Make More Money and Win Business with Search Marketing! - Heather Lutze, Author of The Findability Formula, Internet Marketing Speaker and SEM/PPC Expert

Yahoo / Microsoft Merger Made Easy

August 19th, 2010

Everyone has been buzzing about the Yahoo/ Microsoft merger (termed the Yahoo Search and Microsoft Search Alliance) & how it may affect your website. We wanted to take a minute and give you an update on what to expect over the next month regarding your Findability in this Search Engines.

What exactly is the Yahoo/ Microsoft Merger agreement?
In Yahoo & Bing, your search results for both paid advertising & natural listings will be identical. Both listings will be powered by Microsoft’s algorithm.

What will be the main difference between the two Search Engines?
The main difference will be the Yahoo/ Bing interfaces (the look and feel).  Additionally, features of the two companies (such as email accounts), will also remain autonomous.

How will the Yahoo Microsoft Merger affect my SEO efforts?
The Bing & Yahoo algorithm will be merged, managed and powered by Microsoft. This means your organic rankings in both search engines will be determined by one combined Microsoft formula.  If you haven’t already, run the Bing webmaster tools on your site http://www.bing.com/toolbox/webmasters/ . You will also want to run these again in early October, once the transition has been completed.

How will the Yahoo Microsoft Merger affect my PPC efforts?
After the transition, management of your combined Yahoo/Bing account will be done in one location, Microsoft AdCenter. If you are running a Yahoo advertising campaign, you will need to setup an adCenter account & import your Yahoo! campaigns. You will need to manually format your ads, as the character requirements in Bing are a little different than the character requirements in Yahoo. If you are a current Findability Group client with a Yahoo! account, don’t worry – we will be taking care of this transition for you. After the transition, if you run a Paid Search Campaign through adCenter, you will be running keywords in both Yahoo! and Bing (you will not have the opportunity to “opt out” of one or the other).

When is the Yahoo/ Microsoft Merger going to be complete?
You need to have your PPC account transitioned & Bing webmaster tools setup before September 15, 2010. The final transition to Microsoft’s formulas will be occurring late September, early October 2010.

What are the benefits of this merger?
1. Great adCenter research tools.  (http://adlab.microsoft.com/alltools.aspx) – likely with this merger, these tools will get even better.
2. Instant access to about 1/3 more viewers through Bing properties.
3. Easier account management – Now instead of having 2 separate accounts for Bing & Yahoo, you will be able to manage from 1 adCenter account.

Read the full terms of the deal on Microsoft’s website:
http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/press/2009/jul09/07-29release.mspx

Questions? Feel free to post any questions you might have regarding this merger. We are happy to answer and provide resources to you.

Written by Natalie Henley, Director of Sales & Marketing for the Findability Group

Search Engine Marketing: Heather Lutze visits the Group at Firespring Inc.

July 27th, 2010
Search marketing speaker, Heather Lutze recently presented “The Findability Formula – The Easy, Non Technical Approach to Search Engine Marketing” to the Group at Firespring. The Firespring Group is a high-impact marketing firm, designed for budget-minded small and mid-sized business owners. They asked Heather to present and share ideas on Findability and search engine marketing success.
At the full day session, Heather shared successful Findability strategies to search engine marketing:
Finding your keywords & conducting keyword research
Pay Per Click Advertising
Search Engine Optimization
Social Media Marketing
The second part of the day was focused on integrating ideas and strategies into the Firespring organization:
Implementing Findability for Firespring
Strategies for developing Findability
Managing and training on Findability for the production team
Overall, it was a great full day session with the group at Firespring! For more information about Firespring go to their website at: http://www.firespring.com/
Thanks for sharing you wisdom Heather. Firespring will be a better company tomorrow because of you. We appreciate your custom attention. ~ Jay
Thank you for exceeding our expectations! You and Kevin were terrific and you have been so accommodating. I look forward to seeing the results of implementing your suggestions. ~ Tawnya
Wow, Thank you for all of the enlightening info & insights you shared with us. I’m so glad to have met you, and hope you enjoy your visit to Lincoln! ~ Stacey
Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and giving us tools that we can implement now. ~ Randy
Thank you so much for coming in to work with Firespring. We have so much to give our clients. Thank you for showing us even more that we can do to benefit them. We loved having you! ~ Jason

Search Engine Marketing:  Heather Lutze with Jay and Tawnya from Firespring Inc.

