Posted by Samantha Coren on Wed, Aug 18, 2010
Nothing makes my heart sink more than outdated content on a web page that's still "live". While a lot of small business owners find themselves crunched for time, more often than not, the task of keeping the website up to date falls by the wayside.
So how can you reassure your website visitors that you're still kicking and open for business? Here's three quick and easy ways to do it:
1. Embed a Twitter Feed on your Home Page or Blog.
As long as you can get a handful of tweets in during the week, placing a live feed for your business's twitter account is a simple and easy way to let people know your still active. It's also a great way of increasing your social media reach.
Twitter has its own profile widget tool (the one we use) that you can set up in seconds and embed on your home page with little to no coding knowledge.
2. Blog at least once a week (more is better).
At PullnotPush we can talk about the business benefits of blogging day in and out. One of the key benefits of getting into a regular posting schedule is that it's the easiest way to contribute new content on a recurring basis.
Some folks are shy about showing off the dates of their posts because they end up dropping the ball on posting enough times. If anything you should use those stale post dates as motivation to get back on the content generation bandwagon.
3. Rotate a few limited time offers.
Whether it be a coupon or free whitepaper, giving your lead generating calls to action a highlighted expiration date is a way of encouraging visitors to sign up sooner than later. It also gives incentive to your returning visitors to find new offers when they come back to your site.
However, making sure that you stay on top of replacing them with new offers is important, otherwise your run the risk of having stale looking content. If you set out on doing this make sure to notify yourself and team about when it's time to swap in a new feature via your calendar notification software of choice. The PullnotPush team is a big fans of using Google Calendar for such deadlines.
What are some effective ways you've kept your business page fresh? We'd love to hear from you in the comments.
Posted by Samantha Coren on Wed, Aug 11, 2010
It seems like just about every day you hear news reporters taking aim at the most outlandish events in social media. With every infidelity or cyberbullying case uncovered on Facebook or Twitter there's always something you can take away when it comes to social media marketing for business.
Don't believe me? Let's take a look at some current events in social media rocking the newswires:
An Ohioan mother of two discovers that her husband has a second wife on Facebook. Now she fights for the custody of her sons and to prove that her original marriage was lawful.
Marketing Takeaway: Don't let someone find out your business screwed up big time via social networking sites. Represent the same set of values on and off line and you'll find yourself avoiding a whole bunch of unwanted drama.
Chris Peterson, head coach of Boise State's football team, has decided to ban his players from tweeting during the regular season. Why? He thinks it's a giant distraction.
Marketing Takeaway: HubSpot's VP Mike Volpe has a unique stance on social media policy (or lack thereof). Forbidding your employees from participating in social media is like shooting yourself in the online marketing foot. It shows that you don't trust your workers to use good judgement, and cuts away any sort of beneficial interaction with your connections of supporters.
Us PullnotPushers tweet constantly throughout the day on @PullnotPush and our personal accounts: @s_coren, @jeff_machado, @justincambria, @czwolf, @timstansky and @danronken.
Swiss Pharmaceutical giant Novartis rattled the Food and Drug Administration's cage with language describing a drug to treat a form of leukemia. Apparently the FDA believes that the copy generated by a "share more information widget" on Facebook didn't properly reflect the risks of taking the drug.
Marketing Takeaway: It's always a good idea to make sure you aren't breaking any state and federal regulations with the content you publish on social media (or else where for that matter). Not sure if what you're putting out is safe? Have someone proof your work and run the research who's qualified.
The Week of Crazy Ways to Quit Your Job
In other news this week, PullnotPush would like to give a special Magnet award for "Cleverest Way to Quit Your Job" to Steven Slater. Slater was a JetBlue attendent who lost his cool after getting fed up with rude passengers and slid down the escape slide to freedom. Now he has a Free Steven Slater Facebook page set up by fans with over 25,000 likes to fund his legal fees.
The runner up? The folks on reddit sure did love the girl who decided tell her company via e-mail she was quitting with a series of funny photographs and a whiteboard. Too bad it turned out to be a hoax by a struggling LA actress named Elyse Porterfield.
Marketing Takeaway: Never underestimate the impact of a remarkable story and social media users spreading the word...however it's way better when that remarkable story is true.
What are your thoughts on these bizzare, yet newsworthy items?
Posted by Samantha Coren on Wed, Jul 21, 2010
At PullnotPush I have the opportunity to work one on one with the owners of businesses developing
inbound marketing strategies for lead generation. For local businesses that only perform services in person, such as an auto shop or hair salon, capturing qualified leads can be tricky. If your website visitors and leads aren't coming from the areas you service, then you aren't going to get the best ROI on your inbound marketing efforts.
