Exec

Better to Advertise on Google or Facebook?

Is Google dead, now that Facebook gets so much traffic? I loved the answer in a recent blog post on AttorneySync.com. Author Jeff Berman makes very good points about the importance of intent and “interruption marketing”:

“People are on Facebook to be social, interact with friends, check out interesting stories, post updates, etc. People are on Google seeking information to help them answer questions, perform research, locate services, etc.”

When – and whether – Google or Facebook is more important to you when you’re seeking new business is highly dependent on that distinction.

When someone visits Facebook they’re looking to connect, to hang out, to talk to friends, to see what’s going on with the people and businesses they know and like.

When someone searches for “Columbia plumber” their intent is quite different – they’re not looking to chat, they’ve got a toilet that’s leaking or need plumbing installed, and want to find a reputable plumber.

In my opinion, putting your website or ad or offer in front of your prospect THEN – when they’re actively looking for your product or service – is what’s going to give you the greatest ROI. Search engine optimization (SEO) – the art of making your website easy to find in Google – is a good way to make sure people find you when they’re looking.

Yes, Facebook offers ads, and because of the demographic information Facebook collects, you can really target your offers/ads. Some businesses do very well with this approach. But as Berman also points out:

“In my mind, this makes Facebook a more targeted version of television-style advertising. You are blasting out your message to a certain demographic of users (or viewers in the case of television advertising) in the hopes that you catch a certain number of them at just the right time.

The advertising is interruption marketing. You are “interrupting” the users from their socializing in order to present them with your offer. They were not actively seeking it out at the time. The result is that many, many more people need to see your message at just the right time in order for you to convert those people into new clients. “

I couldn’t have said it better, myself! There are certainly sound reasons to add social media such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn to your marketing mix.

But as Berman asserts “… doing so at the expense of marketing dollars devoted to the search channel would be a mistake.”

Who Works on Your Website?

I’ve had a couple of web design prospects tell me lately that they want employees or friends to build or design their company websites.

For example, one gentleman told me that one of his employees was “really into graphic design” and didn’t like the look of their existing, professionally designed, website. (This was a health care company, by the way.) So the business owner said something to me about letting this employee design a new site and I could just “put it up.”

Another prospect (automotive industry) told me that the husband of one of his employees wanted to learn how to build websites. So he was thinking he’d let this guy build the company site.

Folks – this is your LIVELIHOOD we’re talking about, right? Your website is your first impression to a prospect.

So why would you let someone who doesn’t know anything about it, do it for you?

In the first example – the employee may know what she likes, but it doesn’t mean she’s studied graphic design OR that she knows how a site should be laid out. And if she did create another site for the business – now there are TWO sites that need maintained. And TWO sites competing in the search engines. Not smart.

In the second example – if someone you know wants to learn how to build a site, let ’em work on their own. Suppose this employee wanted to learn how to be a mechanic – would you give them your Mercedes to work on as they learned, or some old clunker?

I DO believe in building sites that my clients can update on their own, which is why I typically build in WordPress. It’s easy to learn, you can update a site from any computer with an Internet connection, and you can assign different people varying levels of access to your site. (Plus you don’t have to pay a web designer $100 or wait two weeks to make a simple change!)

For example, an Administrator can change anything on the site, including layout options. An Author can publish and manage their own posts, nothing else.

But otherwise – if your site represents you professionally, let a professional build it for you.

2 Great Ways to Encourage Online Reviews

As you probably know, online reviews have become more and more important these days, both to get a site to rank AND because people just like to READ them.

But most clients, even if they’re happy with you, won’t get around to giving you that review without a little nudge – so you have to ask, and you have to make it easy for them.

I just got hired to redo a site for a chiropractor in Austin, TX and get it to rank, and loved this strategy he told me about.

What Dr.Swanson did is add a reviews page to his website:

He then created a business card with that URL on it.

He and his staff hand that business card out to HAPPY CUSTOMERS – and ask them if they’d be so kind as to help them out by leaving them a nice testimonial. (This way he can control reviews somewhat – they only hand the card to people who are likely to say something nice.)

As you can see, when the customer arrives at that web page, all they have to do is click on a link – they’re taken directly to the exact page on which to leave the positive review.

I think this is a WONDERFUL idea!

If you want to use business cards, you don’t have to pay a lot – try FindBusinessCards.com, you can get them as cheap as $2.99 for a small order and they’re nice cards (no ads on the back!) Or you can request reviews via email and skip the business cards altogether.

The SECOND idea I have, to encourage reviews, is basically to offer an incentive. Just tell customers that if they put a review on Google or wherever, print out of a copy of their review and bring it in, you’ll give them a discount or a free meal or a free drink. This idea is especially suited for repeat-based businesses like restaurants.

Of course you can combine these ideas – the point is to:

Set up a system for asking your best clients for a review;
Offer them a reason for doing so;
Make it easy for them.

Just wanted to pass on these two ideas, hope you find them helpful. There are companies who charge hundreds of dollars a month to help businesses generate and manage online reviews – but as you can see, it doesn’t have to cost much at all. (Yes, you or your web designer need to create that page on your site, and create accounts at whatever review sites you want – but that’s a one-time, relatively small expenditure.)

