Blogs provide a strong marketing platform that supports your social media campaigns, drive traffic to your website, establish your brand and personalize your company.

Here are 5 Reasons why you need a blog:

1. Strengthen your brand’s presence online. Search engines love content and Google’s new algorithm update proves it. Consequently, posting relevant and engaging content frequently will help increase your company’s visibility in front of your target audience. Research tells us that we are 33% more likely to click on a result when we’ve seen it more than once. So why settle for just one search result on the first page when you could have 2 or more unique results appearing for relevant searches?
2. Drive more traffic to your site. In addition to strengthening your existing rankings in search engines, keyword-rich content and good internal linking will help expand your reach, driving more traffic to your website.
3. Power social media interactions and engagement. One of your primary goals with social media campaigns is to generate engagement between you and your readers. Your blog content should provide readers with unique, useful, and beneficial information they will in turn want to share and talk about. So be sure to share your content regularly and include social sharing options on each post to maximize your reach.
4. Control the message. Your blog is a branded social media environment where you control the message. As a result, you’ll be able to get in front of the social media chatter with accurate information to promote your product or service, provide customer support, announce the latest news and let your followers share this information.
5. Give your company a personality. Remember those Mac vs PC ads? A blog enables you to give your company a voice, a personality that your customers can identify with and recognize. The conversational tone, unique perspectives, even the design elements of the blog help to “humanize” your company brand.

In summary, blogs support your overall marketing strategy by feeding your social media channels, increasing brand awareness, attracting new customers, and increasing sales. They do so by providing product or service-related content, answering customers’ questions, attracting new prospects, and helping your readers become fans.

Fashion – Thursday. Contrary to what many think engagement tapers off Friday, Saturday & Sunday.

Food & Beverage – Tuesday, Wednesday & Saturday.

Healthcare & Beauty – Thursday. Engagement rose by 40% on Thursdays.

Sports – Sunday. Engagement peaked at 110% above average on Sundays with few companies online.

Travel & Hospitality – Tuesday, Thursday & Friday. Engagement rose 20% on Tuesdays with the highest engagement on Thursdays and Fridays.

Effective Content Tips

Ask a question – The easiest way to get fans talking is to ask them a question that requires a response. But the trick is to ask question that are easy to answer. Questions that require just one-word responses tend to get the most engagement.

Effective words – “Like” and “Post” have positive engagement rates, so use these words when asking Fan’s for comments. Replace traditional marketing terms like “contest, promotion, sweepstake and coupon” for softer selling terms. Fans want to receive promotions but don’t want to feel like their being sold to.

Highest interaction rates – “Where” “when” and “should” get the highest interaction rates.

Words to avoid – “Why” “did” “what” “who” and “how”. These resulted in the lowest engagement rates.

Conversion optimization is a process of optimizing your website so that each page leads visitors to take an action that you want them to take, effectively converting visitors into customers. Our user experience (UX) experts employ traditional and behavioral analytics to provide an enjoyable, intuitive and effortless experience for the user. Our goal is to connect with the visitors’ decision-making process that will lead to higher conversations.

Behavioral Analytics testing has proven that the page layout, images, colors, call to actions, text formatting, length and placement directly affects conversions. We use behavioral analytics tools to figure out what customers do once they land on your page, what links work, which images catch their eye, what text they are reading and which form fields are hindering conversions. We then suggest and implement design, layout and content changes that will facilitate the conversion process for the user.

Conversion optimization is used in each step of the sales process:

• Analyze and evaluate traffic sources to drive quality traffic to your website
• Analyze visitor behavior to optimize landing pages and direct visitors through the conversion process
• Maximize goal completion rates to help customers convert successfully

Research has revealed that engagement is highest on Thursdays and Fridays; generally 18% higher than other week days. Here are some tips on which days show the highest engagement per industry:

Automotive – Sunday. With an average of 110% higher engagement rates few companies in this industry are posting.

Business & Finance – Wednesday & Thursday. Interesting to note is that engagement is lowest Friday through Tuesday.

Entertainment – Friday, Saturday & Sunday. People are more engaged and competitors often neglect social media advertising on the weekends.

Media – Saturday & Sunday. Saturday has shown an average of 15% higher engagement.

Retail – Sunday. Research has shown approximately 25% more engagement on Sunday while few brands in retail are actively marketing on this day.

Check back next week to see tips on more industries for Fashion, Beauty, Sport and Hospitality.

SEO Relations can help you get first page results for your industry by optimizing for keywords your potential customers are using. Higher search engine visibility leads to an increase in traffic and conversions.

We use the following techniques to achieve results:

• Industry Analysis and Keyword Research
• Competition Analysis
• Site Analysis
• Copywriting/Content Optimization
• User Experience Optimization
• Site Optimization
• Local Listing Optimization
• Inbound Linking
• Video Optimization
• Analytics and Reporting

Eventually write a little about each of the above items and link to them as either anchor text or separate pages.