So how do you ensure you're attracting both relevant and local attention with your landing pages?
Here are a few easy tips that will help you appeal to the locals and easily filter out unqualified leads:
Use an Offer that Encourages Visitors Come Into the Store
Let's say you run a small coffee shop and you're trying to figure out a way to build up an e-mail list for your monthly newsletter. One thing you might want to try is offering a coupon on a cup of coffee to your website visitors in exchange for their e-mail address.
Or suppose you run a flower shop and want to spark interest in your monthly newsletters; letting people know they'll receive in-store discounts through your newsletter will encourage more folks to sign up.
No one wants to give away their email address – incentivize your potential leads to do so through meaningful offers!
Give People the Option to Schedule an Appointment or Quote
If giving out discounts isn't your style (and shame on you - everyone loves deals!) you can create a landing page that lets people schedule an appointment or get a free quote. However, if you do this you'll have to stay on top of people opting in to fulfill these requests and qualify the leads as potential customers. In this case, it's a good idea to include a field to capture a telephone number.
Make sure to designate someone in your business to respond to new leads coming in if the offer requires contacting the lead within a certain amount of time. If you have HubSpot, it's easy to notify someone on your team via e-mail the second a new lead comes in the Form Manager settings.
Require a Zip Code on Your Sign Up Form
You don't need to be wearing a tinfoil hat to feel uncomfortable giving away your home address to a form on the internet. However most people aren't shy about just giving out their zip code. This is also essential lead qualifying information for businesses that provide on-site or delivery services to a limited area.
Do you run a local business? What are some ways you've attracted local traffic through your website that resulted in new customers?
Posted by Samantha Coren on Tue, Jul 06, 2010
A lot of local businesses have a tendency to jump head first into the PPC pool to generate targeted traffic to their websites. What's bad about this? Well, buying search traffic isn't exactly cheap. Paid search is not something you want to become dependent on when you're a small business on a tight budget.
So how can you help bring visitors in your community to your site organically and for free? You can start by making sure your pages are properly optimized for search engines to reflect the areas your business serve:
1. Include Your Location in Page Titles and Headers
Make sure each of your pages includes the city you operate out of in the title. Usually [Business Name] | [Type of Business] + [Location] is a popular formatting convention for doing this.
So for example let's say you're a pizza shop in Brockton, Massachusetts and you want to give your "About Us" page an optimized title. Here's one way of optimizing your title tag:
About Joe's Pizza Shack | Pizza Restaurant in Brockton, MA.
Additionally having your H1 header and content echo what you place in your page title can help. Let's say you go with the above title for the about us page. You can have your H1 header be:
About Joe's Pizza Shack in Brockton, MA
2. Submit Your Business to Online Directories
Listing your business on directories as Google Places, Yahoo Local, Bing Local and Yelp! is free and easy. It's also another way for people to find your out about your business through search engines. To quickly check where your business is listed on the web's most popular business directories you can visit getlisted.org.
In some cases you may find your business is already listed on one of these sites without you submitting the listing on your own. If that's the case what you should do is take the proper steps with each site to claim your listing. Why should you claim your listing? So you can make sure the listing info is accurate, complete, and up to date.
Every listing you fill out or claim should include a link to your website so searchers can find their way to your site easily. Certain directories give you the option to add photos, videos, and special coupons which will help generate more interest in your business to searchers. Some of these additional listing features are free on certain directories (Yelp!, Google Places) and others may charge you an additional fee to take advantage of them (Yahoo Local), so be sure to read up on the potential costs of each one.
3. Talk about local happenings in your blog.
Blogging about what's going on in your neighborhood on your company blog is a great way to not only show your visitors you care about your community, but another way of optimizing your pages. This dry cleaner in Birmingham, AL blogs about a music event happening in one of the neighborhoods he provides delivery service to. Not only does he include the town name in the blog title, but he also provides a link to a page he created specifically for this town on his own site.
Do you have a small local business (or know one) who practices good Local SEO? Tell us in the comments!
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Tue, Jun 22, 2010
Do you sometimes get the feeling that Google Adwords is a vampire sucking you dry? Let's be honest here - you've spent hundreds (or thousands!) each month on paid search and haven't seen it translate to an increase in leads or sales.
