If you own a business today you most certainly have gotten a call or email from “someone like me”. According to us, there are several areas of your online marketing that need work! Let’s be honest they probably do, but what needs to be done and do you need someone else to do the work for you? The good news is that you can do it all yourself, but it’s a lot of work so let’s go over our methods used here at Bunn Brands.

Reputation or Review Management

In our opinion, one of the best places to start is Review Management (sometimes called Reputation Management). Of course, as a business, you want quick result and Review Management will provide results in the first month. Managing reviews can be a lot easier with an automated system, which we offer, but you may very well manage these accounts manually. We’ve put together a list of things to do when managing your reviews:

1. Know where people are reviewing you and gain access to those accounts. (i.e. Google, Yelp, Yellowpages, etc…)
2. Respond to positive reviews with a “Thanks!” style message, but make it personable.
3. Respond to negative reviews with apologies, regrets, and attempts to make amends. Remember you’re the “good guy” in this situation!
4. Saturate your marketing with easy access to reviews. Ask clients to review you by email, text, in person, through QR codes, or even in your email signature.
5. Show your reviews on your website and other marketing efforts. Reviews are online versions of word-of-mouth and that is often referred to as “the best form of marketing”.

Website Design and Optimization

Secondly, we recommend taking a good look at your website. How does your website compare in overall design to your competitors? How well does it compare to your favorite websites? Of course, appearance is not everything, but it is the first impression many will get. In order to sum everything up nicely, we’ve compiled a list of questions and concerns involving your website to reveal what may need work.

1. Does your design stand up well against other modern designs that exist today?
2. Does your site have Google Analytics setup to analyze your traffic?
3. Are there clear goals (i.e. Buying Items, Contact Forms, Opt-Ins) built throughout your website to drive action?
4. Is your website properly setup for Search Engine Optimization?
5. Is your website kept up-to-date? Is all information correct and do all forms work?

Social Media and Pay Per Click Marketing

Here at Bunn Brands we always recommend that Social Media be handled internally at a business. There are various ways to achieve this, but generally, one or more people are designated Social Media Managers. These managers are responsible for everyday posting and engagement with customers on your various Social Media platforms. Having a brand presence online is very important for our next step.

Social Media ads and Google Ads are treated quite similarly at Bunn Brands (with obvious differenced in messaging). Both services are designed to get viewers to click the ad presented. There are various types of ads, which we will dive into on another post, but the basic concepts are the same. Below are some key points and questions to answer when creating your Pay Per Click Campaigns.

1. If sending someone to a website page from the ad does the page content match the shown content in the ad?
2. Are your ads properly targeting those interested in purchasing or taking action with you?
3. Do you have a budget and are you over or under spending that budget?
4. Are you testing and tracking multiple ads to see what is working better?
5. Are you adjusting your click costs according to gathered analytics?
6. Are tracking goals setup properly to see how well ads are converting?

Search Engine Optimization

SEO can be a confusing term for some people. We believe that is due to its confusing nature and the way in which it is explained. Simply put, SEO is a group of services used to increase your websites search engine ranking for specific keywords or keyphrases. The “secret” behind SEO is not really a secret at all. Other things factor in, such as backlinks, but the core of everything is developing continuous, deliberate and targeted content.

Search Engine Optimization is a long-term and on-going process that can evolve and grow as needed. Providing useful and targeted content involves plenty of research and skills in writing. That being said, it is something that you can definitely work on yourself. Below are some tips, questions, and tools you can utilize to get going on your SEO journey.

1. Is your website optimized for SEO? Does each page have meta-data and do all images have descriptions, titles, and alt tags?
2. Does each page have a “focus keyword” or “focus keyphrase”? You can research search engine results for highly searched terms with the Google Keyword Planner.
3. Does the content of each page use the focus keyword throughout and give quality information about its subject?
4. Are you writing blogs and setting them up with proper meta-data?
5. Are you linking internally to different pages of your website?
6. Are you linking externally to other websites?
7. Is anyone linking to your blogs or website pages?
8. Is your information correct across directories? (i.e. Google MyBusiness, Yellow Pages, Yelp, Etc…)

Conclusion

Digital Marketing can be quite a handful, which is why professional companies, such as us, exist. However, that does not mean it’s impossible to do yourself. The key factors we suggest you focus on are Review Management, Website Design & Optimization, Social Media Presence & Pay Per Click Marketing, and Search Engine Optimization. Don’t worry if you can’t answer every question and don’t know exactly how to deal with some of these things. Stay tuned as we continue and deep dive into each subject to help you understand even more!

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