The Firespring Group is a high-impact marketing firm, designed for budget-minded small and mid-sized business owners. Search engine marketing expert, Heather Lutze recently presented “The Findability Formula – The Easy, Non Technical Approach to Search Engine Marketing” to the Group at Firespring. They asked Heather to present and share ideas on Findability and search engine marketing success.

At the full day session, Heather shared successful Findability strategies to search engine marketing:

Finding your keywords & conducting keyword research

Pay Per Click Advertising

Search Engine Optimization

Social Media Marketing

The second part of the day was focused on integrating ideas and strategies into the Firespring organization:

Implementing Findability for Firespring

Strategies for developing Findability

Managing and training on Findability for the production team

Overall, it was a great full day session with the group at Firespring! For more information about Firespring go to their website at: http://www.firespring.com/

Thanks for sharing you wisdom Heather. Firespring will be a better company tomorrow because of you. We appreciate your custom attention. ~ Jay

Thank you for exceeding our expectations! You and Kevin were terrific and you have been so accommodating. I look forward to seeing the results of implementing your suggestions. ~ Tawnya

Wow, Thank you for all of the enlightening info & insights you shared with us. I’m so glad to have met you, and hope you enjoy your visit to Lincoln! ~ Stacey

Thanks so much for sharing your knowledge and giving us tools that we can implement now. ~ Randy

Thank you so much for coming in to work with Firespring. We have so much to give our clients. Thank you for showing us even more that we can do to benefit them. We loved having you! ~ Jason


Search Marketing Denver- Findability Group Photo Shoot

June 30th, 2010
Eric Weber visits search marketing Denver Company the Findability Group
Wednesday June 23rd, prestige photographer Eric Weber paid a visit to the search marketing Denver Company the Findability Group. Eric Weber is a brilliant photographer with over 30 years of experience. He un-packed his car full of photography equipment, and was set for an amazing day with the Findability Group. As he proceeded to set up lighting in the main entrance of the office building, social media members bombarded Eric with questions about proper lighting techniques and equipment. Once the photo shoot began, Eric would capture the spirit of each Findability Group team member. The overall ease and quality of his work was proven by his experience. After creating an astonishing photo album for the Findability Group, he was interviewed about personal experiences in the photography field. We also asked about his current search marketing strategy. He was excited about the opportunities search marketing could bring to his business, but he noted his search marketing strategy in Denver just started. To find out more Eric Weber, go to his website listed below.
Eric Weber Studios- http://www.eweber.com/

Eric weber

Wednesday June 23rd, prestige photographer Eric Weber paid a visit to the search marketing Denver Company the Findability Group. Eric Weber is a brilliant photographer with over 30 years of experience. He un-packed his car full of photography equipment, and was set for an amazing day with the Findability Group. As he proceeded to set up lighting in the main entrance of the office building, social media members bombarded Eric with questions about proper lighting techniques and equipment. Once the photo shoot began, Eric would capture the spirit of each Findability Group team member. The overall ease and quality of his work was proven by his experience. After creating an astonishing photo album for the Findability Group, he was interviewed about personal experiences in the photography field. We also asked about his current search marketing strategy. He was excited about the opportunities search marketing could bring to his business, but he noted his search marketing strategy in Denver just started. To find out more about Eric Weber, go to his website listed below.

