Posted on 14th July 2010 by suem in SEO Tips
A website is a great cost effective marketing tool. It’s always working providing information about your products and/or services. But are you reaching your target audience? To properly market your website and increase search engine rankings, you may want to do some research to help you identify your customer.
Before you can do that you need to look at your product or service. What does it offer the consumer?
- Does it appeal to a specific consumer or a wide market?
- Will it save them time or money?
- Is it a luxury product or an everyday necessity?
- Is it high tech or does it appeal to a simpler lifestyle?
- Does it provide excitement or security?
Now you know what your product or service brings to the table, but do you know who will be interested in it?
- What is their age range?
- Are they male or female?
- Are they married or single?
- What is their education level?
- What is their income?
Once you think you’ve identified your customer, start doing Internet searches using keywords and phrases that they might be using to find your business. Can they? If not, find what keywords your competitors that have high rankings are using and make the necessary changes to your site. Pinpointing your target audience will not only help with search engine optimization, it can maximize your hard-earned dollars spent on marketing and advertising campaigns
Posted on 7th July 2010 by suem in Free Range Friday
I am suffering from a serious case of the the Craig’s List blues. Don’t get me wrong. I like Craigs List. I’m a regular visitor. It has been a great way to advertise our services, find clients and it has helped us generate quite a bit of new business. But then there are days like today. Everyone and their mother is posting for a logos or new website in exchange for a piece of their non-existent profits, future references or an amount of money that is so insultingly low, they must have no clue what kind of work is involved designing and building an online presence. Is it the weather? Perhaps these posters are suffering from a communal case of heat stroke.
You have to develop a thick skin when coming across these particular requests for services. I find myself constantly fighting the urge to email sarcastic responses full of expletives. Knowing enough to realize that probably doesn’t make good business sense, I try not to let them rent space in my head.
Unfortunately today, it was one outrageous request after another. A post from a restaurant group started my slow burn when they asked for and I quote,” A RECENT COLLEGE GRADUATE With Plenty of Free Time to Develop 2 Restaurant Websites. Must Be Able To Produce A Million Dollar Website For A BARGAIN PRICE.This is A PASSION PROJECT- NOT For the Money Driven Individual. Great Opportunity for the Recent College Graduate to Showcase These in Their Portfolio.
Please Do Not Reply if This is Not Your Case.
Can you seriously tell me that this restaurant group is not money driven. How do they pay the rent and their staff? I had to sit on my hands to stop myself from emailing them and asking them for an ten course gourmet meal for .25 cents. Why not? If they had a “TRUE PASSION FOR FOOD” and were not “MONEY DRIVEN” they would be honored to make my meal and serve me for a quarter. But like a good girl, I let it go and moved along to the next post.
And then I clicked on it. The poster was looking for several logo and graphic design jobs for 5 bucks per project. They wanted the work sent to them without a contract or even a deposit and “if” they approved the final product, payment would be sent. I sat speechless, staring at this post for a full 5 minutes wondering who could possibly have the gall to expect anyone to consider such terms and if there was any poor soul out there desperate enough to agree to them.
And then, and I guess I’ll blame it on the heat, I snapped. Enough already. I began thinking that there was not a single person posting that day who had ant intention of paying a fair price for the services they were in need of. So I wrote a reply. The lovely frowning stick figure at the top of the page with a message saying,” Here’s your five dollar logo, enjoy!” I just can’t decided whether to hit the send button or not.
