With the growing use of internet throughout the world, internet traffic is increasing everyday, and more people are using their desktops and smartphones for research shopping, buying insurance etc. This trend continues to create opportunities for businesses to market their products and services to billions of online customers.

However, marketing products and services on internet can be overwhelming with the number of options available.  Is it best for me to use pay per click (PPC), Google adwords, mobile marketing, social media, local marketing or search engine optimization.  What is all of this stuff?  Is there overlap?  Where do I start?  This is a question business owners should be asking themselves if they want to give their business a competitive advantage.  So, what is the solution? The answer is, it depends...  What are your goals?  What is your budget?  Who are you targeting?  However, regardless of the answers to the above, the first and most important foundation of any online strategy is SEO.  Without a quality SEO campaign your chances of getting found diminish quickly. 

So what is SEO?  First, SEO stands for search engine optimization.  SEO is an internet marketing strategy aimed at improving the search ranking of a business website on internet so that it is visited by potential customers. Without proper promotion, the your pages will get lost in cyberspace. Wait did they just say pages?  What about my site?  Very important to note, Google ranks pages not websites.   Meaning each page needs to be treated as its own individual "mini-website"  Don't take this to literally... In short, what I'm saying is each page needs unique, interesting content for your users to review and unique relevant data within the code, aka SEO, to ensure Google is picking up what you want them to.  

For example, if a local business in Denver is engaged in providing car repair services to local customers, it will naturally want to attract customers in Denver.  What does this mean for SEO?  First, does your home page say anything about car repair or Denver?  Yes.  Good.  Next, does your page title say anything about car repair or Denver?  No.  Houston, we have a problem.   SeoSkye, based in Denver, experts will use effective SEO tools and local search techniques in order to get top ranking for the website in search results. These experts will incorporate your keywords into page titles, metadescriptions, content into your website to ensure you achieve top ranking results.  We then continue to monitor this information for success and necessary tweaking.

Regardless of the firm you go with or you try to do it yourself, after you have your website focus on SEO as the foundation of your online marketing efforts.  SEO (search engine optimization) is absolutely necessary for any business, small or big, to survive and succeed on internet.

Contact SeoSkye today to start utilizing SEO to your advantage, 888.865.4888.

Businesses must prepare themselves for a new type of social media, Pinterest.  With Pinterest for business, users utilize content found on the internet to share and connect with members who share similar interests. This is the new social media management tool that allows sharing of interesting things with the use of virtual pinboards which includes pictures, as well as other content for sharing.

How Does Pinterest for Business Work?

Social media management strategies that include Pinterest are about finding people thatshare similar tastes and connecting them to each other. Just like with traditional pinboards, or bulletin boards, Pinterest for business allows users to share what they like by “pinning” them up on their boards. The only difference here is that the pins and the boards are virtual.

Pinterest for business gives companies a new, innovative way to organize and share all the great things they come across online. Allowing you to share a variety of content for your business ranging from  pics, videos, messages, articles and other content to your pinboard.  

Tips for Using Pinterest for Business

Businesses have been using social media management to gain more traffic for years now. But, as Pinterest for business becomes more popular, companies are finding that there are many benefits to this new social media network. Here are just some of the benefits that are making business owners add Pinterest to their social media toolbox:

• Many companies have reported that Pinterest now generates almost as much traffic as using Twitter and Facebook alone in their social media management.

• Businesses are using Pinterest as an online sales catalog. The easy to use pinning feature allows them to pin up pictures of products on the virtual pinboard. Then, those images are linked directly to the product listings on the company's website.

• Service companies that don't sell products using glamorous pictures are finding other creative ways to use Pinterest for business marketing. For example, HubSpot uses Pinterest to promote their logo with a pinboard entitled, “Fun Orange Things.” This pinboard is creating interest among loyal followers.

How to Start Using Pinterest for Business

If you're interested in adding this new, interesting social media to your marketing strategy, here are some of the basic steps to get your started:

• Take multiple pictures and place them together so they look like one picture.

• Include links to your videos so others can pin them to their pinboards.

• Include URLs that link to the sites where your videos are located.

• Include pictures of your business products or the services your company provides.

• Include short descriptions to go along with product and service pics.

