How to Become an Influencer on Pinterest

by Nicole Munoz

Pinterest began as a beta site just a few short years ago as a way for others to share what they love and create virtual bulletin boards for all their favorite things. Now users are amazed with the potential of the site and can’t wait to share with their friends, family, co-workers, neighbors, and acquaintances. As a smart person with information to share that will be of interest to your niche audience, you stand to benefit from the millions of members that visit the site each month.

In order to pin your way to influence keep these takeaways in mind:

Don’t Advertise

Be more than just a company advertising a business. Think beyond advertising to create interesting and entertaining infographics and visual elements to share with your audience that they will enjoy sharing too. Create information that will pull heart strings, entice a giggle, or make people think of the data you provide in a new way.

Be Social

Social media, is after all, supposed to be social. Become involved in Pinterest and with the users of Pinterest. Communicate with the other users and all the creators of amazing and awe-inspiring pinboards. Share other people’s pinboards, and make useful and smart comments. It will only enhance your experience and increase your influence.

Be Creative

Use the virtual pinboard site as a way to express your creative side both as a business owner and as a lover of beautiful things. Even if you’re an accountant, there are ways to express numerical data in new and visual ways that will make people take notice. Let your imagination flow.

Remember your Audience

When using Pinterest for marketing and advertising a product, service, website, blog, or build influence among a group — always keep the viewers and consumers in mind. Put yourself in their place every step of the way, and imagine what you would want to learn from your time on Pinterest. Remember to think in terms of solving problems and answering questions and your influence will grow.

Check Your Metrics

By knowing what works (and what doesn’t work) you’ll be better able to determine where to spend your time. If you check the numbers, you won’t be mistaken and waste your time on creating pinboards that no one pays attention to. Being aware of metrics will help you to increase your potential and become a true influential leader in your niche on Pinterest.

Do You Really Own a Brand? 10 Questions that Will Make You Reflect

by Nicole Munoz

Your brand is the image that people observe, develop, and relate to. It connects you to your customers and prospects. The branding process, including the planning and decision process are important. These decisions have an impact on your future success. By working through this checklist, you’ll have established a solid brand and a plan to move forward and integrate it into all of your marketing and sales efforts.

#1 Have you identified your business vision and mission? Your branding decisions must remain true to your core business vision and mission in order to provide a consistent and comprehensive image to prospects and customers.

#2 Have you identified colors that best represent the brand that you want to portray? The colors you choose will embody the vision and mission of your business along with the message you wish to convey.

#3 Have you chosen a brand name / business name that is easy to remember, easy to spell and can be registered as a domain name?

#4 Do you have a solid understanding of who your target audience is? Do you understand what their needs, interests and goals are? Remember that your branding efforts will influence your unique target customer.

#5 Do you know what differentiates you/your company from your competitors? Do you realize the value that you bring to your prospects? Answer these questions to make sure you are on the right track:

How do you benefit your clients?
Why do they like you?
Why do they buy from you?

#6 Do you have a logo? Does it convey your brand in a way that is simple and easy to understand? Do you think that the colors support your vision and mission?

#7 Have you developed a brand purpose? It should be a statement that highlights what makes your business distinct.

#8 Have you created a brand personality? It should be a statement or list of characteristics that best describe your brand. Your brand personality embraces elements of your personal personality so that you can create a stronger connection with the audience. A stronger connection results in a stronger brand.

#9 Have you created a brand promise? Most business owners don’t even know that they should create an emotional statement. This promise should evoke a positive emotion.

#10 Have you created a marketing strategy? You should always include the social media marketing, email marketing and link building efforts into one marketing strategy. The most important elements of a marketing strategy are:

Social media profiles
Website
Blog name
Email signature
Phone message
Networking associations

Your brand is who you are, what you represent, and what makes you and your business unique and different from your competition. Spend time creating your business brand and working through this checklist to ensure a comprehensive and clear brand – a brand your prospects won’t be able to resist.

How to Use Facebook as a Business Research Tool

by Nicole Munoz

Nowadays, you can – and should – be using Facebook for business-related research. Not only can you research your audience and your competitors, but you can also monitor your own business interaction, perception and feedback by using Facebook activity.

You can find posts and photos you or your business are tagged in, search for local competitors or audiences, find posts or Pages containing specific keywords – and now Facebook is working hard to refine its new Hashtag functionality so that it aligns more with Twitter functionality.

Let’s start by seeing what you can do with Facebook’s new Hashtag feature…

Step 1. Facebook Hashtags 101

Facebook hashtags started out as far from Twitter hashtags as you can get. They are evolving all the time, so right now your best bet is to put Twitter out of your mind and concentrate on what they can do for your business research.

Using Hashtags

You can now create hashtags for Facebook and use as tools for tracking your own posts containing them.

You can also use them to track posts that others make, using:

Your specific hashtags
Hashtags you are following, tracking or researching

Right now, according to Edgerank Checker, hashtags haven’t caught on firmly enough to positively affect your viral potential or Facebook rank.

But they can be extremely useful in quickly tracking down random Facebook conversations containing them, via your Facebook Graph Search function.

Searching hashtags

You can search for Facebook hashtags that already exist – and for those that don’t exist.

For example, say you wanted to create the hashtag #facebookcontests: Type it into your Facebook search bar.

If it already exists and is in use, it will appear like this:

If the hashtag you type in doesn’t exist, you will see this (and possibly other search results):

If you click on the yellow icon under a non-existent hashtag search result, you will be taken to a page like this, where you will be prompted to create your first post around that hashtag:

How to Find Existing Facebook Hashtags:

Note that you will not see similar hashtag suggestions in search results: You will only see Pages and People suggested, if appropriate.

