Interesting....

GoForDope.com is having a contest to get some fresh new Facebook LIKES for their page.  Want to win a Bike Like a New Yorker poster?  Just click over to the GoForDope Facebook Page and click LIKE and you're entered.

Don't be so silly: use only the best, fresh-off-the-vine content for your site if you're looking to generate backlinks, shares and quality readers.

Invest in your website and blog content, and it will pay dividends.

Visionisto.com

Small Business Social Media Infographic

In a survey of 500 small businesses by Vertical Response, they discovered that nearly 66% are using social media in some fashion.  However, the results are mostly pointing to Facebook and Twitter, while most are avoiding Google Plus, LinkedIn and Pinterest.

These 3 stepbrothers of social media are essential for your marketing.  Especially Google Plus if you’re looking for SEO results and Pinterest if you have a product or service that can produce great visual content.

Wow You're #1 on Google! Aww, No Leads??

While constant SEO and Google updates seem to thin out the heard a bit, there's still no shortage of agencies promising results with minimum effort.  When I consult with a small business, I will often turn down business because they simply want  to be on page one for a few search terms, but they don't understand that that won't necessarily convert to sales or leads.

Aside from picking the wrong keywords, agencies rarely consult on site design and conversion optimization.  It's wonderful news that you're now on the front page of Google for your bestest keyword, but what about that 90's site design you're still working with?  When potential customers come to your site, what's the first impression they get?  Internet users are becoming smarter and smarter with each day that passes.  So if you're not ensuring the best UX possible, then you're missing the big picture.

If you're in the process of hiring an SEO company, think BIGGER!  After all, I'm sure you're competing with some pretty big boys in your industry, right?  You'll need every edge possible to beat them to the finish line and win the business.  Don't fudge up right out of the gate.

For more information on SEO and conversion optimization, follow us on Facebook for our daily tips and small business marketing advice.

Content Marketing is the NEW SEO!

There's always value in FREE.  Sharing content and information to the world is the fastest and most cost effective way to build your brand and the ever elusive and treasured backlinks.  Depending on what you sell or offer will determine the content in which you produce.  The more your produce, the better odds you have at gaining attention and having others link to your content.

Small businesses should be focusing on content marketing more than ever.  The biggest reason is that it's trustworthy.  You're not putting your faith in a SEO company to build links through link farms, directories and other grey/black-hat techniques.  While many companies hire bloggers and content writers, ultimately you have the last word in what gets produced and disseminated to the public at large.

When I speak with small business owners about internet marketing, I'm no longer selling on the term SEO - which has become diluted and overused IMHO- I preach  an all encompassing inbound internet marketing strategy.  And that strategy begins with content marketing.  So grab your keyboard and start hammering away!

SEO For Your Facebook Page

Be sure to check out our Facebook Page for helpful SEO, Conversion and Marketing tips.  Most recently, we shared this helpful SEO video for your business Facebook Page, http://www.facebook.com/visionisto

This is a great resource for those looking to take the first steps to optimizing their site without the help of a local SEO company.  The guide will pinpoint Google's "best practices" and provide a clear understanding of what they're looking for in a website.

So the team is getting the creative juices flowing working on a new logo for Visionisto.  These are 2 of the revisions thus far.  

New business card design for the team.  This will be the back of the card, with traditional info (with out creative spin) on the front-side.

Google's 2011 Revenue and High Rolling Industries

If you needed more of a reason to see why Google is a beast, here's an infographic via WordStream.  The graphic breaks down Google's 2011 revenues and segments into the top 10 industries that had the biggest spend. Hard numbers: Finance and Insurance stole the show with $4B Retail and Merchandise came in a close second with $2.8B

It's pretty obvious that advertisers know where to put their money.  If you're a small business looking to get into the game, there's no reason to break the bank.  Getting your feet wet with a small monthly budget should bring in some business or at least help with branding.  A properly managed account can make a dollar go very far.  If you're a local company, stick to a 1-2 miles radius to see what happens.  As we can see, search is becoming more and more tailored to the local. 

The Integrated Marketing Smashup

Embracing all inbound marketing channels is essential to capturing every possible lead and opportunity floating out there in the world.  Sticking to one or two channels may get you some results, but you know the old adage-egg and baskets... yadda, yadda, yadda.  Utilizing all mediums will bring new prospects and shed new light on your product or service.  So grab hold of your blogging, social media, email, SEO and PPC skills, because you'll need them to fully optimize your lead growth. The main go for any inbound marketer, or marketing person within an organization is to have all channel work in tandem to promote, educate, generate interest and take action.  Below are some channels that are necessary to optimizing your inbound reach.  1.  Email-  Assuming you aren't spamming potential clients, email marketing should be the main go-to tool in your kit.  If you've built your list correctly - meaning that customers or leads actually went out of their way to sign up for updates through email - then the odds of one day converting these people to sales are extremely high.  Combine that we the cost to acquire these people and update them regularly through email, the process is invaluable.

