The general idea is that all one needs is a blog, write few posts and people will follow you. It doesn’t happen this way in the real world! It is never enough to write a few blogs, share it on social networks and expect to gain loyal buyers. If you’re following this process, no wonder all those dollars spent in creating content is wasted!

In this post, I will teach you simple and actionable ways to leverage blog content and benefit your small business.

1. Go Graphical

Infographic is the best way to create graphical representation of a concept or perform statistical analysis. They are easy to understand and connect with the reader.

Delve into the small business niche. Find out any recent research paper, its history, its relevance, any recent data or anything which you can use to create an Infographic.

You can either DIY via tools like Easel.ly, Visual.ly, Tableau and others or outsource the task for $100 – $300. This is a one-time investment. Once done, publish the Infographic on your blog with an embed link. Now promote this Infographic on blogging platforms, contact bloggers to embed it with their blog posts, share on social networks and forums.

In short, you are leveraging one piece of content multiple times without spending another dime.

2. Do Live Communication

If your business is new, “on-demand” webinar will come later. Work on developing a platform for a “live” webinar. Again, a live webinar connects with the audience better than reading thousands of words. Sad, but true!

Of course, you need a subscriber list to host webinar. Therefore, place this content leveraging strategy down the line, preferably after 9 – 12 months of online presence, assuming you will have a sizable email list by that time. If not, use the B2B contact model to collaborate with other business owners and create a joint webinar.

There are various free platforms to host webinars. What you should concentrate on is creating exceptional content to talk about in the webinar. Use the business blog posts for inspiration. Read your own blog posts for a common topic, research more and connect the dots.

The one hour webinar should be worth the visitors’ time. In the end, you can promote your own business products and see leads converting into sales. Whether it’s a singular or collaborative effort, everyone benefits.

Lastly, the webinar should be conducted by the small business owner/s; don’t get the customer representative to fill in for you. It will be a major failure.

3. Draw the Power of Slides

Cleverly crafted, intelligent and highly informative presentation slides sometimes rank higher than blog posts on search engine. Slide presentations are one of the best ways to leverage blog content if you’re just starting out.

You don’t need any special software. Just go to Microsoft PowerPoint, create slides and upload them on SlideShare.com, which is by far the best of the lot in presentation sharing. You can also explore Slide Boom and Google Drive.

Let’s assume that your blog has 10 posts about WordPress plugins under multiple categories. Collect all the 10 posts, scan and skim the content, select 30 plugins, create a presentation titled “Top 30 WordPress plugins” and upload it. The presentation will link back to your site.

In fact, you could leverage the same presentation by converting it into a guest post, published on a niche relevant high authority domain.

More Content Leveraging Options

This is a live example for you to see how I leveraged point 3 and created this presentation. It is hosted with SlideShare.net and will soon show up on other slide sharing sites.

Content leveraging is not a very difficult task. True enough, it IS time consuming but isn’t it better to spend time doing things the right way than blow up all those dollars and not even getting a decent ROI?

Use content leveraging to move beyond ‘traditional blogging’ and get more exposure for your small business.

About the author:
Chitraparna Sinha is a freelancing consultant, blog content developer, blogger, published Amazon editor and social media geek.

The post How can a Small Business Leverage Blog Content to its Maximum Potential? appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Question: Did you register a domain name for your web business?

• Yes – 128/823 (16%)
• No – 695/823 (84%)

As you can see, an overwhelming majority of our readers have not registered a domain name for their Internet business. We recommend that you register a domain name for your business if you have not done so already. In today’s business world, building your online presence should be a top priority especially if you are in a competitive industry.

We recommend Above.com for new domain registrations. They offer everyday low prices on domain names, as well as free whois privacy protection.

The post Did you Register a Domain Name for your Web Business? appeared first on AddMe Blog.

But in addition to marketing there is the urgent need to keep costs down while promoting at maximum efficiency. Knowing that your Webmaster / Internet marketer is utilizing paid time appropriately will help to speed up the process and keep expense at minimum levels. Continue reading to learn two necessary steps required to successfully promote a website and how monitoring software will give employers a better return on their investment.

