Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

In the digital world, three letters – SEO – carry a lot of power.

SEO stands for ‘search engine optimization’.  It describes the process by which you make your website as visible and attractive to search engines as possible. Why would you want that to happen? Simple – the more visible your website, the easier it is for people to find it.

For example, if your main keyword is ‘gardening equipment’, your website – properly optimized – will appear higher on the list that comes out when someone types in ‘gardening equipment’ into Google or Bing and hits enter.

And since the vast majority of people click on the top three results, you’re more likely to receive traffic.

When it comes to SEO, there are two broad categories: paid and unpaid (or organic). We’ll look at paid here.

Paid SEO

Paid SEO basically means paying for exposure. In other words, you are buying ‘space’ online, and that space directs traffic to your website.

This differs from organic because organic is achieved just by what’s on your website and any linked content (like a separate blog, incoming links, social media, etc).  With paid SEO, you are purchasing access to traffic.

The most popular example, arguably, is Google AdWords.  Google AdWords allows you to basically bid on a keyword and pay Google for every visitor that reaches your website from ads and other placements.

So, if you bid on ‘gardening equipment’ and it costs, say, $0.05 per click, you would pay a nickel every time someone clicked on the ad or banner and goes to your website.

Paid SEO is useful when it comes to generating as much exposure as possible as a part of an integrated campaign with organic SEO.  You can’t just use paid SEO; you’ll need to work on your website too. But for casting a big net – and getting targeted (i.e. relevant) traffic – paid SEO can definitely come in handy.

Consult with an expert to determine if paid SEO is for you! For more information, email info@wbn-marketing.com.

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

Search engine optimization (SEO) is an exceptionally powerful way to draw attention to your website by making your site as attractive as possible to search engines.

Essentially, your goal is to show Google, Bing, and the rest that your website is the most relevant and authoritative website for a particular topic or keyword.

SEO helps achieve that by showing Google’s search algorithm what your website has to offer and that it is directly relevant to and useful for whatever people search for.

For example, if your keyword is ‘Naples babysitting’, you want your website to be the first one that shows up if someone types ‘Naples babysitting’ into Google. The only way to make that happen is to show Google that your information is useful, relevant, and credible.

There are lots of tips and tricks to make that happen, but right now, we’ll just cover one specific type of SEO: organic SEO.

Organic SEO

Put simply, organic SEO is unpaid SEO that comes from the content on your website and any content you generate that is connected, in some way, to your website.

This is in contrast to paying for traffic with ads, banners, or sponsored links.

Every word you put on your website is organic SEO. That blog post you wrote last week is organic SEO. Your LinkedIn bio, your Facebook profile, a guest blog post on someone else’s website, and other placements are all organic SEO.

Organic SEO is a terrific way to boost your website’s attractiveness and show you are reputable by having others link to your website. One way Google rates websites, for example, is by counting the number of relevant links that link to a particular site or page.

This shows Google that people like your content and think it is useful and relevant enough to link to – which only helps you.

Using paid SEO has its place, but you absolutely must have organic SEO for your site.  Otherwise, your website will be off the radar – and that means you get less traffic.

If you’re interested in learning more about how organic or paid SEO can help bring qualified customers to your website, contact us today at info@wbn-marketing.com or call (239) 919-0933.

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

When it comes to marketing, by far the most important part of any marketing approach—whether online or in print—involves knowing who your customers are. Once you know your customer, you can tailor your marketing approaches to best reach your targeted audience—and therefore have a higher chance of turning these reaches into sales.

Who Are Your Customers?

The first thing you should know about your customers involves their demographic information and habits. Who are your customers? Where do they live? What is their gender? For example, if you own a nail salon, then more than likely your target audience will be females within a certain age range. Knowing who your audience is and their demographic information can go a long way in helping you to determine the best way to target customers with similar demographics.

Where Do Your Customers Get Their Information?

After determining who your customers are, it is then essential for you to determine how they obtain information. Do they get their information online? On television? In newspapers? Knowing this information will help you to determine where you should spend the majority of your marketing efforts.

