Why do my competitors rank higher than me in Google?

Many customers get frustrated when they see that their competitors are ranking higher than them in Google. I hear questions along the lines of, “I wouldn’t mind but they’re not the best company to specialise in Wedding Flowers in Worcestershire” or “We do much more Wills & Probate work than them but we rank lower, why is that?”.

There are a number of factors that can influence your position in Google. If you want to improve your Google Ranking or spend less money with Google Adwords but still get as many leads, improving the following factors could help improve your Google position:

How to use Keywords:

1. Keywords – have you thought about all the relevant keywords for your business and the products and services you offer?
2. Have you added your keywords to your website?
3. Do your keywords appear in your meta data? Or in other words have your web design company included your keywords in the coding of each page? They should appear in your page title, page description and keywords area .
4. Do you use the same keywords for every page on your website? It should be relevant to the content of each individual page.
5. Do your keywords appear in the content and text on the page?
6. Have you labelled your images with “Alternative – Alt Text?”.

Do your competitors use Google Adwords?

1. Have they got a Google Adwords account and you don’t?
2. Have they got a Google Adwords Account but they still rank higher than you?
3. Have you set your Google Adwords up correctly?
4. Have you thought of all the relevant keywords?
5. Have you thought of all the negative keywords?
6. Have you grouped common/similar keywords under ad groups?
7. Have you written compelling Ad Text, that sets you apart from your competitiors?
8. Have you tried to cheat? Don’t Google WILL penalise you by dropping your ranking.
9. Does your Ad take your prospect to the appropriate buying/landing page?

Improve Your Website:

1. Is your competitors website better than yours?
2. Does it look more professional?
3. Is it easier to use?
4. Does it contain more, useful and helpful information?
5. Are there clear “Calls to action” so the searcher knows exactly what to do when they get there?
6. Do they use Social Media and you don’t?

Do You Use Social Media?

1. Do your competitors use Social Media and you don’t?
2. What message does this send to your prospects?
3. Why don’t you use Social Media, what’s stopping you?
4. Don’t have time to dedicate to Social Media, ask a professional to set it up for you.
5. How many more people can you attract using social media than not?
6. I’m not sure if my customers use Social Media – do you want to take that risk?
7. Confused by how it works? It works so does it matter?

These are just a few of the factors that could influence where you sit among your competitors in the Google search engine. Why not work through the list and see if that have a positive affect?

Don’t have the time or expertise to do this yourself? Do you have a marketing team that may need a bit of training to ensure they are doing this for you on a regular basis?

If you are interested in talking about any of these subjects and improving the Google ranking for your business, please call 01905 23902 to arrange an appointment.

FREE Workshop: Understanding your online market

Tuesday 8 March, 9am - 12pm at Pepper & Oz, Malvern

Specialist speaker at this event is award winning business coach, Simon Williams from Arrivista, talking on marketing basics “Really looking forward to being involved with these workshops as the thought and extensive preparation already contributed will ensure delegates leave with clear actions for their business, resulting from succinct, practical advice”.

This workshop, run by internet marketing company Rather Inventive, is the first in a series of 6 covering topics such as: marketing basics, photography, copy writing essentials and why blogging and social media works for business. Each workshop provides you with the theory, software, demos and how to apply them in your business. More importantly you'll leave each workshop with at least 5 practical things to do right away.

To find out more or register for this or other free workshops visit
www.ratherinventive.com/workshops

How to grow your online business...

Want to grow your business online?

Then you'll love these 6 action based, internet marketing workshops.

I am working with Ben from Rather Inventive on a series of workshops to deliver the tools and focus to improve your online lead generation and conversion.

After attending you will be able to:

• Focus on people who want to buy
• Understand why blogs work for business
• Use social media to listen to your market
• Take better photos with more impact
• Improve your website content
• Get more visitors to your website

Advice you can act on straight away

The workshops provide you with the theory, software, demos and how to apply them in your business. More importantly you'll leave each workshop with at least 5 practical things to do right away.

Interested? Why not come along to your first workshop as my guest - It won't cost you a penny and should be some fun.

Register online
for your free
workshop today
(on Rather Inventive Website)

or contact me to find out more.

Workshops run monthly but places are limited so get in there quick!

