Professional SEO Copywriting Services - What They Are, And What They Aren't

Scott Gerber is a serial entrepreneur, angel investor, public speaker and author of Never Get a “Real” Job: How to Dump Your Boss, Build a Business and Not Go Broke. The content for this post was sourced from the Young Entrepreneur Council, a group of successful Gen Y business owners. You can submit your questions to this group on NeverGetaRealJob.com.

Today’s reality is that your business needs to be on social media, but the mere existence of your business on sites like Facebookclass="blippr-nobr">Facebook and Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter doesn’t guarantee a single sale, or even a single referral. In order for businesses to succeed in the social media space, they need to be properly educated on what works and what doesn’t. More importantly, business owners need to have realistic goals about what they’ll get out of social media.

When the right tools are used effectively with the right motives in mind, social media can have a huge impact on small business marketing and customer service efforts. You just have to understand how to properly determine and assess the return on investment you’re looking for.

I asked a panel of successful Gen Y entrepreneurs how small businesses can go about getting the most out of their social media marketing and how they can convert more of their existing social media followers into paying customers. Here are their responses.

1. Experiment With Social Networks

“Facebook and Twitter shouldn’t be used as marketing platforms, but rather one-to-one direct communications mediums with customers, potential customers, journalists, and other stakeholders. As the population of Twitter increases, and people start following thousands of other people, your message gets lost. Facebook’s news feed algorithm stops marketers from using their Fan Page as a loudspeaker because fans that aren’t engaged won’t see their content anyway.”

- Dan Schawbel, founder of Millennial Branding, LLC

2. Quality, Not Quantity

“Social media is first and foremost about building relationships. It takes time and consistent effort to see any meaningful results, but the time and effort you spend are worth it in the long run – if you do it right. While it’s great to have a large following on Twitter and Facebook, the value of your followers list is all about quality, not quantity. Think of it like this: if you had an ice cream shop and a thousand people a day walked through the door, but 950 of those were lactose intolerant, your high foot traffic wouldn’t be making you much money. To convert your social media followers into paying customers, remember ‘WIIFM’ (What’s In It For ME). In other words, you have to give your followers a reason to want to do business with you, and that reason has to be a benefit to them. Contests are one great way to engage followers, and if you tie them in with your business and give [a prize] that means something to your target audience, you can see results fairly quickly.”

- Adam Toren, co-founder of YoungEntrepreneur.com

3. Lead Your Followers Down the Purchasing Path

“Don’t be afraid to ask for the sale once you’ve developed trust and a relationship with a prospective customer. Use your Facebook Fan Page and Twitter account to ask people to take the next step, whether it’s calling you up for a quote or proposal, downloading a whitepaper, or signing up for a trial account. Repeat your call to action regularly, with lots of useful content, information and trust building in between your requests.”

- Matt Mickiewicz, founder of 99designs

4. Engagement = Consumers

“If I could talk to you right now, I’d ask, ‘What exactly are you selling?’ While the principles remain the same, social media is best leveraged by tweaking it slightly to suit the industry. There is also a misconception that social media leads to customers. It doesn’t. Social media is a great way to engage with your audience and turn them into consumers. Think about it this way – you have to attract and then convert. Social media is helping you attract the audience and build your community. But, there are two types of conversions. The first is the more common one where someone becomes your consumer. They sign up for your newsletter, subscribe to your blog, or just plain ‘Like’ your Facebook Fan Page. They’ve taken the first step! Over time, the right ones becomes paying customers. This is the second type of conversion — the paying customer. Use social media to attract consumers, and then turn them into customers over time. Remember, social media is an important but small part of overall online marketing.”

- Shama Kabani, president of The Marketing Zen Group

5. Use Social Media to Make Friends, Not Leads

“Next time someone friends you or replies to you, don’t just say ‘thanks for following,’ or worse, don’t just count them as just another number or dollar sign. Take two minutes and actually look at who this real person is on the other side of the computer and ask how you can help them in an authentic way. Provide them value and become a trusted friend and this relationship building will convert into sales and evangelism for your company.”

