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Social media is not new anymore and it is and becoming more of a part of life for the masses; your customers, if you’re a business owner. We complain about the younger generation having their smart phones and tablets practically “glued” to their hands. However, more and more of the older generation is not much better! For the business owner it’s more of a “if you can’t beat them, join them” scenario.
Savvy companies recognized the direction social media was taking marketing and the power of social media and took action. In Canada, in 2014, it is estimated that approximately 9 million users log on to Facebook daily. Yes, I said daily. Facebook’s mobile revenues for one quarter surpassed $1 Billion. Obviously there is money to be made from the social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and others. That should be enough to convince you to start marketing on social media. Your competition are probably doing so already. If they’re not, then you are in a position to get the jump on them. Instead of ending this one way conversation here, let me break it down for you a bit more. Social media marketing is a business essential now. That’s a given in my mind. Most expect to see social buttons on a website when they visit now. Who really knows what they think if it’s not there. If you don’t have them you are missing out on an opportunity to have your content shared. So, when you start your marketing effort, whether you do it yourself or outsource it, you will get the following: Brand Exposure You will essentially be going to where your customers hang out, a place where they are comfortable, and showing them your brand in a manner that is not pushy that will make them take notice. With repeat exposure comes a higher probability that someone will take notice and take you up on your offer. Your company will become one of the trusted ones With repeat exposure comes familiarity and eventually a level of trust. This can be measured if you install a twitter feed on your website. The feed will regularly update your website with interesting content making your company appear larger and more professional; more trustworthy. You can then compare the number of visitors against the number of sales/leads. Monitor this before and after the feed to notice an improvement. Dazzle your followers/potential followers will great posts and tweets and you’ll build your authority and trust. Surpass your competition Your competitors are either marketing on social media or not. If they are they are most likely not doing a very good job of it. So, either way you will most likely get a jump on your competitors because you will be doing your social media management properly. Again, either way, you need to get involved or get left behind. Increased Marketing Power Simply stated, as you gain more followers your power will increase. When others see how many people are following you they will want to get in on the action. I don’t know the proper term for that but let’s go with “hey look at all those people over there. They must know something I don’t so I better join in so I can be part of the in crowd”. There must be a shorter saying. J Support to your SEO Efforts Google is placing more emphasis on social signals. Only Google knows the size of the impact that social signals has on rankings but we know that it does have an impact. Better a little than none. Also, if you set up your website to have frequent content refreshes, Google will crawl your site with more regularity which will also help your search engine optimization effort with rankings. More Traffic to your Website As you get your brand exposed to more people, as your followers grow, and as Google takes more notice of you, you will see more traffic coming to your site. Then it will be up to you to convert them in to paying customers. So get to it! Best of luck! Hello all. On 21 April 2015 Google will be taking steps to ensure your websites are mobile friendly; see the announcement. If they are not there will be consequences. Most likely you will be ranked lower or perhaps not even at all! I think one can see from this that there are two SERPs; one for desktop and one for mobile. We need to ensure that our websites appear prominently in both SERPs.
Conducting oneself in an ethical manner while doing SEO business, or any business or personal matter really, is a simple topic that does not warrant much discussion; or so I thought. Now this discussion will focus on SEO ethics so let me provide a few over simplified definitions before I start.
You may or may not have heard of Black Hat, White Hat and Grey Hat SEO tactics/strategies. Those categories are really based on rules; breaking or upholding them. There are search engine rules and expectations applicable to the use of the search engines (Google, Yahoo, Bing…) for ranking or even advertising websites. Follow the rules and you’re golden! Break the rules, get caught and you will suffer some sort of consequence; your site being penalized for example. Well here are the definitions of which I spoke:
I came across an article where the author stated that whichever “hat” you wear is dependent on what your customer is willing to do and the competitiveness of the keywords. NO!! I say again NO!! Which “hat” you wear is totally dependent on you and what defines you as a person. It is a factor of what you think is ethically right or wrong and what YOU are willing to do to either make a buck or stand firm in your beliefs. You always have the option of not working with those clients who you consider to be “shady”. A client cannot force you to do unscrupulous things. So, choose your clients. That is essentially why I don’t understand why the discussions are so protracted. What it boils down to is that most people will do whatever it takes to ensure their benefit; regardless of the consequences to others. They will say the right things but when things get tough they cave and do what’s best for them. Ideally, everyone should play by the rules and keep the playing field level. However, many can’t do that and many others still, will discard their ethics to keep up with the cheaters and only a few will stand firm and stick to their beliefs and morals. Which Type are you? Be truthful with yourself. If you are a Black Hatter then you should be proud of that and tell everyone because you are working within your belief system; but that will not happen will it? They do not want to get caught and suffer the consequences. As I mentioned before, there are rules to follow or not. Follow the rules and reap the rewards. I consider myself a White Hatter. I follow the rules and do not intentionally break them. If there are loopholes I will exploit them because I am still working within the rules. If the search engine masters decide to close the loop holes then I adjust. In the city of Ottawa SEO company mission category my view on company missions and ethics stand out. Every System is not Perfect As I mentioned before some rules will have loopholes or just evolve over time and one will need to adjust. Even still, there will still be violators who will break the rules and not get caught. You may even know some of them. That does not mean that you too need to break the rules to stay in the game. Do not let the actions of others dictate your ethics! That is a hard thing to do! Stay true to yourself and your client. Work within the system. Yeah I know, easier said than done when you’re not winning and the guy on steroids is cleaning up on the podium. It’s a personal choice. Basic Ethical things to Consider Here are some basic ethical thoughts to consider when doing business:
To paraphrase a quote, the true measure of a man is not found in times of comfort and convenience but in times of controversy and conflict. So you think you need a Search Engine Optimization (SEO) company to help your business. You’ve done your research on the subject and think this is the best course of action. Perhaps it is and then again perhaps not. Before engaging in any sort of conversation with an SEO services company make sure you know why you think you need their services. Also, remember that this is not an exact science. You could very well end up hiring the wrong company and not achieving your goals. As an aside, briefly, I had a handyman referred to me from who I thought was a reliable source. I hired him and at the end found that, although he could produce a result that generally met the requirement, his quality and work ethic sucked! That was too bad for him and my source as far as their respective reputations were concerned.
Why Does Anyone Need an SEO Company? Not everyone may need SEO or Search Engine Marketing (SEM) services. Some companies have a website for the sole purpose of showing clients that they have a website. The site is not used to attract or convert traffic; a sad waste. If you have site for that reason and you’re only looking to rank for ego reasons, then save your money. Why bother attracting visitors and taking the opportunity to convert them? I would however, recommend that, if you have such a site, you take advantage of the free traffic and grab as many customers from the web as you can. Just saying. At any rate, if you don’t fall into the aforementioned category, here are a few reasons why you may want SEO:
Do you know what SEO is? Prior to engaging in business with anyone you should arm yourself with some knowledge. You need not be an expert in SEO but you should check out some SEO basics here. You to know some of this information so help gauge competency. Your SEO consultant should know about On-page and Off-page SEO, Popularity, mobile marketing and research and development. Enough said. Assessing Company Competence and Ethics You want to do business with a company that will achieve results in an ethical manner. This is hard enough to assess. However, these guidelines should help narrow the field. You want to deal with a company that:
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