I thought it would be a good time to provide a case study of one particular client which has performed extremely well over the last couple of years. My aim is to help you to understand what the “secret ingredients” are and what ultimately determines your success when undertaking any online marketing campaign.

The Budwig Center

When the Budwig Center approached me for help in the middle of 2009 I was asked to build a site for their clinic which provided courses in alternative medicine, specifically the Budwig Diet which is used to prevent and cure cancer and other serious illnesses.

Once the site was completed, we were pretty much starting from scratch in terms of traffic to the site. So, there were no indexed pages, no sitemaps, no inbound links, nada.

Today the site realises around 24,000 visitors every month and numbers have been progressing each and every month since we first begun. The site offers a free Budwig diet guide and this on average is downloaded around 1,000 times each month by prospective clients and no doubt provides some very good leads and new business for the clinic.

The site also enjoys good sharing activity and since September 2009 has been shared no less than 2,572 times via sites such as Facebook, Twitter, Google and MySpace. This kind of sharing is crucial if you are to take your marketing efforts to new heights in this new social media age.

There is definitely a direct correlation between good sharing, mentions via social media sites and positive organic rankings. The main search engines are now using these “signals” as a part of their organic ranking algorithm.

Each month the Budwig Center site goes from strength to strength and below I can give you an insight into reasons why.

UVP – Unique Value Proposition

This is the most important step. If you get this wrong, don’t even bother to spend your time and money on promoting your business.

If you are unable to offer something of value that solves a problem that people are having problems finding anywhere else, you will have an uphill journey all the way. Trying to flog something to people that doesn’t have a real benefit or doesn’t differentiate your business from hundreds of others is a no win situation.

BUDWIG CENTER UVP: Providing visitors with free guides, information and advice to help them overcome and prevent cancer and other serious illnesses.

Site Design and Usability

I’ve lost count of the number of websites I have been shown by potential clients that just were not cut out to be put live on the web.

Great web design is of paramount importance and can be a major stumbling block when promoting your business online. You do not have to spend $10,000 on a site for it to be effective.

Any website needs to be functional and easy to navigate. Anything superfluous added just distracts users and prevents them taking the desired action, i.e. downloading a guide, filling in a form or subscribing to your newsletter.

User’s are generally after information that solves a problem, they don’t want to be entertained, if they wanted that, they would turn on the TV or watch a movie. Give them what they need to know and solve their problem. Job done!

BUDWIG CENTER SITE DESIGN: Clear, easy to navigate, social sharing features, fast loading.

Search Engine Optimisation

If you have a website and create regular content then you need to make sure that the search engines can find it so that it can be presented in the search results for relevant search queries.

SEO helps you site to be seen on the web. By optimising page titles, meta descriptions, H tags, bolding of text, creation of XML sitemaps and performing good internal linking, you send the search engines positive signals as to what you content is about and how it should be categorised.

But this is only half the story. You will also need to perform a certain amount of keyword research, competitor analysis and manual link building in order to help boost your organic rankings, especially in the early stages of your marketing campaign.

BUDWIG CENTER SEO: Consistent on-site and off-site optimisation has been performed in order to strengthen organic search engine positions for the Budwig Center’s most important and relevant keywords.

FREE Content That Provides Solutions

You have to add fresh and interesting content on a regular basis. Ideally you need a blog which is connected to Twitter and Facebook to allow your followers to be notified of any new blog posts. You also need an RSS feed which is good for those that want to read your updates via their RSS reader and not have to visit your blog directly.

At the end of the day, the more interesting content that provides users with solutions or answers to their problems, the more shares you will get and the more natural links you will gain.

But there’s something else to remember here. YOUR CONTENT MUST BE FREE!

I know what you are thinking, “FREE! Are you mad!. I can’t afford to give my time away!”.

You can and you must if you want to win the social media game. Free content attracts more customers, links, likes and customer loyalty in the long term.

BUDWIG CENTER CONTENT: Free downloadable guides, rich information, free expert advice, testimonials, case studies and blog posts.

Call To Action

If you want a visitor to take action you have to point them in the right direction and lead them gently into your sales funnel.  It is a fact that most of us subtly WANT to be lead and advised on the actions we need to take.

