by Marcus Ledbetter | Jul 23, 2013 | Google, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO for Small Business
When it comes to small business SEO, many businesses feel as though they are at a great disadvantage. There are many reasons for this, but often the cost of hiring an SEO agency is simply beyond the reach of most small business advertising budgets. What’s worse, is the thought of doing your own SEO work is a frightening thought, to say the least. Never fear, however, as we are about to tell you 5 steps that will put your website on a path to steady increases in traffic, using the simplest of SEO principles and some good old-fashioned elbow grease. (more…)
by Marcus Ledbetter | May 29, 2013 | Google, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, SEO, SEO for Small Business, SEOMoz
It was very interesting to learn today that SEOMoz is changing their name to simply “MOZ”. Upon watching their video, two things are immediately apparent. First, they look to be working on some seriously fantastic software, and second, they are fully embracing the concept of Inbound Marketing, a phrase made popular by the founders of HubSpot. Does this mean that Moz is, all of a sudden, back in the forefront of digital marketing? Were they ever NOT in the forefront of digital marketing?
MOZ is a true pioneer in internet marketing.
Yes, they are sounding more like Hubspot, Marketo, and other notable Inbound Marketing companies now, but don’t take that to mean they were ever irrelevant. MOZ has built (more…)
by Marcus Ledbetter | May 26, 2013 | Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Marketing ROI, SEO for Small Business, Uncategorized, Web Marketing
If you’re in sales, how does your inbound sales funnel look? Are you struggling to fill it up, or is your lead generation process working, giving your more prospects than you have time to call on? If you identify with the latter, congratulations! You can stop reading this and fire up solitaire. for the rest of us, keep reading. After all, why. Why not fill the funnel up so you can take a vacation for once right?
Turn The Funnel Upside Down
It is easy to calculate stats after the fact – but when we are in the planning stages, it is useful to predict percentages, in order to give us the best probability of success. For this funnel visualization, we are going to operate off of 2 assumptions:
- Lead Closure Rate: You’re a very persuasive salesperson – You close, on average, one out of every five leads you talk to. This is a 20% closure rate.
- Site Conversion Rate: For every 100 people that visit your website or landing page, 10 of these visitors fill out a form and become a lead. This is a 10% conversion rate. (more…)
by Marcus Ledbetter | May 21, 2013 | Author Rank, Consumer Trends, Email Campaigns, Facebook, Google, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Marketing Managers, Marketing ROI, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO for Small Business, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking, Web Marketing
In this post, we’ll explore 15 surprising digital marketing trends that you need to know. The charts below are pulled from Google Trends and show search interest over the last decade.
Inbound Marketing
This is the phrase that is changing the way marketing is done. You’ll see a VERY close resemblance to the graph below for “HubSpot”, the all-in-one Inbound Marketing software (and marketing content giant). (more…)
by Marcus Ledbetter | May 6, 2013 | Facebook, Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Social Media Marketing, Social Networking
Enough with the cute kittens and pictures of what you are eating for lunch!
Grumpy Cat is Frustrated with Social Media
In the last installment, we looked at reasons that business owners and marketers are often frustrated with SEO, and the lack of results they see from their efforts. We concluded that the main problem was that the primary goals associated with SEO alone, were not in line with the overall goals a successful marketing plan will exhibit. In the same way, many business owners and marketers are frustrated with social media. They are frustrated with keeping up with it, as well as seeing the apparent lack of results for their effort. If the solution lies in realigning our social media goals with sound marketing goals, how do we go about doing that? That is the topic of this post.
Social Media, by itself, is not a marketing strategy.
The wisdom of the day used to sound something like this. “You need to engage your customers in meaningful conversation through social media channels to build interest in, and loyalty to your brand.” Countless books and manifestos were written on this subject. Conversation and engagement were the big buzzwords during the early days of the social media revolution. But, what exactly does conversation and engagement get you? The goal of generating this type of buzz about your company int he social media channels is to gain exposure – or in social media terms, reach. The simplified version of this is if you have 10 friends who are talking about products to at least 10 of their friends, then all of a sudden – you have reached an audience of 100. This is the viral power of social media, and this is why it is an integral part of a comprehensive inbound marketing plan What is reach, though, and does this “reach” put any money in your pockets? Here is where we have to hone our social media strategy into a sound marketing strategy, and here is how we do it. (more…)
by Marcus Ledbetter | May 1, 2013 | Hubspot, Inbound Marketing, Search Engine Optimization, SEO, SEO for Small Business
Have you spent thousands of dollars with an SEO Consultant and found yourself wondering where the money went? Or have you spent countless hours following every bit of advice you could find to optimize your own website with nothing to show for it? The problem most likely isn’t that your SEO consultant stinks, or that you don’t know what you are doing – the real issue here is that we put too much stock into SEO in the first place.
The most common problem businesses face with their own SEO strategy or their SEO consultant’s strategy, is that the goals of SEO are not in line with the overall goals of your business!
Your Goals vs. SEO Goals
Let’s look at this further. If your SEO consultant comes to you after 6 months of work and proudly shows a report indicating that you have taken the top slots in search engine results for all of your desired keywords, that’s a win right? Well – it is for the SEO consultant. In fact, that’s all the SEO consultant is really worried about – your site ranking high in the search results. In the end, that is the primary goal of SEO – building a rank and placement advantage over your competition.
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