Best Wishes,

Helen Coldicott
Coldicott Freelance Training

or forward to a colleague

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

50 Social Media Tactics for Nonprofits

View more presentations from Chad Norman.

What are hashtags?

I have borrowed and edited a brilliant article by Devon Smith @24usablehours. His blogs often go into great detail with lots of statistics and evidence to support his arguments, so if you would like this level of detail please go to http://bit.ly/cJzb1I to read the full blog.

However, I find that his summary of 'What are Hashtags' makes a perfect introduction to hastages and demonstrates the different ways they can be used and also how non profilt organisations can then use these to their advantage.

What are hashtags?

In the past three years, the use of social media by nonprofits (and the general population) has grown exponentially. There are now 500 million people using Facebook, 200 million searching Twitter, and 150 million watching YouTube . Six years ago, none of these sites existed. As an asymmetric public network (user A can “follow,” or read, user B’s “tweets,” or posts, without user B’s permission and without user B having to read user A’s posts), Twitter best provides the opportunity for large, de-centralised, archivable, searchable conversations.

In Twitter’s early days, features were limited so users created their own taxonomy. In August of 2007 Chris Messina first proposed using the hash symbol “#” to help group similar conversations happening on Twitter. This combined the searchable tags of metadata on sites like Flickr with the topically oriented channels of IRC. In their 2010 usage, hashtags have come to serve at least five different functions:

1. To keep track of an ongoing conversation (#nonprofit)
2. To broadcast the happenings of a one time event, conference, or emergency (#haiti)
3. To get into Twitter’s list of trending topics (#justinbieber)
4. To comment on the intent of the post (#ironic)
5. To provide additional metadata about the tweet, such as location or speaker (#NYC)

Searching for any of the “#words” on Twitter’s native search client returns all posts marked with such a tag over the past week. Searching for the same on Google’s “Search Updates” returns selected posts from approximately the past month (and will eventually include all posts since Twitter’s inception). Specialized archiving programs like TwapperKeeper, Searchtastic, and The Archivist store all posts marked with a #word, and allow for an exportable excel document. Hashtags themselves can be searched at hashtags.org, the semi-official repository of hashtags in use. However, as a user created phenomenon, new uses and groupings of hashtags are constantly being created.

How are nonprofits using hashtags?

Nonprofits have run with the hashtag concept and there are now hundreds of public conversations on Twitter covering topics as diverse as #philanthropy, #climate, and #pubmedia. I am particularly interested in the potential for information and ideas to cross industry, functional, and demographic boundaries in these hashtag conversations. Two such tags (#edchat and #2amt) appear to be quite different in the:

1. History of the hashtag’s origination
2. Degree of current moderation implemented
3. Frequency, volume, and diversity of posts
4. Number and diversity of users

So let’s dive a little deeper into what makes these conversations (and these people) tick.http://bit.ly/cJzb1I

If you have any success stories with using Hashtags to promotes events or start generating a conversation regarding your interests, please feel free to share your hastag with us...

Where to start with Social Media...

I have drawn a few conclusions over recent months about SME's relationship and reaction to Social Media, I expand a little bit on each here, and offer some help and advice to ensure your business is on the right track with their Social Media Strategy or knows how to make a good start.

1. SME's ARE embracing Social Media and it's Benefits

I am pleased to report that increasingly people and companies who I talk to are embracing Social Media. It seems that business owners know that they need to be involved with Social Media and that it is important to update their Blogs, Facebook, Twitter accounts etc on a regular basis. However, the problem that some companies are experiencing is that they have 'jumped in with both feet' - and set up accounts, 'tested the water' - by sending out a few messages and then got carried away - updating frequently but not necessarily knowing why they are sending this message or who is interested.

I don't think any harm has been done by adopting this approach, as long as the time is taken to take a step back and address the questions, 'What's the point of it all?', 'What is the message we are trying to get across?'.

2. What is the aim of my business' Twitter, Facebook, Blog or LinkedIn?

It appears that some companies are falling at the first hurdle, because they haven't thought about what their message is and who they are talking to!

None of this need be difficult or time consuming, it's just an exercise that needs to be done so that consistent messages are communicated, followers are given the information that they expect and that information is updated on a regular but not necessarily frequent basis.