It’s actually surprising just how many sites neglect call to action. Things like nice bold buttons, links, strong titles, strike through’s, good copy-writing and images can all help to get users to convert.

It’s worth noting that call to action doesn’t have to be big and bold. It can also be the subtle language that you use in your copywriting and “speaking the language” of your customers.

BUDWIG CENTER CALL TO ACTION:  Simple call to action in form of images and textual links. Social media call to action to help build social community.

Permission Marketing/Visitor Retention

Once users hit your site, you want to keep them coming back. Your need to build a tribe of fans who look forward to hearing what you have to say. You can only do that if you keep them connected to you. How do you do this? By using RSS feeds, newsletters, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

These sites and services act as “outposts” for your business and means that visitors do not have to visit your site directly in order to read the content that you publish.

When users signup to your newsletter, like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter and alike, this is referred to as “permission marketing”. This is your ultimate aim as a marketer. It means that a user trusts you enough and will allow you to sell to them.

So make sure you are building your outposts and allowing users to connect with you in multiple ways.

BUDWIG CENTER PERMISSION MARKETING: Makes good use of Facebook, Twitter, RSS and email to help keep customers connected.

Social Media Presence

As mentioned above, you need to build outposts. Outposts include Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, MySpace, Flickr and many other social sites.

But it does not stop there. You need to be consistent with using these sites and need to update your status and interact with your social circle consistently. It also means that you have to build your social circle over time.

But remember that it is not just about numbers! It’s about building a tribe of loyal friends and fans who not only want to interact with you on a social level but who will ultimately spread the word to their own social circles and help to promote your business.

What is really important to mention is this.

DO NOT SELL TO YOUR SOCIAL CIRCLE!

Your aim is not to SELL. Your aim is to build trust and nurture your social community. Once you provide useful, free content which shows you are an expert or authority within your field, your circle will look to you for a solution when required. They will also tell their friends about your product and services as well. Double whammy!!

BUDWIG CENTER SOCIAL MEDIA: The Budwig Center have a number of social media accounts including Facebook and Twitter which act as outposts and pull new visitors into the site. Also make use of relevant forums, answer sites, document sharing sites and blog commenting where appropriate.

Shareability

The web has evolved. Links are no longer the be all and end all of internet marketing. Shares have now become just as, if not more important.

Each time your blog content or Facebook page is shared it pops up in the stream of that users social media account. Whether it’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ or another social media feed, by sharing your content, a user is advocating not only your content but your business. This is what we refer to “social proofing”. Hey, my friend likes this, so there is a good chance that I will too.

With the average user on Facebook having around 130 friends, you can see that it is extremely valuable for your business if only a handful of users share your content. This kind of sharing creates a “viral buzz”. Your content can reach many many people in a short space of time.

The Budwig Center provides rich, useful, free content that helps to answer questions that visitors have about alternative medicine and cancer. This kind of solution based content is easy for others to share.

By simply placing social media sharing widgets on your blog posts or important content ( I recommend addthis ) you allow users to share your content with their social circles.

BUDWIG CENTER SHARING: The Budwig Center makes good use of AddThis social sharing buttons on the main site and blog which allows users to share their content effortlessly.

Conversion Optimisation

Most companies are not familiar with or if they are, do not spend the time or money on focusing on Conversion Optimisation.

It’s great getting visitors to your site but is a total waste of your time and money if they do not complete a goal, whether signing up to your newsletter, buying a product or completing your form.

This is where Conversion Optimisation comes in. By analysing your main landing pages you can improve them with good call to action which can gently help bring your visitors into your sales funnel.

In order to improve your pages conversion rate, you will need to have a complete understanding of your sites visitors, why they are there, what they care about most, what problems they need solving and what will ultimately make them take action.

With conversion optimisation, it is also important to run A/B split testing and multi-variate split testing. This enables you to make changes to your landing pages and monitor whether conversions have improved or not.

Another important tool to help improve conversion is usability testing.

Usability testing means setting unknown users tasks to complete on your site. They perform the tasks which are recorded with sound and video which enables you to find out what the user is experiencing and if they are having issues with your site.

