Digital Marketing Consultant

Social Media is the power drive for Internet Marketing.  Sharing of information has been enhanced by the use of Social Media.  

Search engine optimization still plays a very important Internet Marketing role.  But the truth is Social Media has emerged as a new source of power for online businesses.

Social Media has the power to convert visitors to buyers.  One of the most economical methods to increase traffic and sales to your online business is Social Media.   Social Media has the power to promote your products and services on a global basis.

Social Media offers a platform supporting interactive videos.  Videos have the opportunity to allow a personal approach to the Internet Marketing efforts.  Videos are also well liked by the search engines.

Social Media and mobile browsing continue to be increasingly popular.  This popularity paves the way for Social Media to be an excellent choice when it comes to product and service promotion. 

Social Media is not a standalone approach to Internet Marketing but should be utilized alongside your other marketing strategies.  Social Media takes your products and services directly to your target market.  

Email integration with Social Media is an excellent way to communicate one to one with your target market.  Starting to utilize Social Media in your promotional activities will take some time initially but the returns on these marketing strategies can make all the effort worthwhile. 

Social Media marketing allows business owners to reach the mass of their target market in a individual and personal manner.  Interacting with your target market can make the difference between merely traffic to your site and a sale.

If you want to know more about Social Media Marketing, look at the series starting in February.

There is one thing that every Internet Marketer must remember at all times.  Something obvious, you would think.  If you want your business to grow, you must find out what are the desires and needs of your potential customers.  And you can’t stop there; you have to then meet those desires and needs.

You need to build credibility.  The best way to sell is to help your potential customer see their need for your product, service, or information and build their desire to have what you are offering.

Once you tap into the desires and needs of your potential customer, your business will be on the road to success.   In order to market to the desires and needs of your potential customer, you will need to spend considerable time understanding your potential customer.  Knowing what problems they face regularly can provide a great insight into what solutions they need.  

Your first challenging task often is to get over yourself.  That's right.  Nothing about your customers needs and desires have anything to do with you personally, but it has everything to do about the potential client.  They are the central attraction, not you or even your business.

Building a relationship is the first step in meeting the needs and desires of your potential customer.  Everything from your landing page, blog and even the products, services and information you provide must be developed with their needs and desires front and center.

Once you fully understand the customer’s needs and desires, you can build an effective website and market your products, services, and information offerings to fulfill these needs and desires.  A professional Internet Consultant can help you do it right...AND save money, time, and agony. 

As an Internet Marketer, you must think of many things.  If you want to understand more, see our free wisdom book.

I get this question all the time. Unfortunately, SEO costs is not an easy question to answer.

To back up a bit, there has been a major shift in the marketing rules in just the last few years. Interrupt marketing (commercials, pop-ups, banners) and passive marketing (magazine ads, flyers and mailers, phonebook ads) have become less effective as more people are engaged with the Internet. I give talks to groups of business owners, and at the start of each talk, always ask two questions:

   1. How many of you have used the yellow pages in the last month? (a few hands go up)
   2. How many of you used Google yesterday? (every single hand in the room goes up)

This is a poignant illustration that we all use Google and the other search engines to search for products and services, and do research before making a purchase or finding a company to do business with. Unfortunately, many businesses still cling to the “old ways”./>

As business owners start to realize that their advertising dollars bring fewer new clients in the front door, they start to wonder, “What would it take to get onto Google and the other search engines?

That’s where the question, “How much does SEO cost?” comes in.

There are so many factors that determine who gets to be “king of the Google hill” and who is relegated to the bottom of the heap. We don’t have a magic wand to wave over a client’s website to make it to the top. It’s been documented that Google actually changes the rules every single day! Furthermore, the client’s website itself usually has significant enough problems that prevent it from performing the way it could on the search engines.

We always recommend that a business that wants to get ahead of their competition on the search engines, must have us perform a thorough analysis. It’s kind of like going to the doctor. You may have a pain that’s bothering you, but the doctor isn’t going to just recommend surgery or a prescription. They have to run tests – blood work, diagnostics, x-rays, and so on, before deciding upon a course of action.

    * The client’s website coding structure (think of it as their vital signs)
    * A 25-point SEO readiness checklist (health history)
    * A WebScan™ that looks at on-site and off-site factors (an x-ray)
    * Keyword research – what are people really searching for? (We hate shooting in the dark!)
    * Competitor research – what do the client’s search engine competitors look like (environmental factors)

Once our diagnostic analysis has been completed, then we can effectively answer the question, “How much does SEO cost?” It may be just fixing a few things on the site, or it may be “major surgery”, depending upon how aggressive and competitive the landscape is.

If you as a business owner want to get to the top, insist that your digital marketing expert run these tests to diagnose the problem. It’s better to know up front what you’re facing, rather than shooting in the dark and completely missing the mark!

Learn more about how we leverage SEO techniques that will help your business gain competitive rankings for your site

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Twitter has become a buzz word (or should we say "Tweet Word"?) both for casual and business encounters. 

Usually Twitter is not directly associated with Internet Marketing but is just another method to connect with people.  With that being said, one would have to recognize the direct effect this indirect marketing method may have upon a business.

Twitter has become a strong communication device-of-the-day recently.  