For example, if you determine that many of your customers spend a lot of time on Facebook, then it is wise for you to utilize that social media platform to help reach your audience. On the other hand, if your customers mainly get their information from the local newspaper—in print or online format—then advertising in this method may be your best bet in reaching your audience.

What Do Your Customers Respond To?

Once you have determined the best medium of reaching your customers, it is then time to test the waters to determine which methods they respond best to—what gets them to take the desired action. This most effective method will vary depending upon your target audience and therefore it is best to try a variety of methods and track your ROI to see which method is working best. Keep the methods that are working—stop doing the ones that are proving to be ineffective.

At the end of the day, when marketing your business you must know your customer, how they get their information, and what will encourage them to take action. Knowing this information and tailoring your marketing efforts will go a long way in increasing your marketing ROI.

Do you have questions about how to reach your audience, either through online marketing, the right marketing mix, or social media? Contact WBN Marketing today at info@wbn-marketing.com or call (239) 919-0933.

With that being said, picking just one tool and depending solely on it is a recipe for disaster – or at least wasted money and opportunity.

This especially applies to social media, viewed by many businesses as a be-all, end-all solution to their marketing problems.  Sure, social media is exciting. Sure, social media is popular and widespread.

But social media can’t do everything for you – and here’s why.

There Are People Social Media Can’t Reach

We’d like to think everyone is online and plugged into the social media world.

But, that’s not the case. Millions of Americans alone aren’t online. Sure, roughly 51% of Americans have a Facebook account, but that’s deceptive. Many of these are not active; they may have an account, but that doesn’t mean they check it regularly (if ever).

For Twitter, that number is even smaller. Only 6% of Americans use Twitter on a regular basis.

So, there are people who aren’t usually reachable via social media. Now, the people that you want to reach may very well be the kind that are online on a regular, consistent basis and use Facebook and Twitter frequently. And, chances are, if they’re not online, someone they know well is.

Still, there are many people who can’t be consistently reached online.

Social Media Advertising Doesn’t Always Work

Social media advertising can be an effective way to reach audiences outside of your network, but the commercial benefits are less than desirable.

Take ads on Facebook, for example. The click-through rate (CTR) measures how many people who see the ad click on the ad and go to the linked page or website. Average CTR for a Facebook ad varies, but typically ranges from 0.02% to 0.04%. That is incredibly small.

If you have a potential client base of, say, 100,000, that means 20 will click on your ad. For 1,000,000, that’s just 200 people.

For many small businesses, that’s definitely not worth it.

Social media has incredible value, but that is all you do, you’re not doing enough. Social media can be a GREAT strategy to add into your overall strategy, but should NEVER be the sole strategy!

If you want as much qualified traffic as possible to your website – and who doesn’t? – you need something powerful and dominant: relevant content.

Content is anything that people can read, watch or listen to. On a website, it refers to the information on your pages.  For social media, it refers to your posts and tweets. For a blog, it refers to your posts.

Content fulfills two purposes: It provides useful information for your visitors (which makes people want to go to your website and want to read more); and it makes your website more attractive to search engines.

The general rule of thumb is this: You can never have too much good, high-quality, relevant and useful content. The more, the merrier. Think of it like drawing a winning ticket out of a raffle. The more tickets you have in the raffle, the better your chances of winning.

Here, we’ll talk about a few types of content and how they help.

Types of Online Content

Here are the main categories of content and how many people correctly use them to help their website visibility.

• Website content: Every website needs well-written content that is easy to read, informative, and correctly optimized with keywords. This is a requirement.
• Social content: Search engines are beginning to incorporate social content into rankings. Social content is anything you share online through social media networks. LinkedIn profiles, Google + pages, Twitter tweets – all will become increasingly integrated into search results.
• Blog content: Your blog is a powerful driver of SEO. Each blog post is like a mini-page, and you can target specific keywords and sub-keywords with separate posts.
• Outside content: This is your content that is placed on external websites – either a guest blog post, an article you’ve written and submitted, bookmarking websites, and the like.

Aim for a healthy mix of these categories. Try to incorporate all of them into your plan.  If you can, you’ll have a stronger web presence. Just remember: Content must be updated regularly. Fresh content helps; old, stale content doesn’t.

Keep pumping good, relevant content and you’ll get ahead of the game!