It’s important to understand why users are not buying. It is normally because they either CAN’T buy or WON’T buy.

They CAN’T buy normally means that the site design is lacking in something such as poor navigation or it could be that the content is “answering their questions”.

If a user WON’T buy, this usually means that there is something wrong with your value proposition. Are your products too expensive? Are they of a poor quality? Or do you not provide the items or services that your visitors really need?

By performing conversion optimisation including split testing and usability testing, you will find out why.

BUDWIG CENTER: We have undertaken numerous usability tests and split testing to improve conversion rates and usability on the site.

CONCLUSION

If you want to help create greater brand recognition and build a community around your site, then you need to be using as many of the above as possible.

Inbound Marketing presents a world of opportunity to ALL businesses, large or small, local or global. Given time and a little creativity, there is no reason why you can’t leverage the opportunities that the web offers, even on a small shoestring budget.

You don’t need big bucks to compete online and this is why the web has helped to level the playing field for smaller businesses and one man bands.

Users are ignoring conventional media (interruption marketing) more than ever. Television, radio and press marketing is no longer as effective as it used to be. Users have “switched off” to these conventional forms of mass marketing.

Inbound Marketing using SEO and Social Media is YOUR opportunity. So start creating something of value today and begin to build your social community.

Please feel free to join me on Facebook, Twitter or subscribe to future posts via RSS.

Recommended Sites

Social Media - Likeable Social Media, Social Media Examiner

SEO – SEOMoz

Web Design: Redline Company, Innov8graphics

Social Sharing Buttons: AddThis

Usability Testing: User Testing, Open Hallway

Conversion Optimisation:  Conversion Rate Experts

Inbound Marketing – Hubspot 

The second most important aspect is your website. Your website needs to be able to reflect your brand and the image you are looking to portray. It takes users just a few seconds to like or dislike your site, so why leave it to chance?

At SEO Services Spain we offer usability and conversion optimisation in order to help clients to convert more visitors into paying customers. After listening to many recordings from testers, one thing is for sure, the usability and design of your website is of paramount importance.

This is why we at SEO Services Spain work closely with a number of web design companies. Redline Company have been partners with SEO Services Spain for a number of years and offer professional CMS websites at highly affordable prices. You can view their current portfolio of websites via their web design portfolio page.

Redline are currently offering fully manageable websites designed using the latest version of Joomla CMS from only 499.00 Euros + IVA. Price includes slideshow on homepage, contact form and gallery.

If you are looking to get your business online and want to save money on regular web design updates, then a professional Joomla site from Redline Company is the perfect choice.

A great new feature of the new version of GA is that it tracks page load times which is great for determing which of your pages may be too taking a while to load and hence may be causing your visitors to bounce.

At the moment, your analytics code may look something like this

<script type=”text/javascript”>

var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-1709358-2']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();

</script>

This is the Asynchronous Google Analytics code which you should be using. If you code does not look like this, then you are probably using the older non asynchronous code in which case you will need to login to Google Analytics and grab the latest code.

Once you have added this you then need to add the following

_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);

You should then end up with

<script type=”text/javascript”>
var _gaq = _gaq || [];
_gaq.push(['_setAccount', 'UA-1709358-2']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageview']);
_gaq.push(['_trackPageLoadTime']);

(function() {
var ga = document.createElement(‘script’); ga.type = ‘text/javascript’; ga.async = true;
ga.src = (‘https:’ == document.location.protocol ? ‘https://ssl’ : ‘http://www’) + ‘.google-analytics.com/ga.js’;
var s = document.getElementsByTagName(‘script’)[0]; s.parentNode.insertBefore(ga, s);
})();
</script>

So not only will you be using the fastest Google Analytics code yet, you will also be able to track the page load times in GA.

Once the code has been inserted, wait 24 hours and the login to GA and hit the “New Version” link at the top.

Then, down the left hand side under content you will see the “site speed” link.

You will then see a list which will show you page load times.

So when you indicate those pages that are guilty of increasing your bounce rate, you can then read my post on how to make your website faster.

Feel free to connect with me on Facebook or via Twitter. Always glad to hear from you.

