“How much blog traffic does your company’s blog receive?”

A blog is an easy way to provide information to current customers and potential customers. It can also:

• Increase your company’s page rank.
• Help your company gain media attention.
• Position your company as the ‘expert’ or ‘go-to’ business within your industry.
• Increase sales and profits.
• Assist you with keeping on top of customers concerns, needs, and wants.

Most customers expect businesses to have a blog on their website or a link to a blog. If your company doesn’t have one, it’s time to ask, “Why not?” Taking advantage of blogging is a cost effective marketing tool. Used properly, it can increase company sales and profits.

Boost Your Blog Traffic Today With Three Simple Steps

Client's Blog Busted by Millions of Visitors Photo by John Evans-Stock Exchange Visit www.thetippingpoint.co.uk

Provide killer content for your target audience.

Customers and potential customers want quick, valuable information that will help them solve whatever problem(s) they have. Give them what they want!

After you’ve polled or surveyed your customers, think about blog topics.

Example … If your company is a graphic and web design firm targeting small businesses, you could have blog posts on the following:

• How to get your small business noticed with a logo that stands out.
• How color psychology can boost web traffic.
• How a redesign of your blog can boost blog traffic.

The next step is to write headlines that stop readers’ in their tracks.

Using the above ‘graphic and web design company’ example above, possible headlines for the blog post topics are:

Company X’s Logo on Billboard Stops Rush Hour Traffic

Company X’s Website Makeover Attracts Celebrity Shoppers

Company X Big Fat Blog Traffic Results in 20 Million Hits

Use short and simple sentences.

Use bold headings and bullet points.

Don’t use industry jargon if your audience won’t understand it.

Tip: Think of writing blog posts like writing screenplays. There’s a beginning (Act I, introduction; plot point or big event), middle (Act II, conflict; arc of the story; midpoint), and end (Act III, the resolution).

Remember, blogging isn’t about your company. It’s about helping your customers solve whatever problems they need solving. Blogging is also a good sales and marketing tool.

Optimize content with SEO.

Search engine optimization or SEO can be both time consuming and a pain in the neck. You want to optimize your blog posts. But on the other hand, you want to provide valuable content to readers. The good news is you can do both. However, I suggest putting more emphasis on content.

You can research keywords using Google AdWords Keyword Tool or another program to find the ‘best’ keywords/phrases for your blog. Select keywords/phrases and test them in blog posts. An “A/B” testing is a good way to analyze traffic to see which blog posts received the most blog traffic.

In addition to using Google Analytics, check out HitsLink. The company provides you with in-depth analysis of your blog/website. Reports are easy to download. In my opinion, HitsLink doesn’t seem as cumbersome to use as Google Analytics.

Find the right ‘tone and voice’ for your blog.

Keep your target audience in mind when you think about tone and voice. Tone is the ‘author’s attitude (or mood) towards a subject. Voice is the personality, point of view, or style of writing. Examples of voice are:

• Funny
• Upbeat
• Serious
• Trendy
• Dark
• Snarky
• Matter-of-fact

It’s usually recommended that blog posts have a conversational, friendly voice. However, there’s a difference if your blog’s audience is for those in finance organizations vs. parents of toddlers.

Conduct research on what your target audience is reading. See what others are writing in your industry. Test blog posts to see which ones receive the most comments and traffic.

Extra Blog Traffic Tips 

1. Who is your target audience? Are they chefs or stay-at-home moms? If you don’t know ‘who’ your target audience is you can’t provide them with awesome content. This is where newer businesses stumble. They don’t know ‘who’ their target market is.

2. What problems are you solving? What problems do your customers need solving? How do you find out? Take a poll or survey using Survey Monkey, a provider of free online survey solutions. SurveyMonkey offers customers more features with one of their paid subscription plans.

3. Once you know ‘who’ your target audience is build a relationship with them. Or, continue to develop the relationship with a successful blog that provides killer content. Hook visitors with brilliant content, and they’ll come back for more.

Warning! If you use these three simple steps to increase blog traffic, your website could be busted overnight. You have a webmaster in-house, right?

Has your website experienced blog traffic overload? Share.