Software that delivers

Before delving into “the big two” it is important to address the starting line – the Webmaster or Internet marketer you have hired to build your website and market it successfully. There is a surge of self-proclaimed Webmasters and marketers out there (they are typically one in the same) who may not be as efficient as someone who has actually received formal training in web development and marketing.

More and more businesses are paying Internet marketers to come to their physical location at specified times to work on promoting the website. By doing this business owners have more control over how the employee is spending his time (as most charge by the hour). Some businesses are even investing in keylogger software as a way to monitor the time it actually takes their employee to complete his tasks. These systems allow businesses to monitor what sites their employee is looking at. One can even use the program to see how long it takes someone to write an article or draft a document. Since most business owners don’t have the time or the know-how to market their own website, having a good system in place to make sure a second party isn’t cutting corners is a sound investment.

Blogging

Blogging is a great way to promote a website. By carefully researching sites that permit guest bloggers, businesses can utilize these channels to display their brand or services. Make sure the site you consider utilizing has a big social media buzz. The more the content is being talked about and shared through social media, the better your chances are of drawing more traffic and new clients. You will also want to make sure the site offers dynamic author bios for guest bloggers. This will permit for customized branding with a link to the business website at the end of each published article. Another thing to do is make sure you post blogs to relevant sites. In other words, if you own an Italian restaurant you don’t want to blog for a site that deals with basket weaving.

You will also want to make sure that your marketing expert enriches your content with links that will drive traffic to your website. This will also help with your search marketing endeavors and give you better organic placement in the search engines.

Where is the guarantee?

How do you know your Internet marketer is doing everything he says he is in the time it takes him? Unless you have an employee monitoring system, you don’t. Any good system will capture tasks and time and translate them into readable data that anyone can make sense of. These programs allow employers to see what sites were visited, and what tools were used. If an employee swears to have used an analytics tool for an SEO package, this claim can be verified with the right software. These systems are simple to install, use and are beneficial to any business that outsources paid online. Not only is such a tool necessary for monitoring blogging activities, but it also provides the same service in ensuring that work is being dedicated to social media marketing.

Social media

Be sure your marketing person showcases your business on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. Have them create a Facebook page for your business that fans can follow. However, there are certain methods to doing this that prove to have greater success than others. In an article published by ‘Forbes’ on how to promote your business with Facebook, the author says to create content and lots of it before asking people to follow and “like” you. Often businesses are eager to get as many fans as possible, but by first providing quality content you will be giving people a reason to follow and support your business. Furthermore, by linking to feeds via YouTube you will be fueling your website to climb the search engine’s organic placement rankings. And be sure to use Twitter. Instruct your marketing expert to get as many people in your industry as possible to follow you. This will provide you with an audience to tweet links to that direct the multitudes to your articles and website. Twitter also allows businesses to make others aware of special promotions and events that are running.

These tips are very general, but provide a great starting platform for new businesses.  There are more advanced strategies for business promotion within the folds of blogging and social media. Make sure your Internet marketer has a masterful command of these subjects. But also, take control of the reigns. Invest in an employee monitoring software package and before you know it your website should eventually see more traffic and sales.

Image source: http://agileirony.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/face-keyboard-sleep.jpg

The post 2 Tips to Promoting Your Business Website in Spy-Mode appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Social Media Audiences

In the examples below, I will use photography as the niche.

Twitter can work for B2C, but for many photographers Twitter serves as a B2B tool. Twitter is often used for networking with partners and gathering inspiration.

Facebook is best suited for B2C for photographers and most businesses. That is because of Facebook’s business model and platform already being oriented towards personal accounts.

Pinterest can work for both B2C and B2B, depending on the type of photographer. For example, wedding photographers have a much greater chance to use Pinterest for consumer reach whereas corporate photographers would use it for business reach.