Want to start seeing results? Here are three ways you can set your next PPC campaign up for success:
1. Don't use words you already rank high for organically.
Before even thinking about what search terms to add to a paid search campaign, you need to check your organic traffic. Find out what keywords people are already using to find your site using your analytics software of choice. If you notice that you're already getting a lot of traffic for a certain term without PPC, then chances are it's not a good investment in paying for that traffic.
2. Link to a landing page.
One of the biggest "no-no's" we come across with paid search campaigns is that, more often than not, people are just linking to their home page. Sure, you might get a nice traffic increase, but you can bet your bounce rate is going to skyrocket. Most home pages tend to be designed as an "internet brochure" for a company and don't contain a way to capture lead information directly.
Why is it better to design a landing page for your PPC campaign? The more leads you can generate from a paid search, the better. This gives you a way to build up a lead list so you can actually nurture people who visit your site into customers via e-mail marketing. People are more inclined to give you their contact information (in this case an e-mail address and name at the bare minimum) if you have some sort of compelling offer you're willing to give away for free.
3. Choose "middle of the road" keywords.
Another mistake we see people make when setting up paid search campaigns is picking many low-traffic terms instead of a few higher cost ones that get traffic. There's a false economy in going with several lower-cost "long-tail" search terms. It's not worth your time setting up a whole campaign around a bunch of terms that aren't going to generate any traffic.
You're better off utilizing those lower traffic keywords within your SEO within website strategy by using them in your content. So what should you pick? Terms that bring in that are priced to bring in traffic, but don’t break your budget.
On a final note, you should avoid falling into the trap of relying too heavily on paid search to generate traffic and leads. PPC should always be an ancillary marketing effort and not your primary focus. Remember, there's no substitute for generating remarkable content that pulls people to your site without paying for their visit!
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Tue, May 25, 2010
So, you started a Twitter account for your business last year, tweeted a few times, and let it go stale. The intern went back to school, you got swamped with work, and you forgot all about one of the biggest sensations in
social media marketing. Let's face it - not even having a Twitter account looks way better than a Twitter account for a business that looks left for dead. If you've been meaning to get more involved with Twitter, here's how you can quickly zap the life back into your account:
Get set up on a Twitter client that allows you to schedule tweets.Being able to pre-program tweets in advance is a great way to prevent a lapse in activity. Make sure to double check if your scheduled tweets are going out at the time you set them for. When pre-programming your tweets, you want to double check if your links work properly. Not sure what to use?
Co-tweet and
Hootsuite are popular options that are currently free, however Co-tweet is more suited toward having multiple users tweet.
Make sure your profile is complete and current.Statistics show that
Twitter users with pictures and profiles have way more followers on average to people who keep everything defaulted. Create a nice background for your Twitter profile, make sure all your bio info is current and that you're linking to your website. Upload a version of your logo that squares off nicely.
Pick a minimum number of Tweets a day.
Some companies only post once a day while others post dozens of times a day - pick whatever makes the most sense for you. If you're going to be posting multiple times a day, it's a good idea to stagger out the timing. No one likes seeing their Twitter feed cluttered up by the same person.
Get more people at your company tweeting than just you (or your intern).Now it's perfectly fine if you have an intern tweet for you, but other people at your company should be involved in order to prevent a lapse in activity. It's also way more fun to get different people in the company tweeting. Co-tags are a way for businesses to differentiate between multiple people tweeting on the same account. Usually co-tags are placed at the end of tweets and have the posters initials. Twitter backgrounds are often include a "key" to explain who's who.
Check at least once a day for mentions and Retweets.Seeing how well people engage with you on Twitter is a pretty standard social media benchmark. Responding to people's mentions of you gives a more personal touch to your activity than just tweeting link spam.
Use Twitter's saved search feature to stay current.Pick a few keywords that are important to your business and keep track of what people are tweeting about. Respond to others’Tweets that you feel are relevant. This is a great way to engage people who might be unfamiliar with your business but who are actively talking about your industry.
Make sure your website visitors aware of your Twitter.Making your main site visitors aware that you tweet is pretty important. It's a built in audience of people who already showed some level of interest toward your business. Including a link on your contact page, having the little Twitter "T" logo in the top corner, or a box of your latest tweets are all popular ways to go about doing this.
Have you successfully brought your Twitter account back from the grave? We’d love to hear how you did it in the comments.
Posted by Samantha Coren on Fri, May 21, 2010
Ever since we conducted our first Tweet & A with Rebecca Corliss people have been dying to know who we were going to interview next. The PullnotPush team's passion for clever marketing and good burgers led us to Jon Olinto, one of the co-founders of b.good.
