Marketing your Business on Facebook

Internet Marketing Tips: Marketing your Business on Facebook

Internet Marketing Tips: Manage your Facebook Business Page by sharing relevant and compelling posts, reaching out to your target market and engaging.

Facebook is an important marketing tool for small businesses.

Here are some tips to make better use of the world’s most popular social media platform.

  • As one of the most visited websites in the world, Facebook is a very important tool for small business owners who want to engage their customers and attract new ones.
  • The core of proper Facebook utilization involves curating and creating content that appeals to your audience.
  • Facebook offers multiple tools for promotion, and you should consider using all of them to maximize your reach.
  • This article is for small business owners who are interested utilizing Facebook to grow their business.

Every small business should be on social media, especially Facebook. From its powerful advertisement options to Facebook groups, Facebook has many tools small businesses can and should use. A solid Facebook presence helps you engage potential customers and grow your business.

“Having a Facebook page helps to legitimize your business in the customer’s eye,” said Jake McKenzie, content manager for AutoAccessoriesGarage.com. “Or another way to look at it is a business without a Facebook profile may seem outdated at the best or untrustworthy at worst.”

With so many ways to promote your business on Facebook, it can be difficult to know where to start. Here are six easy steps to make Facebook work for you.

Internet Marketing TipCreate a business page.

If you want to have a solid and professional Facebook presence, you need to create a separate page for your business – your personal Facebook profile won’t cut it. A page is like a regular profile, but it’s for brands and business. Also, instead of asking to “friend” someone, users must “like” or follow a page to see its posts.

According to Hootsuite, here is how you create a Facebook business page:

  1. Sign up. You will need to either use your personal Facebook page, or you can create a page from scratch. Visit https://www.facebook.com/pages/create, and select the type of page you wish to create. Fill in the page name, category and description; then click Create Page.
  2. Add photos. It’s important to add a profile and cover photos that reflect what your business does. Given that these pictures will be providing your clients with your first impression, use high-quality images that portray your business in a positive light. Select the images and hit Save.
  3. Create a username. Also known as a vanity URL, your username is how your customers will find you on Facebook. Your username should be the same or as close to the name of your business as possible to avoid confusion. Once you’ve completed step two, you’ll see “create @username” under your page name. Click here to create and save your page name.
  4. Enter your information. When you set up your Facebook page, you’ll notice there are a lot of options to customize it. Add as much information about your business as possible, including your business name, address, contact information, website, business hours, products, etc. You will also need to create a description of what your business entails. You can add additional categories to ensure your company is included in all relevant searches on the site. As you add information, use strategic keywords throughout that indicate to both readers and to Facebook what your page is about.
  5. Tell your story.  Although you have already entered information about your business, you will find that you can expound on the story behind your company or brand. In this section, talk about why and how your business was created, what makes your brand unique, the services and products you offer, and anything else you think will be relevant to a customer.
  6. Create your first post. Before you can invite people to like your page, add some content to it. Your very first post can be a simple “Welcome to our page!” Or you can post a deal or coupon, a picture, video, link, or whatever you think would be a good introduction to your brand.
  7. Publish and then invite followers. Once you have filled in all the details, it’s time to expand your audience! Invite people to like your page once all the information is completed.

Key takeaway: Follow the most current instructions and best practices for filling out your Facebook business page’s information completely, accurately, and in a way that’s optimized for the platform’s preferences.

Find niche keywords to promote website

Internet Marketing Tips; Find niche keywords to promote website

Internet Marketing Tips;  Focus on finding niche keywords with significant
demand and limited competition so your website attracts prospects.

Internet Marketing Tip: Find niche keywords to promote the website.

“Keep going until you break through that wall”*, and find the niche keywords that will promote your business.

Internet Marketing Tip:  Use your top 3 keywords to Google search your industry, document the results.

Important Tip:  “Organic search results are the query results which are calculated strictly algorithmically, and not affected by advertiser payments. Courtesy of Wikipedia

When you do the Google search of your industry, does your website appear on the first page? Who are your competitors? Do your competitors have an organic listing, and/or a sponsored placement? What keywords are your 1st-page competitors using?