Eric Weber Studios- http://www.eweber.com/


Looking for a Better Web Strategy? Spy on Your Competition- Part 2

June 21st, 2010
The Perfect Recipe for Success…Shaken, Not Stirred
Knowing the spy intelligence data is one thing; now you have to act on it and make some positive changes to your web strategy. Following are some common changes many web site owners make after spying on their competition. As you’ll see, it’s time to take your reconnaissance spy mission – and your web presence – to the next level.
Tip #1: Blog as if your company depended on it.
It’s very likely to find that your competitors don’t have a blog, or that they’re not blogging often enough to be beneficial. Therefore, by simply setting up a blog and using core keywords in your blog posts, you can gain a tremendous competitive advantage.
Tip #2: Have the best pick-up lines at the PPC cocktail party.
For many web site owners who do Pay Per Click advertising, one of their biggest frustrations is having a low conversion rate. The key to running a successful Pay Per Click campaign is having solid ad text (the four-line entry that will display on the results pages in the area of the page called Sponsored Links). It is extremely important to understand the ad text landscape when you write your ads; otherwise, your competitors may have an identical or more compelling offer than you.
SpyFu shows what ads your competitors are running in PPC, as well as how competitive a keyword is. Using this tool, you may decide to select a longer tail keyword that has fewer competitors. For example, the term “video surveillance” has 21 competitors, while “Video surveillance security system” has only 7 competitors.
In addition, when crafting ad text, look at the key ad message of your competitors. If everyone else is advertising “low prices,” you should stand out by making a different offer, such as “Best Quality” or “Free Shipping” to differentiate yourself from other advertisers.
Tip #3: Select your Spy Team.
While knowing what your competition is doing right now is great, you also need to monitor them for the long-term. But what if you don’t have a lot of free time to constantly scan the web for what your competitors are doing? Wouldn’t it be great to have a team of spies crawling the Internet for you and sending you an email as soon as your competitors post anything?
It’s time to meet your spy team: Google, Yahoo, and MSN Alerts. Setting these alerts can keep you abreast of anything posted under your competitor’s names, web site URLs, and core keywords.
- Alerts.Google.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Google
- Alerts.Yahoo.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Yahoo
- Alerts.MSN.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from MSN
Simply create your account with each alert system, list the keywords you want alerts on, and then sit back and watch the alerts as they come in. Setting alerts can help you stay on top of your competitors without having to spend hours searching and reading the competitive landscape in Search Engines.
Mission Complete
Using these tools and tips, your web site stands a much better chance of beating your competitors to gain valuable new markets of consumers. Remember, for successful Findability, you must understand the Findability of your competitors and adjust your campaigns accordingly. By matching and beating the Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media offerings of your competitors, you are setting yourself up to succeed on your Internet Marketing mission.

By Heather Lutze

The Perfect Recipe for Success…Shaken, Not Stirred

Knowing the spy intelligence data is one thing; now you have to act on it and make some positive changes to your web strategy. Following are some common changes many web site owners make after spying on their competition. As you’ll see, it’s time to take your reconnaissance spy mission – and your web presence – to the next level.

Tip #1: Blog as if your company depended on it.

It’s very likely to find that your competitors don’t have a blog, or that they’re not blogging often enough to be beneficial. Therefore, by simply setting up a blog and using core keywords in your blog posts, you can gain a tremendous competitive advantage.

Tip #2: Have the best pick-up lines at the PPC cocktail party.

For many web site owners who do Pay Per Click advertising, one of their biggest frustrations is having a low conversion rate. The key to running a successful Pay Per Click campaign is having solid ad text (the four-line entry that will display on the results pages in the area of the page called Sponsored Links). It is extremely important to understand the ad text landscape when you write your ads; otherwise, your competitors may have an identical or more compelling offer than you.

SpyFu shows what ads your competitors are running in PPC, as well as how competitive a keyword is. Using this tool, you may decide to select a longer tail keyword that has fewer competitors. For example, the term “video surveillance” has 21 competitors, while “Video surveillance security system” has only 7 competitors.

In addition, when crafting ad text, look at the key ad message of your competitors. If everyone else is advertising “low prices,” you should stand out by making a different offer, such as “Best Quality” or “Free Shipping” to differentiate yourself from other advertisers.

Tip #3: Select your Spy Team.

While knowing what your competition is doing right now is great, you also need to monitor them for the long-term. But what if you don’t have a lot of free time to constantly scan the web for what your competitors are doing? Wouldn’t it be great to have a team of spies crawling the Internet for you and sending you an email as soon as your competitors post anything?

