using internet marketing to grow your business
My pastor once said, “Responsibility means that you should be the first to respond. It does not mean that you’re to blame.”
We all have jobs to do, and sometimes they’re thankless. And when customers are involved, sometimes we get blamed for things that aren’t entirely our fault.
But in keeping the new definition of responsibility in mind, that just may change the way that you respond.
Over the past decade, Google has become the “answer engine.” When someone doesn’t know the answer to a question, the default answer has become, “Google it.” As you are aware, people are increasingly using the search engines to find products and services as well.
So now businesses are turning to SEO, or search engine optimization. As a business owner, how do you get started? This is a scary area to dive into because SEO is still a very new practice. And doing the wrong thing can get you banned from the search engines, therefore hosing your whole strategy.
It’s so easy to shake my head in disapproval when someone else does not update their blog consistently. I am shaking my head at myself right now. No posts yet in September? What kind of Internet Marketer am I?
It takes a lot of work to nurture a blog or online community. It takes commitment and discipline to produce useful information consistently. And boy does it get hard after that “honey moon period” is over and your blog isn’t so new anymore.
The #1 question that I get is, “How can I advertise my business on the Internet for cheap or free?” We all have limited budgets and want to spend as little on advertising as possible, while still getting the word out.
I recently received this question from Dr. Vanessa Anderson, owner of Discover Chiropractic in Moline, Illinois. I figured that I could give her a few “first steps” for her to take. And, being the good guy that I am, I figured that I would share with you as well.
The game has changed. Ben Schneiderman coined this era as “the new computing.” Our expectations of technology are not based on what’s under the hood. They’re now based on what the technology can do for us. Instead of trying to replace us with robots, we’re now using technology to help us do our jobs better.
But with this shift, we have a new set of expectations, and I think the iPhone is a great example of this. We want for our technology to be intuitive, easy to use. We want for it to be beautiful. And we want for it to get out of our way.
I submitted a support ticket on behalf of a client today in their e-commerce system. After filling in the fields and submitting the form, I got this message:
At first, I thought I had made a mistake. An exclamation point icon? Bold red text? All of these visual cues tell a completely different story than what the message says.
What do your messages really say in context with visuals? And do you really want for your message to make someone feel undeserved panic, even if it’s just for a couple seconds?
A friend of mine asked if I could explain how to use Facebook for marketing purposes. This is an interesting question because you really need to use Facebook for a while before you really get it. But I’ll take a stab at explaining it.
As a person trying to promote your website, the Google Toolbar can be your friend and your enemy at the same time.
Here are some things to be conscious of.
Aaron Wall came up with the great point that we need to have sections on our sites with articles, separate from our blog entries. Both content types should be written differently and marketed differently.
I, of course, realized this after starting a mini-series of articles on my blog. Something didn’t feel right, so I’m chalking it up as a mistake and moving on.
In this mini-series, I will be describing how I set up and maintain a Google AdWords search campaign. There are many roadblocks that Google has in your way that can waste you a lot of dollars. Running a search campaign often is not as simple and intuitive as you would think.
Oh yeah, and my posts will be based on setting up a fake advertisement for marble toilets.
About MeI'm Chris Peters, and I'm an addict. I want to make this marketing and technology stuff less of a burden. I hope I can help you out with that.