Are you losing money because you are not "findable" online?

Are you losing money because you are not "findable" online?

Local searches on the internet have replaced the phone book as the preferred method for most consumers looking for local businesses.



If you are not "findable" your competitors may be getting your business.

Savvy small business owners recognize the importance of being in front of the online audience.



We are connected and have established an influential online network.

"Connectedness" is KEY!



Would you like your small business to be "findable" online?
Would you like your small business to be instantly part of our online community - spotlighting your business to thousands of your potential clients?
Would you like your small business to make more money?

Let's get started!

Contact: Lonna@SMFSB.com OR Call Lonna @ 602-796-5341

Foursquare is a powerful tool for any business!

Foursquare is a fairly new location-based social networking tool for businesses.

Many people are accessing Foursquare on their smart phones via a Foursquare app. Others go directly to the Foursquare website.

When a consumer visits a business they "check-in". They can enter a comment, give a tip, share why they are there or even invite people to join them. Every time a consumer does this, it is more word-of-mouth for that business. Foursquare can also be linked to Twitter and Facebook accounts telling even more friends and followers where they are. Some businesses give incentives to their consumers that "check-in".

Foursquare is a game for some people. Many businesses awards the title of Mayor to the person that has the most visits to their business. The Mayor receives free or discounted items from that business.

To sign-up on Foursquare or to download the Foursquare app to your phone, go to: www.Foursquare.com

Do you think Social Media is a Fad? ... Think again.

Social Media is the biggest shift since the Industrial Revoluation.

Over 50% of the world's population is under 30 years old.

96% of Millennials have joined a social network.

Facebook tops Google for weekly traffic in the U.S.

Social Media has overtaken pornography as the #1 activity on the Web.

1 out of 8 couples married in the U.S. met via social media

Years to reach 50 million users:
Radio: 38 years
TV: 13 years
Internet: 4 years
iPod: 3 years
Facebook added over 200 million users in less than a year

If Facebook were a country it would be the world’s 3rd largest
1. China
2. India
3. Facebook
4. United States
5. Indonesia
6. Brazil
7. Pakistan
8. Bangladesh

25% of search results for the World’s Top 20 largest brands are links to user-generated content

34% of bloggers post opinions about products and brands

Do you like what people are saying
about your brand?
You better….

78% of consumers trust peer recommendations
Only 14% trust advertisements

We will no longer search for products and services
they will find us via social media.

Social Media isn’t a fad,
it’s a fundamental shift in the way we communicate.

At Social Media for Small Businesses, LLC we understand that your target market is NOT all 6.8 billion people on this planet. It's a sub-sub-sub-sub-set of that. (And for some of you niche businesses out there, throw on a few more subs as needed.) Our blog readers, Facebook friends, and Twitter followers are exactly the audience that small business owners in Mesa, AZ want to reach.

We can help you and your small business

DOMINATE

in your target market

through social media.

Call us today for a free evaluation
Lonna - 602-796-5341

Blog vs. Website ... Which is Better for Your Small Business?

Blog vs. Website


This is a recurring and valid question … it is one that I asked before setting up my own blogs. There, I gave you a hint.

First of all, I need to make this ultra clear … a blog IS a website. In fact, I want to take it a step further and say that blogs are “dynamic” websites.

• A Blog is: a web log. It is a frequently updated website consisting of blog posts or entries that are arranged in reverse chronological order. So when a reader comes to your blog they see your most recent article or post first.
• A Blog Post Can Be Online Within Minutes: blogs allow you to post written text, audio and video and have it online within minutes, unlike traditional static websites which can take hours to update.
• It is MUCH Easier for a Blog to be "FOUND" Online Than a Static Website:
  The biggest plus for having a blog is... Optimizing Your Site For The Search Engines is Much Easier With a Blog. Each time you publish your blog, you do what is called “pinging”. Pinging automatically notifies the search engines that there is new content on your site... “come and take a look!” The search engines visit your site to index it. So, blogs are indexed much more often and show up 10 times more than traditional static websites in organic searches.
• Blogs are Less Expensive than Websites: Don’t think that just because you paid thousands of dollars to have a website built that you’re going to get people flocking to your site. In fact, I’m going to dare say that most designers have no clue whatsoever about search engine optimization. Their strategy is to make your site look good … “build it and they will come.” … just do a Google search for web designers and take a look at their offerings and you’ll find that most of them will sell on “look good” rather than “get found.”
• Blogs Establish Credibility Much Faster with Readers AND Search Engines: Blogs establish credibility much faster than static websites because blogs by their very nature build a stronger and more vibrant knowledge base. Sure you can do this by adding articles to your static site but it comes down to cost and “findability”. Finding articles on a blog is usually much easier than navigating your way through a static website. With a blog, you can categorize your posts making it easier for people to find you both online and when they reach your blog. After updates or posts to your blog your blog will be indexed within hours. With a static website, you have to “wait” until the search engines do their rounds again, to get it indexed. This could take months, depending on the strategies that you employ.

Blogging and linking blogs with a trusted and "connected" community like www.AllAboutMesaAz.com is the ultimate word-of-mouth to your customers and your potential customers.

We will create a blog for your small business and then link your blog to other blogs in our community. Call us today: 602-796-5341 OR Email: Lonna@AllAboutMesaAz.com

What are the Benefits to Linking Blogs?

The benefits to linking blogs are numerous!

• Links provide simple navigation between blogs


• Links create direct traffic - Clicking a link from a trusted source is one of the most popular ways for people to find a new blog. If a user is on a blog they trust, they are likely to follow links that it recommends -- or at least, users will follow links that make the destination site appear to provide some valuable information. MORE LINKS = MORE TRAFFIC


• Links build user trust in you - If users see a link to you on a popular or respected site, their level of trust in what you say or what you offer is likely to be higher. It’s about trusting what “friends” recommend. Blogs create this link-trust factor. Blog readers have a certain “trust” in the author. WORD-OF-MOUTH is the best advertising there is.