Related articles

• 7 Dust-Busting Ways to Clean and Refresh Your Blog (savvy-writer.com)
• 4 Ways to Tell if You’re Getting the Right Visitors to Your Business Blog (contentmarketinginstitute.com)
• 7 Lessons I learned from Increasing My Search Engine Traffic by 200% in 6 Months (dailyblogtips.com)

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Email marketing can be tricky business if you use words that scream SPAM.

If you don’t want your emails to be deleted, don’t use spam words in your subject lines.

email marketing (Photo credit: opportplanet)

This marketing strategy can save you time and money in the long run.

Below is a list of 50 email marketing spam words you don’t want to use.

If you use spam words, your email blasts and newsletters will end up in the “Land of Email Marketing Misfits,” known as the Spam folder.

50 Email Marketing Words That Scream SPAM

1. Free or F R E E
2. Buy
3. As seen on
4. Urgent!
5. Make money
6. Make money online
7. Make money fast
8. Extra income
9. Extra cash
10. Be your own boss
11. Affordable
12. Quote
13. No hidden fees
14. No hidden cost
15. Get out of debt
16. Get paid
17. Hello
18. Dear (fill-in-the-blank)
19. Increase sales
20. Increase traffic
21. Network marketing
22. Multi-level marketing
23. Fast
24. Easy
25. Lose weight
26. Weight loss
27. Thousands
28. No experience
29. Off shore
30. Limited time
31. Limited time only!
32. Act now!
33. Offer expires
34. Offer expires soon
35. Don’t wait
36. Order today
37. Order now
38. Bonus
39. Please read
40. Guaranteed
41. Risk free
42. No obligation
43. Free quote
44. Free gift
45. Compare today
46. Compare
47. Risk free
48. Trial offer
49. Free sample
50. Please read

Most email marketing services such as Constant Contact give users the opportunity to check their email blast and newsletter for spam.

A low returns indicates little or no spam. A high return means your email blast or newsletter contains spam words. Ouch!

Before you send out your next email blast or newsletter, make sure it’s not filled with spam words.

Put yourself in your customers’ shoes: They’re probably bombarded with emails on a daily basis. They have information overload! Give them a reason NOT to delete, or even worse, put your emails in the spam folder.

Once you end up in the spam folder, you’ll stay there forever. You don’t want your company’s email marketing materials banished to the “Land of Email Marketing Misfits,” also known as the ‘Spam’ folder. Do you?

What spam words do you leave out? Share.

Related email marketing articles

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• Email Insider Summit: Email deliverability panel recap (blogs.constantcontact.com)
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Having a blog on your company’s website or linked to your website is a cost effective online marketing tool. It’s important to provide content that will attract visitors, keep them interested, and convert them into customers. Place social media icons on your blog to make sharing easier. Have a conversation on Facebook and Twitter to show followers and fans that your company is interested in what they have to say. Show your care and concern.

Below you’ll find 7 dust-busting techniques that will clean your blog and make it shine again.

How to Clean and Refresh Your Company’s Blog 

Redesign it.

The design implemented three years ago could be out-of-date today. It’s important to stay on top of the latest design trends. Pay attention to the color scheme. A bold color scheme could work for an entertainment business, but not for your medical practice.

Rewrite blog content.

Rewrite or hire a freelance writer/blogger to rewrite old content. This is a great content strategy to breathe new life into your blog. Perhaps, the content is outdated or didn’t make a good first impression when it was originally posted. Perhaps, blog posts weren’t optimized with keywords/phrases.

Rewrites could dramatically increase web traffic.

Tip: A headline on a blog post is just as important as a headline on a print article. You still have to ‘hook’ readers.

Ask questions.

Asking questions at the end of blog posts is a web traffic building strategy that most freelance writers and bloggers use. A question shows visitors that you want to know what they think — your company’s interested in having and maintaining a conversation with them.

Revise the writing style and tone.

What’s the tone of the current blog content? Style and tone can affect blog traffic. This is why it’s important to know ‘who’ the target audience is. For example, if your target audience is marketing directors, the content should be targeted to this audience by incorporating industry jargon and lingo. However, if your target audience is the ‘everyday’ consumer, avoid using industry terms. Your message will become muddled and lost. Customers will gravitate to your competitors’ content because it’s easy to understand.

