Small Business Marketing | Marketing for Entrepreneurs | Realtor Marketing » websites

Difference Between Small Business Websites Versus WordPress Blogs

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 18 May 2010 16:09:06 +0000

I spend A LOT of time trying to explain small business websites versus wordpress blogs to people. There are some major differences that matter to your web success so here is the difference for the final time!

I have been involved in making websites and blogs for over a decade now and have watched the progression from pure HTML sites to Flash to database driven sites. I have seen SEO (search engine optimization) change over the years also. When we started, a website was basically a fancy brochure with lots of obscure copy about solutions driven results and client acquisition matrix. In fact we used to play buzzword bingo the terms were so ludicrous.

Fast forward ten years and the internet has changed. Putting up a website with your brochure on it only works AFTER someone has made a buying decision and is researching your company. While they are searching they want Information – information with a capital I! They also want to be able to do a search on Google or Bing or Yahoo and find knowledge, not your sales pitch but active information about the topic that they are researching which you may know the answers to.

I have to tell you, about 4 years ago I thought blogs were silly! Who wants to talk about what they ate for breakfast or how many times they put the dog out (some of the same arguments people give me about Twitter, but that is different post on this same theme). Today I cannot see why anyone would want a website unless they were doing a big ecommerce launch or had to have layers of security because they dealt with people’s confidential information.

So what are the main differences between websites and blogs?

Blogs have feeds, websites do not Part 1 – I got a voicemail from a client last night who had an urgent event she needed to post on her website. She is a new client and her blog is not set up yet so I had to tell her the bad news, if we put that info on her website, it could be four to six weeks before google comes back to spider that information…sigh. If we had a blog done for her, we could post that information and it would PUSH it out to the search engines today. Search engines are hungry to make the latest information available and so are glad to have new items every day.
Blogs have feeds, websites do not Part 2 –

Because blogs have a process to notify everyone when something is posted you can have an email sent out automatically by using Feedburner which is free and owned by google, you have the post automatically tell your Facebook page through Networked blogs, you can have Twitter post it automatically with TwitterFeed or Hootsuite. You can combine feeds from different places like we did on www.twitter.com/tweetinghomes, allowing all kinds of realtors to post their blog posts automatically.

Blogs have LOTS of content to index – Every time I write a post there is a chance it will make it to the front page of google. I have written over 200 posts about small business marketing, entrepreneur marketing, realtor marketing, time managements, website design and more. Each of those posts stands alone as something that google may be interested in ranking well.
Blogs have webpages too – I can guarantee you that some of my clients do not know that my small business marketing website Marketing Artfully is a blog. They saw a blog 3 or 4 years ago and do not know how far they have come. I have a contact us page, sales pages, product pages, policies and procedures pages, and events. Basically everything a website has along with about 200 mini sites built in because of the blog posts I have written.
Blog posts are easy to share – EVERY time I write a blog post I bookmark it. Bookmarking is pushing those buttons that say share or tell a friend which allow you send your post to Digg or Delicious or Propeller. These bookmarking sites rank REALLY well and drive actual traffic to your website. Adding them to the bottom of blog pages is super easy which brings me to…
Blogs are easy to use and update – Blogs look like MS Word on the back end. They have great content management tools like the Thesis Theme for WordPress which we use for all of our clients. They also have plugins and widgets that do almost anything you want. When I wanted a calendar for my site it took about 10 minutes to research the right one, upload it to my blog, activate it and start using it. No development time and no cost (we use Calender by Kieran O’shea). I have been in many marketing meetings with developers when we wanted to add something like that to a website. Just the time to do the specifications would have exceeded 10 minutes let alone the development time which could run to days or weeks with the associated costs.
Blogs do not all have to look boring BUT having bells and whistles costs more and can take more time for upkeep. I changed the Thesis Skin on this site to something snazzier than just a plain Thesis theme with cool graphics. While I am happy about the look, it added about 15 to 20 minutes to the time it takes to write blog posts because of the special formatting of photos needed and how it is not just super easy peasy anymore. That having been said, if you absolutely want a custom look to your blog, it can be bought for a price!
Humans do not care or understand whether your site is website or a blog – I have a client (and friend) who I have worked with for YEARS. We talked a couple of times about building a blog but her husband had his heart set on a website. It is finally up, over 6 months later and has 5 pages which include a contact us page and an about us page…sigh. Your prospects DO NOT CARE what technology your website is built on. They care about 3 things only – do they like you, do they trust you, do you know what you are doing.