• Link to audios that give instructions on how to use your products or tips for your services.

• Create pins, which are web pages, that include linkbacks to your business website or blog.

Increase Traffic to Your Business Website

As the social media world continues to evolve, businesses must keep up with the constant innovations. Pinterest may be fairly new, but it has already been proven to be a valuable traffic source that needs to be added to every business social media management strategy. Increase your company's online presence with the latest innovation. 

Promote your business brand using Pinterest for business today.

March of 2010 saw the debut of countless new websites, but only one of them would develop into one of the ten largest social networking websites in existence. Only one would break the speed record for achieving 10 million unique visitors. That website was Pinterest.

What is Pinterest? It's a unique social media website, wherein users bookmark images found on the Internet and post them to one or more "pinboards," containing themed collections of images. The user can, and is highly encouraged to, attach a link to each image that traces back to its source. Pinterest also allows users to "follow" other members, enabling them to see their pinboards. If they like what they see, a user might choose to "repin" an image from another member to their own board, sharing it with anyone who follows them. Users can also comment on "pinned" images and mention specific images to other members through the website.

All of this makes Pinterest an excellent medium for sharing – and therefore an ideal platform for viral marketing and word-of-mouth advertising. Users create pinboards for all sorts of interests and occasions, though home redecoration, fashion, and wedding planning are strongly represented. Many of the pictures they pin to their boards involve merchandise, whether they're stand mixers and sofa cushions or wedding gowns and floral arrangements. Everyone following you sees every pinned image, coupled with a link to the source website. This translates directly into a great deal of free advertising for the individual company.  When combined with the fact that Pinterest users tend to follow other members whose interests and tastes they share, this paints a picture of a target audience that is not only excited about the products they see on their friends' pinboards, but are eager to show them to others.

A significant portion of Pinterest's popularity has to come from its accessibility. What is Pinterest doing to make itself easier to use? In addition to a "Pin It" button that users can install in their Mozilla Firefox bookmarks toolbar to make it easy for them to pin items to their boards with a single mouse-click, a Pinterest app has been developed for the iPhone. Users can browse pinboards, repin and comment on favorite images, and take and pin photos with their iPhone camera. Development of a Pinterest app for the iPad is currently in progress. Pinterest accounts are also linked to the user's Twitter or Facebook account, further expanding ease of use and the potential audience for a user's pins. Websites can also install "Follow" and "Pin It" buttons on their pages, encouraging visitors to pin their content and link it back to the owner's site.

What is Pinterest able to do for your business? The possibilities with a visual catalog of products and items, linked back to their original sources and shared with a community of other consumers with similar interests are limitless. Online wedding registries and holiday wish lists are the tip of the iceberg. More companies are learning the value of social media and networking sites in today's marketing environment, and the staggeringly rapid growth of Pinterest will put it at the forefront of marketing efforts. The power of images in advertising is undeniable, and images are what Pinterest is all about.

Overnight, Pinterest became everyone’s favorite method of sharing user generated content. From domestic tips such as decorating tutorials and recipe finds to internet themes, fitness plans and inspirational quotes, it seems as though the site has a little of something for everyone. However, like any other social media tornado, business owners are looking for a way to join in. Luckily, promoting a business through Pinterest may be one of the quickest and easiest of the current social media endeavors. Here are a few simple tips on how to use Pinterest for business:

Create an Account – At first it may seem a little silly to create an account for a business, but plenty of companies have found this method to be quite effective. Like a Facebook page or Twitter account, a company Pinterest allows yet another vehicle for communicating a message to potential customers. Not to mention, it also allows current customers to interact with the company through comments, likes, tags and re-pinning.

Re-pin Other Items – Most business owners with a successful online presence already understand the importance of forming partnerships with non-competitors. Some companies provide links on their blog or website to another company’s blog or website in exchange for the same courtesy. Pinterest can work much the same way. By re-pinning each other’s items, both a company and their social partner will enjoy twice the amount of exposure.

