Digital Marketing: Our Most Frequently Asked Questions | Marketing Mix Episode #54

Sarah: You can see our title, "Our Most Frequently Asked Questions" and this is another good one because digital marketing, what's the bottom line? Driving audience to your business online, getting more calls, getting more business. There's a lot to it. There aren't shortcuts. Despite what you may hear out there, there are no shortcuts, but the bottom line is we get a lot of questions and you all hear a lot of common frequent questions. So that's the purpose of today's show today. We want to knock down some of these frequent questions we hear and give you the best answer and the most accurate information to help your business. That's what we're here to do. Let's go.

Glyna: All right. Welcome to Marketing Mix everybody. Every Friday, we are here talking about digital marketing and we try to mix it up. That's where the mix comes in the Marketing Mix. And let's take a look at our broadcast. Sarah, so can people can find us.

Sarah: Sure. Every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and you can catch the replay on Instagram. And we play a 10-minute short version on LinkedIn. And don't forget to check out our podcast, Marketing and a Mic I was listening to it the other day, just not because I want to hear myself, but I was just listening to it. And I thought, wow, it's so good to just kind of listen and get all that good information. So, there you go. YouTube Fusion One Marketing. If you don't want to listen, you can watch all of our great videos. Everything is resources, resources, resources, to help your business.

Glyna: Yeah. Exactly. We've got this going. I don't know if these are most frequently asked, but they're sure asked a lot.

Sarah: Yeah. You could substitute that for "fill in the blank" sometimes, but they're questions that you hear a lot. So we thought it would be helpful to put them together in a list from websites to social media, to everything in between, we're going to cover a lot of ground and we've got 10 important questions we're going to cover.

Glyna: All right. So number one. Can I have two domains pointed to the same website? I had this come up this week. There's a company that had a really long domain. And then they were able to buy a shortened version of it and wanted to know, can we use that too? You can, all right, but you need to think about why you need it. I get why you'd like a shortened version, but you really want to think about your name and keywords associated with your business. For example, fusiononemarketing.com. It's long, but it matches our name, so that's the best-case scenario that you really want to have. Instead of maybe using two different things like fusiononemarketing.com and fusionone.com, maybe just use a subdomain instead of a new URL.

Sarah: So just so I understand this correctly, this is somebody that had essentially two different website URLs.

Glyna: Yes.

Sarah: And they were like, can I use both? And have it point to the same website hub, which the points that you pointed out, the other thing is, if you are using more than one, it can get confusing to the search engines and it sort of spreads out your... It's all about kind of having that brand authority. And that's an important ranking factor. So, it's important that Google is really clear on who you are, where to find you. It can get really confusing for them. As we've talked about, Google's like a two-year-old. So you got to keep it really simple. And it can be confusing to customers as well. If you're like you could find me here and you could find me here and you can find me here. It's like, what?

Glyna: I get it because I feel like ours is long, too, sometimes. And we could use it if it was available and it isn't, but fusionone.com, we could point it there, but still use Fusion One Marketing all over the internet. Again, and like we always talk about, it's always important to use the exact same setup for your company all over the internet. So you definitely don't want to use two different domains because you're right, it is like a two-year-old and they can get very confused. So, kind of talking about the same type of thing, but on a different level here, we're talking about handles and names for your social media channels. Do they have to match? All right. Let's think about this. Your social media channel is really your public username for all of the media channels. And it's always followed by the "@" and that's how people find you. So if you're using it mostly for branding, it's important to have a match as closely as possible. It needs to be very consistent. If you think of, even for us, if we did Fusion One Marketing or Fusion One or FOM or something like that, that might be confusing as a brand. So, even though it's long, we still want to stick with Fusion One Marketing as much as possible. And when you're starting your business, you can actually go to know Knowem, which is K-N-O-W-E-M.com, and check out usernames and see what's available on all of the platforms so that you don't make the mistake of choosing something that you can't get everywhere.

Sarah: Yeah, that's important. And when you think about what is a handle, what does that mean? So even on your personal page, not just the business page, if you were to tag somebody and you're tagging them @ whatever it is, that's their handle. And in a lot of cases, it can be different on Facebook and Instagram, and other places. But to your point, it's really important for consistency to try to have it match. And that's how people find you, but it doesn't matter for SEO. So, more your social media traffic, your links, all those types of things. Those are more relevant with SEO. And our advice bottom line is to try to keep it consistent, keep it short, keep it memorable, make it easy to spell. Don't put a bunch of numbers and all that stuff in it. And as you said, as close to your brand name as possible.

