Tag Archives: Digital marketing

The Modern Tool Kit For SEO and Digital Marketing

The Modern Tool Kit For SEO and Digital Marketing

Just in case you are thinking of offering SEO and digital marketing, I wanted to make a quick list of the resources and tools you’ll need to be successful.  A professional digital marketing company or consultant will have access to, or own most of the following.  Some of these are simple resources, like time, and some are web properties like social media accounts and web sites.

Mike closing2Minimum Tools You Need To Do Internet Marketing (specific to Local SEO and Organic SEO)

  • A decent and active facebook page. To Share your content  and engage others.

  • A decent authority and active Twitter page to share your content, engage  and build relationships.

  • A decent authority and active Google Plus page. Same as above – share and engage.

  • A Blog(s) with some authority, updated several times a month with original and interesting content

  • If you are a local company, you will need to be listed and verified in the major local directories.  Starting with Google + for business, but only after you have submitted your exact and correct information the main national “source” directories.  An understanding of how the Local Directory systems work is essential.

  • Relationships with web masters from other related industry sites. You can’t get in to the good parties without knowing someone. (unless you’re famous)

  • Being famous really helps

  • Relationships with Social media firms.

  • A working knowledge of on site SEO

  • Time or money to research online opportunities.

  • Time or dollars, to engage others online through blogs, Social sites, forums, and email.

  • A private network of authority white hat sites is very valuable.

  • A working understanding of white hat SEO  and linking practices for off site work.

  • Patience

  • A Google Analytics and Webmaster account

  • The ability to add pages and make changes to your site on a regular basis

  • Accounts with one of the major SEO software providers.  Moz, Majestic or a handful of others.

  • A passion and willingness to write great content, or the ability to hire someone who can write great content.

  • A basic understanding of P.R. in the digital world

  • Professional relationships with other respected SEO’s

 

Why all of these?  Well, today SEO is still about links and mentions just like it always has been. The difference is what we call a link or mention, and how we earn them.  Note the word earn.

SEO Is Just Good Old Fashion P.R.

Because most of the easy and cheap tactics to get a site highly ranked are long gone. Today you have to earn them through good content development. intelligent and valuable engagement on social sites and forums and any where. Although old fashion link building still is utilized (and in some cases effective) the long term process of “SEO” is now much closer related to the old fashion P.R. world.

In that world, you create an event, that would draw attention from your market through the news media. Today, you create content that will draw attention through the Internet, and the “authority” or at least popular sites your market will visit. Same stuff..  different media.

By Mike Bayes


 

2013 Local SEO Predictions. Content Marketing Is Phooey

2013 Local SEO Predictions. Content Marketing is Phooey.

I am going against the general concord in SEO circles this year (what a shock right?) on what will work for SEO firms in 2013, and make a big statement.  Links matter more than ever, and are in fact (after your on site work) the absolute most important aspect to any successful SEO program.

Image representing Google as depicted in Crunc...

There is a ton of content marketing, and social signal pundits in SEO since Panda and Penguin marched into town burning and destroying all search rankings developed with sophomoric and thoughtless tactics, that will tell you the only path to high Internet traffic is through a massive content marketing strategy.  The mass hysteria that  followed has been epic.

I have read a great volume of blogs’ and posts on “how to “implement SEO now that every thing has changed. The truth is, very few “things” have changed, and authors are simple feeding a hungry and worried Internet Marketeering community.

I recently posted on a very popular blog (about local SEO issues) that the loss of keyword information from Google was not a really big deal for local services. I mean, if you need a keyword tool to tell you how people find a local Plumber, you may want to get another gig. SEO is not for you in 2013. Most will use the word Plumber. Maybe add service, company, a city, I mean there just are not all that many combo’s to figure out. In my experience, what is important in local internet visibility is not the combination of keywords a prospect uses, but how they use those combinations in search. Most SEO firms won’t even report (because there is no automated tool to do so) how a site ranks in important local zip codes with no local intent term used. And this is becoming the MAJOR search type for local services.

 

English: White hat seo symbolizes good ethic t...

This race to content now being promoted as the SEO tactic de jour may be exactly what we think it is when it comes to non local sites.  For local sites, and local SEO, which is where the vast majority of us plow the ground, it is in many cases complete phooey. Not that great content is phooey, just that this obsession with great content as the number one all in one SEO device is phooey. Google wants a site to communicate the information a person goes to that site for (I am guessing). A local plumber doesn’t need to be the Robert Frost of the copper pipe crowd, to rank well.  They just need to have a well designed 4 or 5 page site, giving people what they want to read and see when they get there.

Example: In the last 4 months we have ranked a site with one page of actually content (two pages total) for a local intent keyword, by adding a few local back links, using an emd, and ummm that was it. Does it have much competition?  Yes, some.  Would it ever have a chance of ranking on a national search? No. And that’s the point; Local SEO is to National SEO what Physics is to the M theory.  They both deal with universe in completely different ways.