Alternative search results are a part of the organic search results and are shown within the normal organic results when triggered by a certain search query or intention. Products, maps, news, images and videos are what we term, the “alternative search results”. When these results are shown within the normal organic results, this is also said to be a part of “universal search”.

Google especially has been integrating these alternative results within its organic listings (SERPS) for some time now and if you are not making the most of these, you could be missing out on some good extra traffic.

Not every one of the list below will fit in with your own business, for example I run an SEO company, but do not have any products as such, so adding my site to Google Products is not an option. I am able to take advantage of other opportunities though such as videos, images and local listings.

Let’s take a brief look at three alternative search results, so that you can find out more about what each one is and whether you could use it as a part of your own online marketing strategy.

Images

If you sell a product or have images on your site which could bring more visitors into your site, then it makes sense that you would want them to show up in Google images directly or when a user goes to google.com or one of the other local Google sites and makes a specific search (universal search).

To do this you need to do a few things.

1. Give your image files a nice descriptive name, for example if I am selling a nokia mobile phone I might want to name the image something like nokia-6301-mobile.jpg or something similar. So keyword rich.
2. Use the correct alt tag text. So within the image code on the web page you will have something like img src=””/images/cameras/nokia-6301-mobile.jpg”” alt=””Nokia” Notice the use of the “alt” tag. This is another signal like the file name and helps Google and the other engines to learn more about the contents of an image.
3. Optimise the page itself for the relevant keywords including page titles and H tags. Also surround your image with relevant and descriptive text.
4. Use an image caption to describe what the image is about.
5. Make sure that you have not denied access to the specific image file/folder via robots.txt! Tut, tut.
6. Setup a Google image sitemap via Google Webmaster Tools. This will help Google to find your images more easily.

Videos

Video marketing is a huge opportunity. As cameras become cheaper, bandwidth increases and hosting costs fall, video will become even more popular than it is today. YouTube is the #2 site on the web in terms of searches performed and #3 in terms of overall traffic.

With so much traffic and search queries, YouTube represents a great opportunity. Or you may want to use a distribution service such as TubeMogul to upload your video to a number of social sites including YouTube, Facebook, Metacafe and Vimeo.

But you may not want to put your site on YouTube at all. If you want brand exposure, YouTube is the obvious choice, but if for example you want links, it could be that you place the video on your own site or blog and then allow users to embed the video on their own sites which in turn includes a link back to your site.

Or alternatively, by hosting the video yourself and promoting it through social channels such as Facebook and Twitter, you then look to get users to link directly back to your video, either via Facebook and Twitter, or by linking to the video via their site or blog. This of course is good for organic SEO as each link acts as a vote of confidence or personal citation.

There are other options and this is just a brief summary, I recommend you read this great post on video optimization by Kate Mats over a SEOMoz for further info and strategies.

There can be no doubt that video is a great medium. You never know, if you create something really exceptional, it may even go viral! Happy days!

Maps/Local/Places

If you have a local business with premises, then you will most definitely want to add your site to Google Places (formerly Google Local).

Google Places listings are normally triggered when you use a place name in your search. For example in the above search, I searched for “restaurant london” which triggered the places listings in the middle of the image and to the top right with the map view.

When you add a Google Places listing, there is a good chance that you can get to the top of the SERPS for a broad competitive keyword.

You must make sure that you try to complete your listing as much as possible. When completing your listing information, you will see a percentage complete indicator. Make sure you try to get as close to 100% as possible to give yourself every opportunity of getting listed in the top seven.

When configuring other elements of your listing, make sure that you use a non spammy title (i.e. your business name). You can add one or two keywords in as well but be careful. So as an example if your business is called “Toms Expert Plumbing” it’s ok to stretch it a little. So you could have a title of “Toms Plumbing Services London” or similar. Just don’t over do it or it may affect your chances of being placed in the top seven.

You also need to add good keyword rich descriptions and as many relevant categories as possible. Once again, don’t over do it. Write your description naturally with a good mix of synonyms and relevant keywords.

Once all fields are complete you will need to verify your listing. Google does this by sending an automated phone call to your listed phone number which asks you for a pre assigned authorisation code. Just receive the call and enter the code and you are done.

