Marketing Your Business with Pinterest

You’ve probably never heard of Pinterest, but if you’re a small business owner looking for cost-effective ways to get more website traffic, you’re missing out! Pinterest is a new social network and it is quickly gaining a strong following. Read on to learn the Who, What, Where & How of Pinterest…just maybe not in that order.

WHAT is Pinterest?

Pinterest describes itself as a virtual pinboard. Whether you’re redecorating your home and tired of cutting out pictures from magazines, preparing for a dinner party and having trouble keeping all your recipes organized or planning your wedding and looking for a place to keep all your great ideas, Pinterest lets you organize and share all the interesting, pretty, unique, remarkable, inspiring things you find on the web. Any image can be turned into a pin and a collection of images makes up a board. This is an especially cool idea if you have a remodeling business!

What is a Pin?

A pin is an image you add to one of your boards that links back to the site it came from. For example, a picture of a cool rustic kitchen or an amazing beach house. You can either create original pins while you’re browsing the web via the Pin It button or you can repin something another user has already pinned when you’re browsing Pinterest.

What is a Board?

A board is a collection of pins. You create your own boards and categorize your pins any way you choose. Examples might include: Recipes to Try, Home Decorating Ideas, My Dream Home and Wedding Ideas.

HOW to Use Pinterest?

Let’s take the example of using Pinterest to redecorate and/or remodel your home. You probably spend hours scouring the web for that perfect kitchen look – you have to think about the cabinets, the appliances, the layout, the floor, the island, the paint and the unique special features you want to incorporate. BUT, they don’t all come together in a neatly packaged “My Dream Kitchen” kit you can pick up at the store – you found the appliances you want on the manufacturer site, the cabinets you want on a kitchen designer’s site, the paint idea on a home remodeling blog and the other knick-knacks on who knows what website. With Pinterest, you can keep all the ideas together on a board to reference and share.

WHO can use Pinterest for their business?

Now that you know what Pinterest is, you’re probably asking yourself, “How can I use Pinterest to promote my business?” No matter what type of business you have, one of your primary goals should be to get more qualified visitors to your website. Every pin has multiple links back to your site, so you want people to pin and repin images from your site as frequently as possible.

How you go about adding images depends on what type of business of you have.  If you own a home design business (think: kitchen remodeling, custom homes, landscaping), Pinterest is made for you! You want people to “pin” examples of your work. The first thing you should do is create a gallery or multiple galleries on your site.

Then, make it easy for visitors to pin your images by adding the Pin It button to your site:

If you own a service-based business (think: plumbing, electrical, hvac), sign up for Pinterest and post coupons, giveaways and special deals.

WHERE can I learn more?

To learn more about how to use Pinterest to market your business, visit or contact Blue Corona!

Making Your Website Smartphone Friendly

Do you own a smartphone? Even if you don’t, chances are your customers do. Smartphones are now being used to get information on the go. People don’t have the time (or patience) to do a lot of searching on their smartphones because they are usually going somewhere or interacting with other people when they search. Say, for example, you own a home renovation company. A potential client might search for your services on his or her lunch break. Is your business the first thing he or she sees? Even if it is, will he or she be able to navigate your site on his or her smartphone? If you want to market your business to the largest potential client base possible, make sure you include customers searching on their smartphones to your list of target audiences!

Mobile Web SEO

Does Your Business Exist on Google Places?

When someone uses Google on a smartphone, the results come up a little differently than on a computer screen. Let’s revisit our customer looking to renovate his home. In addition to web results, Google will focus on businesses closest to the user’s physical location. If the person searching is close to your business, make sure you stand out from the competition by adding your company to Google Places (need help adding your business to Google Places or optimizing a Google Places page?). Google Places gives users a quick overview of your organization, including general information, hours, location, contact information and more. It’s practically free advertising! A business with more information on their Google Places listing will direct more traffic. This is probably the easiest part of your mobile web SEO plan. All you need to do is fill in your information with Google, they send you a postcard to verify your business and voila, you’re on Google Places! The great thing about Google Places on smartphones is people can get directions to your place of business or call you with just a tap on the screen. Of course, the Google Places listing for your business will also show up on a computer screen. So you’ll be making it easy for your customers to find you – no matter where they’re searching from!

Mobile Web Design

How Does Your Website Look on a Smartphone?

Ever tried to use a website that isn’t formatted for a smartphone? Endless scrolling, difficulty clicking, not to mention long loading times are things every smartphone user hates. If clients can’t use your website on their smartphones, they’ll probably get frustrated and go somewhere else. Don’t lose clients because your website looks terrible on the mobile web. A few mobile web design tips and a good web designer will help you keep visitors on your mobile website and calling you for services. Your mobile web design plan should include:

Larger clickable areas – it is difficult for users to press small links with their fingers

Fewer colors and graphics – this decreases loading time (especially for people with older internet-accessible cell phones)

Vertical menus – most people use their mobile phones vertically, and horizontal menus don’t fit well on a small screen

To-the-point, specific content – users need what they’re looking for quickly and won’t want to scroll through blocks of text on a small screen

Most popular links on the homepage – make it easy for a mobile web user to find what he is looking for right away

Keep in mind, making your website look great on the mobile web does not mean making changes to your existing site. It is a much better practice to create an entirely new site just for your customers on the mobile web. This way, they will land on a page designed especially for their unique needs and situation. This mean they’ll be more likely to bookmark your site and come back to it again and again. A little mobile web design can go a long way toward bringing your website more traffic and making your business more profitable!

