The Reciprocal Consulting Blog

Every blogger at some point runs out of ideas and has to look for ways to spice up the blog machine. So how do you go about finding things to blog about? Matt McGee knows. He suggests:

• Delicious.com
• Question-based keyword research
• Look at your analytics (what are people reading most, and how are they finding your site?)
• Q&A websites like Quora and Yahoo! Answers
• Ask your readers

To be sure, there are more than five ways to find new blog ideas. In fact, there are hundreds of ways to generate ideas for content. Here are ten more ways to find new ideas for your blog content.

1. Read other blogs in your niche and write about the same topics (be sure you don’t plagiarize or steal the content, and don’t take ideas from the same competitor every time
2. Find an old post that was popular and write about the same topic from a different angle
3. Visit a niche article directory; what are the most popular articles about?
4. Use Google’s Wonder Wheel
5. Where are your pay-per-click clicks coming from?
6. Watch a few YouTube videos in your niche
7. Current events – Is there something going on around the world that you can play off of?
8. Your Twitter stream
9. Facebook
10. Use your RSS reader; scan the headlines till something pops out

As Matt says, there is always something to blog about. Just do it.

Internet businesses have become their own entity. Even if your online presence is an extension of your real world business, it would be wise to consider a separate business plan for your website. Here are 5 key things to think about before starting your Internet business.

1. Branding – There is a lot that goes into branding a business. Even an online business. Should your domain name be keyword-based? Many branded online businesses aren’t (Google, Yahoo!, Bing, just to name a few). Nevertheless, it is important to think about how you will brand yourself online.
2. Search engine marketing – This includes search engine optimization as well as your paid search options. How will you ensure your website receives its just deserts at the search engine table?
3. Social media – You’ll have to think about incorporating social media into any new business you start online. That includes which social media websites you’ll use and how you’ll use them.
4. Traffic conversion – Traffic conversion is more than simply driving traffic to your website, though it does include that. You must think about how you will drive traffic, what methods and techniques you’ll use to perform that function, including possibly video marketing techniques, and how you will convert that traffic once you get it to your website.
5. Web design – Central to any Web business is your website design. In truth, all of the above considerations will be integrated into your website design. You might as well consider how each of the above initiatives will be included in your web design right from Day One.

Every business is unique. By the same token, every Web business is unique. You must consider each of these five initiatives for your business right from the start. Don’t settle for any cookie-cutter plans because your business is not a cookie.

When businesses go online to learn how to participate in Internet marketing campaigns that work, there is usually a lot to think about, a lot of new information to take in for those business owners and managers. The problem is how to process it all.

What I always suggest is to take it a little bite at a time. You can’t learn everything in one day. You can’t become a master of every art in your lifetime. Don’t even try.

The key is to start with the basics. Study a little bit about web design before you do anything else. What are the best practices for web design for businesses of your size and in your industry? Study the competition to see what they are doing that you like and that you don’t like. Then analyze what is effective.

Remember, you are only studying the basics at first. At some point, you have to rely on the advice of experts because you are nowhere near that status yourself.

After you have learned the basics of web design, move on to another topic such as search engine optimization or pay per click advertising. Again, take the time to learn the basics before moving on to something else.

It takes time to truly learn how to successfully manage an Internet marketing camnpaign. It’s not going to happen overnight. With the proper guide, your business can achieve a little success and move on to greater success – one step at a time.

Is Internet marketing less expensive than traditional marketing. It is in many cases, though not always.

In times when the economy is struggling, every small business wants to save money. That’s understandable. But what many small business owners end up doing is killing their marketing budgets, which leads to less business. You really don’t want to kill your marketing just when you need it most. So what’s the alternative?

How about redirecting that budget to online marketing where it can be easily tracked, controlled, and measured?

Television and radio advertising, long-running staples for most small businesses, are just not what they used to be. TV ads are expensive. Radio ads are not as much so, but your audience is limited. And newspapers ads are not as effective as they used to be. Internet marketing, however, offers several channels and marketing solutions for small businesses that are quite affordable – and effective.