Google Plus is like Twitter when it comes to its potential audience. While it is possible to use it for B2C, it is more likely to be used as a networking and inspiration tool.  There are also more photographers on Google Plus than any other niche.

Reddit is an underdog in the social media game (at least for photographers) and is best for B2B or partners, mainly because it is rare to find a consumer looking for a photographer there.

YouTube is in a league of its own when it comes to audiences. This tool can be use for both B2B and B2C, and has proven itself over time.

I like to call LinkedIn the Facebook for business. It has a similar business model and platform, but oriented towards business accounts rather than personal ones. That makes LinkedIn one of the ultimate B2B social media tools.

As mentioned before, there are thousands of social networks available. Wikipedia contains a list of some of what you will find on the Internet.

Social Media Strategy

The next part of the social media equation is figuring out what to post on your newly discovered networks. On Facebook, using fill in the _____ posts work very well. (yes, I just did that) On Twitter, asking for a retweet (spelled out instead of RT) will tend to work better than the abbreviated version.

There are many strategies that you can find by doing Google searches for each social network. For example, on ProBlogger, Georgina Laidlaw published an article sharing 15 social media mistakes to avoid. In addition, as you learn and grow within these platforms you might discover your own strategies worth sharing with the world.

Social Media Time Management

Now that your strategy is compiled, it is time to figure out how to manage your time on the sites. It would be nice to have endless time, but there are only so many work hours in the day. That is where many helpful tools come in the picture. My favorite tools are IFTTT and Buffer App. Together, I can efficiently schedule and manage what posts where and when.

IFTTT is the perfect tool to get you back to blogging. Blogging still isn’t overrated, so make sure you’re still writing and publishing fresh content to educator your visitors. Here are some other tools that could be useful in your social media time management:

Digg Digg – Let other people share your content
HootSuite – The most popular tool of its kind
JetPack Publicize – Automatically shares your articles when published

Social Media Tracking

Another important aspect of social media is tracking so you learn how you are doing and how to improve. Think about this… You decided to market your content on Reddit, but do not track your website’s social media efficiency. Two months after your Reddit push, you wonder if it made any sense to try.

By using a social media Google Analytics dashboard, you can track and review your social media efforts and see how much traffic it brings and what converts the most. You may not know what I mean when I said “converts”, so I’ll explain. Google Analytics goals are specified steps that are taken by visitors and tracked by website owners. A goal could be a visitor commenting, filling out a form or clicking the “buy now” button. The act of completing the goal is what I meant when I said “converts”.

In Conclusion

I have talked about finding the right social media channels to share and promote your business. I have also discussed using strategies and tools to better manage your already limited time. I finished the article with a small piece on tracking your efforts in social media. These few things can help you to improve business, so I urge you to get going today.

About the author:

Scott Wyden Kivowitz is a NJ Photographer and the Community & Blog Wrangler at Photocrati, developer of the WordPress themes for photographers, NextGEN Gallery and the Photographers SEO Community, teaching other photographers on how to increase business with their website.

The post Social Media Efficiency & Time Management appeared first on AddMe Blog.

If you have done your research and contracted a company to build an app for your business, now you need to get out there and promote it. One of the deciding factors that most likely motivated you to get an app is the fact that mobile app usage has gone up 35 percent in just the last year. This means that just as many people who watch TV also use apps every day.

When marketing your app, it naturally makes sense to turn to social media platforms as a starting point. Twitter, YouTube and Facebook are free, and currently Facebook has more people using it than Google.

Facebook fan page

Let’s face it, Facebook is the grand master of social media platforms. By giving your app a home on Facebook, you will be setting it upon a stage with a massive audience. Be sure to customize the page and make it look attractive, professional and interesting. Use your company’s logo as the profile photo—you will want to brand your logo anywhere you can, as often as possible. Then try to get as many likes as you can. Be sure to find a fair balance between being proactive and pushy. Send a very non-abrasive invite to people in your Facebook circle asking them to support you in spreading awareness the awareness of your new business app. Most people will be completely willing to comply. Make sure you post content to your Facebook page a few times a week, and be sure to interact with your followers. This includes responding to all of them when they leave statements or questions. Another great way to engage your followers if to offer giveaways or contests. Remember, interaction is huge.

