Effective Online Strategies for Small BusinessInitial Strategy Steps – Initial Setup

(draft 1.3)

Getting Noticed online is crucial for small business! Our mindset needs to be one of Getting Noticed in this crowded digital arena called the Internet – not like a child in grade school disrupting class – with a the prevailing theme of when folks look online to fulfill a need, our business’s feature/benefit sets are what they are presented. Additionally, we need to mix in with a little of a ‘what I want to be when I grow up’ mindset. This effort is so our Website’s Traffic – i.e. potential customers – are reassured that they can Trust us, Believe in us, know that we are Committed to assisting them long-term and ultimately Depend on us!

The result will be an explosion of your website’s traffic...• AND a better search engine PageRank...• AND building a name for yourself as an expert in your industry...• AND maintaining better customer relations...• AND gathering of new ideas for growing your business!

Whew… all without overt sales pitches!

The initial steps below will take about 2-to-3 hours of your valuable time depending on your comfort level; nevertheless it will be the backbone of your online presence. Everything mentioned here cost absolutely nothing ($0.00) except for your time. All we are doing is using a number of free online applications in concert to elevate our presence online – it is the composition of this symphony of applications, used in concert that is our secret…

Don’t let all of this intimidate… if we need help in generating ideas, we’ll get down to the marketing fundamentals and perform a SWOT on your business, your competitors and your customers (it’s a good idea to do a good SWOT a couple of times a year anyway)!

OK… now to constructing our symphony – baton in hand! The arrangement of our online symphony entails three evolutionary movements; first the review and optimization of our current website; next establishing the social media presence and finally integrate this group of musicians to create a concert of beautiful music - Traffic!

Wait, I can hear you saying… that’s all cute, but remember we have a few essential criteria for your symphony… I want my make sure we agree that our concert has the following:1. No Costs / No Money - No ongoing expenses2. No Time - Very little - and manageable - time on my behalf 3. Measurable - I want measureable results

Excellent! Deal!

1. No Money – yup, *very* little required! No ongoing expenses and very little in the way of start-up/development expenses

2. Time – you got it! We intend to automate everything possible – including your Blog! Of course, you will need to oversee the communications we publish to your traffic. We anticipate about 2 hours a week in this type of maintenance time weekly. Quite frankly, if your business’s online presence is costing you next to nothing yet not worth 2 hours a week then bailout now.

3. Measurable – bet-the-farm on it! We will both be watching the analytic metrics in order to optimize our efforts; for your business and my potential testimonial and referral

Let’s get started! with reviewing our current online presentation. We start with the fundamentals of SEO and where better – and appropriate - the website. In order to ensure growth of our website’s PageRank and AuthorityRank we need to ensure we are optimizing three essentials of our site… oh and we will need to measure a baseline/benchmark of where we are starting from:

Website Optimization Fundamentals• Structure

o Google Gravy o Keywordso Backlinkso

• Authority Rank• Traffic and Conversion Rate

Google (we all need a little GoogleLuv…)• Google Account (if you don’t all ready have one, get one)• Develop a Google Profile for you and your business• Familiarize yourself with Google News

o Create a Google Alert for your business (this is practice for your upcoming Blog)

• Register for Google Analyticso Place “Tracking Code” on EVERY webpage of your websiteo Take a ‘Baseline/Benchmark’ of our current metrics

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo Alexa.com (and our Alexa ranking)o Google Readero Google Docso Google Groups

Keywords (crucial for organic PageRank growth)

• OK, now you put me to work… I just couldn’t let you have all the fun! Isn’t it time for another sup of coffee?

• Anyway, I get to bring in my 20+ years of experience in B2b and B2c, digital, entrepreneurial as well as brick-and-mortar sales and marketing to the game. Let’s leverage your industry’s knowledge and my background to achieve the best Keywords and Keyword Phrases for you website… oh… and a lot of help from some technologies I have on hand!

• We’ll review the feature/benefit sets we first thought about and the SWOT we performed – remember those – for ‘seed words’ toward active and competitive online Keywords to develop our niche Keyword Phrases

• To bore most of you to tears; we are looking for:o SEO Traffic Value of >80 (at least 80 searches per day)o SEO Competition Value <30,000 (competitive but not too…)o PBR >15 (keyword phrase to broad rank)o As a disclaimer – these metrics will, of course, always change for

nuances such as geo-targeting, and as we return analytics from use, etc…

• We now have both; our broad and niche Keywords and Keyword Phrases

Backlinks (crucial for increasing our AuthorityRank)• Develop a number of ‘starburst’ HTML scripts for placing on client/partner/

affiliate/advertiser sites (preferably from their main page and/or on their relationship/partner page) to direct clicks to your main page (e.g. “As Seen on MySite.com”)

• Assist clients in placement on their site

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo How do your competitors, partners and customers use Backlinks

OK… we now have the some of the fundamentals in place for natural organic growth – kinda the basic doe, ray, me, fa, so, la, tee, doe of our music. Now let’s generate some activity to get those Google spiders/bots groovin’ to our tune! Let’s begin to build the composition to our Social Media melody!

