Why Does My Business Need A YouTube Account?

What is YouTube?

Owned by Google, YouTube is the web’s most popular video sharing website and the fourth most popular site overall. Although it carries a bit of a reputation for users uploading copyright-infringing material, the site is also a haven for video makers, producers and companies sharing original work and is used by some of the world’s top brands.

Adding videos to your repertoire of marketing tools can lead to a huge upsurge in your site traffic and press coverage. YouTube is big on sharing its videos and anything uploaded on the site can be shared on Twitter, Facebook and many of the smaller networks with a few clicks.

It’s also possible to comment on videos and get feedback from your customers that way and many companies use YouTube as a way to hold contests with a bit of pizazz.

General use of the site is free, but by becoming a YouTube Partner you can get extra benefits such as customising your profile page, generating revenue and keeping hold of the copyright of videos you upload. Becoming a partner is also said to boost your video up the searches made on YouTube.

Benefits

There’s a lot of talk about videos going viral – that is that they become so popular everyone has seen them and talks about them – but this is easier said than done. If achieved, your business will enjoy the limelight of the internet and articles, Facebook fan pages and like after like will find its way to you on YouTube. The problem, however, is that what goes viral is rarely a deliberate act and is more likely to be made by an individual than a company.

YouTube is not only a great platform for sharing your video with users of the site, it’s great for hosting large videos that would otherwise eat into your hosting space. These can easily be embedded on your homepage, your blog and be used by others, further spreading your message.

Having a host of videos helps with your SEO as you can take advantage of universal search results. Google continues to experiment with what it can place on the pages of search results and videos, especially from the site it owns, often feature prominently.

Use videos to show a more creative and personal side to your business. Instead of releasing a press release with your CEO’s words in print, film him and embed that with your PR. Film ‘how to’ videos or speakers at a conference to share your expertise on your industry.

When looking for videos, most web users head straight to YouTube so it makes sense to have your content where they’re likely to find it. This will increase your exposure and your chances to connect with your customers.

Risks

Going viral works both ways. Create something terrible that you’d rather forget about and it could quickly spread round the world. Still, there’s no thing as bad publicity…

If you don’t sign up as a partner, the copyright and distribution rights for any video you upload are handed over to YouTube.

Many people watching videos on YouTube are there to do so for pleasure. There’s a fine line between joining in and trying to takeover by posting business-related videos there.

Although comments and communication is encouraged, there are many people who may take the chance to badmouth your company or product. How you deal with those comments, and how many times they are read, can have serious implications for your company. There’s also no control over the related links that YouTube decides to show with your video and they may show videos that people think your company is suggesting which you’d rather distance yourself from.

Make sure that you upload videos in high quality that reflects well on you. Check your upload as soon as it’s online to make sure it gives a good representation of your company. Low level quality videos often get stopped before a user has finished watching them.

If you use music or any clips in your video, be sure that you have the correct permissions or that they are royalty free to include these.

Tools

YouTube editor is an online tool that makes minor tweaks to a complete video. You can’t edit individal frames, but you can tweak the brightness, contrast and iron out the bumps created by an unsteady hand.

As well as the Google Adwords tool, there’s a tool available specifically to help you find keywords for your videos, using data specific to YouTube to help you rank better on the site.

One of My First Dallas Small Business SEO and Internet Marketing Clients is Killing It!

One of my first and oldest Dallas small business holistic seo internet marketing client is Jason Phan of JPImportz:

Jason Phan of JP Importz.org, was invited by SMB SEO to attend last nights DFWSEM meeting (Dallas Search Engine Marketing Association was the first local search engine marketing professionals associations) where we discussed topics related to recent events such as the Google “Farmer” or Panda Update geared at low quality content and the buying process.  JP Importz is an independent Dallas Lexus Repair that is located in Garland Tx. JP Importz is not a dealership. Years and years ago, while I working for Verizon Yellow Pages and SuperPages.com, I sold Jason an ad in the Garland and Plano Yellow Pages. Worse mistake I could have ever made. It ended up costing him to the tune of around $8,000 in wasted marketing resources. The ad failed horribly. But I also happened to sell him a valuable link (from SuperPages) and expert advice on his SEO and PPC efforts. I helped him with his On-site SEO (mostly page titles and descriptions and some content at the time) and PPC campaigns.

