The first step to avoid blogging-burnout is to commit to a certain number of posts per week – even if it’s just one post. Don’t set yourself up for failure by over-committing. Attempting to do too much will only affect the quality of your posts, which completely defeats your purposes.

If you fear that seemingly infrequent posts will hurt your readership, stop worrying. Remember that first of all, subscribers and other readers have lots of other things to read online. Readers would much rather wait for a high-quality post than feel obligated to skim through a bland or vague piece. Second, keep in mind that you can always increase the frequency of your posts if you find you have more time or inspiration; increasing comes across in a more positive light than decreasing. Third, your readership will build up over time, so don’t worry about inundating just a few readers with numerous posts. At first you’ll have only a handful of readers, so focus on creating compelling posts that will attract greater readership in the future.

Approach your business blog as a long-term commitment, rather than something you just need to get out of the way and then forget. With the big picture in mind, focus on consistency and quality rather than quantity. This is the best way to ensure that your blog will remain informative and relevant, and to keep from fizzling out on your commitment. Although posting more frequently steps up the SEO force of your blog, don’t let that concern drive you to an over-exuberant start. Publishing as little as one time each week is still enough content to attract search engines to your blog. About 50 brilliant posts each year are of far greater benefit to your business than twice as many mediocre blog entries.

The following questions and answers hopefully help you gauge how well your business and website are performing based against a group of your peers. Some of the answers are unsurprising, but others show where great opportunities exist for marketing your business both cost effectively and easily.

First let’s start with why you don’t want to delete negative things on your wall. If people post negative comments on your wall, and you delete them, it makes people think “Well geez, there could have been hundreds of negative posts here and I would have never known it”. This makes your business seem untrustworthy. By allowing the good AND the bad to be shown, it says to them, “Hey, we’re not perfect, but we’re honest about it, and we’re trying.” That goes a long way with people. It makes the positive comments seem more trustworthy and the negative comments seem misplaced and over reactionary.

Just for the record, there is one scenario where deleting a post is ok. If the post is obscene, vulgar or abusive then it would be best to remove it. It would also be advisable to post something like “We appreciate your comments, good or bad, but we don’t feel it’s necessary to use abusive or derogatory language to get your point across”. This shows that there was a bad post, you aren’t hiding it, but that there is a standard of decency that you uphold.

So how do you handle it? Well the best way is to apologize, request that they contact you privately through Facebook message or email, and ensure that you’ll look into the problem. An answer like “I’m sorry something went wrong with your order, send me an email at __________ and I’ll make this right”, will go a long way to diffuse the situation as well as showing other potential customers that you are committed to doing the right thing.

This is where negative feedback can actually become a positive. The IDEAL scenario would involve an irate customer who posts a very angry post on your page, and after going above and beyond to help them and make things right, you are able to “convert” them into lifelong customers. If you are able to take someone that is very angry and turn them into someone that is very happy, you will have just created a brand advocate; someone that will go to the ends of the earth talking about how great you treated them. These people will bring new customers to you. 

Getting negative feedback on your page is not the end of the world. In fact, it can be a good thing if handled properly. Knowing what to do if it happens, and having some sort of plan in place, will make this situation much easier to handle.

The brains behind Facebook do appear sensitive to this quandary, having introduced considerable upgrades to its Sharing and Privacy features. But rather than attempt to navigate through Facebook’s ever-changing features and successfully keep your personal life from invading your professional endeavors, two profiles can prevent two potentially sticky issues.

First, we know that growing a “Friend” list can be a bit addicting for some, to put it gently. And if you find yourself unable to deny a friend request from anyone and everyone, we’re certainly not here to judge. But with only one account, you may also imagine that an extensive list of Friends – whomever they may be – builds your professional network. However, there is an issue of privacy involved: by allowing anyone to be your Friend, you are making your account accessible to all those people, meaning that your personal information is available for anyone to use, or abuse.