Glyna: Yes, exactly. And we're all over the place, but this is kind of the kitchen sink today.

Sarah: I like that. It is. It's the kitchen sink.

Glyna: All right. So we are talking about Bing. This is our third question. Do people use Bing? First of all, what the heck is Bing? Maybe nobody's ever even heard of it and you may be using it and not even know it, that's the even funnier thing about it. Bing is similar to Google as it is what we call a search engine. It's where you can go search for things and find information. The cool thing about Bing, though, is it is gaining popularity again, and a lot of people are using it and don't know it because it comes as a default search engine on all the Microsoft products like their phones and computers. Believe it or not. Over 1.2 billion office users are probably using Bing without even knowing it because you get your new stuff, your Microsoft Edge, some of the other apps, you're using Outlook, Word, Excel, Skype, all of those, the Bing platform is already there. And if you don't know any difference, you're going to be using it, as I said, for the third time, without even knowing it. Most people don't take time to go, oh, I'd rather have Google or whatever else. So it's kind of funny, but it is gaining popularity, and people like it. Some people like it a lot better than Google.

Sarah: Yeah. That's super true and you talked about you're using it may not even know it. Voice search through Alexa and Cortana are both powered by Bing. So, that's something that you also have to pay attention to for SEO. Bing is actually holding more weight with search engine algorithms. And Bing offers a free range of free diagnostic tools to help you understand their algorithms. So, they're really cool and have all the extra features for free.

Glyna: They really are. And heck, try it if you want to. As I said, it is gaining popularity and unlike Google Bing takes into account social media into their algorithms, it's a lot heavier for Bing than it is for Google. So you get some good returns there. So, here are some Bing quick tips: You want to make sure as always with SEO that you're building quality links to your website. Bing loves that. Make sure that your web pages are loading fast, have high-quality images and incorporate the voice search, and also take care of your social media presence. Voice search is getting more and more popular and you need to be optimized for that. And if you don't know what that means then definitely let us know.

Sarah: Yeah. Right. You need to know that what that means. All right. Number four. We get this a lot. Should I put my business on every possible social media platform? So, that's a no. And I'm going to tell you why.

Glyna: The short answer.

Sarah: Yeah. That's a hard pass. It's better to determine which platforms your target customer is on and stick to that. How can you find that? Just identify where they are spending their time. And if you don't know, take a look at some key things like your age group, because a lot of these social media platforms, do really match with different, you could say generations, but age groups. There's a window of the ones that are more favorable and work for different ages. So just kind of match that up with what your customer's demographic looks like. That's where you need to be. And that's what you should pay attention to.

Glyna: Yeah. And it may be different than what you spend your time on leisurely without business. So you may have fun on TikTok and whatever, but if your customers aren't on TikTok, then for your business, I wouldn't worry about spending time there. So, it's better to pick a few targeted platforms and do them well, then try to spread yourself out too thin. And we see this a lot. People come to us, I want to be on everything. It's like, well, let's think about it first because if you spread yourself too thin, you're not doing any of them justice. So again, think about what you have the most experience at too. But again, you have to weigh where are your customers? So start small and focus on creating high-quality and consistent content on a few platforms. And you can always expand if you have the time and the resources.

Sarah: I think that's a good point too, if you don't have experience with some of the platforms, but that's where your customers are, then find somebody, a marketer, that can come in and do that for you. You will want to determine, not only "where am I", "what am I comfortable with", but "where my customer is". If I don't have experience, I got to find somebody that can help me out with that. So believe it or not, this is a question we still get, which is why does my business needs a website? There are so many, but first of all, at the very top, the website makes your business look credible and professional. You've had this experience with other clients have been I have lost business because they try to look me up, I don't have a website, I don't seem trustworthy. Second, your website really is the best way to attract new customers through search engines. So, that's very important. New customers through search engines are a great gateway to your website.

Glyna: Yes. And I know we pound SEO into your brains every week, but it's just so important if you're going to compete out there as a business. So a well-optimized website is going to help you rank really well for your search terms. So third, it's the best way to showcase your products and services all in one place. You have your Google listings and your directory listings and all that, but it still doesn't have all of that information in one spot. And fourth it's a great way... This is pretty cool. Make sure that you showcase your reviews and testimonials. So your website is your hub. We always talk about that.