However, you can use existing Twitter hashtags for purposes of monitoring and research. You can find the best of these at Hashtags.org.

Step 2. Using Graph Search

Running Facebook searches is the other half of the “using-Facebook-hashtag” process. But you can search this social network for business research purposes without necessarily concentrating on hashtag-finding alone.

Facebook has already rolled out graph search. If you have it, you will have already been invited to “Take a Tour”. If you don’t, expect any day now to see the popup inviting you to check it out.

With graph search, you can:

Search for friends by name (“or anything else”)
A simple phrase (e.g. “Friends who live in Wyoming”)
Any information contained in your friends’ Facebook accounts (e.g. Photos, businesses, places, movies, music)
Any information contained in Public accounts or in your Friends’ Public categories

For example, if you want to search for “Coffee”, you will see results such as coffee shops, coffee brands, Pages about coffee (all Pages being Public) and similar results.

In short, anything you have ever posted to Facebook is now searchable. So before you start searching for friends, phrases or information, you’re going to want to quickly adjust your privacy settings to segregate anything that doesn’t fit with your business branding.

To see what is searchable on your Facebook account, click the little padlock icon:

It will display who can:

See your present, past and future posts
See posts and photos you are tagged in
Send you friend requests
Send you Facebook messages

You can also limit past posts and decide whether or not you want your Facebook account to be searchable by other search engines.

Your Profile – To control who sees your profile information, use your “About” tab. If you are still using a personal feed, click on your Name in your top, horizontal menu bar to the left of the padlock icon. You can then choose to edit your Profile and its privacy settings by performing one or both of the following functions:

Click on your About tab, under your Cover Photo

Click on the Activity Log tab that will appear within your Cover Photo. If you are exploring Graph Search for the first time, you will receive prompts.

Use your Activity Log to review posts with location or other tags; or review tagged Photos

To make sure the right people find only the most appropriate information about you or your business:

Assign one of the following three categories to each type of contact:

Only Me – Information you want to use for personal and/or business research or reference
Friends – Information you want personal friends and family to see. (That would also include any networking peer or friend you’ve “Friended” on Facebook.)
Public – Ideally, anyone at all, including your target audience, business peers, networking contacts, clients or customers.

A good rule of thumb is to never post anything that (a) clashes with your branding (b) you wouldn’t be comfortable with strangers or your grandmother seeing.

And here’s the best tip of all about Privacy settings: If you want a narrow, specific, target audience to see a particular type of post:

a) Create a List containing that specific group of people (e.g. “Clients”)

b) Use the Custom setting for posts you only want – for example – “clients” to see, specifying the particular list you have placed them within:

Finally, remember that Facebook Pages are always Public.

Part of business researching always involves controlling what others can research about you and your company – business researching being a two-way street! Do this intelligently, and it will have a positive effect on your monitoring.

How to Research Effectively with Graph Search

Just as others can research you, you can research competitors, business peers, industry influencers and your potential audience – keeping in mind that you too may only be seeing what they choose to share.

Just click in the Search bar to see what categories you can search in.

When you search, do keep in mind that you can enter any keyword or phrase with or without selecting a category – or even just “Take the Tour” again.

Of the categories suggested, “Pages I might Like” can be exceptionally useful – if you have optimized your Profile to your audience and adjusted your privacy settings effectively.

For example, if you have populated your profile with things irrelevant to your business – for example, favorite movies – you will most likely get suggestions for pages with no business worth whatsoever.

These pages will be presented based on:

Related personalities, business entities and other things in that same category that you have “Liked”
How many of your friends share those exact preferences too.

If, on the other hand, you have optimized your Profile for business, your “Pages I might like” results will be more likely to contain useful suggestions.

Finally, make sure you’ve also optimized Notification settings for your Pages.

(Note: If your Graph Search suggestions don’t contain a particular category, simply enter the best keyword you can think of.)

You can use Graph Search to:

- Search keywords for your own or a competitor’s Page
- Geo-target (using hashtags or keywords) for a local business
- Find industry influencers and potential followers – using keywords
- Generally making your Facebook business presence more searchable, if you optimize your profile in a focused manner

Useful Links:

https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch — If you don’t yet have Graph Search and you are operating from an English-speaking country, click on this link, scroll down the page until you come to “Try Graph Search”. Press the button.

This also works if you are not sure if you have Graph Search yet. When you mouse-over the “Try Graph Search” button, a pop-over will tell you whether or not it is installed on your account:

https://www.facebook.com/about/graphsearch/privacy — More complete instructions on how to optimize your privacy settings. (Keep in mind that Facebook’s goal is always to get you to share as much as possible!)

Conclusion:

Facebook is evolving and changing almost as much as mobile use and technology in general are evolving and changing.

What seems clear is that Facebook is actively doing its best to please both business and personal users – with the edge shifting towards business users (potential advertisers).

Follow Facebook’s official blog, AllFacebook.com, to keep on top of changes in functionality and find new ways to boost your business research.

Build and Publish a Mobile Application with BuildAnApp

by Nicole Munoz

BuildAnApp is a very easy-to-use online service for creating simple mobile phone applications that your customers can download for free.

The apps are compatible for Windows, Blackberry, Android and iPhone phones. It is free to make your apps downloadable for Windows, Blackberry and Android users, but the apps will include advertisement. You can pay a fee to remove the ads. If you want to publish to the Android Market and the iPhone App Store, there are additional fees.

Get Started:

Next you’ll be prompted to enter your “Business/Org Name” and your email address. The “Business/Org Name” will be the name of your application, so choose this wisely. Click “Go to Next Tab” when you’re done.

Next, you’ll be asked to enter information about your business that will make up a lot of the content for your application.

