Who has time to do Search Engine Optimization?

There are so many tools and techniques for marketing these days. Sometimes I think it would be a lot easier if we had stayed in the traditional marketing phase--by its very nature, traditional marketing requires things to happen more slowly. New billboards, TV ads, radio spots and printed materials could only be created so quickly. We've moved beyond a traditional marketing only world though, and keeping up can be tough. Your days are filled with many responsibilities, and marketing may only garner a fraction of your time. I wrote about patience and diligence when it comes to digital marketing, which is important for success, however, so is working smarter, not harder.

Search Engine Optimization is no doubt one of the most important parts of marketing in the digital age. If you aren't showing up in search engines, you are missing out on a huge opportunity to be found by a new audience. We all have questions and sought after information, and most of us find the answers in search results.

SEO is complicated and requires an understanding of your target audience. You have to be tuned in enough to know what they might be searching for, if they were looking for a site like yours. It's kind of a trial and error process, and it does take time for the efforts to really pay off. Again, I realize you have a lot of other stuff going on, so I wanted to share an article with three easy steps that you can use to work smarter, and not harder, on SEO.

Bare Minimum SEO: 3 Things You Must Do

If you could do only three things for SEO, what would they be? This is a question encountered by many smaller businesses, and even somewhat larger companies, either due to not having enough people (time) and/or dollars available to invest in a big way.

Here are three minimal SEO tasks you must do:

1. Check your indexing status.

2. Focus site on target keywords.

3. Go get links.

I'm a Social Media Cowgirl (Howdy Ya'll)

My friend, and author of this post, speaks my language. I couldn't help but share because of the cowgirl connection. I grew up on a working cattle ranch, but have since traded my boots and ropes for social media and digital technologies. Thanks to Danielle Spears for marrying the two very different worlds!

I'm a Social Media Cowgirl (Howdy Ya'll): We’re facing a wild, Wild West out there. This frontier is made up of hash tags, handles, influence and followers.

How to Do Email Marketing Effectively, Part 3

Segmenting an email marketing list is essential to email marketing best practices. Customization and personalization on a mass level is one of the great benefits of using email marketing (in fact, it's the only digital marketing channel that allows for personalization on such a large scale). Consumers want personalization, and this is a fabulous way for you to offer it, without a lot of fuss. It pays off for you too--your readers will be more engaged, unsubscribes will be fewer, and your efforts will lead to more conversions.  When email recipients know they are only receiving communications with information that is relevant to their likes, tastes and interests, they are much more likely to pay attention. Think about regular mail--you're much more excited to see a card from Grandma than a piece of junk mail trying to sell you auto insurance you don't need.

A recent post from the Bronto Blog couldn't have explained email segmentation better. I'd like to share their post below. ;)

Keys to Creating More Relevant Emails with 4 Simple Segmentation Tactics

The Democratic and Republican National Conventions recently came to a close. Imagine if instead of having the Democrats attend the DNC and the Republicans attend the RNC they instead randomly assigned people to attend one or the other. Of course some people would find the convention relevant to them, but others would not. This wouldn’t make much sense, right? Well, this is exactly what you do when you send batch-and-blast emails to your subscribers.

Email marketers and politicians both know the value of sending people messages most relevant to them. Relevant emails generate higher open rates, higher click rates and, most importantly, higher conversions.

Although it all sounds great and you want to do it, what if you simply don’t have all the traditional RFM data at your fingertips? What if your company is smaller in size and/or your resources are limited? The good news is there are still ways to begin to create more relevant emails and increase revenue without a complex email marketing infrastructure. Your subscribers are handing over valuable information explicity (through a sign-up form, preference center) and implicity (through behavior within an email). For more ways to explore how to continue to grow that data bank, check out "Segmentation: What they tell you explicitly - Preferences 101"

Visit the Bronto Blog to look at some ways you can use simple segmentation data without being overwhelmed.

Building Fans, Increasing Followers, Getting to 1Million Viewers -- Why is it taking soooo long?!

Social media success doesn't happen over night.

We are not a patient species. We may have been at one time, but then McDonald's spoiled us with the drive through window, the internet dumped dial-up connections, and Apple started creating leaner, meaner, faster cell phones. No one waits for anything anymore, so it's only fitting, that I remind all of you one more time, social media success doesn't happen over night.

Some things still take time. Even with short cuts and insights, there is only so much cheating that Father Time will allow. When you bake a cake, if you rush it, you will be eating soggy cake (personally, I find chocolate in any state delightful, but soggy cake and sloppy social media are two different things).

Here is what I suggest for those that want social media success to happen for you right now:

• Reread the bolded sentence above.
• Create a plan for your social media efforts. What social sites will you use and how will you use them? What do you want to share on each? (Remember, social media isn't about you telling people stuff. It's also about you listening. And actually, the less you try to tell them, and the more you listen instead, the better it will work.)
• Set some time aside each week to develop your social media efforts. You can't write one tweet and call it good. It's ongoing. Like any good relationship, it takes work.
• Think of social media like dating. You have to court the girl for a while before you bring her home to meet the family. Then you spend more time getting to know each other before you pop the question. You can expand your business and increase sales with social media, but you have to take the time to "court" your customers. 
• Be patient. With persistance and dedication, it will happen.

I enjoyed a recent post by the Social Media Examiner on using social media for customer research. They shared some great ideas for finding customers that are talking about things relevant to your business. Find these conversations and join them. Don't try to seal the deal immediately--court the customer and develop the relationship first. First comes like, then comes love, and then comes marriage.