Digitally Transforming Your Business

Digitally Transforming Your Business

RECBL - Real Estate News

(Family Features)-One of the challenges facing small businesses today is trying to deliver the same customer experience as larger competitors. As technology advances and takes on an ever-growing role, small businesses can tap new innovations to better communicate with customers, save money and simplify operations.

As small business owners look to transform digitally, they face a number of options, from upgrading their technology to optimize shipping operations and decrease costs to adopting digital marketing tactics to better understand and target their customers. While it can be difficult for a small business that is well-established using analog processes to switch to digital, the key is to start with the final objective in mind; in other words, begin by defining your end goal. Once you’ve determined the desired outcome of digitizing your business, these tips can help you establish a strategy that can benefit both your business performance and customer experience.

Reach customers through digital marketing.
An important step in digital transformation is revisiting how you attract and interact with current and prospective customers, who are increasingly turning to a combination of physical and digital channels to engage with brands and businesses. If you think of digital marketing and email or online ads, you’re on the right track, but effective marketing requires more than simply hitting send on an email or counting clicks on an ad. Email marketing should be focused on providing helpful, relevant content to your target audience based on its preferences. Recipients can come to appreciate your insights on industry news and helpful information, so your sales pitches are likely to be more warmly received.

Beyond the content, an effective strategy establishes connective links between all your marketing touchpoints, from email to blog and even to your traditional tactics, such as direct mail and more, all with the goal of boosting credibility and visibility via search engine optimization and foot traffic.

Optimize operations through the cloud.
As technology evolves, more tasks can be handled online and more traditional analog devices are connected to the internet and the cloud. Adopting the use of these digitally connected devices can not only make fulfilling tasks easier and more efficient, but also track patterns and collect data that brings new value to small business owners. For example, with a surge in parcel volumes year over year (thanks, in part, to a sustained e-commerce growth, according to the Pitney Bowes Parcel Shipping Index), consider a cloud-enabled shipping solution, such as the SendPro C-Series, to simplify sending operations. This digital multi-carrier platform leverages the latest cloud technology to enable offices of all sizes to easily select the ideal sending option for every parcel or letter, while also providing full tracking information and delivering savings.

Make decisions based on analytics.
Beyond providing efficiency and simplicity, connected and cloud-enabled devices can generate and track valuable data, which can, in turn, be analyzed and used to make important business decisions. In a business environment dominated by ever-changing consumer preferences, data-driven insights are key to serving the needs and securing the business of todays hyper-connected consumers. By utilizing data and analytics, your business can be better equipped to deliver superior customer experiences, support product and service innovation, and optimize business processes.

Use mobile to communicate with customers.
Even the smallest of businesses can take steps toward better mobile communication, such as ensuring their websites are mobile-friendly and responsive to different device types. This is especially important as mobile usage continues to climb in the U.S., and consumers increasingly rely on mobile devices for information to guide purchase decisions. Your business can also capitalize on location intelligence capabilities to deliver timely coupons and promotions to customers in the immediate vicinity.

Source: pitneybowes.com/us/digital

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The Tao of SEO: Mastering Website Advertising

The Tao of SEO: Mastering Website Advertising

RECBL - Real Estate News

Referrals are your best leads, but the next best way to get leads that convert is with a good SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy. What is SEO? It’s simply the practice of increasing the quantity and quality of traffic to your website. SEO helps the people who are looking specifically for what you have to offer find you easily and quickly.

Albino Garcia, SEO expert and CEO of iIntercept Media and Director of Marketing for AZ Social Realty, has dozens of suggestions for helping REALTORS(R) get more attention online with his spotlight on Mastering Website Advertising. We’ve included just a few strategies to create more website leads.

As a REALTOR(R), you sell a lot of different types of homes, but to capture the attention of homebuyers who want to buy a specific kind of home, the more descriptors you can link to your site, the more buyers you’ll attract. If someone is looking for their dream cabin, castle, four-bedroom ranch, or tree-house, you want to let them know you have a listing that matches what they’re looking for.

SEO produces the highest-converting leads.
SEO helps people find you, but, more importantly, it helps people who are ready to buy, looking to buy, and eager to buy. That’s why it’s such a valuable tool-but unfortunately not one many REALTORS(R) use as effectively as they should. Garcia has three steps REALTORS(R) can implement immediately to start generating leads:

Step 1: Add your business to mobile and online maps.
Do this by claiming and optimizing your company on Google My Business, Bing Places profile, and other social media sites.

• Have a unique description that links back to your site.
• Select the right category for your business. Have as many photos as possible-the more, the better.
• Have a complete profile.
• Get as many reviews on your site as possible.
• Make sure your name, address, and phone number are the same across all your social media pages, including Google My Business, Yelp, your website, and any other social media sites (Facebook, etc.). Google looks for that when ranking sites.
• Get local reviews. Not every customer or client will leave a review, so make sure to ask your happy clients to leave a review. Most are happy to rave about you when you’ve done a great job.

Step 2: Optimize your website for Google and other search engines using SEO.
Make sure you optimize your title and your meta description tags on each page. If you’re not sure how to do that, there are online tutorials and articles to help you figure it out, or you can hire someone. Title tags need to have a unique description. In fact, Garcia said, "Every page on your website should have a title and a description relevant to the information on that page. It’s how Google ranks pages."

• Use an additional markup called "schema markup." Schema is a process that allows your web manager to mark up your web pages with additional coding that allows search engines to find your site easier.
• Optimize page content. Does your content relate to the title and heading? Is the information useful? Longer is better when it comes to content, and content is important when it comes to SEO.
• Images can also be optimized. Make sure your images have a keyword related to your title. Make sure there is an "alt-image" tag on all your images. It should also be keyword-related.

Step 3: Create interest in your brand.
"Generate buzz around your business," Garcia said. There’s only so much buzz you can create at an open house, so take to the internet. Use link-building, guest-posting, and news or public relations stories on your website to help build the buzz. "Google is in the business of providing searchers the best results possible, so their algorithms are all about doing that. Your business should also follow that model. How can your website deliver the best results possible and be a resource for your searchers?" Garcia asked.

The best ways to help generate buzz and visitors to your site are:

Link-Building - Links that come back to your website from quality sources that people trust can help build your reputation with search engines. Make sure your business is found on legitimate sources across the web like Yelp, Google My Business, Bing Profile, Craigslist and Realtor.com, or sponsor a local sports team that will link back to your website. Follow influencers in your industry. Have a LinkedIn profile.

Guest-Posting - The objective is to create a blog which links to your website which someone else will post on their website. Find good writers in your niche and engage with them, follow them, retweet them and reach out to them and ask if you can write a guest post for their site that links back to yours. This creates links back to your website, increases traffic to your site, and legitimizes your ideas.

Press Releases - There are more newsworthy things happening around your business than you realize. By putting out a press release, you’ll get the attention of journalists and others who will want to know more. The more information, quality content, news, and updates you can get online, the better.

Garcia shared a variety of apps, tools, tips, and websites which can help REALTORS(R) learn more about SEO and apply it to their websites. If you would like to learn more, view the entire 5 part series, Mastering Website Advertising or pick up the free eBook, REI Marketing Solutions: How to Market Your Real Estate like the Professionals.


For more tips on how to increase your website traffic, please visit www.iinterceptmedia.com

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