Change the structure of blog posts.

There are many ways to structure blog posts. The most common way is:

• Headline
• Bullet headline
• Information

However, you don’t have to follow this pattern. Be bold and try something new such as:

• Headline
• Quote
• Information
• Headline
• Quote
• Information

Tips

• Keep sentences short and to the point.
• Use bold headlines and bullet points.
• When it comes to links, use a different color to stand out from the crowd.

Test different structures to see which ones receive the most ‘tweets’ and ‘likes.’ One thing that never changes is that web content must be compelling and interesting.

Post consistently.

How fresh is your company’s blog content? Is it posted consistently? You don’t have to publish a blog post every day; however, choose a schedule that works for your company. Perhaps, you’ll post twice a week or twice a month. Whatever you do, be consistent.

Try new angles.

Types of posts such as “How To” and “Lists” work because they’re fast and easy to read. But, you may want to ‘shake’ things up by publishing a controversial post here and there. If you disagree with your competitors, say so. If you disagree with industry trends, write about it (or have your freelance writer/blogger, write about it). There’s no harm in voicing your opinions. It’s a great way to jump start a conversation.

Use these blog ‘dust busting’ techniques to wipe the slate clean on your company’s blog. Experiment with different types of posts from “How To” to “Tips.” What works? What doesn’t work? Analyze the results to find out which posts had the most visitors and comments. Remember to keep your target market in mind when posting web content. Once your company discovers a strategy that works, stick with it. But don’t ignore new trends either. Stay on top of the ever changing world of blogging.

What are you doing to prevent your blog from collecting dust? Share.

Related articles

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Effective communication is important for both print and web copy writing. The most important aspect of writing is creating an eye-catching headline. A freelance writer who’s skilled in writing for the web understands that it’s important to write headlines that get noticed. It’s also important to optimize a headline for SEO purposes. Below are a freelance writer’s ‘secrets’ to writing a headlines for the web that will grab the attention of readers.

How a Freelance Writer Writes Headlines for the Web 

oDesk Freelancer-RJ Nieto (Photo credit: thumbbook)

Reads tabloid magazines

A freelance writer knows that tabloid magazines have the best headlines which is why they’ll read them. Are you shocked?

Tabloids grab a reader’s attention and don’t let go. This is why they sell! The headlines ‘hook’ a reader and beckons them to read the articles.

Effective communication such as headline that grab’s your target audience’s attention is important when you write for the web.

It’s important to ‘optimize’ a headline with one or two keywords/phrases. The key is to place the primary keyword in front and the secondary keyword at the end. Or, you could just use the primary keyword.

Here’s an example:

Web Content Writers Crash SEO Companies Server for the Second Time

The primary keyword/phrase is ‘Web Content Writers’ and the secondary keyword/phrase is ‘SEO Companies.’

A freelance writer reads Cosmopolitan 

The publishers of Cosmopolitan magazine understand the importance of effective communication. Their writers create headlines that make readers want to read the articles.

They may even shock them. Talk about effective communication!

Some freelance writers have been known to subscribe to Cosmopolitan and other magazines, only to rip-off the front covers and toss the magazines. This is how a freelance writer builds a ‘headline reference’ file. It’s good for those days when a writer needs help or inspiration to write a headline.

Reads blogs

A good freelance writer reads other blogs. They pay attention to a bloggers writing style to see what attracts readers to a blog.

Effective communication is highly important when a freelance writer writes for the web. Readers want quick information that’s helpful.

In order to grab their attention, a write must create a headline that makes readers stop what they’re doing. Of course, converting them to a customer is another goal as well.

Continues their freelance writing education

A good freelance writer continues their freelance writing education by doing the following:

• Attending writer’s conferences and workshops
• Enrolling in writing classes
• Reading books about freelance writing
• Networking with other freelance writers
• Enrolling in communication classes such as public speaking

Specialize in Freelance writing

You may be surprised (or not) to discover a freelance writer began their writing career as a journalist. It’s not unusual for a newspaper or magazine writer to transition into a freelance writing career.