The top 3 keywords are the most important, however, it is also a good idea to focus on the next 10 keywords that are also important in your list. They may be a bit longer and more descriptive of your product. As long as the Google monthly demands are at least 1000 and the number of web pages with those keywords in the content is limited to under 500,000, you can call them niche keywords.

Internet Marketing Tip; Niche Keywords can make you rich!

If you are creating content using niche keywords that are focused on attracting your target market, you do not only drive traffic to your website… you drive prospects that are actively looking for your products and services, in many cases, they are ready to buy.

Creating informational and relevant content using niche keywords helps build the trust that your client or prospect is looking for. And, creating this type of content helps establish your expertise in your industry.

Thank you for taking the time to read this article on niche keywords. Feel free to comment with your questions or concerns down below.

*Russell Simmons

Focus on Marketing to Google

Internet Marketing Tips; Focus on Marketing to Google

Internet Marketing Tip; 76% of the time, people searching for you – use Google to find you. For this reason you should focus your marketing on Google.

When Internet users want to look for a website, they are usually unwilling or unable to guess your website address (also known as URL), so they will use a Search Engine and keywords to find you.

Internet Marketing Tip; About 76% of people searching for you – Use Google.

  • Nearly 93% of all web traffic comes through search engines.
  • Globally, Google accounts for 76% and 86% of desktop and mobile search traffic, respectively.
  • 46% of all Google searches are linked to something local.
  • Google takes into account over 200 factors before delivering the best results to its users.

Source: 99firms.com

Google has achieved dominance in such a short period of time, and these days it is not uncommon for people to use the word Google as a verb.

  • Say you want to know about medication, you Google it.
  • If you want to know about a person’s work history, you Google their name.
  • Single people looking for companionship will Google a potential date before committing to a date.
  • Job applicants Google a potential employer and even research the staff before an interview.

Internet Marketing Tip; Online users use Google – A lot!

So if you want your business to thrive, you need to learn how to own your niche on Google. However, there is no instant switch or magic cure, getting to the #1 spot on Google takes time and diligence.

Internet Marketing Tip; Commit seriously to Google, Google will commit back

And Google has a really long memory. Unfortunately, Google doesn’t make it easy. They are well known for changing the rules on a regular basis. Essentially Google is fed up with people abusing the system, and if there is no obvious system, then it is harder to abuse the system.

As you can see, Google is special, and we need to focus on marketing techniques that work on Google, creating content that ranks high on Google.  We also need to learn how to do that so that Google will not tag our content as spam.

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below. 

Internet Marketing Tips: Get to the #1 spot on Google

Internet Marketing Tips: Get to the #1 spot on Google

Internet Marketing Tips; Find a ‘niche’ keyword with at least 1000 global monthly searches and minimal competition, and build your website around it.

Internet Marketing Tip: Go niche. Be specific.

Whatever your business you are in, it is pretty safe to say that you are part of a very big marketplace. You probably already know that your website is not the first one to offer your product or service, and it won’t be the last.

In fact, someone is already out there marketing a similar product or service to what you are offering… some successfully, some not so successfully.

Internet Marketing Tip: Do Keyword Research and Document Results was all about how to conduct keyword research. You may already have a pretty good list of keywords that you want to use to market your product or service… however:

  • Do you know how many global monthly searches are conducted on Googlehttps://crazysmartmarketing.com/how-to-keyword-research/https://lynnalbro.com/internet-marketing-tips/internet-marketing-tips-do-keyword-research-and-document-results/ each month for your keyword?
  • Do you know how many web pages are indexed on Google with that keyword contained in the content?

If you have already conducted keyword research, you have the answer to the above questions. If your goal is internet marketing, those are the questions you should ask before you decide on a site concept, before you purchase a domain, AND before you start building your brand.

I cannot emphasis this tip enough:

Internet Marketing Tip; Find a ‘niche’ keyword with at least 1000 global monthly searches and minimal competition.

Once you find a keyword (or set of keywords) that describes your product or service (or at least some aspect of your product or service), you build your entire web concept around the keyword(s).

Internet Marketing Tip; Build your website around that niche keyword, use it:

  • In your business name
  • In your domain
  • In the website title and meta description.
  • Include that keyword in your content at least a couple of times for every 100 words of written content.

