Still Not on Twitter? Here are 10 Reasons You Should Be.

Check out my blog post and contribution to the Search Influence blog about the importance of business presence on Twitter. Happy tweeting!

5 Tips to Improve Local Search Rankings Even If You Don’t Have a Physical Location

Check out my May blog post for the Search Influence blog on optimizing for service area businesses without a physical location here. Happy reading!

‘Tis the Season: Ten Ways to Enhance Your Online Presence All Year Round

Check out my latest blog post that I wrote for the Search Influence blog on the topic of seasonal SEO. I would post my blog post here, but duplicate content is not good for Google’s ranking algorithm!

http://www.searchinfluence.com/2015/10/tis-the-season-ten-ways-to-enhance-your-online-presence-all-year-round/

5 Reasons Why LinkedIn Serves an Important Role for Your Business’ Social Media Marketing (SMM) Plan

Because of the technological age we live in, using social media as a business strategy is now a necessity- not an option. When creating a social media marketing plan, small businesses may be inclined to use popular platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram but overlook the strategic advantages of LinkedIn. In creating a social media marketing plan, businesses should not underestimate the importance of LinkedIn.

To understand why LinkedIn is important to your company, let’s first examine what a social media marketing plan is. 

 What is a Social Media Marketing (SMM) Plan?

A social media marketing plan is a strategy developed by a business to utilize social networking sites as a marketing tool in order to positively influence consumers to a brand, product, or company. With over 1.47 billion internet users on social media sites, businesses want to meet their target markets where they are at and that means social media.

Keep in mind that the purpose of a social media marketing plan should be tailored in a manner that meets the overall goals of your marketing department. In other words, the point isn’t just to exist on social media but to utilize these platforms strategically as a means to connect and develop relationships with your target audience.

LinkedIn: The Forgotten Child of Your Small Business?

LinkedIn is an online social network for business professionals. Unlike other social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, LikedIn is tailored for professional networking to find jobs and connect with other business professionals. Because LinkedIn does not offer room for informal conversation, small businesses may overlook its niche in offering several strategic advantages.

1. Having a presence on LinkedIn increases your relevancy when it comes to SEO. Increasing SEO is especially important for small businesses that compete in saturated industries. The more present your company is on social media, the more prevalent it will be on a search engine results page. Excluding LinkedIn from your SMM plan can be a disservice because your business will be missing opportunities for inbound/outbound links and to use keywords.

2. LinkedIn users appeal to a demographic of individuals who are either employed or seeking employment, indicating access to a higher disposable income. Having top of mind awareness for these target markets on LinkedIn can lead to higher conversion rates.

3. By being available on LinkedIn, brand loyalists have another outlet to express their loyalty to your company. Think 80-20 rule. Your business wants to continue to find ways to engage the 20%. Moreover, when brand loyalists connect with other users on LinkedIn, the pages a user follows will be visible to his or her connections, thus illustrating the iceberg effect.

4. According to the online textbook Stukent, providing your audiences on social media with helpful information is a powerful method for earning trust and gaining attention through social media. Being a resource positions a business as an expert as well as showing the company cares about the target audience’s needs. Through LinkedIn, companies have the opportunity to post articles or links, receive recommendations, answer discussion questions, and showcase certain products or events. Demonstrating credible thoughts on LinkedIn will allow your business to be resourceful while earning trust to better position your business.

5. Finally, LinkedIn offers your business the ability to grow its brand awareness by fostering strategic partnerships and finding potential clients. 

What benefits have you gained from creating a business profile on LinkedIn?

Why Using SEO & Paid Search Will Positively Benefit Your Company

Utilizing both paid search and search engine optimization (SEO) for your company’s online marketing plan will provide the most efficient results in standing out against competitors.

I recently began a new marketing internship with a local New Orleans candle company, Fleur De Light New Orleans. With my internship, I have been using my knowledge of e-marketing to find ways to better communicate the company’s meaningful CSR initiative to target markets. 

Thus, in my recent work with search engine marketing, I’ve been wondering: is SEO or paid search the best route when it comes to e-marketing? The answer is both.

A little background

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is crafting a webpage so that it will rank high for organic results on the search engine results page (SERP) due to its relevance to the search terms. Paid Search is a strategy where a company purchases keywords so that when these keywords are searched for, the company’s ad will appear in the sponsored/paid ad section at the top of the page. Paid ads are located at the top or side of the SERP. 

According to Stukent, Studies show that 79% of people (4 out of 5 people) will click on the organic results found on a SERP. 80% of people never click on the paid results. Given that organic results are proven to be more successful in driving traffic over paid results, why even bother with paid ads?

The answer: While having your webpage rank highly on a SERP ‘s organic results is a benefit for long-term relevance and traffic, it would be unwise to underestimate the power paid ads can have when we’re talking about conversion rates. Hosting paid ads are bound to attract a percentage of consumers seeking to make a quick choice.

For example, suppose I want to buy a new pair of rain boots online. When I Google the keyword “rain boots”, the results on my SERP show paid ad images of different styles of rain boots. Seeing the paid ad images at the top of the page, I decide to avoid the hassle of sifting through the organic results to find the right pair by instead clicking on the paid image. In this case, a paid ad led to a higher response and a conversion.

The Whopper versus The Big Mac

I’d like to expand on this idea as it applies to product marketing. A company can utilize search engine marketing for a specific product. If a product is controversial, paid ads can attempt to offset negative publicity.

Let’s look at the example of The Whopper and The Big Mac. Despite sustained popularity over the years, both burgers are known for its high levels of oils and fats. 

When we Google the keyword “The Whopper,” no paid ads are shown. Among the top organic results is a link to a landing page that compares The Whopper to the Big Mac—not very ideal for a company that is second in market share to McDonald’s.  

On the other hand, we see that McDonald’s has employed a better strategy through paid search ads. After searching “The Big Mac” as a keyword, the first four results on the SERP are paid ads linking to The Big Mac Museum, a Wikipedia article, and two more links to the McDonald’s national website about the contents of a Big Mac. This is an excellent marketing strategy on behalf of McDonald’s because the company can leverage itself against the negative publicity (such as the lawsuits relating to the Big Mac that are in the news) that is also shown on the same SERP.

What are your thoughts on search engine marketing strategies?