Second, when you add professional contacts as Friends, keep in mind that these people do not likely care about which bands you like, or what you did on your vacation. They became your Friend purely for professional reasons; they are interested in your business, its products, services and operations, and they are seeking this information to decide if what you offer is right for them. And all that is information you are unlikely to share with your personal Facebook Friends. If you are mixing your professional and personal information, it’s impossible to compartmentalize the two: professional contacts may be bombarded with personal information, making you come across as unprofessional. And, you’ll probably just bore your personal friends!

Of course, if two separate Facebook profiles seems like too much hassle, you could always just elect to maintain your one Facebook profile as either a business or personal profile, and adhere closely to that decision. If you choose to keep your Facebook profile as solely personal, you could create a LinkedIn or Google+ profile that is purely professional.

Keeping your personal and your professional life separate is advisable in any circumstances, and your social media profiles are no exception. Beyond avoiding issues of privacy and of overwhelming both professional contacts and friends with information they are not interested in, maintaining two profiles has other benefits.
With two accounts, you can create a targeted approach to establishing each profile. You can add “Friends” to your professional profile who you don’t know, allowing you to extend your audience, and not worry about privacy issues. Likewise, you won’t have to worry about the “tone” of your posts, or about having heart palpitations when a personal Friend tags a picture of you taken during a rowdy party. In the long run, there are really no drawbacks to maintaining two accounts, and there are numerous benefits.

Unfortunately, due to its complex and in-depth nature, trying to figure out Google Analytics can be a confusing task. There are so many numbers, tabs, charts and graphs that it would make your head spin. One of the most asked about metrics is your sites “Bounce Rate”. I’m often asked to explain exactly what that site measures.

Here is what I tell them:

Bounce rate refers to the percentage of visitors who come to your website and leave without viewing any other pages on your website. They look at the page you direct them to, check out what the page has to offer, and leave without interacting with the site at all. As you could imagine, we want this number to be low. The longer people are on your page, and the more pages they view, the higher the likelihood that they contact you for more information, purchase your products, or engage in whatever action you want them to. This means we want your page to be “sticky”, so they will be more likely to surf through your page. There are some steps you can take to making your page “stickier” and lowering your bounce rate.

• Add relevant and keyword links into the site content
  This one is fairly easy and very effective. When people come to your page they are looking for information. This means that the first thing they do is read the text on your page. By adding links to other pages on your site, or by including keyword links in a blog post you are able to provide avenues for readers to explore further. If your site has a blog, adding links to the posts that pertain to what you are referring to is a great way to lower the bounce rate of that page. 
• Provide links to supporting information
  If you have a page that talks about a specific product or service, it would be beneficial to include links to any supporting documents or websites that would be of benefit to the public. For example, if you run an ecommerce site and sell items on your page, then it would be effective to include links to product guides, product reviews, or any downloadable manuals for the items.
• Add links to content everyone will love to your sidebar
  This is a great tactic for playing on the bandwagon theory of consumerism. Post links like “Most Read Articles” or “Most Popular Products” on the sidebar with blurbs, or pictures and your visitor’s interested will be peaked. By posting the content that has clearly worked best in front of your audience, you increase your odds that they will find something they like.
• Improve your content
  This is obvious. If you publish amazing content that is interesting, or compelling, or funny, then people will want to read more of your interesting, compelling or funny material.
• Get Visual
  People are drawn to images for more than to words. Post pictures that link to other pages in your site. Post your product images, not their titles. Post your blog posts with a picture and the title as the caption rather than just the title. You get the point.
• Maintain link-to-page consistency
  For any links on your page that links to another page on your site, be sure that the link gives a clear indication of what the page on the other side contains. Nothing will get someone to leave a page faster than clicking on a link for “used cars in Michigan” and getting a page for a nail salon. Usually the instances are never that dramatic, but putting in a link for “selection of used Ford cars” and linking that to your homepage (as opposed to the used Ford cars page) will cause frustration and early exit.