So for Local SEO in 2013:

  • Backlinks to your site will continue to be the number one (off site) ranking factor.
  • On Site SEO will continue to be important.

That’s it.

PS  A backlink doesn’t mean a listing on a horrible directory that no one ever visits. It means a mention of your site on a site that real people who might be interested in your service visit, and may actually click through to your site based on that visit. It may also mean an advertisement on a highly promoted site, or a mention on a popular face book or linked in page.   This hasn’t change in the last 2 years. Spammy directories and link wheels where never good for SEO. If you were using those and keyword stuffing and all of that, then I will agree with you, your SEO has changed a lot.

 

By Mike Bayes


 

 

 

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Digital Marketing Consultant Certification

SEO in DenverDigital Marketing Consultant Certification:

Digital Marketing is one of the few industries expected to continue to grow in the next few years. Almost every business wants to have a strong on-line marketing presence that will bring in new customers. A part time or full time career as a Digital Marketing Consultant can be very lucrative for those individuals who have an entrepreneurial spirit, the training and network, to support a full portfolio of digital marketing services.

The number one skill needed for success as a Digital Marketing Consultant? It’s at the end of this piece, but first the 2nd most important skill:

Digital marketing consultants must have professional analytical skills to assess the needs of a client, and what services will bring an excellent return on investment.  There are so many opportunities, that this one skill, the assessment and recommendation ability, will be the foundation of their success, as well as their long term financial viability.

Let’s look at the basic areas a digital consultant must be familiar with:

  • Pay per click advertising
  • Face book advertising
  • Search engine optimization
  • Local search engine optimization
  • On-Line reputation management
  • Content development
  • Blogging
  • Web Site development
  • Email marketing
  • Public relations  (P.R.)

Each area is a business within itself, and few businesses or agencies possess the skills to do more than one or two.. Add to that the natural bias a business has towards the services they offer, and that’s where a digital marketing consultant can provide huge value. Business owners and managers can be completely confused by the number of options and the selection of vendors for each. A Digital Marketing Consultant can provide the expertise and services that make sense for their unique in bound marking needs.

The average cost (Based on the Denver Colorado area in 2011) for the services listed above for a small business vary a great deal, but here are some general guidelines for costs:

Search Engine Optimization: $400.00 to $1500.00 a month.

Social Media Programs: $275.00 to $2000.00 a month

Pay per click management: $99.00 to $500.00 a month (Or 10% of the spend which ever is highest)

Content Development: $100.00 per page

On Line reputation management: $99.00 to $1500.00 a month

Blog produced: (4 a month) can be included in other services or $275.00 and up per month

Web Site Development: $85.00 an hour. Average rebuilds $1000.00

New web Site: Average cost $1500.00 to $7500.00

Email marketing: $50.00 an hour.  Average 8 hours a month. $400.00

Public Relations:  $500.00 to $5000.00 a month.

Consulting: $150.00 an hour.

In our experience the average small business will have a $500.00 to $3000.00 monthly budget. You can see the challenge. The planning and implementation process is the key success strategy for the business. Utilizing the right services in the right order is essential with these limited budgets.

Most Consultants make their income through either an hourly fee, combined with a monthly agreement, or by providing one of the key services and out sourcing the others. Accepting commissions from the vendors they recommend is unacceptable. A consultant must be unbiased, and therefore will earn there keep through the management of the entire program.

If a consultant can provide one of the key services, and has a disciplined prospecting program (sell to the right businesses) they can expect to earn $500.00 to $1500.00 a month per client.  Managing up to 10 accounts a month is about as many as one person could do, but is possible in a full time effort.

Some consultants will evolve into an Internet Marketing Agency and provide the services by outsourcing each one, and making a certain margin on each account.  Much like a General Contractor in construction, they are the manager, and responsible for the success of each component. Nothing wrong with this business model, it’s just important to call it an Agency, and not claim to be a consultant.

The number one skill needed to be a successful Digital Marketing Consultant, or Inbound Marketer.

What most “certification” programs miss, is the number one skill to be successful, that being how to sell digital marketing services. It’s a highly competitive unregulated field, and if you can not sell, you will starve. Depending on your individual financial goals, you will need to spend up to 70% of your time selling in one form or another, or outsourcing that process. That’s the big difference between this certification program, and all the others. We have been sales consultants for over 20 years, and specializing in Internet Marketing since 2003. This program, unlike all the others, will give you the process and training to bring in customers.

If you are interested in becoming a Digital Marketing Consultant feel free to contact our partner company Bayes Squared llc for information on their on-line 6 month programs, which include one on one consulting as you grow your business, or their in person classes combined with Internet webinar training, for a faster start.  Prices start at $2499.00. for the fast start program, which can get you selling in two weeks. You can add new skill sets on a menu basis starting at $750.00 each.

Contact Bayes Squared llc at  bayessquared@gmail.com

www.facebook.com/5StepSalesJumpStart

 

 

 

 

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