How important is an Internet Marketing Plan?

Your Internet Marketing Plan is just as important as your Business Plan. In fact it should have been part of your Business Plan when you first decided to go in to business. For an existing business it may not be something you have done yet. In fact most small businesses that have an Internet presence do not have a marketing plan. This is the single biggest reason for failure for an online business besides poor website design.  We are assuming here you already have a killer website Point2 site.  If not click here for some really great help with your Point2 site.

Most MBA’s would agree that for any business to be successful it needs a Business Plan. Part of your Business Plan would include your Marketing Plan. The Marketing would include things like:

• Who are your Competitors?

• Analyze your Competitors Website.

• Analyze your Own Website.

• Who is your Target Market?

• Will you Market by State, City, or Neighborhood? (What is your Niche?)

• Research Keywords, Search Phrases etc.

• Analyze your Current Search Engine Position.

• Decide how Much to Budget each Month for Marketing

• Where will you Spend Internet Marketing Dollars?.

• Will you Participate in Social Marketing?

• The list goes on and on

This Marketing Plan can be as in-depth and detailed as you want it. But the point here is that if you want to be successful online you need this Marketing Plan. Without this plan you will see minimal success and find yourself becoming extremely frustrated in your lack of growth. So where do you turn to get this done? You have a couple of choices.

You could do it yourself. This could take months to research and develop your plan. If you have the time then go for it. But who really has the time to do this when you are trying to sell real estate?

The second way and most efficient is to hire an SEO firm. I can tell you from first hand experience how my company, SEO Redefined does it. We first do an initial SEO Consultation which includes basic information about your site, your competitors and your Search Engine standings. This Free report is often a real eye-opener for most people. People do not often realize where in the Search Engines they rank and few know their online competitors.

The next step is an in-depth and detailed SEO Consultation. This includes a very detailed and in-depth analysis of your website and those of your competitors. We make recommendations on what we can do to raise your Search Engine rankings and drive more traffic to your site. Once this Internet Marketing Plan is complete the next step is the actual implementation of your plan. This whole process can take up to 6 weeks. But pays for itself quickly which can be seen in your ROI.

Once this plan has been implemented it is very important to have some type of monthly maintenance to keep your traffic up and solid placement in the Search Engines.

 

Will the Economy Redefine your Market Plan?

I think most people would agree that in tough economic times your marketing plan is even more important.  Your plan is the marketing outline your business should follow and grow with, even in tough times.  You may have to redefine your plan to the current economic climate but you should still follow your plan.

 

Your plan will help you decide where you money should go.  It will help you decide if you need to spend more or perhaps pull back a bit.  What ever the case it will help lead you and keep you on target to meeting any goals you have established for your business.

 

Do tough times call for tough measures?  You are really the only person who can decide that.  Hopefully along with your Marketing Plan you have a very good grasp of your Financial Plan.  Both of these should have been a strategic part of your Business Plan.  Most experts will tell you that during tuff economic times you should actually increase your budget because most people will pull back and spend less.

 

A recent survey said that about 60% of all Brokers and Agents plan on spending the same or more on their Internet marketing.  That is a very strong number and tells us that people are optimistic about their future and they have a good understanding of what needs to be done.  Can you say the same?  Will the current Economy REDEFINE your Market Plan for you?

How much is your name (Reputation) worth?

Since ORM (On-line Reputation Management) has become the hot topic of the SEO world, companies are trying hard to put a dollar amount on what their reputation is worth.  This is of course no easy task, because for so long a reputation has been considered an intangible.  But of course the Internet has changed all of that. One wrong or negative post can devalue a company’s stock with-in hours.  (Please refer to my post about United Airlines for a very good example of this.)

A few months ago a company by the name of FTI Consulting, a global business advisory firm surveyed a few hundred financial advisors to try and put a value on a company’s reputation.  71% of the financial advisors agreed that a company’s reputation was worth at least 20% of their overall market value.  This is why so many of the fortune 500 companies have made ORM a big part of their Risk Management.  A company can no longer afford to ignore bad press.  The speed that information is now shared has changed all of that.