It’s time to meet your spy team: Google, Yahoo, and MSN Alerts. Setting these alerts can keep you abreast of anything posted under your competitor’s names, web site URLs, and core keywords.

- Alerts.Google.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Google

- Alerts.Yahoo.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from Yahoo

- Alerts.MSN.com – Sends you updates to any targeted keywords from MSN

Simply create your account with each alert system, list the keywords you want alerts on, and then sit back and watch the alerts as they come in. Setting alerts can help you stay on top of your competitors without having to spend hours searching and reading the competitive landscape in Search Engines.

Mission Complete

Using these tools and tips, your web site stands a much better chance of beating your competitors to gain valuable new markets of consumers. Remember, for successful Findability, you must understand the Findability of your competitors and adjust your campaigns accordingly. By matching and beating the Pay Per Click, Search Engine Optimization, and Social Media offerings of your competitors, you are setting yourself up to succeed on your Internet Marketing mission.

Creative Commons License
This work by Heather Lutze is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License


Looking for a Better Web Strategy? Spy on Your Competition- Part 1

June 14th, 2010

By Heather Lutze

As a web site owner, you wear many hats: webmaster, content writer, email manager, and marketing guru. Keeping up with all the demands of managing a website can be daunting and keeping up with competitors near impossible. How do you manage your time and resources as well as keep your site equal or above your competitors?
The answer is simple – you spy on your competition. In fact, with a little covert intelligence gathering, you can see what other web sites are doing better, equal, or worse than you. And best of all, this spying is perfectly legal!
If you’re like many web site owners, you may feel that your site is not meeting its full potential, causing you to lose revenue as well as repeat customers. Additionally, finding new customers may be challenging and you feel like you are spinning your wheels without moving forward. If any of this sounds familiar, rest assured you are not alone…and you can do something about it.

Gather Competitive Intelligence – “007 Style”
You can find many tools online that will enable you to assess your site’s Findability compared with your competitors. While you won’t find anything as exciting as a missile firing from the hood of a brand new BMW, you will find some cool tools that are free or low cost and that will give you an edge in marketing your site. Following are the essentials of your Spy Tool Kit:

• Tool #1 – SEOmoz.org
This tool measures the strength of pages, blogs, and entire domains based on factors inherent to popularity, influence, and ranking ability. This allows you to see your impact compared against others in your industry.

• Tool #2 – Websitegrader.com
This free SEO tool measures the marketing effectiveness of a web site. It provides a score that incorporates things like website traffic, SEO, social popularity, and other technical factors. It also provides some basic advice on how the web site can be improved from a marketing perspective.

• Tool #3 – SpyFu.com
SpyFu.com is a free Pay Per Click tool that gives great intelligence on how competitive certain keywords are in Google. In addition to giving insight on the cost per click and average number of clicks per day, SpyFu also displays the ad text for the competitors in this space.

After running all three tools on your site as well as the sites of your three major competitors, you can see how you rank in comparison and where you need to make some changes. You may very well find that the competition is stronger in terms of SEO, that they have a better web site strategy than you, and/or that they are using Pay Per Click more effectively. But don’t give up. You can use the data you gather to make some key strategic changes, become more competitive online, and start to match or exceed your competitions’ high scores.

Creative Commons License
This work by Heather Lutze is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License

Expand Your Business by Thinking Global, but Acting Local

May 25th, 2010

By Heather Lutze

Many small business owners think that in order to be successful, they must dominate the world. After all, their product is just a good for people in Ohio as it is in Nebraska. But often, the real business is right under your nose – right in your own backyard.

For many small business owners, though, understanding the nuances of how to attract and capture a local search audience and convert them into paying clients is a big challenge. Fortunately, you can increase your Findability, dominate web search results, and attract new customers in your own hometown.

The question is, how do you stay competitive in a local market where competition is fierce and your company offers the same perceived product or service as everyone else in the area? How do you achieve a real competitive edge in a localized market? Often, it’s about two key things:

• Getting Social
• Getting Local

If you want to stand out in your local market and increase your web ranking, following are some key ways to get social, get local, and get a whole lot of business.