For instance, PPC advertising allows you to set your own budget. You choose how much you are willing to pay for a lead, and you don’t pay for that lead until you receive it.

Even if you do use PPC advertising, your marketing budget could exceed that of your traditional marketing budget. The difference, however, is that it is easily trackable and you can measure your results a lot more effectively, not to mention that PPC advertising often leads to increased business on a scale that TV advertising can only envy.

So is Internet marketing less costly than traditional marketing? It depends on how you measure cost. In many ways, it is less costly and more effective.

Internet marketing has come a long way since 1991. I mean, the World Wide Web came into the light in 1990, which is when the first Web browser and the first website were built. Since then, pioneers have championed some powerful marketing tactics. The following four Internet marketing tactics were among the first channels ever used, and they are still just as effective today.

• Website Design – Naturally, we’ll begin with the granddaddy of all Internet marketing channels. Having your own website has become synonymous with Internet marketing. It just seems logical, therefore, that this should be at the top of the list.
• Article Marketing – From the time they built their first websites, pioneering Internet marketers started driving traffic to them with articles. Article marketing became one of the first very successful methods of marketing online – and it still works.
• E-mail Marketing – E-mail marketing enjoys the status of being one of the most profitable Internet marketing channels ever. It was also one of the first ways that successful online marketers used to leverage a sustainable income.
• Forum Marketing – Forums were the first real social media tools. Early Internet marketers discovered how effective they were at driving traffic to websites. Despite all the rules in place at many forums today, you can still use them effectively for your marketing efforts.

While the new methods of Internet marketing – blogging, social media, Twitter, video marketing, mobile marketing, etc. – are effective too, these four primitive online marketing tactics are still just as effective as they ever were. Don’t leave them out.

Internet marketers generally talk about Internet marketing channels as if there are hundreds, or at least dozens. In reality, there are three primary channels with multiple legs holding them up. Learn those three primary online marketing channels and you can more easily manage your entire Internet marketing strategy more effectively.

Here are the three primary Internet marketing channels:

1. Search engine marketing
2. Social media marketing
3. Paid advertising

All Internet marketing falls into one of these categories, and some may easily slip into more than one category.

For instance, pay per click advertising fits into the paid advertising category, but it can also be considered search engine marketing.

Under the search engine marketing umbrella, you’ll find these marketing subchannels: Onsite SEO, link building, local search, PPC, web design and development, and variations on these tactics.

In social media marketing, you have social networking, social bookmarking, video marketing, podcasting, forum marketing, blog marketing, and other variations of these.

For the paid marketing channels, you’ll see pay-per-click advertising, display advertising, PTC (pay to click), CPM (cost per thousand impressions) and CPA (cost per action), and variations on these channels.

If you analyze the reach of each of these types of online marketing and what they are capable of on their own, then you can select the best channels and subchannels for marketing your business.

An article at Marketing Pilgrim says that small business owners worry about obtaining new customers. In fact, they lay awake at night thinking about it.

Is that you? Do you lay awake at night worrying about where your next customer is coming from? Don’t. It could come from any number of sources – if you take action.

Prospecting for new clients takes time. And it is costly. More costly, in fact, than retaining the customers you already have. But if you don’t do it, what will happen? Many small businesses find out what happens when they are no longer providing a service after two to five years.

You can’t let worry freeze you. Running a small business is about taking action to attract new customers and keep the ones you have happy. Here are a few tactics that other small business owners have used to do just that:

• Built a website
• Employed search engine optimization on their website
• Drove traffic with pay per click advertising
• Produced online videos
• Engaged in e-mail marketing
• Spent time on social media

All of these tactics are effective if employed correctly. They’re not the only tactics that work, but they do work. They are much more effective than worrying. So stop worrying and start taking action.

