How Your Small Business Can Compete Using Digital Marketing

Ranking for Relevant Keywords

The first step is finding out how to rank for the keywords that are relevant to your business with search engine optimization (SEO). There is a good chance that your wallet is not as fat as the big brands, so you should avoid trying to compete for very broad and short keywords.

With digital marketing, even small to large businesses on a budget can enter the arena. The key is to reverse engineering the same strategy as your competitors but using a slightly different approach by targeting more niche keywords. These niche keywords are also called long-tail keywords. Work with your marketing company to help you identify these long-tail keywords and develop a plan to be seen for them in the search engines!


Local SEO

Another digital marketing tactic that small and large businesses can use is specialized Local SEO. It doesn’t matter if your business has national or local offerings; this form of optimization can work for you!

Many big brands are not always competing for relevant keywords in a local area, which gives you an opportunity to take advantage of. For example, you would be using local SEO to rank for a keyword like “used cars in .....(your area).” In general, customers who use location-based keywords are much further along in the buying cycle. Yes, these keywords yield a lower search volume, but they generally convert better than the more generic “used cars” keyword search.

Your small or large business will likely have an easier time maintaining strong rankings for these types of keywords. If your business actually has a physical address, Google Places for Businesscan propel you to the top of the first page of the SERPs.


Pay Per Click Advertising

Pay per click advertising on Google AdWords or Microsoft adCenter is a great digital marketing tactic that can give your small or large business immediate results. This form of advertising is instant, meaning you could have an ad on the first page of Google results for a highly competitive keyword today. As a result, you can immediately start driving highly targeted visitors to your website. How it works is you pay Google or Microsoft based on how many times your ad is clicked.

Once again, if you have a low budget, you’ll need to take advantage of more specific, long-tail keywords that have a lower pay per click cost. If you choose to bid on broad, high-volume keywords, your budget may not yield a positive ROI.

Though the list of digital marketing strategies can go on and on, these are just a few of the most popular search engine marketing tactics that your business can take advantage of, especially when using an expert marketing company.

This is a guest post provided by Amit from ByteLaunch a Californian firm providing a wide range of web marketing services.

5 Steps to a Compelling Social Media Identity

Social media's grip on our lives is increasing. I spend far less time watching TV or reading newspapers now than I did ten years ago.

That means we all, or those of us who need to earn a living, must create our own social media identities, to ensure we don't get left behind. Here are 5 basic steps to ensure we have a compelling social media identity:

1. Good Profile. Make sure your profile, picture and the description of who you are and what you have done is appropriate and as interesting as you can make it. That means using a picture of your face, if at all possible, including a link to any web site you have, and telling us what city or country you are in. If you provide a reason for us to follow you all the better.

2. Great Content. Can you write a few hundred words? Can you take great pictures? Can you take short videos? Can you speak about what you do? If you can do any of these things you can create great content. Do it regularly, once a week say, and you will get better over time. And create items that link, in a series. And let people follow you.

3. Be Regular. This is what will make your site or blog or podcast compelling. If people know you will have something new up every week they will come back every week. Put content creation in your diary. It's not only good for your identity, it will also be good for your self esteem, sense of purpose and general well being.

4. Be Linking. Curation, finding great content and linking to it, is one of the key tools of social media.Install Bufferapp.com (no affiliation) and link great content. I've even created a Flipboard magazine, which includes mostly curated content. Find a way to curate and link.

5. Reply every Day. I reply to all emails, all mentions on Twitter, all Facebook comments within 24hrs, unless I am on holiday or sick. Check your social media daily. It only takes 10 minutes. And reply. Social media is meant to be social.

I beliece social media will lead to a Renaissance in creativity. You can't do it well without creating stuff. This is great news. We all have to do something, not just get lazy and watch others, like TV makes us do. Our brain, our lives and our future will all benefit if we create. This is why I am so optimistic about social media.

If you have any questions about our services let me know: lpobryan@gmail.com

Social media & change in Turkey

I was in Istanbul last week and I took this picture of the informal plaques to the martyrs of Gezi Park, where six people were killed during the recent demonstrations against the government in Turkey.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Recep Erdogan recently described Twitter as a "menace & a troublemaker".

Turkey's Gezi Park protests were a clear example of a Twitter revolt. Twitter, it seems, is a better tool for protest in Turkey than Facebook.

The following chart from Edrandvalue, shows Twitter users posting #hashtags about the protests and who they supported. 

Erdogan has a Twitter account with almost 3 million followers, but Twitter is a communication channel he cannot control. His own account is controlled by his office and Tweets about his speeches.

The protests united different groups and showed that Twitter is changing the dynamics of mass communication. State control is weakened if communication channels are open to all.

This is well understood in China and Russia, where alternative regional services predominate.

We must also be aware that the show is not over in Turkey. The forces determined to turn Gezi Park into a shopping centre are still circling, waiting for their moment. Social media organised a significant protest, which has delayed things, but there is a long game going on in Turkey, which we do not yet know the outcome to.

My only hope is that a way can be found for all of the people in Turkey to live in freedom, without any more deaths.