They’re used to meeting or turning in work ahead of time (deadlines increase, it happens) and understand the importance of writing for a targeted audience. A ‘good’ freelance writer can adjust their writing style to ‘fit’ your company’s audience. Of course, they can write headlines that get noticed!

Now you know the secrets a freelance writer uses to write headlines for web content.

What challenges does your company face when it comes to writing headlines? Share.

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Most businesses owners hire SEO companies to optimize their websites. There’s nothing wrong with this if the SEO companies do their job. Think about the following questions for a moment:

• What happens if the SEO company goes out of business? Who will take care of your web optimization?
• What if Black Hat SEO techniques are being used? Do you even know what ‘Black Hat SEO’ means? If you don’t, your company’s website could be in danger of being taken out of search engines.
• If you have an ‘in-house’ SEO manager, what happens if they quit? Are your employees crossed-trained? Could someone pick up the work?

It would behoove business owners, especially small business owners, to know something about search engine optimization. Otherwise, your page ranking and web stats could decrease faster than you could have ever imagined.

Benefits of Knowing and Understanding Best SEO Practices

What really is Search Engine Optimization? (Photo credit: Go Local Search)

Understanding SEO is a good way to make sure your SEO company is doing their job.

If you don’t understand SEO, how will you know if your website is being optimized? If you don’t receive reports on a regular basis, how do you know if any optimization work was completed for a specific amount of time? You don’t have to know everything about web optimization, but it’s a good idea to know how to view your websites source code so you can check to see if your keywords were entered.

If your in-house SEO person quits, who does the work?

Sadly, most employees aren’t crossed trained. If your SEO person quits, your website won’t be optimized for too long. Who will write the blog posts? Who will update the web pages? It’s a good idea to cross train employees, especially if you own a small business. If you don’t want to learn SEO then one of your other employees should know how to do it.

Competitors in Your Industry Know and Understand SEO.

Let’s face it; technology moves at a faster speed than it ever did. If you don’t keep your skills up-to-date, you can find yourself going out of business. Customers expect businesses to be on social media websites because it’s a fast and easy way for them to connect. They also expect that a business is optimizing their website with keywords/phrases that will help them find what they’re looking for in a quicker manner.

What happens if your SEO company is using Black Hat SEO techniques? How would you know?

If you aren’t familiar with SEO and how it works, you could be in a lot of trouble with Google and other search engines. This means your SEO company is using unethical techniques to help your company gain higher search rankings. Unfortunately, search engines look for these unsavory practices and will ban your company from displaying in their results. Black Hat SEO techniques include:

• Keyword stuffing blog posts and web pages.
• Buying the wrong types of links (you should avoid this anyway).
• Invisible text — putting white text on a white background.
• Doorway pages are basically ‘fake’ pages.

You can save time and money.

If you understand search engine optimization (SEO), you could do the work yourself and save thousands of dollars each year. The drawback is that keeping up with the optimization can become time consuming.

It doesn’t hurt to know something about best SEO practices, especially if you hire an outside firm to take care of all of your search engine optimization. Remember, it’s important to use White Hat SEO versus Black Hat SEO techniques. If you know and understand how optimization works, you’ll be able to tell straightaway if a firm is using unethical practices.

There’s nothing wrong with becoming familiar with how web optimization works. It will only help your company in the long run. Technologies change overnight. What worked yesterday, may not work today. Updating your skills is a good way to ensure your company doesn’t lag behind other companies within your industry.

What’s holding you back from learning SEO? Share.

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If your company hasn’t taken advantage of social media, you could be missing out on the opportunity to increase business results and profitability. Social networking sites such as Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, Google+, and others are free to use. When they’re used properly, they can drive traffic to your website, convert visitors to customers, and increase your sales and revenue. Let’s find out why social media is important and how it can help grow your business.

Social Media is an Important Marketing Tool

Social Media Week 2012 SP (Photo credit: Fora do Eixo)

Connect and effectively communicate with customers.

Your customers use social media. They’re on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Some of them can be found on StumleUpon and other social networking sites.

The bottom line is that your company wants to be where your customers are.

Here’s an Example:

Bank of America uses social media to communicate and assist their customers with any questions they may have.

Customers with a specific question can connect with Bank of America at @BofA_Help. This is a good way for Bank of America to track how many customers use this feature.