I’m convinced, after years of being in this business, that an Internet marketing plan is something that every business would benefit from. In most cases, a company that has an established marketing budget can get more mileage from their marketing with less outlay if they transfer some of that budget into Internet marketing. But what does an Internet marketing plan consist of?

Of course, every business is different. Therefore, every Internet marketing plan will be different. The first step is to determine the needs of your market and approach those needs with an open mind.

Once we’ve established your priorities and the needs of your market, your Internet marketing plan could consist of any of the following special tactics:

• Pay per click marketing – PPC is a pay-as-you-go marketing tactic. You buy clicks and send them to your important landing pages. It’s very effective and costs are determined by how much you are willing to pay per click.
• Search engine optimization – SEO is the long-term tactic. We’ll help you rank your web pages in Google, Bing, and other search engines in order to attract the right customers.
• Social Media Optimization – SMO is a different kind of Internet marketing. It’s about building relationships through connections off of your website.
• Custom Web Design – Your website should be a reflection of your business and your values.
• Online Video Marketing – Online videos are the 21st century equivalent to 20th century TV advertising – only better.

When it comes to developing an Internet marketing plan, the strategies you use depend on your market, your business, and your goals. Talk to someone who has designed a custom Internet marketing plan more than a few times.

You are likely familiar with the old 80/20 rule. 80% of your production comes from 20% of your employees, or money investments, or whatever. Well, online, there’s another 80/20 rule. It says that 80% of your website’s traffic comes from the search engines. The other 20% comes from other sources (direct, social media, etc.).

The actual number is more like 85/15, but let’s not count pennies. The point is, if most of your traffic is coming from search engines, then the majority of your budget should be in search engine marketing.

If you have $1,000 to spend on Internet marketing, you don’t want $800 of that going into social media when most of your traffic is going to come from the search engines. Instead, you should allocate 80% of that ($800) to pay-per-click advertising, blogging, and content creation. The remaining $200 can go into video marketing, social media, and other non-SEM activities.

This isn’t a matter of effectiveness. You can always test the waters and see if you get better results from video marketing, social media, or non-SEM marketing initiatives. If so, then by all means put more money into those channels. But you need to start with a base. That base is 80% search engine marketing and 20% other.

When you have a solid base from which to start your Internet marketing initiatives, it’s easier to track your results. You can set better goals and you can allocate your marketing budget appropriately.

Some trends come and go. Some stick around. I think the following 4 Internet marketing trends may be keepers. At least for a little while. Have you discovered these trends yet?

1. Blog Marketing – Blog marketing has been around for a long time now, but it took a little dip after Google killed inbound links. Nevertheless, it seems to be making a comeback, particularly for businesses that want to use it for marketing and branding purposes.
2. Mobile Search – Mobile search is a trend that is sure to stick around. People not only read blogs and news with their mobile phones, but they update their social media accounts and make purchases.
3. Local Search – All kinds of businesses are discovering local search. And unlike traditional SEO, you can be very powerful and effective on the local level within just a few weeks.
4. Social Media Marketing – Facebook and Twitter are all the rage right now. You’d think they are passing phases, but they’re not. If you are running a business, social media is a must in today’s fast-paced marketplace.

Now is the time to hop on board these Internet marketing trends. Don’t just ride the waves until they hit the beach. Make them a part of your daily routine.

Spam is a big problem. There’s search engine spam, e-mail spam, social media spam, and canned spam (just kidding; checking to see if you’re really reading). :-)

I’ve read blog posts from SEOs and Internet marketers that essentially blame Google and its policies for search engine spam. I don’t think it’s a fair accusation. Who would you blame for e-mail spam? Or how about social media spam?

Whenever there is money to be made, there will be cheaters. Stock markets provide a way for people to invest money in hopes of getting a profitable return. Certain practices, like using insider information, are illegal and considered unethical. But people still practice them, and if they are caught they will pay the price.