Click “Create Application” when you’re done. You’ll then be shown what your basic app looks like. You will be able to add a background image and customize the content that is shown.

We’re going to choose “Change Styles/Images”. Here, you can see you have an option to add a background or upload your own image.

When you’re done, click “Next Step”. Now you can customize the pages that appear on your app. NOTE: You can change the content of your app anytime. You can add pages, enter new coupon codes, update schedules, etc. anytime.

As you can see, you have a lot of flexibility above. You can use the default page names or create your own. When you’re finished this, click “Next Step”.

Now you’re ready to edit the page content, but as you can see, a lot of the data has been entered from the information you provided. You can change or add anything you’d like.

When you’re done editing all your pages, click “Next Step”. Now you can share your app by email, if you’d like. You can upload a file with email addresses or enter them if you’d like. You can also edit the email that the recipients receive.

NOTE: If you choose to email people to tell them about your app, not all mobile phone users will be able to download your app. Many Windows, Android and Blackberry phones will be able to, but without submitting your app to the iPhone App Store, iPhone users will not be able to download your app. This is a requirement from Apple and all apps must be submitted to the App Store in order to work.

Here is what that step looks like:

Once you complete the sharing step (or skip it, if you don’t want to do it at this point), you will have an opportunity to review your app again. If you’re ready to go, all you need to do is click “Publish App”.

On this page, you can see your publishing options.

Publication of the app, so that many mobile phones can download it, is free. You can pay a $49 fee to remove advertising from your app. If you want iPhone users to be able to use your app, you will need to submit to the App Store. If you want the app to be shown in the Android Market, there is a fee for this as well.

NOTE: If you decide to pay for submission to the iPhone App Store, be sure to read BuildAnApp’s FAQ on increasing your chances of being accepted to the store first.

Overall Thoughts

BuildAnApp is certainly easy-to-use and makes it simple to publish a mobile app that has some pretty decent features. The drawback is that you are completely dependant on BuildAnApp to stay in business to ensure your app remains available to users. However, if you’re looking for something quick and simple to start dabbling in the mobile market, this might be a very good tool to start with.

50 Ways to Get New Clients

by Nicole Munoz

1. Speak at local events. Look for groups, meetups and gatherings of people who’re in or related to your industry. Speak at these events to position yourself as an expert and gain more exposure.

2. Speak at seminars and conventions. Offer to speak at seminars and conventions. If you have a recognizable brand name, most organizers would be thrilled to have the opportunity.
3. Sponsor an event. If you’re a solo service provider, sponsor a small event in your area. If you’re a large service provider, sponsor a bigger event.
4. Get covered by the press. Come up with some unique angle and pitch it to reporters. Use tools like Help a Reporter Out (HARO) to find reporters looking to do stories.
5. Take out a small newspaper ad. This works great if you provide services to local clients.
6. Network and follow up. Go to minglers, mixers and professional events and meet people in your target market.

7. Give free advice. Do it both online and offline. Demonstrate your credibility first before trying to sell.
8. Answer questions on LinkedIn. This helps build your credibility online, which often translates into real world contacts.

9.Build a professional website. Having a great looking website helps create trust with people who’re considering hiring you.
10. Ask for referrals. Talk to people you know, including but not limited to past clients and ask for referrals.

11. Run a mailing list. Develop a relationship with others in your field over time by mailing useful content regularly.
12. Run a Q&A mailing list, blog or website. Become known as the person to go to for questions in a particular arena.
13. Copy your competitors. How are your competitors getting clients? Do what they do. In fact, see if you can do what they do, only better.
14. Join a Business Networking International (BNI) network. BNI can be a great source of leads for offline service providers.
15. Get on Yelp. Try to be the most positively reviewed provider in your area. Yelp profiles often rank very well in search engines.
16. Put your USP (unique selling proposition) on your business card. People who look at your card should instantly understand your value offering and what sets you apart.
17. Get to know university professors. Professors are fantastic connectors and know people in all kinds of different fields. They often know very powerful people. Reconnect with old professors and see if they can help connect you with anyone who could help your business.

18. Network with lawyers and accountants. Every business needs a lawyer and an accountant. If your clients are businesses, networking with lawyers and accountants can be a potential gold mine.
19. Mail your legacy clients. Most people only ask for referrals or sales from current clients or recent clients. But your legacy clients, meaning clients that dropped off a long time ago, could still harbour a lot of good will towards you. See if you can tap into that for more business or for more referrals.

20. Cold call. Many Fortune 100 companies were built initially by some guy in his bedroom, cold calling. Humana is one prime example, as was Microsoft. Bill Gates just cold called both the programmer of DOS and the buyer of DOS. Cold calling might seem scary, but it does work.

21. Offer to write guest posts. Write fantastic articles for other people’s sites and send the traffic back to yours with a link in the article.
22. Offer to write for small time publications and trade newsletters. If you have experience, reputation or background in the industry, they’ll often be happy to have you.
23. Start a blog. Help people in your target market by providing great content.

24. Be active on social media. Regularly post great content to your Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ profiles. People who follow you will come to see you as more and more of an expert.
25. Call in to a radio show. Give your name and either ask a well informed question or make a comment that really helps listeners.

call

26. Ask past clients to give you credit on their website. For instance, if you did some graphics for a client, ask them to put that the graphics were by you on the bottom of their site. If you were their coach, ask them to talk about their experience on their blog.
27. Join your local chamber of commerce. You’ll often meet valuable contacts that can either become clients or people you can work business deals with.
28. Advertise on popular message boards. Look for message boards in your industry where your target market gathers and advertise there.
29. Submit proposals on oDesk and eLance. Look for jobs other people are posting up that fit your specialty.
30. Offer to work for a freelance shop. For example, if you’re a freelance writer, look for a freelance writing agency and offer to be one of their writers.
31. Practice your elevator pitch. Have a strong 30 second answer for the “what do you do” question. Sometimes your best clients come from chance meetings.
32. Wear a T-Shirt to locations where potential customers are. For example, go to a trade show with your brand’s logo on your shirt.

