I got a call from yet another SEO company trying to sell one of my clients services that will get them first page rankings in Google. Now, I’ll never call myself an expert, but I do know a thing or two about SEO. But the first rule is that there are no guarantees that anyone, regardless of how “expert” they are, can get your site on the first page of Google. There are too many factors, many of which are unknown except to Google themselves. Plus it also depends on how competitive your industry is, how long your site has been around and the quality of the inbound links you have to your site.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the less than complimentary conversation I had with this sales guy, but here’s the best part that illustrates the issue:

Sales guy: I searched for your client using “boston plumbers” keyword phrase and I see your pay-per-click ad but you are not on the first page organically.

Me: Getting first page for “boston plumbers” is difficult – it’s a very competitive market. Plus, you’re not in Boston, so you may not get the same results as I do here in Massachusetts as Google optimizes by location. Actually someone in Boston may get different results as well.

Sales guy: Where’d you hear that? I put in “boston plumbers” and your client doesn’t come up. The use of Boston should get us the same results.

Me: Google. I read about how they actually index based on location so I will get different listings depending on where I am. Plus my plumber is in Somerville and we are on the first page for “Somerville plumbers”.

Sales guy: Well, did you know you only have 12 keyword phrases that you’re using.

Me: You mean in the keywords meta tag?

Sales guy: You need 75 keyword phrases in your keyword meta tag to optimize your search engine results?

Me: Google does not use the keyword meta tag as part of the algorithm for ranking pages. Why should I waste time putting 75 keyword phrases into something very few if any of the search engines use? I put a few in that are relevant to that page and are used in the content just in case another search engine uses the meta tag, but Google does not.

Sales guy: They sure do and you don’t have enough keywords. Anyway you have a nice day.

So as far as the first one – the location dependent search results – if you don’t specify a location, Google does a match based on the IP address of your computer. If you type in “Boston Plumbers”, people in different locations still may get different results.

Now on the importance of using the keyword meta tag, we’ll go straight to the source – Matt Cutts of Google on how Google does not use the keyword meta tag:

Just to complete the picture, if you do include a keywords meta tag, your keywords MUST be relevant to the content contained in the body of the page. Stuffing the keywords meta tag with 75 keyword phrases is useless. Each page should be optimized for what it is all about individually, not for the web site as a whole. Use those targeted keywords in your title and in your page description. You should never use keywords in your meta keyword tag that is not contained within the visible body of your web page.

The sad part about all of this is that many small business owners get taken by these “not so expert” SEO expert companies trying to make a sale.

If you’re a small business owner and you get a call from someone claiming to be an SEO expert, listen as politely as you can and say you’ll think about it. Then do the following:

• Take the snippets of “wisdom” they provide and check it against fact.
• Do a search for the company and see where they show up in the Google rankings! This company came up on Google maps, but I could not find their web site anywhere.
• Talk with someone who understands this space and is not trying to sell you something. Most online marketing people know enough to help you determine whether you’re being sold a bill of goods or not.

Getting your site on the first page of Google is doable as I have gotten many of my clients on the first or second page for a few choice keyword phrases, but there are no guarantees. If you apply the SEO tactics outlined in Google’s SEO Starter Guide, you will find your site moving up the rankings faster. 

Have you been solicited by an SEO company that didn’t have their facts straight? Let me know.

I think we’ve all been waiting for this (I know I have!). We now have the ability to send our LinkedIn status updates to Twitter to reach a broader audience and updating our status from Twitter to keep your LinkedIn community up to date. This new feature is just being rolled out now so if you don’t see the Twitter icon under your status area, you will!

To get started, click the checkbox next to the Twitter icon next to your LinkedIn status area. You will automatically asked to allow LinkedIn to access your Twitter information. You can always update that information by clicking on the down arrown next to the Twitter icon. They also give you the ability to list multiple Twitter accounts if that makes sense for you.

The following short video has Biz Stone and Reid Hoffman describing the new integration.

You have a choice:

• You can selectively send your LinkedIn updates to Twitter by checking the box;
• Select which Twitter updates to post on LinkedIn – all or only those with either the #in or #li hash tags;

You can choose whether or not to include your Twitter handle on your profile page. I recommend that you this so you get the maximum visibility on Twitter. And while you’re at it, make sure one of your Web site links contains your Facebook Business Page!

With the integration between Twitter, LinkedIn and Facebook all coming together nicely, there is no excuse for not staying active in your communities. Your followers, friends, fans and connections want to hear from you!

How will you be integrating your social media activities?

