SunCloud Design

Responsive Social Websites for Local Business

Neesha Anderson

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3 Emerging Trends in Digital Marketing that Your Business Should Pay Attention to

The digital marketing landscape is constantly evolving, and it can be challenging for small businesses to keep up with the latest trends. That’s why I wanted to share with you three emerging trends in the digital marketing space that I believe small businesses should be aware of.

  1. Voice Search Optimization: With the rise of smart speakers and virtual assistants, voice search is becoming increasingly popular. As a result, small businesses need to optimize their website content for voice search queries. This means incorporating long-tail keywords and natural language into their content to match the way people speak.
  2. Personalization: Personalization has been a buzzword in marketing for some time, but it’s becoming even more crucial in the digital age. Consumers expect personalized experiences and content, and small businesses need to deliver. This can include personalized email campaigns, targeted advertising, and tailored content that speaks directly to the customer’s needs.
  3. Video Marketing: Video has quickly become one of the most engaging forms of content, and small businesses should take advantage of this trend. Videos can be used for product demos, customer testimonials, and brand storytelling. Short-form video content, such as TikTok and Instagram Reels, is also becoming increasingly popular and can be an effective way to reach a younger demographic.

Voice Optimization for Websites

With the rise of virtual assistants and smart speakers, voice search has become a popular way for people to find information and conduct searches.

So, what does this mean for your website? Simply put, if your website isn’t optimized for voice search, you could be missing out on a significant amount of traffic and potential customers. Voice search queries are often longer and more conversational than typed queries, so it’s important to incorporate natural language and long-tail keywords into your website content.

Here are some tips for optimizing your website for voice search:

  1. Use Natural Language: When creating content for your website, focus on using conversational language that matches the way people speak. This can help your website appear in voice search results when people ask questions using natural language.
  2. Incorporate Long-Tail Keywords: Long-tail keywords are more specific phrases that are often used in voice searches. Incorporating these into your website content can help your site rank higher in voice search results.
  3. Improve Your Website Speed: Websites that load quickly are more likely to appear in voice search results. So, make sure your site is optimized for speed and mobile devices.
  4. Claim Your Business Listings: If you haven’t already, make sure to claim your business listings on Google and other directories. This can help ensure that your business information is accurate and up-to-date, which can improve your chances of appearing in voice search results.

By optimizing your website for voice search, you can help ensure that your business is visible to a growing number of people who are using this technology to find what they need.

Personalizing Digital Marketing

As technology continues to evolve, consumers are increasingly expecting personalized experiences and content from the businesses they interact with. This means that personalization is no longer a nice-to-have, but a must-have for businesses looking to stay competitive.

Here are some of the reasons why personalization is so important:

  1. Improved Customer Engagement: Personalization can help improve customer engagement by providing tailored content and experiences that resonate with their individual needs and interests.
  2. Increased Customer Loyalty: By providing a personalized experience, businesses can build stronger relationships with their customers, which can lead to increased loyalty and repeat business.
  3. Better ROI: Personalization can help businesses improve their ROI by targeting their marketing efforts more effectively and reducing wasted ad spend.

Here are some ways you can incorporate personalization into your digital marketing strategy:

  1. Use Personalized Email Campaigns: By segmenting your email lists and sending personalized emails based on customer preferences and behavior, you can improve your open and click-through rates.
  2. Targeted Advertising: Use data and analytics to create targeted advertising campaigns that speak directly to your customers’ needs and interests.
  3. Tailored Content: Create content that is tailored to your customers’ interests and preferences, whether that’s through blog posts, social media, or other channels.

By incorporating personalization into your digital marketing strategy, you can improve customer engagement, build stronger relationships with your customers, and ultimately drive more business.

Video Marketing

As more and more people turn to online video content for entertainment and information, businesses that aren’t incorporating video into their marketing efforts could be missing out on a significant opportunity to connect with their target audience.

Here are some reasons why video marketing is so important:

  1. Improved Engagement: Video is a highly engaging medium that can help capture and hold your audience’s attention in ways that other content types can’t.
  2. Increased Brand Awareness: By creating compelling video content that resonates with your target audience, you can increase your brand’s visibility and awareness.
  3. Better SEO: Videos can help improve your website’s search engine rankings by increasing engagement and dwell time, as well as providing opportunities for backlinks and social shares.

