It’s hard to believe that just six years ago, in 2006, nobody had a smartphone or iPad.  Now, it’s hard to find someone who doesn’t have one of these devices.

As a result, marketers themselves are still attempting to learn how to leverage these devices for maximum profitability.  Here are some of the mistakes many marketers see over and over:

1. Design an advertisement or app that is “cool.”  This one actually goes for just about every form of marketing that is out there – radio, television, print, internet, and mobile devices.  Designing an advertisement you think is cool doesn’t necessarily mean consumers will find it cool themselves.
   If an advertisement is cool, it attracts people’s attention, which is good.  But, everyone will remember the “cool” factor and not your product or service.  Your advertisement, no matter where it is run, must always answer the question, “What’s in it for me?”

2. Using the wrong content.  Before smartphones, mobile marketing meant sending text messages with a quick-response code.  Now, after smartphones, you may send prospective purchasers to a website, video, or to download a trial version of an app.  If you are going to engage in a mobile marketing campaign, avoid sending links to content that won’t work on a particular device.  Sounds easy, but many companies often forget.

3. Excessive targeting.  Mobile devices can track all sorts of information that can assist with targeting a particular market.  You’ll never target one perfectly, so make your best decision and go with it.  A certain margin of error exists in every campaign – feel free to make mistakes in yours.

4. Ignoring consumer privacy rights.  United States consumers are highly concerned with their privacy rights.  And, the law surrounding these rights is complex – you may be breaking it without even realizing it.
   Make sure every action you take follows all industry regulations prior to collecting any information.  Always ask for customer permission and publish a link to your privacy policy on all advertising messages you send and all website pages.

5. Using a .com ending on your mobile website.  If you are providing a mobile experience on your website, make sure the site ends in .mobi.  Many large companies use something like http://www.example.com/mobile.  If you have a .mobi domain name, people instantly know you optimized the site for mobile devices.  This builds trust and their desire to use your site.

Are You Making any of These Mistakes?

No one really knows the best strategy for making use of mobile marketing.  But, refinements are slowly being made.  Did you notice yourself making any of these mistakes?  What are some others you can recall that you might have made?

Next week I will be writing about the newest technology in mobile marketing. It’s called Near Field Communications or “NFC” and it will revolutionize not only the way to push ads to consumers smart phones, but also the way we pay at the register. Stay Tuned!!

Many of you have heard many times how LinkedIn is a very powerful marketing tool for businesses.  Most of the clientele are independent professionals, or professionals who may have access to certain connections within businesses.

You’ve heard stories of people and professionals who’ve been able to grow their bottom line substantially by making the most of LinkedIn.  But, how does this work, and what steps can you take to make the most of this tool?

1. Enhance your Search Engine Optimization.  Make sure everything in your profile is publicly viewable.  Then, make sure any links or any other readable text is filled with the keywords for which people might be searching for your services.

2. Join with Groups and be Active with them Regularly.  LinkedIn is a giant network of its own, but there are many small groups located within.  In these groups, people can hold discussions, post articles, and aggregate RSS feeds.  Shared groups with other contacts also allow you to instantly form a connection with that other person.

Posting your thoughts within these groups broadcasts your knowledge on a topic and may drive people to your blog or seek you out as a resource on a particular topic.

3. Answer Questions.  Not only does answering questions within groups build your profile, but there is also a general questions section available where anyone can post questions or answers.

By taking a few minutes each day to give others the answers to the questions they want, you will eventually get what you want – their trust and more business!

4. Create Your Own Group.  Creating your own group is the final piece to any marketing puzzle on LinkedIn.  You will need to have many strong connections with other people for this to be successful.

Don’t create the group just to get your message out in front others – create it as a place where contacts feel welcome to post their own discussions.  Your group members should be the first to benefit from the creation of the group and your business the last.

5. Create an Ad Campaign.  LinkedIn presents an incredible opportunity for you to target key business contacts.  And, you know the market is already very interested in business-related information.  You can pay for either clicks or impressions, and you have the peace of mind knowing that random people won’t be wasting your valuable advertising dollars.

Now you know how to more skillfully leverage the power of LinkedIn – where do you think this tool will take your business?

Actually, the algorithm is so complex that no human mind could memorize or fully understand its internal operations.  Google is the closest thing to artificial intelligence without actually being artificial intelligence.