33. Befriend connectors. Develop connections with Twitter users, bloggers, Facebook page owners and other individuals who have a lot of connections. See if you can help them, so sometime later they might help you.

34. Buy Google AdWords. Bid on keywords related to your industry. Focus on “buying keywords,” words that someone who’s ready to buy might type in.
35. Buy banner ads on related sites. Find websites that your target market frequents and buy banner ads on those sites.

36. Write a free eBook and give it away. This helps you build credibility. Put as much great content as you can in your free eBook.
37. Produce a big virtual event with other people in your industry. For example, if you’re in the social media business, get 10 social media consultants together to do a big online workshop about social media. Use the leads to market your services.
38. Do a publicity stunt. Google publicity stunt examples and see if you can do something similar for your business.
39. Join competitions and win. If you’re a writer, look for writing contests. If you’re a designer, look for design contests. Consultants could look into speaking contests. Put a lot of time into your entry, as a winning placement could mean a lot of exposure.

40. Use Craigslist. Post in the services section and respond to posts in the “gigs” section.
email1

41. Mail or email companies with free advice. If you’re a website conversion specialist, mail possible conversion improving advice to companies.
42. Yellow pages advertising. Buy an ad in the appropriate section in the yellow pages.
43. Co-work with other freelancers. Working with other people is a great way to network and meet both potential clients and people who could refer you to clients.
44. Host your own meetup. Go to http://www.meetup.com and create a meetup on your topic. Having your own meetup is a fantastic way to get more exposure, meet potential clients and build your network.
45. Publish a book. Write a book about your subject and get it published. Even if you never sell over a thousand copies, being a published author will still massively boost your credibility. Nobody will ever ask you how many copies you’ve sold.
46. Get your work featured on a compilation site. For example, if you build websites, enter a website you built into a website that compiles examples of great website designs.

47. Create a referral reward system. Give clients and other referrers rewards for sending you new clients. Rewards can be financial or non-financial.

48. Play with your prices. Sometimes when you raise your prices, you actually get more clients. Working with a few high priced clients might be a better model than a few lower priced ones. Alternatively, you might be priced to high and might need to lower your price to attract more clients.
49. Contact your former employer. Your former employer can be a fantastic source of leads. They could even be your first client.
50. Put flyers up in relevant local boards. For example, post a flyer on your chamber of commerce’s board, or post flyers on boards in co-working spaces.

How to Set Up a Professional Website? Follow These 10 Steps to Get the Results You Want

by Nicole Munoz

Your website is the most important marketing tool in your arsenal. It’s what clients will use to determine your credibility. It’s what they’ll use to find out your rates. It’s what they’ll use to learn about you. It’s what they’ll use to learn about your services. In many cases, it’s the primary way your potential clients will interact with you before they actually try your service.

So how do you make sure your website is top notch? How do you use your website to inform and sell? These tips will help.

Tip #1: Use a Professional Theme or Template

Choose a theme or design template that looks professional like Sticky Branding. Make sure you not only choose a professional theme but one that you can personalize. Choose one with a changeable banner or with customizable columns or colors.

You want to make sure your site doesn’t look like a hundred other sites out there that share the same theme. But you also want to make sure that you have a professional theme that’s already proven its merits in the marketplace.

Tip #2: Use a High Quality Photography

Have a professional photographer take a photo of you. A great photographer will be able to get the lighting, the posture, the angle and everything else right to give you an image that really shines.

Use this image on your website to demonstrate credibility. You can use it as part of your banner if you can make it look artistic, or use it on your “About Me” page or on your sidebar.

Marketing researchers have long known that showing a face builds trust and credibility. In fact, on Facebook Ads, pictures of someone’s face generates more clicks than just about any other kind of ad.

Tip #3: Get Their Email Address

Get the email address of the people who land on your website. Not everyone’s going to buy on the first go around. They might come to your website, be very impressed with what they see – But intend to buy later.

If that’s the case, you’re much better off getting their email. That way, you can follow up with them again and again, even once they’ve already left your website and forgotten about your service.

Give them something in exchange for signing up for your emails. For example, entice people to sign up with a free gift or free report. I offer the Small Business Success Kit.

Tip #4: A Personality Driven “About Me” Page

Your “About Me” page should help people get to know you. Not only should it be factual and informational, but it should be personality driven. People should get a sense of who you are, what you stand for and hopefully for a sense of your personality.

Talk about your background. Talk about the results you get for your clients. Talk about your credentials and what qualifies you to do what you do. Try to write in a personal, free flowing way. Avoid writing in corporate language. The goal is for your potential clients to feel like they know you a little bit once they read your About Me page.

Marie Forleo has a great about me page that now only shows her personality, but is very focused on the visitor to the page.

Tip #5: A Crystal Clear Service Page

Your service page should have a crystal clear outline of all your services and product offerings.

If you’re just getting started, you should probably put prices for your services on your website. If you’re in a higher end market and you’ve been doing what you do for a while, you might ask people to contact you for a quote instead.

In either case, people should have no uncertainty about what you offer. If you’re a graphic designer for instance, you want to have packages for your logo design, your banner design, your website design and your flyer design services all clearly laid out on your website.

Tip #6: Have Samples

Your samples or are one of the most important parts of your online sales efforts. As great as your site is, as great as your testimonials may be, as great as your packages page may be, ultimately what clients will use to determine if they want to work with you is your past work.

