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In today’s competitive environment it seems even the smallest custard stand must have its presence known online. What often seems to get lost in the shuffle is building trust, establishing yourself as superior and authoritative and, more importantly, letting your potential customers know you before you know them. There are several ways to start building the trust that will allow your business to succeed online, and it starts with your company’s website, and communicating to your potential clients how they should communicate with each other. This doesn’t mean build a Facebook page for your plumbing company. It means understanding where your clients are looking for you online, what they expect, and how to best reach them. Let’s go through a few examples of how this is done.

Establish a Human Connection ThroughYour Website

There are several things you can do on your website to build trust and authoritativeness. First of all, make sure your site is packed with helpful content. There is nothing wrong with sharing a little premium information now and again. This helps to build trust, and once you are comfortable with the idea you will see that it certainly brings more business than it loses.

Also make sure you have a nice “About Us” section with pictures and bios of the people your potential customers will either talk to or see in person. It is important that your potential clients connect with you on a personal level and see that there are real people behind your services. Once they know you and trust you, doing business is really an after thought. Remember: Customers trust people, not companies.

Build Communities Through Groups and Forums

Developing these options are very good ways to spend your time. Once you understand where your potential clients look for information, you will want to establish yourself as an authority. For example: Years ago we used to target dealerships specifically for Internet marketing, so we would make sure to participate in forums like ADM and Driving Sales, as well as always post on blogs like Dealer Refresh. Establishing yourself as an authority in those spaces (not always trying to sell products and services) and genuinely helping people will bring you more business. More importantly, it will lead to a profitable business.

Social Media like Twitter, Myspace and Facebook

One of the hottest marketing tools pushed by news and online outlets is social media. Often times it gets billed as “the solution to all your marketing problems.” I don’t blame the social media services for this, I blame the journalists and bloggers who say such crazy things. The fact of the matter is that – just as with all marketing channels – you have to do your research.

It is likely that many of your customers are on Facebook, Twitter and other social networking sites. The important thing to consider is whether or not they are LOOKING for you there. They might be there, but do they want to hear your message through these outlets? If not, you’re just spamming them. Take the time to carefully understand where your clients are going to look for your service, and approach them there. It may sound like an oversimplification of the marketing issue but it isn’t. You wouldn’t advertise handguns on a cooking website, would you?

Effective online marketing involves understanding where your potential customers are looking for you and establishing a presence there. Don’t be afraid to give away information at the expense of a potential customer. You will build authoritativeness, trust and a strong client base. People will respect you for saving them a little time and money. If you see someone with a problem that is easy to fix, go ahead and do it. In our experience, the client comes back later and refers others to you. Word of mouth still works, even on the Internet.

It is easy as a small business owner or entrepreneur to start a website and then forget about it for a long period of time. It is also just as easy for someone to put a lot of work into their businesses’ website in the first month and then forget about it. After sitting for a while there is a lot of momentum lost, and it can be very difficult to get back. There are millions of websites on the web (maybe billions) with hundreds of thousands going up daily, if you let your site slip into hibernation it is easy for Google – and, more importantly, your potential clients – to forget about it. Here are some items below that should help get things headed in the right direction again. (This is typically what I do in the first week of SEO services).

* Optimization of Title Tags - The title tags are the titles of each page that show up on the top of the internet browser and as the title of the site page in search engine results. I will go through all the pages on the site and rewrite the title tags to include accurate, descriptive titles of the page content as well as important keywords relevant to the webpage. This makes visitors more likely to click on the site in search engine results. It also makes the search engines rank the site higher for keyword search terms.

* Optimization of Meta Descriptions – The Meta descriptions are the descriptions of webpages that show up under the title in the search engine result pages. Similar to the title tags, I rewrite the Metadescriptions of every page to include more detailed descriptions of what the page is about and make the site more attractive to visitors.

* Optimization of Existing Site Content –I also go through all of the site’s pages to optimize content with strong keywords, anchor text (internal links), html heading tags and more. I review the content and check for grammar and vocabulary errors. I don’t change the actual information of the text content unless it’s necessary to fix grammatical errors.

* Repairing All Broken Links on the Site – I will go through the site and repair all the broken links so that the entire site displays efficiently.

* Setting Up a 301 Redirect – A 301 redirect will automatically direct visitors who land on http://yoursite.com to the “www.” version of the URL, http://www.yoursite.com

* Correcting URL structure issues – If possible, I will rename page files to shorten URL addresses of pages and include descriptive keyword in the file names. At the beginning there may be many different folders to navigate through to get to pages, so I try to shorten URLs without interfering with site functionality. This makes the site easy for search engines and visitors to navigate.