2.  Email with Social-  Now that we've established the importance of the email campaign, you need to tie in some other mediums, like social media.  Linking your latest email to Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and your Blog will help grow those following you in these areas grow naturally.  By encouraging your fans to share your info, you're getting tons of free exposure and growing your audience at the same time.  3.  Blogging and Social-  The relationship between blogging and social media is one that is constantly growing.  It's a relationship that grows along with the other.  By now we all understand the importance of creating great content that people WANT to read, but now we want them to share it.  Anytime you write and publish your blog, it's time to share.  Share in every possible social media outlet you have your hands on.  Again, you'll educate your client and fan base and grow your loyalty with each new blog post.  This cross-channel form of marketing is essential in growing your inbound efforts.  Ensure that your blog has all the major social buttons- "Tweet This", "Like This", "+ This", etc. 4.  SEO and PPC-  All of the above will help with your SEO and PPC.  If you've created blogs and have tons of great content, that's giving you a nice boost in the eyes of Google.  Got your social media affairs well optimized?  Again, nice little boost.  Great content on site?  PPC ad CPC will be lower and CTR will be higher.  Remember that everything you do with your companies name attached to it will effect something along the lines.  They all work together in a symbiotic relationship, a waltz of marketing genius. The word "optimized" get's thrown around in SEO of course, but having a fully optimized inbound, integrated marketing mix is essential in creating the best possible natural lead generation program for your business. For more info on inbound marketing and how it can help your business, shoot over to Visionisto.com

The Essential Inbound Marketing List

If you're small business, one the essential things you must do for your business is drive traffic to your site. I'm not talking about paying for traffic either.  I'm talking about nurturing FREE resourced throughout the net that will give you the most out of your limited marketing schedule. Most small business owners feel that this may be over their head and may feel the need to reach out to marketing companies and ad agencies to grab the ball and run with it.  But if you're a bootstrapped company there's plenty of novice ways to get the ball rolling.  Dip your big toe in the inbound marketing pool and watch where it takes you.  But beware, it can be very addicting!! Let's assume that you've already built a website, bare bones, no SEO and no marketing company or in house marketer driving the traffic.  Below are my favorite tools and websites that will ensure a healthy start to your inbound marketing presence. SEOmoz: Ahh the mozzers!  This amazing company offers plenty of free advice and tools that allow you to grasp the basics of online marketing as well as their core product, SEO.  They constantly update the site with new products and have a daily blog.  They encourage new users and they're extremely talented at nuturing relationships.  If you're looking to go one step further SEOmoz offers they Pro paid service for only $99 a month.  With that you can access links to your site, analyze traffic and research as well as track relevant keywords. Seomoz.org Google Analytics:  Accessing raw data relevant to your site couldn't get any easier.  Simply sign up for a Google Account, tell Analytics what site you want to track and POOF! they spit out this short piece of code that gets inserted into your site.  From their you can see what keywords were typed into Google to find your site, see how long they spent on a particular page, access to the amount of visitors and traffic and much more.  The info is great for newcomers as well as data driven math geeks that can spend hours looking at charts pointing "up and to the right". Google.com/analytics Website Grader:  The Website Grader by Hubspot offers some great insite to where your website stands in the eyes of the search engines.  They'll give you a "grade" -out of 100- from everything from coding, blogs/social media, meta info, keywords and so on.  It's a great tool for the newbie SEO and will give you some great baseline info.  Accessing the data is pretty easy to, simply head over to websitegrader.com and punch in your URL.  In seconds you'll be able to see your website's effectiveness in search. Google Places:  The essential destination for anything local.  If you're a local business, you NEED a Google Places page.  Not only is it tremendous in driving FREE traffic to your site, it plays a big roll in online reputation and act as a hub for your companies info.  Claiming your Google Places page is simple, head to google.com/places and follow the step by step instructions.  The more detailed you are about your company, the better.  It will also give you more of an edge against your local competition.  Add pictures, video, hours of operation, gather reviews and more! There's no need for any small business to be scared of doing their own marketing.  If you're bootstrapped, the above offers are all FREE and will give you a nice start in inbound marketing.  -Team Visionisto

Stand Out in the Crowd

Small business marketing is not difficult at all.  Unfortunately, small business owners usually wear more than one hat, which can make it harder than it should be. They're in accounting one day, business development the next and on Fridays they work in Janitorial!  Learning to focus and pin point the end goal usually makes getting there a lot easier.  If you're like me, you receive 3-5 calls a day from someone offering you the newest technology to generate business.  It can be overwhelming.  Sometimes we need to put our head down, flip up the blinders and focus.  Simple as that. I learned early on that companies that focus on being the best at everything, often fail or are mediocre at best.  I also learned you should never work for these companies.  The lack focus and it distracts the entire company from success. 

