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Article source: http://masterful-marketing.com/creating-a-content-marketing-strategy/

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Home » Inbound Marketing » Inbound Marketing – A Powerful Weapon for Attracting New Customers

This is the first in a series of posts that will provide a road map on how you can plan and implement Inbound Marketing for your small business. 

Inbound marketing is something that most small business owners have heard of but few have implemented consistently. But for those who do take the plunge, many are experiencing a more cost effective and in many ways a more successful form of marketing, than traditional outbound marketing such as direct mail, trade shows and print, radio and TV advertising.

What is it?

Inbound marketing is using online activities, such as social media, search engine optimization, public relations and content marketing (such as blogging and eNewsletters) to attract your target prospects to your brand, product or service and generate warm leads. These prospects find your brand primarily through search, looking for information they need to solve a problem or fulfill a need.

It consists of a range of techniques, all of which are focused on attracting customers through relationship building.

Why do I care?

When a prospective customer finds your brand through inbound marketing, the useful information you provide gives them a different perspective about your company.

For most small businesses, inbound marketing is effective because you:

• Build brand visibility to those looking for the product or service you offer by developing informational content that attracts their attention.
• Generate warm leads through them finding your content rather than pushing your information on cold prospects.
• Develop and nurture relationships with these warm leads through quality content and online conversations.
• Build your own, permission based email marketing list.
• Develop a reputation as an expert in your field, putting you in a position of authority and trust.

For most small businesses, adding inbound marketing activities to your marketing plan is important to acquiring long term, loyal customers.

What are the benefits?

• Costs less: Enables you to engage in marketing tactics that cost less and are more effective than traditional outbound marketing tactics. According to a the “2011 State of Inbound Marketing” study by Hubspot, cost per lead 62% lower than leads generated by outbound marketing.
• Creates brand loyalty: Attracts the right audience to your business like a magnet. Most buyers today research the products and services that they need long before connecting with a vendor. If someone is spending the time reading your blog, downloading your white papers and joining your email list, they are making a commitment to your brand. When you build brand loyalty, these warm prospects will make the connection with you when they are ready to buy.
• Builds trust: When you provide useful information, solve a problem, answer questions and connect with those who read your content or connect with you on a social networking site, you develop a more personal relationship that helps them decide whether to do business with you or not.
• Expands your universe: For many small businesses, reaching a broad audience was unattainable due to the cost. Attracting potential customers to your website with quality content can help small businesses reach a broader, more geographically dispersed audience. If your business can service customers nationally or internationally, inbound marketing is a must for your business.

How do I get Started?

This series of posts will cover the basics of inbound marketing. Following this overview, topics will include (and more may be added as we go):

1. Creating your inbound marketing plan
2. Setting up the basics
3. Defining your content strategy
4. Optimizing your content for search engines
5. Building your social media community
6. Capturing and nurturing leads
7. Reviewing your results

So when I ask “How Will You Find Your Next Client — or Will They Find You?”, it is a direct challenge for you to define an inbound marketing strategy and let those who are ready to buy contact you.

What am I not covering that you want to know?

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Article source: http://masterful-marketing.com/inbound-marketing-a-powerful-weapon-for-attracting-new-customers/

Home » WordPress » WordPress Categories and Tags – Which to Use and How?

This is a question I get a lot lately. This feature of WordPress can be confusing, and throw in keywords for search engine optimization and people definitely get that glazed over look. And the more I read other good posts on the topic, the more I realize that there are a lot of opinions on what they are and how they are used. What I have come to realize is:

There is no one right answer to how you should use WordPress categories and tags for your blog, but there are some guidelines on using them effectively.

Things you need to consider:

• Should I use both?
• Should I assign posts to more than one category?
• Do either of these help with search engine optimization?
• Should I let search engines index your either or both of the archives?

Choosing which to use and how is really a matter of style. In fact, I’ve changed my opinion on how these should be used since starting this blog post and spent the day reorganizing my content on this site. So now it is time for me to put my spin on this topic.

First, let’s start with definitions:

• Categories – broadly defined terms that describe the type of content you contain in your blog, organizing your blog like a Table of Contents organizes the contents of a book.
• Tags – more specific terms that you want to associate with each post to  specifically define what it is about, similar to how an index of a book enables you to find all instances of a particular topic.

For most blogs, categories are visibly listed in the sidebar, allowing visitors find your posts on a particular topic. If you plan them based on your ideal target market, you will:

• Define the topics your market wants;
• Help you focus your writing on relevant content;
• Ensure your content is organized, enabling easier searching and a better experience for your visitors.

Some best practices are:

• Keep the number of categories small and manageable;
• Use your keyword terms if possible to organize your posts for your readers who are searching for these topics;
• File posts into the categories that make sense. If you find that your posts fit into too many, maybe you need to break your post into more focused posts or rethink your categories.

Tags are less visible on a blog, with few blogs providing a tag cloud or list of tags in the sidebar these days. Since tags are more free form and will grow in number, listing them can detract from the visual appeal of your blog. If you do wish to tag your posts, do so with the following guidelines:

• Avoid having too many tags for each post – 2 or 3 tags is sufficient (focus your post around one keyword!) Too many tags and you start to look like you are spamming the search engines.
• Reserve your tags for more specific categorization, keeping them unique from your category list.
• Define tags for what is important in the post that deserves more attention.

Which One is Better for SEO?

It is important to understand how categories and tags are used for search engine optimization. However, remember you want your visitors to easily find what they are looking for once you get them to your blog.

Tags, on the other hand, have little to no effect on SEO.

Matt Cutts, CTO of Google, explains how they view tag clouds in the following video on whether tag clouds help or hinder SEO or whether they have no effect:

If you haven’t used tags, you probably won’t spend a lot of time on them in the future. If you have used them, it’s fine to use them sparingly. However, if you choose to use both categories and tags, make sure you only index one of them with search engines to avoid duplicate content and the potential for penalties. Use a plugin like WordPress SEO to help you fine tune what you allow the search engines to index.

If you need to reorganize your tags and categories, install the Categories to Tags Converter plugin to organize your content better. Review your content every 3 months and move frequently used tags to a category and not used categories to tags.

What tips and best practices do you have for using categories and tags on your WordPress blog?

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Article source: http://masterful-marketing.com/wordpress-categories-and-tags/

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