Sarah: Yeah. Because they're looking for them, those reviews. So, the fifth reason is it provides more ways for customers to contact you. You can put a contact form in there. You can showcase all of your locations, various ways to contact them all, like you said, in a hub, in one spot, and bottom line, it's establishing yourself in the industry, making your company brand stand out. If your competitor has one and you don't, could be the difference in a new customer.

Glyna: It's unreal. And as you said, I have run into it more times than people would think where people come to me and say, I've got to have a website now because I lost out on this contract because they couldn't find any information about my business. So it's so important. It's so important. So number six, how many directories should I put my business in? Well, all of them.

Sarah: 1 million.

Glyna: The only problem is there's a ton. Now the internet will do some of them for you. They have what they call aggregators that go out and find information. And will go ahead and put that information in some of the directories, which is sometimes good, sometimes bad. It's bad because you want to make sure you put in all the info that you want. There are hundreds of possibilities, and these are just places where more people can find you. People are out there using all of these directories. So, you need to make sure that you're listed in as many search engines, too. So, we have directories and we have search engines. Those are the two things that you want to pay attention to to make sure all your info is exactly the same and be out as many places as you possibly can find.

Sarah: Yes. And what's the benefit of this? Well, online directories enhance your online presence. So that's the bottom line. As you mentioned is you get listed in online directories, you can automatically get listed and even more, so that's another key thing. And really you're going to increase your chances of getting discovered when customers are looking for your products or services. So even if they don't search your brand name, specifically, if you are saturated out there, you're going to come up based on having those listings as well as a number of other reasons.

Glyna: Yeah, exactly. It's all about building up your value to your website and the value that you have online because online directories are considered a really valuable tool and trusted source of information by Google and all the other search engines. So if they see you out there and they know that you can be found easily, they're going to give you a better ranking. And it's just better for your internet presence.

Sarah: All this stuff that we're saying is for ranking and visibility. So, this can sound like a bunch of mumbo jumbo. Your head might be spinning, but the purpose is all of this stuff is strategic to help your online presence. That's what it's all about. And here's another good one. What is the purpose of a blog on a business website? And we get this one a lot. So, there are many reasons to have a blog on your website, as long as you're consistent. You've got to be consistent. Just like all this stuff. It's like not one and done. So one of the main goals of a blog is to attract visitors to your website. The more visitors you have, the more people reading your content, the more likely you're converting these into leads and getting more eyes on your business.

Glyna: Yeah. And I think people get hung up with that word blog because they don't understand what blog means.

Sarah: Yeah. I picture somebody like popping and bubblegum laying on their bed being like, la, la, my blog. And it' not that.

Glyna: It's a place to hold information and you need to have fresh content on it. As Sarah said, if there's nothing on it, there's no sense in having one because it can hurt you. The more fresh content, the better it helps with SEO, the search engines are going to keep coming back when they see new content, they go, hey, let's go back to that website and give it more search engine juice. Blogging is one of the most straightforward ways to increase your ranking on search engines.

Sarah: Yes. There's a lot of purposes and that's how I feel one part is it strengthens your SEO. It strengthens your visibility. It's what the search engines are looking for. But additionally, it helps to project you as a place of authority and an expert in your industry. So it's a great way to keep your readers up to date with relevant, resourceful information, which then builds trust and credibility in you as a business because they're like, wow, they really know their stuff. That's just another added bonus to blogs.

Glyna: You don't have to call it a blog. You could call it news. You could call it whatever you want. Resources. So if you don't like that word, use something else that's kind of cool. All right. Here's something else. What is Apple Maps? I think everybody by now has used some sort of map on their phone or in their car to find out where they're going or find a way to get there. Apple Maps is basically Apple's version of Google Maps, but what's really important is that it's tied to Siri and Apple Watches as well as the built-in navigation in a lot of vehicles. So, it's becoming a lot more popular. For a while, Google owned everything. So, it's becoming a lot more popular and because it's connected to Siri, it helps your business also show up in voice searches. So it's something that you definitely want to be connected to.