WBN Marketing has great affordable SEO programs to drive more qualified leads to your website! Talk to us today about getting traffic to your website! info@wbn-marketing.com

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ and Linked In.

Should You Join a LinkedIn Group?

If you are like most people, then you more than likely are wondering which social media platforms you should engage in and which ones are not ideal for your target audience. Fortunately, that line of thinking is exactly where your head should be—there is no need for you to be on every social media platform unless these efforts will truly help promote your products and services.

Part of determining which platforms you should be on is finding out where your target demographics are and which platforms are best for your business needs.

For example, Pinterest is great if your products can be represented best with images. On the other hand, if you are primarily marketing to men, Pinterest will not be the best fit. Therefore, when picking which platforms to use make sure you determine what is best for your business needs.

Joining Groups on LinkedIn

One option for businesses and individuals is to join groups on LinkedIn. Should you join a LinkedIn group? That is entirely up to you. Let me tell you some of the benefits of LinkedIn groups and some of the target audiences and then you can decide if LinkedIn is a good fit for you and your business.

If your business operates in the B2B arena, then LinkedIn is probably a great place for you to be represented. With groups in LinkedIn you can actively participate in discussions with individuals who could very well be your future customers. Plus, these groups are great at helping you establish yourself as an expert in the field, which can greatly increase your reputation. When your reputation increases often your bottom line increases as well.

The great thing about LinkedIn groups is that you can choose which groups to join. You can actively join groups that are more likely to have your target audience in them and build your network within those groups.

In short, LinkedIn is great for those in the B2B area, but can also be effective for B2C companies as well. Explore some of the groups and determine if LinkedIn groups are right for you. If so, start joining groups today and show your expertise!

If you need help determining the best social media strategy, contact us today at info@wbn-marketing.com!

Your Reputation Matters

A huge part of your brand is your reputation and in the digital age more so than ever before your reputation matters—and it matters a lot. Log onto the internet and you can get a business review on just about any company out there. What is your business reputation? What people are saying about you online matters; and your brand and your reputation are connected. Without a brand, your reputation means very little. Without a strong reputation, your brand does not matter. It truly is that simple.

Therefore, your digital marketing efforts should be used to promote your brand while also increasing the reputation of your business through positive online interactions with your customers—and potential customers.

What, Exactly, Do You Have to Offer?

When creating your brand and marketing your business it is essential that you thoroughly understand what you have to offer and how what you have to offer differs from your competitors. Then, you have to be able to effectively and consistently communicate these offerings and how they are superior to what they can get from your competitors on a regular basis with your digital marketing efforts.

Regardless of whether you are submitting guest blog posts, posting on your own blog, interacting on Facebook or Twitter, or creating digital marketing advertisements, you have to keep your brand and what you have to offer in mind and then tailor your digital marketing approaches to highlight these offerings.

In short, your brand is what makes your company a great buy. If you successfully learn how to communicate that to customers and potential customers then you hold the key to business success.

 Do you need to develop or fine tune YOUR brand? WBN Marketing is here to help! Contact us at info@wbn-marketing.com or call (239) 919-0933.

Looking for a good marketing company in Southwest Florida, i.e. Naples, Bonita Springs or Estero FL can be challenging! Don’t forget to look at the award-winning WBN Marketing, based in Naples, FL, for all of your marketing mix, graphic design, web site development, social media, branding and direct mail needs!

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

Using Infographics to Market Your Business

Have you been searching for a powerful way to communicate the products and services that your business has to offer in a visually appealing way? If so, then you have been looking for infographics.

Today, infographics are incredibly popular since they can clearly and efficiently communicate a wide variety of concepts in a manner that is visually appealing, informative, and therefore more likely to be read or viewed by your target audience.

In fact, many businesses (both small and large) have started actively using infographics on their website, in print materials, and on social media networks to help with everything from comparing and contrasting their products and services to their competitors to bringing awareness to global causes.

Create Powerful Infographics for Your Business

If you have not started using infographics to help market your business then now is the time. Fortunately, for those interested in creating infographics but with little design skills or a budget that prevents them from hiring a graphic designer, there are several infographics templates and platforms that allow you to create powerful infographics on any budget.