Have your app reviewed

You can’t review your own app without people turning up their noses in the name of biased insight, so have others review it for you. Submit your app to various sites for critique. A few that offer some great feedback include the following:

• iPhone App Storm
• Big App Show
• My Daily App
• AppCraver

Be sure you don’t blindly pitch these sites. Check to see if they have guidelines for submitting an app for review. Also, read some of their reviews on apps and personalize a letter to the appropriate department stating that you enjoyed a particular article, why you liked it, and why you want their site to review your app. Doing this will make you stand out as someone who is serious, and not a lazy person writing generic letters and shooting them off to hoards of contenders.

Blog about it

Blogging is big in the business world. In an article published by ‘The New York Times’ that examines business promotion through blogging, the author says that blogs increase business visibility, excite audiences and add revenue. Since the app is itself a marketing tool, be sure you understand that you are using content marketing as a way to market another marketing platform. That may have just been a mouthful, but it speaks volume in that you want to make sure you only publish your blogs to sites that are relevant. Mobile apps for businesses by Simplikate, for example, would fit nicely in tech blogs, ecommerce and business marketing blogs. You will also want to submit your blogs to sites that get lots of reader remarks and shares to social media platforms.

Promote away

Once you have your business app created and ready to fire, be sure you market it successfully. Remember, your app will direct people to your website, so make sure it is mobile friendly. Follow these tips, and watch your app’s popularity climb the ranks of business marketing.

Image source: http://info.padalog.com/Portals/112603/images/best-ipad-business-app.jpg

The post Promoting Your Business App with Social Media appeared first on AddMe Blog.

The search engine algorithms are always changing and one of Google’s most recent targets are the sites that build “unnatural” links. Links that once passed value on to your site are now irrelevant and have been eclipsed by somewhat “new” ranking signals like social signals. You need to be careful when it comes to the next “hot” link building tactic, one of which at this time is guest blogging. It’s very possible that guest blogging could be viewed as a kind of link exchange (frowned upon by the search engines) if you aren’t doing it properly. There’s a right way and a wrong way to approach guest blogging. Contributing the same guest post to many different sites could raise a red flag. The perceived quality of the post also matters. If it’s only a couple hundred words- where is the value in that? It also matters where these articles are getting posted. If they are just going to any content site that has a broad reach and isn’t industry related that may also be cause for concern. If you only have one article/post on lots of different sites it appears that you are just doing it for the link and nothing more. The correct way to approach guest blogging is to contribute content to industry relevant sites regularly over time. This conveys that the posts are there to build brand awareness and that there is an obvious relationship with this website owner that has grown over time.

Approaching guest blog posting with the wrong intentions and just looking for a way to build links often backfires because the quality of the guest blog post usually suffers. The focus is on the link instead of the person that may actually be reading the content. If it’s thrown together in 20 minutes with a few links in the author bio, it’s probably not going to do much in the way of informing target audience members or establishing your business or brand as a trusted expert or source of information. A better approach to guest blogging is going to take much more work.

The best places to submit guest blog posts are on good, quality sites that have a following and are related to your niche. Once you’ve found some spots that you think are good, begin to establish a relationship with that blog owner by commenting on their blog posts, connecting with them in social media, and sharing some of their work within social media. This will get their attention and encourage them to check out your work. If they like what they see they will be more receptive to accepting a guest post from you on their site.

The post Take the Right Approach to Guest Blogging appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Earlier, keyword placement just meant putting the primary and secondary keywords anywhere and everywhere within the blog and blog posts with the ultimate goal to increase the volume of the keyword in the blog. But, this is not the scenario anymore. Doing something like this would simply make you seem like a spammer. Search engines have got smarter and are able to distinguish well between genuine content and spam. So avoid using the age old SEO tactics and read on, to find out how to, and where to put keywords in your blog, in order to optimize it for the search engines the right way.