… but first the BIG little secret… we are to perform in all of our Social Media music without overtly selling anything… as if we are just at the dinner party, commenting on how nice the dinner and music is… then the media will need to flow in concert, as with a melody…

Twitter (our billboard)• Create a Twitter page for your business

o We’ll work on material and followers/following later• Example: “tweets” will be mentioning our Facebook ‘Fan Page’, pictures,

calendars and changes; our YouTube videos, our LinkedIn changes, etc…

this will naturally grow our followers… and folks moving to our other instruments in our concert

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo Research experts in your industry that are on Twittero Research your competitors and customers on Twitter

LinkedIn (our rolodex)LinkedIn is the most popular business-oriented social networking site on the Web. As of May 2009, it had more than 400,000 registered users. It's a great place to find potential business partners as well as people who may be interested in our products or services

• Develop a corporate page… Lucinda to embellish…

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo Research competitors, business partners, customers and potential

customers within and use of LinkedIn

Facebook (our scrapbook)• OK, I figured this would be a good time to mention this - remember we

want to optimize our time on this and the other social media site - it is the objective of Facebook (and all Social Media sites) is to be *your* ultimate portal, so right now, let’s not get mesmerized by its glitz or potential abuses – let’s use these sites for the utility we intend to (right - let me climb down from my soapbox… who uses soapboxes anymore, anyway?)

• OK, this one gets a bit tricky; remember Facebook looks at the domain/email used, so depending how we ‘sign up’; our business will probably be created as a ‘Fan Page’ of our personal Facebook page

• Then our in-concert strategy is to create a Facebook ‘Fan Page’ for our business and encourage your customers to join. Then we can easily alert opt-in customers whenever you have updates to share about your business, calendar, etc...

•

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo Research competitors, business partners, customers and potential

customers within Facebook

YouTube (our photo album)• Remember a picture tells a 1000 tales, so imagine what a video can do!!!

That’• Therefore; using your digital cameras and video recorders take

images/pictures/videos; both still and video, of all of your company’s

events, get together’s, PR events, anything in which you and your company participates

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo Think of not only you business events, but what about sales

meetings, employee sponsored softball teams, etc..

WordPress Blog• A Blog is the ultimate online authority builder (or destructor, depending on

the use) for your business, and WordPress.org is the authorities-authority when it comes to Blogs publishing platforms (New York Times, Wall Street Journal, etc… use WordPress.org)

o We use WordPress.org• Ah, you say; but a Blog takes time… oh, contraire; we use a slick online

application WordPressDirect. WordPressDirect has been designed to handle all the setup, SEO and maintenance functions for you… Way Cool!

• In addition, we use the WordPress.org platform and the WPDirect app to present nonintrusive affiliate offers to the reader (e.g. a local map or book about the area for readers of a local directory blog)

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo www.BlogTalkRadio.com for those folks who want to bring their

blogs to the next level… online radio!o Also research blogs about your industry or perhaps an ezine in the

Directory of Ezines - http://directoryofezines.com/o

Meetups (our face-to-face network)• Familiarize yourself with the networking opportunities in your community

on www.Meetup.com • We’ll work on a specific strategy for your business

• Extra Credit – get familiar with the followingo In the DFW area - www.networkingink.blogspot.com o Start thinking of where your customer, your competitors and your

partners may be meeting in a MeetUp

And Finally• Remember, in Social Media there is NO OVERT SALES PITCHES

• And buy Nick another cup of coffee (with 2 Splenda please)…

Recommended Online and Offline Tools• Employees and Associates!!!• Digital Camera• Google News• Google Reader• Google Analytics• Google Docs• Market Samurai• Digital Video Camera

Miscellaneous

Your Website In-Concert Strategy

Can you draw the traffic between each and all of this media?

YourWebsite.com(the authority portal)

Facebook(scrapbook)

YouTube(photo album)

Twitter(billboard)

Meetup(networking)

AffiliateSites

LinkedIn(rolodex)

ClientSites

PartnerSites Ad Sites

Sites

Blog(authority)

GoogleProfile

Analytics

- Flickr- FriendFeed- 20+ Others

LeadCaptureSocial Media

Directories

Conversion$$$

LocalAdLink(local adv portal)