Atlanta Internet Marketing Training

Atlanta Internet Marketing Training

Internet Marketing – 12 Step Program

The class is taught by the two of the leading authorities in the Atlanta Internet Marketing industry. Brandon and Kelly have been performing and instructing all facets of Internet Marketing for years and have developed a reputation as the leading Social Media, SEO, and Internet Marketing services in the Greater Atlanta Area.

This class is intended for SBO’s and Internet Marketing professionals who are looking for a more comprehensive approach to their online marketing strategy.   The cumulative effect of using all available options to market your service on the internet creates online momentum that truly is greater than the sum of its parts, and one that continues to snowball into pure profit when executed proplerly.  Simply, we will teach you how to do it right.

Topics include:

1. Website Design Overview & How to hire a web developer
2. Analytics Overview
3. Social Media – The Big 4 – Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, FourSquare
4. Blogging Strategies
5. Email Marketing
6. Content Management
7. Pay-Per-Click
8. Understanding SEO & How to interview an SEO
9. Places and Maps
10. Industry specific opportunities
11. Offline Marketing
12. Conversions

Breakfast and lunch will be served.

Please bring your laptop.

Great SEO factors graphic

For SEO’s and Internet Marketing Trainers, here’s a great graphic for SEO Ranking Factors.

2012 Internet Marketing Trends

In just the blink of an eye it will be 2012. And with that comes the opportunity for us to focus in on the hottest trends of the upcoming New Year, and maybe even those that eluded us in years prior. While you’re putting the finishing touches on your action plan for 2012, let’s dig into some of the hot Internet trends for SMBs to watch over the next 12 months. After all, you want to kick off the New Year on the right foot, don’t you?

Of course you do.

SoLoMo

It was during November’s PubCon Vegas show that distinguished Google engineer Matt Cutts stood in front of a packed room and encouraged search marketers to focus on three areas over the next year:

1. Social
2. Local
3. Mobile

While these areas were certainly hot in 2011, the data shows they’re only going to heat up from here.

The year 2011 saw a 400 percent increase in the number of mobile searches, with 74 percent of people using their mobile phones to search while running errands. For Black Friday this year we even saw advertisers attempting to lure customers away and steal competitor sales while they were waiting on line to make a purchase, asThe New York Times reports.

Piggybacking off the explosion of mobile are social networks trying to get in on the action. Mashable reports Facebook just bought Gowalla’s management team to help them tie proximity to intent, while SearchEngineLand reports FourSquare recently released the new FourSquare button to add your place to their ToDo lists to help customers find you before they even realized a need was there. It’s awareness through relevance and, if you’re a small business owner, it’s a fantastic way to appeal to new customers.

In the face of the SoLoMo revolution, SMBs must not only adapt to new screens but also to new ways of reaching customers.

Using Online Reviews As Social Signals

Focusing on online reviews is not new, but in 2012 its continued importance will be driven by two impressive factors.

1. A Shift in Buying Behaviors: A study from NM Incite showed us that 63 percent of social media users list “consumer ratings” as their preferred source for getting information about a business, product or service. Data shared by Gregg Stewart during March’s SMX West event told us that 32 percent of all searches expect to find ratings and review information. And when they don’t, they wonder:

• Why aren’t you visible in search?
• Why aren’t people naturally reviewing your product/service?
• Why has no one used you before?
• Why don’t others trust you?

Once they’re done with the “why” questions, they simply go search for a business that does have this information available. They go to your competitor.

2. Social Brings Accountability: It’s not just consumers who love online reviews; so does Google. Google looks at reviews as just one of many social signals that will bring accountability back into their algorithm. Google is so serious about accountability and social signals that they even built a new social network around it called Google+. Here consumers are forced to interact on the Web using their real names and identities. That changes the types of interactions that are taking place. Search engines want to return the best possible experience, and an increased focus on social signals is one way they’re looking to do that.

The combination of users looking for this type of social data and Google wanting to display it is a clear sign that SMBs need to invest in this area. In 2012, the SMBs that will be left behind will the ones who have not developed a strategy for how they’ll solicit online reviews, how they’ll manage them, and how they will respond to negative reviews that pop up around their businesses.

A Move Into the Cloud

Cloud computing alternatives will continue to go mainstream in the upcoming year, RingCentral says, as SMBs look to save money and gain access to resources they wouldn’t have otherwise. If you’re not familiar with the term, cloud computing refers to using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store and manage data instead of hosting it on your local server.

For example, instead of hosting your email on your personal computer, if you use Gmail,  they host it for you. Or maybe you use DropBox to store your media instead of putting it on a local server at your office. The benefits of moving into the cloud are obvious:

• Low barrier to entry: All you need is an Internet connection to take advantage of most cloud computing options.
• More accessibility: You can log in and edit your data from anywhere.
• Easier scalability: You can add storage or licenses as your company grows and as you need them.
• Reduced costs: You’re only paying for what you use and you are responsible for none of the overhead.

Through the use of cloud computing, SMBs can run their businesses more smoothly thanks to established infrastructure they don’t have to build (or pay for) on their own.

Of course, moving into the cloud does pose some issues. For example, check out the next big trend for 2012…

Site Security

Yes, with more businesses using Web-based services and with hackers shifting their attacks to smaller firms, site security is a major issues for SMBs in 2012. Hackers are setting their eyes on small computer users who they know will have weaker security systems in place and who, The Huffington Post reports, still think hacking can’t happen to them.