That was just a fancy way of saying “It’s a site where people can gather images and videos of things they like and organize (or “Pin”) them to into themed pages (boards). Then they can share those boards, and their pins, with their networks. So, for example, you can create a board that is dedicated to “My Dream Garage“. As you stumble around online and come across cars, motorcycles, boats, airplanes, scooters, or anything else you’d put in your “Dream Garage” you simply click the “Pin It” button and add it to that board. Not only is it a great way to organize all of your interests, ideas, and inspirations, but it is another great way to connect and share with the world.

As you could imagine, as with all of the social networks out there, this means that it can benefit your business. It is yet another way to quickly, easily, and uniquely share content, drive traffic, and establish brand identity for your business. Here are some tips and pointers on how to use Pinterest for your brand.

Understand exactly what Pinterest Is

Pinterest defines their mission as :

Our goal is to connect everyone in the world through the ‘things’ they find interesting. We think that a favorite book, toy, or recipe can reveal a common link between two people. With millions of new pins added every week, Pinterest is connecting people all over the world based on shared tastes and interests.

This means that people are on there to find cool stuff. They aren’t on the site to read, or to see advertisements. They are there to find cool stuff to add to their boards and show to their friends. This means that if and when you set up your account, you don’t want to be filling it with stuff that no one will understand. Post things that people will WANT to re-pin. This will be an important thing to remind yourself as you build your profile.

Understand WHO uses Pinterest

The second thing to understand is WHO uses Pinterest. This will, and should, affect how you gear your pages (if you are a “gender neutral” brand). There was a great article posted by Ignite Social Media recently that provided a look into the demographics of Pinterest users. What it told us was that, of the 5+ Million users, 80% of them are women, and 71% of those women are between the ages of 25 and 54. This isn’t exactly the news of the century if you’ve been following the site, but what was interesting was that they noticed that 85% of the users had at least some college experience. They also noticed that people in the Midwest are far more likely to use Pinterest than in other areas of the country. In addition they noticed that 70% of the users had a household income between 25 and 70k a year. When you put these all together it paints a much clearer picture of who REALLY uses Pinterest.

Once you understand who is most likely to come across your content, you can create boards that will intersect between your brand and your audience. Now, it’s important to note that you shouldn’t go out of your way to do this (Car dealerships don’t need to post on their favorite spring outfits), but it’s important to think outside of the box and come up with aspects of your business that could be interesting to your audience. For example, If you own or work for a gym, you could post Yoga poses, or find diagrams with body part specific exercises. This both bolsters your message of health and fitness all while appealing towards the audience available to you. We’ll get into this more in a bit.

Integrate Your Current Content with Pinterest

This goes back to the Flickr/YouTube question. If you have already spent a great amount of time creating, optimizing and posting content on any of the other networks out there, there is no reason why you can’t integrate them with your Pinterest page. Now, there are some areas where this just isn’t a good idea. If your pictures are mostly of people taken at company events, then that probably isn’t something that will do you any good on Pinterest. On the other hand, If you are a hotel that has a wedding reception venue, it might not be a bad idea to post any pictures you might have of previous weddings that people had in your venue. This way, when people are looking for wedding inspiration, it’s possible that they see that picture and say, “I want to get married there” or maybe they’ve already decided to get married at your venue, but they’re just looking for decoration ideas. This would help both people as well as your business. There are plenty of possibilities of what to share, it is just important to remember the first rule of using Pinterest for your business, as well as content marketing in general, and that is to create content that people will WANT to share.

Use Pinterest to highlight specific areas of your business

So this is the main way a business would use Pinterest. You would use it to curate pictures and videos that are complementary to a specific area of what you do. I’ll go back to the example of the hotel that wants to promote the fact that they have wedding facilities. By creating boards like “Unique Wedding Cakes” or “Traditional Wedding Flowers” they are able to make pages that are full of content that is both highly searched and promotes that part of their business. Another example would be a local Toy Store that has a special department for baby stuff. They want to promote the fact that they have more than toys so they create a board about “Educational Toys for Babies” and fill it with pictures to products that they carry in their store. This is great content, that has a lot of value to the person looking for it, and it all promotes their business.