So there you have it, my best information about the difference between websites and blogs. I am sure some of you have different opinions that I do and would be happy to publish them in the comments if you want to let me know. If you are a small business owner who would like to learn more about getting a blog for your business, please email me at support (at) marketingartfully.com and I will have someone give you a jingle!

There are links in this article to free small business marketing tools as well as affiliate links. If you would like to avoid my getting paid for referring you to them, please type the website addresses in your browser bar manually.

Duplicate Content for Small Business Owners and MLMs

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 12:45:34 +0000

As some of you may know, I do internet and offline marketing for small business owners BUT I also do A LOT of research into hard core internet marketing since many of the techniques I learn from those guys translate into something that my small business owners, entrepreneurs and realtors can use!

The other day I was reading about duplicate content on adwords websites and how that effects the rankings and the amount those advertisers get paid. That made me think long and hard about my small business owners who work for companies that offer “websites” and “shopping carts” for them to use to market their business.

If you have a Tupperware website (or candle or jewelry or weight loss) site that your company provides, there is a good chance that it has duplicate content on it! While it is great that your company provides an ecommerce or marketing solution for you, the chances of you ranking for that search term when there are thousands of the same sites out there is incredibly slim.

So what can you do? If you have some money to invest in your business you can have a blog like the one we did for Rae Ann over at Green Cleaning Products. She isn’t competing with all of the other people who represent her company anymore, instead she is representing herself and green cleaning products, with Wow Green simply as a product. Additionally, she DOES rank on the first page for Green Cleaning Products Denver which is one of search terms we targeted for her!

So what if you are just getting started? You could use free websites or blogs to set yourself apart from the crowd! Each time you leave a breadcrumb around the internet that is different from your company website, you increase the chance of someone finding you and possibly following that back to buy!

If you would like to learn about using free websites to market and are in the Denver area next week, consider coming to our Free Website Marketing Workshop (the sites are free the workshop isn’t…:)

Internet Marketing – Making the most of your marketing efforts

Tara Jacobsen — Mon, 04 Jan 2010 13:36:49 +0000

When you start internet marketing, or real life marketing for that matter, you are all fired up. You are going to tweet, and facebook and get a blog and free websites and and and…. Then one of two things happens A) nothing works because you did one thing on each of those mediums or 2) you get lots of business so you stop doing what worked!

The other thing I hear is that small business owners, entrepreneurs and realtors don’t have the time to do this kind of marketing. They are too busy running their businesses to do lead generating to get more sales. Sigh. Their ONLY business is getting more customers and prospects! If they have no customers they have no business! So what is a smart marketer to do?

First – Determine what you like to do!

If you like to sit in front of the computer, make sure you are spending your time wisely…

Watch TV and follow more people on twitter
Take the time to write thoughtful blog posts instead of watching HGTV or Spike
Set up multiple twitter accounts in the niches you would like to target
Set up multiple blogs in the niches you would like to target
Answer your emails
Stop removing yourself from lists
Set up google alerts to get the latest information and inspiration on what to talk about
Get a database like aweber or constant contact and learn how to set it up

If you hate sitting in front of the computer, take 15 minutes a day and do these things

Answer your emails from the night before (if it will take more than 1 minute to answer them then put them on your list of things to do and move on)
Follow 50 people on twitter using twellow.com
Go into Facebook and accept your friend requests then post your status and “talk” to a couple of people on your live feed
Add a link from google alerts about something interesting to your fan page

(membership site gang – watch out for a really neat video later this week that shows how to pick your best marketing opps!!!)