Encourage Pinning – As you learn how to use Pinterest for business, you will see that the real beauty of Pinterest is that it requires so little effort. Once a user pins something to one of their pin boards, that pin will likely be seen and re-pinned by other users. The cycle continues as more and more users re-pin items to their followers. A business needs only to pin something once to start the trend. Pinterest users can re-pin items from anywhere on the internet, so long as the website their pinning from hasn’t blocked this feature. In order to encourage pinning further, companies can add a “Pin It” button to their page.

Check Stats – In order to maintain a healthy online presence, it is important for companies to keep up with their analytics. The more businesses know about their audience, the better their chance of reaching the right people faster than their competition. There are plenty of methods for checking social media statistics for other platforms, and now Pinterest has its own dashboard as well. Pinerly, though not affiliated with Pinterest, can help companies keep up with their posts and statistics to improve their reach.

Above all, when learning how to use Pinterest for business, companies should keep in mind the cardinal rule of social media, and online activity altogether: content is king. The more high quality content – whether it be text, photos or video – the better a company’s chance of reaching their target audience. By putting a little time and effort into their Pinterest account, companies will enjoy spikes in traffic to their website and a jump in lead generation. 

Contact SeoSkye today to expand your social media marketing efforts, 888.865.4888

QR Codes (short for “Quick Response Codes”) have been around for awhile, but have in recent years become extremely popular in both private and business applications. Even though they were developed originally by Toyota to aid in tracking car parts, their versatility has led to an explosion of their usage. Thankfully, Toyota has declined to enforce their patent on QR codes, allowing them to be used by just about everyone.

This article will briefly outline how QR Codes work, as well as some of the possible uses of them for businesses.

What exactly is a QR Code anyway?

QR Codes are officially a form of two dimensional barcode that encodes information into a grid of black-and-white dots bordered by larger squares that are used for reference and positioning. They can be read and decoded by any number of handheld devices, including professional scanners as well as everyday smartphones.

They are superior to standard barcodes for a number of reasons. While they are larger than barcodes, they can include much larger amounts of data in a relatively small amount of space. The most dense standard form of these codes is a 177x177 grid that can hold up to 1,264 ASCII characters. (For reference, that's about how long this article is, up to this point.)

That's a lot of information packed into a space that's generally only a couple square inches!

The other useful feature of QR Codes is that they have built-in error correction. A code that's been torn or defaced can still be read successfully. It's even possible to cover up a portion of them with a text message or logo and still be able to scan the underlying code.

QR Codes in Advertising

QR codes have found tremendous success in the world of marketing. The most basic and common way of using them is to put a code on the side of a product that automatically sends a consumer to that product's website for further information. Seeing as around 1/3 of smartphone owners use their devices to aid in their shopping, this makes for a great way of reaching out to them.

However, they have far more versatility than that. They can be encoded to contain links to online videos, automatic Facebook and Twitter updates, email messages, and even to automatically download tracks from iTunes. They're becoming increasingly popular on business cards as well, because a simple scan can automatically add that person's contact information into a smartphone or tablet, without the time-consuming process of adding the information manually.

Some ambitious companies have even begun putting QR Codes onto billboards, encouraging people on the road – although hopefully not the drivers – to scan them with their phones as they drive by.

Business Applications of QR Codes

While some uses can be rather mundane, QR Codes have plenty of business-related uses as well. They were initially developed to aid in product tracking and can still perform that job admirably. Since they can be read by virtually any device with a camera, budget-conscious businesses can employ them and allow their staff to use their own phones, rather than investing in costly proprietary readers. It's also becoming increasingly common to use them to track visitors to booths at trade shows, or for marking people as being in attendance at official functions.

In short, while some people fear they're beginning to wear out their welcome, QR Codes remain extremely popular in the business world thanks to their multi-purpose nature.  As companies continue to find new ways to drive a greater profit margin, QR codes are a "no-brainer" way of getting there.

Contact SeoSkye today to start utilizing QR codes as part of your overall marketing and profit strategy, 888.865.4888.

The year is well under way and many companies are frantically searching for the best methods of meeting their sales goals before the end of the next quarter. As any successful business owner knows, it’s important to never settle into traditional marketing tactics because things are bound to change. Today, one of the most effective marketing tools is local marketing.  Local marketing is efficiently done online and, as technology changes so do the best platforms from which businesses can reach the most customers. SeoSkye has recapped some of the best and most effective local marketing trends for 2012 below, enjoy.

