Why Social Media Fits Into The SEO Equation!
With all the talk about social media I wanted to talk about why Social Media Outlets are so valuable to the SEO Equation. What is the SEO equation? The hidden formula that has been developed, and is ever changing, you know, or now you know, the one that gets your website organically ranked!
Todd Malicoat a noted Internet Expert states that “Social media is an integral portion of a successful SEO campaign in the current landscape.” His reasoning is that social media helps with the user in their creation of a global linking campaign. Together a collection of links with articles attached is very attractive to achieving high rankings. Articles that have valuable content are even more attractive and end up as a part of other social outlets creating an impactful synergy.
I, meaning Robert Wesley Jones of InSiteful Solutions, advocate using social media as a way to personally brand yourself as the expert of what you do and your company as the conduit of your user’s goals in the fields that they are interested in. That is, your content is you in the user’s eyes. It is great to promote a product, advocate a service, or even become a content delivery portal, but in the end what you want the most is attention.
That is why experts like Joe Whyte state that, “the best social media marketing tactics …fit into your online marketing campaigns would be researching (those) you need to target then cross reference that criterion against the different social sites in order to quantify for yourself and your client that you are targeting the right sites.” Okay, so what he is really saying is, make your social sites the “voice of attraction” for you money sites. Thus your message is retained and favored by your users who can reap a return on investment and bookmark your content for reference as well as possible future sales.
So by creating a niched socialized networking hub you can create a personal message (through design, content and image) and also brand awareness. Again, attention to you and your company or companies is the goal with specific engagement such as sales or market awareness.
Joe Griffin another noted Internet expert on socialized marketing states that ”… simply building profiles and linking to your site won't help. If you're interested in leveraging social media portals to improve your website's rankings, then you need to look at the strategy in a completely different light.” First and foremost, participating in the social web means (here it is again!) building brand recognition, which can be used for your personal brand, your business brand, or both. It's the brand recognition that leads to improved linking to your website - it's not the social media websites themselves that will give your website link popularity. The inbound links will come from bloggers, forum moderators and users, resource websites, and new friends and colleagues that you will meet along the way.”
Robert Wesley Jones of InSiteful Solutions will help you AND your company achieve your social networks goals, by helping you build or modify your brand and help you distribute your product and message. Contact us today!
Friday, March 27, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
Personal Branding as a Personal Business Web page
Brought about as a concept by Tom Peters with others in 1997, personal branding is the process whereby people and their interests, and products / services converge into a personalized branding concept.
Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products and services and can be personal or partner-based. At the highest level, personalized branding can be a conglomerate. An example is Tiger Woods, and what I call the “Tiger Woods principle.” As he is a golfer who pitches Buick, Nike, Gatorade, etc.
For many of us that means distributorships. These personal offerings could be Real Estate, Bookkeeping, Travel, and Mortgage.
Personal business web pages are an adaptive niche of this branding thought. This started out of the need for small business owners to advertise themselves online in a personable and professional manner whereby they could show a stake hold or interest in all their businesses, distributorships, interests, etc.
The Personal / Business Web Portal are for People Who:
1) Rep one or more distributorship
2) Own more than one business
3) Have a Significant other who reps or owns a business
4) From time to time change affiliations
What are Personal / Business Web Portals?
Personal / Business web portal are for individual users/couples who want to take advantage of a stand-alone (whereby the user owns/controls) place (web page) to send potential clients for the purposes of promoting their personal qualities. Many business web pages contain product/service information, price lists, order forms and contact information and links to distributorships, franchisors and/or business websites and other interests.
But they also include information personal information such as favorite links, interests, hobbies, friends, family, projects, community service, networking groups and so on. The possibilities are many!
Sponsoring Business or Personal web pages
Do not have their own domain name; they reside within the sponsoring website such as hometown.aol.com/~username
Do not have a personalized or vanity email included so owner’s would have to use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.
The website is not owned by the user, it is owned by the sponsor
The website is not portable (graphics-emails-verbiage, are not yours!)
Details on Personal / Business web portals:
• Web page, domain name and content (graphics-emails-verbiage) is owned by the user, not leased
• Is a cost effective tactic for small businesses and individual users
• Email can be personalized based on domain name that you own
• The web page is owned by the user all content portable (and sometimes customizable)
• Are MUCH more search engine friendly as they adhere to flat file construction
• Create a point of contact that is much more manageable by the user
• Great for creating mailing lists
• More!!!
InSiteful Solutions helps, in a grass-roots way business owner’s create and maintain a personal business web page. In this manner our clients will be able to reach a broad audience that is looking specifically for their service(s) and product(s) by providing the following:
¬
• Domain Names (you own it, you keep it)
• Emails (who you are, who you are!)
• Hosting (yours, not theirs)
• Blogs (keep it fresh, Google loves you)
• Contact form (collect emails)
• Website creation (your hub for the wagon wheel)
• Content (pages)
• Newsletters
• Graphic Design
• Content Management
• Socializing Networking
And so Much More!!!