Of course, spam is not illegal. But the search engines have policies in place to address spam in their indexes. Are they perfect? Do the search engine policies effectively control spam 100% of the time? No. But it’s not for lack of trying.

The real cause of spam is greed. Some people would rather risk future profits for the quick dollar now. That’s essentially the motivation behind every spam message you see – whether in your e-mail box, your search engine listings, or your social media walls. If you are a legitimate Internet marketer, however, you don’t want to get caught being a spammer. It can be a real reputation destroyer. Instead, focus on providing value and deliver on your promises.

Does your Internet marketing firm communicate what they are doing with your website or is all you get a bunch of silence? In other words, are they explaining what they are doing and why they are doing it?

The attitude among many Internet marketing companies is that clients don’t understand and don’t care about the nuts and bolts. But we believe it’s your website and you should know what’s happening with it. There should be no secrets between your marketing firm and your company. None.

When there is silence from your Internet marketing company, that’s a recipe for blackhat SEO to creep in. Blackhat SEO is search engine optimization strategies that are not approved by the search engines. You can scan the news headlines and see some high profile companies who have been stilted by their Internet marketing companies because those companies used blackhat techniques that got their clients in trouble. You don’t want to become another statistic.

Ask your Internet marketing company what tactics they use before you hire them. Get them to show you a step-by-step plan for your website before they go to work. And don’t approve anything that you aren’t 100% legitimate. Otherwise, you could see your Internet marketing strategy in jeopardy.

Before you hire an Internet marketing firm, you should interview them. Find out what they do and how they do it. I’m not talking about quizzing them on their trade secrets. I’m talking about finding out if they are ethical in their business practices and if they really understand Internet marketing principles.

Here are 15 questions you should ask your Internet marketing firm before you do business with them.

1. How do you budget Adwords to simultaneously maximize the number of clicks and minimize cost?
2. How do you track and handle leads when they come in to your firm?
3. How do you write your ad copy so people will fill out your contact form or call you?
4. How do you decide what web sites to get links from?
5. How do you get a new website indexed by Google and out of the “sandbox” in only two weeks instead the normal three month’s time?
6. How important is it for your website to be WC3 Compliant?
7. Is there a penalty for putting too many keywords in your meta-tags?
8. What are the benefits of a “content management system?” What are the drawbacks?
9. How do you know when to use a broad match, phrase match or exact match in a Google Adwords campaign?
10. Will inbound “sitewide” links get your site banned?
11. How do you find keywords that no competitor is bidding on, but that convert at half the cost and twice the frequency of conventional keywords?
12. How do you measure conversions on specific sites on Adword’s content network?
13. How do you bid keywords appropriately, knowing you will get fraudulent clicks?
14. How do you set up a tracking phone number? Why should you?
15. Where should a contact form be on a page? Which pages should have them?

When it comes to Internet marketing, not all firms are created equal. Do a little probing. How does the company do business? Does their style mesh with yours?

The first step to any good marketing is research. But that can entail any number of things. Usually, it means

• Competitive intelligence
• Market research data
• Keyword research
• Industry background research

And that’s just a start. Take a look at one of our case studies to see how a success start with market research ended with a well thought out plan that made our client successful.

While research is important, going through the steps to learn about the competition, the competitive landscape of the playing field, and your own keyword research will not necessarily guarantee success. You’ll also have to implement your plan.

There are a lot of moving parts to an effective Internet marketing strategy. There are content development initiatives to oversee, paid search initiatives, social media opportunities to exploit, and some additional research along the way to uncover unseen opportunities that might arise during the course of a campaign.

When there is so much at stake for the future of a company, you cannot afford to hand your Internet marketing over to amateurs. You need a professional to manage the process from beginning to end.

First, do your research. Then, take what you find and mold it into a plan. Execute your plan aggressively and monitor. Internet marketing success is not an accident.