One of the biggest local marketing trends so far is the importance of mobile. A few years ago, having internet access on a mobile device was a hot commodity. Today, however, it’s hard to locate a cell phone or tablet without this capability. Thanks to the increase in wi fi accessibility, people can browse the internet from virtually anywhere – while sitting in traffic, standing in line at the grocery store or while waiting for a table at a restaurant.

The move to mobile means that people are more connected than ever, but it also means that business websites needs to be prepared. In order to effectively reach their target market, a company’s website needs to be optimized for mobile use. If it’s not, the website may not translate well and be difficult to use. A hard to use or visually confusing website can be a kiss of death for a business’s online reputation. People like things that are fast, easy and readily available and there’s no quicker way to kill a lead than by complicating something that should be simple.

The second local marketing trend for 2012 is couponing.  While coupons have always been popular, the recession brought a resurgence of coupon clipping and lead to an all out coupon madness. From reality shows to online clubs, “couponing” seems to have become the next great American pastime. By taking advantage of sites such as Living Social, Groupon and other such networks dedicated to a local audience, businesses can not only offer attractive deals to pull in customers, but they can also spread the message that their company exists.

Although it’s been brewing for a number of years, another important local marketing trend is the need for high quality web content. Search engines have become wise to black hat SEO (search engine optimization) tactics some businesses have utilized to propel their name to the top of the results page. Practices such as keyword stuffing can now get companies kicked out of results altogether. Today's search engine algorithms require businesses to begin offering legitimate and usable content to their potential customers.

That doesn’t mean that businesses shouldn’t utilize SEO, however. Effective SEO is still a necessity for companies who want to be discovered by the local market, and will continue to be one of the most important ongoing online marketing trends and especially for local marketing. Companies should stay up to date on SEO trends and utilize these legitimate tactics for increasing traffic to their site.

It’s imperative to remember that these local marketing trends are simply a building block upon which future marketing tactics will be built. In other words, choosing to ignore the move to mobile, coupons and quality search engine optimized content can mean a company will soon be left in the dust.

Contact SeoSkye to make the most of your local marketing efforts, 888.865.4888

For busy local entrepreneurs and small business owners, investing time into social media can often seem a waste of resources. After all, when a company's primary target audience and customer base lives within a few mile radius, why would they need to go to the World Wide Web? Generally, it seems as though these sorts of tactics seem better suited for large corporations attempting to broadcast their message to a global audience. Can social media and local marketing online translate into lead generation and consumer interest?

Actually, the answer to this question is a resounding “yes!” People are spending more time online now than ever, and choosing not to participate in these virtual conversations by way of social media and local marketing means missing an enormous opportunity to increase brand recognition. Local businesses have always relied upon “word of mouth” marketing within their community, and social media truly is the new town square. Not to mention, creating an online presence through social media and local marketing proves to potential customers that a company is both technologically competent and readily available to service their needs.

One of the primary benefits of social media and local marketing is that companies can learn more about their customers and local marketing trends without paying thousands of dollars on market research. Companies who have a Facebook page can gain access to helpful statistics and information about where their customers are coming from, and other web analytics tools can give companies an even better idea on who their customers are and what they need. The more businesses understand their own market, the better they can tailor their products and services to meet their customer's needs.

Social media and local marketing also allows companies to offer an even more personalized experience. Successful local businesses often pride themselves on customer retention, and this is usually done by providing each customer with a personal experience – such as giving them a discount on their birthday or congratulating them on their new child.  Social media platforms provide yet another opportunity to engage with customers and increase brandloyalty.

Finally, consider current tactics for reaching new customers, such as those who have recently moved into town or are visiting briefly. By establishing a presence online though social media and local marketing, companies can reach out to potential clients without doing much work at all. By effectively utilizing social media and local marketing, businesses can ensure that whenever someone searches for the product or service they offer, their company will be among the top results.

Remember that although building a web presence through social media can be slightly time consuming initially, it offers an incredible return on investment. By taking time to create social media profiles and beginning to reaching out to the community online, social media and local marketing can propel businesses to greater heights than they ever imagined.

Contact SeoSkye today to localize your marketing efforts, 888.865.4888