Once you have several pages of keyword-rich content, Google’s search engine should be taking notice. However, don’t stop there, start driving traffic to your website from your social media site. Post links to the different pages on your website at Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram on a regular basis.

When it comes to internet marketing, there are no hard and fast rules that will get you to the number one spot at Google. However, an important tip is – be consistent,  at least once a week offer fresh keyword-rich content in your niche, with time and patience you will find yourself on the first page of Google… maybe even indexed in the number one spot.

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below.

Do Keyword Research and Document Results

Internet Marketing Tips; Do Keyword Research and Document Results

Internet Marketing Tip: The first step – conduct a keyword research and document the monthly searches, number of competitors and number of Google indexed results.

In my opinion, keyword research is an art form. It is tedious, time-consuming work that requires lots of patience. It’s important to come to the table with no preconceived ideas as to what your keywords are going to be ahead of time. Be ready to do research.

So how do you conduct keyword research that results in traffic to your website?

First, let’s define Keyword(s)

A keyword is not usually just a single word, but can be 2 or 3 words in a combination that answer the question “What’s the point of this one web page?”

Internet Marketing Tip; Learn how a search engine works.

NOTE: When you do a Google search you aren’t actually searching the web, you are searching Google’s index of the web, or at least as much of it as Google has found.

Google uses software programs called spiders. Spiders start by fetching a few web pages, then they follow the links on those pages to new pages, then fetch the pages they point to. Spiders then follow all the links those pages point to, and so on, until they have indexed a pretty big chunk of the web. These spiders index many billions of pages stored across thousands of machines.

So, when you decide to search for a specific keyword:

  • Google’s software searches every indexed page that includes your keywords.
  • In many cases, there are hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions…even billions) of pages indexed on the internet with those specific keywords.

Internet Marketing Tip; How to conduct a keyword research

You can try out this free keyword tool at Wordtracker, or check out  ‘8 Best Keyword Research Tools’ for more options. I also use the free Chrome extension app – Scout, it is easy to use and has a lot of cool features.

At the Wordtracker Search page, type in a relevant keyword and click Search. For instance, I choose the Google option in the upper left corner, typed in ‘Marketing Specialist’, and clicked Search.

Internet Marketing Tip: Document keyword research results

First, open up a spreadsheet and start documenting keyword research results

  • In the first column type in the keyword
  • In the 2nd column type in the Volume (Average Number of Searches in the Last 12 months).
  • In the 3rd column type in the Competition (# of competitors, the higher the number, the more competition.)
  • In the 4th column type in the Google count of indexed pages with your keyword in the content. It is at the top of the search page, i.e “About 709,000,000 results”.

Finally, go over your spreadsheet and look at all of your keywords looking for a keyword niche… in other words look for keywords with at least 1000 Volume i.e Monthly Demands,  limited Competition; under 500,000 indexed pages of competitors results.

Keyword research takes time… sometimes several hours and should result in hundreds of potential keywords that you can use at your website, keywords that will drive traffic to your site. And, the job is never done. You need to revisit this process on a regular basis to see if the keywords you are using are still relevant, and also search for new keywords

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below.

Internet Marketing Tips; Do Keyword Research and Document Results

Do Keyword Research and Document Results

Internet Marketing Tip: The first step – conduct a keyword research and document the monthly searches, number of competitors and number of Google indexed results.

In my opinion, keyword research is an art form. It is tedious, time-consuming work that requires lots of patience. It’s important to come to the table with no preconceived ideas as to what your keywords are going to be ahead of time. Be ready to do research.

So how do you conduct keyword research that results in traffic to your website?

First, let’s define Keyword(s)

A keyword is not usually just a single word, but can be 2 or 3 words in a combination that answer the question “What’s the point of this one web page?”

Internet Marketing Tip; Learn how a search engine works.

NOTE: When you do a Google search you aren’t actually searching the web, you are searching Google’s index of the web, or at least as much of it as Google has found.

Google uses software programs called spiders. Spiders start by fetching a few web pages, then they follow the links on those pages to new pages, then fetch the pages they point to. Spiders then follow all the links those pages point to, and so on, until they have indexed a pretty big chunk of the web. These spiders index many billions of pages stored across thousands of machines.

