Online Marketing Strategies 2008: The Top 7 Things You Should Be Doing - Part I
Ok, so everybody and their brother is handing out marketing advice for 2008. I would like to provide my own list of things to recommend based on my own experiences as well as some of the things I’ve learned myself recently from my own research and from Alex Mandossian’s training.
#1 Marketing Strategy for 2008: Start a Blog and Post Regularly
A blog (web log) is a great way to add interesting and valuable content to your website without the usual formalities and pressures of writing, refining and publishing articles.
It’s just a lot easier to write when you’re being informal. You don’t have to creatively spit out paragraph after paragraph or obsess over grammar and style. After all, it’s YOUR blog. You write as little or as much as you want.
The marketing benefit of blogging is enormous. Search engines look favorably on blogs (over websites) because the content is usually updated regularly.
Some blogging tips… Try to update your blog at least every 2-3 days. Even better if you can update daily. The search engines will give preference to blogs that update frequently.
For great free blogging software, just click the WordPress link at the bottom of this page. Have your webmaster install it, configure it and you can start blogging right away!
#2 Marketing Strategy for 2008: SEO Search Engine Optimization
I am amazed at the large number of business websites which have poor (or no) search engine optimization. I believe part of this problem comes from the fact that many businesses have relied heavily on pay per click advertising as a quick fix to their search engine traffic woes.
As a result SEO gets passed over or a belief develops within the company that SEO is only for big companies with deep pockets. Nothing could be further from the truth. For a modest investment of say $75 -100 per page most small or medium businesses can enjoy a nice return on investment.
For example, I recently built a new website for one of my home care clients. I optimized it for mostly local search traffic using long tail keywords and many keywords which don’t even appear in the keyword inventories of search engines like Google, MSN and Yahoo.
This may seem somewhat contrarian to the normal keyword research a company or SEO consultant might recommend i.e. “only select and use keywords you find from the keyword tools of search engines”.
But my clients are benefiting from good traffic to their local businesses with these “invisible” keywords. In order to find these keywords you have to work closely with your clients and their prospects to figure out what’s most important to them and what’s “top of mind” when they do a search. Often times they use phrases which aren’t popular enough to be listed by the keyword tools. They add a town name or a city to a phrase for example. When taken collectively, all these invisible keywords can bring substantial traffic to a website.
If you do anything this year to improve your website traffic, have your site optimized and try to update your content regularly.
#3 Marketing Strategy for 2008: Video Content on Blogs and Websites
As most people have already figured out, video is “white hot” on the Internet right now. And there’s no end in sight. What’s especially great about this is the fact that search engines are currently giving priority to sites which contain video. Even more priority if you update with new video regularly.
In fact I believe this is NOT a fad, but web videos are here to stay. A lot like reality TV, video captures and commands people’s imagination and attention. It’s addictive. We are all voyeurs to some degree and video plays on this natural human characteristic.
Admittedly, I’ve been behind the web video curve, but no more. I went out and purchased a Flip Video camera that will create high resolution “how to” videos that I can place in my blogs and websites.
So my recommendation to anyone reading this post, is to just get started with video. You don’t need an expensive video camera, you can pick up a decent DVR (Digital Video Recorder) for as little as $100. Once you’ve done that, start creating some video tutorials or “how to” videos for your area of expertise.
Not only will these videos showcase your talents, they can create a “viral video effect” if you are providing something of real value and give people the opportunity to share the videos with friends at social bookmarking (like Digg, Stumble Upon) and networking sites (like FaceBook and MySpace) or by using a good TAF (Tell a Friend) script. If done correctly, the results could be a flood of new traffic coming to your site on a regular basis.
Part II in tomorrow’s post.
-Bob
Tags: Blogging, online marketing, Search Engine Optimization SEO, SEO, Web Video