• Broad Influence – “Social media accounts for one out of every six minutes spent online in US.” Journalism.co.uk
• Search Engine Visibility – “Nearly all consumers – 97% use online media when researching products or services in their local area.” Kelsey Group. Blogs and social media make it more likely that your prospects will find you online when they search.
• Brand Loyalty – “At least half of Twitter and Facebook users said they had become more likely to talk about, recommend or purchase a company’s products after they began following the company on social media.” eMarketer
• Potential Customers – Over 40% of respondents have acquired a customer through social media or blogs.
• Immediate – Social technologies support real-time dialogue and feedback. Companies have the ability to proactively address opportunities and issues that arise.
• Customer Feedback – If you’re not in the conversation, chances are your competitors are. From customer tweets about bad experiences or praise for a job well done, social media provides feedback from customers that business can use to improve customer service.
• Easy – Getting started is quick. We can help you launch a Facebook page today and get a Blog going by tomorrow.
• Free – Most social media applications cost nothing and add tremendous value that’s an attractive alternative for businesses looking to cut costs.

Social media has transformed the way businesses interact with customers today. Whether you are new to social media marketing or are already actively networking online, we can help you create a solid social media strategy that will grow your business.

Training

A successful online marketing campaign requires that business owners and employees understand how to leverage social media to promote the business brand online and convert fans/followers into customers. We provide ongoing training to help you utilize in-house resources to effectively use social media marketing.

Profile Management

We understand that many businesses are challenged by a lack of time and resources. However, avoiding social media marketing altogether can actually cost the company customers and resources in the long run. We can assist you by creating optimized company profiles on the top social media platforms and actively managing them to promote your brand and services.

Blog Marketing

In addition to keeping your site fresh with new content, blog posts are a great way to share helpful tips, ideas, and valuable information with your visitors. Our writers can compose original, creative and share-worthy content to keep your visitors engaged and fans interacting on your page.

Tools

Improve conversions through tools that help you manage multiple social media channels through one dashboard, track inbound leads, monitor social interaction, analyze brand sentiment, and measure a campaign’s effectiveness. We will recommend the right tool to help your company effectively manage and optimize your social media marketing.

The Business

Quiet Cannon is a Conference and Event facility located in Montebello, California. The banquet facility boasts over 30,000 sq ft of private event space, sits on a championship golf course and offers overnight accommodations at the on-site Hilton Hotel.

The Challenge

When Quiet Cannon hired SEO Relations, the company was not appearing in online searches for relevant services and was struggling to generate high quality traffic to the website. The dated website was failing to convert any direct visitors and offered little information about the services the Banquet Facility offers.

The Solution

SEO Relations worked with Quiet Cannon to design a new website. The first step involved identifying the 10 most relevant, top performing keywords for their industry and location. Next, we optimized a navigational structure that would allow for keyword specific landing pages and began writing copy for each dedicated page. Once the website was complete, we implemented a link building campaign to solidify Quiet Cannon’s presence online as an industry leader.

The Results

Within one month 8 of the 10 keywords were appearing on the first page of all top search engines. Within two months all 10 keywords ranked on the first page of search engines. With regular updates and blog posts Quiet Cannon is maintaining #1 spot for all 10 competitive keywords and gained popularity for related popular searches.

• Ranking for over 1400 keywords every month
• Organic Searches represent over 76% of all website traffic

The Business

White Rose Limousine Inc., based out of Orange County, has been providing luxury limousine and party bus transportation throughout Southern California for over 22 years.

The Challenge

White Rose Limo’s website did not rank in the top 100 search results and obviously was losing business to Limousine brokers that were highly visible in Search Engines, specifically Google, Yahoo and Bing. The website was not optimized for search engines, did not offer a positive user experience and had no social presence.

The Goal

White Rose Limo wanted to rank within the first 15 search engine results for dozens of geographically specific and highly competitive keywords as well as increase conversions through the website.

The Solution

After performing extensive keyword research, analysis of user engagement and study of the competition, SEO Relations determined which search terms will have the highest rate of conversion and bring the most business for White Rose Limo. We then optimized the website for targeted keywords, with positive user-experience and higher conversions in mind. Through strong website content, blog posts, conversion optimization, link building, and social marketing, White Rose Limo’s website secured first page ranking for 15 highly competitive keywords within a few months.

Pay-Per-Click Campaign Management

Effective pay-per-click campaigns require extensive research as well as Ad writing and Landing page optimization. We carefully analyze keyword phrases, conversion rates, and affiliate marketers in your industry to create Ads optimized for a maximum ROI. Our ongoing analysis of keywords, click through rates and quality scores help us allocate your budget for maximum conversion.