How to Step Up and Truly Make a Difference!

What sets you apart from your competition?

Are you getting your point across?

Are you afraid of sharing your true self with the world?

That could be a big mistake if you’re trying to develop deep relationships with the people you do business with. People are more likely to bond with you because of a deep shared sense of “why,” not just because you sell widgets they want. And since we’ve been paying attention, we’ve noticed that a lot of great business relationships start not because of common needs, but because of common beliefs or passions.
    

Pepper in Your Purpose

We aren’t suggesting that you cynically deploy your beliefs to make more money. That may help a bit in the short term, but we believe the best stuff in the world comes from living to your highest purpose and sharing that purpose with others. In the marketing world, while you can never get completely away from addressing your customers’ wants and needs, you can “pepper in your higher purpose” (a phrase we borrowed from the inimitable Charly H. Caldwell II). People will pick up on it and pursue your products or services with a deeper drive because they sense that you support a similar world view to theirs. So what are some ways you can let people know what you believe in your marketing?
 Here are a few:

1. Start your videos with phrases like “I believe…” or “This is who I am…” Just be sure you’re telling the absolute truth.
2. Borrow famous quotes from people who believe as you do.
3. Explain how your particular approach evolved out of your world view.
4. Ask a happy customer to tell the story of your shared “why.”
5. Make sure your “elevator speech,” your “one-minute business commercial,” your logo and your tagline all contain elements of your deeper purpose.
    

Authenticity marketing can be a bit harder to develop at first. Trying to fit your world view into your marketing tactics can be daunting, and if you let yourself give in to the temptation to take the easy way out, you’ll find that your materials may seem bland or inauthentic. Don’t be afraid! Some people may not react well to your beliefs, but it’s almost a certainty that unless you are filled with hate or negativity, there will be many, many people who do bond with you powerfully because of your clearly expressed beliefs.

We Can Help…

If you find the process of building an authentic marketing plan too daunting, we can help! We have a highly evolved process for delving into who you are and who you serve. Together we can build a campaign that could transform the message you are sending with your online presence.

At SEO Ann Arbor, we love helping people succeed, so if you’re struggling to get to the level of your dreams, we’d love to have a chat! Call today! 877-815-6974

Decoding SEO: Get The Facts From Our Experts!

There’s so much information out there about SEO that it can be overwhelming to try to sort out what’s factual, what’s false, what’s helpful, what’s not helpful, and what’s just too complicated to understand unless you’re in the field.

Here are a few “bottom line” facts and tips that we encounter frequently. Hopefully they’ll be helpful to you!

Your Domain Name Matters!

If you’re Coca-Cola or CNN, you can use your name as your domain name and be fine. For most smaller companies, however, you shouldn’t overlook the SEO value of getting a domain name that includes your top keywords. It’s a super-fast, almost free way to get traction on the search pages.

Ignore Internal Links at Your Peril!

Are you linking from your most prominent pages to other less prominent but still relevant pages? Are the links working? Is the link anchor text appropriately keyworded? Does the progression of information from one page to the next linked page make sense?

You might be surprised at how many businesses build websites and add info over time without thinking about the user navigation experience. Those who remember their visitors often forget the search engine robots. Make it easy for both to navigate your site and understand what they’re seeing!   

Check on your Keywords Regularly!

For gosh sake, please keep tabs on your keywords! Once is not enough! After you research how people are searching for your products or services, keep track of how you rate for those keywords. Pay attention and actually work on optimizing your relevant pages to improve your rankings.

But don’t stop there. Every few months, dig back into the keyword tool to find out if search habits have changed. You might have page one presence for all your target keywords, but if the world has moved on and nobody’s looking for you in that way anymore, your traffic is going to suffer. Refresh your highly targeted keyword list regularly … you’ll be glad you did!

Internet Marketing for Your Ann Arbor Business That Matters!

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Still have questions? Call our experts at 877-815-6974 to arrange a time to visit or get your internet marketing questions answered.

Is Your Website Mobile Friendly? Consider This!

Is your website mobile friendly?

Can you navigate your website easily?

Are you worried that your website visitors click away too fast?

Mobile friendly websites are important and for a very good reason ... Usability!

Almost everyone has a smartphone nowadays. If it’s not in your hand, it’s attached to your hip.

Can your customer easily navigate your website? When converting your website from a desktop version to a mobile design, you must revisit your “clickable” elements — links, buttons, menus, etc. — and make them “tappable.”

You must rework your buttons to ensure there won’t be any confusion. Websites viewed on desktops have a hovering function, whereas on mobile you can’t hover. It’s all done by the tap of your finger!

What else should you consider? Read our article on “What You Should Think About When Creating a Website Design for Mobile Devices.”

To learn more about mobile website design for your Ann Arbor business, visit our website for more information. Call our experts at 877-815-6974 to arrange a time to visit or get your questions answered. If you’re more comfortable with email, you can reach us at info@seoannarbor.com or just contact us.

SEO and Giving Back!

We’ve talked about this before, but at Network Services Group (NSG) and Michigan SEO Group (MSG) we try to run our business based on principles.  One of the most powerful principles that we’ve found is that consistent effort performed over the long term produces amazing results.  Consistency pays dividends.

Nick Sunio, NuStepping to end Alzheimer's on The Longest Day.

This is especially true for the work we do for our customers, but it’s also true in many other areas, and with life in general.  Want to lose weight?  We all know what we need to do – eat healthy and exercise.  That’s not the hard part.  What’s hard is doing it consistently.

One thing that we’d like to do more of is giving back.  We feel blessed to be able to help our clients doing work that we love, but we also love supporting other worthy causes and doing our little part to make the world a better place.  Giving back.


In the past we’ve supported many worthy causes.  We’ve participated in the ALS ice water challenge.  The 22 push-up challenge to support veterans who suffer from PTSD.  Habitat for Humanity.  We’ve also worked with, and made donations to other non-profit organizations such as the Brain Injury Association of Michigan, Partners in Personal Assistance, and the Humane Society of Livingston County.

Our Internet Marketing Directors working on Habitat for Humanity.

We will continue to participate in, and make donations to support charitable causes that are near and dear to our hearts.  While we can’t say yes to everything, we do want to step up and make giving less of something we do on an ad-hoc basis, and more of something we do on a regular basis.

To that end, and applying the principle of consistency pays dividends, we are going to be making regular monthly donations to worthwhile causes.  We are going to start off by giving $200 per month to causes that we hold near and dear to our hearts.  We realize that this isn’t a huge amount of money, but it’s a start.  It’s something we feel we can do every month on a consistent basis, and we can always look for additional opportunities to donate when we have the additional time and resources to do so.

We’ll be picking causes that our principles hold near and dear.  We’ll also ask for input from our team members, so we can support causes that they love.  It’s just one more reason for them to feel good about the work they do here. 

Who knows?  Maybe we’ll get some publicity.  Maybe some of the people we know will see us doing our bit, and it will encourage them to do theirs.  But more importantly, we want to feel good about supporting these causes, and hopefully our humble donations can help make a difference.

A wise man once said that making a difference in the world means that other people need to know what you did.  That’s why we’re putting this out there.  We’re going to do it.  We’re going to feel good about it.  We hope that you will join us.