- Matt Wilson, co-founder of Under30CEO.com

6. Give Them Something To Talk About

“The key to converting followers to customers is offering them something that they need, or identifying a pain that they are having that you can solve. You’ve done the hard part by finding followers and fans. Once you have followers and fans, it’s just a matter of finding out what value you can provide to them. If they are unwilling to buy from you then it means they are either not truly fans or followers (just happened to accept your request), or that you have not uncovered their pain points to provide a solution. An example with our company is that we had tons of fans and followers of our brand, but not everyone needed junk removal. So we surveyed them to find out what services we could provide to them and learned that moving was one that they needed more often.”

- Nick Friedman, co-founder and president of College Hunks Hauling Junk

7. Numbers Aren’t Everything

“To gain paying customers you’ll need to focus on attracting the right followers, and not just on attracting the most. Communicate often with useful information to increase your value, and focus on pitching your product in a genuine way. Make sure you have a professional web presence, and with any luck, you should start noticing your efforts pay off.”

- David Rusenko, founder of Weebly

8. Monetize Other Channels

“The hype around social media doesn’t necessarily translate into sales — in fact, it rarely does. Unfortunately, few people will tell you this because they’re busy hyping the next big thing. For example, I get more than a thousand times the financial ROI from my boring old e-mail list than from my Twitter followers. Now, if your goal is engagement or long-term bonding, social media can be a good play. But if your goal is direct revenue, I would focus on other channels that you can track and measure, such as online advertising and e-mail marketing.”

- Ramit Sethi, New York Times best-selling author, I Will Teach You To Be Rich

9. Show Followers What They’re Missing

“You have to show them what they are missing out on and how your business can be helpful and provide a sense of enjoyment to them as well. Truly engage with them, get to know them, show them your personality and make them want to be a part of what you’re doing. Show them why they can’t live without you and be creative with it.”

- Ashley Bodi, co-founder of Business Beware

10. Remember “Top-Of-Mind-Awareness”

“I would recommend giving limited-time, special opportunities that have a strong call to action to your social media community rather than just simply pointing them to your website. Another way we’ve gotten a return on our social media is posting video testimonials that our clients give us for our fan and personal pages. This builds credibility in prospects’ minds by showing that we’re busy and that we do good work. It also keeps us in top-of-mind awareness. We’ve had prospects call us often and mention that they just saw a post and thought of us.”

- Michael Simmons, co-founder of The Extreme Entrepreneurship Tour

11. Go Freemium to Build Premium

“Building up fans and followers isn’t enough — you need to engage with them in substantial ways and introduce them to your product in a way that gets them wanting more. As a thought exercise, you might want to ask yourself what aspect of your product you can offer to your social media community for free. If you provide real value, for free, then show them ways they can spend just a little bit of money to get an exponential boost in value — the next tier of your product offering — you may start seeing greater conversions (and return on the initial investment it took to build that community in the first place).”

- Jordan Goldman, founder of Unigo

12. Foster Genuine Interactions

“First, you may want to rethink how you are viewing social media. If you’re looking for an immediate pop in revenue, you’re likely to give up quickly on social media and completely miss the larger opportunity it provides. Of course the broader goal of all marketing is to generate sales; however, if you show up on Facebook and Twitter simply to promote your product or service it is likely you’ll be ignored. Social media is about genuine interaction and building relationships. By fostering relationships, social media becomes an incredibly powerful tool. Provide interesting content that will generate buzz, provide helpful hints and unique discounts that are only available on Facebook or Twitter. Customers will appreciate the ability to participate in a dialogue directly with your brand and these interactions will show up on customers’ news feeds. The resulting brand exposure and word-of-mouth will ultimately pay dividends in the form of new customers.”

- Anderson Schoenrock, co-founder of ScanDigital

What other advice would you give small business owners about getting their social media plans on track? Let us know your tips and advice in the comments section.

More Business Resources from Mashable:

- What to Consider When Building an In-House Social Media Team/> - 5 Tips for Marketing Online to an International Audience/> - What’s the Value in a Brand Name?/> - 5 Big Brands That Are Rocking the Social Media Space/> - 9 iPhone Apps for Managing the Recruiting Process

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Sadly there’s no magic rubric for deciding whether an in-house social media workforce, a social media consultant, or an agency will best be able to meet your particular business needs. Like almost every business decision, it depends on your business’s goals, budget and particular situation.