We just returned from our vacation in Aruba. We’ve been there many times and own a timeshare at the Marriott Surf Club. We go to just get away and relax – no site seeing, no golf – just reading, sunning, swimming and oh, yes a bit of gambling at night for entertainment.

Of course, no great trip would be complete without a marketing experience blog post upon my return!

We went for dinner at the Sunset Grill at the Radisson Hotel, our usual spot for our anniversary. In response to a joke by the waiter about the dangers of the extremely large steak knife, I mentioned it was our anniversary so my husband need not worry about the size of the knife.

As usual we had a wonderful dinner, but without warning, out came the waiter with this fantastic dessert prepared just for us! Warm chocolate souffle with ice cream was heavenly, but the preparation, presentation and surprise was just the best.

Having a wonderful, romantic dinner was what we expected when we went to the Sunset Grill. This surprise by the waiter not only exceeded our expectations, it made the experience much more memorable.

Marketing Tip

Surprise your customers with something that they don’t expect to make their every experience with you pleasantly memorable. A dessert really didn’t cost a lot but the impression it made on us was quite extensive. Quality service is always appreciated although sometimes expected. But a surprise bonus, such as this totally unexpected, wonderful dessert, goes a long way towards developing or solidifying your long-term relationships with your valued customers and strengthening your brand in their eyes.

What small surprise can you give your valued customers and clients to make their experience with you memorable?

You search the web for “marketing plan small business” and you get terrifying results ranging from marketing plan templates that are too cumbersome for small business owners to articles such as the one from Microsoft called 5 easy steps to create a marketing plan where the 5 steps they list are 1) position your product; 2) tap your braintrust; 3) listen to your customers; 4) draft the plan and 5) track results.

Hm, thanks for the help.

Then you wonder why small business owners run for the hills when they hear the term “marketing plan” and never really grasp what they need to do to attract new customers and clients and grow their businesses. And although I’d love to give you a magic 5 steps to a winning marketing plan, it just doesn’t work that way.

So what is really important to know?

• Your vision for the business
• Who wants to buy your products or services
• Your competition
• Your differentiator (why should I buy from you?)
• Products and/or services and how you will price and package them
• Your message
• Your brand identity and image

I call this the foundation information – you have to have a good grasp of this for your business. But, if you have this information, you are half way there.

Now you need your goals – specific, measureable, attainable, relevant and timely (S.M.A.R.T.) - to give you a path to success. For every goal, what strategy, tactics and supporting materials do I need to achieve that goal?

The following example shows the hierarchy of the thought process you can go through.

Marketing Plan Goal Strategy Hierarchy

• Goal: Increase the number of qualified inbound opportunities per quarter to 50.
• Strategy: Create an online presence that projects my expertise and helps those searching find my web site.
• Tactics:
  • Begin blogging;
  • Write a monthly article for distribution via the blog, other sites, email newsletter;
  • Build an opt-in email list;
• Tools/activities needed:
  • Develop a WordPress site and blog incorporating my brand identity;
  • Develop a list of articles to be written and write one a month;
  • Create a free tool that your target would appreciate and give it away to encourage people to sign up for your mailing list.

Remember, each goal may have multiple strategies with several tactics that require different materials and tools. Once you’ve laid out all of your goals, strategies, tactics and materials with their associated resources and budget, you can then decide what you can do accomplish each month based on your time and budget.

Want more help? Download my complimentary marketing plan and budget spreadsheet template by signing up for my email list. You can find the signup form in the sidebar of Masterful Marketing or on my Facebook Business Page.

Recently, a lot of people have asked me about using a Facebook Business Account rather than a Facebook Personal Account to create a Facebook Page for their business. Please note that a Business Account is not the same as a Business Page. People are totally confusing the two and generating a LOT of misinformation about this topic.

Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Facebook Pages and their ad campaigns. They have limited access to information on the site and they cannot be found in search, cannot send or receive friend requests.

Having read this information, I had assumed a business account would enable businesses to create Pages that were disassociated from current employees. Once the Page was created, they could then get employees to become fans, which would make them eligible to be Page administrators. This would be logical as employees come and go and using a business account to be the creator of the Page would provide a way for the Facebook Page to remain associated with the business and not some former employee.

So, although it sounds like a logical alternative for larger businesses and organizations with employees, I don’t think this is the case.

Why would having a Facebook Business Account that did what logic would imply be so important?