Put up as many samples as you can on your website. Make sure you put your best foot forward by putting up samples that showcase the best of your capabilities.

If you don’t have any samples because you’re just getting started, consider doing some pro-bono work or just doing the samples for imaginary clients. The idea is that you want to have something to showcase, even if it’s not paid work yet.

Tip #7: Call to Action

One big mistake that a lot of service providers make is not having a call to action. A call to action is simply a request for someone to take action.

If you’re selling a service that can be purchased on the spot, then you should have a purchase button right on your page. For example, if you sell 30 minute consultation calls for $100, then you should have a $100 buy button right on your services page.

On the other hand, if you do more custom work, your call to action might be a form. The form gives them the chance to tell you what they’re looking for and to give you their contact information.

Tip #8: Run a Quality Blog

Having a high quality blog is a fantastic way to drive more traffic to your website, but don’t expect your blog to pay off for at least 3 to 6 months. In the beginning, it’s going to feel like a lot of effort.

But once you have a website that’s stuffed full of useful content, you’ll start to get a lot of traffic from search engines. That traffic will very quickly turn into more sales and more business.

Furthermore, having a high quality blog will help you build credibility. People who see your blog are going to immediately feel that you’re a credible person to work with.

Tip #9: Optimize for Search Engines

Put some energy into optimizing your website for search engines. Make it your goal to have your site come up in the search engines when people type in keywords related to your niche.

Start by making your website search engine friendly. Make sure you use relevant keywords in your title tags. Make sure your archives and category pages are noindexed and nofollowed. If you’re using WordPress, use a tool like All in One SEO to handle all your on site SEO.

Then build backlinks back to your website. Have other people in your industry link back to you. Ask past customers or fans of your site to link to you. Host contests, run classes or do publicity stunts that get a lot of people to link to you.

These two things – On site and off site SEO – Will quickly get your site to rank for relevant keywords in Google.

Tip #10: Buy Paid PPC Traffic

If your average customer value is high enough, you should consider buying traffic for your services. For example, if you’re a child psychologist and on average a client is worth $1,500 to you, then it may very well make sense for you to buy paid traffic in your local area to bring in more clients. Even if each client is worth a few hundred dollars, you can likely recoup your investment.

If you offer a service locally, make sure you target geographically and not globally. Only buy keywords for extremely targeted keywords in the beginning to make sure you can get a positive ROI. Once you have a positive ROI, then broaden your keyword base to include higher volume keywords.

These tips will help you setup a great website that impresses clients. They’ll also help you generate new business through increased website traffic.

Getting Traffic for Your Local Business

by Nicole Munoz

It’s a digital world out there and instead of pulling out the old Yellow Pages, savvy consumers are taking to the Internet before they visit local businesses in their area. This means you need to be visible online when people are searching for businesses like yours.

When your local customers are searching, you want them to be able to find you:

For your business name. This seems simple enough, but there are so many local small businesses that miss out on a tremendous opportunity when their potential customer cannot find them online.

For your type of business in your local area. For example, if you are a hairdresser in San Diego, California, you want to be found when they search for “hairdresser San Diego, California”.

For your product or services in your local area. Building on the previous point, you also want your potential customer to be able to find you for your individual services. For example, “children’s haircuts San Diego California”

Now, how do you make sure this happens for your business? It’s all part of the search engine optimization (SEO) process. Whether you hire a designer to create your website or you make it yourself, make sure everyone is aware of these important steps.

Part 1: Your Virtual Real Estate

Before you start building your website, there are a couple of important things to set up properly. If you already have your website, you don’t need to rush out and change what you have because your established website is already valuable when it comes to ranking well in search engines.

These are just extra considerations you should make if you happen to be starting from scratch.

Domain Name

Register your own domain name and do not rely on other services that display a URL for you. You want to own this important virtual real estate for your business.

Consider purchasing a domain that is specific to your country and even your state or province if your business is specifically relevant to that area.

For example, you might register a domain with .us for USA, .ca for Canada, .uk for the United Kingdom, etc. You can also go further if you want to target your domain for a state or province. For example ny.us for websites from New York, USA or .bc.ca for websites from British Columbia, Canada.

NOTE: While a geographically specific domain can help target your website locally, it is not totally necessary. If you want to capture a worldwide or multi-national audience, a .com domain will suit your business just fine.

Web Host

Where possible, choose a local web host for your business. The location of your web host’s server can provide clues about where your website is from and helps return your website in the search results for that area This isn’t a make or break factor, but it can helpful.

You can also ask your web host for what’s called “unique IP”. They will probably charge a small fee, but it ensures that your websites has its own unique space and you can’t be affected by any search engine cheating done by the web host’s other clients. You never want to put yourself at the mercy of other people’s mistakes.

Part 2: Building Your Website

Now you’re ready to start building your website with search engine optimization in mind. If you already have a website, it is worthwhile to go back and fix what you can to ensure your pages are optimized to get highly targeted traffic from search engines.

Geographically Organize Your Website’s Directories / Folders

Many websites have information that is relevant to different geographic locations. For example, if you have a retail store that is located in different cities and offers different products or service, you may want to provide appropriate information for each area.

To help search engines understand which area the information is relevant for, you can label the directories (or folders) with the appropriate information. For example, your site might have folders like this:

flowershopsite.com/sandiego/ – for your information for your store in San Diego

flowershopsite.com/carlsbad/ – and for your store in Carlsbad

Relevant Content

The content on each page should be relevant and useful because search engines rely very heavily on this to determine what your pages are all about. Include descriptive content about your products and services, where they are offered and more. Don’t repeat words to try to game the search engines, but write naturally and descriptively.