With my advice while working at Verizon SuperPages, Jason began implementing strategies, such as becoming a Lexus Repair Expert on AllExperts.com and a somewhat blackhat seo at the time Google local listing strategy that focused on keywords in the listing name, something that no longer passes the spam sniff test with Google’s head of web spam Matt Cutts. Jason also ran into issues with the trademark and trade name Adwords policies related to Lexus, another policy that Google has since reversed.

Jason’s internet marketing success can be attributed to effort, great customer service, and a holistic approach. But when you ask Jason what holistic local search marketing is, he probably could only refer you to me!

Jason has also built an excellent strategy with video reviews and testimonials, with a budget of almost nothing. Take a look at how many times his business name or content ranks on the first page. In fact, his video ranks on the first page of Google for Dallas Lexus Repair!

Jason’s most recent web site rebuild  consisted of a Joomla CMS (content management system) and he is looking to begin a healthy blog.

JPImportz also has excellent reviews and testimonials from real customers who love his Lexus repair work on his Google Places account. His business is not located in Dallas or Plano but ranks well for those geographies from the overall score of his Google Places account that includes a tremendous amount of citations.

Due to customer demand Jason, a former Lexus Dealership Service Technician, recently went back to automotive school to get his certifications on BMW repair and the company will be adding that service.

I wish Jason the best! He surely deserves it! The guy is a master at Lexus and Auto Service.

A Holistic Dallas Internet Marketing Expert Is Hard To Find

Holistic  Internet Marketing includes the practice of Search Engine Optimization combined with a holistic approach. It recognizes that there are several important factors that go into creating a successful website and web presence. Holistic search marketing does not combat SEO vs PPC for ones marketing budget, but realizes that they must work together to achieve a great return on investment.

What makes a Dallas Internet Marketing expert so indispensable in business is his or her understanding and connection to local conditions.  Understanding the local scene can take time for any beginning consultant and hence this would not be the way to go if you need to hit the ground running any time soon.  With my experience in the Dallas market, I, Mike Stewart, know more than a handful of demographic facts, which sets this market apart from all the markets of the world.  While it is true that the World Wide Web has transformed the planet into a global village, local realities should never be sacrificed in any serious marketing campaign.  For example, a Dallas resident would have certain word preferences when it comes to searching for something on the Web.  Understanding these preferences can spell the difference between the success or failure of a campaign.  As the saying goes, when in Rome do as the Romans.

At the same time, as a Dallas Internet marketing expert operating in the city, I daresay there are also certain qualities, which the Dallas consumer shares with the rest of the world.  First, Dallas is truly a cosmopolitan city with all the trappings of wealth and politics.  This is why a campaign that has launched and proven its mettle in Manhattan or Los Angeles is also likely to succeed here.  Only a few modifications are usually needed to transplant such undertaking.  Still, the question of which parts of the campaign to tweak to suit the Dallas audience would still depend to a great extent on the quintessential marketing operator in the area of which I am one of the few.  Truly, you cannot go wrong with my years of experience.  By hiring me or my firm, you get the best of both worlds, someone with a local perspective who is likewise experienced in global commerce.

Internet commerce is here to stay.  In fact, it is almost scary to imagine that there is hardly anything it has not touched in its path.  Whenever it does, it has such a transformative power that it rarely leaves the subject unchanged.  Just one such transformative tool in the Information Superhighway is SEO or the acronym for Search Engine Optimization that no doubt you have heard of as it is a buzzword that network marketers just love to toss around these days.

While every web commerce site is different and has different SEO needs, under my tutelage my solution for your Dallas business will usually consist of the following:

•An SEO analysis to see what you are doing right and wrong
•A detailed SEO strategy outlining a solution custom-fit to your business
•A blanket list of fully researched and tested keywords to increase your site’s popularity and ranking
•Specific changes to your site’s HTML coding for both search engine and surfer appeal
•Important data on what your key competitors are doing, SEO-wise
•A content-specific solution to SEO deficiencies in your site
•Recommended links to utilize in order to make your site Google friendly at the very least
•Optimized Frequently Asked Questions or FAQs
•Your turnkey Google account for real time self-monitoring purposes

As your Dallas Internet marketing expert of choice, I prefer to operate on an open, no-contract basis unless you prefer otherwise.  You can also compensate me for my services through any of the major credit cards.  I would gladly consider any profit sharing or commission marketing arrangement, provided it would be mutually beneficial to our partnership.  In closing, I just would like to say that if your business is suffering from the economic crunch, Web commerce is definitely one way to get out of this trap.  I look forward to hearing from you.