Titles

The titles are the first things the search engines crawl. By titles, I mean the blog’s title and its pages and posts titles. So keep them straight forward yet compelling to increase your click through rate on the SERP. The titles also most probably get used as the text by people who recommend or link to your blog or blog post. That means they may serve as the anchor text which is vital in your blog’s off page SEO.

Post Body

You should keep writing your post body with your targeted keyword and while doing this you should ensure that not to stuff with keywords nor diluting it. You can use keyword density checker tools to ensure the correct keyword density to allow search crawlers access your whole content.

Images

Unlike the early days of blogging, images provide high value in terms of SEO today. Even though image search accounts to a minor share, it is not negligible. Considering the competition, every little chance is important in SEO right?

Three different ways you can implement your keywords in images are:

• Using the keyword as the file name of the image before uploading to your host.
• Placing the keyword within the alt tag of the image. Restrict the alt tag to less than 5 words.
• Ensuring that the text that wraps the image in your post has related keywords or its synonyms.

URLs

When you Google for a keyword and keen observe the results, you can make out that the search engine places the webpages that have the searched keyword in the URL that appears at the end of each result.

Taking this into consideration, many blogging CMS/platforms have come up with something called ‘Permalink’ (permanent link) which is the URL we can define for the particular page or blog post. Make use of this feature to modify your URL in such a way that they contain the keyword or its synonym. Keep the keyword short (less than 5 words) and meaningful (avoid using date of posting) not only for the search robots but also for humans.

About the author:
Tim Wilson works as content manager for HostPapa, a web hosting Canada company serving over 100,000 customers. Since launching in 2006, HostPapa has offered reliable, budget-friendly, easy-to-use Canadian web hosting solutions for small to medium-sized businesses.

The post 4 Places to Put Keywords in your Blog for Optimum Search Results appeared first on AddMe Blog.

In order to be completely efficient when it comes to online marketing, there are lots of things that you need to consider. Check out this article to find out if you’re being as efficient as you can be with your business with your Internet marketing, and possibly ways that you can make your business more efficient.

Reconsider Your Agency

Do you get all of your Internet marketing done through an outside agency? If you do and are happy with the results, that’s fine. But if you feel like you aren’t getting the results you want, it may be time to reconsider the agency.

An outside agency can be great if you’ve got the money and don’t want the responsibilities of taking control of your company’s Internet marketing, but it can also lead to less efficient spending on Internet marketing if you don’t feel like you’re getting great results. Before dropping your agency completely, ask for a meeting to determine how the problem can be solved. If no concrete ideas are brought to the table, it might be time to move on.

Hire a Consultant

If you haven’t had great luck with an agency and feel like you’re spending too much and not getting enough in return, you might want to do things yourself. Hire a consultant to sit down with and discuss your Internet marketing strategy. Hiring a consultant won’t be cheap and they will usually charge by the hour, but it’s a great idea because it can be a cost-efficient way to overhaul your Internet marketing strategy.

A lengthy initial session with a consultant might be enough to teach you the ropes of building a basic yet efficient in-house Internet marketing strategy. If you like the consultant you’ve met and are beginning to see good results, it might be worth it to hire this consultant for monthly meetings in order to take your Internet marketing to the next level.

Restructure Internally

Throwing some curve balls to the internal structure of your company might be a good way to become more efficient and in turn be able to assign some Internet marketing responsibilities to people who were previously to busy to work on them. Investing in the best document management software will mean people who previously worked on data entry will have more time to do other things, such as keyword research or content development.

Streamlining your company’s efficiency so you’re able to assign Internet marketing responsibilities to certain employees is a great idea, because you’ll be spending less money on outside sources and instead just be reassigning the resources you already have.  It might take an initial investment (or session with the consultant) to get those employees ready for those responsibilities, but it will be well worth it.

