Five Simple SEO Steps to Grow Your Online Business- Part 1

Let’s get straight to it. Shall we? This is a two-part series so be sure to check out the “rest of the story (next week). Here’s Numero Uno (Marketing Strategy 1) coming to you from the marketing trenches…Always include inbound links FROM your press releases and articles you are crafting for other blogs or web sites TO your web site. Each and every time your release/content is used in a blog, on a web site, or anywhere online for that matter, it will help to increase your web site ranking in the search engines.

This post was written by Sonya Neblett, Online Marketing Expert, Truly Twisted Marketing and Fairy Godmother for Startup Princess. (photo credit: Marianne Vanwingerden)

It’s a two-fold SEO trick that works.

The information in the article is pure content, optimized and web-ready. Google and the other search engines LOVE content. So the odds of the information getting indexed quickly are pretty high. Also, when your release is used by news organizations, blogs, web sites and individuals you’ve got 100s, possibly 1000s of links coming into your web site.

Marketing Strategy 2

This second strategy is so simple yet so overlooked that almost no one does it.

The mere act of taking initiative and following up with customers in and of itself can set you apart from your competition and will help your customers remember who you are.

After a sale is made and the product has been received, call the customer, email them – contact them somehow. Ask them how they liked the product, if it arrived in a timely fashion, if it met their expectations. Give them the opportunity to voice their feelings and opinions. If there’s a problem, this is your chance to fix it.

Invite them to provide a review of their product or experience and place it on your web site (we’ll talk about reviews in the next strategy). They won’t forget you AND they’ll be very likely to tell their friends, family and co-workers about you.

Marketing Strategy 3

Reviews, for all intensive purposes, are based on the opinions of your users and clients and are published on your site – they are not testimonials. While they might sing your praises as a testimonial does, they might also tell a tale of poor customer service or a faulty product.

So, why, (you might be wondering) would anyone publish information that is less than stellar about themselves, their product or service?

The answer is balance. You are looking to create a relationship of honesty and trust with your customers and clients. The best thing you can do is admit fault when and if it happens and then…this is important…take action to correct it. You are balancing out the good with the bad.

But reviews aren’t static. They are dynamic pieces of important information submitted by your customers and an important part of the community you are hopefully creating around your brand. People want to know about other people’s experiences with that product or service. It’s a component of word of mouth marketing.

Obviously you DO want positive reviews – the more the merrier, as they say (whoever ‘they’ are). But when you get a negative review (and you most definitely will) it’s an opportunity to look hard and what went wrong and fix it. The beauty is that you can respond to negative reviews and show your customers what you did, the action you took, to correct the problem which in turn fosters that wonderfully exciting honest relationship you are working hard to establish.

Now, here’s the secret part of reviews that you maybe didn’t know about.

Reviews are content. They can be submitted to the search engines and when reviews are picked up in the search engines the result is similar to what happens with a digital press release. They are viewed as pure content and generally rank highly and quickly for the product or service the review is about.

So get your mind around this. If that review is about one of YOUR products or services…well, you are probably getting the drift…yes, it’s a strong link back to your site which brings both traffic and gives your SEO and SEM efforts a nice boost.

Ok, there you go…the first three of the five simple marketing strategies to boost your online marketing efforts. Be sure to check out the second part (the rest of the story) and as always, ping us, email us or give a shout if you have questions or comments.

Sonya Neblett, is an internet marketing expert with her company, Truly Twisted Marketing, specializing in search engine optimization for businesses.

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