Here are some ways you can incorporate video marketing into your digital marketing strategy:

  1. Create Product Videos: Product videos can help showcase your products and services in a compelling way, and provide potential customers with the information they need to make a purchase decision.
  2. Share Customer Testimonials: Featuring satisfied customers in video testimonials can help build trust and credibility with your target audience.
  3. Use Video in Social Media Marketing: Video content performs particularly well on social media, so consider incorporating videos into your social media marketing efforts.

By incorporating video marketing into your digital marketing strategy, you can improve engagement, increase brand awareness, and improve your SEO.

How is your business working to address these trends? Are there any other trends I should cover in my next blog post? Let me know! And if you’d like help addressing any of these concerns, reach out! I offer personalized plans to match the demographic, business products/services, and business goals of each client I work with.

Wishing your business all the success you want for it!

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Keyword Research – Finding High Search Volume, Low Competition Keywords

Keyword research is a crucial step in planning your website. If you want people to find you in searches, you need to know what keywords to use on your website. Some keywords have high competition. That is, there are a lot of websites that will be found with those keywords. Others have low competition – there are only a few, small websites to be found for those keywords. So competition is one dimension. The other is search volume – how much is a keyword searched for? Ideally, want to find keywords that are low competition and high search volume. Once you find those keywords are implement them intelligently on your site, you should expect an increase in the number of people finding and visiting your site.
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Choosing Between a Facebook Page and Profile

In what follows we’ll go over the differences between a page and a profile, and why you should create a page for professional endeavors (such as businesses) you want to promote on Facebook.

Could You Be Using Facebook Better?

If you’re like most people online, you have a Facebook account. And you’ve probably seen posts in your news feed that are geared toward promoting a business, brand, or product. You may have heard somewhere that you should be taking advantage of social media, and Facebook in particular, to promote your own business or project.

But how?

Somewhere in the dark waters of social media marketing, there is massive potential to grow your business and your Facebook profile is just the tip of the iceberg. With the all online marketing opportunities for small businesses, you aren’t sure where to begin or if you are “doing it right”. You may fall into one of these categories:
Facebook page or profile?

  • (Kind of) Doing it Wrong – You have a Facebook profile you use primarily for friends and family, but you sometimes use it for commercial purposes – to promote your business, organization, brand, or celebrity.
  • (Glaringly) Doing it Wrong – You have a Facebook profile masquerading as a business – you use it primarily for commercial purposes and may even have your name and profile image set to your business name and logo.
  • (Kind of) Doing it Right – You have a Business page, but you aren’t sure if/when/why/how to use it.
  • (Maybe) Doing it Right – You are a public figure with friends and followers on your Facebook profile.

What’s the Difference Between Facebook Pages and Profiles?

What are the advantages of a Facebook page over your Facebook profile anyway?  Here are some differences between the two, to give you a better idea of when pages are more appropriate than your Facebook profile:

Profiles Pages
General
  • For individual, non-commercial use
  • Held under an individual’s name
  • If I friend someone, their updates can appear in my news feed.
  • If I follow someone, their public updates can appear in my news feed
  • For commercial use by companies, organizations, brands, and celebrities
  • Must be created and managed by individuals with Facebook profiles.
  • If I like a page, that pages updates can appear in my news feed
  • Provide insights to help page admins understand how people are interacting with the page
SEO Considered less relevant than pages by search engines like Google Ranked higher than profiles in Google
Optimization Optimized for personal connections & interactions with aquaintances, friends, & family Optimized to represent businesses, organizations, artists, and brands and to update and interact with fans
Connections Unlimited number of followers and maximum of 5000 friends Unlimited number of fans
Messages Private messages to can be sent to “friends” Private messages can be sent to fans, but only after fan sends first message
Limits One profile per person Unlimited -create as many pages as you want and assign other profiles/people to administrative roles on the page
Apps Business and marketing apps are not allowed to be installed on profiles Pre-installed with apps suited for your page. You also have access to 3rd-party apps designed for pages
Lead Capture Lead capture apps are not allowed to be installed on profiles Apps available to gather emails for marketing outside of Facebook
Check-ins and Tags Friends can tag you in posts and pictures Pages can be checked in to if their are associated with an actual storefront. This alerts friends of the person checking in that they’re at your storefront. Pages can’t tag personal profiles.
Direct Calling Facebook can not call you when someone visits your profile You can be called with the Facebook mobile app when a fan visits your page
Facebook Ads Limited to “boosting” a post for a set price. Can create marketing campaigns targeted towards specific demographics and goals (such as getting more likes or collecting emails)
Post Scheduling Can schedule posts using a 3rd-party app like Post Planner Scheduling is built-in
Insights No access to analytics for your posts, friends, or followers Can access analytics on page post reach, fan demographics, and more

I hope this table gets a point across – Facebook pages are geared towards professional applications while profiles are more personal. You can also read Facebook’s explanation of the difference here.

