small business marketing ideas – Page 8

November 11, 2011November 11, 2011

Free WordPress Plugin: All in One SEO

All in One SEO Plugin is a free WordPress Plugin that enables you to very easily optimize your blog posts for the search engines. It also forms the foundation for the analysis and research conducted by the more sophisticated WordPress Plugin, SEOPressor, described in an earlier post.

As you can see from the image above, there are three main sections of the All in One SEO plugin you need to complete for each blog post to enable the search engines to readily locate your content. The three main aspects of this free WordPress Plugin are keyword, title and description.

Keyword for All in One SEO WordPress Plugin

It is really important to decide the primary keyword for your blog post (and the Free WordPress Plugin). The primary keyword should determine the title and the description. The keyword chosen should be governed by the content and the purpose of your article and your market research.

Title for the All in One SEO WordPress Plugin

The title should include the primary keyword and, where possible, another related keyword. However, it is important to avoid keyword stuffing otherwise your site will be penalized by Google. One of the real benefits of the All in One SEO WordPress Plugin is the ability to provide a catchy, “sexy” title for your blog post to engage the reader and then to have a more SEO-aware title for the search engines.

Description for the All in One SEO WordPress Plugin

The description should contain the primary keyword at least twice but needs to be conversational in nature – it has to be a meaningful sentence(s). The important thing with the description is to keep the reader in mind – who are they and what do they want in relation to your blog post? What problems or issues are you solving with your post?

Not only does the All in One SEO Plugin help you with your title and description, it also gives you a recommended length for each based on how search engines treat these aspects of blog posts.

The free All in One SEO WordPress Plugin can help you make your blog posts reader-friendly and, at the same time, improve the search engine results for these posts – thus boosting the marketing of your small business online.

November 11, 2011February 9, 2012

WordPress Plugin Guaranteed to Boost Search Engine Results for Your Blog

SEOPressor is a WordPress Plugin that enables you to achieve great search engine results for your blog posts and website pages. The Plugin is easy to install and it provides you with a means for ensuring that your blog posts are optimized for the search engines; that is, they will rank highly in the search engine results for their targeted keyword.

What the SEOPressor WordPress Plugin does

I’ve used SEOPressor to score first page results on Google for my blog posts. What this WordPress Plugin does is help you to improve the onsite SEO for your website – it identifies what aspects you can improve with minimum effort to gain better positioning in search engine results.

SEOPressor does all the work of analysis and research and reports an overall SEO score for the post/page being analyzed. It also identifies how you can improve your use and placement of keywords, font emphasis (bold, italics and underline), images and the key markers that tell Google what the post is about.

What you can do with the information from this WordPress Plugin

With this information you can improve the ranking of your blog post/page by implementing the minor changes recommended. SEOPressor will then recalculate your overall SEO score for the blog post. In this way, you are able to gain better results for your writing through higher placement in search engine results.

The Plugin also educates you so that you can consistently achieve improved traffic from search engines irrespective of what blog or website you are writing for. This is an easy way to maximize the return on your investment of your time and energy in writing.

The SEOPressor is a WordPress Plugin that improves your writing, boosts your search engine results and brings increased targeted traffic to your small business blog or website.

November 5, 2011November 8, 2011

Audioboo: An Easy Introduction to Podcasting for Small Businesses

Audioboo is a very easy, free podcasting platform that lets you create up to 5 minute podcasts either online or via mobile phone. It creates the podcast, provides the MP3 player online and supports distribution.

Audioboo has a Google Page Rank of 7/10 and is ranked by Alexa in the top 30,000 sites in the world (in terms of traffic). The dominant audience demographic is women between the ages of 35 and 54 who have postgraduate education. The over 65 age group is poorly represented in the Audiboo’s audience.

Audioboo – online recording

Let’s check out the online version first. The process is very simple. Once you register you can record an audio online or upload an existing audio – Audiboo takes most formats. You can tag (keyword) your podcast to assist the search engines to find your audio. Audioboo will also give the location (city) of your recording (if you agree to this).

Better still, you can tell Audioboo in advance what sites should receive your podcasts automatically after each recording/upload – Twitter, Facebook, Posterous, Tumblr and/or FriendFeed. Visitors to your site can also promote your podcast via Twitter or Facebook. Both you and your visitors can embed the podcast on a blog or website.

Audioboo is a great place to start if you are new to podcasting. You can start small (maximum 5 minutes) and have the system produce your audio for easy play and distribution.

One way to start if you are nervous about speaking is to read something as a recording (e.g. an article, blog post, short chapter of an ebook). Get used to the sound of your voice first even though reading may make you sound a little stilted. Then you can progress to having a few notes or headings to talk to. You can always start again and re-record – practice makes perfect.

You might even discover that you love this form of content creation and that others love your voice. Just be yourself and genuine – it’s all part of the transparency of social media marketing. Remember too that audio/podcasting is a very forgiving medium – people will overlook the odd stutter or break or “um” because they themselves have not been willing to give it a go. Just do it – you will be so glad you did.

Using Audioboo with your iPhone

The Audioboo application for the iPhone is free and is a superb tool. You can download it through iTunes or directly through the Audioboo site.

