Category Archives: Local Search Techniques

Social Media Marketing Tip: Protect Your Business’s Identity on Twitter Now

Last Updated On August 13th, 2014Local Search Techniques, Local SEO, SEM Best Practices, Social Media Marketing, , , , ,

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Although Twitter is used by many businesses, it’s not currently offering businesses a way to verify their accounts. This means that potentially, your competitors could create a Twitter screen name and pretend to be you, tweeting on behalf of your business. This is a scary thought. However, there are ways business owners can increase the visibility on their Twitter accounts as well as make it more clear which account is official. Follow these tips provided by Mashable to protect your company’s identity today.

1. Link all of your social media accounts. Since Twitter’s user name policy doesn’t allow people to reserve user names, companies with a more generic name might find that their desired user name is already taken. According to Mashable, this might be a better opportunity for those businesses to better distinguish their brand if their business name is very common.

Another way to verify that your account is the official business account is to add a link to your Twitter account on your official website, Facebook, Foursquare or Google Places pages. Writing “official Twitter account for _____” in your Twitter bio is also a great way to indicate that this is indeed your business’s Twitter identity.

2. Customize your Twitter profile to make it more obvious that this is the official Twitter account of your brand. An impostor wouldn’t spend the time (or money in some cases) to customize a false Twitter account with your brand’s logo, colors, etc.

3. If you have a trademark over your business name or logo and another Twitter account is causing identity confusion, Twitter can step in. You can submit a help ticket and Twitter will examine the situation. If it finds the other account(s) is trying to cause a problem, it will likely suspend the account and give you ownership. However, this only applies if your name or logo is trademarked, otherwise Twitter cannot do anything.

Following these steps will help your brand keep its identity safe while social media marketing. When used properly, Twitter can be an excellent platform for reaching new customers, keeping existing customers engaged and enhancing your company’s image.

More Tips for Creating Effective Web Content to Maximize Your Online Marketing Efforts

Local Search Techniques, Web Content, , , , ,

Creating effective content for your website is the key to turning visitors into customers. In order to entice your potential customers to buy, you need to make sure your content is engaging. Engaging content on your website as well as your social media networks, articles and blogs will entice readers to interact and form a more personal connection with the company. This will encourage customers to buy from you and continue to buy from you in the future. In our previous blog we shared some tips on how to fix boring content and make it engaging. Here are some more things to keep in mind when creating new content.

1. Concentrate on benefits not products. People do not want to know about what your product does. They want to know what your product will enable them to do. Remember that 95% of the information on your website should be concentrating on your customer. Put yourself in your customer’s shoes. What problem do they have that your product or service can solve? Make sure to answer that important question in your content.

2. Keep it short. It is a proven fact that online readers like to skim over content, reading bullet points and headlines rather than full paragraphs. Try to keep your content short (200-500 words). People are more likely to invest the time it takes to read a 300-word blog post rather than a 10-page article.

3. Recycle your content. If you write a long article, make a few slight changes and turn it into two or three blog posts. If you write a how-to blog, use the same content to create a short video. This will help you get more content on the web in no time.

4. Simple content rules, complicated content drools. Although you are an expert in your field, constantly using industry buzzwords and lingo might confuse your customers and bore them to death. Keep in mind that your customers don’t know much about your field, which is why they’re trusting your company to provide a service or product that will take care of it for them. Even the most basic thing to you could be complicated to them, so make sure to explain every aspect of your writing. Then to spice it up, use comparisons, anecdotes and examples they can relate to in order to make your point.

Keeping these things in mind while writing your web content will help to make sure you write engaging articles, blogs, press releases, social media posts and web copy to maximize your online marketing efforts and gain (and keep) the attention of the people who matter most, your customers.

How to Create Effective Web Content to Maximize Your Online Marketing Efforts

Local Search Techniques, Web Content, , , , , ,

ComputerAll websites are not created equal and let’s face it, there are some pretty awful websites out there today. One thing many web content writers forget is, the way to grab your reader’s attention and entice them to buy your product or service is to engage. Engaging your visitors and encouraging them to to interact with your website or the other content surrounding your website (i.e. social media networks, etc.) is a surefire way to turn them into customers.

How do you know if your content is engaging?

Ask yourself this question: Do I have a web content strategy? If not, then there’s a very good chance that your web content is not engaging your visitors. It’s probably just a data dump of uninteresting information.

On an engaging website, visitors are reading and commenting on your blog posts, watching your videos, downloading your free information, following the link to “like” your Facebook and signing up for your email newsletter. If your site visitors aren’t doing any of these activities, you know your website isn’t engaging them or reeling them in.

What can I do today to help fix my content?

There are two key ingredients to begin fixing your content today. First, start thinking about your website, social media, blogs and articles as conversations between you and your customer. You want them to feel invested in the conversation and to respond. When you make a more personal connection with your customers and get them to interact with your content, they are more likely to trust you and do business with you.

Next, think about the questions your customers may be asking in their heads during the buying cycle of your product or service. Make sure to address those questions in your web content in order to move the process along and avoid customers jumping ship and abandoning their “cart” in the middle. It doesn’t matter how you present the information, it could be as a video, white paper, an article, email or web copy, the goal is to get the engaging information across.

Following these steps will put you on the path to creating excellent, engaging content to maximize your online marketing efforts. Stay tuned for more tips to keep in mind when creating content for your website.