Why a Marketer Would Want to Include SEO in Marketing

SEO Crash Course to Get Found (GF102)

I felt like I was sleeping at the wheels for years and now just getting up. Truly a humbling experience. I never thought that SEO is ‘that’ important. People say SEO is expensive, da da da. However, after taking this course now I can see how SEO can actually help optimize whatever it is we’re doing online. Be it blogging. Social media. Whatever. If it’s digital, searchable. It can be optimized.

The most important part of this course is this. At the core of SEO are keywords, links and making your website search engine friendly. That’s it. The links thing, I can see now why very often I got emails from webmasters requesting that I link to them. Yeah right?

In a nutshell, here’s some of the benefits of including SEO into your marketing, even if you are not a marketer.

1. SEO is the most effective online marketing tactic for lead conversion.
2. Google loves content, so it makes a lot of sense to have your website or blog to be search friendly.
3. SEO is one the best tools to have content & keyword optimization.
4. Keywords, links and making the site search friendly, helps drive web traffic to your site.
5. Help your business get found online.
6. Reduce your marketing budget and increase conversion or sales.

Of course SEO alone won’t do much to your sales, unless you provide valuable content to your prospects. It’s the beginning. Once discovered, you want to build the trust from there.

Business Blog Makeover, Folding In Three Business Practices

Re: How to Blog Effectively for Business (GF101)

The first time I got myself blogging was in 2004. At the time, my mission is to create sort of clearing hub for all information real estate. Because based on my market research, buyers go online to start the process. And I wanted to have a strong presence online. Let’s backtrack a bit to 2003. I spent countless hours commenting, participating on a political blog for Howard Dean for President.

That participation gave me the insights into this platform, blogging, that I hardly knew. I thought that I can use this same tool to build my community online. So there I was.  Blogging my way into building my real estate practice. However, after I left real estate and decided that I would start a new business focusing on social media marketing for green businesses, I found out that there’s so much more I didn’t know. For example, search engine optimization (SEO), inbound marketing, to name a few. The more I dig in the more I feel that I need to learn. So, what I’m going to do to implement some of the things I learn via IMU, is this three business practices.

1. inbound marketing
2. thought leadership
3. education

I never knew that blogging was part of inbound marketing strategy. Ignorance is bliss? Now, I know. Blogging will be the central hub for all things business related online. Because it’s one of the best ways to not only write valuable content but also the keywords use for the post will help – get found online.

More to come as days progresses..

Related articles by Zemanta

• Outbound vs. inbound marketing (e1evation.com)
• 4 steps towards creating a really effective marketing plan (myventurepad.com)

Top 50 GreenTech Start-Up

Image via Wikipedia

GreenTech Media just released the top 50 VC funder start ups. Some companies in the solar horizon that got the funding.

Solar

Brightsource Energy: Big-name investors, a large war chest, a partnership with construction-giant Bechtel, more than a gigawatt in California utility PPAs and $1.37 billion in federal loan guarantees make this power-tower solar thermal player an easy choice. Now the challenge is getting past further environmental objections to its first 396-megawatt power plant.

Chromasun: Air conditioning accounts for fifty percent of the demand for power during peak periods in California, according to Peter Le Lievre, founder of Chromasun. It’s an enormous problem and market awaiting a solution.  Chromasun uses solar thermal collectors to gather solar heat to run a double effect chiller which curbs peak power, broadens the market for solar thermal technology and fits well within the practices of the building trades.

Enphase Energy: This well-funded microinverter innovator has shipped more than 120,000 units for residential and commercial deployments.  The contract manufacturing model is working and the company continues to grow.  There are a number of microinverter startups but Enphase is the only one to reach credibility and volume shipments in a high-growth $2 billion market.

eSolar:  Fifteen months ago, eSolar was on the ropes. It desperately sought funds to build solar thermal power plants. It then switched strategies and decided to license its technology and sell equipment, leaving the actual building of the power plants to others. Since then, it’s signed deals that will lead to gigawatts worth of its solar technology planted in China, India, Africa and the Middle East. A 5 megawatt demo plant went up last year and construction on the first 92 megawatts begins this year. The secret sauce: software that helps improve the efficiency of the overall plant. Funding from Google, India’s Acme Group, Oak Investment Partners and NRG Energy.