One of the best small business success stories in Boston comes from Jon and his childhood friend Anthony Ackil. The two's passion for good food and good people lead them to opening their first b.good restaurant in Boston's Back Bay neighborhood six years ago. Their philosophy of cooking real food fast caught on like wildfire and created legions of b.good fans (or family as they like to refer to them) all over Boston.
Jon and Anthony promoted the restaurant over the years with clever contests and an active social media presence on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter. It wasn't so much an internet marketing strategy as it was simply sharing their story with their fans. This summer the two plan to fulfill a dream of buying an ice cream truck to distribute their tasty b.good shakes. They shared on Facebook and Twitter their search for finding the perfect used ice cream truck for the job. Their followers loved it.
Sharing their story seems to have paid off - the two are now preparing to open their seventh restaurant in Hingham, MA. Jon was nice enough to take a break from the craziness involved with running a business and answer our tweets. Here's the recap from yesterday's Tweet & A:
@PullnotPush: This summer looks super busy for you. Opening a 7th store and driving free shake trucks! How do you find time for marketing?
@b_good_: Always believed telling story of real people who make our food is critical for our success. So, always has & will be priority.
@PullnotPush: Fun videos seem to play a big part in promoting the restaurants. Has making videos and hosting video contests impacted business?
@b_good_: they're an engaging way for us to make customers part of the story that is b.good. we think that's how you create real loyalty.
@PullnotPush: Are there any new contests coming up in the pipeline?
@b_good_: great one next wk. just bought old, yellow ice cream truck. gonna have our family name her. winner gets free shakes for summer.
@PullnotPush: When it comes to supporting the local community b.good gets very creative. Any tips for other businesses looking to get involved?
@b_good_: we never had lots of $ to donate. so, forced to do weird stuff. key is always focusing on causes of most passionate customers.
@PullnotPush: Many smaller local businesses aren't very involved in social media. Do you think they're missing out?
@b_good_: yeah, i think every biz can be more human. SM allows biz's to be human - have emotions - instead of being faceless & voiceless.
@PullnotPush: What are some things people you think people should avoid when promoting a new business?
@b_good_: on SM, i'd say avoid being anything other than who you really are. SM makes it's too too easy to sniff out cheesy salesmen.
@PullnotPush: What's the next step for the b.good family?
@b_good_: World domination. But, before that, we're holding annual Family BBQ this summer. Local burgers, beer & bands for local charity.
@PullnotPush: And finally, any advice for someone who's thinking about starting their own business?
@b_good_: don't listen to the "haters". people will tell you not to do whatever it is you're going after. block that out and get started.
PullnotPush would like to thank Jon Olinto for sharing his bits of wisdom with our readers. What are your thoughts on b.good's promotional tactics?
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Posted by Samantha Coren on Wed, May 12, 2010
When it comes to on page search engine optimization, you've probably heard about the importance of keywords. Today's search engines don't care about how many meta-keywords you cram into a web page's code. But that doesn't mean you should ignore making a solid list of keywords as part of your SEO within website strategy.
For clients who don't already have a website with content, we usually recommend that they work on building a list of a few hundred relevant keywords to their business. This big list of possible search terms should serve as your "go to" guide for content creation if you want people to find you using search engines.
1. Location, Location, Location
Consider adding your city, state, and geographical region in combination with your products or services. This will assist people who want to "buy local" find your business. Take this Boston auto repair shop - their most successful keyword terms combine various makes of cars, an auto repair service, and their location.
2. Key Figures in Your Organization
Writing content around the main figures of your company can help you get found by people searching for their names. It also helps give a more personable image to your business. See what happens when you run a search for PullnotPush's head honcho Dan Ronken.
3. Important Issues That Affect Your Industry
When the war against trans fat broke out a few years ago, fast food restaurants came out in full force to assure the public on their websites that they were no longer using trans fats to cook their food. Think about current events or hotly debated topics related to your business and generate content around them with your stance on the matter. This will guide people researching the general topic at hand toward your site.
4. Questions? Answers.
In the 90's, Ask.com (or Ask Jeeves as itwas known back in the day) rocked the search engine world by offering a searchengine that gave results to queries written in natural sounding questions rather than broken terms. Today's popular search engines now posses that functionality to give searchers results for questions. Think of all the possible who, what, where, why, when and how questions that people might ask that could lead them to your site.
Do you have your own set of tips and tricks for coming up with useful keywords for your site? Let us know in the comments.