On-line surveys now show that about 74% of consumers use search engines to seek out information on the products and services they are considering buying or using.  Considering the speed of the Internet a company’s reputation is even more critical today than it was before the Internet.

If you are not currently monitoring your ORM then what is holding you back?  Can your reputation with-stand a 20% decrease in your yearly income?  Is there negative information out there right now that is impacting your income?  Did you lose a sale because someone posted untrue information about you?  Can you really afford to ignore this any longer?

 

Online Marketing Services for Realtors Launches new Blog

PRLog (Press Release) – Sep 23, 2009 – SEO Redefined is launching OnlineMarketingServicesforRealtors.com. Long name but perfectly describes what Wayne and Nancy Golliday have planned for Brokers and Realtors. Online Marketing Services for Realtors and Brokers is being launched as a place for Realtors and Brokers to gain insight and guidance into the importance of their website SEO.

SEO Redefined has launched this new blog to better help Realtors and Brokers have fresh material for their weekly sales meetings. Daily blogs will cover the importance of Online Marketing Services for Realtors and Brokers. The daily blog will cover the importance of SEO and how this SEO will drive visitors to the website. Topics such as how to convert visitors to clients will be covered in detail. The NAR has released statistics showing that over 50% of realtors do not follow-up on their website leads.

The NRA has also shown that most new home buyers use the internet first to find their first new home, many times weeks before ever calling a Realtor. SEO Redefine wants to show Brokers and Realtors how to make those statistics work for them and not against them.

Wayne and Nancy Golliday have been in the web design business before there was an Internet. Starting out doing the first open source door-way applications for the old dial-up community this business evolved into one of the Internet’s first web design business. SEO soon followed, as the art of being found on the internet became more complicated. SEO Redefined is in the business of online marketing services for realtors and brokers. Give Wayne or Nancy Golliday a call today at 912-673-8238 or visit them at OnlineMarketingServicesforRealtors.com or SEORedefined.com and fill out the free SEO Analysis

Questions to Ask Any SEO Firm…

Questions to Ask Your Potential or Current SEO Service Provider…

1. Will the SEO service provider share its optimization techniques with you?Ask them for an overview of how they achieve results. If the firm won’t give you an explanation, chances are the company is trying to hide unethical techniques.
2. Is Pay-Per-Click (PPC) part of the SEO firm’s strategy? 

   Optimization results should not rely on PPC. Performance results for organic optimization and PPC should be evaluated separately.

3. Can the SEO firm guarantee your site will not be penalized and/or removed from the search engines and directory indexes?

   By using unethical techniques, many SEO firms may produce short term results, but in the long run will end up getting a client’s website penalized or even banned from being indexed by the major search engines.

4. Does the SEO firm optimize more than your homepage – if so, how many pages?

   A good SEO firm will maximize the number of active pages on your website. It’s more work for the SEO firm, but it will produce the greatest results for YOU.

5. Does the SEO firm provide an unrealistic guarantee?

   Any SEO company that guarantees a specific position (like number one or two) on Google or Yahoo are being dishonest. It is impossible to guarantee specific positions on search engines.

6. Are automated submission tools used or are all submissions processed manually?

   Automated tools can often lead to penalization and result in your site being excluded from the search engines.

7. If the plan includes link building, is the firm using a link farm?  Or is it contracting sites individually and concentrating on link reputation more than link popularity?

   Soon websites linked to and from link farms will be penalized and banned from the major search engines.

