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May 14, 2010    Join TA to Subscribe

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Nine Marketing Tips I've Recently Learned for my Business
     By Dan Baldwin, TA Executive Director, 951-251-5155 email 

     Following are random bits & pieces of marketing I've picked up recently & thought I'd share.

1.  Why TA has chosen TypePad to host all our blogs

We've really struggled over the past 15 years publishing all our content in a way that's both easy & archived. Typepad makes the content generation easy & they are great with search engine optimization. Click here to read how they get your stuff on Google & other search engines. You have to pay attention to what you're doing on your blog but I've quickly discovered when you do, your content gets picked up right away by the spiders (without having to be an SEO expert or paying someone else big bucks!)

2.  Keywords and search terms are important (duh!)

I know we all know this but it's nice when your blog asks on every post (another great benefit to TypePad). With every marketing client I speak with now my first question is, "What are your keywords & search terms?" I'm really quite surprised at how many don't know what they are. I shouldn't be surprised though. I've only recently written all mine down on a "yellow sticky" so I remember to drop them into my blog posts.  Check out the following links on the matter if you get a chance. I came across them in my surfing but have not had the time to scrutinize them closely yet. I'm going to try & find some time. 
     http://www.keyworddiscovery.com/,  http://www.wordtracker.com/ 

3.  Check your Google business listing(s)

As phone books and their associated directories go the way of the dinosaur, how do the web searched directories for you and your business stay correct and accurate? I don't really know but trying to do it through Google would seem like a good place to start.

What does your business listing look like at http://www.google.com/local/ ?  I checked mine out for the first time in about a year and noticed it had the wrong phone number. Oops!

4.  Syndication of your content is really easy after you've got it blogged somewhere 

Every place you'd want to distribute your content wants you to "give a headline" and "paste a link". That's the way we do it now. We blog it here (or one of our other dozen blogs) and then distribute the link through Facebook, LinkedIn & Twitter.  This makes it easy for your audience to quickly weed through your headlines & only view the content (click the link) that interests them.

5.  Don't do "auto posts" to Twitter, Facebook & LinkedIn or random URL shortening

Way too much of the content on the web seems to be published by machines.  If you take the time to actually write a thoughtful blog, don't miss picking up readers with a Twitter post generated by a machine. You get 160 characters, use every one to create a great "Twitter tease".  And don't use the random link given by a URL shortener like http://bit.ly.  People really don't like clicking a link that does not look like humans have been involved. Always use a "custom" suffix with your shortened URL even if it adds characters.  See examples at our Twitter page. 

 6.  Facebook is getting too big for businesses to ignore 

I've been trying to figure our how to master "Facebook for business" for over 6 months. I'm getting closer. As soon as I'm an expert I'll let you know. This much I have figured out.

A.  Set up a "page" for your business. This is different from your personal account. When you set up a business page correctly you'll be able to post "as the business" so as not to annoy all your personal "friends" with all your boring business stuff. 

B.  Set up a members only "group" to talk shop with business friends. In a closed Facebook group you post as yourself but only other members of the group can see your post, not your "friends and family" outside the group.

C.  Put a Facebook "Like" button on all your blogs so the people that like you can share that fact with their friends.

A lot of people like and use Facebook.  If you don't have a page & a group for your business you're missing out on a lot of eyeballs. 

7.  Allow your friends to email subscribe to your blogs & pages.

We use Google Feedburner's email subscription option on our blogs. It's separate from our regular email blast program in that it automatically sends an email once per day to your blog subscribers whenever to put a new post to your blog. You don't have to specifically do anything other than post something to your blog.  If you've not already done so, email subscribe to this blog (in the upper right hand corner of the blog) to see how it works.

8.  Please put photos in your content & break up the text with sub-headlines

Nobody reads anymore. Seriously. We scan for something that might be interesting & then move on. I'm stunned by the sea of text many "professional marketers" continue to distribute thinking that someone is reading it. Legal photos are cheap at sites like www.iStockPhoto.com and similar sites. Don't you think it's nice that I put photos on this page & broke up the text into nine pieces - each with it's own sub-headline?

9.  I got a press release picked up by Google News

I've never been much for press releases (kind of like throwing a bottled note into the ocean) but a client insisted this past week to I investigated and got one published through two different services (for $25 each). I used www.MediaSyndicate.com and  www.1888pressrelease.com.  Here's the press release that Google News picked up.