Adding 10-15 new pages of quality content also helps, and the practice of continually adding said content will “trains” Google and other search engines to see that your site is not neglected and is a source of great, authoritative content that is updated consistently.

It also makes sense to sumit your site to high quality, authoritative directories. The best ones to list your site in are:

* Yahoo! Directory
* DMOZ
* Business.com
* WhatUSeek
* Best of the Web
* JoeAnt

Make a commitment to adding new, fresh content to your site at least twice a week. Finding topics to write about can be difficult. One method I suggest is using the Google Keyword Tool to generate some ideas. If you type in a word related to your business, look for related words that make a good article, for example:

https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal

Using the keyword: “central vac systems” as an example we see several interesting article options.

Keywords:

central vacuum systems

central vac systems

central vacuums systems

central vac system

beam central vac systems

central vac systems in

for central vac systems

air vac central vacuum systems

vac central vacuum systems

There won’t always be article ideas that jump out, but you could write a few articles about “beam central vac systems” or “air vac.” The keyword tool will automatically sort the words that get the most traffic, so you should work your way down that list. If you are a local business working on your own internet marketing, make sure if you search for keywords revolving around your city. For example, you could research “Central Vac Systems Chicago” to get a good list of local keywords to write about. Make sure to incorporate keyword phrases that include your city’s name in your new content.

If you let your website sit stagnant for too long, it can be difficult to get the ball rolling again. It will take a recommitment to your site, spending at least a few days a week on it. Once you get into the habit of things, the work isn’t really difficult. If you are a small business doing your own internet marketing, it is important to make this a part of your weekly schedule or hire someone to do so. Allowing a site to gather dust can be an expensive and time consuming mistake to reverse.

There are a lot of reasons small businesses stay offline, some think they cannot afford it, some think they don’t need it, and others have tried and failed.  Even though there seems to be no limit to the reasons our local baker doesn’t have a website what it really comes down to in our experience is bad information.  Whether it is fellow business owners, self serving trade magazines, or in the worst case and often the most common case—poor advice from vendors in the industry small businesses don’t have many resources for quality advice on Internet Marketing.

Obviously, we do Internet Marketing for a living so there is a little worry that this post won’t be taken seriously, but there is a reason nearly every new client we take on has a horror story about getting some bad information or getting ripped of by some snake oil salesperson—and it is true.  Below are some things you will want to look out for when choosing a company to help you market online:

Is it too good to be true?

Things like promising a “Tsunami of Traffic in Just 30 Days!” just is not going to happen.  Ask yourself this simple question, if it were that easy why isn’t everyone else doing it?  If someone claims to have “cracked the Google code” steer clear, even when issues are exploited on Google changes are made very quickly to not only fix the glitch but often times punish sites that were trying to take advantage of it.  Any good online marketing company should understand that your business is your life, and it is not to be messed with.

Do They Have Real References…People You Can Talk To?

We are not really sure why people seem to always skip this step.  Many online companies will have a list a mile long of testimonials and “case studies” but at the end of the day you trust someone with your potential livelihood and that should not be taken lightly.  Often time’s references are not checked, and then someone gets ripped off or feels like they were lied to when a simple reference check might have avoided it.  It is important to ask for multiple contacts as to avoid talking to an employee at their company or a friend of the owner.  This task seems like a paid at times but most reputable Internet Marketing companies should have no problem presenting several very happy clients.

Do They Have A Realistic Approach Do They Use Jargon?

The other really important thing is do they care if you understand what they are doing?  In reality you have to have at least a general knowledge of what services they are going to provide, and what general results you should expect, at least what the expected results should be.  What we do can seem like a mystery to most and it is really important that the Internet Marketing firm’s success that you understand what they are doing for it to be a successful long term relationship.  Internet Marketing is not a one off solution, it is about building a long term relationship and if the company doesn’t seem to care about that stay away.

These are just a few of the things small business owners can do to make sure the relationship they form with an Internet Marketing company is mutually successful.  There are a lot of shady people out there, but don’t let that discourage you, the good ones are out there too you just have to look for them.

Tracking your websites traffic is very important. Knowing where your traffic is coming from, what visitors are doing on your site and which keywords are driving traffic is a key metric. The thing is, most websites we see stop measurement there and that is keeping you from literally some of the most import information you can get, conversion keywords. These are the words people typed into the search engine that eventually bought something, or submitted a lead. It is actually very easy to setup and can be used in a variety of ways.