3. Simple Social Media Strategy

Here we can see a very simple Social Media Strategy. What it makes companies do is get all the people involved with marketing and updating Social Media to answer these basic questions:

1. Who it is aimed at?

2. What is the aim?

3. When and how often should it be updated?

4. By whom?

The example shows how a Recruitment Agency divided it's communication strategy across the most relevant/appropriate Social Media. As a result internally everyone know's the benefits of each account and can sell this to the client, prospect or candidate.

4. Benefits of having a Social Media Strategy

1. Everyone selling the benefits of joining the companies Facebook can explain to the customer, what's in it for them

2. Everyone adding and updating the various Social Media will know what the boundaries of the message are and what point they are trying to get across

3. That the correct Social Media has been chosen for your target audience. For example, you are more likely to attract 18-25 years olds using Twitter and Facebook then you are writing a Blog for them to subscribe to.

4. If you set objectives/goals for your Social Media to reach by a certain time, this gives you something to measure the success of each Social Media campaign. If you don't set these parameters how will you be able to measure whether your Social Media Marketing is working or not. Just to say that it is something we should be doing, and that the results will show over time is not enough.

5. There may need to be multiple Twitter accounts within the company that are used to target and communicate with different groups of people.

6. Over time it will be important to keep track of the messages being communicated and businesses will need to be aware of what they have said in the past and have the capability to re-blog, re-tweet and cross reference other conversations with old content. Also, good to make sure multiple contributors are not saying the same thing twice or worse contradicting what the other person has said.

I'm sure there are many other benefits too, so if you would like to share your experience of having a great Social Media Strategy or not having one at all, I would like to hear from you.

If you would like to talk about how I can help your business or organisation with your Social Media Strategy or are interested in arranging bespoke or attending, a series of scheduled Social Media Workshops, please get in touch:

Email: helen@coldicottfreelancetraining.com

Phone: 01905 20390

Website: www.coldicottfreelancetraining.com

Social Media Case Study for SME's

Lee Clarke, Clarkewood Consulting knew that Social Media would take his business to the next level, but he didn’t know how until he spoke to Coldicott Freelance Training…

Background
After attending a Social Media event arranged by Business Link, Lee knew that he needed education about Social Media and how it could help propel his business into the web arena.

In search of a Worcestershire based Social Media expert, Lee found Helen Coldicott on his LinkedIn network and made an appointment for a proper chat.

Lee has many years’ experience specialising in recruitment. He is passionate about his business a local, IT recruitment firm to support Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Herefordshire where he had spotted a gap in the market.

Problem
Lee’s company Clarkewood Consulting, has been running for just over 12 months and had many things are in place; offices in a central Worcester location, website, CRM system, talented team. However, Lee knew after attending the local Business Link event there were still vital elements missing in his marketing strategy.

1. He had invested in CRM but felt he was not maximising his investment

2. He had a great website but was not certain how much traffic was visiting his site

3. He had a ‘News Page’ but there was no news on there and no easy way to edit this information.

4. He had started using LinkedIn with great success and was keen to find out what other Social media he could be using to communicate with both his potential clients and candidates.

Solution
After spending about an hour with Lee listening to and finding out the issues he was having with his CRM and Website, we suggested the following actions:

1. Creation of bespoke Email templates integrated with CRM

2. Advice on improving webpage visibility and ranking.

3. Creation of new Blog and Twitter accounts, linked to Clarkewood’s Newspage.

Facebook Fan page

Recruitment Matters Blog

Clarkewood Twitter

Clarkewood Newspage

4. Complete Social Media Strategy and training on how to manage this for the longer term.

To find out more about how we helped Clarkewood Consulting start their Social Media journey, please read their Social Media Case Study - Clarkewood.

Coldicott Freelance Training is interested in generating value for their clients for the long term. Once all of the Social Media is put in place we spend time with our clients to ensure they know what data they need to add, how often, how to write good content, how to ensure you are visible to the search engines and how to update this without it taking too much of your time. With our time saving methods you may only need to update once and this can be communicated via several different channels meaning that you have the potential to reach a much wider audience and attracting them to your website, products and services.

If you are interested in learning how CFT can help your business grow through the power of Social Media, please give us a call 01905 23902 and see just how cost effective our solutions are.