So, when you decide to search for a specific keyword:

  • Google’s software searches every indexed page that includes your keywords.
  • In many cases, there are hundreds of thousands (sometimes millions…even billions) of pages indexed on the internet with those specific keywords.

Internet Marketing Tip; How to conduct a keyword research

You can try out this free keyword tool at Wordtracker, or check out  ‘8 Best Keyword Research Tools’ for more options. I also use the free Chrome extension app – Scout, it is easy to use and has a lot of cool features.

At the Wordtracker Search page, type in a relevant keyword and click Search. For instance, I choose the Google option in the upper left corner, typed in ‘Marketing Specialist’, and clicked Search.

Internet Marketing Tip: Document keyword research results

First, open up a spreadsheet and start documenting keyword research results

  • In the first column type in the keyword
  • In the 2nd column type in the Volume (Average Number of Searches in the Last 12 months).
  • In the 3rd column type in the Competition (# of competitors, the higher the number, the more competition.)
  • In the 4th column type in the Google count of indexed pages with your keyword in the content. It is at the top of the search page, i.e “About 709,000,000 results”.

Finally, go over your spreadsheet and look at all of your keywords looking for a keyword niche… in other words look for keywords with at least 1000 Volume i.e Monthly Demands,  limited Competition; under 500,000 indexed pages of competitors results.

Keyword research takes time… sometimes several hours and should result in hundreds of potential keywords that you can use at your website, keywords that will drive traffic to your site. And, the job is never done. You need to revisit this process on a regular basis to see if the keywords you are using are still relevant, and also search for new keywords

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below.

Internet Marketing Tips; Simple 5 Step Business Plan

Internet Marketing Tips; Simple 5 Step Business Plan

Many of you are asking “Why do I need a Business Plan?” For years I had been operating without one, just drifting from one project to another. These days I review my business plan every year for the following reasons:

  • It gives me a chance to decide where I want to go with my business.
  • A business plan forces me to review all aspects of your business; sales goals, marketing, operations, financial plan
  • A plan sets up targets in all major areas of my business: sales, expense items, staff
  • My business plan becomes a baseline for monitoring progress and holds me accountable.

There are all sorts of reasons to write a business plan, among them:

  • If you are starting a new business
  • Looking for financing for an established business.
  • A new financial period is about to begin (which is why I do it yearly)
  • A significant change in the market
  • You are developing a new product
  • Your business has crossed a threshold
  • Your old plan doesn’t reflect reality anymore

Getting started is easy… just think about where you want to be (with your business), a year from now… 5 years from now, even 10 years from now. You could ask yourself these questions; What level of income would provide you with the lifestyle you envision for yourself? Do you want to work from home, or do you want to work out of a large facility and employ 100 employees? Do you see yourself building a business that you intend to sell and then retire?

A few years ago I ran across this Simple 5 Step Business Plan:

1.Write down 3 aspects of your business that have an impact on sales, usually – Average income per sale per month, the average number of sales you complete per month, and how many contacts are in your file right now that helped you reach these numbers?

2. Document your numbers in each of the above categories, then based on your business goals for the coming year, project the numbers you are going to need in these categories to reach your goals for the coming year.

3. Ask yourself how you are going to increase your average income per sale per month:

  • Add a new product
  • Offer an add-on product
  • For Realtors – focus on a higher price point or investors
  • Provide the Best Product, and Service in order to generate Referrals
  • Provide a different product or service than all of your competitors.

4. Write down your ideas and commitment that will result in an increased frequency of sales per month:

  • Increase the amount of time dedicated to marketing
  • Increase the number of target market prospects in the contact file
  • Establish your expertise in a specific field; write a book or guide, start a blog.
  • Increase networking activities, both online and in-person
  • Increase the number of times you contact prospects or clients

5. Set up a spreadsheet to shows last year’s numbers in each of the 3 categories (as a starting point) and projects incremental increases in each category for you to meet your projected goals for the year.

Click for a Business Plan Worksheet.

Thank you for taking the time to read this Business Plan article, please leave your comments below.

Image: Canva Pro

Internet Marketing Tips; Promote and Protect a Brand with Social Networking

Internet Marketing Tips; Promote and Protect a Brand with Social Networking

Internet Marketing Tips; Social networking provides a way to promote and monitor a brand, leveraging Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.

