Marketing Your Business Online – November Link Roundup

Marketing Your Business Online – November Link Roundup

by | Nov 10, 2019 | Blog, Tech Tips

Where the heck has 2019 gone? It’s fall and I don’t even remember having a summer… do you? The days, weeks and months fly by and you wonder “How will I ever get it all done?”. This post will hopefully help.

Going into 2020 (that sounds bananas) using CMS software, posting dashboards, an online calendar scheduler and other automated and organizational tools… you CAN get it all done! Here are some tools I use, plus some that I don’t need, but encourage you to consider on the recommendation of clients and pro’s.

 

Social Media Marketing Posting:

Hootsuite – Manage multiple social media business accounts through one awesome dashboard. Create posts, schedule, interact and comment all in one place. My team has been using Hootsuite for 10+ years and we love it! I created a “team” account, added all of our clients sm pages, set up streams showing; my posts, scheduled posts, mentions, retweets and more… and all of us can view, edit and interact with all of the accounts and content. Check-out Hootsuite!

 

CMS (Content Management Sysytem):

monday.com – Plan. Organize. Track. In one visual, collaborative space. monday.com helps you manage your marketing campaigns, advertising, projects, deadlines, calendar, employee time-off, expenses, invoices, revenue and much more! Check-out monday.com!

 

Online Calendar Scheduler:

Calendly – Schedule meetings without the back and forth emails and phone calls. Calendly is my jam! It makes scheduling client calls, screen-share meetings and in-person meetings so easy… and it’s FREE! Build-out your meeting types, set days & times and then post your personalized calendar link on your contact us page and send out via email. Check-out mine; https://calendly.com/katie-kay and then build your own… on Calendly.com.

 

Graphic Design Creator:

Canva – Create beautiful graphics for social media, invitations, business cards, announcements and more, with Canva’s easy to use drag-and-drop feature and templates. Finding and using Canva has been awesome for me and my team! We can upload logos and photos, choose fonts and create branded graphics to use for clients and VS. Check-out Canva!
 

Cloudbased Collaboration:

Google Apps – An integrated suite of secure, cloud-native collaboration and productivity apps powered by Google. Includes Gmail, Docs, Drive, Calendar, My Business and more.I mean… if you’re not using Google Drive, Docs, My Business and for most, gMail… well, I don’t even know what you’re doing! Haha, jk… but seriously, you and your team can access all your business goodies from absolutely anywhere! I have the apps on my iPhone, iPad, MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, literally every screen I use. Check-out Google Apps!

Remember… procrastination is the enemy, start using one of these tools today. Keep moving forward, you are awesome!

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Marketing Your Business Online – August Link Roundup

Marketing Your Business Online – August Link Roundup

by | Aug 27, 2019 | Blog, Social Media, Tech Tips

How’s your digital marketing and website presence looking? I know there’s a lot to keep-up with, so here’s some tips and helpful information I’ve come across to help you focus on some specific tasks to further your progress in positioning your business online for great success!

It’s all about the photo! Visual is very important when it comes to web presence, but did you know that search engines do not see images, they read the text added to your images? (title, alt and description) Now we learn that there’s even more you can do! Check out this easy to follow infographic and use the 19 actionable image SEO tips to optimize your images for search – https://seosherpa.com/image-seo/ by SEO Sherpa

Remember vision boards? Maybe some of you still create them… visual goals and written goal lists will never go out of style, they work! Take a look at Rebekah Radice’s article, 5 Simple Ways to Make Your Social Media Goals Stick – https://rebekahradice.com/social-media-goals/

I’ve talked about claiming your Google business listing before, and making sure you post on it regularly to boost your business in search… here’s an article that talks about using it for “Google Maps Marketing” to boost your businesses local shopping in search – https://pixelcutlabs.com/blog/google-maps-marketing/ from Pixel Cut Labs

Get more traffic to your blog posts! Sounds simple, but it’s not, it’s hard work. Take a look at this article featuring a unique method to increase reads and shares on your posts – https://growthbadger.com/double-survey-technique/ from GrowthBadger

Most importantly… make sure your blog posts look great on mobile! I have seen some really good looking websites, and then checked them out on mobile and UGH! what the what? Their web developer forgot that mobile is now in the high 60% for browsing.