The Mobile Web & Your Business

Giving yourself a great presence on the mobile web not only opens up your business to new leads, but it also makes your company look forward-thinking, tech-savvy and ready to serve the new smartphone-addicted generation. Don’t let your business get left behind – a little mobile web SEO and a great mobile web designer can put your business right in the palm of your customer’s hand!

Is Content Really King?

Only SEOs who have been living under a rock for the past 10 years wouldn’t recognize the saying “content is king.” Most people in the SEO world agree with this, but there are some who are more dubious about the accuracy of this statement and think, “Is content really king?” So, is content really king? In a word, yes! Fortunately, though, this post will give you a longer, more detailed answer.

When We Say Content, We Mean Great Content

Now it may be appropriate to re-phrase a bit and say unique, relevant and remarkable content is king. Poorly written content is a waste of time. The long-term SEO value is zero – zilch. It’s tough to read, won’t be valued, won’t be shared or linked to and definitely won’t produce leads. A number of things can be included on the “Types of Bad Content” list – content with grammatical errors, inaccurate content, irrelevant content and keyword-stuffed content.

Bad grammar: Spelling and grammatical mistakes on a page won’t necessarily affect organic rankings (yet) or conversion rate significantly, but it will affect your credibility! Its vs. it’s…your vs. you’re…these are a couple of the most common grammatical errors that make you look plain stupid! You don’t want to exude carelessness and ignorance, and a page chock-full of grammatical errors and misspelled words does just that.

Inaccurate content: Research is important, and you probably got beaten over the head with it at school, but it’s worth mentioning again. In the SEO and content marketing world, the same thing goes. You should execute careful research before writing a page, especially if you aren’t familiar with the topic. Like bad grammar, putting up a page or blog post with inaccurate information makes you look like dumb and can seriously hurt your credibility.

Irrelevant content: content isn’t king if what you’re writing about isn’t relevant to your target audience! Having irrelevant content will just increase bounce rate, which, in turn, can ultimately lower your organic ranking. How to get around this impediment? Well, that’s another topic for another day, but the short answer is: utilize your research tools! Learn how to use Google Analytics, AdWords, Wordtracker and all that good stuff to see what people are searching for and how they’re searching, which pages are being exited right away, which keywords get the most searches, etc.

Keyword stuffing: Keyword stuffing is a big no-no! Nobody is going to enjoy reading a blog post or page that has “fixing slow drains” or “increase energy efficiency” (or whichever keyword phrase you’re trying to rank for) in every other sentence. It sounds unnatural, and, trust us, it probably won’t convert well. User experience should always be the main goal! Rankings mean nothing if you can’t convert the traffic into customers! Including the keyword in the title tag and page heading is great, but don’t stuff the page with your keyword. Write for the user, not the search engines – with this in mind, you are on your way to writing good, keyword-rich content.

Don’t be discouraged by all the negatives! Creating great website content isn’t impossible – far from it, in fact!

The Hook

We all know how important it is to make a good first impression, right? Well, that’s what content does for your website! Second maybe to only the design, your content is what people first notice when they come to your site (and really, visitors shouldn’t notice your design – it should “disappear” behind your amazing content – unless you’re a design firm). If your content is relevant and correct (and well-written!), it will pull readers in.

Remember, your content is also what drove people to your site in the first place, and it’s what will keep them coming back! Regularly developing and posting original content (optimized around what people are searching for) is practically a surefire way to, at the very least, drive up your website traffic and, at the most, generate qualified leads! How great would it be to have an ever-present hook that draws people to your website every single day?

Keep in mind: Geo-targeted content (landscape design company in Rockville, MD) is even better for generating traffic and increasing leads. For example, if your Maryland company comes up for a keyword that’s not geo-targeted (i.e. landscape design company), a visit from Maryland is clearly going to be the more likely to convert than a visit from Ohio.

Ever-Reigning King

Content not only is king but will remain king, and it’s due to the nature of search. Users on the web don’t want to be bombarded with ads – they want to be informed. Think about why you go on the web to search for something…it’s either to obtain information or be entertained. Good content will always be needed. Creating new, well-written, accurate content is the way to go, whether you need to drive up traffic or increase leads.

Of course, there is a whole support team behind every good king, and this is certainly true of website content. Content is king, but other factors are at play for making sure your awesome content is actually read – website design, content promotion, etc. Make sure the king (the leader who will remain indefinitely) has good support!

Attitude indeed reflects leadership, and good content will lead to happy, satisfied searchers who got what they wanted, whether it was to find out the best way to shop for curtains or a reputable plumbing company in the area. And happy, satisfied searchers will be more likely to share the content – and keep coming back to your website.

See What a Great King Can Do

If creating original, kick-ass content means you need to hire a professional company that offers SEO copywriting, go for it. Start pushing great content out into the world. Let it fly. See what it brings back. Hopefully it will be lots of traffic and qualified leads!