Internet Marketing Blog

Using Facebook Offers for Local Business Success

Mon, 14 May 2012 16:02:00 -0400

Facebook released its new “Offers” system this week to help local businesses promote specials. We first learned about these offers back in March during the Facebook Marketing Conference and are excited to see that they are now launched for all businesses. Take a look at the video below from Facebook and our tips below.

These offers are perfect for local businesses and any business where you have walk-in traffic. Leveraging this power-house platform of over 900 million people in a “Groupon” like fashion is an amazing new way to convert those Facebook fans to actual customers. Some of the great things about Facebook Offers are:

It’s Free
Very Simple to Create
Shared in Newsfeed
Simple to Redeem
Mobile Friendly
Customizable

Offers are really easy to create! Once you click on the Offer tab in your status box, you’re given the opportunity to: Upload a thumbnail, write your promotion, set an expiration date and add your terms and conditions. This will be posted to your timeline and in the newsfeed of your fans. If one of your fans “Claims” the offer, they will receive an email to show your employees when they come in your business and it will automatically be shared in their friends newsfeeds. I like to call this “Exponential Word of Mouth”

Do you need help putting together an effective Facebook Offer Campaign? We could help you in determining an offer that will be ideal for the Facebook user, help you market it and put all of the pieces together! Call us today to set-up your free social media audit and get more information how to get started: 910-575-6095.

Tweets DO Affect Search Engine Rankings

Mon, 07 May 2012 12:28:00 -0400

With over 140 million active users, Twitter has become one of the most widely used social media outlets for brands and consumers. It has become known as a platform where many users spend a considerable amount of their time online, yet brands are still scratching their heads trying to understand how to leverage Twitter for positive ROI.

While there are a lot of different benefits that you will see from a successful Twitter campaign, today we will focus on solely on the effects it has on your SEO. The industry has questioned the value of tweets in rankings for quite some time; but nobody has ever undertaken a meaningful study over a substantial amount of tweets to try and find out the answer; until now.

“Study shows that URLs receive a significant boost in Google rankings when they are shared on Twitter!”

These SEO benefits can help tie social media activity to revenue figures and encourage further investment in the channel. In fact, the statistics are pretty impressive! Here are a few of the key findings from this recent study:

URLs receive a significant boost in Google rankings when they are shared on Twitter
Average rankings are heavily correlated to the number of tweets about each URL
The effects of this boost seem to level out at around 50 tweets
After 5,000 tweets the average ranking of URLs improves considerably
If a URL receives over 7,500 tweets, it almost always ranks inside the top 5 results

Brands need to be encouraging users to retweet links to commercial pages as part of their social media campaigns, in order to take advantage of the increased rankings that this strategy can deliver.

You might ask yourself, how do you get people to mention you and re-tweet your content? Well, you need to publish content that touches their emotion and facilitates engagement.

Visually Appealing (Images/Videos)
Originality
Quality
Educational
Entertaining
Valuable
Thought-leading
Don’t be a self promoter all the time!

Lean on the ICND Social Media team to come up with this engaging content and promote your corporate webpages on Twitter and other social media outlets. Call us today to set-up your free social media audit: 910-575-6095

This research was published by Branded3 earlier this week.

Facebook ROI - 674% in 1 Month

Fri, 04 May 2012 14:38:00 -0400

Facebook ROI is often one of the biggest struggles to obtain. With over 900 million people on this social network, we know the need for us to have a presence but measuring it’s success is also extremely important. I’m going to go through a recent success story of one of Intercoastal Net Design’s Social Media efforts.

Google Analytics is a great tool for measuring traffic to your site so most marketers look to see how much traffic Facebook is generating to their site. That’s a good first step, but by adding an ecommerce conversion tracking code to your website, you can measure the effectiveness of your Facebook efforts in a real measurable factor; REVENUE!

The chart above represents the ecommerce conversion tracking within Google Analytics for a 5 week period between February 7th and March 13th 2012. The Facebook page for this client generated $18,705 in sales during this 5 week period. Given their profit margin and the costs involved with managing their Facebook page, their ROI for this period was 674%!

