SEO – it’s what makes me happy!

Posted on March 29, 2013 by janetgifford

This week I had a really great conversation with web developer Pam Nilzon of Nilzon Designs. We spent some time at a local coffee shop chatting about what we love about what we do.

And I was reminded once again that I really do love what I do.

I love writing. I love writing online content even more. I love SEO. I love writing SEO content the most.

Why?

Because there is such awesome satisfaction in writing content that has measurable value! I know that I’ve done a good job for a client when they start on page 4 of a Google search, and over the course of several months (yes, it takes time … it’s not an overnight ‘ta-da’ moment), they start moving up in rank. Maybe it’s just up one page at first. Then another.

The fun comes when I check on their website one day and see that, yep, ‘ta-da’, there they are on page 1! And if I’m lucky (I swear there’s always a bit of luck involved in everything technological), they’re at the top of page 1.

As an example, one of my clients is the La Conner (WA) Chamber of Commerce. As business partners, the Chamber, Skagit Marketing and Writeology have worked extremely hard to enhance the Chamber website’s SEO. And it’s working. Not only working … it’s REALLY working! We did our research, we used a few key phrases that we knew were hot, we worked them into our very strategic content plan and we’ve been able to measure our success over the course of the past year.

According to the data supplied by Skagit Marketing:
2011 versus 2012
Visits: 82,290 increased to 102,830
Pageviews: 222,670 increased to 323,793

Visits Increase: 25%
Pageviews Increase: 45%

Using the key phrase ‘Getaway Weekend Washington State’, we’ve jumped from somewhere in the page 3-4 ranking, to the TOP of page 1. Sure it took several months of work, but we’re there, and we’re making sure we stay there for as long as Skagit Valley tulips bloom in April.

I love what I do. I really love what I do. Especially when I know it works.

Pick Up the Phone

Posted on March 12, 2013 by janetgifford

I was at a training recently and I had a huge epiphany. It was like someone opened a section of my brain and some sort of brilliant explosion occurred.

Here’s what happened:
The trainer was talking about engagement. Online engagement. Text engagement. Email engagement. Phone time. Face time. And how they’re all important.

Our trainer then asked the 100+ people in the room to take out our cell phones. Then write down 3-5 friends or past colleagues (family didn’t count) that we had not talked to in the past 6-12 months. (Not via email or Facebook messaging…typing didn’t count. Only phone or face time.) Once we had written our names down, we could not change them. No cheating. Then we were to call each person on our list for a 2-minute chat. It was the weekend, so we needed to call them on a personal line, not an office line. We had 10 minutes to check in with the 3-5 people on our list.

Here’s what happened next:
The 8 people at my table all quickly made our lists. Easy-peasy. Three people at my table started dialing. The other 5 of us sort of scratched our heads. Why? Because we didn’t have phone numbers for the people on our list. We had email addresses and could quickly find them on Facebook … but to call them? Couldn’t do it. We could have looked up a company phone number, but probably not a personal number.

Here’s what happened next:
A big chagrined, we called over the workshop facilitator and told her our dilemma. Who … of course … nodded her head and without skipping a beat said … “Imagine that.” She didn’t have to say anything else. We all sat there sort or stunned. Then another table called her over. Same deal. And then another. Same deal. Some tables were buzzing with talking. Some people had moved to the side of the room and were chatting away. But a lot of folks were sitting at their tables with funny looks on their faces.

Here was her point:
Engagement is critical. We all know that. But all the emailing, texting and messaging in the world doesn’t count for much compared to voice-to-voice and face-to-face time. That’s where real connections are made. That’s where business is really done. That’s where engagement and trust begins and ends. We humans are biologically programmed to be social beings. But the definition of social in the true human context is not the same as the definition of social in today’s world.

Point taken.
Epiphany embraced.

Why Social Media? Let’s Start with the Basics

Posted on February 15, 2013 by janetgifford

I often get asked what all the fuss surrounding social media is all about. The most common question is something like this: ”Why in the world should I worry about social media for my business?”

So, I thought I’d write a post that offers some basic answers to the ‘Why’ question. I’m only going to talk about Facebook in this post because it’s a simple tool and offers a terrific example of how powerful social media can be for your business.

Even if social media is not on your radar, it is for many of your prospects, clients and customers.
Social media offers you a unique opportunity, without face-to-face contact, to reach out to those folks in engaging and meaningful ways.
You can leverage your professional expertise or promote your products by sharing what you know in small bits and pieces.
You can build website traffic – and ultimately build your business.
As you continue to provide engaging, interesting content, you strengthen your relationships with the people in your network.