Internet Marketing Tip: Drive traffic to your website on social networks.

Once your website is all set up and you are blogging on a regular basis, it’s time to start driving traffic to your site – leveraging the social networks; primarily Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Twitter.

Social media provides a way to communicate directly with your prospects, clients, and employees (if you have any). There are a couple of ‘new kids on the block’ – Instagram and Pinterest, however, most businesses need to focus (for now) on the major social networking players; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Linkedin.

An important part of leveraging social networking for business is to keep up with what is going on in your industry, and, monitoring the conversations about your brand.

Internet Marketing Tip: Use Google Alerts to monitor your brand and keep up with industry news.

If you have a Google profile (and all of you should) you can set up multiple Google Alerts to monitor your: brand, products, industry terms, etc.

What happens is simple; every day, whenever and wherever Google finds those specifically chosen keywords, they will deliver a list are news articles, social networking posts, and blogs (with those keywords)  to your inbox – every day!

Use this tool to monitor what people are saying about your brand, and to find content to share with your target market.

Internet Marketing Tip: Use Google Analytics to find out what keywords people are using to find you.

Again, if you have a Google profile, you can set up a Google Analytics account for your website, and grab a piece of code to add to your site code (before the </body>). What it is set up, Google will start providing you with detailed statistics on your website: visitors, landing pages, exit pages, keywords used, traffics sources, etc.

You can use this information to see what type of content is driving traffic to your website. With this information, you can provide more of the types of information that people want.

Internet Marketing Tip: Use Hootsuite to monitor and maintain multiple social networks from one dashboard.

Using this tool not only allows you to schedule your posts to multiple social networking sites, it also sends you a report every week that gives you some valuable insights as to how effective your social networking efforts are, what were your top posts, how many people have LIKED your page (and unliked).

Social networking not only provides you a platform to interact with your target market, it also is a good place to control your brand.

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below.

Image: Canva Pro

Internet Marketing Tips; Convert Visitors to Leads with CTAs

Internet Marketing Tips; Convert Visitors to Leads with CTAs

Internet Marketing Tip; Adding a call-to-action to a blog helps convert visitors into informed prospects giving you a chance to build trust.

In the last Internet Marketing Tip, we talked about how blogging was about establishing your expertise. It is that and so much more. Blogging is an opportunity to attract organic traffic, engage with your audience, and convert visitors into leads. To achieve this goal, you add call-to-actions (CTAs) to your posts.

Internet Marketing Tip: Add a call-to-action to every website article/blog.

What is a call-to-action?

Simply put, a CTA is a response you want users to complete. As a writer, you use words that urge the reader, listener, or viewer of a message to take immediate action, such as; Download an eBook, Follow us on Facebook, Subscribe to this blog, Join your newsletter, etc.

A CTA is also a way to convert Potentially Interested prospects into Informed Prospects in the Sales Funnel.

When the reader clicks the link, they are taken to a Sign-Up form or a landing page that provides downloadable access to more in-depth learning material materials, such as an eBook or webinar.

You could produce longer-form pieces of written content like eBooks, whitepapers, 10 step guides, or you could also produce videos, webinars and slideshows. These offers shouldn’t be randomly selected. No, these offers should be based on what types of content attract your target audience. And you can find those statistics in your website analytics.

Internet Marketing Tip; CTA’s offer gives you a chance to educate your readers.

For instance, you could provide an eBook on how to use Facebook to market a business. The offer could be a series of training videos on mobile marketing. Or you could offer a free webinar on Blogging to Promote a Business.

Internet Marketing Tip; CTA offers to convert visitors into leads.

When a visitor “opts-in”, essentially they are giving you their contact information in exchange for your offer. Once you have a contact’s email address, essentially they have opted-in to your sales funnel and you can start converting them from prospects to clients, building their trust along the way.

It’s a good idea to include CTAs both in the sidebar of your blog as well on every individual article you publish. You can include a button CTA in the sidebar and a text CTA within the body of your blog content.

Thank you for reading these Internet Marketing Tips. We look forward to your questions and comments, feel free to add your thoughts in the box below.