Having A Website Isn’t Just Window Dressing Anymore, Findability is the Key!

Findability is the ability of brands and their associated content to be discovered by people.

An estimated 360 million people around the world are internet users and fading way from the days of advertising in newspapers, magazines and other print media.  Text ads, pay per click advertising, article and keyword marketing and other online advertising tactics swirl around what some are saying is the death of the print industry all together.  Businesses today lose market share, sales, and other opportunities if they are not developing a strong web presence.  Advertising your business online does not just mean convenience for consumers anymore.  It opens up a world of highly detailed and accurate market data that companies only dreamed of before the days of the internet.  

A societal shift

All the way up to two decades ago, consumers shopping for services either picked up a phone book, looked in the classifieds, or used word of mouth to do things like find jobs, find products or services and get information.  The only other alternative was to drive to businesses to acquire these things.  Today, many people take to the web because they think the information contained there is just as good as a referral from a friend or family member.  It is so easy if a person has a computer to check and see if they can find information, products or services that they need online before spending resources on leaving their home.  Capabilities of major search engines have also become very advanced to deliver the most relevant search results to users based on the area they are in, any stored preferences if they are searching from a personal machine and thousands of results are delivered in less than a second.  The migration toward getting information from the web is even more prevalent among younger generations who may get most of their news from the web or mobile devices and no longer have a need for phone books or other print media.  In this economic climate it is more important than ever for businesses to develop a strong and reliable web presence no matter what industry they are in.   

Why online marketing is better than any other option

In the beginning all that was available to companies was print advertising.  Radio came along and that was an even hotter venue.  Television has remained king since its mass production and continues to be one the most dominant forms of media message delivery.  When companies decide to devote advertising dollars to a campaign on television or even print and radio, they have some tools at their disposal to track if their efforts have been successful.  Neilson ratings help them decide which shows in their target demographic will be the best to buy ad time in and radio stations keep track of the volume of listeners that they can reach.  On its face this should be good enough to know if a business’s dollars are being spent effectively. 

The internet however has proven that companies can get data that is hundreds of times more accurate in order to get their message through to consumers.  For instance Google Adwords campaigns allow businesses to generate keywords that their potential customers may type into a search engine to find products or services.  Ad text can then be developed to appear alongside search results that are highly relevant to a users search query.  An ad can also be designed to take users directly to a web or landing page that is also highly relevant to the search query.  Various tactics in SEO or search engine optimization applied to a landing page can make a users experience easy and fast.  Google analytics, a data collection tool, has the potential to track any type of behavior once a user arrives at a website from the buttons they clicked on to the products they are looking at.  

The great part is that there are already well established companies that specialize in SEO and web marketing services.  For instance, Mike Stewart, a Dallas Online Marketing Expert, is director of SMBSEO; a company that provides online marketing and search engine optimization services to companies in North Texas.  When a client signs up with SMBSEO, they get a variety of services that enable them to create a more user friendly web experience for end users as well as web marketing services that are focused and effective.  Clients can expect their sites to be reviewed for optimization or, in other words, a breakdown of how effective a site is at being easy to use, functional, and easy to find by search engines.  Next, SMBSEO develops a step by step strategy on how to improve the site or its advertising to drive more traffic to it.  This can include tasks such as adding title or meta description tags that are relevant to user’s search query, writing of specially designed content, marketing tactics such as off-site articles highlighting products or services and loads of support for SEO and marketing questions.  SMBSEO offers these cutting edge and effective services at fair prices and they operate under a results driven model of business.      