There has been a lot said in recent months about the various group deal sites – particularly Groupon and Living Social. Bing have now entered the fray with Bing Deals, and while it is really no more than a deal aggregator, it will make finding a deal easier for consumers. However, what is important to note is that Bing is teaming with DealMap, and they deliver thousands of local deals every day.

For many marketers, promoting their businesses through these channels may deliver more sales than through what is now consider ‘traditional social media’ channels (how quick the Internet moves – two years ago we spoke of how social media was the ‘new’ marketing option – now it’s ‘traditional’). If you have been offering special deals through Twitter, for example, you may find that sites like DealMap offer an even bigger stream of sales.

It begs the question, is social media too saturated for this type of marketing? Or more importantly, do you need to change your marketing strategy to match the habits of consumers. It’s clear that consumers are starting to prefer sites like Groupon and DealMap when looking for special deals. With these services really working hard to target the mobile market, and with mobile devices getting smarter, it makes sense that consumers will access them in larger numbers.

Groupon, Living Social, and DealMap are not for every business. However, they do offer a simple method of targeting consumers in their environment. Consumers don’t necessarily visit Facebook or Twitter to find a good deal – instead, they visit those special deal sites. If you are into special deals, then you may want to consider checking those sites out. Internet marketing is continuing to evolve. You need to evolve with it. You will be promoting where the customers are wanting to be promoted to, and that doesn’t happen too often.

They say that loose lips sink ships; at least, they did back in WWII. Those words still ring true today, except the ships are businesses. It’s the loose lips that haven’t changed. Internet marketing covers a wide range of activities including search and social. It’s amazing how one loose word in the wrong place can come back to bite you down the track.

Badmouthing someone, either while engaged in a social media conversation, via a blog’s comments, or even privately through e-mail, never actually gets you anywhere, no matter how angry they have made you. Being able to control your emotions and respond courteously yet with authority with help you to maintain (if not build) your reputation while still allowing you to promote your product or service.

Humans are a fickle lot. We read a comment and we instantly take it personally. Often, it’s not true. If a comment is true, you need to be able to depersonalize it, and to put it into perspective. Why has that person made that comment? Rather than responding with angry outbursts yourself, remain professional.

Internet marketing is all about promoting your business, your products, and your brand. Reputation management is all about protecting your business, product, or brand. Between the two, there is no room at all for personal feelings, in particular, personal grudges. If someone bad mouths you, your business, product, or brand, take it as a potential marketing or reputation-building opportunity.

Loose lips will sink businesses. Leave your emotions at home and put on a professional face that is ready to handle everything that the online world is prepared to throw at you.

We spend a lot of time talking about how to increase traffic to your website, but unless you convert that traffic into customers your efforts are often wasted. I know there are some sites that want traffic purely as online branding and promotional use, but many websites exist because of the business they do through the Internet. It’s your website that converts traffic into customers and it can take a lot of research and trial and error to gain the best conversion rates.

Online business owners can learn a lot from their offline counterparts. One feature of many offline businesses is the concentration on efforts to not win walk-in traffic, but to do everything possible to keep that traffic in the store for as long as possible. Every parent knows about the final marketing trick, the offers made at the point of sale – often targeting children. I notice some supermarkets now advertise checkouts that are ‘child friendly’, that doesn’t mean they don’t have point-of-sale marketing material.

Your website needs to follow the same principles. Once a visitor arrives on your website, you need to keep them for as long as possible. The use of video is popular now for catching people’s attention and increasing their desire for your goods or services. Video production now needs to be a little more sophisticated than in the past, but then, a professionally produced video is likely to have more selling power than a home-produced video.

Content is a website’s prime tool in keeping visitors on their site. However, content on its own is useless if visitors cannot find it. This brings into play your internal link structure, the placement of those links, and the anchor text used to promote those links. This is one area where trialing different placements and different anchor text can result in improved click-through rates.

