Effective Inbound Marketing Tips

This is an odd question we hear from time to time: “Why do I need Blogging if my competitors don't?” You get these sorts of questions whenever any new technique comes along. However, always gets me to thinking: Why wouldn't their competitors need to consider Business Blog writing? After all, it's by far more effective for Internet advertising than old-style banner ads and popups, and generally cheaper too.

So, I started thinking about it, and here are some reasons why a company might not want to Blog.

1)They have no interest in the Internet at all. After all, there are plenty of businesses who still deal solely with face-to-face transactions. Although the funny thing is, Blogging could help them too. Having a complete, well-written Blog page can help bring more foot traffic to your door, and a high ranking on search engines helps even when you're just competing with local businesses.

2)They have all the business they can handle. It would make sense, if someone's place of business was simply working at capacity, not to embark on any new marketing ventures. That said, even if you're not actively seeking more business, you can still work on your search rankings in the meantime so that you're more visible than ever once you do need more work.

3)They are just terribly exclusive\obscure. I'll admit, if you can pull off the trick of making yourself truly exclusive, you've got it made. Plenty attempt it, although not too many succeed. Mostly they just become places that no one wants to visit. Either way, if you deliberately don't want people actively seeking you out, I suppose ignoring Blogging is a good way to go about it.

4)Their name is synonymous with their product, so they win the search engine game by default. Well, if your competition is Xerox or Band-Aid, you probably need all the help you can get. You'd need to start learning how to work with search engines as soon as possible, to try to steal away some of those Google searches they're getting handed for free.

5)They're afraid of new things. This, unfortunately, is the most common reason we see for companies refusing to jump into creating a blog. It turns the entire marketing game on its ear, and a lot of more traditional marketing firms just don't understand it yet. A company with a lot of inertia and that has a hard time incorporating new ideas would probably find a lot of excuses to avoid inbound marketing, even as their competition starts using it.

Basically, the question really should be, “Why wouldn't you want to consider blog writing?"

Can anyone think of any good reasons not to use it, at this point? It seems pretty self-evident to us.   

When you're doing inbound marketing and focusing on search engine optimization, it's easy to get a sort of tunnel vision. You can get so wrapped up in keyword strategies, landing page optimization, blogging, and social media that you lose sight of one simple fact: none of this matters at all if those new visitors to your site aren't buying anything. SEO is a means, not an end, but a lot of companies end up forgetting that.

That's why you should consider hiring a set of paid search experts, to help you keep your eye on that prize, and make sure you're making the most of your inbound marketing dollars.

The real key to optimizing your costs per conversion is to make sure your marketing is as targeted as possible. Simply getting a lot of people to your website isn't enough. They need to be the sort of people who are likely to buy your product and will be likely to buy something. That's why paid search experts, with years of experience in inbound marketing, are so useful.

Keywords, for example, need to be considered not just in terms of where they'll put you in your search engine rankings, but also in terms of why people are searching for them. People often discount long-tailed keywords (that is, keywords that are four or more words) but these often bring in some of the highest-quality leads. You're automatically getting visitors who know exactly what they're looking for, and if you can show them you've got it, they'll likely convert.

The same is true for pay-per-click ad buys. Over thirty percent of search users will click on the sponsored results ahead of the free results. However, you have to make sure you're picking the right keywords. Since you're paying for every ad click, you want to make sure that you're getting the most bang for your buck. With advanced keyword analysis, you can be assured that your PPC is giving you the highest possible returns.

Paid experts also know how to track your customers and your leads throughout their interactions with you. Lead nurturing is an important part of this business as well. If someone visits your site, leaves some of their information, and then posts about you on their Facebook, you need to know about it! That's exactly the sort of lead who can be turned into a sale with a bit more hands-on interaction.

With inbound marketing being such a young field, it can sometimes be tough knowing how to proceed while still maximizing returns. But, with a team of paid search experts in your corner, you can be assured that you're getting the most lead generation and conversion with the lowest expenditure.