Second – Stop Whining

This one is going to be a little bit mean so if you are having a bad day skip it…:) I do SO many things on the internet. I do everything I have suggested and more. I have client work to do, I have articles and blog posts to write, for goodness sake I have over 20 blogs, 5 twitter accounts, 4 Facebook pages, the list goes on and on. Sometimes I get overwhelmed and think that there is too much to do – then I look at the time I am actually spending working. I mean nose down, no phone, no emails, no nothing, just work. It is about 8 hours a day.

Can you say that you are actually working 10, 12, 14 hours a day. Really? When you are honest with yourself, couldn’t you carve out an extra hour (or even 15 minutes) a day to schedule dedicated time to growing your business?

Third – Get help!

Okay, back to being nice..:) When I say help I mean whatever help YOU need. I don’t need much help with setting things up because I am good at it. I have been doing it A LONG time and some things that may seem overwhelming to you are not hard for me. That having been said, balancing my checkbook is too much for me. All those numbers, ick. So – here are some ways you can get help!

Hire an assistant (virtual or real) to do some stuff for you. An assistant is only as good as what you need though. I need someone who can make sure I am doing my client work in a timely manner, enter all the people I meet in my database and add people to my membership site. I cannot expect an assistant to fix my blogs when they break (I hire a programmer for that), I cannot expect my assistant to be an accounting wiz (I hire my CPA and bookkeeper for that). DO NOT give your assistant more than they can do technically and DO NOT try to farm out your internet empire to them. If you do not know what to do hire a marketing person to SET UP the systems for your assistant to manage.
Learn to use tools – All those twitter accounts I have, most of them update themselves automatically when I post on any of my blogs via twitterfeed.com. Updating all those Facebook pages is super easy with hootsuite.com. I use writers to help with the heavy lifting of content for my niche blogs. I use my database to talk with people all at once. I automatically follow people using socialoomph.com. All these things make it easy to manage multiple accounts BUT I had to set them up first. Get your online empire built the right way and managing it is easy for you or your assistant!
Schedule time – Do you see a theme here? If you do not put time in your calendar to do these tasks you will never get them done. Take the first 15 minutes or hour of your day, shut off your phone and do your online marketing (or if you are having an assistant doing it, stop bothering them with “real work” while they are doing it..:)

Anyways – if you are down here, you are probably interested in REALLY starting to do some internet marketing. Congratulations! Your business will thank you and your bottom line will thank you.

Learn Use the Top 10 Internet Tools for Small Business

Tara Jacobsen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 15:04:21 +0000

Internet Tools

I feel strongly about this – you should learn how to use the Top Ten internet tools that will make a difference for your small business! These are in no order and come from the talks that I give and questions I am asked by small business owners on a daily basis.

I do not know about you but I sometimes procrastinate about learning how to do something new. I assume that it will be really hard and will take forever to learn and that it will possibly make my head explode. I have to say that most of the time, I am wrong!

That having been said, figure out what makes the most sense to set up yourself and what you can farm out. I had a little problem with Widgets on this blog. Figuring out how to fix it was going to take A LONG TIME and it was something that doesn’t happen a lot – I had a programmer do it so that I could keep working on my actual work. Throughout this post I will give my take on whether learning how to set up some of these things is worth it or if you should get help.