• At this time there is no way to transfer or remove the creator of the Facebook Page. Whoever creates the page remains the owner. Kimberly Yow wrote a very complete post on Unlinking A Facebook Fan Page From Your Personal Account, so I won’t go into gory detail here.
• In the Facebook Help discussion forums, there is a thread titled “Transferring a page to new ownership?” that was posted at the beginning of April. Since then, a total of 166 people have requested a solution to this challenge. And so far, no one has an answer.

I do understand the rationale for making the creator a permanent administrator from a security perspective. A business with a disgruntled employee who was a Page admin could delete the originator and other admins and take over the Page. But businesses need a way to create a Page that is autonomous from any employees’ personal profiles.

According to Facebook’s policy, if you already have an indvidual account, you are not allowed to set up a business account. In addition, a business account does have all the features of a personal profile account in Facebook.

From Facebook help:

Business accounts are designed for individuals who only want to use the site to administer Pages and their ad campaigns. For this reason, business accounts do not have the same functionality as personal accounts. Business accounts have limited access to information on the site. An individual with a business account can view all the Pages and Social Ads that they have created, however they will not be able to view the profiles of users on the site or other content on the site that does not live on the Pages they administer.

You will not be able add any other applications to your business account. Your account will not be visible in search and other users on the site will not be able to find you and add you as a friend.

You may create a business account if you don’t already have a standard Facebook account. To get started, you will need to first create a Facebook Ad or Facebook Page. Once you’ve entered in the required information, you will be taken to the “Facebook Login” page and asked if you have a Facebook account. If you do not currently have a Facebook account, then at this point, please select “I do not have a Facebook account.” You will then need to enter your email address and date of birth.

Please be aware that managing multiple accounts is a serious violation of Facebook’s Terms of Use. If we determine that an individual has more than one account, we reserve the right to terminate all of their accounts.

So although logically a Business Account looks to be the proper mechanism for creating a Business Page that is associated with the business and not a personal profile, I can’t find any place that discusses its use in this way.

So, the major question that needs to be answered really soon by Facebook themselves is:

How does a business create a Facebook Business Page so it is NOT associated with someone’s personal profile who may someday leave the company but can be easily administered by current employees?

But until we have the answer to that question, proceed with caution if you do decide to use a Facebook Business Account.

If anyone has actually used a Business Account to create a Facebook Business Page successfully and can share their knowledge, please begin a discussion here in the comments or on the Masterful Marketing Business Page in the discussion tab so we can all benefit from your experiences!

You’ve developed your social media marketing plan, created your profiles, provided quality, relevant content and attracted followers, friends, fans and connections. Now that you have your growing communities, how do you keep them as raving fans and ultimately turn them into clients or customers?

Building a community requires you to both nurture the members so they remain in your community and engage them so they participate. People who participate in a community find their experience more satisfying and rewarding.

Here are 9 ideas that you can put into play to keep your community alive and well.

• Focus – When people joined your community, they did so because you provided specific information that interests them. Deviating occassionally from your standard topic is OK, but going astray too often can send people to go elsewhere.
• Make it about them – When you write, choose topics that you think may interest them and encourage discussion.
• Ask them what they need – Rather than guess what topics your community wants to discuss, poll your community members about what challenges they face and what type of information they need. Their answers just may lead you down a path paved in gold.
• Be respectful – In face to face networking settings, we usually mind our manners and treat people professionally. Call people by their first names and carry on a conversation. When someone posts a comment, writes on your wall or re-tweets your message, acknowledge them. Developing these relationships are important to the future of your community.
• Surprise them – If you want to get your community’s attention, give your members something unexpected such as a free event that is an hour of group coaching without the sales pitch.
• Listen and ask questions – If you do all the talking, people don’t feel they can voice their opinions and add to the conversation. Gently encourage people to participate by asking them what they think. A good question can transform your community from fringe participants to active conversationalists.
• Make it fun – Depending on your business, a weekly contest can increase activity and get people talking. Make sure the prize is something that your community would value.
• Ask how you can help – At the end of the day, your community cares about themselves first, you second. The best way to get your community to care about you is to show them that you care about their success and well-being. Follow the 80/20 rule and make it about the community 80% of the time and about you only 20%.
• Be present, active and consistent – If left unattended or activity is inconsistent, your community will dissolve. Set realistic expectations for yourself and follow through.

How do you nurture and engage your communities? What have I forgotten that has worked for you?

Found out about a nice plugin for Microsoft Outlook that gives you an integrated Twitter client while helping you manage your Twitter followers. From TechHit, it’s called TwInbox. Thanks to Olinda Services for the pointer to this useful tool. Any tool that helps me eliminate the need to click and open a new window to get more information gets my attention.

Easy to install, this client enables you to stream your Twitter feed into a folder so you can manage them a bit easier. You can also have a separate folder for each follower.