Dallas SEO Web Design is crucial for internet marketing success

Having a website use to be about sharing additional information, prior to the shift from traditional media to digital media. Websites used to cost tens of thousands of dollars and SEO was all about on-page optimization of content with meta-tags and keyword stuffing. Today, in order to succeed online, businesses must incorporate SEO Web Design. Dallas SEO Web Design firm SMBSEO provides small businesses with website design that includes not only technical SEO, such as page titles and descriptions, but also provides web design with content strategy and optimization. Each type of content, whether video, image, or text, will be search engine optimized so that search engines can understand the purpose, meaning, or intent of the content and properly credit it towards one of the SMBSEO clients keyword objectives. This SEO Web Design strategy is something that previous website designers and developers neglected, not because of skill, but because of ignorance. Traditionally website design was performed not by experienced search engine marketers or engineers, but by internet technology professionals and graphic design artists. IT Professionals and graphic design artists are not experienced with technical SEO, much less marketing methods such as content strategy and content distribution.

If your small business or corporation needs help with website redesign, search engine optimization, or content strategy give Mike Stewart and his team at SMBSEO a call today, you will be glad you did!

Dallas SEO Firm Specializes in Content Writing and Strategy

It may be thought by some that content is only a description of what you have to offer potential clientele. This could not be farther from the truth. It is important to create a fabulous mental image while they read your text. When you find a way to illuminate the readers interests and imagination you are well on your way to finding yet another customer. Dallas SEO Firm SMB SEO, who specializes in Content Writing and Strategy, will be your open door to getting where you want to be with your product and company.

The main part of a great SEO strategy is to fill your web site with intelligent content. This must all be relevant to the section of the page they are on. This requires good organization skills. Not everyone has them. The team of content experts will give you a comprehensive way to fill up each line with some new word or phrase that will keep the reader focused and wanting to read more. This is the secret to filling up the page and getting more hits and ultimately making more sales.

Of course, while writing thrilling pieces of web literature you want them to learn more about you and what you are about. This is going to be the tricky part. Basic, vanilla flavored information will get them to taste it but probably will not take them to the end of your page. It also will not get them to look at other parts of the site you have built. Each piece should have a whole different genre of things they can learn from it. Tell them about this specific aspect of the service and let them know how it will help them in the long run or even the short run.

The development of your web page and site is going to have to be unique to your product. There are similar sites that offer the same items as you. This is just like having three grocery stores in the same town. The part that will have them coming to yours instead of the others will be the creation of unique content. Experts in the field of SEO content and copywirting, they have spent hours working with pages and looking at ways to build templates that will make it easier for clients to be able to put together a good format that the company can help them build on for a more successful campaign. You don’t have to be a content writing expert, but SMB SEO will ask you for bullet points of information that helps convince your customers that you are the local authority online for your industry.

There are also tags that are important. If you remember the slogans such as “Got Milk?” and “Where’s the Beef?” than you completely understand the point behind tag lines. This is something that will catch people so completely off guard that they will never forget it. This is where the real work comes in. Because of the awesome number of slogans meant to jar attention from readers finding one that is completely above the competition will make for a bit of sweating. Once you do come up with something that catchy, you will know. It will catch you up too.

Experts in the field of web site content writing are a great investment for your company. They will get you off the back side of the advertising world and into the mainstream where your potential can flourish and grow. Once you have tasted what these folks can do for you it will be an easy decision to sign on with a great team to continuously monitor and improve your pages for a maximum potential income.

Its a Dog Eat Dog World Managing Online Reputations

Every business runs off its convenience, having a lower price, or building a better mousetrap in the beginning. After a few months or so any successful growing company then has to rely on its reputation to keep it on the top of the public lists of what is good. Company names that have been around for several generations have one thing in common; they all have great reputations. This is harder to maintain in the current modern era of Internet, global television and world wide media coverage. If a company sells one bad hamburger the entire world knows before they close on that day. It is a tough world to live in.

The competition is fierce. The expression ‘its a dog eat dog world’ is truer today than ever before. When a flailing company sees another of similarity doing well they will spread underhanded rumors to discredit them so the public will have no choice but to come to them. And then how do you make that bad publicity go away.

Hiring a Dallas Online Reputation Service is one of the best ways to do just that. These are groups of folks who monitor your site, all the traffic that rushes through the web and finds the unsavory items about you. If left unchecked these bits of information, true or not, will have a devastating effect on the entire business you are in. Therefore the firm you are working with find ways to drown the bad media in the back of search engine results so it is not seen by as many people.

The requirement of a reputation management company is to understand the best SEO practices and use them to make your reputation better. These talented and skilled employees carefully watch blogs, search engines, social media sites and more watching for anything that comes up about your company that is going to effect you in a negative manner. Then they work some verbal magic and make it go away.

