SEO Strategy: Inbound Links

Inbound links are some of the most valuable assets your SEO strategy can include. Clare Zurawski, Internet Marketing Consultant at WESST, has spent over 3 years helping small businesses increase their sales through SEO.

“Inbound links are most valuable when they come from well-respected entities within your industry,” says Zurawski. “Five or ten quality links are worth far more than dozens of links that have no relevance to your business.”

What are those “quality links?” Some, according to Zurawski, are URLs with the following extensions: .edu, .gov, .org. According to the “Google Webmaster Blog“, quality links are one factor in a proprietary stew that contributes to page rank. But many agree that if you have a well-structured and regularly maintained site with original, high-quality content, users and search engines alike will enjoy you.

Here are some ideas to get you started on your quality link building:
• (From Clare) Write a review of a book in your industry on www.amazon.com. Include your website at the end of the review.
• Join your local Chamber of Commerce. In Santa Fe, go here: and have your business listed in their online directory.
• Join your alumni organization’s website, it may have a .edu.
• Volunteer to write articles or reviews for a non-profit and have them include a link back to you. It’s a good way to help out and get help in return.

It’s all part of the SEO game plan, which starts with making your website your hub. Inbound quality links are like spokes coming in to the wheel. Clare adds, “If you offer free content that is valued by your web audience, you will attract links and establish yourself as an expert in your field.”

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After Link Building, you’ll need to get in-depth info on social marketing. Attend WESST’s “SEO 101, Session 2: An overview of why social media matters and how it complements SEO”, Tuesday October 27th, 5:30-7:30 pm at the WESST Enterprise Center in Albuquerque. You can register and pay online at www.wesst.org.

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“Target and Control your Website’s Destiny.” WESST (Women’s Economic Self Sufficiency Team) will be offering in-depth SEO Training with Clare Zurawski on Monday, November 2, 2009 at the Santa Fe Business Incubator starting at 5:30 pm. The class is reasonably priced, but register early! Call 505-474-6556, or visit www.wesst.org.

MiniBranding | Part 1

Your brand is not your logo, your color scheme, your PR or even your product. Your brand is the feeling people have when they think of you.

I had a boss who worked at the happiest place on earth, and always mentioned that the coffee shops on Main Street would place vanilla extract in warming trays and blow it through their vents and out to the street to entice people in. One of my favorite places to meet up in Santa Fe is at the Sage Bakehouse because of their open-air bakery; I just need that intense smell of bread baking every once in a while. (Tip: try the current scones; they melt in your mouth.)

Odor information is easily stored in long-term memory and has strong connections to emotional memory. This is possibly due to the olfactory system’s close anatomical ties to the limbic system and hippocampus, areas of the brain that have long been known to be involved in emotion and place memory, respectively.

If I were to ask you, “What does your business smell like?”, how would you respond? Remember, a bad smell does not always have a negative connotation. Does money have a pleasant smell? Maybe not, but who wouldn’t want the smell of money in their nose?

I used to go on web checks for my publishing work back when the web was a physical machine half a block long. The first time I went “on press”, I walked into the noisy pressroom somewhere in southern Illinois and smelled ink on paper running through a machine at breakneck speed. They were printing the cover of Indian Artist magazine with Sherman Alexie’s face and long black hair visible from where I walked in, high above the press floor. That memory comes back clearly to me whenever I open a magazine “hot off the presses” and I catch a whiff of the first pressroom I was ever in.

Translating that smell to an emotion takes a little mapping. Emotionally, I feel a combination of sadness/longing and excitement. Sad because those days are gone; it’s rare that a magazine would send their art director on press, the economy being what it is. But the memory of the smell reminds me of the work itself, being in charge of a fast-paced critique of color, density, and registration. I made split-second decisions with alacrity; it was fun and energizing.

Do you remember mimeographs? The blurry purple type that bled into the paper on the homework your second-grade teacher handed out on a crisp autumn day at school? Did you feel special? That you received something just for you, like a gift? What if, in the future, kids are given iPhones as easily as we received mimeographs? How special, included and important would that make them feel?

HOMEWORK: Spend some time playing with the idea of your company’s scent. What memory do you want to instill in your next customer?

In Part 2 of MinBranding, we’ll work on Brand Story and practice writing one!

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You can receive MiniBranding consulting from Whitespace Creative in person or online. Visit www.whitespacecreative.com or email mel [at] whitespacecreative.com.

Above photoo is a file from the Wikimedia Commons.

Upselling Worms

I was standing behind my white plastic table at the Friday Farmers’ Market with a choice bucket of worm bedding spread out before me. As potential customers drift past the honey and lavender booths, they come to a stop and watch as I uncover a dark chunk of earth, break it open like a chocolate bar, and reveal several wriggling red worms.

“Looking for worms?” I ask. “They like to hide.” After a couple years of marketing for the small business, Milagro Compost, I still hadn’t met many customers. But only a few hours in the hot sun taught me a lesson I will never forget. There is a niche for worms, and it is the same type of market I knew from the other businesses I have worked for: Collectors.