Personal branding often involves the application of one's name to various products and services and can be personal or partner-based. At the highest level, personalized branding can be a conglomerate. An example is Tiger Woods, and what I call the “Tiger Woods principle.” As he is a golfer who pitches Buick, Nike, Gatorade, etc.
For many of us that means distributorships. These personal offerings could be Real Estate, Bookkeeping, Travel, and Mortgage.
Personal business web pages are an adaptive niche of this branding thought. This started out of the need for small business owners to advertise themselves online in a personable and professional manner whereby they could show a stake hold or interest in all their businesses, distributorships, interests, etc.
The Personal / Business Web Portal are for People Who:
1) Rep one or more distributorship
2) Own more than one business
3) Have a Significant other who reps or owns a business
4) From time to time change affiliations
What are Personal / Business Web Portals?
Personal / Business web portal are for individual users/couples who want to take advantage of a stand-alone (whereby the user owns/controls) place (web page) to send potential clients for the purposes of promoting their personal qualities. Many business web pages contain product/service information, price lists, order forms and contact information and links to distributorships, franchisors and/or business websites and other interests.
But they also include information personal information such as favorite links, interests, hobbies, friends, family, projects, community service, networking groups and so on. The possibilities are many!
Sponsoring Business or Personal web pages
Do not have their own domain name; they reside within the sponsoring website such as hometown.aol.com/~username
Do not have a personalized or vanity email included so owner’s would have to use Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, etc.
The website is not owned by the user, it is owned by the sponsor
The website is not portable (graphics-emails-verbiage, are not yours!)
Details on Personal / Business web portals:
• Web page, domain name and content (graphics-emails-verbiage) is owned by the user, not leased
• Is a cost effective tactic for small businesses and individual users
• Email can be personalized based on domain name that you own
• The web page is owned by the user all content portable (and sometimes customizable)
• Are MUCH more search engine friendly as they adhere to flat file construction
• Create a point of contact that is much more manageable by the user
• Great for creating mailing lists
• More!!!
InSiteful Solutions helps, in a grass-roots way business owner’s create and maintain a personal business web page. In this manner our clients will be able to reach a broad audience that is looking specifically for their service(s) and product(s) by providing the following:
¬
• Domain Names (you own it, you keep it)
• Emails (who you are, who you are!)
• Hosting (yours, not theirs)
• Blogs (keep it fresh, Google loves you)
• Contact form (collect emails)
• Website creation (your hub for the wagon wheel)
• Content (pages)
• Newsletters
• Graphic Design
• Content Management
• Socializing Networking
And so Much More!!!
Saturday, March 21, 2009
Personal Branding For The Independent Conctractor
PERSONAL BRANDING (For Independent Contractors)
Personal Branding is one of those phrases that is rarely often used and is very misunderstood. Although the process involves several steps, the idea is really quite simple.
Branding is what Oprah Winfrey®* has you might say done well– the minute you catch sight of her “O,” you know beyond a shadow of a doubt who you’re dealing with. Images may come into your mind, from movies to magazines to lavish parties to her well-know talk show. All this may have seemed easy to see now, but it took a lot of hard work and creativity to brand that single letter!
To do what Oprah did, you’ll need to create a brand for yourself. How? Simple. Present an image and message that appeals to your target audience over and over again until your customers begin to associate that image and message with you. The great thing about Personal Branding is once you’ve begun to succeed in one area you tend to succeed in other non-related areas, think Tiger Woods or Billy Mays.
The personal branding process usually begins with the creation of a logo, iconic photo image and a tagline.
• A logo may be made up of words (your company name), an illustration and/or graphics.
• An iconic image may be staged from a key moment (Joe Plumber), great photo shoot with an already well-known person (Dr. Phil) or the classic from a position of authority, Think Doctor in his/her scrubs or Venture Capitalist in his/her powersuit
• A tagline should sum up what you offer to customers that they can’t get anywhere else.
Important! Personal Branding is extremely important for the Independent Contractor- Remember you want your clients/users to recall YOU, even over the company (ies) that you may represent!!!
Who is writing this? http://www.insitefulsolutions.net
You sell services and related products to [fill in the blank with your niche]. Who else does that? What do you offer that your competitors don’t? Can you wrapper your company around a greater mission – like buy American or Go Green! Do you have a broader selection of products? Then your tagline might be “Your place for all things (fill in your niche) here in your own neighborhood.”
Unless you’re a graphic designer, creating your own logo can be tricky – it needs to work in a variety of mediums and that kind of flexibility and takes some skill. We recommend even if you are sure to of what you desire design-wise, give a professional the chance to create with some freedom. You may be surprised with what happens. SO, regardless of whether you do it yourself or hire someone else to create your logo and tagline, be sure to run them past people who represent your target market (not your couch-potato uncle if your company caters to women runners) before putting them to use.