Sarah: I know. This is what I love about it too, with Apple Maps as a business owner, you can actually share more accurate information about your business, like address, contact information, hours of operation with potential and existing customers. It's really nice to be able to have that integration. And on top of that, customers can share their personal experience and they can share it through uploading images, reviews, things like that. It's really interactive, which is huge for a business owner.

Glyna: Yeah, there are some things I didn't know about it either. Talk about word-of mouth-marketing, users can make a list of all their favorite places and share it like you were talking about. So that's a really cool thing and it's always improving. That's even neater, I guess, about it. It's not staying stagnant. They add new features all the time. As forms of payment, Apple Pay, I'm sure everybody's heard of. It's forever changing and they're definitely competitors. You could call them strong competitors of Google.

Sarah: Yeah, I know. It's really cool! Again, it's like inserting yourself into where your customers are and Apple Maps is doing just that. So, number nine, what is the importance of generating so much content? We talk about this all the time, where like blogs, podcasts, videos, blah, blah, blah. Why are we doing all this? And there is a reason. First of all, it does depend on your end game. What do you want to achieve? Do you want to be out there? Do you want to increase your wider audience? And that's what it is. It's increasing yourself to a wider audience, which increases your brand in search engines when you are kind of at every touchpoint where your customers are. So when you portray your brand consistently and through different forms of content, it also increases your strength and trust. So there is a method to it, for sure.

Glyna: Yes, there is. And again, we're going to talk about SEO, lots of content, fresh content, new content that helps fuel other marketing techniques like SEO. The search engines are fueled by resources. They want to see info and without information or content, there's no place for the keywords, backlinks, and other components that search engines like to connect with they can't inquire about them or they can't find them. Think about that. You have to have new content and think about quality. Don't just be throwing stuff out there. Quality content can be linked back to your website as well, which builds brand authority. And guess what? Search engines love that.

Sarah: It all comes down to making those search engines happy. So, all right. Number 10. And the final one and why does SEO take so long to work? I bet you get this a time or two. Here's the thing. SEO is not a one-time deal. It's not one and done. It takes ongoing attention to see results. There's a multitude of reasons why, and we could go on and on about that, but Google and other search engines, they're constantly changing their algorithms, meaning they're constantly changing kind of the criteria of what they're looking for in order for you to be visible. So you have to stay on top of it. Another thing that kind of factors into why does SEO takes so long is the age and design of your existing website. How much work does it need to get it to where it is and have that big impact on having a fully optimized website?

Glyna: Yeah, but boy, once you get it plugged in and working correctly, you will never quit SEO because it's going to bring you a lot of business. It really takes us literally a month to just clean stuff up. If we start working with a customer and work on the website and we need to build some links and work on the content, keywords, all that stuff for the search engine. So, it really takes us a month just for the setup. There's always on-page and off-page SEO, which means that we have to, it's a lot more than you want to know, but we have to go into your website and put meta-tags, make sure the headers and descriptions are there all that stuff. There's so much that we have to make sure of. And Kelsi is becoming our pro on that end making sure our websites are all set up. And also your competitors are doing SEO. I don't know how many times we have to say look into SEO because if you don't, you're losing out.

Sarah: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. When you think about it and you think about, what are the competitors doing? Well, that means it's going to take time for us to research your market industry, what the competitors are doing, and make the necessary changes to produce SEO-optimized content. That's another thing, but the bottom line is it's so worth it. It's worth the investment. It gets eyes on your business. It is the most valuable tool. We have seen it work tenfold. We always joke that we can't reach some of our clients because they're so busy. We're like "best news ever". Truly. Yeah!

Glyna: And it depends on what you think a long time is too. And the good thing about SEO, we may have that first month that it takes us to set it up, but then you're going to have calls start trickling in. You don't want to be bombarded with 200 calls right off the bat. I think that could bury a business very quickly if they're not ready for it. So, it also builds up slowly so that you're ready to take on all the new business. So anyway, we kind of like SEO.

Sarah: We sure do.

Glyna: Just a little. Well, all right. That's actually a wrap. I hope that you learned a lot. And if you have any other questions for us, make sure that you get those to us. And as always, we love to talk to you. We have a free consultation and just send us a message.

Sarah: Yeah. That's it. All right. Until next time. We've got another great show lined up week. So, be on the lookout for it and we'll see you next time.

Glyna:  Yeah. Bye.