Other ways that you can measure the success of your Facebook page and the posts you are leaving is by the interaction you receive and the number of fans you are growing. Of course, you are looking for good quality targeted fans, not just any person who is willing to click a button on your page. A strong social media strategy will effectively post visual content at key times of the day and target users in your target market. In the end, all of this top of mind advertising leads to one thing, conversion which is the result we’re showing our clients.

If you’re interested in similar results from your social media presence, call the ICND Team today to set up your free business social media audit: 910-575-6095

Local Search Marketing

Tue, 24 Apr 2012 08:06:00 -0400

With Google stating a mere 20% of their searches have any local relevancy it’s time to cast a broader net and employ local search marketing techniques for your business site. But what exactly does this mean? It means focusing on other local search engines and not just Google and these days there are plenty of them around. Following are the most popular ones you’ll want to focus your local SEO improvements around. Keep in mind that when you rank well with other search engines it will improve your ranking with Google.

1. Facebook. Make sure your business is listed under Facebook Places and that the information provided is correct. If you haven’t already, building a page for your business is a good local search marketing tool worth utilizing.

2. LinkedIn. Set up a page for your company and encourage your employees to add profile pages. Linking the two together can improve your ranking.

3. Twitter. To target local SEO set your company profile’s Location using the city name and state. Enable the “Tweet Location” to be added to your tweets and utilize the Description field.

4. Foursquare. With the ability to search for businesses the Foursquare site is turning into a strong local search engine for many. Claim your listing on Foursquare and customize it as much as possible.

5. Pinterest. To optimize for local SEO on this image sharing site include local keywords, link to your business, post relative images, and describe what you’re posting in detail. But local search marketing goes beyond post-and-forget. You need to interact with the Pinterest community by commenting, repining and posting to public boards.

By bringing your business to the forefront on social marketing sites such as these you will see your ranking improve overall. Social media is no longer limited to friends socializing and sharing photos. More and more people are using them for their search capabilities to obtain information on local businesses in lieu of going to a website.

Link Building Timeline

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:11:00 -0400

Often people ask how long it takes for search engines to notice new links between content on the web, including internal new content links and external backlinks. It would be wonderful if it were in fact instantaneous, but it’s not. There are a few factors involved in what influences the time that it takes for link building to positively affect your search ranking and we’ll address those here.

Impulse links are when you share a link on Facebook, G+ or tweet it to your followers. While we can share links socially, there is no guarantee if and when they will be seen or clicked on. Socially shared links do not have the same impact on organic search results as curated links but over time they do help your rankings.

Curated links are those that are added to your site or on someone else’s site that link back to you — a common link building practice. The search engines do not know when a link is added until one of its crawlers visits that page and crawls it. The frequency with which this happens is based on the history of your site. If the search engines have determined that you only update your site every 6-8 weeks then the crawlers will visit far less frequently than a site that updates daily.

Google analyzes new links to determine if the link is “earned” or not. Not all links that you set up will affect your search rankings. Google has to discern if the links are from trustworthy pages, that they abide by Google’s quality guidelines for link building, and that they are relative to the site overall.

Utilizing Social Media As An SEO Tool

Wed, 21 Mar 2012 11:34:00 -0400

With social media marketing already a part of your business strategy there’s power to be harnessed in those social media accounts. Follow these social media SEO strategies if you want to successfully compete against the bigger players.

Put A New Emphasis On Building Relationships & Increasing Followers — Everything you write or share can appear in the search results of your followers, even if they’re not a member of the social media marketing site you shared the link on.

Start Posting Your Articles Immediately On Social Media — Set your articles to automatically post on Google+, LinkedIn, etc. and you’ll get indexed even quicker.

Focus On Shareable Content — Getting someone to share your content gives you access to that user's network.

Ramp Up Your Google+ Presence — You can find yourself as a first-page ranking solely because someone put you in a G+ circle. That’s a benefit no site can afford to ignore.

Get On Pinterest — It sends nearly as much referral traffic to your site as Twitter and much more than YouTube, G+ and LinkedIn combined.