Now, in most cases, this isn’t easy to do. There aren’t many places that do the type of business that can be represented visually. For example, I work at a digital marketing agency, and it would be very hard to create visual boards of pictures that promote our marketing business. Think about it, and it’s possible that there is a creative way it can be done.

Curate content that establishes your brand “Personality”

Another great advantage to using Pinterest is that it allows you to establish a FAR more definitive brand identity and “personality”. I’ve always been a huge advocate of using Social Media to create and reinforce your brand image. Everything from the content you post to the exact words you use in your tweets establishes the tone and character of your brand. This can either be great, or terrible for brands. I’m sure a hospital, or law office, wouldn’t want to give off a “laid back” or “hip” vibe by using slang or short codes like “WTF” or “LOL” in their posts. Likewise, a small record store, or a local bar wouldn’t want to post super “square” posts that make them seem rigid and boring.

This is where Pinterest can really make a clear impression. It’s very possible to misinterpret the meanings behind words, but if you see a company page with pictures of Internet Memes or their list of favorite movies with titles like “Dumb and Dumber”, or “The Big Lebowski” you can very clearly interpret the “personality” of their brand. In addition, the personality that your brand puts off will attract a certain type of person. That’s something to keep in mind because everyone at your company might be laid back, but if you are in a “serious” industry, you’ll want to tailor your page to that. You want to establish your brand personality as something that would attract your target audience. With that being said, it would be a smart idea to sit down and establish who you want to reach, and the brand personality that you think they would want to deal with. Once that is done, you can start to curate content that promotes that.

There are several examples of what you could do to achieve this. The obvious ones are boards like “Bands We Love” or “Must See Movies” or “Books We Recommend”. These are very clear. Some less clear examples would be boards like “Things That Inspire Us”, “Life’s Little Pleasures” or “Beautiful Design”. These have the ability to not only communicate interests, but they can also communicate emotions that people can relate to. It all depends on what you’re going for. The point is to be creative with it, and think outside the box to make content that people will enjoy.

Optimize your content

One of the aspects of Pinterest that many people don’t utilize is the optimizability (new word) of the content. Now, making the few little changes won’t affect your Google rankings or anything, but it could increase the likelihood of your content being found, furthering its. There are a few little things that people should think about while they’re building their pages.

• Optimize your profiles
  If you are creating a brand page, make sure people know it’s a brand page. Name it after the brand, add an optimized and detailed description, include links to your page and put your brand logo as the image. It’s simple stuff.
• Connect your profiles
  Pinterest gives you an option to connect your page with all of your current networks. This does two things: first, it allows you to easily post your pins to the other pages (if you choose to do that) and second it adds large links to those pages on your Pinterest profile. I’m sure you can figure out why that’s good.
• Use your links with your content
  This is something I thought was interesting, and has sparked some debate in the office. First let me point out that Pinterest gives you the ability to change the link that is attached to each Pin. This means that you could go in and change the links on all of your pins to your page. This way when people click on your pin it will take them to your page, increasing traffic to your site (a common online marketing goal). Some people think that that is dishonest and there’s a good chance that if people are clicking on your pin it’s because they want more information and if it takes them to an unrelated page it could cause a negative reaction. I tend to agree with this sentiment, but I do think there is a fine line as to where it’s acceptable.
  
  Obviously I believe it’s another advantage to posting your own content. If you are that hotel with a wedding venue that posts the pictures of their venue that it should link back to your weddings page; that makes sense, but what if you want to expand the reach of content that links to your page. Well I determined that it is possible if what you are posting is something that is “common knowledge”. For example, if you own a bar, you could post pictures of mixed drinks with the recipes and link back to your bar. Since those recipes aren’t unique to any page or company than you can use them as a way to promote your establishment, since you could make them those drinks at your bar. That is my personal opinion and both arguments are certainly understandable, but the point of this was to let you know that you can change the links of your pins, if you so choose.
• The Pins are searchable
  Well this is obvious to anyone that has every used the site, but have you tailored your content to the search? Doing little things like using keywords to name your boards, or putting keywords in the description of each pin, will make them show up in Pinterest search. This is an easy step to making your pages and content findable. The easier it is to find, the more people will find it. The more people find it the higher the odds that your content will be shared. The more it’s shared, the more people see it. You get the point.