Your industry has a social media presence.

Google your industry and other businesses in your industry, chances are they have a social media presence. See what they’re doing and find out how you can set yourself a part from them. Don’t get left behind!

Social networking sites will continue to develop.

Let’s face it; other social networking sites will be created and the current ones will evolve over time. Choose the best ones that work for your company. The ‘big three’ are Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Tip: Social networking sites will come and go. Pay attention to social networking trends and use social networking sites that have staying power.

FYI: The newest social networking site is Pinterest. However, make sure you READ ALL TERMS AND CONDITIONS because there’s been chatter about the legalities of using Pinterest.

Social Media: What Your Company Can Do Now

Get employees involved in social networking.

Employees may resist the idea of social networking and social media; however, it would be in there best interest to get behind your company’s online marketing strategy.

Mashable’s social media demographics INFOGRAPHIC clearly shows who’s using social networking sites and where they can be found. It’s no surprise that most people use Facebook.

Embrace social networking, it can be fun.

It’s amazing that your company can connect with customers on a national, international, or global scale. Have fun with social media — keep the tone light and conversational.

Display social media icons on your website.

Make sure icons are visible on your website. Don’t make visitors hunt for them. Place icons at the top and bottom of your website. If you have a blog, include a ‘share’ button on posts.

Be active.

Hire a social media manager and or ask a freelance writer to ‘tweet’ and post Facebook status updates (manage your social networking).

FYI: Most social media managers put 30+ hours into social media.

Automating social media sites could appear mechanical and cold. Break it up by having blog posts automatically post to Twitter and Facebook. But engage in ‘real’ conversations too.

How has social media increased your business results and profitability? Share.

Related articles

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Social media and SEO are strategies to increase business and profitability. What happens if your employees don’t embrace these latest technologies? Employees may believe social media and SEO is a waste of time compared to the ‘old’ ways of increasing business, profits, and customer satisfaction. How do you get them to support social media and SEO strategies? Find out below and get everyone in the company on board with these 21st century strategies.

Social Media and SEO: How to Get Employees to Support New Strategies

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

Explain the benefits of social media and SEO. Employees may not understand the importance and benefits of being on social media sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Schedule a meeting and explain how implementing these latest strategies will benefit everyone in the long run.

• A dialogue can be created between a company and its customers on Facebook. It’s a good way to address any concerns they may have. Plus, starting a conversation builds interest in your company.
• LinkedIn is a fantastic way to connect with other professionals within your industry. Who knows, you may find opportunities to collaborate.
• Twitter is a great way to share your blog posts, eBooks, articles, and other helpful content. You can also share videos too!

Social media and SEO are here to stay. Like it or not, these technologies aren’t going away anytime soon. It would behoove employees to embrace them; otherwise, they could be left behind.

Social networking increases business and profitability. The key to social networking is to establish and build relationships first. Employees can use this tool to find out the problems that ‘potential’ customers have and then offer assistance to solve them.

Tip #1: Develop and build relationships through social networking. Ask for business (or referrals) when you’re confident business relationships have been built on a solid foundation.

SEO helps a company’s ranking in search engines. Companies use SEO strategies to gain organic web traffic. If your company uses a SEO company, schedule a meeting with them and your employees. Once employees understand ‘why’ SEO is important, they’ll be able to embrace it.

Social media is great for introverts. If some of your employees are introverted, let them manage one of your social media accounts. There’s no face-to-face interaction on social media websites — it’s all internet based.

Tip #2: Introverted employees can overcome their ‘fear’ by getting used to communicating with clients, customers, vendors, etc. Before you know it, they’ll be preparing and giving presentations, attending trade shows, and setting up client meetings.

Social networking can be fun. The internet allows us to communicate with people all over the world. Who knows, your company could gain new business nationally and internationally through the use of social media.

Social media (social networking) and SEO are strategies that help companies increase their web traffic, business, and profitability.

Employees may be hesitant to embrace these technologies for many reasons such as fear of the unknown, fear of losing their jobs, fear they may not be able to ‘grasp’ the knowledge, etc. The obvious theme is fear.

Ease your employees’ fears by informing them that companies use social media and SEO in addition to other strategies/tools such as offline and online marketing, branding, positioning, etc. to increase business activities. Everyone will benefit when the latest tools are implemented.

