We are a little late to be honest, and they do say better late than never.  We’ve been doing social marketing for clients for years and of course we have done SEO for clients for years.  Very few clients wanted both, most wanted SEO, and it was my fault really for not better communicating the value of Social Marketing.  Social marketing as we now know it, sort of crept up as a fad and in rapid time became a significant element of web marketing.  Most of our clients, local in Jupiter or around the world in Canada and Hawaii, should now be on a hybrid plan.

There are still quite a few people we meet with who have no love or interest in Facebook.  Ok, just consider that people spend more time on Facebook than they do on Google.  And google is far and away the top search engine.  Facebook can be an amazing word of mouth and referral source. Always has been and always will be the best way to get new business is to have a friend tell a friend.  And there are many ways friends can tell friends about you.  We recently spoke with a car wash client of ours and suggested they implement the masses strategy. In other words, tell people that a product is popular and they will feel some pressure to follow the masses.

And it’s more than just a strategy, its a valuable service.  Communicating what other customers choose the most could help indecisive people, or people who are unsure of the value of a certain product, or even people who never really noticed that product was available to make a choice that is in their best interest.

We’ve long been an advocate of blogging. Just seems that very few of us have (or make) the time to regularly post useful information on the web.  Huge mistake. Since content is king that means fresh content is emperor. Who wants to read some old static page when there is regularly updated content available, with people’s opinions on it. Now we hook your blog up to your Facebook page and twitter account and you have a sort of minimalist approach to social marketing.   Just consider that an important part of social marketing is being social.  Make time to contribute to conversations going on around you that are interesting and you will find more people contributing to your conversation.

Consider the mainstream social outlets moderns search engines. People search on them for advice on where to go, what to do, and what to spend money on all day every day.  You need to get in their and get some of those dollars.  People have no idea how valuable your product is yet, and they should know.  A great site, some basic seo, social marketing and blogging will get the message out.

At Webmanna, our business is growing your business.

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WebManna – Our business is growing your business

Here is a brief summary of the video:

Go to your profile
Click on Pages -> Create Page
Fan yourself, add a picture, edit info
Add some status updates
Share with your friends
Get 25 fans so you can create a custom URL  (Go to Facebook.com/username)

We’d love to have you as friends and fans!  You can become a fan of WebManna by visiting http://www.facebook.com/webmanna Of course you need to have a Facebook account/profile to become a fan.

The Florida branch is OLadyBug and they are right now setting up in South Florida.  We’re part of their marketing team, providing support and direction for their internet and print marketing in Palm Beach county. And once they set up we expect to be customers.

First of all, Facebook gets more face time than google.  Facebook is converting haters left and right.  As a marketing tool it is top notch.  Grow your friend base and share cool stuff. So easy a caveman could do it.

At the close of 2009,  Google shared with the world they would list feeds from Facebook in their real-time search results.  Looks like they are making good on their word.   Updates on facebook pages are being included in results.

The Bottom Line:

For now all we see in real-time search results are links,  status updates, pics and videos posted on the Facebook Fan Page.  Only what the owner of the page posts makes it into the results.   Visitor comments are not included.

But don’t just take my word for it, Danny Sullivan speaks! “Google’s move makes having Facebook fan pages even more essential. Without one, you’re missing out on a chance to be found within yet another area, Google’s real time results.”

So either go research and make it happen yourself or find out how WebManna can support your Facebook marketing efforts.

• Update your wordpress version.  Make sure you back up your site files first.  Easy to do with a back up plugin or through your host.
• Update your plugins.  Check the plugin forum or website first to see if there are any issues reported with the update.  A google search will help too.
• Check your site in all the major browsers.  IE is notorious for messing things up…
• Do you monitor your sites uptime? Might be a good idea.
• Have you made a backup lately?  If you just read this you better do it now
• Are your images optimized? They should be as small as possible for better loading times.
• Is your xml sitemap updated.  That could be useful?
• Who are you pinging everytime you write a post?
• Does your site have a clear call to action?
• Is the look and functionality still credible or do you need an upgrade?

That’s a quick list of reminders for you to have the best possible wordpress site.

So we start asking around and researching how to get our websites more traffic.  Look it up on the web and you will get an absolute overload of information. If you ask your friends they will often tell you that SEO or PPC are the answers to your traffic needs.  Unfortunately when they attempt to describe SEO it just leads to more questions.  PPC is a bit more straightforward.  Pay some money and get visits to your website.  Let’s see just how simple and complicated these two traffic gaining methods are.

What is SEO and why do I need it?

Search Engine Optimization.  Means optimizing your website or blog to rank well in search engine results.  So if i search Google or Bing for “cat shaped cutting boards” I should find your website in the results.  Optimizing or SEO is as much an art as it is a science. Consider that “cutting board” or “cat” will have millions and millions of search engine results with thousands of businesses spending time and money to get their website on the first page of organic listings (search results). Your site needs to have more quality indicators of value than all the other sites.  The primary indicators are based on the keyword content on your site and the back links or other websites linking to your website.  Some of the many other quality factors include, size, age, load times, traffic, freshness, code bloat, deep links, etc.   So an older site might beat a bigger site but not a newer site with more backlinks?  Exactly. Maybe. Sort of. It depends.

When it comes to SEO there are a lot of strategies.  Great content and anchor text links from other websites to your site are extremely valuable.  Knowing which keyword terms to focus on is important too.  The challenge with SEO is that it takes time.  It can take months for some terms and a year or more for highly competitive terms depending on so many factors including the amount of money you have to throw at it.

