The Social Capital Conference is approaching quickly, just over two weeks away, on July 26, 2014. It is much more than a one day learnathon, as the tagline suggests. This year, I have the honour of being on the Organizing committee and well as being a speaker at the event. I have been an attendee in the past and knew I wanted to be a part of this social media celebration. The conference may only be a day long, but it can be much more than a one day event, if you make the most of it.
Tips for SEO-friendly Content for your Website
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is the process of increasing the visibility of your website on top search engines like Google and Bing, to drive more targeted traffic to your website. The more people visit your website, the more they will know about your product or service. This generates increased business and everyone’s favourite: revenue.
Your business’ website must be efficient, functional and full of quality, engaging content. Content is crucial and highly valuable. Well optimized content makes it easier for search engines to locate. In other words, content is king! Your content should be specifically written with this in mind. If you want to have a successful website, it is imperative to pay close attention to your content.
The Importance of Online & Offline Networking
Networking is the best and most effective way of connecting with potential customers. To build a successful business, many thriving entrepreneurs underline the importance of networking. Networking generates leads to more business, creates business referrals, and offers you the opportunity to share ideas, ask questions, discuss business challenges and learn from other business owners. It also allows you to meet new people and expand your professional contacts. The more people you know, the better it is for growing your business. Networking also raises your visibility and helps improve your brand.
As a Social Media Marketer, I understand the importance of creating connections online with your target audience, but it is also important to establish connections offline to build and maintain relationships.
Content Is King in Building Engagement and Trust
What you write and publish online is the core of your website. Your content engages your readers, attracts their attention, and builds interest in your company. Providing useful, insightful and well-written information heightens professional credibility, creates trust, and engages your readers to believe in what you are selling. Remember: This is business, not personal. Strategic content ensures you share relevant information with your target audience and will eventually boost business.
How Social Media Helps Search Engine Optimization
What is SEO?
Search Engine Optimization (SEO) ensures your website and/or blog are easily found during a search online. SEO affects the visibility of your website or web page in a search engine’s results. Essentially, SEO is content added to a website in order to help increase its search visibility. This content contains keywords and phrases you select, with keyword research, and include to maximise, or optimise search results.
To optimize your appearance in a search engine’s search results, you need to include keywords and phrases in your web page or post that will coincide with users’ entries. The higher in ranking your site appears in a search results list, the more potential visitors it will attract.
The social media link to SEO
According to Forbes, the three pillars of SEO are content, links and social media. It is therefore crucial SEO be an integral part of your social media strategy.
The Beauty of Branding
What is a brand and why is branding important?
A brand is defined as a name, symbol or design that identifies your goods and services. Your company logo is your brand. If your logo includes a tagline, this combination is also your brand. A strong brand is fundamental to your business, and must resonate with your existing and potential clients. Once you’re happy with your brand , it’s time to showcase it to the world.
Including a branding strategy in your marketing plan is crucial. Why? Because it personifies your business, delivers your message clearly, increases your credibility, motivates your clients, and creates loyalty. Branding allows you to take a strong stance within your niche market. Don’t you want your business to be recognised as the best? Applied correctly, your brand can help you achieve that.
Why Use Twitter for Marketing?
If your business can benefit from networking, and most can, Twitter is for you.
Canada ranks 5th in Twitter use around the world at 2.9%. Although that doesn’t sound like a very big share, the U.S. accounts for 51% of all Twitter users, followed by U.K. (17%), Australia (4%), and Brazil (3.4%). For Canada, the actual numbers of Twitter users comes to just over 4 million people, and that has tripled since 2009 ( Sources Webfuel – Canada Social Media Statistics, Ipsos – Social Listening Ipsos Trends and Nielsen Social Media Report 2012).
About 3% of Twitter accounts worldwide, according to the Nielsen report, belong to entrepreneurs. Across Canada, small businesses are increasingly seeing the need for engaging their markets using Twitter, so we have a much deeper penetration among entrepreneurs than much of the world. According to a BMO study from June 2012, 31% of businesses in Canada that use social media in their marketing efforts make use of Twitter.
The top three reasons why businesses use social media are:
- To promote brand or reputation (33 per cent)
- To gather ideas or suggestions from people (23 per cent)
- To sell business products or services (23 per cent)
Tips for Optimizing your Web Presence
What is Web Presence Optimization (WPO)?
WPO, put simply, is the process of monitoring your Internet “footprint” on a daily basis and tweaking it in order to maximize the potential for customer conversion. WPO is about optimizing and monitoring content across your entire web presence, including your website, social media accounts, blogs, directory listings, etc – to improve your organic ranking in the search engines. It’s about dominating ALL search starting points so people can find your business during all phases of their online research. WPO is an important strategy for ensuring that keywords in any content related to your business is positive and tends to drive potential customers to your website and purchase your products and services.
How to Create a Social Media Content Marketing Calendar
Your content marketing plan should be a major part of your overall marketing strategy. Content marketing includes any informational or other content that you create or collect and share with others online. It comprises your website content, your blog, and, of course, social media content. Pre-planning content marketing is essential for your small business so …
5 Simple Tips for Planning Your Social Media Marketing Content
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You Like Me: Now What?
You’re a small business owner in Lanark County and you’ve finally decided you need a Facebook page for your small business. You’ve got it set up. You’ve encouraged your family, some friends and a couple of your customers to “Like” your page. You look on your small business page with pride. Then all of a sudden you ask yourself, “Ummm…what now?”
It’s a good question. What are you supposed to be doing with this social media thing? How do you make it work for your business?
One word: plan. Whether you’re using Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, all of the above, or something else, you need to have a plan for the content you post. There are five simple rules you can follow to help you do this.