Global Marketing Plus

Tips and Tricks for Small Business Success
Subscribe

Archive for the ‘Website Design’

It`s your business; so it’s your choice

January 08, 2013 By: Ron Coleman Category: Email Marketing, General Business, Getting business to come to you, Marketing, Networking, SEO, Website Design, blogging

IS YOUR BUSINESS MAKING THE PROGRESS YOU WANT???

If not you might want to consider this:

  • If the engine in your car stops working on the highway today, will you push your car everywhere you want to go?  NO! You need to fix your car’s engine.
  • If your business is not generating the inquiries and business you need, the solution is not to push more ineffective marketing onto people. You need to fix your marketing engine!

Most small businesses owners I meet are marketing by doing the wrong things very poorly.

(more…)

IS YOUR BLOG ON YOUR WEBSITE???

January 07, 2013 By: Ron Coleman Category: General Business, Getting business to come to you, Marketing, SEO, Website Design, blogging

The biggest mistake we see website owners make is in the utilization of “free services” to host your blog. These services are offered by many blog software companies as a lost-leader to gain your information and to sell you services!

The best way to get the full benefit of your blog is to include the blog on your own website, under your own domain name!!!

(more…)

SEO Basics That You Need To Understand

November 03, 2012 By: Ron Coleman Category: Marketing, SEO, Website Design, blogging

Understanding SEO basics is vital to ensure that you know how the search engines like Google and Yahoo Search work.

When you know how they work, you’ll be able to get your websites, web 2.0 webpages, and all sorts of articles online ranking high on Google.

One of the first things you need to know is that Google ranks websites based on what they scan through whenever they visit a site.

(more…)

3 Benefits of Redesigning Your Business Website

November 02, 2012 By: Ron Coleman Category: Marketing, SEO, Website Design

The benefits of overhauling your business website are more than just cosmetic. Making changes to your site’s design, structure, and copywriting can help to improve your bottom line.

Here are some of the main benefits of working with your webmaster on a website redesign.

(more…)

3 Mistakes To Avoid In Internet Marketing

November 02, 2012 By: Ron Coleman Category: Email Marketing, General Business, Marketing, Networking, SEO, Website Design, blogging

When it comes to internet marketing, there are things that you simply need to avoid so that you will not waste your time. Unfortunately, these are very common mistakes and if you are able to avoid these, you will be able to have an edge on your competition. If you are serious about being a successful internet marketer, then you need to focus on these mistakes and to remember to avoid them.

(more…)

What are some of the most potent ‘FREE ADVERTISING’ areas or sites to promote a business?

August 01, 2009 By: Ron Coleman Category: General Business, Getting business to come to you, Marketing, SEO, Website Design

Let me share with you the six methods that have been highly successful for me.

First, let me explain. This is a good question but one that is hard to answer. There is no answer that fits all businesses in all situations!

First of all, I am assuming that by “Free Advertising” you mean free of cost in money. As I mentioned in a previous blog, free or low cost marketing or advertising usually have a high cost in time and other resources. There is a trade off!

There are many variables that could change what marketing methods you use. Are you marketing a product or service? What product or service you are selling? Are you selling business-to-business or business-to-consumer. Are you trying to sell to a local, national or world-wide market? What fits your personality?

Remember also, that what worked last year may not work this year.

Also, who are your potential clients? If you are working with seniors, the Internet, including Blogs, Facebook, Twitter and Linked-In, may not be the best way to market to them. Whereas if your target market is in their 20’s, the Internet may be a viable way to contact them.

Another thing I have learned is that one marketing method almost always works better when combined with other marketing methods. For example, almost every method I have tried, either with my businesses or with client’s businesses, can double their effectiveness when combined with a website that is professionally built and looks professional and easy to navigate.

Over the past 13 years that I have been designing and building websites, I have constantly been doing market research, in some cases with focus groups with website visitors, to find out what items on a website help sales and what hurts sales. After this research, I have found that many websites have been built that actually handicap the business!

So, with that said, here are my top six marketing methods I have used over the past few years. I will briefly mention them in this post, but in future posts, I will spend much more time on how to perform each one in more detail.

1. Networking Meetings and Leads Groups. From personal experience, attending networking meetings and leads meetings work very well. I have also found that almost no matter what product or service you sell, you can benefit from networking groups.

My target market is business owners that are trying to increase sales. Most of the people who attend these kind of meetings are business owners trying to build their business. This is a very natural mix.

Your product does not have to be business related. If your target market is seniors that are ready for retirement centers, you will not find your target market at the meetings, but you might find someone who knows someone who has a relative that could use your services.