Add +1 Buttons To Everything — +1 is Google's version of the Facebook like button. It's an easy endorsement to enhance social media SEO that you shouldn't miss using.

Use “Rel=author” & “Rel=me” Tags To Link Your Work To Your Name — Use "rel=author" in your posts so readers can link to all of your work.

Use A “Pin It” & A StumbleUpon Button On Your Site — Pinterest has great link traction while StumbleUpon is second only to Facebook in terms of referral traffic.

Advanced Keyword Research For Improved Keyword Optimization

Tue, 06 Mar 2012 09:15:00 -0400

It pays to put both time and effort into keyword research since the quality and positioning of your keywords will always result in improved placement within search engine results. Researching will uncover the targeted and profitable keywords and keyword phrases your potential visitors will be using when they discover your competitors.

Search engines are seeking critical keyword elements that are often overlooked when a site is compiled. When you do your keyword research consider using phrases rather than just single keywords to be listed among the most relevant results. Use variations on your keyword and keyword phrases (think like your visitors would). Search engines are also looking for word association within your context so use synonyms that are similar to your keywords. Stemming is another way to build your keyword list. Using suffixes, prefixes and adding pluralizations turns one keyword phrase into many.

Having done your research and compiled a new and robust keyword list is half the battle. Now you have to best utilize those keywords and phrases in a way that will most benefit your site. This is known as keyword optimization. For best results it’s imperative to follow Best SEO Practices when doing so. Practices such as relevant urls and image names, relevant headlines using keywords, applying heading tags (h1, h2, etc.), title tags, meta tags, and cross linking all matter.

Keyword optimization is the route to ranking highly in the search engine results and every page you add to your site should be compiled with optimization in mind.

Is Your Website Mobile Ready?

Tue, 28 Feb 2012 08:55:00 -0400

According to the results of Adobe’s Mobile Experience Survey done last year consumers prefer using Google to access a mobile website rather than using an app on their phone to make price comparisons, read product reviews and make purchases. A whooping 81% of those doing price comparisons preferred using a mobile website and 79% prefer mobile sites for reading product reviews but just a mere 37% of consumers would be satisfied making purchases using an app on their mobile device. That’s why it’s more important than ever to offer a mobile version of your website for your customer’s use on-the-go.

Google differentiates between a search performed from a desktop or a tablet and a mobile search and returns results accordingly. What happens when you don’t have a mobile site for Google to add to its search results? Do you want to risk being left out of the results entirely?

Creating your mobile site not as simple as just banging out a smaller version of your main website or changing the url to something more mobile search friendly. Survey results say that 40% of users would visit your competitor if they did not like the looks or functionality of your mobile site. Mobile website layout and design matters big time and having web professionals make the conversion for you is worth every penny you spend. Give us a call at 866-249-6095 and we’ll get your website mobile ready.

Utilizing Video As An Internet Marketing Tool

Fri, 10 Feb 2012 12:24:00 -0400

Want to be on the cutting edge of Internet marketing? With YouTube being the second largest search engine on the Internet, online video is one of the newest and hottest ways to market your company.

Many people are overwhelmed at the thought of making an online video for their business because they’re camera shy or think it’s more involved than it actually is. It’s actually quite simple and videos don’t have to be very long at all. Most digital cameras can record a video. Many computers come with a video cam installed or you can attach one that can record videos. Or you could use a simple video camera like the Cisco Flip video to record it.

Make a short video of a couple minutes duration promoting something your business does or offers. It’s not necessary to mention all of your services in one video. This is definitely a time when “less is more”. Get creative with it. Be witty. Bring in props. You want to make your online video anything but boring and once you’re comfortable with it, make additional videos. Internet marketing that allows you to be creative is marketing that is going to work wonders for your business and is marketing that you can do yourself. If you don’t have the creative desire or the time, hire the project out. But definitely climb on board with this type of marketing.

What causes this to be such a successful tool for Internet marketing is the use of your keyword phrases. Using them in your video titles, descriptions and tags helps your videos to achieve higher search results. Optimize your “About Me” section and “Channel Description” areas by using your keywords. Set up Playlist Categories titled after the services you offer and other keywords you want your business associated with. Then take your videos to other video sharing sites and post them there as well as on your company's website.