Very basically, here is how search engines work, and what each part of the process has to do with SEO:

1. Indexing.  While the internet is almost too big to comprehend and grows more every day, imagine there is a linear roadway to follow from one end of the internet to the other.

Search engines send out programs, called “robots” or “crawlers,” whose job it is to scour this roadway on a regular basis to see what new information is available.  They do this by way of links.

Once each page is found, small snippets of information are retrieved and sent to hard drives, which store the information so users can access it with ease.

2. Provide the best answers.  After search engines have indexed all available information, their next job is to provide the most relevant and important information available to each user’s query.

Search engine optimization involves helping your site become both relevant and important for particular keyword queries.  Google’s algorithm takes into account somewhere around 200 different factors when deciding which content is the most relevant and important for a particular search.

Why Google is the Most Popular Search Engine

Quantifying relevance and importance, for a search engine, will never be perfect.  Attempting to replicate the human mind and what it believes to be the most important result for a particular search term is impossible.

In the past, relevant meant all you had to do was place a particular keyword in the title of the page and several places throughout the rest of the page in order to rank highly for a certain keyword.  People learned how to manipulate the search engines very quickly and get junk content to rank highly.

Now, however, the process is much more complicated than in the past.  No one knows the precise method for getting your content to rank first for a particular search term.  But, people have discovered guidelines that maximize your chances of doing so.

Google has become the most popular search engine because it helps people find what they are searching for far better than any other search engine.  It accounts for roughly 80% of all searches performed in the U.S. and about 90% of all searches worldwide.

However, Google is not perfect.  I’m sure you can recall many times where you have searched on certain terms and wondered why you were getting the results you found!

But, it is the best at what it does by far, and you can expect to continue to be using Google for some time into the future!

If your website is not receiving enough traffic, maybe it’s time you contact a search engine marketing company or SEO specialist like Zen Design Firm. We can help!

Web marketing, internet marketing, search engine optimization, SEO, search engine marketing – all these terms mean very similar things.  However, what you may or may not know is how web marketing works.

To be truthful, most SEO companies will tell you increasing your rankings in the search engines is not all that difficult – and this is true.  But, the catch is that it’s very time-consuming.  Once you master a successful strategy, however, web marketing helps you become substantially more profitable.

Here are some strategies search engine optimization firms use to help market your company’s products and services online:

1. An effective back-linking strategy.  Back-linking is the pillar of your search engine ranking success.  You can create back-links on your own, if you want.  But, SEO companies know sites that will provide the best kind of back-links.  And, they have databases filled with thousands of websites with a great reputation with Google.

Many sites are not trusted at all by Google, which means links from those sites are worth next to nothing.  Compiling a database of trusted websites takes extensive amounts of time and patience.

2. Constant research.  Google’s algorithm is always changing.  Somewhere around 15,000 changes are tested per year.  200-300 of those are implemented.  About 20-30 actually make it to the attention of the public.

An SEO firm has to constantly test its back-linking strategies for effectiveness.  And, it has to stay on top of those algorithm changes because the major changes can seriously hurt your rankings in the search engines.

3. Content marketing.  Sales hype and sales pages are quickly going by the wayside on the internet.  The new way to sell involves writing meaningful content for your targeted audience.  Your audience slowly begins to get to know, like, and trust you.  As these three factors grow, your audience begins to purchase from you.  Sales is a long-term game online.

In addition to writing valuable content, there are a variety of techniques for writing in ways that are most appealing to your targeted audience.

4. On-page optimization.  An SEO firm will help you determine which keywords are the best for your business to work with.  Then, it will help you place those keywords throughout your website in order to achieve maximum benefit from Google.  The firm will also help you make sure your page’s title and META title are optimized for maximum search engine visibility.

5. Internal linking.  Links that link to other pages on your site should all point to the most important pages on your site.  An experienced web marketer will help you make decisions on what pages to link to.  Google also views these pages as more important than the rest, and these pages will rank higher in its rankings than others.

That’s Not All Folks!

These aren’t the only strategies for web marketing, but they cover the most often used and most effective strategies for maximizing your rank.  An experienced SEO expert helps you go through every last detail so you achieve optimum rank.

But hey, at least you know more about how the process works.  If someone asks you, then you can share with him or her some of the basics.

