Just Ask Betsy....The Be Visible BlogWhere there’s no such thing as a stupid question… about the Web!

Getting Email Pitches from Internet Marketers? What to do!

The number of companies that provide Internet marketing services is growing in leaps and bounds and many of them are using email to reach out to their target market: your business! Every day businesses receive unsolicited emails from Internet marketers promising to make your website appear on the first page of Search Engine results for your business category. Even Be Visible gets those emails!

I can’t blame any company for trying to reach new clients by cold emailing. After all, that’s how I got Be Visible started (and I still have most of the first clients I contacted that way!) But, the web is still too new and complicated for a “formula” email sales pitch to be successful.

Here’s an example:

One of my clients owns a commercial cleaning company that specializes in green cleaning solutions. They don’t do homes or apartments, and they have a very specific type of clients such as office buildings, private schools and restaurants. We’ve been running an adwords campaign on Google and working with them on their SEO. It’s tricky because we have to make sure that we are using their budget to reach only the correct decision makers, and that involves consistent analysis of their program, adjusting budgets, making irrelevant keywords negative, and much more. We have worked for two years to lower their cost per click and to get them the best ROI.

My client recently received an email from a company promising to get them better results.

Here’s an excerpt from the email:

“Hi,

My name is xxxxx and I’m with xxxxxxxx.org. I was just searching for Office Cleaning, Green Cleaning and School Cleaning in New York and it turns out that your company is missing some relevant keywords compared to similar businesses. I thought you might want to see this.

You can see your full list of recommended keywords here and explore options for improving your position on search engines.”

So, we clicked on the link and here is their list of recommended keywords and my client’s page rankings:

Here’s what is wrong:

• My client doesn’t work in New Jersey, and we don’t display their ads there.
• My client doesn’t fit into ecological or environmental services (no one looking for office cleaning would search that way),
• My client doesn’t do window washing
• They aren’t a dry cleaner or a commercial laundry

So, what the keyword report really shows that my client’s link is on the first page for their most important services:  commercial cleaning, office cleaning, etc. and that’s a result of two years of refining their program to target their most lucrative market.

So, I commend my competitor in reaching out to offer solutions to businesses, but it’s obvious that they didn’t put in any time to understand the business, which would have taken 2 seconds by going to the website. My competitor is selling the way the Yellow Pages always did: “If you throw enough sxxx at the wall, something will stick!” And we all know how much customer loyalty the Yellow Pages achieved!

So, if you get any unsolicited emails making great promises to help your business achieve visibility on the web, please feel free to forward them to me. I promise, I’ll give you an honest assessment. After all, there are other companies besides Be Visible who can find the right combination of all the Internet marketing options available for your business. But, I assure you, there are not too many that work as hard as we do to understand your business’ needs, goals and market.

Happy Holidays!

Social Media is Sexy

Social Media is Sexy

By “sexy” I mean alluring and enticing. And Social Media is just that for marketers.

• It’s immediately accessible.
• It can give you instant feedback.
• It enables you to touch your customers individually.
• Public usage is growing like wildfire.
• It’s fun!

In the past year I have attended countless workshops, seminars, and programs to educate myself on how I can help my clients use Social Media effectively to reach their goals. I have set-up profiles and pages, developed campaigns, and coached my clients on blogging, using Facebook Fan Pages, LinkedIn and Twitter. And we are seeing good results (even my dentist is getting new patients from his Social Media effort!).

But…last week one of my clients told me that he was encouraged by a friend in marketing to discontinue his Paid ads on the Search Engines (which have been responsible for a huge increase in his revenues) in favor of Social Media marketing. Hang on a minute there!

Paid Search is still the only guaranteed way for many types of businesses to be in front of their target market on Search Engines. Yes, Social Media can increase your company’s Internet footprint, but it can’t substitute for Paid Search for:

• Having control over where your message appears.
• Having control over when your message appears.
• Being where your competitors are (remember, your brand can be used as a search term).
• Reaching the most targeted ready-to-buy customers.

Social Media IS sexy. So, my advice is: incorporate Social Media into your marketing plans, but take a deep breath and think about what’s working now before you throw away the baby with the bathwater.

Your thoughts?

Google PageRank: What is it? Is it Important for SEO?

Question #1: What is Google PageRank?

Google PageRank (PR) is a number that represents the importance of an individual web page in the eyes of Google. So, when lots of web pages link to a specific web page, it shows Google that the page is popular. That means good stuff to Google because their ultimate goal is to always deliver the most relevant, quality content to their users.In other words, if a page has a PR of 9 or 10 (10 being the highest), that page has won a popularity contest!

Question #2: Is Google PageRank Important for SEO?

Well, that’s a really good question. There was and still is a lot of speculation as to whether a high PageRank benefits a web page’s ranking in organic listings (SEO). However, it is ALWAYS good to have as many quality inbound links a possible directing people to your web pages.

If you have the Google Toolbar installed in your browser, you can see the PageRank of each page as you browse the web. Don’t know if you have the Google toolbar, or want to install it? Let me know and I’ll be happy to help!

Yes, Domain Names are Important

There have always been differing views on how important your domain name is to the success of your business online. For a large company whose brand it’s really crucial. Over the years numerous large corporations have spent millions of dollars to secure their preferred domain name. (Fund.com was bought for $9.99 million; see The 10 Most Expensive Domain Names http://tinyurl.com/bpdua9).

In my experience working with local businesses, however, I’ve discovered that a domain name ranks very low on the list of what makes successful web marketing.  The bottom line is: if your company provides a service and you are properly visible on the web when a searcher needs your service, your domain name isn’t that important. It certainly isn’t as important as good website design and content. And for SEO, as far as I can tell, a domain name is not very important to the search engines either. Certainly not as important as incoming links, good content, etc. (See http://tinyurl.com/c4germ).