Most chamber of commerce host these networking meetings and many are free or just the cost of your lunch.

2. Blogging. Blogging must be done on a consistent basis. There have been times when I have been too busy doing other things I thought were more important, only to loose many of my readers and it was very hard to get them back.

I suggest a minimum of blogging once per week. But if you plan to post once a week, you MUST do it every week!

3. Online Directories. Online directories can bring in a lot of business, especially if you can find an industry specific directory.

Even though most directories may cost money, there are free ones out there. Also, those that charge, usually offer a basic listing for free.

4. Social Media such as Twitter, Facebook, Linked-In, and others. These can be very effective. But be sure that you do not openly try to advertise. The reason being is if you are perceived as always “selling”, people will tend to tune you out.

5. Viral marketing. Viral Marketing is an idea that spreads–and an idea that while it is spreading actually helps market your business or cause.

I have used this since 1974, although before the term “viral marketing” came about I called it “Richocet Marketing“.

This could be a product in which a self-building cycle occurs. Hotmail, for example, or YouTube. The more people use them, the more people see them. The more people see them, the more people use them.

The product or service must be something that excites people enough to tell others about it, who then tell others, and so on. I will use other examples in future blogs.

6. Website and SEO. Even though websites and Search Engine Optimization (SEO) are not free, there are some very inexpensive alternatives.

Statistics show that businesses that have an effective website and use it properly have a much higher success with the other four areas, above.

SEO is not paid advertisement or pay-per-click… that is Search Engine Marketing (SEM). SEO is getting your website a natural placement high on the search engines result page, (SERP).

SEO is one of those things you CANNOT search online and learn how to do it for yourself. Search engines are changing constantly and things that may have worked just a few weeks ago may get you banned from the search engines today!

But most small businesses cannot afford to pay hundreds or thousands of dollars every month to get better rankings in the natural listing of the search engines.

That is why I have written SEO Master that does most of the work for a small business and explains in plain terms what must be done to your website to get those higher rankings.

And it only costs the same as a soda drink a day!

Remember, all these methods can take a lot of time, but little money. They also can work better when combined with other methods. In fact, I would suggest you use ALL 5 items above at the same time and cross market them!

Like I mentioned, I will spend time in future blogs to go in more details in each area plus other areas that did not make my top five areas.

Keep the blog on your website #2

February 16, 2009 By: Ron Coleman Category: Marketing, SEO, Website Design

Just as a follow up on Friday’s blog….

One of the big benefits I have found for having a blog is the new content added to your website on a regular basis.  If your blog is on another site (i.e. Wordpress, etc), there will be no new content added to your site.

Because my blog is on my website (www.GlobalMarketingPlus.com/blog) Google visits my website more often because it sees new content added on a regular basis!

signature.jpg

Keep the blog on your website!

February 13, 2009 By: Ron Coleman Category: SEO, Website Design

The biggest mistake I see website owners make is to use the free services to host your blog offered by many blog software companies.

The best way to get the full benefits of your blog is to include the blog on your own website!

(more…)

Strategy #10. Avoid Industry Jargon

February 10, 2009 By: Ron Coleman Category: Marketing, SEO, Website Design

One of the biggest mistakes companies make when writing copy for a site is using industry terms that normal customers don’t think to use.

(more…)

Strategy #9. Reverse Archeology

February 10, 2009 By: Ron Coleman Category: Marketing, SEO, Website Design

Archeology, of course, is the systematic method to uncover artifacts from the past that have been buried or forgotten.

What archeologists do is examine artifacts that were lost and buried, and draw conclusions about how life was lived hundreds or thousands of years ago.

When people search online, it’s a lot like sifting through thousands of years of junk and broken pieces of pottery in order to find the one intact tablet that solves your mystery.

If you’re like me, you often see a lot of non-relevant results returned when you do a web search. Google, as good as it is, isn’t perfect. You scan down the page, looking for the answer to your question. And then you suddenly see a link to a site that matches exactly what you’re looking for.

Reverse archeology, applied to the Web, is a process that allows you to plant key information for people to find and discover.

How does the process of reverse archeology work? Essentially you come up with keywords that your target audience is likely to use in a keyword search, and then you create relevant content on your site. When prospective customers “digs” through the mass of web pages in a Web search, they can find your site quickly and easily.

Reverse archeology is a different type of mindset for generating website content, but one that can be extremely successful.

Next week, we’ll discuss a unique new way to optimize your site when you have visitors coming in from a search engine.