Mobile Web Site

Mobile web browsing is on the rise with an estimate of almost 100 million monthly mobile users browsing the web. This number is certain to rise in the coming years.

Here are a few reasons to add a mobile site in addition to your main site.

• Smaller pages for smaller screen and faster loading times
• Mobile use will continue tto rise in the foreseeable future
• Searchers are often looking for a quick way to find contact details
• People are often searching for stores and businesses close to their current location, these are high conversion searches

Search Engine Optimization (SEO)

Search Engine Optimization is the art and science maximizing your website’s exposure on search engines like Google. Essentially, you are tying to increase the chance that someone searching for a product or service finds your website on search engines. Techniques include keyword research, content optimization, and making sure search engines can easily crawl and index your site.

Pay Per Click (PPC)

Pay Per Click is similar to Search Engine Optimization but with a PPC campaign you are literally paying to get to the top. You might be asking yourself, why would anyone pay for SEO when they could just pay to get to the top with PPC?  Take a look at the image below to see the difference.

PPC’s main advantage over SEO is that you can pay to get to the top and you only pay when someone clicks on your link. The disadvantage is the area PPC ads occupy in search engine results tend to get ignored by most users and once you run out of budget you are removed immediately from the results. An SEO campaign can have longer lasting effects even after you stop paying for it and people click on those results in search engines more often. Both have their place in the internet marketing world. The key is to find out what is best for you.

Social Media

Social media is being leveraged more and more as a way for businesses to communicate with their clients and customers. People can stay up to date with their favorite stores, restaurants, and businesses through Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and more. Having the ability to quickly communicate with your customers is a strategy worth considering.

Your e-commerce store can post promo codes, your restaurant can post daily specials, or just talk to your customers and get to know them.

The great thing about social media is the costs are very low. You can pay a professional to do social media marketing for you or you can set up social media accounts yourself. The choice is yours!

Email Marketing

Like social media, email marketing is another way to communicate quickly to your customers. With email marketing you can collect email addresses from customers, people who visit your website, people who you meet at conferences and other business gatherings.

Through social media you have to wait for people to follow you on Twitter or ‘Like’ your page on Facebook but with email marketing you can build a database of names. Of course, you want to do this within reason. Buying a list of names from another company or spamming people’s inbox will get you nowhere. Only send to people you have a business relationship with.

Analytics

Google Analytics and other analaytics programs allow you to track a great deal about your website and it’s visitors. You can track:

• Keywords that are being used to find your site
• Under performing pages or pages that are really popular
• How long people are staying and what they are doing when they are on there

You can have someone set up analytics for you but its also a great idea to have a professional review the analytics with you monthly. This will allow you to take action based on the results to improve your website continuously.

Five Can Help

We believe a complete internet marketing strategy starts with having a great website that is enhanced by these other great services. You may not want to include them all and that is fine! We can help you build a strategy and find out what is best for you and your business.

Give us a call: 763-972-5933

Marketing Options & Best Practices
Chamber members learned about the various ways to use Facebook to both market socially with deals and interaction as well as using direct advertising with Facebook ads.  My slides are embedded below.

It was a packed room at Wild Marsh Golf Course, with great food and a great variety of local businesses. I’ll be interested to see what they put to work out there in the coming months!

Here are a few more photos and a big thank you to the Buffalo Chamber and attendees for having me.

Feel free to give a LIKE to Five Technology on Facebook as well.

Heads Down Is A Good Thing
There was a time when a presenter would shudder at half the audience having their head down.  Now, you expect your audience to have a face glowing from their laptop, netbook, iPad or smart phone, tweeting and sharing the valuable points of your presentation.

Event attendees repeat, regurgitate and push out a ton of great information to their followers. Conduct a quick search using the event hash tag and you’ll quickly tap into a stream of great content.  How solid is that?

Benefits Of Twitter
The way I see it, every aspect of the event wins with this social sharing of the content.  Here are a few things that Twitter has amplified and improved for events:

• The presenters get more exposure & gain new followers.
• Attendees become resources to their followers.
  
• The conference/event gets much more exposure, LIVE exposure and buzz.
• Attendees find it easier to meet/network with others there tweeting.
• Those back at the office at home, get some GREAT info … FREE.
• Attendees and presenters can further connect and interact during and after the event.

Twitter Round-Up
You can even take a group of tweets from an event and turn them into a tutorial.  Search Engine News contributor Andrew Shotland did this from Local University’s Minneapolis event.  Learning Local Search Via Twitter is a true “crowed sourced” article packed with takeaway tweets from both the attendees and speakers.