Get Social
Social Media Marketing is an excellent tool in an Internet Marketer’s toolkit. It gives you a great opportunity to demonstrate how your company is different, and it gives a real voice to your online presence. Many businesses that do some social media marketing do a good job of helping consumers find their social media platforms off the main website. And, for the most part, they do keep their accounts updated with relevant, high-value information. However, in order to really harness the potential of these platforms, you need to make a few changes with a localized spin that will go a long way for search engine marketing.

Tip #1: Get everyone – and everything – on the same page.
Your blog is the most important social media element your company can create. As such, it needs to be a part of your main web site and it must support your brand. Just having a blog up somewhere on the World Wide Web doesn’t cut it. In fact, you can have the most informational, well-organized blog in the world, but if it isn’t an integrated part of your web site, it’s useless.
Unfortunately, most businesses have a blog that acts like its own website and that is totally separate from the company’s main web site. As such, the blog often gets more traffic and better web rankings than the main site. The blog gets all the credit for the business owner’s well thought-out, regular posts, and the web site gets none. Ideally, you want your web site to get everything. The goal is not for consumers to read your blog; it’s for them to read your blog, and then visit your web site and take action.
Therefore, port your blog directly into your main web site. Ideally, users will see the same header and footer as the main website, making it very easy for them to jump from a blog post to a relevant section on your website.

Tip #2: A little keyword research goes a long way.
If you are going to take the time and effort to keep your social media platforms up-to-date and informational, then you probably want your potential customers to read them. The true power of social media marketing is the ability to gain search engine ranking by optimizing your platforms, thereby getting found in the search engines and getting traffic to your platforms.
Chances are you’ve already done the hard work. You’re giving great information, uploading videos and images, and giving customers a real value-add. Now you simply need to pick one strategic keyword per post and do a little post optimization, and you’ll have search engine ranking. For each blog, use a keyword tool (such as Google’s free one – https://adwords.google.com/select/KeywordToolExternal, find a keyword with good search volume, and simply add it into your post title and throughout the content.

Now, here is the trick for using a keyword tool to localize posts. You probably won’t see the tools diving in deep enough to get search volume for Fairfield, Virginia, or for any town for that matter. However, what works for Americans, works for “Fairfieldians.” This means if there is great search volume under “Cosmetic Dentistry,” for example, then there is probably good search volume under “Cosmetic Dentistry, Fairfield VA.” So think global, but act local with your keywords.

Get Local
When it comes to marketing on the Internet, the sky is truly the limit for really narrowing in and getting in front of your target audience. Local searching is no exception. Here are a few tricks of the trade that can help you dominate local search results.

Tip #1: Use Geo-Targeting carefully.
Many local businesses that do Pay Per Click advertising use Geo-Targeted criteria, which means your PPC ad will only show if the searcher has a local IP address in the geographic area you’ve defined. The biggest gap in running only a geo-targeted by IP address campaign is that people who are not physically located in your area when searching won’t see your ads. So if someone lives around the corner from you, but this week they happen to be across the country visiting their Aunt Betty and using her computer to find some local businesses to call next week when they’re back in town, your PPC ads won’t show.
For this reason, Geo-Targeted Pay Per Click accounts need to have two campaigns. Campaign 1is the localized campaign that only shows ads to consumers in your area, and Campaign 2 is a state-wide or national campaign with keywords that have local modifiers. Using our cosmetic dentistry example from earlier, in Campaign 1, you could show ads for keywords such as “cosmetic dentistry,” knowing that only consumers in the surrounding areas would see them. For Campaign 2, you could show ads for keywords such as “cosmetic dentistry Fairfield VA,” knowing that regardless of where that person is currently located, they have a need for a dentist in Fairfield.