Add Your Business Address

Add your business address to all the pages of your website. Include your full address, including city, state and phone number with area code.

You can also add an interactive Google Maps map on your Contact Us page. To get a map for your page, go to: http://maps.google.com/

Enter your address and once the map appears, click the link icon on the left side of the page:

That will give you some HTML code, so you can insert the code into your website.

2-embed

Optimize Your Title Tags for Search Term + Location

Search engines use certain “tags” used in your website code to help them understand what each page of your website is all about. A title tag is the title that appears at the top of your web browser when you are looking at a particular page. It is also the title that appears in search engine listings.

For example:

In the above example, “Haircuts & Haircare Products | Great Clips” is the title tag. To target your title tag locally include:

What product / service you are offering
Your location
Your company name

For example, “Hairdresser in San Diego, California – Jenny’s Great Cuts” would be a descriptive title tag.

How you insert your title tag depends on the type of tool you are using to build your website. Consult the help files of your website builder to find out how to modify yours. The basic HTML code looks like this:

<title> Hairdresser in San Diego, California – Jenny’s Great Cuts</title>

IMPORTANT: Use a different title tag for each page of your website, so that search engines can find your different pages that are relevant to specific searches.

Optimize Your Headline Tags

Headlines are the large bolded headlines and subheads on your page. They are important in helping search engines understand what your various pages are all about. Just like with your title tags, you can include relevant information like the product/service you are offering and your location.

How you insert headline tags depends on the website building tool you’re using as well, but the basic HTML looks like this:

<H1>Professional Cap Highlights in San Diego, California</H1>

The number 1 in the tag <H1> is for your main headline. You can make subheads by using <H2>, <H3> tags, etc.

Optimize Your Description Tags

Another HTML tag that is relevant to your search engine optimization is your description tag. It is often shown in as the description in your search engine listing, so it’s worth ensuring this is descriptive and relevant to each page’s content.

In the above example, “Haircare services from Great Clips. We provide quality, no-appointment haircuts for adults and kids alike.” is the description tag.

Just like the other tags we mentioned, how you update yours will depend on your website builder, but the HTML code looks like this:

<meta name="description" content="Providing a variety of hair services for women in San Diego, California, Jenny’s Great Cuts is looking forward to giving you your next haircut, color or perm." />

Part 3: Listing Your Website

While search engines can find and ranking with little to no intervention on your part, there are some promotional activities you can do that will improve your chances of being found in the results. Here are some of the most important ones.

Add Your Website to Google Places

You’ve probably noticed that when you look for a type of business, Google returns its “Places” results that look something like this:

Google is the largest search engine, and you should take the time to get yourself listed in Places to ensure your site appears when people search for businesses like yours in your area. Rankings are based on a number of factors including how often your listing is clicked, how many other websites mention your business and the reviews listed in Google Places.

To add a website go to http://www.google.com/local/add/. You have to log into your Google account (you can create one for free, if you don’t have one) and then you’ll be able to start the process. Encourage your customers to submit reviews and get listed on other local websites in your area.

Add Your Website Bing Listings

Bing also serves local listings and they look something like this:

You can add your through the Bing Business Portal at http://www.bing.com/businessportal/, but note that the service is only available in the United States at the moment. For other countries, Bing seems to pull data from Yellow Pages and possibly other location-based sites.

Add Your Website to Yahoo Local Listings

And of course, Yahoo has their own version of Local Listings at http://listings.local.yahoo.com/ (USA only).

You can choose a free basic listing or pay for an enhanced one. Yahoo Local Listings are available for other countries, but they have a different website set up for each country.

Local Directories and Review Sites

How often your site is mentioned and linked to from other websites plays a big role in how well you rank for your relevant keywords. Look for local directories and review sites where you might get listed and reviewed.

How to Promote Your Business with QR Codes

by Nicole Munoz

If you’re not familiar with QR codes, they make it easy for mobile users to find your website, ad or promotion. All they do is scan the code and they are immediately taken to the web page or information you want them to visit. They don’t need to try to remember or type in any website address, it’s all done automatically. So the next time they see your ad at a bus stop, in a flyer or in a magazine, all they do is point, scan and the marketing magic begins.

QR stands for “quick response” and they are two dimensional codes that you’ve probably seen on advertising. They look something like this:

You can use QR codes to promote your business in many ways. Here are just a few ideas:

Use them in your print advertising, making easy for readers to find your website.
Create coupons. Once your user scans the QR code, they can access a coupon.
Provide access to interactive maps, so your customers can find your business.
Add QR codes to your printed catalogs, so your customers can make their order online.
Add a QR code to your business card, offering a special discount for scanning.
Does your business have schedules? QR codes are a quick way to access fitness, show and other types of schedules.

The possibilities are limited only by your marketing imagination. The gap between print and digital is closing quickly, providing you with so many options for using QR codes in your business.

But how do you make a QR code? Let’s talk about that next…

Make Your QR Codes for Free with Delivr

Delivr is a free service that allows you to create QR codes for your website pages and more. For this tutorial, we’ll be focusing on making a QR code for a website page or URL, but we’ll briefly explore the other features too.

Go to http://delivr.com to get started.

While you can use the service without any account, we recommend signing up for a free account so you can edit your QR codes and access tracking/analytics capabilities. We’re going to use the service with an account in this tutorial, so you can see all of the features.

Step 1: Log into Your Account

Once you’re logged in, click on the “Create New Code” box in the top right corner of the page.

You can create a QR code to a website, YouTube video, Flickr image or video, Google Maps and even just to display some text.

Step 2: Create a QR Code to a URL

Creating a QR code to a website page is simple. Just enter your URL at the http://. Then click “go”.

