Internet Marketing Essex

You know you need to get an article written this week as well as a blog post, not to mention remembering to update your Facebook page and do some tweeting, but just thinking about getting it all done (again) makes you want to run away screaming. Before you do that, try some of these tips for being more efficient in your content and social media marketing.

Firstly, keep a list of potential article and blog ideas handy. Whenever a topic occurs to you, or you receive an interesting email or link worth discussing, make a note of it. That way, when you sit down to write you can just pick up one of the ideas and get going right away, rather than wasting half of your time trying to think of something to write about.

I’d also recommend writing several blog posts or articles in a row. Getting started writing is often the hardest part, but once you’re on a roll it’s easier to keep going. Don’t just publish them all at once though. If your software permits you can add the articles or blogs all at once, but schedule them to go out at regular intervals; otherwise just keep them typed up ready to add when they’re due.

You can apply the same principles to your social media updates. Provided the subjects aren’t time sensitive you can keep a list of ideas and links to share when you have time. Also make use of services like ping.fm that allow you to send the same update to several different places, so for example you can post to Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn simultaneously.

Doing things in ‘chunks’ does make you a lot more efficient. If you schedule separate time for research, time for writing and time for actually adding the content, you’ll find you spend a lot less time on it than if you start from scratch for each post.

If you go to all of the effort of producing a video for your business, ou need to follow SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) principles to make sure that you optimise your video in the same way you would a page of content on your website.  Video is without a doubt going to be around for some time to come, you only have to look at YouTube's meteoric rise to see how important it has become.  

In the same way you research keywords for your website, you need to do the same for your video, think about what people will be typing into search engines or indeed YouTube itself to look for your video.  Make sure you use a good keyword tool to find out the kind of traffic levels that are searching before you optimise your video for that specific keyword.  Remember that what you would type in isn't necessarily the same as your target market, so do the research properly, if you get it wrong at this stage it can take a lot of time and effort to put right.

Find out what keywords your competitors are using, they may not necessarily be doing the right thing either, but it will help to give you a starting point.  Use a good keyword tool such as the Google Keyword tool or Market Samurai to do your research.

Try and use what are called long tailed keywords.  These are specific phrases that people type in that are more than two words long.  The more specific the search, the less competition and the easier it is to get your video found.  Do be aware though that there is a fine balance between numbers of searches and competition, there is no point going after keyphrases that aren't competitive but by the same token, don't have much in the way of traffic.  So remember:

• Make sure you optimise your video
• Research relevant keywords
• Don't assume people use the same keywords that you do
• Use a good keyword tool to find the best phrases for your video
• Check out what the competition are doing
• Use long tailed keywords
• Make sure when optimising your video you get a good balance between search volume and competition

I hope these tips will help you when looking to optimise your video before submission to YouTube, after all there is no point putting a video together if no one is ever going to watch it.

Find out more about how to use YouTube to market your business

Video is becoming increasingly important in online marketing.  It enables businesses to share their message quickly and effectively.  Most businesses however are still unsure how to harness the full potential of video marketing.  There has been a lot of research recently into this area.  For example, did you know that over 60% of people go on to take action after watching an online video. 

It is a great conversion tool, useful for further engaging and enhancing the user experience on your website.  It enables you to get your message across, to promote your products and services to people who in this day and age have scarce time available to spend a lot of time reading content.  With video this whole process is more effective, with 1 in 8 going on to make a purchase after viewing a video on your website.

But video should not be restricted to your website, leveraging sites like Youtube can also help to promote your business to those people who wouldn't necessarily find your website through search, this is particularly useful if you are just launching an SEO campaign and haven't yet reached the organic rankings that you are aiming for.  Video is ranked much more quickly and can be highly ranked more easily than websites. 

But it's not quite as easy as just uploading a video, you need to make sure that you optimise the video title, description and keywords in the same way as you would do for a content page on your website.  you also need to make sure that your video is offering information, you need to be giving free advice to people, it is not an opportunity to advertise.  Try not to directly sell to your audience, people will just switch off in the same way that people now fast forward through TV adverts. 

If you want to find out more about using video in your online marketing campaign, we are running a FREE webinar on the 29th April, simply click on the link below to register.  Make sure you enter C Taylor as your IC. 

Video marketing registration