But, it’s very important to protect your domain name. Case in point: clients of mine (a service business) have owned 2-3 versions of their company name + .com for a number of years. One of the few versions they hadn’t bought was recently registered by an e-tailer who began using it to sell products online. Since this seller did not have a  phone number on their site, when unhappy customers (and there were a lot of them) tried to contact them, they couldn’t. So, they performed a search, found my clients’ website and called their office instead. Up to 30 calls from angry customers were coming in every day! This caused havoc in my client’s office as well as making it impossible for us to clearly analyze their web analytics, not to mention jeopardizing their company reputation. At the end, my client was forced to buy the domain name from the e-talier for a lot more than it would have cost to register it at the beginning (raking up some thousands of dollars in legal fees, as well).

Registering a domain name is relatively inexpensive. Whether you use Go Daddy, Register.com, Network Solutions, or another company, my suggestion is to go on today and buy as many iterations of your domain name as you can afford. I just discovered that www.BeVisibleAssociates.com is available, but it wasn’t when I started my business. I bought it and some other variations, plus BetsyKent.com, as well, just to be safe (don’t stick to .com, either, as extensions will probably not mean much in the future).

So, is your domain name important? Yes!

What is Be Visible Associates doing? New Websites, E-Commerce, SEO, and more!

In spite of the economy we began quite a few new projects in March:

• New website: Upscale furniture store
• Internet marketing program: High end invitation company
• E-Commerce site: Children’s coat manufacturer
• SEO content pages: National frozen seafood producer
• Internet visibility program: NYC construction consultant

Because Internet marketing is relatively low cost and is highly trackable.

Jump in…the water is very buoyant here! You won’t sink, you will swim… …and we’ll be right beside you!

What is Twitter Good for?

If you are a business person, you are either using Twitter, thinking about using Twitter, wondering about Twitter, or are scared to death of Twitter! So, what’s it really good for?  Here’s my list…I welcome additions!

• Lets you promotes article, blogs, videos, papers, and anything else you have published.
• Tells the world that you are an expert in whatever it is you are an expert in.
• Helps you identify trends in your industry.
• Allows you to find great resources to help you in your business.
• Makes it easy for you to talk about your own events and speaking engagements.
• Lets you promote interesting events you plan to attend or have attended.
• Broadcasts news about your business such as landing a new client, adding a new service, etc.
• Lets you connect and with others in your industry who you can learn from (either publicly or privately).
• Gives you a platform upon which you can voice your opinions, ask for help, learn more.
• Makes it possible to get information about your profession instantaneously.
• Allows you to share what you have learned with others in your field.
• Lets you react quickly to developments in your industry.
• It’s fun!

Don’t Give Up!

We are living in strange times. Turn one direction and the recession stares you in the face (I’m noticing more and more empty stores in Soho). Turn the other direction, and you ask yourself “What recession?” (I stood in line at CVS for 15 mins the other day).

BIG Research did a study for Stores Magazine this month to find out what Americans will absolutely NOT give up…and guess what topped the list? Internet service! Yes, of all the things that we can do without, we are not giving up our Internet.

Even though times are strange, there are still people using the web. If 1,000 people per month were searching for your services last year at this time, there may be only 500 people per month searching for your services now. But don’t ya wanna be there when they are ready to buy?

So, give up other things…but…don’t give up on the Internet!

Test, Analyze and Act!

If you’re a business owner, it’s likely that you want the world to know that you are the best at what you do. You know that your competitors are using Google to market their services, but would it work for you?

The answer is: maybe. The secret is: you can test it very quickly and economically.

Using Google to test your online market is something that businesspeople are doing all the time. A test program can give you the data you need to decide if its worth a larger investment.

For example:
Do you want to know if your target market actually uses the Web to find your services? Run a test program for 2-3 months…and then analyze the results. Even if you want to reach the entire country, identifying two or three local test markets will give you the information you need to make future decisions. How many visitors did your site get? Did they turn into customers? What’s the return on investment?

Whether you have a small business or work for a large corporation, the concept is the same. Test, analyze and then act based upon what is working. Now you are in control of how you spend your advertising dollars!

Internet Marketing helps businesses survive economic crisis

It’s hard to ignore all the bad news out there. But two recent articles tell me that not only am I in the right place but that my clients are, too.

From the New York Times:
Most retailers, online and offline, appear to be feeling the pain from the rotten economy. But, of course, even in bad times, some businesses manage to do well. Take Raymond Galeotti, the owner and president of Evesaddiction.com, a five-year-old online seller of sterling silver jewelry. Mr. Galeotti said his business, whose annual sales are approximately $10 million, is up about 25 percent this holiday season. http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/12/24/online-ads-to-thrive-in-a-lousy-economy/

From Businessweek:
Why Online Ads Are Weathering the Recession
In most media, 2009 will bring unkind cuts, and Madison Avenue will never be the same. But Internet advertising seems to be holding up.   http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/dec2008/tc20081224_411499.htm<-->

How and Why to use Twitter

Lots of people ask me why they should be using Twitter.

The New York Times published a great blog about using Twitter for your small business.

And here is a terrific video called Twitter in Plain English. Twitter seems to be a great way to communicate…and I want my clients to do more of that. But, keeping Twitter, Facebook and all the social media going is very time consuming. That’s why I am going to be offering Social Media Marketing services to my clients starting right now. I am helping businesses create buzz by using these new social media tools. Whether for branding or just driving relevant traffic to a website, it’s an easy, fun and free way to market.