I just love to show you this new 2014 CMO’s guide to the 2014 social landscape. It’s about SEO, Brand Awareness, Customer Communication and traffic generation. I hope it will inspire you to consider new channels for your marketing campaigns.
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Paul McCartney — ahem, SIR Paul McCartney to you — is one of the biggest rock stars of all time. He helped to launch one of the biggest rock bands of all time, The Beatles, and he went on to become the most successful composer and recording artist of all time, according to the Guinness Book of World Records.
Paul McCartney is an icon — some would even say a legend. His groundbreaking success can teach us all a lot. In particular, his career has a lot to teach Internet marketers about how they can make their business better. Here are a few things that Paul McCartney can teach us about SEO:
It’s Your Talent that Matters
When The Beatles dissolved, Paul McCartney didn’t become “that guy who used to be in The Beatles.” He became Sir Paul McCartney among other things. What he showed is that gimmicks don’t matter; it’s your talent that matters.
When you are building up your business, focus on your talent. What is it that sets you apart from your competitors? What is it that makes you a good choice for your customers? That’s what you need to focus on in your marketing efforts. Your keywords and your SEO efforts will evolve naturally from that, and you’ll create an organic SEO strategy that will get more results faster.
Your Brand is Everything
Paul McCartney is his own brand. As successful as they were, The Beatles ended up being a showcase for McCartney’s talents as a songwriter and a performer. He took those same talents on to produce music with other bands and as a solo performer. Though The Beatles remain a significant part of Paul McCartney’s history, he has established himself as a brand in his own right.
For your business, you need to make your branding just as important. Defining your brand will inform your SEO strategy. Without clear branding, you cannot create a successful SEO strategy. Your brand should be able to be recognizable across platforms, and it should be able to be defined in just a few words or a few sentences. You can then use that to create a powerful SEO campaign that gets results.
You Have to Have the Right Timing
The Beatles were as big as they were in part because of the time in which they came of age. Many other bands that are similar to The Beatles have come about since then, but none have been as successful. Paul McCartney and the rest of The Beatles were creating the right songs at the right time, responding to the cultural changes and needs of the people. Each of their albums reflects that, and you can see a clear evolution of the band’s music (largely written by McCartney with writing partner John Lennon) with the evolution of the social landscape.
So, too, must your business understand how to offer the right things at the right time. It’s even more important for your SEO strategy. You have to understand how to use the right keywords at the right time, to get links from the right sources at the right time, and to become a part of the popular conversation while it’s still popular. Learning how to do all of this is part skill and part luck. But if you can get it right, you’ll be wildly successful.
Paul McCartney is one of the most successful musicians of all time. He has become an icon. You can learn much from him about how to run your business and your SEO campaign.
What lessons have you been able to take away from Paul McCartney’s career to apply to your business or your SEO campaign? Share your thoughts in the comments!
Bio: Amber Satka primarily writes on financial topics, many of which can be found on her app site at http://www.carloancalculator.org/. She is a former office manager and current mother and writer. Her leisure activities include bike riding and spending way too much time on Pinterest.
(PS – Remember to check out this article about Beatles and SEO too – best regards, Henrik)
The Emergence Of Blogs
Today is the day and age of blogs. While many people were not used to the idea of blogs a few years back, most people are getting to understand how they are used and can be put to different advantages on the internet.
The best thing about blogs is the ease of creation of them, especially the free ones. If you have an email account at Gmail, you can simply choose the Blogger option and start blogging.
What’s more, you can make use of the blog not only to share thoughts and ideas that you have in your mind, you can even use it as a distinct online marketing tool.
Blogs As Online Marketing Tools
Today everyone is on the lookout for online marketing options.
Most people wish to find ways of promoting their products or services online.
While medium and large sized businesses are making use of the services of many online marketing firms in order to advertise their products and services, those who are about to launch small businesses look for ways to market without going bankrupt.
One easy and free way of advertising online is to make use of blogs. Not only can one start a blog and write about the product or service that one wishes to sell, they can even make use of other blogs in order to spread the word.
Free Blogs Help Each Other
Just as you are opening a new blog with the help of tools like Blogger, many others are doing the same.
While some simply wish to publish the poetry that they have in their mind, others are either trying to promote other brands or trying to sell something of their own.
Free blog owners are more open to publishing content of other blogs or other guests as long as they also get a link in return or get to put in a word or two about the product or service that they are promoting.
Thus, if one is selling a health supplement, they can make use of blogs that are into health and fitness and anything related to such subjects. One can simply drop such blog owners a line requesting them to take up a guest post on their behalf.
Most blog owners have guidelines that need to be followed in composing a guest post. Once that is done, many blog owners will happily publish your content.
Benefits Of High Ranked Blogs
There are blogs which have high page ranks, signifying that they get a lot of online traffic.
When one gets their article published on such sites, they increase the chances of getting more people to read the article and follow the links posted and visit the official site or raise queries.
In such ways, followers are also generated on Facebook or Twitter for products or services. Companies are using social media in such ways to increase awareness and audience for their products.
Author Bio – Matt Anton is a regular contributor to http://paymentsavvy.com. He writes on topics related to online marketing with special reference to small businesses.
In the past, protecting the reputation of your business simply meant keeping the customer happy.
Unfortunately, those days are long gone. Today we live in an increasingly “virtual” world. We rely on our Smartphones and mobile devices to direct us towards reliable companies before we make a purchase.
This means that a single negative review can do serious damage to your business.
It’s important to stay a few steps ahead when it comes to protecting your image and the image of your company. Ben Franklin was once quoted as saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure”.
When it comes to managing your online reputation, it’s far easier to prevent negative press than to undo it.
Read on for three ways to pro-actively protect the online reputation of your business – you’d be wise to put in the effort!
1. Buy your brand’s domain name and several variations
The first step to ensuring a flawless online image is to make sure you’re in control of your own brand. If you haven’t already, it’s a good idea to buy yourname.com and several modifications of the original. For example: yournamenews.com and yournamereviews.com.
This prevents anyone with sinister intentions from taking those sites and using it to drive traffic away from your business; or, even worse, to bash your product or services.
While this might sound unthinkable, you’d be surprised how nasty competitors or dissatisfied clients can be. Additionally, you can use these “sister sites” to create more content that links back to your main brand homepage.
When it comes to increasing search traffic on Google, owning the variations of the original domain name can be a valuable SEO tool.
2. Monitor Yelp and local review sites for customer feedback
It’s always a good idea to keep an eye on what customers have to say about your business on Yelp.
Not only for reputation management purposes but also because it can help you improve your offerings and appeal to your customers better down the line.
Some SEO-savvy organizations use Yelp as a way to communicate with customers and gain valuable insights into their own services.
Without formally surveying customers, you can essentially look for any commonalities among Yelp reviews, and make adjustments to your product accordingly.
3. Look out for negative reviews
No matter how hard you try, there’s always someone out there who wants to drag your name through the mud. Whether they attack you on a more personal level, or bash your brand, it’s unpleasant either way.
Keep an eye out for negative press by searching your company on Ripoff Report, scam.com, and other complaints sites. If you happen to stumble across a negative review, don’t panic. Contact the dissatisfied client and see if you can help.
This just comes back to basic customer service. If you feel like the issue has been addressed, you can ask them to take down the review.
The less time negative comments related to your brand spend on the Internet, the better it is for your online reputation as a whole.
Of course, you can’t expect to silence every naysayer, but with these three tips in mind, you can effectively monitor your brand’s online reputation and pro-actively promote business.
About the Author – Brian Patterson is a Marketing Analyst with Online Trading Academy, a day trading education firm with 33 locations spread internationally.