What’s Your Experience?
Every event I have attended in the last few years has been made better thanks to Twitter.  Big Omaha (#bigomaha), Social Media Breakfast MSP (#smbmsp), MIMA Summit (#Mimasummit) and Local University (#localu) to name a few that are all enhanced thanks to the sharing and communicating on Twitter.

For many events that I can’t make, I’ve still learned and gained from others sharing tips, links and content with me.  Three years ago, that wasn’t likely to happen at all.

Lastly, Twitter is just the tool and connector.  It’s great people that create and share the message.  It’s incredible the amount of great people I’ve learned from and met thanks to this tool.  Talk, tweet, or RT you at the next event!

What continues to be alarming for me is the number of businesses that lack correct information online, multiple sources to be found by and online marketing strategies (no matter how small they might be).

Inc. Magazine’s recent write-up on this local search study highlighted many of the statistics compiled from the survey of 4,000 consumers surveyed and over 1 million that had their online searches monitored.

Here are a few numbers that should jump out at a business owner or marketer and make them take note:

• 70% start looking for a business online, up 7% from 2009
• 33% use Google, Bing or Yahoo – traditional search engines
• 22% use Internet Yellow Pages or directories (Yelp.com included)
• For those using local search sites, Google Places commands 41%, Bing 11% (up 7% from 2009)
• 78% of consumers say reviews and ratings factor into their purchases
• 1 in 6 searchers is frustrated by the lack of reliable & correct information about small businesses on the web
• 33% give up on a business when they can’t find the information they are looking for

So to put numbers into words, what you have online to represent your small business is huge.  So what can you do as a small business?  Here are just some of the basics:

Be Visible

• Have at least a basic web presence
• Make sure you claim your main local search listings (use GetListed.Org to check)
• Make sure you are listed on directories like Yelp, Citysearch, InfoUSA
• Look into what local sites you can be linked on or listed on – chambers, org’s, local blogs
• Look into social media: Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and blogging might be a fit for you
• The key here is to have more than a few “entrance points” into your information

Be Accurate

• Make sure your info is correct on all platforms – hours, services, products, photos, links
• There might be data on your business, but you should CLAIM your listings & data
• Develop content to build trust, show your expertise and help you win comparisons

Have A Plan

• Even the smallest plan beats hoping you’re getting out there
• Find and attend a small business workshop or seminar on local or online marketing
• Search online! There are numerous great blogs, people on Twitter and more to help you
• Seek out a trusted and recommended small business online marketer
• Research your competition, their website, their social media, their listings
• Network with other business owners

The numbers in this report are only trending higher every year for the importance of an online presence and reputation.  Get started with the basics and put an end to your “hope” marketing plan, it won’t pan out.

It was great to be around and interact with people truly wanting to learn, improve, share and take steps to trying new things.  I met and talked with so many Realtors, Brokers and Mortgage professionals that are excited and dedicated to doing more online.

If the Bar Camp concept is new to you, it’s a user generated conference format.

I enjoyed leading 3 different Real Estate Bar Camp sessions today on:

• Why Good Web Design Matters
• Social Media Q & A with Kate-Madonna (she rocks)
• Local Search Marketing – Google Maps

The organizers of this Bar Camp event did a great job and kudos to Greg Sax, Jason Sandquist, Nobu Hatu and Teresa Boardman.  I’m glad to have been asked to attend/speak by Jason Sandquist whom I’ve know on Twitter (@jasonsandquist) for 2 years, but now finally in real life as well.

Here are a few photos I managed to snap and there are many more on the REBCMN Facebook page.

As you can see from the board above, a wide range of topics were covered.   Social media, iPhone apps, blogging, search, web, video and more was delivered for the Real Estate industry.  Many commented and tweeted they were ready to get back to the office and start implementing what they had learned.

Great event, great people, great day.

Organized by GetListed.org co-founder David Mihm, the seminar featured a great line-up of experienced Internet marketers as well as Google and Bing representatives.  The Local University seminar will be heading out to other cities in 2010, bringing a fantastic wealth of information for any business or organization looking to improve their online marketing knowledge.

In just a 4 hour session, attendees took part in detailed presentations, real world case studies, Q & A sessions, how-to’s, do-it-yourself tips, resources and more.  Overall it was some incredible search, social and local/maps information, from talented presenters, all for $129. A complete steal to get a ton of  basics, the best practices and the baseline to market online.