I need to put up a page like this on my own website – but in the meantime, if you feel so inclined as to leave ME a positive review (hint, hint), here a few places to do so:

Thank you! And if you like this post, please share it with your friends.

How to Create a Website for $111

Want to build your own website? You can do it for about $111, here’s what you need. Numbers are approximate, and I’m assuming you want to go the “professional” route with your own domain name and hosting.

Domain Name Registration (Godaddy): $11/year
Web Site Hosting: $100/year
Site Builder (WordPress, Weebly, others): free
Blog (WordPress): free
Market Research (Google Adwords Keyword Tool): free
Traffic Stats (Google Analytics): free
Search Engine Optimization (WordPress All-in-One SEO plugin is one way): free
Email: free with hosting; Gmail is also free
Image Editing (Irfanview, Picnik, Microsoft Picture Manager): free
Newsletter Management (Mailchimp): free
How-To Instruction (Youtube, Google, forums): free

Total Cost: $111

What else will you need to spend?
A lot of time.
A lot of effort.

Suppose that’s acceptable to you. You don’t need your site done quickly and you have lots of time to figure out how to make it look and work correctly.

What else are we missing?

Oh yeah. Copywriting expertise. Online marketing expertise. SEO expertise.

Have you heard the story of the airplane mechanic?

A very expensive and rare old airplane developed a worrisome engine noise that had mechanics baffled. They spent days trying to figure out the source of the noise, to no avail.

Finally the aircraft owner tracked down a mechanic who specialized in restoring these old planes and offered him $5,000 to find the problem. The specialist agreed.

When this expert arrived, the aircraft owner and the previous mechanics watched eagerly while the specialist listened to the engine and walked around the plane. After about 5 minutes, he asked that the engines be turned off, requested a specific screwdriver, made an adjustment to the engine and told the pilot to turn the engine on again.

Wow! The noise was gone!

So the specialist wiped his hands on a rag and presented a bill for $5,000 to the owner.

The owner and his mechanics had a quick whispered conversation. Then the owner told the specialist, “You know, $5,000 seems like an awfully large payment for 5 minutes’ work tightening a screw, don’t you think? Would you reconsider that price?”

The specialist thought a moment, nodded, took the bill and wrote on it, and handed it back to the owner.

The newly revised bill said:

1) Tightening screw on engine – $5.00

2) Knowing which screw to tighten – $4,995.00

Is your blog in the wrong location?

For optimal benefit – your blog should be on your website, on your domain name – NOT at blogger.com or blogspot.com.

I’ve talked to several business owners in the last week who are interested in hiring me for SEO (search engine optimization) work.

All have blogs – which is smart – but all have their blogs at blogspot.com. Not so smart.

For maximum search engine benefit, your blog posts need to be on your own website, your own domain name. In other words, your blog’s URL should be something like:

http://www.comoaccountant.com/blog/
instead of
http://comoaccountant.blogspot.com.

(No, linking TO your blog from your main website isn’t the same thing.)

If your blog is well-established and has been around a long time and has some good links to it and has some PageRank (in other words, if Google sees it as a popular/important site) – then it can be valuable, wherever it’s hosted. And having a valuable site link back to your main site is a good thing.

BUT most blogs don’t get that big or that popular – and you lose the search engine benefit of having the blog posts on your own domain name.

You see, when you blog you’re adding keyword-rich content to your site, which the search engines love. And you’re updating your site, showing the search engines that your content is fresh and relevant – which they ALSO love.

You’re most likely to be blogging at an external site if your primary site is built in HTML instead of in WordPress. You have to install WordPress separately, which requires some technical expertise. That’s how my site is set up right now; WordPress is installed in a subfolder of my domain.

However, I’m now converting my site to WordPress for the whole thing – and that’s one reason WordPress is such a popular site-building platform these days. It has that blog functionality is built right in.

Matt Cutts, Google’s spokesperson, recommends installing your blog on your own domain – and that’s good enough for me. If SEO is one of your major reasons for blogging, this is a change you ought to make.

No more wimpy web designers!

I’m fed up with wimpy web designers.

But unfortunately, that’s what many people (small business owners, in particular) have come to expect – it’s become the norm, because they don’t know any better.

I don’t mean body build, of course. I mean lazy people who do the bare minimum when it comes to building a website and convince unsuspecting business owners that what they just spent $5,000 on is quality work.

Web design is about a lot more than mechanics. It’s not about being able to hand-code a site. It’s not about taking a class in high school or buying a copy of Dreamweaver or figuring out how to install WordPress and dress it up.

Nor is it about having a big advertising agency or charging higher design fees than anybody else in town.

Truly powerful web designers focus on much more than just “building a website.”

They don’t just “do SEO” (search engine optimization) – they UNDERSTAND it, and have a track record of building websites that are easy to find in the search engines. They know that the most beautiful website with the most powerful marketing message is a waste if no one can find it. So they build sites accordingly.

Strong web designers also understand marketing (generally) and online marketing (specifically.) They know how people read online, how to track performance, and the importance of engaging website visitors. They know that a sexy delivery doesn’t compensate for crappy content.

You don’t have to settle for wimpy web design, and you shouldn’t.