What I like about this tool:

• The toolbar makes it easy to send a Tweet to someone without having to leave the Outlook interface. It doens’t replace the Seesmic Desktop client, but it has its usefulness.
• You can easily determine which followers are important for you to pay attention to. I got 58 Tweets in 4 hours from one person. None of the them really were of interest to me, so I unfollowed them. Too noisy for me. However, someone else sent 30 Tweets in the same timeframe, but all of them were pointing me to social media news.
• You can focus in on someone who you want to watch without having to search or scan your feed.
• The Tweets include the person’s profile information. If someone is bombarding you with Tweets, you can also see what they are interested in and determine whether you want to continue to follow them.
• The Tweets also include the picture if they have uploaded one to TwitPic.

Like the LinkedIn Outlook Toolbar, this handy little tool can help you manage your Twitter followers and keep your ratio of information to noise in check.

What tool is your favorite for helping you manage your social media activity? Share your favorites.

There is wide-spread confusion about the difference between a Facebook Profile and a Facebook Page and how to effectively use them. I’ve recently had a few friend invitations from profiles using business names. Creating a profile in a business name is frowned upon by Facebook and you run the risk of having your account warned or disabled.

A Facebook Profile is not a Facebook Page

Facebook Personal Profiles

The name should tell it all. Your Personal Profile is the regular user account that you log into when you sign in to Facebook. It contains your friends and your interactions on the site. Profiles can only be used to represent an individual and must be held under an individual name. Plus you can only have one Personal Profile account.

Facebook Pages

Facebook Page is for businesses, public profiles or organizations. These pages are used to share information, interact with their fans and create a presence that engages those interested in what these entities have to offer. Pages represent a business and are separate from user profiles. Creating a Page does not attach it to your Personal Profile, however you are an admin of the page. You can create multiple Pages and Pages can have multiple admins.

According to Facebook’s terms of service, you may only create Facebook Pages to represent real organizations of which you are an authorized representative. In other words, I can create my client’s Facebook Page and then make them an admin of the page. The Page is what is visible to fans and the admin’s personal profile is kept private.

Facebook Fan Pages offer several benefits to a business, one of which is in their search engine ranking. According to Mari Smith, Relationship and Buzz Marketing Specialist, Pages are the only feature inside Facebook to be fully indexed by Google.

How Do You Set Up a Facebook Page?

In order for your business to establish a Facebook presence, you need to set up a personal Profile and then you set up a Facebook Business Page. Every Page must have one or more Facebook user named as its administrator.

There is another option: you can set up a business account. A business account allows you to manage Facebook advertising campaigns and Facebook Pages without having to set up a personal account. I personally believe that businesses should empower employees to create the Business Facebook presence from their personal accounts. But if for some reason your business is uncomfortable with that option, just make sure that you select a person that knows something about how to navigate Facebook to manage your Facebook interactions.

To set up a business account, create a Facebook Ad or create a Facebook Page. After you’ve created the page or ad, Facebook will ask you to enter your login information or the option to select “I do not have a Facebook account”. At that point all you need to do is enter your business email address and date of birth.

Be warned: If you already have a personal account, you cannot create a separate business account. If you have a personal account and go through this process, there is a very good chance Facebook will shut down both accounts.

What Does All This Mean to Your Business?

Depending on your preference and your business, you can intertwine your personal and professional life or you can keep them completely separate. That’s the beauty of Facebook. What you can’t do according to Facebook’s terms of service, is to:

Use your personal profile for your own commercial gain (such as selling your status update to an advertiser).

That does not mean you can’t discuss business, promote a business function or network with your Personal Profile friends! What it does mean is you are prohibited from profiting by selling your status updates to advertisers. Facebook is preventing advertisers from creating an ad network out of users willing to spam their followers for money. Amen sistah!

How to Carve Out Your Space

For me, Facebook is a social networking site where I have connected with a lot of new people and formed relationships I would never have otherwise. I like the fact that Facebook enables me to be a bit more personal and friendly with my business peers, while staying connected with my friends. My Profile is about me and my Page is about my Marketing Coaching business. However, I choose to keep them closely related. Facebook gives me the ability to project all that I am via my Personal Profile: business owner, golfer, sports enthusiast, Red Sox / Patriots / Celtics / Bruins fan, U2 fanatic and all else that makes me, well me, while displaying my brand on my Facebook Page in a slightly more business-like fashion. But keep in mind that I am my business so this works well.