How To Optimize Your Website Forms For Improved Conversion Rates

Wed, 25 Jan 2012 08:57:00 -0400

Forms are a great way to obtain much needed data from your users but they don’t work if people take one look and back away from them without ever typing a single keystroke. Time and again we’ve seen website form conversion rates that are in the single digits on an otherwise fabulous website. Website conversions can be highly successful if you keep some basic things in mind when creating your forms.

1. Keep it Short and Sweet — On the initial form, don’t overwhelm people with too many questions. Save those for follow up emails.

2. Use Fewer Form Elements — There are plenty of bells and whistles you could use on a form. Don’t. When you’re after website conversions less is more.

3. Add a Privacy Line — It will reassure your readers to see “We respect your privacy.” so add it or something similar at the bottom of your form to increase your website form conversion rates.

4. Use Optional Form Fields — It’s proven that website conversions are greater on forms with less required fields. Keeps things optional when possible.

5. Include a Lead Form Above the Fold — Lead forms convert best when located above the fold, preferably in the upper right hand corner of the page.

6. How You Write Matters — Sentence casing is better than phrase casing. This is why headlines work so well.

7. Design Buttons That Convert — Design call-to-action buttons that get results. Make them stand out with vivid colors and a size that gets noticed.

8. Use Action Words on Submit Buttons — Punch up your website form conversion rates with something as simple as the wording on your buttons. For instance, “Act now!” is better than “Submit” but “Act now for awesome free stuff!” is even better.

9. Two-Page Lead Form — You will get better results with your form when you use a two-page lead form. Keep the first page of your form simple and ask additional “required” questions on the second page, traditionally known as the “thank you” page.

10. Don’t Use Captcha on Forms — Remember, your objective is to improve your conversion rates. There are plenty of other methods available to authenticate humans are filling out your forms, so use one of them.

Google Places - Let Us Take You There

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 15:40:00 -0400

It appears it’s no longer enough for local businesses to be ranked well in Google search engine results but now it’s of even more importance to be listed in the results of Google Places. With 97% of consumers searching on line for local businesses it’s important that your business be there.

It’s easy enough to get listed in Google Places. Using an existing Google account for your business, go to Google Places and set up your Google Map listing…for free! If you’re not sure if you already have one, just type in your business phone number and your question will be answered. Once you are registered, you get to work towards better ratings on the Places page and we’ll tell you what that involves.

Google ranks its results on the Places page based on relevancy. The most relevant are those listings that have the most activity associated with them via citations, reviews and user content. For those who don’t know, citations are any mention of your business name, address, and phone number anywhere on the Internet that Google travels. When Google crawls content across the web and finds a citation for your business they give you a point. Those with the most points go to the top of the list. It’s as simple as that.

All citations are not created equal though so it’s important to get citations from sites that Google values highly for your type of business. Don’t know what those are? Let InterCoastal Net Designs bring you to the top of the Google Places results. The SEO professionals at ICND know how to speak the language of Google and look forward to working with you.

7 Ways to Boost SEO of Your Facebook Pages

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 08:42:00 -0400

Far too often people will create a Facebook presence for their business without any regard for search engine optimization. Google indexes Facebook Pages on a regular basis just like it does any other website so it’s important to use whatever way you can to boost SEO on these pages. Everything that is necessary when optimizing your website is just as important on your Facebook Pages.

Here are 7 ways to boost SEO of your Facebook Pages:

1. Keep in mind that any gated pages you have (ie, pages requiring a “Like” or “invite” in order to gain access) will not be indexed by Google.

2. Often and consistently use your brand or business name in headings and page tabs.

3. While wall posts are indexed, it’s custom tab titles and “Likes” that hold the most weight and will give you the greatest return.

4. Links from multiple sources help a lot with SEO. Links to custom tabs on your business page will be weighted heavily if they’re from popular and recognized sources.

5. Multimedia posted on your Facebook Pages are an excellent opportunity for SEO enriched titles, descriptions and alt tags.

