Getting small businesses online marketing results
In our second North San Diego Graphic Designers Users Group meeting, we discussed theme basics, SEO, SEM and geo-local search. The room was filled with graphic designers eager to figure out how to use WP as a web design platform.
More to follow, but if you’re interested in WordPress join us in January 2012.
A few years back there was an infomercial out called “Stop The Insanity” by Susan Powter which was about losing weight and dieting. Today’s business owners who want a website are going insane with all the choices available.
As a business website developer I use WordPress for my projects which I’m often asked to justify to potential clients. Especially the one’s who’ve tried to educate themselves about their options. Here are the top 3 reasons I use WordPress:
Part of the development community are the folks over at www.wpmudev.org which is one of the few memberships I maintain. There “upgrade guarantee” is one of the best I’ve seen and they actually do it. Which is especially important for me with how the WordPress Core’s rapid developments.
Here are the www.wpmudev.org offering I use in most every project:
These are the core files I use with every project and the having them upgraded for each new version of WordPress keeps me developing client projects and not spending my time maintaining my client projects.
A business website is like any business development method, the one you do consistently and master is the one that will get you business. If you hate writing, don’t setup a blogging site.
For Example; each month, people type into google “san diego real estate” about 200,000 times and that’s just one keyword phrase. Every Realtor(r) who pays member dues can give people MLS access. So what. People hire real people to help them buy and sell real estate.
The reason you have not been directed to many blogs or websites is that most of them suck (mine included).
You are already doing the right stuff (video, advertising, car wrapper, sign spinners). What a blog does is get people to know you and what you stand for.
People visit websites (whether blog centric or not) for humor. The #1 blog is http://huffingtonpost.com (political in nature) it is also #148 of all websites in the world. OR http://peopleofwalmart.com #5116 of all websites in the world.
If you are only going to write promotional and self serving dribble, then you will never get new clients. If you share your opinions, talk about injustices, what sucks & what you love about San Diego, Real Estate, Mortgage people, Title Reps, County recorders, the idiots at banks in the short sale department, stupid real estate investors (nothing down, land contracts, etc) and GET REAL about Real Estate instead of being a watered down, politically correct “stepford agent”, then you can have an interesting web site. (This is not a slam on you, but 99% of all Realtorss(r)).
Yep you will offend and piss people off. But for everyone you piss off you endear 3 more who think and have experienced the same thing. If you write something worth reading, then people will visit your site/blog. If people visit your site and you invite them, some will become clients. It’s elementary my dear Woolgar.
Here’s what I’ve found. Yes. Get a blog (recommendation below). But not a blog that is hosted on one of the free services (wordpress.com or blogger) is of little use to a business owner or licensed professional. Your articles benefit the hosting company and not you. Also the features are limited and restrict what you can do.
Blogging platforms/software like wordpress.org are now full blown websites with CMS (Content Management System) capabilities. These capabilities include a blog or blogs, but also allow you to accomplish 3 key business goals:
A well designed site built with a solid SEO foundation will build your business by having people find you on the search engines.
Social Media Consultants are rapidly replacing SEO consultants as the hype du jour. Do you need a consultant to manage your social media activities? I don’t think so and here’s why.
First: Social Media is based on relationships NOT volume of friends, followers or fans/likes. There maybe a relationship between the quantity of Facebook Friends and Page likes, but statistically I’ve not had anyone show me traffic logs where traffic spikes from a Facebook click throughs. You can get traffic to your website using twitter and with the properly designed tweets you back links are generated.
Second: Most of the people who promote social media as a business development strategy make their money selling social media consulting. Why is this important to pay attention to? Simple, if you are joining Facebook, Twitter, et al for more business you want to know how it works the quickest and most efficient method. Who better to show you than a Social Media Consultant? Here is the question that I have not had answered as yet: How much business do your clients get? In other words:
Bottom Line, how much business have you closed /will you close directly from a social media presence? If the answer is little of NONE then is it a good business decision to hire a Social Media Consultant? I personally hate ROIs of Zero!
Third: What do you find interesting, fun and rewarding? When you sign onto your Facebook , Twitter or LinkedIn account do you care about the people with whom you’re connected? I ask because, if you don’t care about reading their updates, will they be interested in reading your updates? Especially when your updates are only promotional and informational in nature and never personal?
Look at how the kids use social media. The share real, stupid and personal updates about themselves and their lives. You ask who cares? The answer is people who know them. Their friends, parents and family that’s who cares.
Forth: When you use the social media sites, you build their website footprint and not your own. There are millions of people who have joined Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn and each one of these sign ups translates into success for that website not your own.
Why is this important? Because you DO NOT OWN OR CONTROL THE CONTENT YOU POST ON SOCIAL MEDIA SITES. Sorry to shout, but this is very important to understand. The social media site owns and directly benefits from your content NOT you! Not your business. This is the difference between Image Advertising and Direct Advertising. Here’s how. When you post to a social media site, google gives that site credit. The most you get is an atta-boy/girl link back to your site and possibly some curiosity seeker traffic to your site.
People DON’T go to Facebook to buy. People DON’T for to twitter to buy. People DON’T go to LinkedIn to buy. That is NOT the intention of those sites. People do go to Amazon, eBay, Half.com to buy. It’s that simple.
So What! Now What? This seems to be the million dollar question doesn’t it? Here’s what I recommend…
Create your own website which you OWN, CONTROL & Directly Benefit From all of your efforts. This builds an online footprint for you and your business which Google and the other search engines index. Then automatically integrate your content with the social media sites where your community and network will know you’ve updated your site. Then spend your time building your own website and presence.
The biggest benefit I see for Social Media Consultants is having your social media accounts setup and configured for you. These credentials are then used to integrate your dynamic website into your social media accounts. But do you really want a consultant making connections for you and your business?
Are you a WordPress newbie? This popular web platform is ideal for small business websites. There are hundreds of themes, plugins, options and support available. WordPress is my development platform of choice for my sites and my client’s sites. In my opinion there are several dozen reasons why I prefer WordPress and reason numero uno is it’s inherent SEO capabilities.
I have several clients who love to tinker with their own sites and they call my when they get stuck. Like when they get a white screen of death (nothing but white), 500 fatal server error or a fatal error with a reference to an offending line of code. The first time this happens is a real sphincter pincher… WTF did I do?
Now that it is possible to add plugins and themes through the dashboard and API access to WordPress.org, it’s very easy add and try new bells whistles and features on your site. Not too long ago, we had to load everything into WP via ftp…
These are the 3 most common mistakes I see people have made when I go in and fix their install:
When problems happen and they eventually will remember that you can always delete the incompatible plugin folders to get your site working again quickly.
Have fun.
As WordPress 3.0 looms closer, there will be lots of confusion about the new Multi-Site functionality. I’ve just installed the latest beta version and will have some thoughts, opinions and recommendations as I start tinkering.
Let’s Get Social!