Image credit: http://blogs.earthlink.net/

The post Steps to a More Efficient Internet Marketing Plan appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Small businesses and online marketers looking to cash in through the Internet must be familiar with search engine optimization, SEO. SEO looks to maximize a website’s visibility through strategic use of keywords and key-phrases that boost a website among a search engine’s rankings. When potential customers search for anything, search engines generate a giant list of websites that seem to match the search terms. To organize these results, search engines use complex algorithms and website info to determine a website’s place on the list.

Small Business Limitations

Small businesses have limited financial resources. To grow, a business website must squeeze maximum profit from every dollar spent on website and SEO costs. SEO firms offer services promising to enhance search rank and overall business visibility. However, the owner(s) of a small business may not have sufficient funds to risk hiring a full-service SEO firm. This is not to imply that SEO should be ignored. On the contrary, SEO should be a high priority for a small business trying to expand its customer base. Today, an Internet presence is as important as a physical address. But unlike a physical address, a small business can deftly move to more profitable real estate with relatively little cost and hassle, all by making the best of SEO and other e-marketing methods.

SEO Firms and Workshops

Despite the limited budgets of most small businesses, SEO firms can still be useful in boosting a website’s online reputation. A business can hire a firm to provide an overall strategy, leaving details and implementation out of its service package. This strategy is then implemented by the business owner, not the SEO firm. This method lets the business get the “gist” of an SEO firm’s expertise while limiting costs.

An SEO workshop may be worth the investment in time and money. If possible, research the speaker and topic(s) before attending. An industry expert has to be relevant to your niche and target demographic. What works for one type of website or business may not necessarily work for another. Ask SEO workshops about how to translate high rank into revenue. High rank in search results does not guarantee business success if there are no sales corresponding to increased online popularity.

SEO by Yourself

Without a firm, a small business has to generate their own content and SEO strategies. Fortunately, this is not very difficult. Google and Bing offer free SEO Guides to anyone who is interested. Studying and understanding these guides goes a long way to increasing a website’s rank and search result placement. Find other examples and illustrations of good SEO to help your business. Competing business websites, popular blogs and conversations with more experienced SEO professionals will all help.

When creating content for an SEO strategy, slow and steady wins the race. Constantly increasing popularity is better than being “hot” one day and “not” the next. Reputation for quality and expertise is not built up quick. While generating such a reputation — and a corresponding fan/customer base — sales will also increase gradually. From a long-term perspective, this slow growth is better than rapid and flashy expansion. A gently increasing clientele gives the business owner/webmaster slack and time to test new pricing and customer service strategies. A website or pay processing system may be overwhelmed if it is not designed to handle a sudden influx of orders, sales and/or visitors.

Find a Partner

If you lack the funds to hire an SEO firm, but don’t want to do the work yourself, another option may be to find someone to partner up with. Maybe you know a friend or acquaintance who is well-versed in SEO. Ask them to help you with SEO and offer them a small equity in your business. It may sound like a huge risk to you, but the potential benefits that may come from it, is even greater.

Get a Loan

The problem that many businesses have is that they lack working capital to grow their business. At some point, you have to make a decision to grow your business one way or another. Running your business on status quo isn’t going to grow it. In fact, when times get tough, your business will suffer against those that took a chance to grow their business. People generally do not like the idea of taking out a loan, but putting money back into your business is an investment. SEO is an investment that you should strongly consider.

The post SEO Options for Small Business appeared first on AddMe Blog.

Over 2,500 people responded to our February 2013 poll.

Question: How do you plan on promoting your website or blog?

• Banner advertising – 29/2541 (1%)
• Buy traffic – 33/2541 (1%)
• PPC – 24/2541 (1%)
• Social media – 80/2541 (3%)
• SEO – 243/2541 (10%)
• I dont know yet – 2132/2541 (84%)

An overwhelming majority of our visitors do not know how they intend to promote their site.

The post How do you Plan on Promoting your Website or Blog? appeared first on AddMe Blog.