Should I Create A Facebook Page?

But maybe your profile is getting you enough attention from customers and potential customers to satisfy you. Why then, move your professional side to a Facebook page (or multiple pages)?

As the table above makes apparent, there are several reasons why you’d want to use a Facebook page for you commercial endeavors. To summarize, here are some of the most compelling reasons to use Facebook pages:

  • Target Marketing and Analytics (Insights) – I can fine tune my advertising according to who I want to see my posts/ad and what my goals are (more likes, lead capture, etc.) Furthermore, I can see data about my Facebook page to track what efforts are working and who’s paying attention to me.
  • Multiple Admins – I can let other Facebook users manage aspects of my Facebook pages without giving them my passwords
  • Search Engine Optimization (SEO) – Google ranks Facebook pages higher than Facebook profiles
  • Abiding by Facebook’s Terms of Service – By restricting my commercial efforts to a page rather than my profile, I’m not violating Facebook’s terms of service.
  • Extensible – Facebook pages allow more room for growth by offering Facebook page apps, post scheduling, check-ins, and an unlimited number of fans.
  • Keep Personal and Professional Separate – You won’t bother your friends and family with promotional posts that are more appropriate for clients or fans.

Warning – Don’t Violate Facebook’s Terms of Service

If for no other reason that this, you should move any commercial use of Facebook to a Facebook page. If you are using your profile for commercial purposes, you are violating Facebook’s terms of service, which read:

If you’re a public figure, you can continue posting to your audience from your personal account by allowing followers. When people follow your personal account, they’ll be able to get your updates in News Feed without being friends with you. You should only add someone as a friend when you know them personally.

If you’re not a public figure and you’re using your account to represent something other than yourself, you could risk permanently losing access to your account and all of its content if you don’t convert it to a page.

Moving from A Profile to A Page – Conversion or Creation?

If you’ve decided to start using a Facebook page, you should now consider whether you want to create a new page or convert your existing profile into a page. The advantage to converting a profile to a page is this:

What happens when I convert my Facebook profile to a page?

  • All of your friends will instantly be fans of your Facebook page.
  • You will lose all of your content (sort of) – Photos, apps, posts, etc. will be removed. If you decide to convert, make sure you download your timeline information (Facebook makes this option available). This will include all of your sent and received messages, photos, and videos you’ve uploaded to Facebook.
  • Conversion is irreversible.
  • You may have a new URL – By default, your existing profile URL (username) will become your new Facebook page URL. If you decide to change your URL, make sure you update all sites that link to your Facebook with the new address.
  • You’ll lose your admin status on any Facebook pages or groups you manage – This also means you should have another account ready to manage the new Facebook page (You can’t manage your new page with your no-longer-existing profile.)

If you think profile to page conversion is the right choice for you, see Facebook’s instructions on profile conversion.

The Alternative – Create a New Page

Especially if your existing profile is primarily used to interact with friends and family (ie, not used for commercial purposes), it makes sense to keep the existing Facebook profile and create a separate Facebook page for your commercial interests. See Facebook’s instructions on creating a new Facebook page.

What About Public Figures?

This is where the issue is a bit more gray. As a public figure (and artist, celebrity, etc.) you have the option of creating a page or having followers (in addition to friends) on your profile. When you post something on your profile, you can choose whether it’s a public or private post. Friends will see both. Followers will see public posts only. You can have an unlimited number of followers.

Here are some questions to ask yourself if you are debating whether to have fans follow your profile or fan your page:

  • What is your intention for your fans? – Do you want to market products to fans? Or do you want to share updates from your personal timeline with your fans? If your goal is the former, a Facebook page would be more suitable. If it’s the latter, consider sticking with a Facebook profile. If it’s both, you may want to allow followers to your profile and ALSO create a Facebook page that you use to promote yourself commercially.
  • How large is you existing follower base? – If you’ve already got hundreds or thousands of followers and sharing your posts with them satisfies your goal of connecting with fans on Facebook, you may not have a reason to create a Facebook page.
  • Do you want any of the features of a Facebook page? – For instance, if you’d like to promote yourself commercially or allow people to check-in to your business, Facebook page creation is a must.

Where to go Next

If you still aren’t sure what your next move should be, check out these resources:

Warning – Avoid Historical Documents

When you are researching a timely issue like this, note article dates – Facebook changes so often that rules and recommendations written one or two years ago may be outdated. If in doubt, you can always go to the source, the Facebook Help Center.