The panel of speakers form left to right were Mikko Ollila of Bing, Ryan Hayward of Google, Matt McGee of Small Business SEM, Mike Blumenthal a local search expert, David Mihm of GetListed.org and Mary Bowling of seOverflow. Not pictured above was Spokane SEO expert Ed Reese.

Local University is a must for any business that wants real answers, real examples and access to grasp the opportunity to succeed online.

In addition to attending the seminar it was a chance for me to finally connect in person with other search marketers I have read, done business with and interacted with for some time.  I had a great time meeting a few new ones too like Mary Bowling, Mike Blumenthal (aka Professor Maps) and Mike Ramsey as the presenters took in dinner the night before.

Minneapolis In The Local University Future?
The one last piece that put me on a flight to Spokane was to attract the Local University offering to the Minneapolis area later this year.  The amount of information, the level of expertise and the complete offering would be perfect for the local business community here in the Twin Cities.

I can tell you that the event left Spokane buzzing, satisfied and hoping for another one.

Hopefully I’ll have some good news soon, but don’t hesitate to let your voice be heard with a comment below.

The events other presenter, Cindy Cofer Evert offered great insight and tips on press releases and PR.  Her info made for great web content ideas and distribution via a business blog. The group was very interested in Internet marketing, engaged and had great questions following my presentation.  Below is my slide deck from my social media talk.

Thank you to the ICBM for having me, it was a great event.

Thanks to @jonasPK of ICBM for the photos.

Twitter is a valuable communication tool for me, the same as email or phone with many people. It has far more value on my business card then our fax number or my Skype ID.  If you want to contact me, Twitter works just as well as any other method.

Do you have Twitter on your business card? Send a photo my way and I’ll post it.

Do you have other social media on your business card?  Facebook?

Bringing Social Interaction To The Duck Blind
The guys behind The Hunting Authority came to us with the goal of being the best website an avid hunter and outdoors person could find.  Great design, great content, great features and most of all, a voice for the hunter.

We jumped at the challenge to build user profiles so that visitors to the site could create their own profile and interact with each other.

Here are some of the social features we built into the website:

• Account creation with screen name
• Ability to add/edit a bio
• Ability to designate hunting interests, areas and the ability to search other members with similar interests
• Status area to announce what you’re up to
• Bulletin board to leave comments on other members profiles
• Photo gallery to add your own hunting photos
• Ability to embed YouTube or other 3rd party video players
• Ability to write your own blog articles and comment/respond
• Ability to rate and review guides, outfitters and gear
• Ability to show your favorite web links

We packed a ton of great interaction and community tools into the initial launch of the website and already have more features slated as the website takes off.  We built out all of these features on our content management platform.

Hunting Blog
The site features a hunting blog that already is packed with great hunting info, wild game recipes, dog training tips and more.

Setting up a custom blog design isn’t a big deal for us, but the fact we integrated the profile account creation and log-in with the blog was pretty great.  This made the user profile creation just a single log-in for the site and simplified their ability to comment on blog articles.  It’s nice to have your CMS and WordPress play together so nicely, for everyone’s benefits.

Guides & Gear: Give Your Review
Once registered, the website users have the ability to add, rate and review outfitters, hunting guides and the hunting gear they use to hunt with. Users can search for hunting guides and outfitters by searching states or Canadian provinces and then view detailed information.

Working Footer
Lately we have voiced our thoughts on website footers being important.  On this website we put both first, second and even some deeper levels of links and pages into the footer.  You’ll see more of this as we feel its a great usability feature.

Success In The Crosshairs
As you can see, this web design project was no small creation.  The website has many more features than what we touched on here.  If you are a hunter, we encourage you to check out TheHuntingAuthority.com and create a profile. We enjoyed the challenge of the project and look forward to continuing to build out more great features.

We can vouch that these guys are dedicated to having the best hunting website on the Interweb.  Great content, great features and giving those with the passion and knowledge a voice; that’s what The Hunting Authority is about.

But you, you’re not big.   You’re a small business and while you’re interested in tools and strategies to grow your business, you don’t know how to evaluate the Twitter buzz.  It looks like a time waster, meaningless chatter and something that falls to #524 of what you have to accomplish in your day.

You might want to reconsider. I could list out my 100 reasons a small business should get involved with Twitter, but I think having 100 different voices (comments) would be better.

So I’m putting it out to the Twitter community in the attempt to gather a total of 100 reasons or more to be on Twitter as a small business. Give me yours, leave your Twitter ID too (I’ll link it for you), and lets help those on the fence decide and all of us learn a new thing or two on the benefits of Twitter.