Goal Conversion Can Guide Your Marketing Efforts

Tracking which words end up getting leads is one way to build your PPC keyword list. If you already know which words are producing leads from organic traffic it makes sense to also bid on those same words in pay per click advertising.

By the same logic, as your website gets more and more long tailed traffic, you can start to break down long search terms and concentrate on commonalities in your link building and content creation efforts. As you notice traffic trends that produce a good amount of leads, you will be able to flex your organic efforts to also include highly converting keywords.

Many people use PPC to discover which words convert to leads and eventually sales. This is a great way to get your answers quickly. That said, if you don’t have the cash or already have a bunch of existing traffic, setting up goal conversions in Google Analytics can provide an equally clear picture.

What is Goal Conversion Anyway How Do I Set It Up?

Goal conversion is as simple as placing a thank you page on your website. Simply put, sometimes people fill out a “contact us” form. A lead such as this is the simplest form of a conversion. It isn’t necessarily a sale, but knowing which keywords are used by people that submit leads shows you who your captive audience is. After they submit the form you need just setup the form such that they are automatically redirected to for example www.yoursite.com/thankyou.html. All you need to do next is setup the conversion in analytics and it will begin tracking the keywords people use that end up filling out that form.

You can have multiple conversion setups on your site and name them each something different. Each conversion will require its own specific thank you page, and other than that you are all set. Maybe you have some form of contact us and also something people can buy right from your website that would represent two kinds of goals, both a lead and a sale.

Setting up goal conversions in your Google Analytics account is quick and easy. After maybe a few hundred conversions you will have a good enough sample to start making decisions. It is, of course, all relative to the amount of traffic you are getting in a day. If you are getting 100 conversions a day, maybe you want 1,000 before you make a decision, maybe 10,000. The longer you wait, the more secure you can feel in the decision you make.

There is something that needs to be addressed, in most cases you will find posts on this blog of the educational type, and at its heart this topic is also meant to teach. This post deals with the very real obstacle people who sell search engine optimization must deal with, and as potential customers what you will need to understand as well.

To guarantee or not to guarantee results?

The reality is many search engine optimization companies are faced with the decision of whether or not to provide a guarantee on their services. Innately, clients feel more comfortable when they are offered a guarantee and you’ll close more business that way; however, the reality is—you can’t really guarantee anything and here’s why:

1.    We cannot know what your competition is doing
2.    We cannot know what search engines will do
3.    We cannot predict search volume accurately (long term)
4.    We cannot predict market demand (long term)
5.    We cannot  know exactly what timeline your site will be on

Expanding On These 5 Points

At the end of the day, it’s just too difficult to know exactly what is going to happen. We can make our best guess, but that’s all it really is—money back guarantee is just a calculated risk based on several assumptions.

When we say you cannot know what your competition is doing, that is true for the most part. You can look at certain aspects, monitor their site, and get a pretty good idea what their overall strategy is. The safest decision we usually make from looking at competition is simply whether or not it looks like they’re doing anything online at all.  Usually it’s pretty clear who is and who isn’t.  Though most businesses at least have a website—often times that’s about it.

The second, and most obvious, point is that we can’t know what the search engines will do. As internet marketers we are charged with the task of understanding as much as we can about certain search engines—and what they like and dislike. That said, we do not control the search algorithm and it’s impossible to predict. The best we can do is follow best practices and react when things change.

The last three points are all more about our inability to definitively see what the future will hold. We can use previous numbers, industry traffic trends, and make professional assumptions. To get a better idea, here’s an example: Let’s say you had a website about Swine flu. You’ve hypothetically owned it since 2001, had lots of information on it, had a great url, and some decent links. Now fast forward to spring of 2009, swine flu hysteria strikes and your website is getting a million hits a week. The influx of traffic wasn’t dictated by SEO; it wasn’t about anything other than being in the right place at the right time. While this is an extreme example, it still illustrates that we truly cannot know. We can only make our best estimate. An extreme case will always be pretty accurate, but we find that managing our client’s expectations is much easier than making bold predictions and hoping we are right.

Bottom Line

There are simply too many variables when it comes to predicating a sites traffic increase, and in reality, it’s not about increasing traffic in most cases—it’s about increasing the actions you want. If you were trying to generate leads, what good would 10X the traffic be if it didn’t get you 10X the leads or sales?  It is very easy to get caught up in terms like page rank, overall visitors, and time on site—when the real number you want to look at is ROI.  That’s what we focus on!