There are, however, definite pros and cons to each approach. We’ve highlighted some of the most important factors to consider for each style of social media team.

If your business has gone through the process of deciding which type of social media team to instate, let us know about the factors you considered and how you came to your final decision in the comments below.

In-House Team

Handling all social media efforts in-house is often the most affordable route for small business owners. Per hour, an agency’s time or a consultant’s time is going to be much more expensive than a full or part-time employee.

But it’s a big job. Jamie Turner, the coauthor of How To Make Money with Social Media recommends that businesses contribute no less than 25% of one full-time employee’s time to social media efforts. There are, however, benefits to making this time investment.

“People inside can move quicker and always have their finger on the pulse of the company, which makes it easier for them to respond [on social media],” Turner says.

Outsourcing your social media presence to an agency, in addition to costing more, can be slow on a day-to-day basis. An agency that is handling a Twitterclass="blippr-nobr">Twitter account might need to correspond with the company before it’s able to answer a question. Or it might need to ask for approval when unsure if an idea is in sync with the company’s overall business strategy.

Social Media Consultant

There isn’t really a narrow definition of “social media consultant.” Some have niche specialties and can help a company’s in-house team accomplish a specific social media task. Some help companies put an overall strategy in place and then leave the execution up to the company. And others are more like off-site community managers who execute the social media tasks for the company for an undetermined amount of time.

One advantage most consultants have over agencies is that they’re less expensive. “Typically you can pay [a consultant up to] $300 to $500 an hour,” says Jason Keath, the founder of social media education business Social Fresh. “If you put that same person inside of an agency, you’re adding a lot of overhead; you’re adding the corporate structure on top of it that has to be paid for as well.” Also on the cost front, consultants often require smaller time commitments than agencies.

Companies that are looking to fill in a specific aspect of their strategy often find hiring a consultant to be the best approach because they can seek a specific person that fits the niche they need help with. “If you have an in-house team, there may be a lot of knowledge there — and let’s say it’s digital PR knowledge,” says Keath, who has been consulting for the past two-and-a-half years. “But let’s say this team has never done blogger outreach before. Obviously bringing in somebody who has done blogger outreach is really going to speed up the process.”

Companies that plan to start their own in-house teams also may benefit from a consultant approach. Social media consultant Mirna Bard sees herself as an educator.

“Although an agency has results in mind, they are typically not the educators and they sometimes only look at the marketing aspect of social media,” she says. “They may also take a tactical instead of a strategic approach. Many times agencies or in-house teams are used mostly for development and execution; they are not meant to be business advisers who make overall business decisions.”

A consultant can help develop a social media strategy in line with your business objectives and play a role in teaching your in-house team how to execute it.

Agency

Most large PR agencies and many advertising agencies now have branches for handling a business’s entire social media presence. This kind of work differs from that of most consultants in that the agencies handle both strategy and execution. Jim Tobin, the president of Ignite Social Media, counts this among an agency’s advantages.

“Since we also execute for our clients, we have a good understanding of what’s realistic,” he says. “If we suggest things, chances are we’re also going to have to implement them.”

Another argument for using an agency is the wide range of experience that they generally have. In-house teams are typically isolated within their own companies and industries. Agencies have experience across multiple industries and may be able to spot a good idea that an in-house team would miss.

“Social media changes so rapidly that when you work with an agency, they’re typically more on the cutting edge of what’s coming down the pike because they’ve got 100 people out there looking around at the new stuff and thinking about the new stuff and sitting in meetings saying ‘hey, have you heard this new use of class='blippr-nobr'>Foursquareclass="blippr-nobr">foursquare?’ ” explains Turner.

More people who interact with more clients have obvious benefits in keeping up to speed on the latest social media strategies. But many consultants would argue that it’s more important to have a deep understanding in a valuable niche. Both Keath and Bard have done consulting work for agencies that wanted to learn more about social media strategy.