What does it take to drive negative results off the first page of Google? Content and lots of it. SMB SEO’s content writers get to work creating content that replaces the bad with good.

A good strategy will be developed to help bury bad press. Because the Internet is such a fast working machine these people have very little time to get hold of the problems and stomp them out. This is a skill that good reputation writers are good at. They base their entire life on being able to build good relationships between the public and their products and services.

There are software programs that you can buy that once installed does the work of these services. Some are created and promoted by the very company you are using to develop a better reputation through. They are good but not always as effective as a real person. Plus, once you have had a professional dig into your reputation, they can reccommend things that a disk cannot.

Of course it is always best to keep from getting bad press in the first place. This is not always possible. Some people just cannot get satisfied with anything. Their disgruntled and menacing attitudes can cause a lot of damage. But this should not be an expensive problem if you keep your own eyes open for the possibilities. Once all these are in place for you, all that is left is to watch your business pick up and move past the issue you had.

Mike Stewart has said for years that 3% of those with a good experience will comment about your business online, and over 30% of those with a negative experience will do the same. It pays to invest in reputation management considering these facts and the likelyhood of someone researching about your company before making a purchase.

Give SMB SEO a call for your Dallas Online Reputation Management needs.

Casey Watkins

Casey Watkins

Casey started in the Network Administration side of computer networks and slowly learned Search Engine Marketing through trial and error learning or what we call “Scientific Guessing.” Casey has been using Search Engine Optimization to rank and build web sites since 2009. (Yes, you do use SEO to build sites.)

Once you start to learn Search Engine Optimization you start to branch out into other areas in SEM.

While learning SEM he began to try out Affiliate Marketing. Although he never made it big in AM, he learned some very important lessons with SEO.

Follow Casey Watkins:

Reputation Management

Dallas Social Media and Reputation Management Guru

Dallas Reputation Management & Social Media Marketing Blogging Expert

Have you been searching for a social media marketing company that combines reputation management for the most complete online marketing package? If that’s what you’re looking for, then you’re in luck. At SMBSEO.com, your “Local Dallas Internet Marketing Company“, we can do all that for you and more.

Curious how exactly we’re going to do this? First, you should know that reputation management has to do with branding at the most basic and personal level. We will be tracking all your customers’ negative feedback and criticism, process them in a report, and come up with effective ways to combat this. No one wants to have negative customer feedback at the #1 spot in Google or Yahoo when your clients search for your name! SMBSEO will scour the web for all those negativite comments in search engine results and bury them. You don’t have to be at the mercy of one angry customer. You can control your online reputation.

So just how do we go about this? We start with a proactive approach. SMBSEO will implement a campaign that will monitor how customers interact with your content. The objective is to identify and qualify these interactions so we can gain insight from them. Prevention is your best cure in dealing with negative feedback. To do that, we will help you implement a holistic content optimization for your brand. Companies that have a lot of branded content floating around in the web will have less problem with negative ones since it’ll be less concentrated.

Start with the SMBSEO program for reputation management today! We can quickly create profiles for you at a lot of social media networks and start pushing negative criticism of your company down the major search engines. Our highly competent team will manage this project on a month to month basis with no contracts.

We’ve established that SMBSEO can effectively do preventive reputation management. Now, what if you or your company are currently a target of negative content gone viral? Do not waste time and contact SMBSEO.com immediately so we can draft our action plan to drive that content down those search engines. SMBSEO offers affordable and effective online reputation crisis management.

Interested? Here are our prices and packages. If what you want cannot be found below, contact SMBSEO so we can work on a customized package specifically for your needs.

If you’re serious about protecting your online reputation, get the Personal Reputation Management Package. Our reputation management service is offered to companies and small businesses, well-known personalities and figures, executives, and non-profits without a contract and provided at only $1,000/month, this will also include all the set-up fees below.

1. Keyword Research Report (One-Time Value of $500)

Our team will research on the search keywords that your target market is using to find your product or service. This is especially useful if your company has a ton of competitors gunning to be #1 for the same keywords. This report will include data on keywords, which will be sorted depending on its popularity. Aside from this, we will also give our expert recommendations on how to gain visibility by enlarging your content scope.