Only it can. And it is.

If you think your SMB is safe from hacking because you have nothing “worth stealing,” think again. Even a local pizza joint that delivers will have access to tens of dozens, maybe hundreds, of street addresses and credit card numbers. And that’s all the hackers are after. Protect yourself by putting basic security measures in place like changing default passwords often, setting up strong firewalls, and not falling prey to the kinds of phishing scams or malicious emails that Security News reports.

Going App Crazy

What else has the proliferation of smart phones done besides make us all mobile-crazy? It’s also driven us app crazy. And it’s not just Facebook, Twitter and Angry Birds, either. We’re turning to apps to help us run our businesses and be more efficient and, we hope, more profitable.

For example:

• Apps like Shoeboxed and Expensify help SMBs keep track of purchase history and create expense reports.
• Quickbooks Mobile (Android, iPhone) and Freshbooks MiniBooks help SMBs create invoices, access customer data and manage balances while away from their computer.
• Payment processing apps like Square or Intuit’s Go Payment make sales easier, allowing business owners to accept payments on the go.
• The Iconosys Tax Deduction Tracker allows a business owner to document tax-deductible items in real time.

The adoption of business applications will allow SMBs to streamline tasks and do more faster and easier.

Those are the five hot Internet trends I think small business owners should be aware of in 2012. Are you ready?

http://smallbiztrends.com/2011/12/2012-internet-marketing-trends.html

2012 Atlanta Social Media Resolutions

1. Claim everything: Your brand is your identity in business. If you haven’t already taken the steps to protect it and claim your username throughout the Web, start the year off by doing just that. Knowem is a fantastic service that allows you to easily search and claim more than 550 popular social networking sites at little cost. Even if you don’t plan on using all 500 (or even five) of these sites, protecting your username will ensure that you’re able to use them in the future should you change your mind AND that no one else can hijack your brand’s identity and speak to your customers. It’s your first step to social media success.

2. Pick two social media sites and focus on them: Just because Knowem allows you to claim more than 500 social media profiles, doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. Instead, focus on 2-3 social media sites, sites where you know your audience is and that may already be delivering traffic, and really invest in devoting time there. For example, maybe you’ve found that you get a lot of traffic from Yelp. Why not invest more in that site by optimizing your Yelp profile, using their analytics, and taking advantage of their specials? Instead of worrying about being everywhere, focus on developing a strong presence where it counts for your business. Once you get the hang of those first two sites, you can spread your wings to some of the others.

3. Build ears: Before you really engage, work on building your ears. Listening in social media will help you identify the people you want to be talking to, the conversations worth your time, and may just prevent you from royally putting your foot in your mouth. If you need help, iGoogle can help you build a free social media dashboard or check out a service like Trackur which has cost-effective plans to help SMBs stay in the loop.

4. Agree to schedule social media into your day: If 2012 is the year you’re finally going to get serious about social media, then you really need to get serious about it. And you do that by scheduling social media into your day the same way you schedule all of your other tasks. Because that’s the only way it’s going to get done. Find a way to dedicate 30 minutes a day into updating Twitter, responding to people on Facebook or commenting on industry blogs. If you don’t schedule it, you won’t do it. It’s as simple as that.

5. Increase your online reviews: When I broke down my 5 Internet Marketing Trends for SMBs to Watch in 2012, I talked about online reviews as becoming an increasingly important social signal for the search engines. The engines are looking at reviews to help bring accountability back to the Web and, frankly, so are users. Creating a full-on online review strategy may sound intimidating, but all it really means is is encouraging your customers to talk about their experiences on the sites you want them to do the talking on. That’s nothing to be shy over. Use your Web site, your emails, your newsletter, you advertisements, and your face-to-face interactions to help them do that.

6. Blog more: Hey, I know. Sometimes it can be hard to find the time or the motivation to blog. We’ve already helped spark some blogging inspiration, now it’s time for you to dedicate the time to doing it. Even if you’re just blogging a couple times a week, it’s going to help you build a community, have something to always share with your audience, and help you in search. If you’ve been putting it off or not blogging as often as you should, 2012 is the year to fix that.

7. Read other blogs: A great way to always have something to say and blog about it is to keep up with what others are saying. Use Twitter or Google Blog Search to help you identify authoritative (or at least interesting) blogs in your space that you can use as conversation starters and as a way to stay up to date on what’s happening in your corner of the world.

8. Attend a tweetup: Do something crazy this year and leave your office. Go find out where people who do what you do are meeting and join them. Talk to them. Share with them. Online interaction can only go so far before you have to take it offline.

9. Find ways to reward fans with social media exclusives: It’s not enough to simply BE in social media. You have find ways to reward fans and give them “the why” for why it is they should like you, follow you, talk to you. Fifty-eight percent of users expect exclusive content or discounts for “liking” a brand on Facebook. That’s pretty significant. So if you’re not using your social media presence to reward customers for their interaction with you, you’re letting them down.

10. Promote your social media accounts: Have you read the nine previous resolutions? There’s some work involved there. And if you’re going to be putting in the blood, sweat and tears needed to create a powerful social presence, then you darn well better be promoting these accounts at every turn. That means making them visible on your Web site, putting their logos on your customer receipts, highlighting them in your email newsletters and on business cards, and linking to them wherever you can. Don’t hide your social media. Flaunt it.

http://blog.appbistro.com/10-social-media-resolutions-for-2012/