Innovalight: The silicon nano-ink developer recently pivoted its business plan and shifted from solar panel manufacturing to panel manufacturing along with liscensing and joint ventures.  Innovalight’s inks allow silicon wafer manufacturers to boost their cell efficiency by up to 2 percent with a low capital outlay. This could be one of the last novel, “new” type of solar cells to make it out for a while.

Nanosolar:  The CIGS thin film pioneer  got started in 2002, making it one of the earliest thin film companies supported by Silicon Valley.  Since then, Nanosolar has used every avenue of funding to fund their potentially disruptive solar firm, now at about $500 million in funding to date.  Nanosolar is shipping product in the 10 to 12 percent efficiency range and has panels in the lab topping 16 percent efficiency. Nanosolar faces the same challenge as every other solar panel manufacturer — keeping up with silicon and cadmium telluride prices and efficiency.

Petra Solar: Not so much a technology play as a channel play, Petra Solar and its more than $50 million in VC funds is exploiting an untapped sales channel – solar panels on utility and power poles. Petra has a large contract with Public Service Electric & Gas, New Jersey‘s biggest power utility, to install solar panels on streetlights and power poles across the distribution network.  PSE&G looks to install 200,000 panels and about 5 percent are up so far, according to PSE&G.  Potential for high growth in a new application.

SolarCity: Fast growing SolarCity has emerged as one of the largest residential solar installers in California and has moved into other solar-friendly states.  The startup has innovated in the installation field as well as in the financial field by offering leasing options for homes and small businesses.  U.S. Bancorp has set up a $100M fund to finance SolarCity’s residential and commercial installations.  Entrepreneurs are needed in the downstream solar business as much as in the technological side.

[via GreenTech Media]

Read the full story here.

Starfish?

What is Starfish? Listen to Scobble on Tech talks about interesting stuffs of combining blogs, social networking sites, etc.  Via Fast Co.

The 2008 US presidential candidates are expanding their web presence from simple web sites to sophisticated social media “starfish.” Harnessing blogs, rich media, and social networking sites, their campaigns scrabble to gain supporters, contributions and eventually voters.

$140M Revenue

The $140M story on permission based marketing. What a great marketing idea!

Chris writes in about his work at Glass House Denver.

1.  We placed a site sign at the construction site directing people to a website (not the one that exists now).

2.  At that site, we ran a short slideshow of what I would call benefit pictures – no renderings of a pool, just a guy sitting by a pool.

3.  Once the slideshow ended, we offered people a chance to “get on the list” for more information.

Read more, here.

The Answer

Okay, I had been thinking about retooling my biz for a while now. Finally, I found the answer. I joined a company multiple times the size of my small biz last week. What I like best about this co. — is that they’re big on team approach. Our biz strategies happen to complement each other. And with me coming on board, I will help them expand into a new market. How exciting! New challenges.. I think I was bored working on my own. Now, I feel like I that fire is back!

I am really looking forward to 2007. Cheers to your 2007.

Sun Tzu’s Marketing Principles

I wrote down these principles from a book I read a while back. It’s very interesting, the principles are a matter of common sense. Isn’t marketing about doing common sense, is it?

Here is a summary:

1. Honor the customers.
2. Organization of Intelligence. Know your market as well as yourself.
3. Maintenance of the objective. A clear and a steady aim.
4. A secure position occupy a position that cannot easily be taken by your opponents.
5. Offensive Action. Keep on the offensive to secure freedom of action.
6. Surprise. Surprise is the best way to gain psychological dominance and deny the initiative to your opponent.
7. Maneuver. The easiest route, are the most heavily defended. The longest way around can be the shortest way home.
8. Concentration of resources.
9. Economy of force. Assess accurately where to employ your resources.
10. Command structure. The management process unleashes the power of human resources.
11. Personal leadership.
12. Simplicity. Even the simplest plan are difficult to execute.

