I deal with a LOT of local business - Lawyers, Bankruptcy Trustees, Plumbers, Movers… You name it, I’ve probably dealt with someone in that industry at one point or another. One thing that most SMB’s lack is time, specifically the time and effort required to market their business in a creative manner. Coupled with tighter budgets, and a greater need to show results now, rather than 6 months from now, an SEO is often challenged with the need to turn around results swiftly.
Innovation in SEO Pays Off
Most businesses will play the waiting game while their organic search campaign ramps up, and keep increasing their paid search spend the longer it takes to generate significant organic traffic. The one’s that are distruptive choose to dominate the rankings in other ways - Leveraging rich media such as images, videos, powerpoints, spreadsheets, and even scanned print marketing material can help with gaining quick rankings. I’m going to examine how the average small business can quickly leverage rich media to get traffic going to their site:
Digital Asset Optimization for the Small Business
- Videos - Videos are a no-brainer when it comes to capturing the low hanging fruit of search. Where can you get videos? Chances are your client already has something shot from their Yellowpage publisher’s video production team. If not, shooting a video is a trivial task with any bargain digital camera. For those that are truly strapped for time, a video can be created from a slideshow of images.
- Youtube is your friend when it comes to getting great rankings. Create a channel for your business, add keyword rich descriptions, titles, and tags for maximum SEO benefit.
- Adding sub-titles to your videos boosts viewing times and increases conversion rates. Adding sub-titles is easy to do with close to any basic video editing program.
- Images - With 1 in 5 searches being an image search, adding image SEO to your campaigns pays off royally. Alt tag and file name optimization are key to getting good image search rankings. Other tips to double dip in image SEO include:
- Add images to your Google Local Business profile
- Enable Google Image Labeler in your Google Webmaster Tools account.
- Add images to local business citation sources.
- Add images to blog posts or news articles for syndication in Google news.
- Presentations/Powerpoints - Repurposing internal only presentations for public usage is a great way to gain search rankings. Digital asset optimization is easy to do on one’s own website, but also through platforms such a Slide Share and Google Docs.
- Spreadsheets and Scanned Marketing Material - Spreadsheets that offer value to your customer base such as calculator, forecasts or estimate tools are often searched for on the web. Scanned marketing material such as flyers, brochures or catalogues are also viable means of adding content to your site. For maximum benefit, syndicate any such digital assets to Doc Stoc or similar sites.
- OCR scanning software-OCR scanning software can also compare print materials into text content which can then be used to add crawlable content to your website.
By dev Basu
SEO & Social Media : Are You Willing to be Consistent?
So this question has been on my mind for a while now, “Are you willing to be Consistent?” I mean really ask yourself this question. If you are not willing to be consistent in your Marketing, SEO, and Social Media efforts, then you need to reevaluate your career or success. Consistency, in my mind, is the key in life and especially in your marketing strategies.
So many times I hear people saying that they tried everything they could. The truth is they probably were on the right track or at least on the path, but they gave up early and were not steady in their efforts.
Anything worthwhile and lasting with online marketing takes time and effort. Can we get results in a day or even a couple of hours? Sure, but will these results be to our benefit and be there for the long haul, most likely not.
Just because I am writing this article about consistency doesn’t mean that I am perfectly consistent, in fact I am not. But I have found in the aspects of my life that I am consistent I am very successful. I, therefore, strive daily to be as consistent as I can be.
Consistency means you are willing to continue and endure on a regular basis. It doesn’t mean you will be perfect in your efforts. So when you begin a marketing campaign for yourself or a client, keep notes or a daily journal of every effort you made for that certain campaign. Each day after you keep tabs on what went on, ask yourself the simple question, “am I being consistent?” Be specific with your question to yourself, for example, “was I consistent with my AYZ SEO project today?”
Search engine or social media optimization is not that difficult when you really look at it, but hey, neither is brain surgery if you have studied and are willing to understand it. A brain surgeon, much like an SEO, is successful if they stay firm in their efforts to act on the knowledge they have. Most of the time they are successful in their attempts, but once in a while they fail.
The same can be understood with our industry. Most of the time if we stick to the basics and are unfailing in the process then we will succeed. There are times when we fall short, but it is when we are consistent that we find our jobs to be fulfilling and effective.
So here are some things that I believe you need in order to be consistent:
- Stick to the basics.
- Be willing to work.
- Build a process that works for you, and then follow it.
- Make improvements to your process overtime.
- Stay firm.
- Keep a journal of your daily efforts.
- If you get off track, get back on.
- Never Give Up.
Whether it is SEO, Social Media, or Marketing, or life itself, it is ultimately up to you to find what helps you and your company become unwavering in the daily grind efforts. But if you simply follow your laid out plan, improve that plan or process in due time, and tracking the course consistently, then I know for a fact you will become the person you want to be and will give outstanding value to your market.
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