These points are important to consider if you are thinking about incorporating Pinterest into your digital marketing strategy. If you need more information, or would like to have a professional handle your page for you, I would suggest consulting with a digital marketing agency before you begin.

It’s important to recognize that color selection can be very subjective. Once everyone on your team understands this, it’s easier to let go of personal preferences and the belief that one’s preferred colors are the “right” choice. Whether you’re a small business owner, client, or a graphic designer, if you keep in mind that the “right” colors to use may not necessarily be the ones you are personally drawn to, your branding efforts will benefit from a more objective, analytic branding process.

Thankfully, though, choosing colors doesn’t have to be guesswork. What actually makes one color better to use than another is linked to psychology. Through our visual perception, colors influence our reactions and responses to the world around us, and as such, colors have the ability to affect our behavior.

Over the years, the influence that color can have – both on mood or outlook in general and on purchasing choices – has been the subject of many studies. As a result, not only do psychologists utilize colors to get a better understanding of their patients, but marketers use colors to influence their current and potential customers.

The truth of the latter point quickly becomes apparent by considering a few examples. Think of your favorite fast food restaurant’s color scheme; most likely, it features vibrant reds, yellows and/or oranges. That’s because these fiery colors have been linked to a desire to eat, and eat quickly. How about the website for a luxury product, such as a Mercedes Benz or Rolex? Such sites feature black and silver prominently; these colors are linked to sophistication and prestige, respectively. Worldwide companies have extensive marketing budgets that support targeted research into what sells best and why, and they make a science of choosing the right colors. But you don’t have to own a Fortune 500 company to put the power of color to work for you. Below is a quick-reference guide to what ideas, emotions and concepts are often linked to specific colors in North American mainstream culture.

Red

Red is the color for getting attention. This dynamic color draws the eye and evokes feelings of energy and excitement. Since red is so powerful, it’s best to use this color sparingly. Red also illustrates how important shading can be: Pink is a much softer shade of red, and this sweet hue conveys softness, security and nurture.

In a word, red is linked to: energy, excitement, love, strength, sex, passion, speed, danger, leadership, blood, fire, romance, anger, power, heat

Orange

Not as overpowering as red, the color orange is vibrant and fun while remaining inviting and approachable. Orange can signal a new attitude.

In a word, orange is linked to: warmth, ambition, fun, playfulness, vibrancy, energy, enthusiasm, balance, warning, heat, arrogance

Yellow

Bright and energizing, yellow is a cheerful hue associated with optimism and laughter. Yellow can be intense, and too much yellow can lead to feelings of anger, so use this color in moderation.

In word, yellow is linked to: cheer, happiness, joy, sunlight, optimism, cowardice, friendship, hope, hazards, warmth

Green

Green is calming and centering, and can bring about thoughts of stability, growth, nature and money. Lighter hues are more calming, while darker shades represent affluence and masculinity.

In a word, green is linked to: peace, nature, recycling, money, growth, cool, abundance, freshness, calm, luck, envy, spring, renewal, earth, creativity, harmony, environment, fertility

Blue

This versatile color shows up in many logos not only because it’s a common “favorite color,” but also because it represents dependability, confidence and friendliness. Too much blue can communicate coldness or depression, but in general, this calm hue is an across-the-board winner.

