A blog can either be available on your site (hosted on your own domain) or use a “blog platform” just like using Microsoft Word to type a letter. Platforms include familiar names such as Google, Typepad and WordPress to ones you have never heard of. A blog can be just text and links (strictly a blog), photos (technically that would be a photoblog), video (vlog), audio (podcasting), or art (artlog). You should choose a format and a platform you feel comfortable with, and a topic that you can grow with. I tend to talk about technology, it is what I do everyday.
If your blog starts to gain a following, you to can become an authority that people will turn to for information. Note that on our site we archive the blogs so you can go back and review what I have written. And I plan to write more as the year goes on and I challenge you to as well. If you aren’t the type to write, we should develop a plan to get your product or service written about. Remember, “if you build it, they will come” only worked for Kevin Costner.
Mashups, you have been hearing the term, but you don’t know what it is. A mashup is a new type of web application using content already existing on the web in a new and innovative way. Mashups are considered part of Web 2.0. A good example of a mashup is chicagocrime.org, a web site that combines crime data from the Chicago Police Department with Google Maps. Google not only supports mashups, but they provide actual mashup framework and tools.
Not all mashups are map oriented, stumbleupon.com is search engine that is unique in that it matches the search results to your personal preferences. As they state on their site “Using search engines to locate relevant content typically means hunting through pages of results. Rather than searching for quality web sites, StumbleUpon members are taken directly to web sites matching their personal interest and preferences.” Joining is easy, over 3.3 million people have already joined.
If you have a blog and want to increase your reach you should use the mashup feedburner.com. FeedBurner allows you to “pubvertise” (their word, not mine) your blog through their web site. FeedBurner will analyze, optimize, publicize, monetize and troubleshoot your blog performance! An innovative way to build better blogging networks for a minimal cost.
If you want to customize your browsing use webwag.com. Webwag allows you to access all the information and services that matter to you, you can choose the newsfeeds, online services, live TV, emails, sticky notes, weather forecasts, etc. all from your Webwag page. You can even choose to have a Flickr feed so that you can keep up with your favorite pictures. My favorite is the Sodoku feed, you can choose how hard or how easy a sudoku challenge you want and can even see the solution if you get stuck!
There are a lot of good mashups out there, if you are interested in finding more just go to one of the mashup directories. I personally like mashup.com’s “Software Mashup of the day”. Have fun finding the right mashups for you!
Before beginning the web design process, determine why you are doing a web design and what are your goals and objectives for your new web site. Do you want to move your site to the next level, make it a call to action? This can be done by allowing visitors to subscribe to a monthly newsletter or having an e-commerce section on your web site. Remember if you have people sign up for a newsletter, you will have to produce a newsletter. A simple HTML newsletter can be created as a part of many content management systems.
Is your site redesign being used as a way to bring visitors back to your site, if so you might consider switching to a content management-based web site. Content management systems allow you to easily update your web site yourself. No need to know HTML, if you can type you can update your web site. This will keep the site current and allow your visitors to see something new each time they visit your site. Continue Reading →
March 26, 2009
