Ingersoll Interactive, LLC

Online Marketing & Communications

Stand Out Online

B2B / Industrial / Logistics Expertise.
Call: 860-281-1221
Email: peter@ingersollinteractive.com

Google+ is Necessary for Small Businesses

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Google+ is increasingly important for businesses as Google makes Google+ central to all its search and social features.

Google+ is also proving very valuable to specific industries as circles and groups for group discussions becomes more popular.

Establishing Authorship

Individuals with Google+ accounts can develop additional social authority by attaching blog post authorship to Google+. An example of this authorship is the small photo and name that appear in Google search results pages for some listings. Businesses should consider what employees should be blog post authors and therefore who should have Google+ accounts that indicate those people are contributors to the site.

For Local Marketing

Google+ accounts are important for connecting and properly listing businesses through Google Places for Business and Google+ Local. Social media posts to Google+ are very valuable for placing new content directly into Google’s network.

If your business is not on Google+, it should be. If you are not sure how to do that, please give me a call.

 

Give Google What Google Wants

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Search engine optimization by gaming the algorithms isn’t black hat or white hat, it’s old hat.

Since the first web search engines arrived on the planet, marketers have been trying to figure out how to get to the top of the search engine result pages (SERP).

From Yahoo and AltaVista to Google and Bing, we’ve been trying to figure out their algorithms. What programmatic formula constantly runs in the background deciding what site is listed first, second, and 10,023rd?

For a long time, there were ways of figuring it out the magic. Search engine optimization (SEO) companies made a lot of money helping businesses improve their rankings in the search engines. As Google took over the search engine world, most focused efforts there. Analyze key words and stuff your content with them, have individual pages with titles and URLs matching top search phrases, Page Rank and back-links, “Black Hat” and “White Hat” techniques, social media. And on, and on.

But here’s the thing:

The goal of Google has always been to provide the best experience for the customer (a.k.a., user, reader, site visitor). When a customer does a search on Google, Google wants to make sure the SERP is filled with the best, most relevant results. They want the customer to know that the Google experience will always be the best. Mega numbers of customer’s come back, click on a few sponsored ads, Google makes a lot of money, customers are happy, and advertisers are happy.

So as Google continued to refine the magic behind the algorithm, it actually has become much simpler:

Provide great content. Deliver it with frequency and authority. Make sure that content is relevant and valuable enough to not only please the customer, but please them to the point that they share it with others.

There are certainly a lot of things that need to be done correctly, and there are tools and tutorials to help with all that. If you’re serving the local market, make sure you have all your local online marketing ducks in a row.  But it is the value of the content that matters the most – and SEO should become a much more natural process.

So instead of keyword stuffing, use keywords naturally in strong copy writing and blog posting. Write often and share it. Add images and videos where possible, giving even more quality content for customers to find, use, and share.

Give Google what it wants: to give customers (yours and Google’s) what they want.

What is a personality-based business?

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When I describe the type of work I like to go after, I often use the phrase “personality-based business.”

There is no universal definition for what a personality-based business is. Some online marketing experts that a personality-based business is one where the person’s name is the business. The product is the person.

I think that misses a much larger segment of small business.

For me, I think it really comes down to this: If you have a business where you are recognized and where you name is inextricably linked to the business, you have a personality-based business. If you have a small team of employees who are known by your customers, you have a personality-based business.

Some businesses are obviously personality-based:

  • Business & life coaches
  • Independent financial advisors, accountants, etc.
  • Small law firms
  • Independent home improvement services
  • Individual real estate agents

But then there are these businesses:

  • Local restaurants, where the chef and/or owner are visible
  • Auto repair shops, where customers say, “You’ve gotta see Mike. He’ll take care of you.”
  • Healthcare professionals, even if their name isn’t on the door – that’s a very personal business!

Basically, a personality-based business is an independent business where

  • The owner is visible and working
  • Customers speak about the people and what the people do – and not the brand
  • Personal relationships are a major part of doing business.

All of these types of businesses benefit from a strong online platform and social media presence. When people are talking about you, you should be part of the conversation. If they’re not yet talking about you, you and have a great opportunity to encourage dialog.

And when you put in the effort that your competitors do not, you become that much more of business, person, and personality that customers grow to know, like and trust.

 

 

Trying Out CoSchedule WordPress Plugin

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I’ve used HootSuite. I’ve used Buffer. I’ve used the excellent Editorial Calendar plugin.

Now I am on a 14-day free trial for the CoSchedule plugin and service.

CoSchedule promises the ease of combining an editorial calendar with online publishing tools.

All your publishing tools are in one place for the first time.

Listed features include:

  • Drag And Drop Editorial Calendar
  • Lightweight WordPress Plugin
  • Automated Social Publishing
  • Simple Team Communication
  • All-In-One Publishing Solution
  • No More WordPress Hacking

CoSchedule tells me it will make me a better blogger. I hope so. We shall see.

PS. This is my first post using CoSchedule. It should post in Twitter and Facebook at the same time that I publish. I have not yet connected Google+ (through Buffer) or LinkedIn.

This isn’t easy

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Don’t let anyone make you think this is easy. It isn’t.

Experience can make things easy for the experienced. Well-documented steps can be followed that make some part of this easier. You can learn to do anything and that will make things much easier.

But building on online presence and personal platform is not easy. Parts of it are down-right difficult. And it does take ongoing work to maintain and build a stronger platform.

So don’t beat yourself up because you don’t quite get it. Or that you haven’t taken the time to learn it.

You know tons of things that others don’t. Your audience needs your expertise. So don’t spend valuable time trying to become an expert at online marketing.

Partner with someone to help you with the stuff that doesn’t come easy to you.

PS. I know a number of experts who can help a lot.