6. Be sure to put your SEO-rich text where the search engines can see and index it. Keep in mind that any text embedded in an image will not get indexed.

7. Nothing beats well-managed pages. Keep your content fresh, interesting, and engaging to get the most fans and keep search engines coming back.

Google+ Business Pages

Wed, 21 Dec 2011 16:23:00 -0400

One of the leading trends in marketing on the Internet today is managing your online reputation through Google+ Business Pages, a new feature released by Google in October.

Businesses of any size and in all industries should take advantage of the new Google+ Business Pages if for no other reason than for the major SEO benefits. Having a business page on Google+ will increase your company’s web presence far beyond where your website and Facebook will take you. If you think because you use Facebook you’re all set, you should think again! Google+ Business Pages work better than Facebook Profiles in that what you post on Google+ will increasingly appear in Google search results, something Facebook postings for your business will not typically do.

The more you can advertise your business in a positive light on the web – regardless of which social media you select – the better your chance of ranking higher and more frequently in search results. What this means is that better rankings equals more website visitors, which results in more leads, that equates to more sales dollars for you.

While Google+ Business Pages are in the early stages, and no doubt have a few kinks to work through, publishing a page now will have you ahead of this wave of the future. Google is gaining speed and popularity with it’s +1 campaign being introduced.

Give ICND a call today to discuss how you can climb on board with Google+ Business Pages and improve your SEO performance.

New Social Media Plans

Fri, 02 Dec 2011 06:00:00 -0400

InterCoastal Net Designs has three new social media plans to tell you about. The plans are Bronze, Silver and Gold and are defined below.

The Social Media Bronze Plan includes 6-8 hour setup and provides 5 hours of ICND time per month. We teach you how to manage your social media the right way and mentor you to success. This is ideal for those who would like some training and assistance in managing your own page. Perfect for a small budget conscious business.

Social Media Bronze Plan Set Up Includes:
Getting Started
Pre-launch Social Media Audit
Creation of Facebook and Twitter accounts if they have not already been created
Creation of other social media accounts: Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Gowalla, and many more.
Vanity URL creation, customize information, add applications based on need.

Dynamic Design
Facebook Welcome Page Design
Large Facebook profile photo to take advantage of the full dimensions allowed by Facebook
Twitter Background
Twitter Avatar

Website Integration
Addition of Facebook Widget in the most optimal place on your website
Addition of Twitter Widget in the most optimal place on your website

Social Media Bronze Plan Monthly Interaction Includes:
Manage & Monitor
Post up to 15 posts per month on both Facebook and Twitter (light moderation of page conversations and daily monitoring)
Monthly analytics and reporting

Consulting
(1) 45 minute training sessions teaching how to optimize posts and manage the pages more effectively.

Targeted Twitter Followers
Geographically & Demographically target users
Up to 3 keywords

The Social Media Silver Plan includes 8-12 hour setup and provides 10 hours of ICND time per month. While continuing to work with your appointed on-site social media manager, we assist you in engaging your fans with highly interactive contests. We train and help with posting, monitor and growing your page the right way.

Social Media Silver Plan Set Up Includes:
Getting Started
Pre-launch Social Media Audit
Creation of Facebook and Twitter accounts if they have not already been created
Creation of other social media accounts: Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Gowalla, and many more.
Vanity URL creation, customize information, add applications based on need

Dynamic Design
Facebook Welcome Page Design
Large Facebook profile photo to take advantage of the full dimensions allowed by Facebook
Twitter Background
Twitter Avatar
Custom Header Images used to highlight key products, services, specials or features of your brand.
Custom Fan-gated content page enhancing fan acquisition and fan conversion rates

Website Integration
Addition of Facebook Widget in the most optimal place on your website
Addition of Twitter Widget in the most optimal place on your website

High Powered Launch
E-blast sent to your current database introducing your new Facebook and Twitter accounts
Blog entry written by our copy writers and posted on your blog introducing your new accounts

Social Media Silver Plan Monthly Interaction Includes:
Manage & Monitor
Post up to 15 posts per month on both Facebook and Twitter (light moderation of page conversations and daily monitoring)
Monthly analytics and reporting

Consulting
(1) 45 minute training sessions teaching how to optimize posts and manage the pages more effectively.