For me, adding a Google Places is a no brainer and may even give you a rankings boost due to the fact that you have to verify who you are. A good sign of trust for any search engine.

There are other alternative search results that you can target depending on your business including Google News and Google Products.

The three methods above if done correct can give you lots of good relevant traffic. Get an image on the first page for some of the broader searches can give you hundreds of extra visitors every day. The same applies to videos. Create a good one and it could go viral. You never know unless you try.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, subscribe to my RSS feed, or signup to my newsletter (top right).

If so, you may be in need of some new year tweaks to improve things.

Google announced back in April that page load times were a part of the ranking algorithm and hence can affect your rankings negatively.

Google are almost obsessive about speed, and for good reason. Slow websites are a pain, not only to users but also to search engines. Google and the other engines do not want to rank your site high in the rankings, only for users to experience slow load times and a poor overall user experience. This looks bad for the engines as they are in effect voting for your site.

If you have a Google Webmaster Tools account you will find some really important information in regards to site speed. Under “Labs” we have “Site Performance”. Here, Google reports on your overall site speed. This info is taken from a number of sources including the Google toolbar. I can’t confirm if the info is 100% accurate, but it does serve as a good overall guide.

Another important section of WMT is the section just underneath the load time chart above and is labelled as “Page Speed Suggestions”.

Here you can find info and advice on files on your site which Google believes can be reduced in size to provide better performance. This could be via one of the methods in the section further below.

So what to do?

Well, there are quite a few things that can be done to improve your sites load times and keep everyone happy. But in the interests of brevity, I will just cover three of the main suggestions here.

HTTP Compression

In its simplest form, HTTP Compression is where the data sent between a browser client and server host is compressed or reduced in size in order to speed up the transmission of the website files and data.

In order for this to be achieved, the server and the client have to agree when they first handshake and agree the protocol.

Live HTTP headers http://livehttpheaders.mozdev.org/ is a great piece of software that you can run in order to view the http header information when establishing a connection to a website. This can provide us with a lot of useful information. (Note: Live HTTP Headers is an extension for the Firefox browser)

In the image below you will see that on initially requesting the webpage my browser requested the page and also said that it can accept gzip or deflate encoding. These modules are typically installed as a part of the Apache web server software. So basically my browser is saying “throw me the page across, and if you can make it smaller using gzip or deflate and save us both time and trouble, please do so”.

The image below is the next part of the conversation between server and host. The server is replying OK, I have this page and includes other info such as last modified date and the server software. What we are looking for is the area highlighted in red which says “Content-Encoding: gzip”. Happy days! The server is saying OK, you said you can handle compressed content, so I will send it to you in gzip format. Job done!

If the server did not support HTTP compression of some sort then no problems, the data would still be sent, just not compressed.

For further information on setting up your Apache web server software have a read of this post on how to optimize your site with gzip compression.

To check if your website data is compressed already, use this http compression checking tool.

Combine JavaScript and CSS Code

Most websites today use JavaScript and CSS. JavaScript is a scripting language and can be used with many programs, widgets, graphics apps etc. CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheets and is mainly used to render and format HTML.

Unfortunately when developers and designers work on websites they sometimes use code and place the code in multiple .css and .js files. This means that these files need to be “called” a number of times in order for the browser to run the required code.

Now. A better way is to copy and paste the code from any .css files and .js files and combine them into one file for each of the CSS and JavaScript.

For example I recently combined the JavaScript code from a few different applications into one file on one of my client’s site and call the main file combined.js

The reference at the top of the HTML code would look something like

<script src=”combined.js”></script>

Then something similar for all the CSS code.

<link href=”layout.css” rel=”stylesheet” />

So now, whenever any Javascript or CSS code needs to be run, it is all searched for and run from one file.

Reduce DNS Calls

Without going into DNS too much, DNS is the Domain Name System and is used to resolve domain names to ip addresses. So when you type in a URL in your browser, your browser goes off and checks with the server which is authoritive for that domain and asks for the ip address for that particular site. The server then returns something like 195.56.87.99. Your browser then tries to connect to this server requesting the contents of the website and page. IP addresses are like postcodes in that they pinpoint the exact location of where the site is hosted. They are also unique.

