Helping Tallahassee Businesses Leverage Social Media

Posts Tagged ‘links’

Simple Search Engine Optimization Tips

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

Search Engine Optimization (SEO) TallahasseeHere are some simple tips for you Tallahassee businesses out there that already have a web site but seem to not be appearing in search engines like you would want to be.

Some of these tips are easy enough for the beginner to do and some might require the user of a Tallahassee-based web developer, but all should be utilized to ensure that your web site has been optimized for the search engines that are crawling your site.

  1. Determine Your Keywords -  you should be targeting keywords on your site that relate to your business and these keywords are highlighted in your content
  2. Use ‘Meta’ Tags - though not all search engines use these tags, these Meta tags are buried in the coding of your site and should have been optimized for your site (and keywords)
  3. Have a well-developed ‘Title’ tag - what does the title bar of the web browser say about you?
  4. Have unique ‘Title’ tags on each page on your site
  5. Visit GetListed.org and check your listings on Google, MSN, Yahoo, and BOTW - this is a FREE service!
  6. Blog - add content by blogging about your business and area of expertise
  7. Update your pages regularly - if you don’t want to add a blog, add new content at least every 90 days at a minimum (preferably every 30 days or less)
  8. Get Links from other sites (see Why Social Media ?)
  9. Test Site Functionality - make sure your site works
  10. Utilize a Site Map - search engines like these because it helps them know where your content it and when it was last updated

Once you have this done, make sure you know where your web site traffic is coming from by utilizing some sort of analytics software that will allow you to know how people are searching and finding you on the web.

If you need assistance in reviewing your site and optimizing it for local Tallahassee traffic, please contact Mike of Design850 Website Design Studio or call him at 850-445-2076.

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Why Social Media?

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

social-media-tallahasseeWhy Social Media?

Many Tallahassee business owners ask me the question, ‘Why should I be using social media?‘ and that is certainly a valid question.

Social media consists of much more than just having a Facebook fan page; it is a tool to promote yourself, your business and the products and services you offer.

More than that, social media is a tool that is made up of a number of tools (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Trusteria) that help you connect with your customers and provide ways to get feedback from them in a timely fashion.

Social media works as a marketing tool but before you begin, you should ensure that you have:

  • a web site that is well-designed and functions properly
  • a web site that has been optimized for search engines about the product and services that you offer
  • a web site that has been submitted to search engines and other online business directories

Once you have these three items out of the way, you are now ready to begin down the road of using social media to help your business efforts.

What Will Social Media Do For You?

Utilizing social media will provide your business:

  1. Links - part of any search engine optimization is obtaining links from as many sources as possible and you can utilize social media to provide some of those links.  If you provide good content and others ‘talk’ about your content and link to it, it makes that content even more valuable in the eyes of search engines.
  2. Sales - of course the whole point of utilizing marketing with social media is to get customers to purchase your products and services.   Understand that you may not (and probably will not) make direct sales using social media.  On the other hand, you should view it as a way to connect with your potential customers so when they are ready to buy, they purchase from you.
  3. Customer Service - using social media is a great way to provide customer service in a unique way.  Just the other day I saw a post about a local restaurant that went something like this: ‘Don’t ever eat at ***, I just left the drive thru and the service stunk, the food is cold and it tastes funny’.  Now, if that was your business, wouldn’t you like to know about that?  I sure would and connecting to your customers where they are is certainly going to help you provide better service to them.
  4. Branding - you can simply help raise awareness of your current products and services by simply being visible online using different social media platforms.

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