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On-Site SEO for Local Business

Download PowerPoint Presentation

Keyword Research

Google Keyword Planner
Google Trends
Google Analytics
Google Webmaster Tools
ubersuggest.org

Meta-Content

WordPress Plugins

Yoast WooCommerce SEO
Yoast Local SEO
Schema Creator Plugin

Other Resources

Schema Creator
Local Business Schema Generator
Google Local Toolbox
Google Authorship Official Page
How to Get Google’s Verified Authorship for your WordPress Blog

Design

WordPress.org – Go here to download the latest version of WordPress
Studiopress – Creators of the Genesis Framework for WordPress as well as Genesis Child themes.
Floating Social Bar– A free lightweight plugin that’s easy to set up.
ShareThis – Supports WordPress and non-WordPress sites.
Pingdom Website Speed Test

General

On-Page Factors – Moz SEO
MozBlog – A Visual Guide to Keyword Targeting and On-Page SEO

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Upcoming Event – On-Site Optimization For Local Business

on-site-seo-lecture-flyerMark your calendars for Saturday March 29th from 9:50 AM to 10:50 AM when I will be giving a free talk covering the 9 most important elements of on-site optimization for business websites targeting their local market.

If you want your business ranked #1 in local search results for your products and services, you will pick up tips and strategies to make that happen in this one hour lecture.  In particular, we will cover: keyword research, title tags, meta description, headlines (H1 and H2), permalinks (slugs), body/content optimization, design optimization, and markup.

I’ll take you through a live site example of each of these elements so you can see how to optimize them on your own site.  The talk will be given at the Alachua County Library headquarters in meeting room B.

Download the flyer

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Introducing New Web Management Services

web-managementYou asked and I listened. Since I began doing web design, I’ve received requests such as,

  • Do you provide web management or web marketing?
  • Do you manage facebook pages?
  • Can you help me post to and keep track of my social media presence?
  • Is there an easy way for my clients and customers to leave feedback on yelp! and Google+?
  • How can I easily submit my business information across online business directories?

I’ve been working to convert these requests into comprehensive add-ons that provide valuable enhancements to your web presence. I’m happy to announce that SunCloud Design now offers Social Media Management, Reputation Management (including backlink and review building), Onsite Search Engine Optimization, and Local Search Engine Optimization add-ons for clients.

We’re now offering these services as “Management Add-ons”. Each add-on is structured so that, even if you aren’t hosted with SunCloud Design, you can still sign up and take full advantage of all the services included. Clients can now choose from several services to tailor a managed hosting plan that best suits their needs.

What does each addon include? I’ll summarize each. If you’re interested to know more, please see our Web Management pages for pricing and details.

Local SEO

With our Local SEO services, we optimize and track your local search engine presence. Each month we provide you with extensive reports about your search engine rankings and other updates about your growing presence online. In addition, this service includes licensing, updates, and configuration of the Local SEO addon by Yoast (in addition to configuring the standard SEO by Yoast plugin).

Onsite SEO

One of the best wayts to build your search engine presence is by regularly publishing new keyword-targeted content.  With Onsite SEO, we analyze your new website content each month and offer valuable insights to improve it based on keyword research.  Submit new posts to us before or after you publish them and we will conduct a thorough analysis of keywords and offer you a keyword and content report that you can use to improve that post as well as future posts.  Not only that, we personally tweak your blog entries as provide you those optimized versions!  Let SunCloud be you SEO copy-editor and get your website content in search engines.

Reputation Builder

Each month, your business information will be manually added to 10 new online business directories.  This will steadily grow your online presence and boost your SEO. We only select from sites with the highest citation value. Comprehensive and consistent directory listings are one of the best ways to grow your reputation in the eyes of search engines.  In addition, we use expert methods to get you more reviews online.  Any business that’s tried to solicite reviews online from customers knows its like pulling teeth.  We will get you positive online reviews in all major review channels using expert techniques. Don’t worry, our reviews come from your own happy customers – no shady techniques.  This combination of growing online reviews and listings is a powerful combination for search engine optimization.

Social Media Management

I’ve found an incredible social media manager to work with clients who’d like someone to oversee their day-to-day social media efforts. This service includes posting content to facebook and other social media hubs (according to the guidelines we lay out together) and syndicating your website updates across all your social media channels.

In addition to these add-ons, we are now offering web management services to clients who are hosted with other companies.  Now you can be managed with SunCloud even if you aren’t hosted with us.  Check out our Web Management page for details.