I agree with some, not all. Not all is applicable to small business owners. The numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 8, 11, and 12 — should be automatically part of running a small biz, especially the strategy for building and maintaining relationship with customers. Customers is the backbone for all businesses, regardless of sizes. Without customers — our business wouldn’t exist!

Sometime ago, I bought a poster that says,

If you don’t take care of your customers, somebody else will.

It’s so true. So, honor your customers. When you do the extra mile, even if it doesn’t pay off in the beginnning (read: you lose money on the deal).. in the long run, it will pay off by leaps and bounds.

Kaizen

Many folks in my industry I heard been complaining about the drop in their revenues. I didn’t realize how much my income has dropped since the beginning of the year until a few days ago.

A couple of days ago, I had a chance to sit down and look at the numbers — how far off from my goals. It hurts when reality sucks. YTD sales drop by 30% for the same period last year. I remember last year, I closed a couple of sales heading up to December. This time of the year.. I am not sure anymore, while my feelings is okay. I am not panic. I am okay for the most part even though, this is a hard reality.

I thought to myself “I have to change my approach..if I want to survive!” Right now, I am on survival mode. There’s no question about it. My attitude changes. Do I want to be independent, a lone operator or, would I be better off joining a team? I am not so much worry about the short term progress, but I am more in tune look at what lies ahead of me. What is the future for this biz? What kind of future do I want to create for this business? What can I do to turn around the situation and be prosperous. I don’t have the answer right now. In fact, I am still searching for the answer. Deep inside I know one thing. I have to change my strategy! Marketing strategy. Sales strategy. Follow up strategy. Closing strategy. Etc. Those are some of the things I want to continue working on. To turn around the biz, I will do whatever it takes.

In short… continue making improvement and I will survive!

Bad Policy

Yesterday, I called Artisan Funds to redeem shares (that’s the lingo for cashing in shares). I was told by their account rep that I can’t redeem a small amount.. a couple hundred dollars, because they have a policy that shareholders can only redeem shares in the amount of not less than $500! I don’t have $500 in that account. She went on to say, the only other option I have was to close the account, then it’s okay. But, I didn’t give in — instead I told her that I did the same thing a couple of months ago. She says, “can I put you on hold?” .. sure, I said. Then she came back and said that the last time I cashed in my shares, they didn’t catch it! What?

I told the rep to close my account. I was so p’d off. So, she went on processing my request.. then later, what about your monthly asset builder plan, “will you still want to continue?” This is ridiculous. How could you technically close an account and still have asset builder (monthly savings) plan coming in. I don’t understand.

It’s already bad policy when a shareholder (I don’t care how small) can’t even access the money in the account. It’s worse when you still can continue to save money regularly even though the account is technically close. They should allow investors to have an easy access to the account…. after all this is not an IRA or a retirement account. And make things easier for shareholders. Providing great customer service or customer care should be the top priority for any organization regardless of size.

What’s In A Blog?

USA Today has this story about how blogs help small businesses.

“Hunting for ways to boost revenue, a growing number of small businesses are adding another weapon to their marketing arsenal: blogging.

A blog lures more traffic to a company’s website because it improves chances the site will reach the top of search-engine results. Blogs are easier and cheaper to update than conventional sites. And they encourage customer feedback on new products and services.”

A blog is probably the cheapest PR machine you can ever invest for your business. You don’t need consultants to write for your blog. This is how a small biz can compete with big businesses. Not only a blog helps build your devoted readers but also would help get noticed.. on the Web. I have been blogging for business for almost two years. Started blogging because of political involvement. I saw how a blog can help build a net-community. So, I decided to try it. The blog helps catapult the business to a new level. I got a lot of mileage for the business since then.