Tip #2: Use Local Business Center ads.
Local Business Center ads are a fantastic way to gain additional, localized ranking in the search engines. Setting up a Local Business Center ad account in Google is free – all you need is a local address and you are good to go.
Local Business Center gives you the opportunity to connect your local listings with your Google Adwords account, meaning that when someone searches for your keyword in your local area, your listing will appear with an address and phone number under the standard ad text. Even better, Local Business Center ads can be optimized. For example, if one of your local listings is titled “Fairfield Dentist,” you could label it “Fairfield Dentist, Cosmetic Dentistry” and gain ranking for someone searching for cosmetic dentistry in Fairfield. By using a keyword tool and including your keyword in the local listing, small business can take full advantage of a local Internet Marketing approach.

Tip #3: Get the right local domain for the right audience.
As much as we are targeting local keywords and local listings, there is a fine line between local and too local. For example, some businesses put their phone number or address (or part of it) in their domain name. Whereas an address and/or phone number is certainly local, it is just a bit too local. Searchers definitely identify with localized keywords; however, typically they don’t search down to the street-number or phone number level until they are looking for directions or a specific provider. Therefore, get a web site address that is local-keyword rich. A small change in your web address can make a very big change in your search engine Findability.

Dominate your Local Market for Results!
Yes, you can dominate your local market. By utilizing the strategies covered, you can up your game on the local competitors. Ideally, you want to be the ONLY provider in town as far as the search engines are concerned. With so many people going online to get their local needs met, this is one area of your web marketing campaign you can’t afford to overlook.

Creative Commons License
This work by Heather Lutze is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License


Denver Internet Marketing: D Bar Desserts- A Delicious Formula for Success

April 7th, 2010

Denver internet marketing company the Findability Group with Keegan Gerhard at D Bar Desserts

Denver internet marketing company the Findability Group paid a visit to D Bar Desserts located in Denver, Colorado. D Bar is a culinary sanctuary serving delicious desserts, savory foods, and wine. D Bar Desserts was created by Keegan Gerhard, a world renowned pastry chef whose love for dessert, food, and wine inspired him to create D Bar. The Findability Group had the privilege to meet with Keegan Gerhard to discuss his “Findability”, regarding himself and for his company.

Keegan Gerhard- D Bar Owner

Keegan Gerhard, was named one of the nation’s top 10 pastry chefs of 2002 and 2004 by both Chocolatier and Pastry Art & Design magazines, brings a wealth of experience and abundant competitive energy to his position as Executive Pastry Chef. He has been featured numerous times on the Discovery Channel’s Great Chefs of America, as well as the Food Network and CNN.

D Bar Desserts

By day, D bar is a casual pastry shop/cafe – a great place to grab a bite from the pastry case or a menu, hang out or order a cake or pastries for a special occasion. At night it becomes more of a dessert and wine bar with the plated dessert menu starting at 6p.m. being a focus of the p.m. service.


Facebook Strategy: 3 Tips for Using Facebook as a Business Building Tool

April 5th, 2010

Facebook Strategy

Most people know Facebook as a great way to stay in touch with friends and family, and to reconnect with long lost childhood classmates. But there’s another side to Facebook – one that can help your business grow.

According to Facebook’s own compilation of statistics (found in their Press Room), more than 1.5 million local businesses have active Pages on Facebook, and more than 20 million people become fans of Pages each day. For CEOs and business owners, this means Facebook is definitely a way to spread your company’s message, build community and loyalty among customers, and ultimately increase your company’s bottom line.

If you’ve only used Facebook for personal reasons, making the jump to a business application can seem challenging. The following suggestions will help you create a business Facebook presence that generates results.

Distinguish your Facebook person and persona

Ask yourself these two important questions: “Who am I as a person outside of my business?” (This is your person.) “Who am I as a business owner on Facebook?’ (This is your persona.) Can you combine the two identities? Absolutely not! If you already have a personal Facebook page that you use to keep up with your friends and family, then keep it personal. Don’t mix your business contacts into that page.

Rather, build a new Facebook profile as the CEO and Founder of Company XYZ. This is your business persona page. You could even name it John W. Smith, CEO and Founder of Acme Corporation. On this page you’d put your corporate bio and other information that pertains to your role in the company – the persona of you as a CEO. Then you can build a Fan Page off of that personal profile that talks specifically about the business.