Think of social media as a target. You and your business are the center of the target.You’re the first circle.

The second circle includes the people who already know you. These are the people you have probably done business with, or you know through professional circles. They like you; they trust you. They appreciate and enjoy hearing from you not only by phone and email, but would likely enjoy engaging with you via social media.

The third circle includes the colleagues, friends, and family of the people in the second circle. It’s unlikely you will know them. But many of them could easily become a warm prospect, or a client, or a customer – because the people in ‘your’ circle … simply by ‘sharing’ your content … are providing a very strong, yet subtle, referral.

The people in the fourth circle … well, you get the gist of this.

Social media is all about reinforcing relationships with the people who already know you, like you, and trust you. And it’s about cultivating relationships with people who – by referral – would like to get to know you, like you, and trust you.

How do you do that? It’s actually quite easy. And brilliant. As an example, here’s a recent Facebook post on my Writeology Facebook page. All I’ve done is create a link to a particular page on my website that offers information that I think my clients will find useful. If this were real, the reader could simply click on the hyperlink with the article title, and they’d go directly to that page on my website.

Remember the target? My Facebook post is the center. My network is the second circle. Let’s say I have 100 people in that circle. If those 100 people find my Facebook post useful and interesting, they will likely SHARE my original post with the people in their circle. Let’s say that each of the people in their circle also has 100 people in their Facebook network. The math is pretty easy. With one simple post I have the opportunity to reach a very large, whole new group of prospects.

As basic as this explanation is – and regardless of whether you offer a professional service or sell widgets - there are hundreds of ways to use social media to reach out to a potentially large and lucrative audience.

Here’s the bottom line. Whether you use social media in your personal life (and it’s absolutely fine if you don’t), these days it’s a proven, solid, smart marketing strategy. It works. It solidifies relationships. It generates referrals. It builds business.

Can Your Customers and Clients Find You Online?

Posted on February 4, 2013 by janetgifford

I was in Denver this past week, attending an industry convention. I had a chance to sit in on a couple of educational sessions – one of which was very, very good. The discussion was about making sure that people can find you online.

Here is a terrific reminder for all of us with websites – and a need for people to find us via organic searches: Make sure Google can find you! Submit your content to Google. Take advantage of Google+ and Google Places. If you’re a retail business, you can even map your store’s floorplan.

If you’re into data, and want to tell the world what you’ve learned in visually interesting ways, here’s a fabulous tool for creating your own Infographics.

One of the session speakers made a comment that makes me feel a whole lot better about trying to keep up with everything online; his company is at the forefront of social media management: We are all experts, but we are all learning … all at the same time; all the time. Don’t think you’re supposed to know (or learn) everything through some wild online osmosis-way. It’s really, really okay to ask the person next to you how they did something. Because it’s pretty likely they learned it from someone else. Don’t be afraid to ask; don’t be afraid to say ‘I don’t know … can you teach me’.

Appreciating Seth Godin

Posted on January 7, 2013 by janetgifford

I am a big Seth Godin fan.

He writes a blog. Nearly every post he writes strikes a chord with me. They make me think to myself … Hmmmm……..

Here is a recent post by Seth:

Two kinds of mistakes

There is the mistake of overdoing the defense of the status quo, the error of investing too much time and energy in keep things as they are.

And then there is the mistake made while inventing the future, the error of small experiments gone bad.

We are almost never hurt by the second kind of mistake and yet we persist in making the first kind, again and again.

Seth’s post offers a new way of thinking about the saying: The definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a better outcome.

If your business is stuck in status quo and you’re spending too much time trying to manage outcomes that don’t improve whatever it is you need to improve, look at things differently.

Do some experimenting. See if your hunches are right.

It’s not expensive if you try new things in small, manageable increments. But you might find the outcome(s) absolutely worth the effort and time.

Keeping Up

Posted on December 19, 2012 by janetgifford

I met with some new clients today and they asked a simple question:

“How do we possibly keep up with everything we’re supposed to do on our website and with social media? It feels so lame to see that we’ve not posted anything new on our blog in months.”

To answer that question, I first calmly took a breath, then reached inside my prideful self, and responded … “Well … if you’ve looked recently (they had…), I’ve not added anything new to my site either. Sure, my clients all have great content, but it’s so easy to get busy and put writing for yourself off to the side. It happens to all of us.”

One of the people at the meeting jokingly said, “It’s that saying about the cobbler and his shoes, eh?” Eesh. That’s exactly what it is.