Whitepaper - The 7 Universal Laws Of Pull Marketing
Want to learn how to switch your marketing efforts from interruption to attraction? Learn how to become a lead generating magnet by using Pull Marketing techniques. Download the free whitepaper to discover The 7 Universal Laws you should following on a daily basis to make the most of Pull Marketing.
|
Posted by Samantha Coren on Thu, May 06, 2010
Mother's day is just around the corner. It's that time to show your appreciation for that one special lady who brought you into this world. To me, my mom is the one person I've learned to trust the most - I feel comfortable sharing just about anything with her.
When learning how to create a landing page your main goal should be getting the visitor to share their information by building a compelling offer. To accomplish this, you have to establish trust. How do you go about doing that? By listening to your mother:
Don't speak with your mouth full.
Many times, you'll run into the urge to spill every little detail about your offer onto your page. In the case of landing pages, less is certainly more. Boil your promotional offer down to a handful of key benefits. Focus on one simple call to action needed in order for visitors to receive your offer.
It's rude to talk about money. More often than not, the data collected from landing page forms will be used by companies to qualify sales leads. When it comes to marketing to consumers, many people don't like to submit information related to their income. If you're confident in requesting intimate information such as their earnings, you'd better have a pretty darn good offering that will motivate them to give you an accurate number - if they even decide to fill out the form at all.
Treat others the way you want to be treated.
Anytime you want people to fill out a form on your site, put yourself in their shoes first. Chances are, you're going to want to know how your information is going to be used. Always be upfront with the privacy of the information you collect on your forms.
Wash behind your ears.
Before promoting your landing page, you need to make sure all the little details are taken care of. Is your copy easy to read and free of errors? Is your page properly optimized for search engines? Have you removed any links that will take your visitors off the page before submitting their form? Does the completed form send the information to the right place? Is your automatic follow up e-mail sending properly? Have several people proof the page before you make it live for the rest of the world.
Say "Thank You".
A confirmation page or e-mail with a simple thank you message is a always a nice touch. It's also the courteous thing to do. Do you have any "motherly" landing page advice to share? Feel free to let us know in the comments.
Posted by Samantha Coren on Fri, Apr 30, 2010
With Facebook's new Like button for the internet you're going to be seeing a lot more Facebook integration with company websites. Now when Facebook users click Like buttons on external pages it will feed into their wall and the interests section of their profile in addition to adding them as a connection to your Page. Sure it looks really cool when you have thousands of people liking you - but what about that Page?
Big companies have the luxury of being able to throw a ton of money at developing and maintaining a Facebook Page with customized apps and boxes. But what about the small business owners who might not have the time or funds to go all out? Below are a few examples of small businesses with solid "no frills" Pages.
1. Chaplin's
Chaplin's is a relatively new family owned and operated restaurant based in the scenic shore town of New London, CT. To help get the word out there about the new place the owner, Jack Chaplin, has become a social media tycoon. Jack frequently updates the page every week with his own recipe tips, pictures, and cooking videos to share with his customers. By sharing his cooking knowledge with the Facebook world he's able to give people insight into his personality and the culture behind his restaurant.
2. Dave's Fresh Pasta
One of PullnotPush's favorite places to get a carb fix is Dave's Fresh Pasta in Somerville, MA. Dave regularly updates the Facebook status on "Fish Day" with pictures of the latest catch. They keep the Davis Square community busy with their Wine and Food tasting events and up to date on the latest specials.
3. Farley's Bookshop
Farley's is one of the last in a dying breed - a local independent book store. With over 40 years of history to boast in New Hope, PA Farley's keeps up with the times by keeping active on Facebook. Every week there's an announcement about book specials, events, author's birthdays, etc. They even integrated their store blog into Facebook notes which really gives you more insight into the folks who run the store and helps spark discussion.
Tips for making a solid business Facebook Page:
- Keep it updated regularly. Sure, things get busy, but Facebook applications are available on just about every smartphone making updating a status message a task that takes mere seconds. You shouldn't go for more than a week between updates. You also don't want to go overboard on too many updates - try not to do more than a couple a day.
- Make it personal. Most small businesses have only a handful of employees. Get everyone involved on the Facebook fun. Share your company photos, employee birthdays, and videos.
- Use Facebook events. If you're hosting or sponsoring an event you can make Facebook events with your page to promote it and invite your connections.
- Get your fans involved. Facebook Pages have the ability for fans to contribute content too. Try having a photo contest and see what happens.
Do you know of a small business with a really great Facebook presence? We'd love to see more - share your favorites!