Mixing your personal and business pages is discrediting and unprofessional. And yes, it’s perfectly fine to have two profiles on Facebook. You’d simply have to use your middle initial or some other distinguishing information to differentiate the two accounts.

Name your accounts wisely

While your individual posts on Facebook are not ranked in Google searches (at least not yet), your profile is ranked. Simply go to your settings tab in Facebook and elect to make your profile public. How you name your business persona page and fan page is critical for ranking purposes. While you’d certainly use your name for your individual business account and use your company name for your fan page, you’ll want to tag some keywords onto each name. For example, if you as the CEO wanted to be known as a leader in internet marketing, you might name your business profile John W. Smith, Internet Marketing Strategist. Similarly, you could name your fan page in such a way that there’s no question what your company does, as in “Acme Corporation, Widget Supplier and Manufacturer.”

Think of the keywords you want to be found under and work those keywords into your tagline or title. This strategy gets your profile open to the world and helps you go beyond just building a Facebook community of friends and fans. Now you’re opening your company up to a bigger community outside of Facebook.

Post appropriate content

Once your pages are set up, encourage your current clients or customers to join your fan page. Anything that happens with the business, such as any trade shows the company is attending, new products or services you’re offering, any new company developments you want people to know about, or anything related to the company as a whole, would appear on the fan page. People read those posts and monitor what your company is doing or offering and they then invite others to become fans.

As for your business persona page – the page focused on you as the CEO and Founder – here you’d post information about conferences you’re attending, your thoughts on the industry or company, and business things related to you personally. For example, maybe you won an award or got an article published. Talk about these types of things on your business persona page.

Additionally, on your business persona page, you’d only put out and accept friend requests from people who directly relate to your business. If one of your personal friends finds the page and offers a friend request, direct that individual to your personal page.

Realize that while you can control whom you befriend, you have no control over who becomes a fan of your company’s fan page. People become fans because they are interested in your topic.

Also, it’s okay to have blatant ads, coupons, and specials for your company on your fan page. In fact, fan pages were designed as a way to give businesses a way to blatantly promote their company without getting people upset. However, don’t put ads, coupons, or specials on your business persona page. If you do, people will quickly start un-friending you.

Finally, remember to feed your Twitter posts, blog posts, and YouTube videos directly to your fan page so you can extend your brand. You can do all this dynamically by using a tool such as Ping.fm or SocialOomph.com.

Build Community…and Profits

With more than 400 million active users on Facebook, this is one place you definitely want your company to be seen. The key is for clients, prospects, and the Facebook community at large to see your business in the most positive light possible. By keeping your business and personal information separate, building your pages professionally, and posting relevant content your audience will want to read, you can create powerful relationships on Facebook that positively impact your company’s bottom line.

Creative Commons License
Facebook Strategy: 3 Tips for Using Facebook as a Business Building Tool by Heather Lutze is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.
Based on a work at www.heatherlutze.com.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at www.findabilitygroup.

Reinvent Customer Relationships Online

February 23rd, 2010

Companies spend millions each year asking agencies and marketers to brand their companies in order to reach more prospects. But, how often do these same companies look carefully at the brand that is already built for them by their loyal, current customers? Like it or not, your “fan base” already has built your brand and holds your company’s reputation in the palms of their hands through an aggregate of blog posts, review sites, videos, and social media platforms stating what they love and hate about your brand. In the event that this is prominently positive, how do you get everyone to collectively support your brand as a community of evangelists for your company? The answer is to start loving your devotees, and to give them what they want, a place to network, talk, share advice and continue to preach about your brand. In end, this is what large corporations pay the big bucks for–reverse marketing by and for your already loyal customers, and it’s something you can do yourself.