In a word, blue is linked to: confidence, reliability, depression, productivity, ocean, sky, coolness, tranquility, technology, friendliness, dependability, calm, trust, unity, wisdom, religion, trust

Purple

“Regal” is the word that often comes to mind when considering the color purple. While an overuse of purple may be linked to arrogance or being “fake,” this rich hue is perfect to convey respect, dignity, and even a bit of mystery.

In a word, purple is linked to: wealth, sophistication, prosperity, royalty, wisdom, nobility, sensuality, creativity, arrogance, nostalgia, mystery, exaggeration, pride, confusion, respect, gaudiness, ceremony

Gray

Although gray is linked to neutrality and calm, too much gray can unfortunately be rather boring. Use a touch of gray to impart a solid, practical feel, but stay away from an overabundance of gray, or thoughts will turn toward dullness or depression.

In a word, gray is linked to: respect, wisdom, decay, old age, humility, conservative, reverence, pessimism, boredom, neutrality, practical, timeless, death, depression, balance, pollution

Brown

As the color of the earth, brown can represent stability, reliability and nature; it also symbolizes richness, depth and simplicity. On the downside, brown can evoke ideas of filth, dullness and roughness.

In a word, brown is linked to: nature, organic, dirt, depth, richness, tradition, poverty, simplicity, dullness, filth, friendship

Black

Powerful and sleek, black can be elegant, sophisticated and seductive. Black is associated with intelligence, mystery, and power, but also with fear, emptiness and evil.

In a word, black is linked to: elegance, power, intelligence, classic, evil, death, wealth, modernity, stability, strength, mystery, fear, emptiness, sophistication

White

The color of wedding dresses in most of the Western world, white is connected with being pure, clean, innocent and even virginal. The absence of color, white excels at conveying neutrality, light and sterility.

In a word, white is linked to: youth, mild, pure, virginal, clean, innocent, neutral, sterile, peace, light, good, winter, cleanliness, simplicity, security, creativity

It should be noted that the effects of color vary among different cultures, so it’s important to consider your target audience. For example, people in Western cultures often link white with purity and cleanliness, while in Chinese culture, it is the color associated with death.

Put the concepts of the psychology of color to work for your company by taking a few moments to examine the elements of your visual brand identity, such as your website or logo. With the concepts of the psychology of color in mind, consider what messages you might be sending to your customers. Are there some color choices you may need to rethink?

When choosing colors, ensure that they suggest ideas or emotions you would like to convey. It’s important to test your color choices with a sample target audience, and to keep in mind that colors mean different things in different parts of the world, if you do any business internationally. Once those perfect colors are selected, be sure to always use the same hue and shade, and use the chosen colors consistently throughout your business, from your logo to your website to your stationary.

Color is a powerful psychological tool that is capable of sending a positive or negative message, or even encouraging a sale. And while color psychology is actually a very complicated field of study, having even a grasp of the basics can help you harness the power of colors in all facets of your marketing endeavors.

However, there is no way to overestimate the importance of the key factor in the success of your social media endeavors – and that factor is time. Time is, of course, money, and there is just no getting around the fact that putting in the hours in the only way to build the necessary authentic relationships and lasting connections.

Of course, a company like RjM that specializes in social media can offer valuable guidance, such as how to engage current and potential customers, cultivate genuine relationships, craft intriguing and appropriate content, and establish a community. But there simply is no shortcut to creating those relationships, and relationships are at the core of social media. Relationships are created by one-to-one personal interaction and conversation. This needs to be your number-one focus.

A platform to stand on

After putting in the time, the other crucial component to leveraging social media is a website that facilitates your business in building those relationships. Your website should be the hub around with all your social media efforts spin – sharing information, creating the potential for dialog and bringing you together with your customers, partners and friends. It should be packed with relevant content that motivates people to connect with you or your business. And whichever social media site someone starts from, it should be easy to get to you – and start a conversation.

This magic fix

But remember, the technology is secondary. It is the serious investment of time by you and your team, joining into conversations and building relationships, that makes the difference. Ultimately, people want to buy from other people, people they trust, people with whom they have a connection.