So, anyway. The point is when someone connects to your site, if your code includes calls to things such as Google Analytics, Statcounter, Widgets, Chat, Banners etc these all have to be looked up and resolved before the page is fully loaded. The more calls that are made, the longer the page will potentially take to finish loading.

So, in this case, make sure that you are not making any unnecessary DNS calls. Keep it nice and clean.

For further tips and techniques for reducing page load times, take a look at http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html

EDIT: Google have recently offered on online page speed testing tool which also gives you advice on where you can speed your website up. Take a look at the Google pagespeed online tool page.

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Facebook recently announced that page owners can now view in-page impressions and feedback on a per post basis as can be seen in the image below.

Stats can also be viewed from within the ususal Facebook Insights page.

In order to view the stats you need to be a page owner or admin. Stats are also only available from June 25th 2010.

This is a great addition from Facebook and really helps Facebook page owners to assess how much “reach” they are getting when making new updates.

Not only are you told of how many “impressions” the update has had (which is measured on the number of people that have viewed the update via your wall and by the number of impressions on other peoples walls), but also shows how much feedback each post has received which is measured as a percentage and combines comments and likes of each update.

All in all, I think this is a good thing and can only help marketers to gain a clearer insight into how their Facebook marketing is performing and gives us a greater idea of exactly how many users are seeing and interacting with our updates.

Feel free to follow me on Twitter or become of my page on Facebook.

Think about it. Trillions of URL’s and millions of businesses in thousands of niches.

The question is, “How are you going to compete?” Or more importantly, “How are you going to STAND OUT?”

Here are just a few suggestions for you.

KNOW YOUR UVP

Do you have a remarkable unique service or product that nobody else is offering? If you do, then great, you’re halfway there. If not, you are fighting an uphill battle.

You need a Unique Value Proposition. What do you offer that people really need and can’t get elsewhere? Look at your competitors. How are you so different? If you want to succeed you will need to make a real difference to your target audience’s lives in one way or another.

If you do have a UVP, is it well aligned with your users requirements and expectations?

FIND A NICHE WITHIN A NICHE

If your market is too broad then you really want to think about taking a narrower approach. Most niches are now saturated, so if you are looking to move into and compete within an already competitive niche, you need to think outside the box and distance yourself from the crowd.

An example might be, instead of offering say yet another website offering holiday or vacation rentals, why not go narrower and specialise in holiday rentals for dog owners, holiday rentals for gay people or holiday rentals for the disabled. You still have a market; it’s just not so competitive.

GIVE SOMETHING OF VALUE

Whatever you decide to do, make sure you offer something of value. Some examples could be free video tutorials, PDF/eBook downloads, white papers, trial offers or free software downloads.

You need to remember that you have to give in order to get! There has to be some kind of bait or offer to get their attention.

One thing is for sure; nobody but nobody will stick around if you are not offering anything.

BECOME REMARKABLE

Seth Godin wrote a great book titled “Purple cow”. Purple Cow is essentially about creating something which is remarkable, like a purple cow. If you saw one you would say, “oh my god, look! A purple cow!”. That’s the reaction you want to create when someone visits your site. Give them something new, refreshing or even life changing. Something they just can’t live without.

CREATE A GREAT USER EXPERIENCE

User experience is everything. No point in driving people to your website if they leave in a heart beat. There are two reasons why users do not buy. They either CAN’T buy, or they WON’T buy. The first is driven by poor website architecture, lack of call to action, lousy copyrighting or possibly a hundred other reasons. The reason they WON’T buy is normally down to your product and/or your pricing.

So, if you are not selling or getting users to take the action you want, you need to find out which of the two reasons above is the cause.

BECOME SOCIAL AND TARGET THE LONG TAIL AND LOCAL SEARCH

Targeting broad competitive keywords in most cases is a no win situation. Broad keywords cost more in terms of time, money and effort to rank for and because of this they represent a poor return on investment.

Your best option is to target the long tail and local search terms. Lower search volumes BUT easier to compete for, more relevant and a lot easier to convert.