Hybrid Approach

Most companies use some combination of the above three approaches. Turner says he often sees companies who have an in-house person “on the front line” who runs accounts and answers questions via social media, but turn to consultant or agencies for high-level social media strategy.

“It’s a collaborative approach, even if you go with an agency,” explains Tobin, whose agency handles the social media strategy for companies like Microsoft, Disney and Nike. “The client contributes the business objectives and knows what can and can’t be supported…the agency brings the expertise in the space [because it lives] in social media marketing all day. Together those can be really powerful.”

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More Business Resources from Mashable:

- Inside Group Buying: 7 Small Business Success Stories/> - How Social Search Will Transform the SEO Industry/> - 6 Tips on Starting a Digital Business from the Founder of Pandora/> - 5 Big Social Media Questions from Small Business Owners/> - 10 Essential Tips for Building Your Small Biz Team

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SEO Training Courses in the UK

SEO - Search Engine Optimisation, is an extremely  valuable skill.

The job websites - at a time of increasing unemployment - seem to be full of very well paid positions for SEO executives. The reason for this is that actually, there are very few people in the UK who are truly skilled in SEO - and for that reason, those that are tend to choose to work for themselves regardless of the large amount of money they could earn working for an SEO firm.

The main reason that very few people in the UK have real SEO skills, is that there are very few UK SEO training courses available. You can't just go & enroll on an SEO course at your local night school, they don't teach it in schools, there are no college courses in SEO in the UK, that I'm aware of, and there are very few real opportunities to learn real SEO from someone who knows how it's done.

I think the reason most SEO consultants don't offer to train, is that training is much harder work than just doing SEO - and at the same time, when training new SEO consultants, we're creating real competition for ourselves - and at the moment in the UK, there is not a lot of competition from REAL SEO consultant who actually do the work, and I think most consultants would agree that they'd prefer it that way - it's difficult promoting a clients website when you're up against another professional, so really for us, the less true SEO professionals out there, the better!

So - most SEO consultants are self taught. I have been teaching myself SEO for roughly ten years, and I dread to think how much I have spent over these years on ebooks, courses & programs, but I'm sure whatever the amount, I would have saved money by doing an intensive SEO training course, if there was one available when I started !

I have now started to offer SEO training courses in the UK, to help people who are serious about becoming professional SEO consultants. My training courses are one to one, intensive training courses, that include a year of help & support.

Are SEO training courses absolutely necesarry

No - they're not, however finding a professional SEO consultant to train you, will help you to take a huge leap towards becoming an SEO consultant, drastically reducing the learning curve that most SEO professionals have to go through.

What kind of SEO training course should I look for?

Look for a training course which is run by actual current SEO professionals, people who're doing this for a living. The world of SEO is an ever changing one, someone who used to be a great SEO consultant who now just trains, isn't likely to be training you using fresh knowledge & experience.

How much should I expect to pay?

SEO is a very valuable skill, and a good SEO consultant can make a lot of money, therefore logical thinking will tell you that no SEO consultant is going to offer to train you for a small amount of money, they are in effect training a future competitor, so they need to make more money than they would make in the same amount of time working for a client, otherwise what would be the incentive to offer training courses?  So, if you do find a course which seems very cheap - just think logically about the value of such a course, and why such valuable training is being offered for bargain prices.

There are some valid reasons that a course would be offered for a smaller cost, for instance a course that was teaching a number of people at one time, would enable a lower cost - but in my opinion SEO taught in a class is never going to be as valuable as one to one training with a professional SEO.

What else should I take into consideration?

The main thing to think about - is what happens after the course? Like learning to drive, the REAL test comes after you've passed & you're let alone to drive. Remember the first few weeks of driving, scary right? 

A good SEO course should include after training support. I continue to support people for a year after the course, included in the price of the course - and I offer packages for continued support after a year.

Kevin John Lewis is a professional search engine marketing / SEO Consultant Kevin is now offering a one to one SEO Training Course in the UK - available in London, Manchester, Birmingham, Cornwall (Newquay), Glasgow & Dublin. There are only a small number of positions available on the training course in both 2008, and 2009 - so if you are interested in becoming a professional SEO consultant, act soon! Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Kevin_John_Lewis