Tag: small business marketing

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Posterous Offers You the Email Blog

Posterous

 

Posterous

 

Posterous is a unique site that offers you the option of an email blog – blogging via email.   The whole purpose of Posterous is to make sharing easier and they achieve this through the simple process of email.  The developers make it quite clear that simplicity of sharing is the essence of Posterous:

Since we first opened our doors in July of 2008, Posterous has continued to find new and better ways to make sharing simpler, more fun, and just plain awesome. It’s a commitment to never-ending improvement that runs through every bone in our body, every thought in our mind.

Since that time, Posterous has achieved a Google Page Rank of 7/10 and is ranked in the top 500 sites in the world in terms of traffic (refer the excerpt from an email post to my Posterous account shown above).

Your email blog with Posterous

The ease of this site is highlighted by the fact that you can create your account just by sending an email to post@posterous.com – and including a subject line. The subject line of the message becomes the blog post title.

You can attach most types of files and Posterous will post it along with the text of your email (the blog post). Posterous will convert the files to the most web friendly format available. It will resize individual photos and convert attached multiple photos to an image gallery.

So via your email you can post videos, photos, documents, audio files and links. If you attach an MP3 file, Posterous converts it to a Web MP3 player.  An attached video file becomes a flash player.

URL’s (web addresses) are converted to hyperlinks and a YouTube link in your Posterous email is converted to an embedded YouTube player. Posterous can also convert URL’s from other video sites.

Posterous can handle a wide range of attached file types when you are email blogging. This graphic gives you some idea of the range of accepted files:

Posterous file types

The email blog facility provided by Posterous is incredibly flexible and easy to use.  Email blogging gives you a quick and easy way to communicate information.  Posterous also offers you the option of editing your email blog online via a simple HTML/text editor.

Simplicity is the essence as far as Posterous is concerned and the email blog option provides busy small business owners with a quick and easy way to market online by sharing ideas and files on a high traffic site.
 

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Run a Webinar for the Price of a Burger!

Burger!

The webinar has become the most powerful form of online marketing for small business.  One of the leaders in the field of online conferencing, GVO Conference, now offers state-of-the-art webinar facilities for the cost of a burger (per month).

The benefits of conducting a webinar

Why would you use a webinar? Well, the benefits speak for themselves.  I have seeen many benefits through participating in numerous webinars and running my own in the area of social media marketing.  Through a webinar, you can:

  • use visual aids – slides, photos and video (…and Squidoo lenses as I have done)
  • build trust as participants get to hear your voice and see you
  • easily explain complex ideas
  • demonstrate products or services
  • quickly build awareness and credibility
  • interact with your audience via voice and text chat
  • reach a wider audience (even global)
  • achieve a sales conversion rate of 4 to 10 times that of other marketing methods.

Webinars make you and your expertise visible and engender personal relationships with your existing and potential customers.

What would you use a webinar for?

Well, you are really only limited by your imagination here. The webinar is such a flexible format that you can use it for many marketing endeavors. Here are some applications:

  • launch a new product or service
  • promote other products to existing customers
  • introduce your product and services to potential customers
  • provide ongoing training for customers
  • conduct meetings or training for geographically dispersed staff
  • develop product ideas with your customers or staff
  • conduct surveys or obtain feedback from customers
  • extend your customer base beyond your limited geographical area.

A webinar is a flexible medium if you purchase the right facilities at the outset.  I have used four different webinar platforms and have found the GVO Conference facility to be the best in terms of cost and features.

Features of the webinar facility from GVO Conference

Online conference facilities vary widely. GVO Conference provides the most comprehensive facilities at the cheapest price. Here are some of the features of this webinar platform:

  • auto-display of conference room when participants click on the link provided by you
  • slide presentations such as Powerpoint
  • video streaming
  • electronic whiteboard
  • inbuilt (text) chat room
  • voice chat via headsets
  • no dial in required (so no phone costs for participants)
  • display browser results
  • record webinar (video and audio).

The last time I checked, you could get access to a 50 person conference room with GVO Conference for under $10 per month with no limit on the number of webinars you run.

How to use a webinar for promotion of a product or service

Professional Internet marketers increasingly use webinars for the launch of new products/services or re-launch of rejuvenated products/services.

The most common approach uses the following steps:

  1. create a webpage with a sign-up form for the webinar
  2. advertise the web page and send an invite via email to your mailing list
  3. capture the email address of participants via the web form
  4. offer valuable information during the webinar that is relevant to the new product/service (teaser information)
  5. explain that there is a lot more to the problem/solution than can be covered in the webinar
  6. introduce new product/service as a solution to customers’ problems/issues/needs
  7. offer the new product/service at a discount for webinar participants (via a special participant-only webpage)
  8. follow-up participants via the email addresses captured during the sign-up phase (and extend the discount period if desired).

The webinar is a very powerful form of online marketing for small business as it builds trust, credibility and understanding while extending the reach of small business to a global audience.

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Free WordPress Plugin: All in One SEO

Free WordPress Plugin
Wordpress plugin

 

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.

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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.

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Advanced Podcasting with Audacity

 

I use Audacity for recording many of my podcasts – it’s free, easy to use and you can add music to your podcast. You simply save your podcast as an MP3 and then you can upload it to your website, blog, Squidoo lens or other social media site. Here’s the link for downloading Audacity:
http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Audacity is used by music professionals for mixing and re-mixing music – it has a sophisticated range of options. However, you can use it for basic audio recording. A similar analogy is your own computer which often has lots of bells and whistles that you don’t ever use.

The above image is a screen shot of an audio capture with Audacity.  You can see the simple buttons for rewind, forward, record, pause, stop and fast forward (just like any video player/recorder).

To edit, you just highlight the piece you want to delete (for example, a cough or a silence) and it is removed from the recording.

Audacity comes with full tutorial support to show you how to do any task related to recording and editing your podcast (so there is no excuse!!):

http://audacity.sourceforge.net/help/

The secret as in a lot of social media marketing is to start slowly and then expand your learning edge.  Try out some short recordings first and have a go at editing.  Once you are comfortable with that you can extend the recordings and/or add music.

Adding music to your Audacity podcast

You can add music to the beginning and/or end of your podcast if you want.  Alternatively, you can play music in the background of your podcast.

One source of music loops that I use and recommend highly is Ginny Culp productions.  Ginny also provides free access to her Instant Audio Player through the following URL:Preview

Instant Audio Player

Here’s a sample of an early podcast I produced.  Here I have used Ginny Culp’s free audio player to display and play the podcast.
Instant Audio Player

 

 

 

In a recent post, I highlighted the value of podcasts in providing you with another channel for communicating to customers, building your relationships and marketing your small business.  Audacity makes this easy by providing you with a tool to create a professional podcast at no cost.