• Links build search engine trust in your site - There is no doubt that link score is one of the most important factors the major search engines consider when determining where blogs/websites are ranked. It’s simple: if you have many links pointing to your site from other sites, your content must contain quality, important information. A link is like a vote.


• Links Establish your site in communities


• Links are Advertising


• Links ARE ASSETS - They add value to your blog. Your blog is your internet property, and it has value. What gives your blog value is the amount of traffic it can generate. LINKS are one of the most important factors in generating substantial website traffic, search engine rankings, trust, publicity, and MORE.

A network of linked blogs (www.AllAboutMesaAz.com) is a definite asset to your property.

www.AllAboutMesaAz.com is a community of small business blogs linked together. The links between blogs provide simple navigation, create direct traffic, build user trust, establishes a strong community, and provides the ultimate word-of-mouth advertising.

Our community is your target market!

We can build a blog for you and link it to the other blogs in our community.

Call today: 602-796-5341

OR

Email:

Lonna@AllAboutMesaAz.com

Lonna@SMfSB.com

www.AllAboutMesaAz.com

I am a fifth generation Arizonan and am raising my beautiful daughters in Mesa. I felt somewhat inspired to share my knowledge about Mesa with others. Therefore, All About Mesa AZ started as a hobby to share Mesa history, events, and news. By using blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, All About Mesa AZ quickly became a platform to help small businesses get noticed in a big way. All About Mesa AZ has thousands of followers, friends, and readers, all of whom are potential customers of its local affiliated small businesses.

All About Mesa AZ is a community.

Mesa's Readers are YOUR Target Market:
All About Mesa AZ's readers friends and followers are exactly the audience that small business owners in Mesa, AZ want to reach. It's NOT all 6.8 billion people on this planet. It's a sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-set of that. (And for some of you niche businesses out there, throw on a few more subs as needed.) It's Mesa families that are your target market. And, I know from my Business Management Marketing classes... and from being a mom and super shopper, the majority of consumers are women about my age. All About Mesa AZ has several hundred "friends" on Facebook that are women about my age. And, they are interactive friends... they are listening to what All About Mesa has to say... as if we were best girlfriends. :) Another group that spends a lot of money is teenagers. All About Mesa AZ is also "friends" with several hundred Mesa teens. And, when our readers, friends, and followers "share" what we write about you and your business that places you and your business in front of thousands of your target market... on a daily basis.

This is how it works:

• We blog about something wonderful about Mesa AZ OR your small business.
• We then post a snippet about our blog on our Facebook page with a link to our blog.
• Then we do the same thing on Twitter.

More often than not, what we have posted on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter, and blogged about on our blog is shared, retweeted, and/or mentioned by other blogs. Most everything we say is put in front of thousands of your target market! ... All of this leading back to our All About Mesa AZ blog.

Our blog is the hub for several wonderful small business blogs all linked together. It's magic. Okay, not magic, but it is the ultimate word-of-mouth.

Linking Blogs: there are several reasons to link blogs, but we will focus only on one right now. If you want to know more reasons... see our post http://socialmediaforsmallbusinesses.blogspot.com/2010/07/what-are-benefits-to-linking-blogs.html

All of these followers and friends are being directed to Mesa's blog. This is where we have linked all of our small business clients together. Each small business has a link to another small business. Let's say that All About Mesa AZ's blog has advertising for and links to a law firm, a restaurant, a preschool, and a doctor. Including Mesa, that's five blogs. Mesa has a link to each blog and each blog has a link to Mesa and all of the other blogs... that's five links for each blog. That's five more times the advertising. If each of the five blogs were bringing in the traffic from Facebook and Twitter that Mesa does... Well, your small business would probably be in front of tens of thousands of your target market daily!

Do you want to dominate your target market? Call All About Mesa AZ today.

Lonna at 602-796-5341

Get Your "Link Juice" Join Mesa's Community of Blogs

Links are the currency of Google. In other words, they are the secret sauce that allows you to beat your competitors for rankings in Google. Sure, there are some other factors that Google uses to calculate rankings, but links by far are the most important aspect of dominating Google and in order to understand Google, you have to understand links.

Google looks at how sites link to each other to figure out which ones are the best. To show this in a way that’s understandable, let’s show a few examples. Let’s say that SMALL BUSINESS A and SMALL BUSINESS B are both doing business in Mesa and are selling “the same thing” and would both like to rank for “the same thing in Mesa, AZ”.

A B

Google is going to take a look at links to determine which of these two sites it will list first. At the most basic level, let’s say that Site A gets a link from a site that Site B doesn’t get:

C

A B

Site A now looks better to Google and will outrank Site B. Let's say that Site C decides to link to Site B, as well:

C C

A B

Now they both look the same to Google, who will now have to look at another ranking factor to determine which one is the best. There are other factors but none of them is nearly as important as the link factor.

Let’s add two new sites into the mix to further illustrate different scenarios that can happen:

C C

A B

D E
In the above example, we now have Site D linking to Site A and Site E linking to Site B. To figure out which site is better between Site A and Site B, Google will have to look at the sites that are linking to Site D and Site E:

C C

A B

D E

F

G

H

In the above example, Site D has more link juice than Site E because it’s getting links from Site F, Site G, and Site H. That means that Site A has more link juice than Site B. Site A will therefore outrank Site B.

Google is able to map out link relationships on an enormous scale and that’s what makes Google Google.

Get your "link juice" -- Join Mesa's Community of Blogs! Call today: Social Media for Small Businesses - Lonna 602-796-5341 or email Lonna@SMfSB.com