Keep up the great work perfecting your online presence!

 

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Google Search Results and Website Ranking

Google Search Results and Website Ranking

by | Jun 25, 2019 | Blog, SEO, Tech Tips

Good search results… everybody wants them, every business and website needs them. You ask your web developer “why isn’t my website at the top of Google?” and “how do I get there?”.  Some know, some don’t! Here’s what I have learned on the subject.

– Begin by evaluating your SEO efforts.

– Are you consistently adding new content to your website?

– Does your website reflect the topics you are known for?

– How effectively are you marketing your content and website and getting quality backlinks?

– Are reputable sites mentioning and linking to your website?

Sounds simple enough, huh? Not really, Katie! Ok… so here’s my pep-talk on getting going.

Adding content by writing about what you know and what you do, should not be that hard. You talk about it all the time; like when you propose your services to a client, or when you tell someone how you can help them, how about when you explain what you do at a dinner party. Now you just need to write it out in a blog post!  Not a confidant writer? Ask a friend or reliable source to edit it or at least give it a once over and provide feed back. It doesn’t have to be a novel, at least 300 words or three paragraphs should do it, and always add an appropriate photo (visual is important).

Now you need to market that content. Post it on all your social media platforms (more than once) add it as an article on your LinkedIn profile, and above all, market your content to any relevant sites that have visitors that could benefit from your content. That’s called building backlinks.

Start by creating a list of sites that would be a good fit for your content. Reach out; ask if they would consider a guest blog post, or consider linking to your website, maybe posting an excerpt of your blog post with “read more” with a backlink to your site. Don’t just reach out once… consistently contact these relevant sites and offer your posts or website as content for their website. Don’t just trade links to get your website link on another site, if each sites visitors will benefit from the other link/content, that’s a good fit. Resource pages or “my favorite sites” pages are good way to go, but above all, a link to a blog post or relevant content page, is the best.

Now go, get out there and get your website to the top of your relevant search results… you can do it!

 

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Marketing Your Business Online – April 2019 Roundup

Marketing Your Business Online – April 2019 Roundup

by | Apr 22, 2019 | Blog, Social Media, Tech Tips

Marketing your business online is pretty much a second job for most entrepreneurs… I hope this roundup of marketing tip links from the experts help!

Hashtags! am I right? Which ones? How many? Where do I use them? Well… for sure use them on Instagram, duh! Here’s help – Bullet Journal Hashtags: My Complete Instagram Guide (2019) – https://lifebywhitney.com/bullet-journal-hashtags/ by Whitney

Facebook Ads… mo money, mo money, mo money, UGH! I struggle with getting them to perform… do you? Here’s help – 5 Rookie Facebook Ads Mistakes to Avoid – https://kimgarst.com/5-rookie-facebook-ads-mistakes-to-avoid/ by Kim Garst

Don’t have the swipe-up feature? CURSES Instagram! (well really… curses ZUCK!) You can still sell on Insta… here’s help – How Small Businesses Can Use Instagram to Sell Your Services – http://ow.ly/XJHm50r0yCH by Mari Smith

LinkedIn… it’s not just for the unemployed anymore! Download your – 5 Best Practices for Your LinkedIn Page https://hootsuite.com/resources/five-steps-to-a-winning-linkedin-strategy from Hootsuite

And now for my tip! Are you selling products or have a visual business? USE PINTEREST! Pinterest is the one platform that allows you to link your photos back to your website… by pinning photos from your your website and blog. Even if you’ve already pinned all your website photos, not possible if you’re blogging regularly (sarcasm), go through and pin them again. Pin a few a week, please don’t pin them all in one sitting, UGH, your photos need to pop-up in the pinfeed randomly and often.  Use hashtags, and plenty, just like you do on Instagram. Have fun pinning!