Targeted Twitter Followers
Geographically & Demographically target users
Up to 3 keywords

Monthly Contests
Manage a contest to encourage interaction and exponentially grow your fan base. Includes: developing theme, compiling rules, creative/design, application management, and entry/voting.

The Social Media Gold Plan includes 8-12 hour setup and provides 15 hours of ICND time per month. We become a much more active player in your social media team to post, monitor and grow your page the right way. This is meant for companies that want to take their Facebook presence to the next level. We will help you increase client engagement, grow your fan count and provide you with new strategic initiatives to enhance social media growth.

Social Media Gold Plan Set Up includes:
Getting Started
Pre-launch Social Media Audit
Creation of Facebook and Twitter accounts if they have not already been created
Creation of other social media accounts: Foursquare, Google+, LinkedIn, Gowalla, and many more.
Vanity URL creation, customize information, add applications based on need

Dynamic Design
Facebook Welcome Page Design
Large Facebook profile photo to take advantage of the full dimensions allowed by Facebook
Twitter Background
Twitter Avatar
Custom Header Images used to highlight key products, services, specials or features of your brand.
Custom Fan-gated content page enhancing fan acquisition and fan conversion rates

Website Integration
Addition of Facebook Widget in the most optimal place on your website
Addition of Twitter Widget in the most optimal place on your website

High Powered Launch
E-blast sent to your current database introducing your new Facebook and Twitter accounts
Blog entry written by our copywriters and posted on your blog introducing your new accounts

Social Media Gold Plan Monthly Interaction Includes:
Manage & Monitor
Post up to 30 posts per month on both Facebook and Twitter (daily moderation of page conversations)
Monthly suggestions for improvement and strategy.
Monthly analytics and reporting

Consulting
(1) 45 minute training sessions teaching how to optimize posts and manage the pages more effectively.

Monthly Contests
Manage a contest to encourage interaction and exponentially grow your fan base. Includes: developing theme, compiling rules, creative/design, application management, and entry/voting.

Focused Twitter Campaign&
Geographically & Demographically target users
Target based on up to 5 keywords

Google Promotes Mobile Sites

Sat, 26 Nov 2011 13:24:00 -0400

Just because you can see your web site on a mobile phone doesn’t mean it’s mobile-friendly and a joy to use. In fact, it’s quite the opposite! If your website is not mobile-ready you are missing out as your customers will choose the easier site to use over yours time and time again. Your customers are already online using their mobile devices and by the year 2013, more people will use their mobile phones to get online than they will their home and laptop computers.

Google recently published the site — How To Go Mo — to explain their recommendations and "best practices" toward building your mobile site.

InterCoastal Net Designs builds mobile sites following these 10 mobile site best practices. Our sites are accessible across all mobile devices and all handset orientations. Sites are designed for better visibility on a small screen and for larger hands to access small buttons without the aid of a mouse. Navigation is simplified and seamless on these sites, making the mobile version of your site fast and user-friendly to those with mobile devices. Images are compressed to keep them small and help with loading time. Everything is streamlined. Studies have shown users on-the-go prefer to access mobile sites for businesses in their local area.

The wave of the future has arrived and users of mobile devices compare prices of products and services on their cell phones while on the go. The preferred sites they reach time and time again are the mobile versions of desktop sites. Mobile sites are specifically designed for a smaller screen, with the needs of mobile users in mind. A mobile-friendly site can help your business connect with customers and drive conversions.

We can configure your existing site to automatically tell if visitors are using a mobile device and then redirect them to the mobile-friendly version of your site. Your customers will get the best version of your site for their needs and can easily return to the desktop site if that is their preference.

People are also using their mobile devices to help locate businesses in the area. Many businesses are adding GPS coordinates to their mobile sites along with maps and directions to conveniently lead viewers directly to their door.

ICND is busy making mobile sites for our customers among those being seasidevip.mobi, cbsloane.mobi and oceanisleinn.mobi. Give us a call today and we’ll tell you what’s involved in converting your site to add a mobile-friendly version.