Social media has taken the world by storm in recent years. Facebook and Twitter as well as other sites such as YouTube and LinkedIn have become really important to marketers. Social media allows you to connect on a personal level to your customers and enables you to “humanize” your business.

With sites such as Facebook and Twitter it’s easier to connect with users matching your targeted demographic, build relationships, trust and eventually turn friends and followers into a tribe of loyal customers and evangelists.

The truth is, get all of the above right and you won’t have to spend so much time marketing your business. Others will do it for you.

Please feel free to follow me on Twitter or become a fan on Facebook.

Quality of your links.
Quality of your content.
Quality of your creativity.
Quality of the your keyword research.
Quality of your engagement, dialogue and relationships.

And much more.

QUANTITY on the other hand is used by many, but in most cases is a terrible metric to use.

More often than not, it is used as a smoke screen by SEO companies and others to hide a lack of performance or results.

You know the kind of thing.

-You have 100,000 links (but 99,800 are of a low low quality)
-You have 5,000 followers via social media (but only 10 of them interact with you)
-You get 10,000 visitors per month (but my conversion rate is 0.01% and my bounce rate is 70%)

Numbers, numbers numbers. Alone they mean nothing unless they are scrutinised.

Lesson of this story?

Make sure you are tracking the right metrics. The metrics that make the difference between success and failure.

Many people I see using Twitter and Facebook quite frankly aren’t doing it right. They still see Twitter and Facebook as broadcast mediums such as TV and radio. This does not work anymore!! Wake up! Smell the coffee and while your at it, the roses.

I read a lot. I read a lot of articles, books and blog posts. Some of the time I learn but most often I read the same old hogwash that has been written before.

Being successful with social media is not rocket science. It’s about striking up personal and human relationships with other people. No matter how you try to present it or use over elaborated explanations, at its core, it’s SIMPLE!

I have a friend who is a great salesman. He is a great salesman, not because he is pushy and arrogant, he is a great salesman because people warm to him and he connects with them on a personal level first and not a business level.

People buy from people, not salesmen! Stone Age marketing and selling techniques will not help you any more or at best will have minimal impact.

But lets get down to the nitty gritty. Below you will find my 6 super steps to social media success, or rather, the stages that you MUST go through in order to build a tribe or network of social media followers and evangelists for your business.

FREQUENCY

At its very essence, advertising is built on frequency. Frequency of the messages you are trying to relay to your potential customers. Social media is no different. If you are using Twitter or Facebook, an update once per day is not frequent enough. Every hour on the other hand, is perfect for creating awareness among your followers and helps you stand out from the crowd. You also need to take into considerations the different time zones. Not all of your followers are on your time.

AWARENESS

Awareness can only come after the frequency stage. This is where people start to become used to seeing your name or your brand pop up in their Twitter or Facebook streams, for example if replying to tweets or commenting on Facebook updates.

FAMILIARITY

Familiarity comes after the awareness stage has been enforced over a period of time. Familiarity means that a user as become used to seeing your comments, updates and tweets and has gained a greater understanding of you on a personal level and has possibly started to recognise what you have to offer on a business and marketing level. It may also mean that a person takes an interest in your profile, your interests, where you are from and hopefully view your website, blog or Facebook page.

INTERACTION

Social media is all about interaction and engagement. Without the three initial steps, interaction cannot take place or be developed. With social media it is important to interact on a regular basis with as many of your fans and followers as possible. It doesn’t need to be purely business as well, in fact, it’s more beneficial to interact on a personal level for some period of time before even bringing up business in any shape or form.

Users don’t use social media to be blasted with advertising. This whole process is all about “permission marketing” not how many strangers you can pitch in one day.

The interaction stage enables you to create a personal bond and dialogue, just as you would do in the real world. Don’t kill the whole process at this stage by “going in for the kill”. This will drive people away and leave people with a bad impression of you and your business. Dialogue is a two way thing. You speak, you listen, you connect.

TRUST

This is a crucial stage in the process. Only over time can trust develop. This is where a user believes that you are genuine and has gained enough knowledge over time of who you are and your credibility.