Once you’ve done that, you’ll see a few options to share and save your QR code. Your sharing options include Facebook, Twitter and Ping.fm, but we want to get the QR code that you can use in your advertising and promotions. You’ll find the QR code on the far right side of the page:

You can save the file in a variety of formats including PNG, JPG and EPS. You may want to check with your printer on what format they’d like if you are hiring someone to do your promotional printing.

If you want to do a do-it-yourself promotion, you can try the “Print Flyer” option, but you can’t edit the flyer at all. It is simply a picture of your website and invitation to scan the code. Here’s an example of a QR code for YouTube.com.

If you make a flyer for your website, it would show a picture of your website instead.

Campaign Editing

You have a few options when it comes to editing your campaign. To do this, click on “Dashboard” in the top menu of your account.

Then click the edit icon for the campaign you want to edit.

You can change the destination URL. This might be useful if you’ve created a special landing page or promotion that you would like to direct your visitors to. You can always change the URL again later.

There are also some more advanced settings like prompting for a GPS location and advanced tracking, but for our purposes, we don’t need this.

Campaign Analytics

To access your Analytics, click on Dashboard again and then click on the “Analytics”. You can view daily, monthly and other reports.

The report will show you how many scans your QR code has received and other data as well. You can also what type of device users are reaching you with. Our campaign is brand new, so there is no data showing at this moment.

There is also a map that shows you where the geographic location of your visitors and what type of device they were using.

Other QR Tag Options

As mentioned earlier in our tutorial, you can make tags for YouTube videos, Flickr photos and videos and more. Let’s briefly go over those options here.

YouTube Video (or Flickr)

To make a code for a YouTube video, you can choose the YouTube option and enter the video URL or ID. The process is the same for Flickr, but we’re demonstrating YouTube below.

The URL is what appears at the top of your browser or just enter the video ID.

Once you’ve entered your video information, you can also add a title and a description.

Whenever someone scans your QR code, they will be taken to a page on delivr.com that includes your video and your personal message.

Google Maps

If you’d like to provide your customer with an easy map to get to your store or office, you can also connect your QR code to a Google Map. On the Google Maps option, simply enter your address in the box.

After you click, “go”, you can personalize the map by including a title and a description. Click “Finish” when you’re done.

When your readers scan your QR code on a GPS-enabled device, they will be prompted to use their current location and they can easily get directions to your place of business.

Text

If you’d like an easy way to share a simple mobile-friendly message with your visitors, you can also make a QR code to a page with some text. To start, enter a title for your message. Click “go” when you’re done.

Then you can edit your message. You can also insert photos, YouTube videos, a phone number, website links and more. Click “finish” when you’re done.

When someone clicks your QR code, they’ll be led to a page that shows your ad on a mobile-friendly page.

As you can see, creating QR codes is a fairly simple process and provides your business with plenty of marketing options. With the growth of mobile technology, QR codes make it possible for you to improve the response to your marketing efforts.

21 Reasons to Send a Press Release

by Nicole Munoz

And How to Position Your Story for Media Interest

If you’ve ever thought that you don’t have anything newsworthy to share about your business, this handy reference guide will provide you with plenty of ideas. Every company has newsworthy information to share and it’s just a matter of positioning that information so it’s of interest to the media.

The opening of your business. Local media is particularly interested in new businesses, especially when they offer a helpful product or service for the community. Write your press release showing the benefits to your community and target market. You can even include a special offer or free gift to encourage people to visit your business.

The launch of your website. The launch of a helpful website is newsworthy, just like the launch of a business. Make sure your release includes the useful features of your website. Invite readers to visit your website for a free gift. It could be a white paper, report, coupon, software, tool, etc.

Change in product offering. If you’re launching a new product that will help or if you’re lowering your prices, this might just be very newsworthy. Just keep in mind how your target market benefits and make that the focus of your release.

Joint ventures. If you’re combining forces with another company or individual and it benefits your target market, share that information in a press release.

Association membership. Join your local Chamber of Commerce or another business association. Include information on how your contributing to the group. Don’t know what association to join? Create your own.

A business move. If you’re moving to a new location that offers benefit to your customers, write a release. For example, if you’re getting a larger location for more inventory, moving to a location with improved technology, etc.

Share your expertise. A release that provides consumer tips, time-saving tips, money-saving tips, etc. that are relevant to your own business and show your expertise.

Make a prediction. Make a prediction that relates to your niche. Include supporting evidence, facts and statistics for credibility.

Solve a problem. If your target customers have a typical problem, create a release that includes solution. For example, if you provide skin treatments that help with dry winter skin, you can explain how the treatment works and provides release from pain and itch.

“Celebrities” that use your product. If a respected individual in your community or niche uses your product, share that news – with their permission, of course. Include quotes from the “celebrity” that share why they came to you and the results they’ve received.

Capitalize on current events. A popular news story is the perfect tie into your release. If you can relate the story to your business, it is quite likely the media will be interested. For example, if there is an increase in home break-ins in the area and you sell home security systems, you can write a release that includes tips for securing a home that refers to your products.

Capitalize on pop culture. Popular TV shows, movies and music are great fodder for a press release. For example, if you teach music lessons a tie-in to the popular TV show Glee might be an interesting angle.

Share your awards and accomplishments. If you’ve won an award or received some other type of recognition, this is perfect press release fodder. Show how this accomplishment serves your community/ target market.

Give awards. Not only can you share information about awards you receive, you can give out meaningful awards to your community as well.

Fundraisers. Spread awareness for your cause and your business, by making a donation or holding a fundraiser. Be sure to follow-up the announcement of your upcoming fundraiser with the end results you achieved.