Yes, Worm Collectors. Often they are relaxed, middle-aged or younger men. They are not always gardeners; sometimes all they grow is worms. They are obsessed, fixated and proud of their worm beds. They show off their collection, trade composting stories, photograph them and take care of them. Once they learned that worms will eat your household organic waste with little or no help from you, they couldn’t stop getting more of them.

One gentleman came to the table and I thought he was an unhappy customer. Quiet and shy, he tells me, “I’m Tim. I bought a couple buckets of worm bedding last week.” The big red flag goes up: was he coming to complain, my first day selling worms? I’ve learned that if you don’t actually pour the bucket out for the customer and show them the worms wriggling in the sudden, bright sun, some people claim they never got any. I knew what to do in this situation; give them a free bucket, and chant the mantra: Show them the worms.

But Tim was not at the market to complain; he actually wanted more worms, another bucket. In vermicompost terms, once you have worms, you got worms. You really don’t need to get more, since worms are hemaphroditic and seed the pile, leaving eggs, really little seeds that grow up on their own.

He asks a few more questions as we audit the worms in his new bucket, and he pays and leaves. Clearly, he’s a worm fanatic. And not so different from art collectors who need just one more canvas, one more bronze to complete their acquisition list.

The boss’ comment? “You should have told him he could get a yard for $100.”

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Small Business Links:

The New York Times has a rich site for small business news and information.

WESST Corp. in Santa Fe and Albuquerque offers marketing workshops and small business loans.

Farmers’ Markets of NM has a page of ideas on how to sell at the market.

Need worms? Milagro Compost of Santa Fe sells worm bedding by the bucket and by the yard.

3 Types of Sideways Advertising

Traditional advertising works: ads placed in targeted media with clean graphics and a clear call to action bring in the clients. But do you know about “sideways” advertising and PR campaigns that at first glance aren’t targeted, yet increase the PR of a company for everyone’s benefit?

1. Social Networking. Are you on Facebook? MySpace? Twitter? LinkedIn? These are “sideways” advertising avenues. They don’t take the place of traditional advertising (yet!), but they help increase your brand awareness. In these venues, you’re not selling your product; you’re selling your story.

If you’ve been reading up on branding, you’ll know that your brand isn’t your logo, your color scheme, your PR or even your product. Your brand is the feeling people have when they think of you. Social networking is just another way to get that feeling across. As Don Draper of Mad Men says, “You are the product, you feeling something. That’s what sells.”

Example: A very early moment of social networking happened for a group I was president of when someone–not us!–posted a classified in the “Missed Connections” of our weekly alternative newspaper—this was prior to Facebook’s launch in 2006. It ran for several weeks and gave our group the aura of being a professional and personal networking group. Membership increased, and two people who met at one of our events were married.

2. Pro Bono. There’s also volunteer work, philanthropy, and community involvement. Again, you aren’t selling your product, and you’re not selling how magnanimous you are; you’re selling your brand, and every brand should have a civic responsibility to give back to their community. These can include “Thank You” ads, support opportunities, and sponsorships. Look for groups that need you and merge with your business’ vision.

Example: A local Santa Fe bank once asked me to design an ad that showcased all their incredible community involvement. I designed an ad that was basically a list of the groups they donated to. This “list” filled the ad space from top to bottom and side to side with just a bit of room left for their logo in the corner. The feeling it gave off was, “Our community involvement is more important than we are.”

The bank’s marketing director was happy to tell me that a few weeks after the ad ran, the bank received a very large customer who had only a small account at the time. But when they saw the ad and realized how much wonderful work was being done—when they recognized so many of the groups the bank had donated to—they moved their major account to the local bank. And this was a simple “Thank You” ad!

3. Brand Ambassadors. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, there are your employees, partners, clients or investors that carry your brand every minute. Make sure they understand how important they are in the life of your brand. Review why you make the purchases you do, who you buy from and why. Then look at who you have “carrying” your brand.

Example: Last winter, I was in-between writing and design gigs and I got a call from an old friend. Her phone message went something like, “We think we need one website to coordinate all the different pieces of information we have on the web, but we’re not sure how to go about it. We thought you will either know how to do it, or you’ll know someone who does.” As a sole proprietor, these clients are the best. Their idea of what you do is specific and on-target, and the work is usually a good fit and a joy. I ended up designing their website.

In today’s economy we’re all looking closer to home to share what wealth we have, and your business name on someone else’s lips is word-of-mouth advertising gold.

For more info:

 

• The biggie: Facebook Anyone seen payoff on their ads yet? Let me know!
• Does anyone even use myspace anymore?
• One place I got a great, paying gig was at LinkedIn Remind me to tell you about it sometime!
• It’s amazing how alt papers have become traditional ad avenues; try our own alt weekly The Santa Fe Reporter.
• Traditional newsprint ads still work! The Santa Fe New Mexican, and the Albuquerque Journal are two of the best.