So then I should do PPC right?

Absolutely. Maybe. Pay Per Click (PPC) is paying for clicks. Usually Google or Yahoo or smaller providers who take your cash and place your site in sponsored listings sections in search results or page ads and only charge you when the link to your site is clicked on. With PPC you can have nearly immediate traffic to your website for the keywords you want.

The challenges for PPC are similar to SEO. The more popular or competitive the term the more it will cost you.  PPC requires some optimization as well including things like keyword based landing pages, negative keywords, and geographical targeting.  There is also the issue of click fraud.  Pay per click or sponsored listings are really great for testing, selling products, and marketing services.

So PPC or SEO?

Testing tells us that using both in your strategy usually means exponentially more traffic than just one or the other.  There is a trust factor in seeing the same company twice on the page in either or both sponsored and organic listings.  SEO is for longevity and domination. PPC is for immediate results and competition.  Most of the time SEO is a must.  PPC is great to do while you are working on your organic results.  More people look at the organic results and ignore the sponsored listings.  If PPC works great then keep doing it.

At Webmanna we love SEO and PPC.  There are a lot of tricks and strategies for improving your PPC results.  There are a lot of strategies and methods for improving your organic listings.  Let us handle that while you do what you do best.   Give us a call at 877 ASK WEBM.  Or shoot us an email to learn more about SEO and PPC in Palm Beach.

It is really quite terrifying and liberating to be entirely responsible for generating business.  Working for a corporation I could do great work and maybe even get a bonus for doing that great work.  Now I am competing with a million other marketing companies who deliver websites,  seo,  design and consultant services. I know for a fact that a majority of them are less qualified and a small percentage are more qualified.  I also know our pricing is more reasonable than most for better quality products than most marketing companies provide.  Often though, price wins out and I see very cool businesses and people get their marketing services from mediocre providers.

This was a very successful year despite all the challenges.  WebManna added quite a few new clients for all types of business.  We are really proud of the work we have done and the people we have worked with to grow their business and income.

For 2010 we would like to add 2 more corporate clients that need consistent collateral design and web services.  We would love to partner with 3 more clients on developing a membership based marketing strategy to create income from something they love.  And we would like to add 2 e-commerce clients who sell products they believe in.

If you know someone who could use our services we would be grateful if you passed along our contact information.  We are based in Palm Beach Florida and love marketing for local businesses.  We also have clients from Hawaii to Canada who rely on us for web, print and graphic design as well as web and traditional marketing.

We are thankful for the challenges and opportunities 2009 presented and we are fired up about the possibilities of 2010.

Just like SEO, SMO is as much an art as it is a science.  There is a formula for success and that formula is fairly well know by this point.  IF it is so well known why isn’t everyone a famous and wealthy web personality?  Because it’s a lot like poker, the best players don’t always win, you often need some luck on your side as well.

Our clients generally are not looking to be internet superstars (though a few are and will be), nope, most of our clients are too busy offering products and services and managing businesses to dive into the social media game.  So their modest goal is to increase their exposure to potential clients to improve revenue.

Common concerns are often:

• Upfront costs for a branded customized social based website or blogsite
• The risks of being social and negatively impacting their business
• The time required to be socially successful on the web
• and that they are just not “cool” enough to make an impression

Well here are some responses to those concerns that are worth considering.

The Cost of Being Social

You already know that everything costs something and generally the more you want to make the more you need to spend.  That being said, there is possibly nothing cheaper in an advertising sense than building a free blog and writing posts.  Tumblr will even host it free for you on your own custom domain.  And a customized branded blog site should cost you less than the html sites you paid for a few years ago so it’s not that expensive.  Considering how much more time people spend on Facebook than google search, a social focus might bring in the bacon better than that old site. (Not just might, it will)

Being Socially Embarrassed

This one is pretty simple.  Use your brain.  Oh and by the way…some people are making millions being idiots, being confrontational, rude, callous, vulgar, offering TMI.  Maybe the fact that you drink like a fish and play poker every Friday will do more good than harm.  You might discover a niche group of people who share your interests and trust you to provide them a product or service.  Now I am not advocating opening your life to the world, I am just saying that sometimes transparency works.  And it’s a web based world my friends, your crap could make it on the internet whether you like it or not so live, connect, and communicate as best suits your best interests.  I believe that the best application of social marketing happens when the marketer really unabashedly loves what they do.  If you want to keep your personal life and social business life separate that should not be any problem.  There are always risks, yet you drive your car anyway.

Time is a Valuable Resource

And we could all stand a few lessons on better time management.  On the other hand, as long as you are doing what you love and satisfied then who cares?  Do you know how much time it takes to do social marketing?  Probably not.  And like everything else you have ever done, it will take some time to learn, adapt and master whatever you are up to.  So the time thing is usually a lame excuse or just plain ignorance and you probably can’t afford either of those considering how precious little time we have.  So make it count!

I am Not That Cool

Well there is a chance you are cool to somebody.  Do you know how many people are on the planet (and have access to the web)!  A LOT, that’s how many and I promise you there are people who will think you are cool.   You need to get to a Tony Robbins seminar immediately and throw out that inferiority complex.  You are very cool and it is about time you let other people know it!  Maybe you are not the best room worker or public speaker, but you know something and that something is what you have to share with the world.

Get a blog, get on Facebook, write great content and get social.  Don’t be a newspaper!