But, you’re not quite sure how to even use social media to your advantage.  While there is no set strategy for developing a massive following, here are some things you can do (and not do) to maximize the chances you develop a substantial following:

Do

• Interact with your followers on a regular basis.  All social media are about interacting.  Use a very fine balance of self-promotion combined with strategic shares of relevant information.

Start conversations by making controversial (but not rude) points, or asking thought-provoking questions.

• Be consistent.  If you sign up for ten different websites and attempt to only use just a few, stick with the few and not all ten.  Consistency helps develop a great following.

If you find yourself not responding to people’s questions or posting helpful and informative content, you will never develop the following you are seeking.

• Use a different strategy for each social media site you engage.  If you use the same strategy for Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, you are shooting yourself in the foot.  Each site has its own unique ins and outs, and the audiences all behave in a unique way.

Research each social media site and then develop a specific strategy.

Do Not

• React emotionally when someone criticizes you.  On the internet, everyone is a little more brave than they are in real life.  If you haven’t been publicly criticized, you simply have not been in the industry long enough!

At some point, it will happen.  But, when does it happen, don’t respond in an emotional way.  Thoughtfully analyze the criticism you received in an objective manner.  Many times, there are many other people thinking the same thing as this person, and if you successfully address the complaint, your business may begin growing once again!

If the person is simply making baseless or obscene criticisms, respond with grace and candor.  You don’t have to attempt to make the person look like a fool – they have already done it to themselves, and most other people realize that.

• Treat people as numbers.  Word of mouth does get around, and it gets around fast.  Take the time to treat each person in a respectful way – you never know how many other customers they may know that they would refer in your direction if you choose to treat them well.

• Ignore your audience.  If you are publicly criticized, or if questions are asked, do respond.  You can disagree, but make sure you do so in a polite way.  The more people sense that you care about them, the more likely they are to become long-timer customers.

Treat Others As You Would Like them to Treat You

Simply follow the golden rule and everything will be all right.  You can never guarantee how many followers you will gain, but by treating people with respect you will maximize your chances for social media marketing success!

One huge advantage of mobile marketing is that it is one of the least costly forms of advertising.  With all that in mind, what are some of the tips you can use in order to be successful?  Take a minute and learn more:

1. Mobile devices have a more on-the-go aspect than anything else, including social media.  It seems obvious when you really think about it, but people are paying attention to their mobile devices in the last few seconds before a meeting, while they are on the subway, or just as they are walking in to work.

With social media marketing, you have 140 characters to grab someone’s attention.  If you are marketing via text message, you must have a quick and attention-getting message that is benefits-oriented.  The call to action must also be very clear.

2. Use second-chance offers.  This tactic targets people who really prefer to think things through prior to buying.  They almost never make a purchase when they first learn of an offer.

So, what you do is send them a second-chance offer.  Inform them of the details of the prior offer, and show how this offer gives them even more value than the first.

3. Make sure your message is relevant to your audience and business.  You probably already have a good idea of what your audience wants based on your conversion rates.

However, what you may forget to account for is to make offers relevant to your business.  For example, if you offer a $1,000 cash prize to one out of 2,000 people who sign up for your opt-in list, you are primarily attracting people interested in the $1,000, not your product or service.

However, if you run a restaurant, you may make the special prize a free meal for two at your location.  This way, you are attracting people interested in your company’s products or services.  Later on, when you market to your growing list, you will receive much higher conversion rates.

4. Make your audience feel special.  Instead of making it seem as though just about anyone can sign up for your special offer, instead tell them, “Join our exclusive Mobile VIP Club, which features discounts and special offers for mobile users only.”

You might even charge a small fee for people to belong to the club, which makes it seem even more exclusive.  Not only does exclusivity make people feel more special and willing to part with their mobile phone number, but it also generates more qualified leads.

Next Time, Your Mobile Marketing Campaign Will be More Successful!

When you begin advertising to mobile users, keep these tips in mind.  They won’t guarantee success, but they do make it more likely in the long run.  

Unfortunately for them, many others know precisely what it is, and they are gaining a strong edge on businesses who remain clueless.

What Exactly is SEO?

If you look at the words “search engine optimization” carefully, then you find the explanation.  Basically, you are optimizing your website for search engines.  In plain speak, this means making it easier for Google to identify the topic of your website and rank it for the appropriate keywords.

The SEO industry is still growing because not everyone is aware of its benefits, which are very real.  It’s so young that many people run their own SEO companies out of their basements and make a great living doing so.

How Does it Work?