Take for example a small company in a predicament. Company founders had built a tremendous brand and had a huge following, however, the brand was fragmented and un-controlled online. For years the owners had been known for their passion and love of their business, but they had struggled to produce a web site that would support their loyal fans as well as perpetuate a brand that would speak to new prospective customers. Their problems sat with an incomplete vision of their online audience & potential reach. Their website spoke to current brand enthusiasts, however could not provide enough of forum for their fans to express their devotion. As such, YouTube videos, blogs, un-official Facebook fanpages, etc., were appearing across the web and were, in many cases, pulling away from the core values and mission of their business. Additionally, unless a prospect knew to search for their specific company name or slogan they would not find any official webpages in search results.

How do you build and “feed” a community of loyal customers to continue to build your brand from the inside out, as well as open the market and build brand awareness to new, valuable prospects? Sometimes you need to go big or go home! So in an effort to establish your online brand, sometimes you have to decided to redesign your web site, rewrite all the content for SEO (search engine optimization) and start aggressively utilizing social media to congregate followers! It can be a big job with a big payoff.

Tip #1: Love Your Domain Name And Show the Search Engines You Care: Select A Domain Name For Findability – It Matters!

What is your current domain name? Does it reflect who you are and what you do? Does it reflect how your customers are trying to find you? Does it include any of your key words for SEO?

Tip #2: Build A New Web Site Look And Feel Consistent With Mission

Does your old site lacked focus with too much going on? The example company included over 60 “options” immediately of what the user could do–so essentially the clear action for a user to take was “do everything … now.” Also, their home page would be used as a clearinghouse for products on sale, giving them the image of being the Wal-Mart of their industry. People who came to the home page who needed help with a specific subject would have to search over several pages to find the answer. A very confusing messaging overall and not consistent with their message.

Their new site has cleared out the clutter and cuts to the chase. Four primary conversion opportunities are presented on EVERY page of the web site. Additionally, their background is consistent with their other product lines on the home page and every interior page. The goals is to present a cohesive user experience that appeals to both the long time devotee, as well as the first time visitor looking for guidance.

Tip #3: Set Up Social Media For A Huge Community Of Followers Waiting For Your Lead

Have you established a social media presence? Large communities of devoted followers are building their own Facebook pages and are looking for someone like your company who already has a presence. Establish “THE” credible, official place on social media sites your followers can trust.

Taking the dive and reinventing yourself or your business is scary, but even more scary is the inability to adapt and change over time. The Internet is a very fast paced environment and you must stay in touch with mistakes you may have made in your branding and be willing to make it right. Ultimately, you’ll see big payoffs and great findabilty for being bold and taking a stand for who you are as a company. JQ

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Heather Lutze has spent the last 10 years as CEO of The Findability Group, formerly Lutze Consulting, – a Search Engine Marketing firm that works with companies to attain maximum Internet exposure. A nationally recognized speaker, she is the author of, “The FindAbility Formula: The Simple and Non-Technical Approach To Search Engine Marketing” (Wiley and Sons). Heather is a lead speaker for Pay Per Click Summit, and previously spent two years speaking for Yahoo! Search Marketing. For more information, visit www.FindabilityGroup.com.

Internet Marketing Company In Denver Findability Group – A Sign of Great Things To Come!

February 17th, 2010



The Findability Group has been very busy optimizing its office for success. All computers and phone systems are on-line and ready to go. The final step is the most important one, our new Findability sign must be mounted on our office wall. The Findability group has partnered with Colorado Sign Works to create a perfect sign to match our company.  It took weeks of designing and direction, but the magnificent sign has been finished.  The sign is a characterization of our company and represents our name. Below is our journey through the sign process:

Findability Group Internet Marketing Sign in Bubble Wrap

The technician from Colorado Sign Works carefully un-wraps the sign from its bubble-wrap packaging.

Denver internet marketing- sign lights up

The frame of the Findability Sign is mounted on the wall, and all signs show it is working.

Denver Internet Marketing- sign instillation in progress

Our friendly technician at Colorado Sign Works finishes the final step, and celebration is at hand.

Denver internet marketing- sign is official

The sign is up and lit, this is a thing of beauty! Thank you Colorado Sign Works for your assistance. The Findability Group is now officially ready for world domination, one click at a time!

If you are interested in Colorado Sign Works, please visit their website at: www.coloradosignworks.com