Business transactions can and do happen on or because of Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn. You can enjoy the same scope and influence as that of a traditional marketing campaign by leveraging the power of your businesses’ “fans.” You can utilize the power of your online community to grow your customer base and drive quantifiable results. But that is only after relationships are forged. A “magic fix” for making social media work for your business does exist; it’s time and interaction.

So, what does this mean for you? Well Pinterest, to this point, is one of the best sites for getting your content seen and shared. Pair that with a better way to track which posts are working, and which aren’t, and you will find that Pinterest will become one of, if not THE, social media site to include in your digital marketing strategy. This takes the site from “oh yeah, that’d be fun” to “We start with Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest”.  My hope is that they do it right, and really address the metrics that matter. Pinterest is currently a great tool for business, but with this, it will become even better.

Now, I know what most of you are thinking “Well, I’m an auto dealer, so my keyword is ‘auto dealers’”, or “I do metal stamping so that should be my keyword” or whatever your industry is, you assume that should be your keyword. Now, most of the time this is pretty close to true, but you might find that the words that seem most obvious, aren’t the “right” words at all. You might also find that, while the obvious words might be the “best” words, they might not make the most sense.

When beginning your research you first want to make a list of any and all of the keywords that you could include in your page. By this I mean if you sell cars you might want to make a page dedicated to an online credit application, or a page with your locations, or a “new cars” and “used cars” page. Whatever you can think of for areas of your business that should have their own page, those are what you should write down.

One thing to think about when doing this, especially if you are in and industry that includes a lot of “technical” terms, or has a specific “lingo”, is that you want to think of how your customer would search, not how you would search. I’ve seen a lot of people that optimize for a term that they might use on a daily basis, but Joe Public would have no idea to search that. Think about what words, or phrases, outside people would use. This will yield better results.

Next you’ll want to actually Google those terms. While doing this you want to pay specific attention to the top ranking sites for those terms. Let’s say, for example, you search for “Auto Dealers”. Well you’ll probably find that, because this is such a general term, the pages that are ranked highest will probably be large dealerships with well-established websites and great SEO. What that tells you is that competing with them would be VERY expensive and would take a long time to see any results.

This is where the idea of “Long Tail Keywords” comes in to play. Now let’s say you extend that search to “auto dealers in Jackson, Michigan”. Now you’ll find that there might still be decent competition, but you might only have a few dealerships with established SEO and a solid web presence. This translates to quicker results with less money.

This is a two edged sword though. First, as you might imagine, “auto dealers in Jackson, Michigan” will probably receive significantly less search volume than something generic like “car dealership”. The other side of this is that it has been proven that people that search for longer tail keywords are further into their buying process than those search for generic terms. So even though there is less quantity of traffic, there will probably be higher quality of traffic.

Another thing to consider, and this is something that a lot of companies overlook, there might be terms, outside of the common ones, that could yield results with little competition. Let’s go back to the car dealership example: A vast majority might call your business an “Auto dealership” or “Car dealer” or something traditional like that, but you might find that there are a solid volume of searches for something like “auto sales” or “car lot”. This presents an opportunity to optimize for that traffic and attain results with less competition, and by extension, less money to spend.

Now I know what you’re probably thinking (I’m an amateur mind reader), “How do I find out this information?” Good question. There are two main ways to find this out: First, you could explore the Google Keyword tool and send the time running all of the search term options that exist, or second, you could pay a team of marketing experts to do it for you quickly and properly.  If you have the time and energy to spend learning the system, then by all means have at it, but there are many marketing agencies out there that have people who specialize in this.

Anyway, getting back to what I was saying, the Google Keyword tool is 100% necessary when it comes planning for an SEO campaign. It will tell you what people are searching for, how much competition there is, and will expose you to any terms that might be valuable to incorporate into your site. With a lot of “guess and check” work you will be able to modify your list or words and come up with the keywords for your page that will deliver you the most traffic. From there you can incorporate those words in to your website, and see your organic search traffic begin to rise.