Kevin Kemp – WSI Digital Marketing Consultant

The first step to growing your sales or brand is to be perceived as an expert.  Many people will research companies and products/services to determine who has the best offering, but also who is someone they can trust.  This trust starts with your ability to appear as the expert above all your competitors. Here are some steps to help start building your credibility and get your inbound strategy working for you. Forum Posting – This is a great way to show market leadership.  By answering... (more...)

With any strategy you can sabotage your own success by making some fundamental mistakes.  A well managed inbound marketing strategy is key to the success of your  plans, so making sure you avoid the following pitfalls will help ensure you Fail to plan, will ensure failure – Okay, not the saying you were thinking about, but that is the reality of it.  If you do not layout a plan that aligns to your full marketing strategy, corporate objectives, and key performance indicators then you are gambling... (more...)

An Inbound Marketing Strategy is based on a solid SEO platform and Social Media engagement.  The challenge with everyone’s SEO is that Google keeps changing the rules to make sure that their users are getting the best information possible.  Link building was the most important strategy and that is where Google’s Panda made the biggest impact.  It use to be that links were used to determine what the page was about and by clicking on it the link the user would be driven to more information. ... (more...)

There have been some changes by Google that will impact search engine results that will affect Inbound Marketing Strategies.  I wanted to educate you on the changes and let you know how we are continuing to improve our programs to meet these changes. First let’s review the death of link building. Yes, it is true link building is dead. Reality is there is so much spam search engines needed to fix the process. Links will still have value, but at a much diminished rate and you will also be penalized... (more...)

Do you know why you are posting on Facebook?  LinkedIn going to drive you business?  Do you have a plan laid out?  Measuring your effectiveness of your campaigns?  Do you know which of your programs is growing visitors?  There are many factors that will effect your social media strategy.  Many businesses we monitor have shown that they are using social media, but have not seen the results that they had hoped.  We have found there are 5 main reasons why your social media strategy is not working: 1)... (more...)

How many times have you had to tell your children to put down their phone and pay attention?  It is common for my wife and I to drive our teenage children to a game, school, or mall and find that they never looked up from their phone.  Reality is the younger generations are starting to use smartphones more then we realize.  It is not about texting – they are gaming, using social media, and researching on their smartphones.  This is truly reflected in the latest numbers from research firm... (more...)

Many companies are asking the question – why is social media important for my business?  I can load you with statistics of social media growth, talk about the reach of Facebook and Twitter, but you have probably heard the numbers already.  Yes, it is growing.  Yes, the demographics are not limited to teenagers anymore – heck my 70 year old mother-in-law is on Facebook every day.  If you are going to engage in social media, then it should be considered as part of your marketing strategy. ... (more...)

Social Media has evolved and there are different types of social media sites.  Some are more visual, meaning you can show pictures, videos, and create more visual promotions that you can with standard blogs or other social media sites.  Some people believe that a visual strategy includes posting pictures on Twitter and Facebook.  While this should be bundled into your strategy, you should be leveraging the social media sites that cater to consumers who look for visual social media sites specifically. ... (more...)

That is one of the most common questions I come across when talking to people about online marketing.  Most people build a website, select their keywords, and believe that the traffic will come to their site.  They believe they have created an inbound marketing strategy. Reality is there is more to online marketing and being found then just selecting your keywords.  Here are the basic steps you should take: 1) Find out what keywords drive traffic – Not all keywords will bring you traffic. ... (more...)

When I am out at networking events, tradeshows, or doing training seminars I am often asked “what is Twitter?”  Obviously, everyone has heard about Twitter, but they struggle with what it is all about.  Here are some facts for you regarding Twitter: 1) In February 2012 Twitter had 500 Million registered users, but only 200 million are active 2) Twitter accounts for approximately 3.6% of referral traffic to sites 3) 36% of Twitter users tweet at least once per day, with an average visit... (more...)