Be a sponsor. Sponsor a local team or organization and write a press release about it. It shows you contribution and support of the local community.

Have a contest. Whether it’s a sweepstakes, an essay or video contest, it’s fun and interesting. Make sure to send a follow-up when the winners are announced.

Host a special event. Put together an open house or customer appreciation day. Offer refreshments, helpful information, etc. to attendees. Let the media know about the event with a press release.

Host a virtual event. Organize a teleseminar or webinar that provides valuable information to your target customer and announce this free event through your press release.

Create a useful publication. Are you putting together a helpful newsletter, white paper or report? Share it in a press release.

Create an internship or work experience program. If you’re going to hire some students for the summer, share the news. Follow up with stories on the success of the program with some of your star participants.

As you can see, there’s always something to share in a press release and if you don’t currently have a newsworthy event, you can create one. Keep this list handy to help establish your business in your community and to develop a relationship with the media.

10 Tips for Staying Focused on Social Media

by Nicole Munoz

Getting sucked into social media distractions is a real concern for anyone using social media professionally. You might only plan on working on your Twitter account for 20 minutes, then look up 90 minutes later wondering where your time went.

Social media is notoriously distracting. So how do you stay focused when you’re working on your social media strategy? These ten tips will help.

Tip #1: Keep Your Business & Personal Accounts Separate

Mixing the two accounts is a recipe for disaster. You’ll log on to update your Twitter status, then get sucked right into the funny video of your next door neighbor’s niece.

If you have your accounts mixed, separating them alone will drastically boost your productivity.

Tip #2: Do Not Multitask

When you’re working on social media, you should spend that time only working on social media. Don’t do other things at the same time.

People will often try to do social media “on the side” while they’re taking care of other things. For example, you might be listening in to a company wide call that isn’t taking up your full attention. So, you might hop on Twitter at the same time to post a few things.

This is bad, because it trains your brain to not separate social media work time from other things. By not multitasking and only doing social media during social media time, you train your brain to work on social media in a very focused way.

Tip #3: Have a Daily Action Plan

Having a plan for how you spend your time on social media can really help minimize distractions. For example, if you plan on using your social media time to build an influence, you might break your time down like this:

5:00 – Schedule Posts in HootSuite
5:30 – Respond to @Mentions, Read Tweets, Retweet
6:00 – Send Personal Messages to Influencers

Don’t “wing” your social media.

Tip #4: Do Your Social Media When Your Work is Finished

Plan your social media time after the majority of your work is finished. Though social media is an important marketing venue, it’s rare that it’s really so urgent that it needs to be done early in the day.

Doing your social media last helps cut down the likelihood that your social media work would detract from the rest of your day.

Tip #5: Avoid Chats

Turn off your chats. Turn off Facebook chat, Google chat and any other chat programs you have running in the background. Many social networks will have a chat program weaved into their basic functionality. Make sure those chat systems are off.

Chats can throw your entire day out the window. Someone might message you and a 15 minute social media session suddenly turns into a 40 minute conversation. Often time’s you’ll have trouble saying no to someone’s communication because you don’t want to damage the relationship. You’re better off just turning your chats off in the first place.

Tip #6: Learn to Recognize Seemingly Urgent But Unproductive Behaviors

Do you really need to watch that 2 minute video that someone just uploaded? Do you really need to respond to that provocative comment?

A lot of the content you see on social media is designed to be inherently attention catching. They can seem urgent. But when you look at them objectively, you’ll find that it’s really counter productive to spend your time on it. Whenever you’re tempted to click on a link, ask yourself: “Is this really going to forward my business?”

Tip #7: Don’t Do It Alone

Doing social media alone is a big pitfall for many reasons.

First, there’s nobody to tell you when you’re going off course. Second, it’s easy to get distracted and not get things done if there’s nobody you’re accountable to. Third, you have nobody to share your triumphs with, which makes social media less exciting.

Having someone to share your social media ventures with gives you a strong framework to work in. Sharing your projects with a supervisor, a peer, with your business partner or with fellow online entrepreneurs can really help boost your social media focus.

Tip #8: Stay Focused on Learning One Thing at a Time

Social media users often try to take on far too much at once. They try to learn how to run a contest, how to learn new software, how to use a new social network and so on all at the same time.

Each task individually might not seem like it’s challenging to learn. But when you pile your plate high with new things, you’re going to have a scattered attention span. That sense of being scattered will cause you to be more easily distracted. It’ll also take you longer to learn any skill than if you learned them thoroughly one at a time.

Learn to focus on learning one thing at a time. Once you master that one thing, then you can take on something else.

Tip #9: Use Tools to Condense Your Sessions

It’s nearly impossible to focus on your work if you have to log into Twitter, Facebook and other social networks many times throughout the day. But many audiences do expect you to post updates throughout the day.

That’s why it’s absolutely crucial that you use tools like HootSuite (shown below) and TweetDeck to schedule posts and updates. These tools allow you to communicate at the frequency that your followers expect, without having to distract yourself from your workday all the time.

Tip #10: Be Metric Driven

When you’re accountable for delivering metrics and you use your social media time in a goal driven manner, you’re going to be much more productive. It’s when you’re just “doing social media” for the sake of doing it, without a goal, that tends to detract from focus.

If you don’t have clear metrics, you’ll have a hard time staying driven. After all, you won’t know when you’re doing things right and when you’re doing things wrong, so it really doesn’t matter what you do. But when you have clear metrics, you’ll know exactly when you’re on track and when you’re not.

What you track improved. Track your social media progress.

These ten tips will help you stay focused on your social media activities, so you progress quickly in the social sphere and so your social media activities don’t detract from the rest of your workday.