Once you have a logo, use it everywhere – on every page of your storefront, in newsletters, on receipts, on stationery, signage and business cards. You can even incorporate it into your Email Marketing Campaigns - even with a little HTML know-how.
If it’s short enough, your tagline can appear with your logo except in cases where the logo is too small to make the tagline readable. Your tagline should also appear on every page of your Web site. For bonus points, make your tagline clickable and link it to a page that describes your key promises and how your company delivers on them.
Over the long haul, personal branding pays off. BUT here is the key! – make it PERSONAL – surprise, if you don’t create a cause, you won’t get the desired effect! Personal branding not only increases customer loyalty, ensuring that your customers continue to buy from you for years to come, but allows you to charge more than your non-branded competitors, which in turn helps you to better service your clients and enjoy life more fully. How sweet is that???
DOs
>Test. Get feedback on your logo and tagline from people who represent your target market.
>Follow up. Your long-term success depends on how well you deliver on your promises.
>Stick with it. Coca-Cola’s been doing it for decades; that’s why their brand is so powerful.
DON’Ts
>Alter the individual elements of a logo once it’s been created and approved. You want the viewer to take one look at that logo and think of you, so don’t confuse them. Use it consistently.
RESOURCES
Don’t feel comfortable creating your own logo? Ask our Dream Design Team to create one for you.
*Oprah® is a registered trademark of trademarks of Harpo, Inc..
Personal Branding is one of those phrases that is rarely often used and is very misunderstood. Although the process involves several steps, the idea is really quite simple.
Branding is what Oprah Winfrey®* has you might say done well– the minute you catch sight of her “O,” you know beyond a shadow of a doubt who you’re dealing with. Images may come into your mind, from movies to magazines to lavish parties to her well-know talk show. All this may have seemed easy to see now, but it took a lot of hard work and creativity to brand that single letter!
To do what Oprah did, you’ll need to create a brand for yourself. How? Simple. Present an image and message that appeals to your target audience over and over again until your customers begin to associate that image and message with you. The great thing about Personal Branding is once you’ve begun to succeed in one area you tend to succeed in other non-related areas, think Tiger Woods or Billy Mays.
The personal branding process usually begins with the creation of a logo, iconic photo image and a tagline.
• A logo may be made up of words (your company name), an illustration and/or graphics.
• An iconic image may be staged from a key moment (Joe Plumber), great photo shoot with an already well-known person (Dr. Phil) or the classic from a position of authority, Think Doctor in his/her scrubs or Venture Capitalist in his/her powersuit
• A tagline should sum up what you offer to customers that they can’t get anywhere else.
Important! Personal Branding is extremely important for the Independent Contractor- Remember you want your clients/users to recall YOU, even over the company (ies) that you may represent!!!
Who is writing this? http://www.insitefulsolutions.net
You sell services and related products to [fill in the blank with your niche]. Who else does that? What do you offer that your competitors don’t? Can you wrapper your company around a greater mission – like buy American or Go Green! Do you have a broader selection of products? Then your tagline might be “Your place for all things (fill in your niche) here in your own neighborhood.”
Unless you’re a graphic designer, creating your own logo can be tricky – it needs to work in a variety of mediums and that kind of flexibility and takes some skill. We recommend even if you are sure to of what you desire design-wise, give a professional the chance to create with some freedom. You may be surprised with what happens. SO, regardless of whether you do it yourself or hire someone else to create your logo and tagline, be sure to run them past people who represent your target market (not your couch-potato uncle if your company caters to women runners) before putting them to use.
Once you have a logo, use it everywhere – on every page of your storefront, in newsletters, on receipts, on stationery, signage and business cards. You can even incorporate it into your Email Marketing Campaigns - even with a little HTML know-how.
If it’s short enough, your tagline can appear with your logo except in cases where the logo is too small to make the tagline readable. Your tagline should also appear on every page of your Web site. For bonus points, make your tagline clickable and link it to a page that describes your key promises and how your company delivers on them.
Over the long haul, personal branding pays off. BUT here is the key! – make it PERSONAL – surprise, if you don’t create a cause, you won’t get the desired effect! Personal branding not only increases customer loyalty, ensuring that your customers continue to buy from you for years to come, but allows you to charge more than your non-branded competitors, which in turn helps you to better service your clients and enjoy life more fully. How sweet is that???
DOs
>Test. Get feedback on your logo and tagline from people who represent your target market.
>Follow up. Your long-term success depends on how well you deliver on your promises.
>Stick with it. Coca-Cola’s been doing it for decades; that’s why their brand is so powerful.
DON’Ts
>Alter the individual elements of a logo once it’s been created and approved. You want the viewer to take one look at that logo and think of you, so don’t confuse them. Use it consistently.
RESOURCES
Don’t feel comfortable creating your own logo? Ask our Dream Design Team to create one for you.
*Oprah® is a registered trademark of trademarks of Harpo, Inc..
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