Today is December 18th. My last post was in August. I am aghast. Partly because I’ve not written a single thing. But also because I swear it was just August. My fall has been filled with new websites and fresh content for those sites and social media strategy meetings and marketing meetings and learning about Pinterest and trying to keep up, and things are changing so fast … and, and, …

Okay, those are not good excuses.

It’s December 18th. However, right now I am pretending it is December 31, and I have a brand new year ahead of me. I need to make a couple of work-related resolutions for this year.

Resolution 1
I will do two things this coming year:

Acknowledge that I need a new system for making sure I my website has regular, well-written content.
Create a system that will work for me so I can stick to my resolution.

Resolution 2
I will recognize that while #1 above is key, and #2 above is critical, I’m going to fall off the wagon when I get busy. And that’s okay.

Will I meet my resolution with, um, resolution, and find a writing rhythm that works? Yes. Will everything I write be wonderfully clever and fabulously thought-provoking? Nope.

And that’s okay, too.

It’s Alll in the Planning

Posted on August 27, 2012 by janetgifford

Back when I was in school, I had to write a lot of essays and term papers. Quite often, before I ever turned in the actual, finished paper, I had to turn in an outline. My outline was supposed to be the ‘map’ of how my paper was going to get from Point A to Point Z. I loved creating an outline, because it helped me plan. My friends, on the other hand, disliked outlines immensely because it meant they had to plan. They couldn’t just pull out their trusty Olivetti typewriter about midnight (anybody remember the manual typewriter?) and turn in an essay the next morning.

I was thinking about this the other day when starting a website project for new clients. They are architects, and planning is their lifeblood. By the time I had met them they had been planning their website for many weeks. They spent a great deal of time thinking about what they wanted it to look like – down to drawing diagrams of how the pages would lay out. They spent hours thinking about each tab, and whether the tab titles would relay their intended message. They thought carefully about their content. They knew what they wanted their website to do for them – which for architects is very different than for someone who – as an example – sells widgets. They were organized and they had a plan.

Here’s why this is such a big deal in my mind.

A lot of businesses know they need a website, or they have a site and they know it needs a serious upgrade. But they don’t really know … as in really know …

Who their intended target is
What their site needs to do for them
What tools they need to make their site work for them
What they want to say to their potential customer or client
How they’re going to get business from their website

A website doesn’t really do a whole lot for you – or your business – if it doesn’t meet the needs of your intended target. That … plain and simple … takes some thought. And PLANNING.

If you’re starting to think about a new website, or perhaps a website upgrade, and you’re not sure where to start with your planning, let’s talk. Not only can I help you think through the answers to the bullet points above, I can help you create a plan that you – and your website designer – can follow. Along the way, we can also work on your CONTENT – because without great content, your site very likely will be on page 3 or 4 of someone’s Google search. And you won’t get much business from a website that nobody sees.

3 Quick Ways to Think About the Value of Social Media (in this case Facebook)

Posted on June 19, 2012 by janetgifford

I teach beginning Facebook classes to small businesses. I also co-teach intermediate and advanced Facebook classes. What I find so intriguing during these classes is where the ‘ah-ha’ moments start happening. More often than not, it’s when the class talks about the cost of traditional advertising – including print and purchased online ads – versus the cost of free social media marketing. I love seeing the light bulb click on. LOVE it.

This week, one of the online social media resources I follow had a great article with 3 simple tips for using Facebook Timeline in business marketing. I’ve posted the link below.

In addition, here are 3 more social media thoughts that I always offer to my clients … in this article I’m only focusing on Facebook. (I’ll talk about other social media outlets in future posts.)

Facebook is FREE. It would cost you a fortune to pay for the same type of exposure via print advertising and purchased online ads.
When you have a Facebook business page, other Facebook users who are ‘fans’ of yours will help share your posts about your upcoming events, your daily lunch special, seasonal sales, etc.
Facebook marketing is extremely exponential … as a quick example: If you have 50 ‘fans’ for your business Facebook page, those 50 fans also have fans & friends that they can potentially share your content with. Let’s say each of them has at least 100 fans and/or friends. If you post interesting, relevant content every single day (or even just 3 times a week!) and it’s good enough to be shared by your fans … well, you can do the math on what kind of potential marketing exposure you might have.

As I mentioned above, here is a short article from a terrific resource: Social Media Examiner. Take a look at the 3 tips and think about how you can use them in YOUR business.

Not sure if social media marketing is for you? Not sure if you can find the time to use it effectively? I’d be happy to talk to you about how I use it for myself and my clients, how my clients are using it on their own, and what kind of results you can get (almost immediately!).

Writeology

Amazing things happen when you combine creative content with an online strategy …