8. Does the firm’s technique involve showing one page to the visitor and a different page to the search engines?

   If the answer is yes, then you are probably dealing with a search engine optimization provider that uses “cloaking” techniques. Many search engines specifically warn against this practice in the organizations’ terms of service. Google is particularly harsh on sites that use cloaking, and is known to remove them entirely when it finds them.  This falls under “Black Hat SEO Practices“

9. Is the SEO firm putting in-house created contact forms in your website that are hosted on their servers? 

   Those are “your” leads and you hate spam as much as your viewers do – you can never guarantee that your SEO firm is or isn’t selling names.  Even if you’re participating in any “Guaranteed Lead Capture” Program with any SEO firm, it’s always best to use the forms provided by your online website platform if you’re using one.  If you need more than one recipient so your SEO firm can track leads on their end, we highly recommend www.wufoo.com  (have been using their forms since 2005) or any other online company that specializes in custom form creation – this way you’re still in complete control of your leads and prospect information – and know that names in your database are not being sold to a third party.  If you choose “anything” other than your online website platform’s form choices, you “will” have the responsibility of exporting / importing any database contacts from your form host into your online website platform database or whatever lead management database you’re using.

Twitter can sell your home!

My broker buddy and good friend Jim called me the other day all excited about the way he had just sold two houses. He was so excited that it took him a good four or five minutes to spit out what had happened. Jim is a techno geek and loves all things related technology. He seems to have every new gadget and electronic toy before anyone else. He also loves the internet social media and spends a lot of time on his cell phone.

Jim demands that everyone in his office use Twitter. In fact the new realtors all receive a welcome package that includes the instructions in setting up a Twitter account. Jim instructs all of his agents to use Twitter on a regular basis and encourages them to sign up all of their clients on it as well. Jim and his crew have grown so accustom to using Twitter that they use it as the main form of their inter-office communications and to hot list homes for clients.

Jim still does the face to face with his agents on a regular basis but now they Twitter among themselves all day and night long. They Twitter news items they find on the internet, helpful websites, tips on selling or closing and any good news they would like to share with others. Jim told me that all of his agents have come to rely on the powerful force that Twitter can be, if used right.

The one place that Jim is most excited about is in the use of Twitter to sell homes. Jim and all of his agents try and get their clients to sign up for a Twitter account and follow the agent or agency on Twitter. Jim makes it mandatory for his agents to try and sign-up all new clients in this way. Clients then are Twittered new listings or any information they may be interested in. Jim does this for both home buyers and commercial clients. He does not charge for this service and has been using it for about 30 days now. The agent or agency will usually Twitter the other agents in the office when ever they sign up a contract on another house for sale. The agents then Twitter their clients they think will be most interested in this new listing. So clients here about hot new properties before they even go in the MLS. Because of this two listings in Jim’s office were sold this way. Both listings never made the MLS and were sold in 48 hours of the Twitter. Jim’s agency all so uses Twitter to tell clients about short-sales and foreclosure properties before they hit the MLS. His commercial property clients also receive a Twitter when ever they list a new property.

Twitter can be a very powerful took if used right. Jim is a great example of this. Of course he first Twittered me that he needed to call me right away. I got the Twitter about 10 minutes after his phone call. Ok, the technology is not perfect.

Yahoo set to fire all SEO firms!

Yahoo filed a patent last month to automate the SEO process.  On the service this may sound like a real threat to SEO firms and their very way they make a living.   It all most seems like Yahoo has found a way to make SEO a no brinier.  Is Yahoo saying that it is no effortless to optimize a web site for their search engine?  Well, maybe!

 

Yahoo’s patent is to automate the process of website SEO. It is done by using keyword analysis through the frequency of searches on Yahoo.  The keywords will be analyzed and then relationships of keywords will be strung together in order to determine what will work best for a website.  Depending upon what your site is about; Yahoo will determine the type of traffic you will get.  This automated process, according to Yahoo, is going to direct lots of traffic to your site.

 

Lots of traffic to your site sounds great. Except if it is not the type of traffic your really want.  Let’s say you are trying to sell Left Handed Blue Widgets and Yahoo determines that your SEO should include Whatchamacallits as well.  We all know that Left Handed Blue Widgets cost 10 times more than a Whatchamacallit .  You have a real niche market for Left Handed Blue Widgets and want to market to only those people but Yahoo has decided that you should market to the Whatchamacallit crowd as well. Do you see the problem here?  Niche market websites could be killed by this automated process.

 

In theory this all sounds good but in the end I think this will only be good for people who like to do their own website design.  Good luck with this one Yahoo.