 

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Focus on Your Mobile Online Presence in 2019

Focus on Your Mobile Online Presence in 2019

by | Dec 30, 2018 | Blog, Social Media

2018 was not my best year, personally… however business was awesome! Most business owners I chatted with last year said they enjoyed a great year also, hope you did as well.

In 2018, I built more websites than I have in years, and in doing so I learned even more about SEO and online marketing. Most of the things I learned are related to website content and how important it is to search results, which is the key to website traffic… relevant website traffic! One other very important statistic that I ran across almost every month while researching good links for my round-ups, is that mobile internet browsing is growing considerably every year and is the most important consideration when creating an online presence.

Internet device browsing stats; Mobile in 2017 – 50.3%, 2018 – 52.2%, 2019 is predicted to be 54% or higher. I mean, DUH! everywhere you look people have their eyes pointed down to their phones, me included, and you’re probably reading this on your phone right now. PLUS! smartphone adoption will triple by 2020, buh-bye flip phones!

What does all of this mean to you, the business owner? It means that you need to look at your entire online presence through your smartphone and adjust all sites accordingly. How do your Facebook and Twitter profiles look on your phone? Are you using Instagram? (Insta is a mobile only platform) Are you posting videos on YouTube? (2nd most used search engine to Google… and Google owns YT!) Are you taking advantage of posting on your Google Business listing? (not Google+ UGH!) How does your website look on mobile? Shitty? Get it fixed, immediately!

In conclusion… (hate that saying, haha) your online presence is where your next client or customer will land at some point, most likely through their smartphone. Even if you’re consistently networking in-person, getting referrals from friends, family members and clients, your next potential source of revenue is going to peek at your online presence. Are you ready?

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Marketing Your Business Online – Annual Link Roundup

Marketing Your Business Online – Annual Link Roundup

by | Oct 2, 2018 | Blog, SEO, Social Media, Tech Tips, Website Design

It’s been a minute. I really wish I would take my own advice and blog more often, but it just doesn’t happen. AND… confession time, when I logged into my website admin, I had 11 plugins that needed updating including WordPress ? Soooo, I put my own website on my back-up/plugin update schedule along with my clients that auto-pay for that monthly service. Question; can I write off my own expense to my own company for that? ? Anyway, enough about me… I’m here now to give y’all the newest, latest, greatest tips on marketing your business online… and most importantly, making your online business presence, AWESOME!

Social Media Content Calendar Template: This video from Click Minded guides you through creating the perfect content calendar for your biz – https://www.clickminded.com/social-media-calendar/

YouTube Marketing: Did you know that YouTube is the 2nd most popular website in the WORLD?! Second to Google, and Google owns it! So yea, you should be using it. Here’s your guide to get going – https://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2018/09/20/youtube-marketing

Google Ads vs Facebook Ads:  THIS IS A GOOD ONE! (sorry for shouting, passionate about this one)
Facebook is tough… and if you know me, you know my nick-name for it Fu-kbook, not my fave platform. However, my clients want results there, so that makes Facebook Ads necessary. And BTW, I love me some Google ?  for website traffic, sooooo no brainer to do ads there, right? Hmmm maybe, maybe not… read this, and decide for yourself – https://agencyanalytics.com/blog/google-ads-vs-facebook-ads

4 Proven Tasks for Successful Instagram Marketing: Instagram marketing? Oh hell yes! Even if you just do it for personal, like me, your profile should at least have your biz info in it! Read this and pump up the volume – https://catalystforbusiness.com/proven-tips-investing-instagram-marketing/

Working in the Cloud: OK my people… if you are not working, sharing and taking advantage of cloud computing, well, I’m sorry you are just not working smart. I am a Google Apps girl, duh, I love Google! However, much respect to Microsoft 365… it’s cool, but it’ll cost ya!

Here is a great introduction to Google Apps:


Here is a great introduction to Office 365: 

Now get out there and make your online presence awesome!
xo – Katie

 

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