1. Be naturally yourself.   Be your true self and never attempt to imitate someone else.  As in life, trying to be something or someone you are not is easily recognized by others as fake.  
2. Put value in every tweet.   All tweets should provide information, educate, or entertain your followers.  Great relevant information adds value to your tweets.
3. Frequently send tweets to stay in front of your followers.  There is no need to tweet all day long.  Just send a couple of tweets back-to-back each day.
4. Your tweets should be of a discussion type or providing answers to your visitors’ questions.
5. Do not use Twitter to sell online.   Remember to provide value added information and every now and then provide a link to your site which is where you should be selling.
6. Know your market.   Take the time that is necessary to truly learn who are your followers.   You can do this by simply following their links and visiting their sites.   This will allow you to determine of what they have need and then you can perhaps fulfill their need. 
7. Gain new followers.  Increasing your followers allows you to expand your network and your market.
8. Do not offend.   You will want to send tweets that are free from offensive material.  
9. Stay Positive.   Keep your tweets positive.   This will keep your website viewed as positive by other
10. No spamming is allowed.  You can get knocked off of twitter for spamming and you also will find you have fewer followers.

Make it easy on yourself.  The newest blog platforms will automatically tweet the title of your blog.  You simply need to make your titles interesting. 

Twitter is just a small part of your Social Networking and Internet Marketing program.  Want to know more?

Although Digital and Internet are used interchangably in this article, Digital Marketing includes Internet Marketing and all the surrounding tools and opportunities.  It has many facets and it can be easy to get off track if you are not careful.  This is where a successful Digital or Internet Marketing Consultant can be of the best help in moving your business to the next level.

An Internet or Digital Marketing Consultant will provide energy and enthusiasm for your project.  As a minimum, a Digital Marketing Consultant should be skilled and have proven expertise in the basic areas of Internet Marketing that describe and are included in Search Engine Optimization:

•    Tagging and meta description and keywords
•    Website design and internet marketing to capture the needs of your target market and offering solutions for these needs
•    Website design
•    Website content
•    Website development

Is a consultant needed after the website is developed?

Yes, development of the website is just the first step.   Ongoing marketing will be needed to maintain search engine ranking and maintain traffic flow to your website.   A Digital Marketing Consultant can also help keep you abreast of the evolving technology that will need to be incorporated into your online business for continued success.  The rules and the tools change every day.

Qualities of the best Internet Marketing Consultant include:
•    Experienced in Internet/Digital Marketing
•    Knowledge and understanding of sales and marketing and, preferrably, your industry and/or market sector
•    A vision of the future in Internet Marketing; what to use and what not to use today
•    Skill level ranges from basic to advanced; you need it all.
•    Will have a good track record.
•    Will have built in accountability.

And if you want to export anywhere, it would be preferrable to have a consultant that knows, lives, and understands other markets.

Carefully select an Internet/Digital Marketing Consultant with whom you feel is working with you to make your internet marketing business a success.  Developing a long-term relationship with a trusted and knowledgeable Internet/Digital Marketing Consultant should be profitable for you and your business.

An excellent opportunity to learn more is to attend our free webinar and to download our free whitepaper.

In today’s busy society people do not have the time for traditional shopping in a brick and mortar store.   Many people find it much easier to shop from the comfort of their home in front of the computer screen.  This makes Internet and Digital Marketing an effective approach for your business.  

Internet marketing has to start with SEO (search engine optimization) since it is the search engines that will be used by prospective clients to find specific information.  The backbone of SEO is keywords and keywords are also the backbone of internet searches.   The higher your site ranks on these search engines, the more visible your site will become to those searching for the information or products that your site offers.

You can offer Newsletters to your visitors.  This is an excellent way to build your own list of potential customers often referred to as leads.

Pay-per-Click (ppc) ads has the potential to improve your online exposure. Distribution of these ads is made to various websites or blogs making the links to your website available to a much bigger list of potential customers.  PPC can be effective on LinkedIn.

Email Marketing is a type of direct mail marketing online.  This allows for highly customized marketing which can lead the recipient to action.  It is considered THE most effective marketing tool on the Internet.

Another strategy is Link Exchange with other quality websites.   Identify other websites similar to your site with quality content and high ranking.  Send the webmaster of the site a request for link exchange.  You will request will probably be accepted if your site is of high quality also.

Get involved with social network sites such as LinkedIn, Twitter and Facebook as these are the sites your target market is using to stay connected.  This allows you to keep your website in front of your target market as much as possible.

If all of this sounds like too much work, ease your Digital Marketing pain by thumbing through our wisdom book.

First, you will want to decide which search engines to use in which geographic areas (and in which languages).  Other detailed adjustments can be made concerning the search engines, but usually you don’t have to bother. 

So what I do next is to put in a search term that I think is relevant into the normal Google search box on my browser to see which sites come to the top of the search results pile.  Do they compete with my client's product or service?  I pick about five or six sites which do compete and I enter them into the Advanced Web Ranking websites box along with my client’s website.

Then I ask Advanced Web Ranking to give me the information that I want.  Most of the time, I am looking for Key Words and Phrases, but more importantly Advanced Web Ranking gives me all the rankings for each site for each word or phrase…compared to my competitors.

Obviously, this is just the beginning.  There is sooooo much more to do, but it is a good beginning to get us started in dominating the market.

As a disclaimer, I should tell you that the company has offered the software to me for review.  I have not had time to use the software over any longer period of time, so I may have missed something.