TOP TEN INTERNET TOOLS FOR SMALL BUSINESS

Learn about writing great headlines – Whether you are writing an email or a blog post, you need to know how to make a reader take notice AND how to make it search engine friendly! This post started out about “learning internet things – arggg” and morphed into a topic that you were interested enough in ready to click through to AND it has keywords that the internet can index rather than a “cute” title.
Learn how to use email for marketing – I have an email list that I contact twice a month. They are a great gang of people who look to me to be a source of marketing information and many have purchased something from me at some time. I don’t sell sell sell BUT when I find something that I think works I make sure to let them know. If you are going to have one list only I suggest using Constant Contact, if you are going to have multiple types of email subscribers make sure to use a fuller service like AWeber. If you are technologically or administratively challenged, have someone set up your list for you and import or data entry your contacts. It cost me about $100 / month to have someone data entry my new contacts and it is SO worth it!
Learn how to use Social Networking! – I have to say that I have had more success getting business from Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter from anywhere other than speaking to groups. Just this week I “met” a lady who is attending one of my speaking sessions next month and also got a social networking setup gig from a LinkedIn contact. I would NEVER have met these people in real life so having these FREE marketing tools is brilliant! I offer a social networking how to video series that will help you get up and running fast if you like to do it yourself. If you would like to have everything done for you and ready to go we do a $250 social networking setup that makes getting started effortless!
Learn to make hyperlinks! This one is HUGE and is the question I am asked most about during my classes. As you see above I link to my offers using keywords like “social networking how to video series”. That lets google know what the page I am linking to is about. I do this this also when I comment on a blog post. This one is SO easy once you know how – just use this code Keywords go here.
Learn to make YouTube Videos – Get yourself a Flip Camera and start taking movies. The reason why I recommend the flip is because it is so easy to use. Press one button to start, same button to stop, then plug into your computer and upload to YouTube! This one is VITAL and SO EASY, there are tons of videos on YouTube about how to do it and it will take you less than 10 minutes to learn!
Get a blog - This could be numbers 6-10 it is SO important!!! Many small business owners think that a website is the way to go without understanding the power that having a blog brings. Blogs PUSH your message out to google as soon as you publish it. Blogs are easy to use so you can pop your videos into a post and hit publish. You can put each blog post on facebook or digg or twitter. Blogs are easy to change. Blogs rock! If you would like to find out more about small business blogs visit our website http://websiteandblogdesign.com.
Learn to use the filters on your email program - DO NOT unsubscribe or send nasty messages back when someone sends you an email. That is a potential customer that you are eliminating from your business. Instead set up a filter to send them to a “special folder” or even the trash automatically. Learning to use your email better will eliminate your aggravation and reduce the amount of time you spend.
Sign up for google alerts – Google alerts will send you a daily message with all the information about your industry or topic. Realtors, ask for alerts about your area + real estate. Small business owners use your industry. THEN take the information that you find interesting and write blog posts about it OR just post the link on your Facebook business page. This is a GREAT way to become an expert in your industry!
Sign up for i-google – This is a way that you can use your google homepage to see blog posts by your favorite writers. I did a video explaining how to use the google reader. This one will take you less than 5 minutes to set up! Then you see what people are talking about in your industry and can make comments with text links back to your website or blog!
STOP PROCRASTINATING! If you don’t know how to do something important, learn how to do it. Pay for training, hire someone to set it up for you or figure it out! You will be amazed at how some of these tools can change your business and life if you learn to use them right!

If you would like to learn more please visitâ€¦

Top 10 Internet Tools Writing Great Headlines | How To Use Social Networking

How To Market Your Small Business

Tara Jacobsen — Tue, 06 Oct 2009 14:36:06 +0000

Small Business Marketing Day!

People ask me all the time what I do to market my small business (and my Realtor Marketing clients). I KNOW when I hear those words that they want to know the magic bullet – the ONE THING that I do to achieve online success. The ONE THING that I focus on that makes the traffic and sales flow.

Well today is marketing day! I do lots of things on the fly, but today I have the luxury of spending all day marketing my websites, products and referral sites! I am going to be starting at 9am and only have one phone call to break up the day (and it is with one of my favorite people on earth so that is alright!)

So what is the plan? I thought that I would let you know what I plan to do and then I will pop back in and let you know what actually got done. Sometimes it is more and sometimes less, but without a plan I am going nowhere fast!

Marketing Artfully – Small Business Marketing Company
Fix social networking video landing page
Fix marketing artfully layout
Add ads to Marketing Artfully
Monitor new adwords campaign for article marketing
Set up twitter blasts for websites and blogs

Realtor Marketing – Trinity, Foreclosure, Dunedin and St. Pete Real Estate Websites
Set up twitter blasts for blogs
Add social networking buttons to each site
Either do posts or articles for at least two of them
Add MLS search button to all sites

There you have it! I am also listening to some training videos so may swap some in and some out but in general am going to be rocking the internet – watch out other marketing people, I am coming at you!

PS – So I never liked putting pictures in my blog posts because I am lazy…:) That having been said, since I load them onto facebook and the pretty pictures show I have been adding more – yay facebook!