Why not pick a niche and run with it.  In a space where there's money to be made there will always be competition.  If you can find a way to segregate yourself from the pack, you'll actually give yourself an edge. Ask yourself:  What can I offer that's different from my competition?  What am I truly good at?  Once you nail down these 1-2 services, go after it.  If you're a web design firm that EXCELS in design, there's no need to offer SEO or Local Map Marketing.  Stick to what you can execute to 100% competence and you're sure to succeed.

-Team Visionisto

Twitter.com/visionisto

facebook.com/visionisto

How to Create the Perfect Landing Page

It many marketers eyes, it's pretty easy to drive traffic to a website.  I hear all the time, that so-and-so's website is #1 on Google for a top competing keyword.. OK, but does that page convert that traffic into sales?  No? Oh, I thought so.  More and more marketing pros are using split testing and A/B metrics to determine which pages produce the best conversions and which should be sent to the glue factory.  The following steps are tried and tested, and are proven to generate leads and conversions.  More importantly, your pages will build trust and authority. Contact Forms: When someone wants to take action, it's best to make it as easy as possible.  There's a delicate balance between having an in-your-face contact form, and having a contact form that does its job.  Keep the contact form info to a minimum- enough to get back in touch with the prospect.  Long drawn out form could be a detriment to conversions and can scare of potential leads. Contact Number:  While the main point of having an online landing page is to have the customer fill out the form to be contacted, the addition of a telephone number will add credibility to your company.  Meanwhile, customers will most likely pass on the number.  It will give them a nice warm, fuzzy feeling knowing that if they had to, they could contact someone. Testimonials:  Let's face it, a lot of testimonial out there on the net are manufactured.  Adding some key elements like photo (non stock images) and videos, add additional credibility.  Additionally, this is usually the last step in someones conversion psychology.  So be sure to have a contact form or telephone number on this page. Accreditation:  Any seals or accreditation that add credibility will add to the conversion factor.  Seals from the BBB, local chamber of commerce, etc.  will be sure to help.  Also, having the ability to link to that BBB page (in a new window) shows that you didn't just steal the badge from a competitor. Avoid Templates: There's plenty of good designers out there.  And in today's market, there's plenty of designers out there that can be had for a bargain.  Consumers are smarter these days, and they know what a good site looks like.  Invest in the best possible site your budget will allow.  Working directly with a designer will give you more flexibility with tweaking your pages after you've tested. Stick to the above fundamentals and your sites will convert.  Don't forget to test, measure and tweak.  Oh, and test... test...test!!

Google and Their Anti-SOPA Protest

Google's homepage is as unbranded as any company I know of that has revenues in the hundreds of billions.  However, tomorrow they will brand their homepage with a "Stop SOPA" brand to show their positioning in the ongoing internet saga. "Like many businesses, entrepreneurs, and Web users, we oppose these bills because there are smart, targeted ways to shut down foreign rogue websites without asking American companies to censor the Internet," a Google representative told CNET. "So tomorrow we will be joining many other tech companies to highlight this issue on our U.S. home page."

While Google will still be functional and running as normal, other sites across the net will actually lead a protest by way of shutting down service.  Wikipedia, Wordpress and Mozilla will all take part in a 24 hour protest against SOPA. Wikipedia's found Jimmy Wales had quite the back and forth with Twitter CEO Dick Costello.  While Wales' position is that every little bit counts when protesting, Costello seems to think it's quite foolish. We would love to hear your thoughts.

Don't forget about our Facebook Page and Twitter for updates and news.

#visionisto

Connect Locally with Mobile + Social

If you're like me, your search through mobile apps and platforms has increase drastically over the last 2 years or so.  So when I tell small businesses they need to adopt some sort of mobile marketing plan or they'll be left in the dust, I mean it. The easiest case and point has to be when we're searching for food or a local restaurant.  You're in a area that you're not too familiar with, but you know what you want.  You know you want the best Gyro money can buy.  You're craving it!  What do you do?  I'll tell you what I do.  I hit up the Google machine, find what's locally available and then see what others are saying on Yelp. Chances are if your restaurant or eating establishment is not optimized for mobile search, you don't even exist to searchers.  According to Search Engine Land, "mobile users search with local and immediate intent".   60% visit a local business and 88% take action within a day!  So what does this mean??  It means if people are searching on their mobile they're further along the sales funnel, they're ready to action....they're ready to eat!! Some key steps for ensuring your local, mobile footprint: Google Places + Map Optimization-  Make sure you're completed your Google Places profile to 100%.  If you're a restaurant, make sure there's plenty of reviews, a mobile friendly website with accompanied menu, images, maps, etc. Bing Maps-  Same points as above, just not as widely used.  Still, get it done. Social Media- Optimize your profiles for local search.  In areas where you can speak about what you have to offer, leave items and keywords that most people will search to find you on a mobile device.  Example: Best Gyro Miami, etc. Mobile search will be the most valued avenue for marketing in 2012, I can guarantee that.  Will your business be found?

-Team Visionisto