This is a list of sites I use to backlink from for myself and my web design, SEO, and social media marketing clients:
Social Bookmarking Sites
You may have a website, billboards, and radio ad spots, but do you really want more business or are you hiding from your customers?
Sometimes we can hide in plain sight simply because we are doing everything right – we’re not “rocking the boat” so to speak. Our hope is that if we keep out nose to the grindstone and do everything right, business will come and your business will grow. As you can probably tell by my tone that viewpoint is slightly naive. What has worked in the past may not work now. The times they are a changing and people (your customers) are too.
What to do?
It’s not going to be easy. In fact, it’s going to be uncomfortable. That’s because you’re going to have to stop doing what feels good and start getting outside your safety zone. Are you willing to do what it takes to grow? I’m not talking about spending more money. I’m talking about how you spend your time and how you think about attracting customers – that is if you want to. You’d be suprised at how many self-limiting business owners there are out there making excuses for why they don’t hear the phone ringing. You can make the phone ring anytime you want by picking it up and making a call.
Put the pieces together.
Cracker has a song that goes, “If you want to change the world, start to spin it.” How are you spinning your business? Do you blend in with the crowd or are you a solution to be sought? You don’t have to be mediocre. You can be great. If you don’t like the customers you have now, attract a different set of clients. Remember why you got into business in the first place and don’t be afraid to reinvent yourself. It’s your business. Own it.
As a fellow business owner I can understand that it’s been a wild ride over the last couple of years. Since I created Watershawl back in 2007 we have seen markets rise and fall, businesses start and fail, and entire economies collapse. Next year promises more of the same, or worse, but we have reason for hope. There will always be a place for the kind of business owner that adds value to each customer interaction because people will always have needs to be met. Meeting customer’s needs and exceeding their expectations no matter what happens will continue to pay dividends despite the economy.
We have gone through several changes since 2007. We added more services as our customers have asked for them, such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media management, and traditional advertising assistance in addition to our original web design and development services. Jason Cobb, Chris Hendrickson, and most recently my wife, Suzanne Stauffer, have all worked hard to serve our customers since 2007.
Jason Cobb and Chris Hendrickson have served as executive and sales managers, respectively, but will both be transitioning into sales support role part-time as they take on new roles in other endeavors. Because of Suzanne’s work over the last year I have promoted her to Marketing Director and Vice President of the company, while I am remaining as CEO. In this role I lead and guide the direction of the company.
I want to personally thank you for your business over the last year and together look forward to not as things are, but as they could be.
Grow Your Business Organically
A lot of SEO companies market how they will promote your business online using Internet marketing and online advertising techniques, but Watershawl noticed a gap between where promotion stops and business begins and so we used social media management to not just promote your business, but grow your business.
Digital Marketing Strategy
We’ll work with you to create a comprehensive strategy to marry your business brand, vision, values, products, and services with traditional outdoor, radio, TV, and yellow page advertising alongside social networking and social spaces like Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and other technologies like apps for the iPhone and Android phones.
SEO is Not Enough – Content Marketing
It’s no longer enough to have a top-ranking website in Google if your web site is not converting traffic, your story is not consistent, and you are not creating lasting relationships with customers. Watershawl can help you to do all three with content marketing.
Social Media Management
We are excited to offer social media management to help your business organize and streamline their marketing efforts with a consistent message that is in-line with their mission, vision, and values. We believe so strongly about this product that we would be happy to take you out to lunch to show you how it works in a one-on-one session. Are you interested in learning more?
I just got a little scare when I clicked, “Sign out,” at Twitter and got the message, “Your account will be deactivated, Bye!” I logged back in successfully, but am still unsure of what is going on. Hopefully it’s just a glitch at Twitter and will be fixed soon.
Currently there are many social websites that have created a platform for you to speak directly to and with your current and future customers. There are also many tools that help manage this relationship, pushing the same content out to all platforms at once, or changing it slightly using built in rules. There are no hard and fast rules for the Web 2.0 landscape because it is all still so new, but what we can do is look to those businesses who are having success in these new areas.
We measure success by the three methods, “know, trust, buy.”:
Blasting your message out to one or as many social media sites as you can will help get your brand more noticed, and so achieve more awareness, but you also need to be genuine. The best Internet marketers make sure to engage with the customer and not just try to sell them something at every turn. The medium lends itself to this sort of engagement and turning down the opportunity to do so may break the trust, or the brand favorableness. Once you have established both the know and the trust, then the customer feels free to buy from you, but there is value to both brand awareness and brand favorableness even if the one who you are impressing does not buy. Once the goodwill is out there, the person you engaged with may refer you to someone else. Like the butterfly flapping it’s wings, even the smallest twit on Twitter may lead to a hurricane sale on the other side of the world.