2. Creation/Management of Social Bookmarking Profiles ($250/month)

The SMBSEO team will implement profile creations on all social bookmarking websites with the appropriate link to your main webpage. The creation of profiles and blogs will send multiple backlinks to the company website in a short timeframe.

3. Profile Optimization of Social Networking Profiles (One-Time Value of $600)

It is not enough to create just any profile. You have to create the profile that is customized to your company. SMBSEO.com will not only create profiles, but it will also target it in such a way that it will prevent your competitors or irate customers to try to take down your company in the internet.

4. Social Media Marketing ($1,000/month)

SMBSEO will create numerous profiles on all social networking sites that allow user-generated content. This can help you manage your search engine rankings and protect you from possible manipulation of ratings and reviews by competitors. By providing links to your website, you will also attract a lot of visitors. Not just that, social networks also have high influence. Links from their site to yours will also increase your page rank and give you a leg up on your competition.

5. WordPress Installation (One-Time Value of $1,500)

It is tempting to think this but the truth of the matter is that managing your online reputation is more than just installing a blog on to your website. For your blog, we will be using the WordPress CMS theme called Thesis that is optimized specifically for search engines, has built in tools for search engine optimization, and is loaded with a lot of anti-spam plug-ins. This is one of the best content management systems available in the market today. What’s even better is that you can use this WordPress theme on your blogs.

6. Targeted Niche Blog Authoring ($1,000/month for a 1-5 year(s) contract)

If you’re wondering what content to produce, our Dallas reputation management team can also brainstorm and develop content for your websites. We can either give you a template so you can do it yourself, or we can be the main content managers to your blog site by making sure that it has changing content all the time. SMBSEO.com will post the content and moderate comments for you.

So what are you waiting for? Let SMBSEO, the Dallas reputation management team, start building your positive brand name online!

What the heck is SEO and what is better than an SEO Guru?

I recently read a comment by Danny Sullivan (a well respected expert in the search marketing industry) via Marty’s blog post, titled What the Hell is SEO Now Anyway? . Danny’s comment was as follows:

So SEO is for search engines — it’s just that people often limit the definition of search engines to mean something with a search box and/or Google. Instead, it’s anything that allows people to find something. SEOs understand how to show up in the free listings provided in such places. Search marketers understand how to show up in either the free or paid listings.

Simple as that.

Danny is totally right. I find that so many SEOs tend to try to make SEO (which like Mark Jackson from Vizion Interactive in Dallas once said: Search is a verb.) a product centric or search engine focus. SEO is now SEM. SEM is Search Engine Marketing. SEM consists of Paid Search (or Pay-Per-Click) and Organic search optimization (or natural search engine optimization. SEM is an acronym that includes both paid and organic, and it now also encompasses other aspects of search including social media.

SEO has changed. Facebook is not really a “search engine.” Yet at the same token the benefits of having a Search Engine Marketer to consult and plan a marketing strategy for Facebook, now the World’s 2nd most popular site behind Google, is imperative. If your business is ignoring the marketing power of Facebook, you need to get on board. Social media is here to stay. So are the benefits of an SEO Guru and even more so the benefits of a Holistic Search Engine Marketer.

For many years I have been “preaching” the benefits of a holistic search engine marketing strategy. Just as search engines were once considered fragmented from many sites with no clear defined industry leader, now it seems that Google is managed to create a dominance in search volume by providing the highest quality search results for queries. Local search is extremely fragmented, and I believe that as Google continues dominance in search, it will also become the dominant player in “Local Search.”

Until Google has THE MONOPOLY on Search by being #1 in every vertical, such as Auto Search (Autotrader), News Search (Fox News), Finance Search (MarketWatch), Video Search (YouTube) , Image Search (Google Images), Local Search (CitySearch/YP.com), Shopping Search (Ebay), Review Search (Yelp.com), Real Estate Search (Zillow) and all the other hundreds of different kinds  of search sites, you will continue to need a Search Engine Marketer more-so than a Search Engine Optimizer or SEO Guru.

I love reading discussions between experts like Danny Sullivan (the Editor of Search Engine Land) and Marty Weintraub (the President of aimClear). Real search engine marketers don’t have there head stuck up there butt and look at search marketing as “What PageRank is my website or the site I am linking from” and tend to have a more holistic view point, as myself, about the whole thing.

That’s my 2 cents!

Cheers,

Mike Stewart