Category: Business Tips

If you’re going to be a successful content marketer, start by making some smart investments in yourself. Boost your odds of producing useful content and connecting with the right audience by implementing these simple tips suggested by San Diego SEM experts.

1. Find Your Voice

If there is one thing people don’t like reading, it’s any kind of disingenuous content.Readers can almost always tell when a content marketer is faking it, and finding your voice is key to bringing real passion to whatever you write—even if you aren’t super familiar with the topic.Your audience is more likely to connect with you if they sense your enthusiasm.

2. Make Connections

Reach out to others within your area(s) of expertise. Make connections by contributing to other blogs, seeking out influencers, or reaching out to editors within your niche.

3. Think Like an Editor

Take a look at your finished content from the perspective of an editor. Aside from paying attention to grammar and spelling, consider how your paragraphs flow and emphasize your points. If you find yourself rereading certain areas, consider a rewrite to improve clarity.

4. Listen to Your Audience

Take cues from the feedback you’re getting from your posted content. While not all comments will be constructive, those that are will give you an idea of what resonates with your desired audience–and you may even discover some topic ideas.

5. Research and Gather

Develop good research and fact-gathering habits. Even if you don’t use everything you find in your content, it never hurts to have easy access to additional info for follow-up or related articles.

6. Use Real-Life Experiences

You probably have more pearls of wisdom floating around in your head than you realize. Draw from real-life experiences when appropriate to add some personality to your content.

7. Learn from Your Stats

Take a cue from the stats you get from your website, blog, or social pages. Look at what content is generating the most comments and what’s being shared to get a better idea of where to focus your efforts.

At Saba SEO, we believe in a content-is-king marketing strategy that delivers quantifiable and sustainable results. If you don’t have the time or resources to keep up with your content marketing, let us help! We specialize in San Diego SEO and offer free website audits so you can get a feel for what we are all about. Call our office today at (858) 277-1717.

Webinars are a favorite among San Diego digital marketing agencies because they are a cost-effective way to attract the attention of potential customers, clients, and investors. Ensuring your event goes off without a hitch involves careful planning and attention to detail.

1. Set the Format

Start by selecting your format. A webinar can include a series of guest speakers introduced by a moderator or host, one person talking the entire time, or even a single or group interview session.

2. Promote It

Post social details of your upcoming webinar. You can even get creative and pique the interest of potential attendees by providing a few details here and there. Further promote your webinar by:

• Creating a hashtag for the event
• Mentioning it in your email newsletter
• Blogging about it

3. Determine Topics

Determine the topics that will be covered, but go beyond the basics with each topic to increase interest and provide truly relevant information. Your topic prep may include:

• Researching each topic to find new info and angles
• Interviewing subject matter experts
• Finding interesting sub-topics

4. Recruit Speakers

If you’re going to have different speakers, talk to them about playing off one another. While they are likely presenting on different topics, engaging with one another can make for a lively, more interesting webinar.

5 & 6. Set Price Structure and Register Attendees

Determine an acceptable fee for your webinar based on what will be included and what your purpose is for having it in the first place. If you offer a free webinar, bear in mind roughly 50 percent of registered participants will be no-shows. You’ll also want to have a system in place to register attendees. There are plenty of free registration tools available, but they are fairly basic and might not be ideal if you plan on hosting webinars regularly.

7. Visual-Heavy Slide Deck

Use a consistent color scheme that’s easy on the eyes and mix in charts, graphs, and infographics to keep your webinar visually interesting. Keep any copy simple and direct.

8. Technical Stuff

Pick your preferred web conference tools based on your anticipated technical needs. Designate someone to handle the technical stuff during the actual webinar. Mute computers, check audio, and do a run-through in advance of the actual webinar.

Send out follow-up emails or questionnaires after your webinar. Doing so gives you a chance to get feedback and determine if there’s anything you can do even better next time.

Saba SEO is a leading digital marketing agency based in San Diego, CA. We specialize in SEO, social media, and San Diego PPC management. To find out how we can help your business increase traffic and drive revenue, give us a call at (858) 277-1717 today.