A professionally designed website that makes use of modern features like video, infographics, and well-written content can work together to keep visitors on your website for longer periods. The longer they stay on your website, the more likely they are to become a customer. When it comes to point of sale offers, don’t be afraid to ask for email details for newsletters.  Is your website helping you to convert visitors to customers?

What’s the difference between a geek and a marketer? I guess there are a million answers to that question. My thoughts are fairly straightforward – a geek will tinker with code to make a page look good while a marketer will tinker with strategies that convert a page into sales. There are many online business owners that fall into the geek category – their sites look fabulous. But when it comes to marketing, forget it.

Of course, we also have to admit there are a lot of people marketing their businesses well yet their sites are letting them down because they look horrendous. Which camp do you fall into? More importantly, can you do both? Most do-it-yourself online business owners do try all with varying success.  It is possible to do both, but internet marketing is becoming harder all the time. Sometimes, what is important is to understand your limitations and to concentrate on what you are good at.

In the main, online business people, if they come from a business background, are good at sourcing products, good at managing the financial aspects of their business, and often quite adept at the Internet marketing side of the business. Learning to create polished websites, while a handy skill, could actually take one away from what is the real core of their business – getting customers through the door.

Web design is one of those areas that is often best left to those who specialize in that area.  Having a professional custom web design doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg either.  If you were to price your own time at a reasonable rate, and apply that to what could be 20-30 hours of tinkering (if you were to do it), then a professional’s fees will look quite small in comparison. Of course, because of their skill, they can produce decent websites in far less time than most nonprofessionals.

Who is running your business? Are you a geek with a really well-polished website, or are you a marketer who knows how to get the traffic through the door? If you’re both, the best of luck to you!

Search engine marketing and social media marketing have long had an interesting relationship. It’s easy to compartmentalize and say that such and such belongs here while this and that belong over there. But it’s not necessarily helping your business to do that.

Search engine marketing and social media marketing are both forms of Internet marketing. As such, they have something in common. But they also have some overlap, which means that they likely have more in common than simply categorization.

For instance, you’ve likely seen social media profiles, or even posts, updates, and tweets, in search results. That means that social media can be a form of search engine marketing. And certain social media – like Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube – even have their own search features, some of which are quite popular. YouTube has even been called the second largest search engine in terms of volume.

I think someday Facebook may surpass YouTube in terms of volume of searches. But will they include off-site search in that deal?

Long story short, don’t expect to compartmentalize your Internet marketing strategies forever. You should really develop one Internet marketing strategy that pulls all of your online marketing together and crafts it such that the strategies work together – not against each other.

So you’re new to the world of online business and you’re wondering how and where to start your social media marketing. First – welcome and join the club because doing business online is a continual learning experience.  Social media is not that hard to crack. As a social experience, however, transferring that to income generating traffic is not as easy.

There are several approaches that you can take to ease your way into social media marketing. Each requires a little time and effort, but each will over time help to build your reputation and your authority within your business niche. The following four approaches are tried and tested and work well for almost any niche.

Creating Your Own Business Blog  – business blogs are underrated by many and perhaps overrated by others. However, a well written blog that informs or entertains readers will always develop a following of readers. Those readers can and will become customers over time. Just be sure to communicate with them when they leave comments.

Becoming Involved With Other Blogs – find, read, and comment on other blogs within your niche. Don’t spam, and only participate in conversations where you can add knowledgeable value. Readers to that blog will, over time, come to check your blog and who you are.

Get Involved With Niche Related Forums – one of the oldest forms of social marketing is through a forum. In fact, forums were around before the internet as we know it existed. As with blogs, participate in conversations where you can add value to the conversation.

Create A Facebook Presence – a Facebook presence is almost a must today. You should consider creating a Fan Page where you can actively promote your products and your business. Facebook can be slower than the other three to generate a following, and traffic to your business will be slower as well. However, over time it too will develop a reliable following, all of whom are potential customers.

Those four social media marketing channels are not that hard to crack. They will require a little time and effort, but if you put in the hard time, the rewards will be significant.