Picture this – you are with someone you want to interview. You take a photo with your iPhone, call up the Audioboo app and start recording an interview. When finished, touch a button to add the photo, insert tags (keywords) and touch another to upload your podcast to Audioboo. If you set it up right, the audio will be automatically distributed to other sites such as Facebook.

Alternatively, you might be reading an ebook or listening to a webinar and you get an idea for a brief podcast. You could just pick up your iPhone and record something via the Audioboo app.

Here’s my Audioboo site (refer to the Widget at the start of this blog post for the feed):

http://audioboo.fm/ronpass

You will notice that I have not used Audioboo much yet as I have been using the more sophisticated program, Audacity, which enables you to (1) record a lot longer audio (some of my recordings are an hour) and (2) edit extensively (something you need for longer audio recordings).

Audioboo also has some restrictions on commercial use and may charge a fee if you are overly commercial in your use of the site and its services. As with social networking sites, overt marketing is frowned upon.

However, Audioboo has recently introduced an upgrade service, Audioboo Plus, which includes the following features:

30 minutes recording time
enhanced iTunes settings
posting to Facebook fan pages

Audioboo is a great place to start podcasting for small business owners. You can practice and build up confidence with short podcasts and then upgrade to the new Audioboo advanced service.

Thumbnail Photo Credit: Audioboo Podcasting – by pixelsebi

November 5, 2011November 8, 2011

Podcast to Promote Your Small Business and Build Your Profile

A podcast provides another channel, your voice, to extend your message and your reach. Through podcasts, you can increase exposure to your small business and build your personal profile and business brand. They are increasingly an essential element in small business marketing.

What is Podcasting?

The term “Podcast” originated in 2004 by combining two ideas, “iPod” (audio/video player) and “broadcast” (wide transmission of information). The original concept was that you would create a series of audios/videos (episodes) and broadcast them via the iPod.

Now the term podcast has come to mean, in common language, an audio file (usually MP3) that is made available via the web, iTunes, the iPod or any MP3 player. It can be a single audio or series (such as a training course or a regular radio broadcast such as Blog Talk Radio).

Podcasts have a four-fold appeal:

personalizes information exchange by adding the sound of your voice
enables people who prefer auditory learning to connect with you
provides flexibility and mobility for your message/information (the ubiquitous iPod or MP3 player, including smart mobile phones)
generates great search engine rankings.

A podcast builds trust and relationships because it is personal – people hear your voice which can convey a lot more than the written word. If you set up a series of podcasts, you will strengthen these relationships over time. Melanie Kissell makes the point:

Use a powerful free marketing tool that’s at your disposal twenty-four hours a day – Your Voice! …Having the opportunity to hear your voice makes a REMARKABLE difference in the minds and hearts of your target audience!

Podcasts are popular because they are easy to create and easy to listen to (online or offline via mp3 players). All you need is some free software and a headset with an inbuilt microphone (usually under $30).

Well, if the discussion so far is not enough to motivate you to have a go or do more podcasting than you are currently doing, just keep in mind that there are currently 5 Million searches per month for ‘podcast’ on Google (as well as 3.3 Million for “podcasting”). The recent focus of Google has been very much “universal search” – Google likes to have multi-media results on page 1 for any search term (blog, video, podcast, image, Squidoo lens). So podcasts can improve the ranking of your website or blog.

In the final analysis. a podcast will bring extra traffic to your blog and increase your conversions.

November 2, 2011November 8, 2011

Social Media for Small Business Marketing

You have to search really hard to find someone who relates social media to small business marketing and does so in an easy-to-understand way. However, Social Media Today has achieved this sharing by assembling a panel of experts who can guide you through the social media maze.

The YouTube video presented above gives great insights into how to use social media to advance the marketing of your small business. They effectively cover Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube and relate these to small business marketing. The information is really well grounded and focused on “how to” information – it does not go into the technicalities of each of the social media sites.

The video covers the practicalities of social media marketing:

How to use social media to build your small business
What social media to use for small business marketing
How to avoid the risks associated with social media
How to connect with your customers (current and future) through social media
Ways to measure the effectiveness of social media marketing.

Without this kind of guidnace, you can easily waste time, money and resources on social media and inhibit the success of your small business.

Core messages for small business marketing using social media

After watching the video and related Slideshare presentation, I distilled eight (8) key messages that relate to the use of social media for small business marketing:

Social media are designed to build community, not to offer a platform for direct marketing (overt marketing can result in account deletion)
Social media marketing is a form of indirect marketing (unless you use paid advertising on social media sites)
Your goals should be to build connections and relationships with current and potential customers
Unless you have a specific strategy when you visit social media sites, you will waste a lot of time for no productive outcome
The essence of social media is conversation with others and sharing – about yourself, your small business, your interests and information relevant to your niche
Effective marketing on social media requires content creation on your part – blogging, podcasts, e-books and videos
It’s important to personalise your business and your staff – profiles and videos help greatly here (you have to present as a real person, with real interests and real staff)
Profiles are critical – make sure they are relevant to your business, up-to-date and keyword rich (for SEO purposes).

Small business owners can use social media effectively if they follow some basic principles and develop a marketing strategy. The potential of social media is enormous but the realization of this potential requires focus, targeting and discipline.