There are vast differences between marketing to business clients and marketing to consumers because their characteristics, needs, and buying patterns differ. And as a digital marketing expert, you must recognize these differences to enhance the effectiveness of your marketing and advertising.

Target Audience

The B2C market is much more pervasive than the B2B market because there are simply more consumers than businesses. As a B2C marketer, you must focus on specific consumer demographics, such as gender, age, income, and ethnic background. Your product may also appeal to certain lifestyles, attitudes, or opinions. With B2B marketing, key target audience determinants include company size and industry.

Needs

The needs and wants of consumers are much different than those of business owners and managers. In B2C marketing, you must appeal more to certain emotional triggers, such as desire, pride, and fear. Contrarily, decisions among business owners are more rational and logical. They want to make sure your company can solve their problems better than your competitors—and do it for a fair price.

Information

In B2B marketing, the content is much more detailed. Business customers are used to poring through brochures and catalogs or seeing demos of products before making buying decisions. You may also need to create new products and attend trade shows to reach new business clients. Consumers often rely on short snippets of content to make purchases–whether a small ad, coupon, twitter promotion, or reviews.

Decision-Making Process

The decision-making process is much longer in B2B marketing. CEOs must meet with marketing and finance professionals to make purchasing decisions. In most cases, you must cultivate a relationship with business customers, present your proposal, and then play the waiting game. The buying process for industrial businesses is even longer, as they must factor risk, reliability, flexibility and service into their decisions. With B2C marketing, decisions are often made impulsively or after a brief amount of research.

Saba SEO is a San Diego search engine optimization agency, specializing in SEO, PPC management, social media, and web development. Reach out today by calling (858) 277-1717 and let us help you develop an online marketing strategy that delivers results.

LinkedIn is the top online networking platform for individuals and companies. Besides helping members build relationships with each other, the website provides valuable opportunities for business promotion. Here are four ways that LinkedIn can give a boost to your promotional efforts.

1. Group Creation and Membership

LinkedIn lets members make and join groups centered on a variety of interests. If you don’t find a group that already addresses your interests, you can easily start one. Either way, the group will connect you with others who share interests relative to your business. This endeavor can add to your network connections and increase awareness of topics central to your business.

2. Make a Page for Your Business

With the introduction of company pages, LinkedIn opened up new possibilities for promoting as a business rather than as an individual. This ability is essential in promotional campaigns, which should link the message with the business as closely as possible. Of course, this doesn’t mean that you have to forgo a personal profile. By connecting the two, you can build your network in multiple ways for maximum results.

3. Encourage Employee Participation

The combination of individual and company pages on LinkedIn means that companies do not have to only be represented by executives. In fact, every employee at your business can create their own profile. This will boost the presence of your company on the website, resulting in more network connections and enhancing your promotional capabilities.

4. Improve Your SEO Efforts

Being easy to find through online searches is key to getting and retaining partners and clients. Considering all the benefits of business networking, profile optimization on LinkedIn is very worthwhile and will help with your off-page SEO efforts. Once potential clients and partners can find your profile easily, you will be better able to build your network and profit as a result.

If you could use help getting all your marketing ducks in a row, reach out to Saba, Inc. We are a full service digital marketing agency in San Diego, offering SEO, PPC, social media management, and web dev and design. Call us today at (858) 277-1717 to learn more!

Handling SEO needs in-house can mean hiring a few specialists or simply having employees do the work. When you work with a trusted San Diego SEO agency, on the other hand, you get instant access to a group of professionals who are both experts in the SEM and dedicated to building your business. If that’s not enough, here are a few other reasons to work with an agency.

1. In-House Can Be Expensive

The average salary of a web designer in San Diego is $75,000 annually–and you’re likely to need 3 to 4 other team members.

2. You Get a Suite of Knowledge

When working with an agency, you’re really getting access to expert knowledge from content writers, SEO professionals, social media experts, and website and graphic designers who are all ready to work together to deliver results.

3. Access to Newer Technology

Updating software can be time-consuming and costly. SEO agencies in San Diego routinely stay on top of advances in technology to better serve clients.

