Category Archives: New Media

What is local SEO and why is it important?

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Local SEO (search engine optimization) is the practice of improving your online presence to attract local customers to your brick-and-mortar business.

Forty-six percent of all Google searches are local, and there has been a 900%+ growth in mobile searches for  “_____ near me today/tonight.” Among the people who searched for local businesses, 76% visited a related business within a day, and 28% made a purchase.

With so many consumers searching for local businesses, it’s important to make sure your business comes up in those searches. Continue reading →

3 Reasons to Liven Up Your Marketing with Visual Content

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visual marketing strategyAs the old adage goes, “A picture is worth a thousand words.” In reality, visual content like photos, images and videos are worth so much more in the grand scheme of your digital marketing strategy. Would you believe that you remember more of what you learn visually than what you read on-screen or in a book? In fact, studies have shown that people recall nearly 65 percent of the visual content that they see almost three days later; whereas, they only retain about 10 percent of written content in the same amount of time.

Of course, it goes without saying that written content is very important to your marketing program. A thoughtful mixture of written content and visuals will help your business show up more online, attract the attention of prospective customers, and convince and convert them into paying customers. For instance, on Facebook, images receive a 37 percent higher engagement rate than posts with text alone. Still not a believer? Here are 3 reasons to liven up your marketing with visual content. Continue reading →

10 Best Podcasts for Solopreneurs

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podcast on mobile phoneOne of the most challenging and rewarding parts of being a solopreneur is the need to be constantly learning. Of course, every day has its own lessons to teach—trial and error is the heartbeat of solopreneurship, after all. Sometimes, though, we need to turn to proven mentors and leaders who can offer wisdom from experiences that reach beyond our own.

When we run into these situations, books seem like the obvious first choice. Indeed, there’s a book out there for any problem you may encounter, whether procrastination, apathy, branding, or crippling self-doubt. Besides, shouldn’t we be reading like fiends anyway? It’s common knowledge that the most successful business leaders all share a ravenous appetite for good books.

But what solopreneur has time to read a book every week? Between brainstorming and producing and networking and marketing, it can be hard enough to make time to eat breakfast. Granted, reading is still a great habit to develop, but it may not be your primary mode of on-the-go education.

Thankfully, the world invented podcasts.  Continue reading →

Increase website traffic with these 10 absolute essentials.

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by Robbin Block of Blockbeta Marketing

Every business owner wants to know how to get more website visitors. I’m sure you’re no exception. After teaching hundreds of classes on the topic, I’ve boiled it down to these 10. If you have an ecommerce business, stick around until #9 for your key ingredient.

1. Keywords — the DNA of Digital Marketing

When it comes to digital marketing, keywords are the life blood of the Internet. They’re the words people use to find businesses when they’re searching. These are not your words; not your jargon. But literally what people use. On one hand, think about the types of questions your audience may have and what words they may be using to search. You can use our FAQ worksheet as a starting point. On the other hand, research commonly searched terms using Google’s Keyword Planner.

2. Optimized Website — Increase Your Site’s Visibility with SEO

Search engine optimization or SEO is about building keywords into the content of your website (and ultimately, all your content). This means titles, headlines, subheadlines, body copy and more (download our SEO guide). If you’ve built your own website, you should be able to place the keywords yourself. Or have your webmaster help you. That’s not to say you should leave it completely up to them. Knowing how to position your keywords is art and science. It’s about understanding how your customers think and using the keywords in such a way as to help Google recognize your site as the place to send people to. The point is to make your website as attractive, and therefore as visible as possible, to search engines.  Continue reading →

10 reasons to keep your business blog active.

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Publishing a business blog is an important part of any marketing strategy, but many businesses launch one, not realizing that maintaining it is just as critical. Quality content is key, and if you’re a business professional you have lots to offer based on expertise in your field.

Here are 10 reasons why you might want to use that expertise to keep your business blog active.

1. Drive Traffic to Your Business Website

Customers who read your blog are 97% more likely to click on your website. That improves your website’s search engine optimization (SEO) making your website more likely to rise to the top of organic searches. In addition, the more you blog, the more traffic you get. Here are five steps to build a website if you haven’t got one yet.

In addition, blog sites that post daily get almost double the traffic than sites that post monthly or less.  Continue reading →

Is print media dead?

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The following is an excerpt from “Celebrating Bad Food: An Interview With Christopher Kimball” by Ben Domenech, publisher of The Federalist. The article is a great read if you love food since Kimball is the founder of Cook’s Illustrated, but it’s also a conversation between two innovators with successful publishing businesses in today’s world of new media.

The Federalist: Everyone’s familiar with the trendlines that indicate the death of print. It seems you have an approach that exists outside the rest of the marketplace and has avoided those trends.

Christopher Kimball: If you ask David Carr, and I know David Carr reasonably well, he would say the advertising driven print formula probably is dead…with a few exceptions, like fashion, where it is actually booming. But in general the American publishing model, the Time Inc. model, is under assault and probably is dead. But he’d be the first one to say there are niches where print makes a lot of sense and ours would be one of them.

Our print business is growing. So I don’t think it’s a question of print being dead. I think it’s a question of a publishing model that’s dead. I’ve always felt you should make the reader pay for content because the advertising driven formula was based upon a rare moment in time when you had lots of advertisers with lots of money and not a lot of places to go. It was short term. Sort of like the United States after World War II for about twenty-five years, right? We were the only game in town for ten years. Well that’s changed.  Continue reading →