For example, you can use Infogr.am, Piktochart, or a wide variety of other infographics creation platforms that have popped up over the last few years—allowing you to display information in ways that are appealing for your target audience.

Get the Facts Straight

However, if you are creating infographics for your business (or for your cause) it is absolutely essential that you do your due diligence to ensure that the information you are communicating is completely accurate. Infographics often contain facts and figures, and a failure to ensure that what you are saying is true can ruin your credibility. Therefore, when creating an infographic make sure you carefully review all the information to ensure accuracy.

In conclusion, infographics are incredibly powerful marketing tools for businesses if used correctly. Plus, they are incredibly affordable and are perfect for our current digital world.

For more information about creating infographics for your business, contact WBN Marketing at info@wbn-marketing.com.

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

Why Email Is Still Important

You may have read lately that people are starting to doubt email – starting to suggest that recent social media advances have (gasp) replaced email.

They say that email isn’t effective anymore; people are too concerned about spam; they just screen their messages just like on an answering machine; people would rather use a collaborative platform or text or phone rather than send antiquated digital messages through a virtual inbox.

I disagree – I think email is still very important and should be a part of your marketing strategy, if it makes sense for you.

Why do I think this? For starters, 85% of people who use the internet use email. That’s pretty strong; about 62% use social media (41% of that is from Facebook).

There aren’t very many digital tools that allow you to reach 85% of the online population. There’s nothing I’ve seen to suggest that people will start moving away entirely from email.

Sure, it gets annoying getting spam, but email just gives you so much ability to reach virtually anyone and share with them messages that are customizable and limited only by you creativity.

So, to make email more effective, focus on delivering useful content to your readers, information that helps them. Coordinate your email marketing with your website and other outreach messages to ensure that the right people are getting the right messages.

Also, test your messages. Do an A/B test; this is where you take a message, create two different headlines or subject lines for it, and send each altered message to half of your user list.  Compare open rates and conversions from each group; that should tell you which subject line is better.

You can use email to great effect. Don’t give up on it; instead, learn to embrace it completely.

To learn more about how eMail marketing can jump start your marketing mix, email us at info@wbn-marketing.com or call 239-919-0933.

Don’t forget to visit us on Facebook, Twitter, and Linked In.

Should You Be Linked In on LinkedIn?

LinkedIn is a pretty unique member of the typical social media triad (the other two being Facebook and Twitter).

With over 200 million users, LinkedIn is the world’s premier network for professionals and businesses. Each member has what amounts to an interactive online resume that is connected to hundreds of thousands of potential first, second, and third-degree connections.

Each person has the capability of connecting to anyone and everyone they’ve met in real life and online – making LinkedIn the world’s largest cocktail party for professionals.

But what’s the point of LinkedIn marketing? Should you and your business be linked in?

LinkedIn Has Value for Virtually Any Business

LinkedIn has a reputation for being solely for business-to-business (B2B) companies and professional services firms.  It’s easy to see how LinkedIn is good for lawyers, or accountants, or PR professionals, media members, corporate executives, and other similar roles, but does it have value for, say, restauranteurs, owners of retail stores, artists, and home supply manufacturers?

Sure it does!

Think of it this way: If you can benefit from getting connected with others online, you can benefit from LinkedIn. After all, everyone on LinkedIn is a person who needs products and services just like you and your customers – and, more importantly, knows other people who need what you have to offer.

Getting Started with LinkedIn Marketing

To start, create and fully complete a LinkedIn profile. It’s free; just make sure you include everything you can to make it a complete and visible profile (LinkedIn will help you with this).

Next, create a company page for your business. You can add information for products and services, an overview, contact information, links, and images. You can also purchase LinkedIn ads, post content to your company page (and share it via your own profile and those of your employees), spread your message to Groups (organizations on LI based on common interests), and share the link via other social media networks.

LinkedIn is a great way to connect, network, spread your message, and put your company and what it does in front of people who can either become customers, refer you to customers, or help you in some way.

Get on LinkedIn – and get linked in!

For help with your social media marketing mix, email us at info@wbn-markeitng.com or call 239-919-0933.