Are your employees struggling with SEO and social media? Share.

Subscribe in a reader

Related articles to Social Media and SEO

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Writing content (seo) for the web is different than writing for print publications such as magazines and newspapers. Remember, readers use different types of devices such as laptops, iPads (and others), cell phones, etc. to read information online. Even the internet browser makes a difference. Information may appear differently when viewed in Google Chrome vs. Internet Explorer. The biggest obstacle is that readers could become impatient if they have they have to take a lot of time to read a blog post or article. They prefer information that’s quick to read.

Follow the 7 easy steps below to improve your web content writing. Your customers and readers will appreciate it.

Writing Web Content That Works in 7 Easy Steps

Content-Content Interaction (Formal) (Photo credit: jrhode)

Know your target market. Before you write content for the web, know your target market. If you don’t know ‘who’ the target market is, the content will be irrelevant.

Write catchy headlines and taglines. There’s a reason why tabloids, entertainment magazines, women’s magazines, men’s magazines, etc. sell. The catchy headlines and taglines ‘hook’ readers over and over again.

Writing headlines and taglines can take anywhere from 30 minutes to one hour. Yes, it can take that long to write an award-winning headline for an award-winning article.

Get to the point. When writing for the web, it’s important that content gets to the point. Don’t use industry jargon, unless of course, your target market is professionals who’ll understand what the content. Use simple language that can be read quickly.

Link to helpful internal and external links. Make sure to link to internal pages and posts within your website in addition to external links that will be helpful to readers. Look for web content that is clear, concise, and precise. Make sure it’s targeted to your market.

Use the ‘right’ keywords and phrases. Web content writing includes incorporating the ‘right’ keywords and phrases for your company. Don’t stuff content with keywords because Google and other search engines will penalize you.

When using keywords and phrases within web content, make sure it flows and doesn’t sound forced. Sometimes, it takes experience when it comes to web content writing. Your company can always hire a freelance writer to handle all of your web content writing.

Write short paragraphs and use bullet points. Web content (seo) needs to be easy to read; otherwise, you may lose readers along the way. Use bold headlines and bullet points to get your point across.

Recap

• Know your target market.
• Create catchy headlines and taglines that will hook readers.
• Use the right keywords/phrase (seo) for your web content.
• Web content writing (seo) may take more time if you’re not experienced writing for the web.
• Write short paragraphs. Use bullet points.
• Link to helpful internal and external links.
• Get to the point.

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Do you need to fire your SEO company? If you’re not getting the SEO results or customer service support you deserve, it may be time to fire your SEO company. Here’s how to know when it’s time to say goodbye:

• You never receive timely responses to your emails.
• It’s always another person’s job within the company to handle whatever it is you inquire about, i.e., keyword analysis, web design, SEO, etc.
• They always have an excuse as to ‘why’ something wasn’t done. For example, “The web design wasn’t completed because so and so is still out of the office.” Most SEO companies have more than one web designer.
• They outsource SEO services to contractors in other countries which creates a communication barrier.
• They thought you were doing the SEO work they were supposed to have done.
• Contracted employees aren’t familiar with your website.
• You’re not seeing the results promised to you when you signed the contract for SEO services.

If you’ve identified with more than two of the above criteria, it may be time to find another SEO company.

How to Fire Your SEO Company in 3 Easy Steps

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Be professional. There’s no need for petty name calling or pointing the fingers. All you have to say is, “It’s time for us to find another SEO company that fits our needs better. Thank you for your service.” Don’t go into details if your SEO firm doesn’t ask for them. End the relationship and find another company.

Stick to the facts. As Sergeant Joe Friday from Dragnet would say, “All we want are the facts, ma’am?”

Contrary to Point #1, your SEO firm may ask, “Why are you unhappy with our SEO services? Stick to the facts. If keyword analysis was supposed to be completed each month but isn’t, mention it. If the web design wasn’t completed on time, mention it. If you’re tired of playing ‘email tag’ with their contracted employees, mention it.