PERMISSION

For any marketer (permission marketer anyway) this is the ultimate aim. To build so much credibility and trust that your followers give you permission to market to them. Online, this could be something as simple as signing up to your newsletter. The trust has been earned through stages 1-5 and permission has then been granted on signup. As long as the interaction you then have is anticipated, relevant and personal, that relationship will remain stronger over time.

An offline example could be building word of mouth for your business. You meet a stranger at a party, you introduce yourself, tell them about yourself, you interact. Over time, you may meet that person again, you are now familiar to the other person, you share information, chat some more, divulge more personal information, all the time building trust. Eventually you are then able to speak more about your business and possibly that person may need your services. If not, maybe a friend of theirs may need your services.

All the time, you are building lifetime relationships built on trust and credibility. A win win situation for any marketer.

If you want to learn more about permission marketing, I strongly recommend reading Seth Godin’s book: Permission Marketing.

Please feel free to become a fan on Facebook or follow me on Twitter.

Image courtesy of Gary Hayes on Flickr

The truth is that promoting your business via the social web is time consuming. The more time and effort you put in though, the greater the return will be.

With SEO, the intent is already there. A user searches, clicks on the result in the search engine and then visits your site. All you have to do is give them what they want. With social it’s different, as the same intent does not normally exist in the early stages.

Social media provides a wealth of opportunities for you to gain more customers, but It won’t happen over night. If you think about word of mouth and offline marketing, it takes time to befriend people, engage with them, interact and listen to what they have to say. Once this happens, you are building a relationship of trust. Once you have that, you then have what we refer to as “permission marketing”. Users will then be happy to hear what you have to offer.

You wouldn’t walk up to a stranger you have known for five minutes and try to pitch them something would you? You would build a relationship and grow things from there.

Remember. People buy from people, NOT salesmen. People like people, who are like themselves.

So the questions is: “How do I grow my social media circle when I don’t have much time to spare?”

Follow my 6 tips below to help you gain greater social media exposure and get more followers, more customers and who knows, even more friends. All this can be done in around 1 hour per day.

1. Comment on a minimum of 2 facebook pages every day. (Facebook)

Benefits: By commenting and offering something of value, people will look to click on your profile and send a friend request. This way, you will gradually gain more friends who you can build a relationship with.

Time Spent: 10 minutes

2. Make 1 New Friend Request Every Day (Facebook)

Benefits: Obviously by doing this you will get more friends over time. Remember to befriend people who have similar interests to yourself, or if your business targets a specific country or region, make sure they are in that region.

Time Spent: 10 minutes.

3. Comment On 3 Blog Posts Every Day (Blogging)

Benefits: By commenting and offering something of value to the conversation, you slowly but surely build your own authority and expertise on your niche topic. So for example if you are a web designer, comment on web design blogs and offer some good advice and solutions. People will appreciate that and click on your link or profile to find out more. If you give, eventually you will get.

Time Spent: 20 minutes

4. Follow At Least 3 People Every Day (Twitter)

With this one, make sure you follow people that are in your target country or area and/or have tweeted about your product or something you offer. So if you offer weight loss advice, search on Twitter for users who are speaking about losing weight and follow them.

Benefits: Generally, a high percentage of Twitter users will follow you in return. So by consistently following people, you will grow your own follower numbers and will be able to get your own message out to more people.

Time Spent: 5 minutes

5. Re-tweet At Least 3 Tweets Every Day (Twitter)

Benefits: Twitter users like their tweets being re-tweeted as this gives them more exposure. Most people are greatful and will often return the favour to you. If they have a good following then this will only help to get yourself out there in front of more people.

Time Spent: 10 minutes

6. Tweet Your Own Tweets At Least 2 Times Each Day

You can even re-tweet some of your old and better performing tweets and blog posts. It is also worth asking people to re-tweet your message.

Benefits: By tweeting often and consistently you will gain more direct followers.

Time Spent: 5 minutes.

You may find that you need to amend this slightly to fit your own requirements and schedule, but by following this and being CONSISTENT, slowly but surely, you will not only gain more friends and fans, but potentially a bigger tribe of followers and evangelists for your business.

Photo’s courtesy of PurpleMattFish and DanyRolux on Flickr.