Before you consider how SEO works, there are a few things you should know about Google:

• Google has a complex, 200-factor algorithm it uses to rank websites.
• The algorithm is kept totally secret, even from most Google employees.
• There are 15,000 tested changes to the algorithm each year.  About 200 of these are implemented, and about 25 reach the awareness of the general SEO community.
• Google encourages the use of SEO, but only when used in a fair way.

In reality, no one can tell you precisely what works or how well it works.  But, based on tests different companies have performed, they are able to say what they do does help, but they cannot be sure when you will see the desired effects.  A reasonable company might say, “We can say, with a high degree of confidence, we can help you rank for your targeted keyword in about 3 months.  But, we cannot guarantee that.”

Every company has its own method for performing SEO – there are multiple ways of achieving positive outcomes.  Some swear by methods others would never touch.  In general, here are some methods companies use to help you rank higher for your targeted keyword:

1. Back linking – Every company uses a back linking strategy.  Google loves the anchor text on back links, which helps tell Google what your site is about.  Google also likes links from reputable and high quality websites.  Each SEO company has its own database and strategies for back linking.  All strategies help, but some are better than others.

2. Keyword placement in your site’s content – Many companies disagree about which tactics are best here.  Google analyzes your site for keywords.  If you spam your keywords (use too many), or place them in spots where they make no sense, Google gives you less love.

In general, if you place your keywords in your content at a rate of 1.0-1.5%, and in the META title tags and a couple of the headings, Google likes it.

3. Content marketing – This broad term can refer to many things.  You may distribute a press release in the hopes it goes viral, post your content on other blogs, or submit your content to any of the social bookmarking sites.

If your content manages to go viral, which is difficult to do, you can receive hundreds of back links and tons of traffic for free!  Businesses are also increasingly recognizing the benefits of blogging, and the amount of money they are allocating for content marketing is skyrocketing.

There’s Much More to SEO than This!

These ideas simply help you to get familiar with SEO.  The more research and testing a company performs, the stronger of an edge it has on competitors.  Most SEO companies can produce the results you want, but the better ones can produce those results at a faster pace and lower cost.

However, many web design companies often forget about their clients.  The ones that do create great graphical layouts that are confusing to navigate, develop expansive flash menus that load slowly, or add “really cool” widgets that only aggravate impatient visitors.  These guidelines seem pretty obvious to most, but you would be surprised how often they are violated.

In addition to some of the more obvious guidelines, there are some other less-common tips you may not be aware of.  Take a minute and learn about some of these:

1. Make sure every page on your site has something valuable to offer your visitors.  This may go without saying for some, but don’t design pages just because you think they are cool.  The pages may be cool, but your visitors will have a more difficult time finding the information that is important to them.  If it offers value to your visitors, then your page is “cool.”

2. Avoid blinking or scrolling text, animated GIFs, and auto-loading sound.  These all distract your visitors from the reason they are really at your site – to get information and purchase your product or service.  In many cases, they simply irritate your visitors.  In cases of users with slow internet connections, your page loads more slowly, and then they get annoyed and leave.

3. Don’t use pop-up windows or live on-screen actors.  When your site has that initial pop-up window requesting users to sign up for a newsletter, they’re thinking, “Get me out of here!”

Live on-screen actors may seem cool at first, but name the last time you paid careful attention to one at someone else’s site!  You might say, “Hey, that’s interesting.”  But, once the person starts yammering while you are trying to browse what you really came to the site for, you immediately close that site out and find another one with similar information.

4. Limit clicking as much as possible.  If it takes 1 click to get to important information on your site, most users will find it.  If it takes 2 clicks, the number of users reading that information falls dramatically.  If it requires 3 clicks, the number of users that find that information falls even further.

In most cases, it works best if your users need 2 clicks to get the information they need.  In addition to an attractive design, ease-of-use is at least as important, if not more so.

5. Use proper grammar and spelling.  Even just one typo on your home page substantially hurts the trust your visitors put in you.  A few typos buried here and there deep in your site are okay.  Keep in mind people buy from those they know, like, and trust, and if you allow too many typos on your website, you ruin people’s trust, and ultimately, their desire to buy from you.

Now You Know a Little More!

Now that you know these tips, you will be able to increase the number of visitors who stop by your site repeatedly.  Many of these tips seem pretty obvious, but you would be surprised how many websites violate them over and over!