4. Your Staff Will Thank You

Distributing SEO duties among existing staff members means less productivity and more stress if they also have other responsibilities on their plate.

5. It’s Easier to Change Agencies

Making changes with in-house staff can be complicated. If you’re not satisfied with the results you’re getting from one agency, you can find another with relatively little hassle.

6. You Get a Fresh Perspective

An SEO agency isn’t coming at your marketing needs with an insider’s perspective, which initially might sound like a bad thing, but that means they are able to identify areas of opportunity overlooked by in-house staff.

7. There’s No Learning Curve

There’s no need to worry about a learning curve or taking time to train employees in the basics of SEO when hiring an agency.

8. It’s Easy to Expand Your SEO Efforts

If you need to expand your SEO efforts internally, you’ll need to hire more employees or add to the duties of your existing team. Many SEO agencies can easily scale to fit growing client needs.

9. Less Likelihood of Mistakes

SEO mistakes can be costly in terms of lost potential revenue. Agencies want to keep your business, so their teams often take added precautions to ensure that all bases are covered.

10. Better Tracking Capabilities

SEO agencies often have access to an assortment of metrics and other statistics that can determine how well each campaign is doing. They also have the ability to notice problematic patterns and make changes quickly.

Deciding which avenue is right for your business? Call the SEO and SEM pros at Saba, Inc. We can perform a complimentary website audit and tell you more about the benefits of working with a trusted online marketing agency in San Diego. Reach out today. We look forward to speaking with you!

Email marketing is a very effective strategy for promoting your business, especially when used in conjunction with other efforts like SEO and social media marketing. If your business isn’t utilizing email marketing, here are a few reasons you may want to reconsider.

Save Money and Other Resources

Email marketing provides a significant savings over traditional mailers. You don’t have to spend money on paper and postage, trees are saved, and there is no wastage. The people on your list gave you permission to use their email addresses. You’re only targeting people who are already interested what you are selling.

Expand Your Client Base

You’ve already seen that email marketing can help you target an interested and engaged audience. It can also help introduce your business to new clients. By adding an opt-in box to your business website, you are allowing everyone who sees your site to easily ask for more information. You can also promote your email newsletter over other channels such as social media.

Keep Your Clients Informed

Marketing via email is a great way to stay in touch with your existing clients. If you are offering a new service or running a special you can easily let them know. This isn’t as labor-intensive as it sounds. You can create a newsletter template that can be re-used indefinitely. This is efficient for you and ensures your audience is seeing your logo and business name repeatedly. Today’s consumer likes to feel engaged, and an email newsletter is a great way to maintain that connection.

Email Marketing and Your Records

Finally, your email newsletters will create a kind of archive for you. If you can’t remember what promotions you did last November, the archive can tell you. If you want to write and sell an e-book, the newsletters will provide a great window into what has worked best for your business.

Whatever line of business you’re in, an effective email marketing strategy is a key component of your toolkit. If you need a little help getting started, visit our website at www.sabaseo.com or give us a call at (858) 277-1717 to speak with a friendly online marketing professional.

One way to tell a story with your data while retaining the attention of increasingly click-happy browsers, who now have a shorter attention span than goldfish according to one study, is to use an infographic. By offering an instant glimpse of relevant facts and figures in a visually appealing way that’s easy to digest, a well-crafted infographic can be a powerful marketing tool.

1. Use an Attention-Grabbing Headline

First and foremost, San Diego digital marketing experts recommend checking keywords to see what’s trending for the topic of your infographic when putting together your short, eye-catching headline. Keep it relevant to what’s presented.

2. Have a Clear Design

Establish a logical connection between each section of your infographic to make it easy to follow. The graphics should clearly illustrate the stat presented within each section to increase comprehension. Further boost clarity by:

• Limiting your color palette
• Keeping height and width reasonable*
• Presenting a hierarchy of information

*The standard is no more than 735 pixels wide and 5000 pixels tall.

3. Choose Thought-Provoking Topics

Do some brainstorming and come up with a list of possible infographic topics and narrow it down to the ones likely to get people thinking, reacting, and sharing. An effective infographic tells a story, elicits an emotional response, or answers an interesting question–and sometimes it does all three of those things.