Customer service

Do you have to babysit your SEO company? If you constantly need to ‘check up’ on your SEO company, it may be time to part ways. While you should know what your SEO firm’s doing for your company, you shouldn’t have to babysit them. You shouldn’t have to send them email after email asking the same question over and over again such as, “Is the keyword analysis completed? Is the web design completed? If they can’t give you an estimated completion time, it’s time to find a new SEO company.

You decide it’s best to hire a local SEO firm. Perhaps, your SEO company is located in another state. Sometimes, it’s better to hire a local SEO firm because they’ll be able to visit your offices should you need training or want to have a meeting to discuss your SEO. There’s nothing wrong with hiring a local company. It’s a good way to grow your area’s economy.

Fact: If you’re a part of a trade association/group or barter group, understand that your company may not be a ‘top’ priority.

Firing your SEO firm may not be easy, but it could be in your company’s best interest to do so. Before you hire another SEO company, ask questions such as:

• How long does web design (redesign) take?
• What programs do you use for keyword analysis?
• How will you help us determine the ‘right’ keywords for our company?
• Do you outsource SEO services to contractors located in other states and or country? If yes, where are your contractors located?
• How long does SEO take to implement?
• What are the benefits of your SEO services vs. your competitors?
• What am I responsible for?

Make sure you understand exactly what the company’s SEO services are before signing a contract. Your company’s SEO is important to the growth of your business and online presence. Find a SEO company that will work for you and with you to increase your organic web traffic. With the proper SEO strategy, your company’s web traffic and profitability will increase.

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Don’t you hate it when you’ve scheduled a company meeting, only to cancel it due to horrible weather conditions? How many times are you going to reschedule because of a snow storm? Use Skype to solve this problem, and you won’t have to cancel next week’s meeting because of extreme weather.

Why Skype is an Effective Technology for Your Company

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Choose a plan that works for your company. Select one of the business plans best suited for your type of business. Choose small business, medium business, and enterprise. There’s even a Home Office plan.

Reduce technology and travel expenses. Use Skype to reduce your company’s technology and travel expenses. If you have employees around the world, it can become expensive to fly everyone to your corporate location for meetings. Instead, download Skype to bring everyone together.

Tip #1: Use Skype and your company should notice cost reductions.

Tip #2: Employees would be grateful if they could work-at-home. Have them download Skype and voilà! They’ll be happy and help preserve the earth at the same time.

Improve employee communication. Your employees can work together and collaborate on projects when you download Skype. Have them use the chat room to keep in touch with colleagues. Productivity will increase since employees will be able to work together, no matter where they are in the world.

Tip #3: Have employees hold a group chat once a month to promote goodwill and harmony within the company.

Build customer and supplier relationships. Wouldn’t it be nice to communicate with customers and suppliers around the world? When you download Skype, you’ll be instantaneously connected with them. It’s also a good way to build and strengthen these important relationships.

FYI: Click here to view and use Skype cases studies. Learn how other companies are improving their communication, profitability, and productivity.

Conduct video job interviews. A video interview reduces the stress of job interviews for both parties. Candidates won’t have to sit in traffic and worry they’ll be late. Plus, they’ll reduce frequent flier miles. Interviewers won’t have to worry about straightening up their office.

Hint #1: Both parties will have to maintain eye contact — some people struggle with this.

Hint #2: If potential candidates understood how to download Skype, they’ll probably be familiar with how to use it. This saves time on training.

It’s good for the environment. Employees and suppliers won’t have to drive to the office for meetings. Job candidates can interview from the comfort of their homes. The reduction of emissions into the air will help preserve the environment.

Tip #4. You’ll be able to show stakeholders how ‘environmentally friendly’ your company is thanks to Skype. Everyone who reduces their drive time reduces pollution in the air.

Recap of Benefits of Skype

• Cost effective plans for your home, small, medium, or enterprise business.
• Group chat.
• Save money on technology and travel expenses.
• Good for the environment.
• Easily conduct job interviews and presentations.
• Build and strengthen customer, employee, and supplier relationships
• Easy to use.

Skype is convenient and easy to use. Your company can hold business meetings, conduct interviews and presentations, and chat with customers and suppliers. Most importantly, you’ll save money which can be used to grow your business — increase charitable donations too. Giving back to your community promotes goodwill.

Related articles

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