For businesses that are larger with more employees, creating your Business Page enables you to engage your customers in different ways. You can have discussions, contests, feature coupons, encourage comments and ideas, and if you have a retail store, attract customers to come in and see you in person.

How are you planning to use your Facebook Page for your business? Let us know.

I have always been about quality. I know a lot of people, but value my few close friends. When it comes to clothes, I would rather have one quality, custom outfit than a dozen that were just ok. And when it comes to social media, I want to build a quality network of people rather than a massive list of names.

The first step in building a community is to develop relationships with people who have similar interests to yours and then engage in conversations, offering something of value and interest to them.

My goal is to build my networks strategically. I don’t add followers, friends or connections just because I can. I add quality people that have some personal or professional connection to me. To many, my networks may appear to be rather small, but they are enormous in their value to me.

In addition to my blog and email list subscribers, I am building the following social communities:

LinkedIn

I have 293 connections in my network on LinkedIn made up of people I have met in a professional setting, including previous employers, clients and prospects and those I’ve met at both live and online events. I am very comfortable inviting the people I’ve met to connect with me on LinkedIn. I know I have value to offer and want to remain in touch, even with prospects that never become clients. I always include a personal message to them and hope that they value connecting with me as well.

If someone invites me to connect that I have never met, I review their profile, looking at their picture (absolute must have), basic info and profile summary for common interests or business synergies. I view all people as potential business partners, future clients or someone who can open the door to an opportunity that is important to my business.

Facebook

I have 174 Facebook friends made up of life long friends and golf buddies, business contacts and social media contacts. Facebook is a wonderful place to meet people and interact with them. I love getting invitations from people from all over the world to become a friend. The stream of activity on your wall can help you learn a lot about someone. You can be more casual while staying professional in your conversation. I connect with all types of people on Facebook, including friends, colleagues and folks I meet networking because Facebook enables me to build Friend Lists, private groupings of friends based on my personal preferences, so I can organize my conversations and privacy settings.

Facebook Business Page

Every business should have a Facebook Business Page where you can make connections in a business casual atmosphere. Facebook provides many capabilities to enhance your Business Page to make it more interactive and interesting. Provide a steady stream useful and relevant information and those who are interested will become fans. Although some people send out requests for fans, I prefer to let the list build organically. I am thrilled when I see someone new become a fan. I currently have 66 fans and I am thankful to you all!

Twitter

With 914 followers and 742 friends (those I follow), Twitter is like going to an event and talking with everyone around you. The open conversation is very casual, but a lot of useful information can be found. My criteria is simple: I follow interesting people – not robots, spammers, automated accounts or adult content. A real picture of you will more likely get me to check your profile to see if there is a connection. Use a custom background image on your Twitter page to add important information about you and your value. If I don’t know who you are or what you have to offer, I probably won’t follow.

Bottom line is I’m very open to connecting, friending and following interesting people. I look forward to connecting with you.

What is your criteria for building your social media network? Share your strategy with us.

Why are business owners gun shy about selecting a target market?

Photo courtesy of viZZZual.com on Flickr

You can’t appeal to everyone, so why do business owners continually drive themselves crazy trying to work with clients they just don’t connect with? When you identify people or businesses that you just love to work with, you enjoy your work more and you can focus on providing greater value. But I realize going through this exercise is painful because you still believe that doing so will limit your ability to grow your business and you will “leave money on the table”.

Every business owner goes through this thought process (including me when I started my business) until we realize that targeting enables us to:

• Attract the audience you truly wish to work with (and know when to turn away the client from hell!).
• Develop messages that speak clearly to that specific audience.
• Make choices that help you better market your products or services when faced with limited marketing resources.

The Law of Attraction Marketing

The Law of Attraction is the belief that you attract into your life what you think about. Your dominant thoughts will find a way to become reality. Using the Law of Attraction in your marketing efforts makes you a magnet for those you want to work with and likewise who find value in working with you.

But something else happens when you focus your thoughts and efforts on attracting your ideal client — you begin to attract others that are outside of that target because they like what they hear and want to be part of your success. Knowing your market intimately results in:

• Clearer messages
• More valuable offerings
• More effective marketing
• More prospects coming to you, even those you may not consider within your target market

You may choose to not work with a particular market because you don’t have the experience or knowledge of their market, but that is a business choice. Those are decisions you can make as the opportunities arise.

Knowing your ideal client helps you focus and be explicit about what makes you attractive to that market. Don’t view this as a restriction but as a liberating exercise that will ensure you develop raving fans for your business.

Have you identified who you want to work with and keep them in the forefront of your thoughts? What’s holding you back if you have not?