4. Use Large Fonts

Think about how your infographic is likely to be viewed. If you post your infographics on visual social platforms like Pinterest or Instagram, for instance, you still want people to see enough to be interested, even in thumbnail view, so keep the fonts large enough to be readable from a distance.

5. Tie It All Together

Don’t leave your infographic open-ended. Wrap up your presentation of facts with a conclusion that ties together the facts presented and lets readers know what they’re supposed to take away from having read it.

Infographics can easily be shared by potential customers who find the facts and figures presented interesting and relevant, which can boost your brand’s reputation as a reliable source of information. Finally, make sure the info presented in your infographic is factually accurate, properly sourced, and current.

Saba SEO is a San Diego-based online marketing company specializing in SEO, AdWords management, and web design and development. For more information on creating eye-catching, shareable content like infographics, call us today at (858) 277-171 and request a free consultation with one of our online marketing experts.

Yelp can be a great place to build a positive reputation of your company. Potential prospects often use yelp to gauge the quality of a product or service through public reviews. Building a positive reputation through Yelp can help increase confidence in your company and the services you offer – ultimately leading to more sales and revenue. On the other hand, Yelp can cause potential damage to the reputation of your business if someone leaves an unfavorable review about your product, service, management or company culture.

Being proactive about building a positive reputation is the best way to mitigate the negative consequence of any bad PR. However, if a client or former employee has left an unsavory review, it’s important to know what your options are in order to take appropriate action. Yelp and other similar review sites such as Google Plus and Angie’s List are protected under the First Amendment (free speech). Hence, it is very difficult for business owners to remove a negative review once it’s posted. However, the free speech provision does not cover false or inaccurate statements that can damage the image of a business. If you feel this is the case, you should consider consulting with a legal expert. Additionally, there are still a number of things that can be done to remove a negative or unfavorable review. This article looks at some of the options available to business owners on how to remedy the situation. The first thing to do is to know Yelps terms of service and user guidelines.

Guidelines

• Inappropriate Material – This means no hateful content, harassment, inappropriate language, or threats.
• Promotional Copy – You can not place advertisements for your own business as a review or otherwise. If you are adding material to your profile on your own Business Owners Account, that’s fine.
• Privacy – Do not place photos, videos, full names of business owners or patrons, or any other private information without the consent of the parties involved.
• Payment Demands – With the exception of asking for a refund, you can’t demand a payment or otherwise try to extract payment from a business regardless if you were a customer or not.
• Conflicts of Interest – You can not use friends, family, customers, or yourself to write favorable reviews. All reviews on Yelp should be unbiased.
• Relevancy – Your review must be relevant. You can’t rant about how a business is run, employee policies, politics, or other areas that aren’t important to the consumer experience.
• Intellectual Property – Write your own copy. Don’t copy other reviews or content from the web or printed material.

How to Get a Review Removed?

Yelp takes removing reviews seriously, and usually won’t remove a review unless it violates the guidelines above. If you feel that a review is in violation of the guidelines, then follow the steps below to get it removed.

1. Before you can do anything about a negative review, you must have a verified business account in order to report a review.

2. Once you have access to your business listings with Yelp, go to the review and click on the “Report this review” button. A moderator will read over the review and remove it if they feel that it’s in violation of the above guidelines.

3. If you’re using the Yelp for Business Owners App, locate the review and use the More Options icon (iPhone users) or the Overflow Menu (Android users) to report the review. A moderator will review the notice within several days.

4. If for some reason Yelp doesn’t remove the review, the best course of action is to address the review directly. Writing a reply to a disgruntled patron can work wonders in changing their opinion about your business. Always be non-confrontational, try to be accommodating, and do your best to right any wrongs that may have occurred.

5. Often times the emotional attachment to a business makes it less favorable in resolving a conflict with a disgruntled customer or former employee. If you feel that is the case, consider hiring professional mediation services.

Saba SEO is a leading digital marketing agency in San Diego, CA. Discover how we can help you build your online reputation, connect with your target audience, and drive traffic by calling us at (858) 277-1717 and requesting a complimentary consultation.