10 Reason Your Company Website Sucks

Posted by SoMe Guru on Aug 22, 2011 in blog, SEO, Social Media | 2 comments

10 Reason Your Company Provided Website Sucks

If you work for a financial or real estate company chances are you get a company website.  In fact, they might even offer it to you as a bonus!   I mean what could be better than not have to pay for your own website.   Please don’t share this with your boss, but you probably need your own website and I’ll tell you why in this blog post!

For this blog I reviewed some of the top company sites that offer templated sites or “profile” sites for their employee/members/contractors.  The companies we reviewed were Keller Williams Realty, Remax, Edward Jones, State Farm, AllState to name a few.  Some sites were so convoluted that it was hard for us to even use (Prudential).

Social Media Marketing Strategy With Klout

Posted by SoMe Guru on Aug 15, 2011 in Social Media, Tools | 1 comment

Social Media Marketing Strategy With Klout

Last time we wrote about the social media analytical tool called Klout.  It’s lightweight and somewhat arbitrary but if you use this powerful feature shown in the video, then I think you’ll come away with a better social media marketing strategy with Klout.com.   You’ll have to watch the video to find out though!

Social Media Analytics With Klout

Posted by SoMe Guru on Aug 11, 2011 in Marketing, Social Media, Tools, Tutorials | 0 comments

Social Media Analytics With Klout

Klout.com is a site that offers lightweight social media analytical data on your social media usage. It basically tracks your “likes”, followers, friends and more on facebook, twitter and linkedin (they are adding google+ at the time of this article). I heard about Klout sometime ago but was reminded when Ben Kinney of Keller Williams did a video on it and had people buzzing about it at the office. Many of these real estate agents thought Klout was some new social network.

So I decided to do my own video to go over what Klout is and is not.  (Click “Read More” to see the video)

9 Free Keyword Suggestions Tools To Help You Nail Your Niche (Basic)

Posted by SoMe Guru on Dec 6, 2010 in blog, Featured, Google, Marketing, SEO, Social Media, Tools, Twitter, YouTube | 0 comments

As social media and search engine marketers we often take for granted the free tools that we have at our disposal to come up with excellent keywords.  You don’t have to be an SEO guru, because this information is free everyone (at least for the most part) and it’s simply takes time to use.  We’ll cover the 9 ways (in two posts one for basic and one for advanced) to find keywords to use for your product or service.  Whatever niche’ you pick, you should be passionate about it.  No keyword, SEO, backlinkingg, etc will help you dominate and make the living you want unless you are passionate.  The most powerful marketing is one where you are authentically coming from a place of value.

The fact is that hugely successful organizations think passion first, then profits.

1. Crush It – Gary Vaynerchuk’s book called Crush It is required reading for any do-it-yourself marketer.  Sure, there are several other books out there and yes, his book has little to do with keywords.  However, his book does delve into how to find your niche and how to completely own it.  It’s part of the foundation of our consulting program (not his book but the same principals).  If you are a loss for where to start, this book should help you develop the mindset on owning your niche market.
2. Google – You experienced folks may think I’m talking about the adwords keyword suggestion tool, and you’d be right (in one second).  I often discover keywords simply by searching.  The suggestions that google gives you are based on their searches so their pretty good.  In addition, you can see the results right way and see how competitive a keyword niche is, but that’s another video and another post.
3. Google Adwords Suggestion Tool – This is the first real tool.  We’ve linked it here for you, but you simply put your keywords in there and out spits a bunch of suggestions.  Of course, google wants you to use this information to target people searching and you can do that for sure, but if you haven’t nailed down which niche’ you are targeting then this is just research.  A few things to notice are…
   • *  how one letter can effect results
   • *  the competition bar
   • * average cost per click (you have to click on the column to add that piece) – this can tell you not only how expensive it is to market but usually means that the consumers searching this word are more likely making a buying decision.
4. Twitter – OK, I know what you might be thinking but the new twitter.com has a search bar. Type in you word and see what people are talking about.  This “tool” is more hit or miss but I’ve found some real gems and there’s an opportunity to be timely.  FREE IDEA: Take note of the tweeters about your niche and then message them about your post!
5. Youtube Ad Keyword Suggestion Tool – Not too many people use this one but it’s every bit as relevant, especially if you are thinking of doing video marketing.  Consumers don’t vary too much from the words they search for.  If you consider for a moment that YouTube visitors want to be entertained or educated, this concept isn’t much different than what someone wants when they search on Google.  They just want information.  The tool works like a very primitive version of the google tool.  The columns are not sortable, but you still get some great data and suggestions.

Pick One

Posted by SoMe Guru on Nov 11, 2010 in Facebook, LinkedIn, Marketing, Social Media | 0 comments

As a business owner (you are a business owner whether you believe it or not), you have many options to market yourself.  You have the entire world of print, direct mail, you can telemarket, network in person, network over the phone, network on the internet, you can put ads on google, ads on facebook, craigslist ads, the list can go on and on.

The key to success in marketing is actually very simple.  Business owners complicate the matter because they are already usually doing several people’s job so they must master all of these “tools” as well.   In truth, it’s the business owner with focus that will ultimately win, this is especially true of our service industry and consultants.  The key?

PICK ONE.

Pick one “tool” and master that.

If you have a clear message and an easy way to do business with you (do you have a call to action?), then pick one of these and learn it inside and out.  Don’t stress out about foursquare or twitter or linkedin if you and your business has decided to be on facebook first.  One thing at a time.  Even if you hire a consultant like us, we’ll want to walk through each of the tools.  Each tool, has a different use and a slightly different audience.  You don’t communicate the same way on linkedin that you do on facebook or myspace.

Learn to let go of needing to be it all, and just master one, then you can move on to the next one.